Quote:
Originally Posted by Slave
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There are two amazingly insightful posts above mine; everyone do yourselves a big favor and peruse them carefully. Then ask yourselves, can we not do better? This is an amazing game, easily one of the best ever made. It should be overflowing with players right now, but somehow isn't, largely for the reasons outlined above.
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The unfortunate thing about those posts is that they compare P99 to a business, which it is not. They actually use the words "business" and "customer support" as well as make comparisons to exisitng businesses. People acknowledge that this server is produced by people with other real world obligations, but they don't really.
First off, though I have no doubt it contributes, I really don't think the IP exemption issue is the major factor in server population decline. I think that can more likely be attributed to the large amount of time between expansion releases. People know more now and were able to level faster but have been given less content over the span of time they have been playing as compared to live. There are also many new games out there and it seems odd that everyone would expect a 13 year old game to be played indefinitely.
Secondly, it doesn't take much to f up the server. IP exemeptions are probably not even in the top 5 issues for server population. I think we have lost more accounts do to MQing and RMT bans and penalties. Which in a round about way that may only make sense to my own non-linear mind is why you really have to be careful to avoid allowing rule breaking to happen. While I think cheaters should be punished I can't help but lament how the server population gets diminshed. I think many of them would still be playing if they were never able to cheat in the first place.