Quote:
Originally Posted by Uaellaen
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right back at you! Requesting a lock of this rants and flames thread btw .. or at least a move int he appropiate forum section ...
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I agree with this, but being that global chat was enabled because of low population, at least initially, I think the debate is a valid one because this is about off-peak hours. As we all know, population is low at off-peak hours and is like a thorn in the side of those who like this game without global chat. But for some people, it's not a question of like or dislike. Instead, it's do or die. It can be game breaking.
The tension that's going on here is similar to the one that happened on live. In 1999, the game experienced its highest rate of incoming new players. In the years that followed this rate shrunk in response to a crowd of new mmorpgs. People want to play new games. EQ code and gfx were getting old as well. This all resulted in a shrinking total population. SOE had to make a choice. Either they find a way to reduce the difficulty of the game so that people can play it in a lower population environment, or they attempt to increase the population. They chose to reduce the difficulty, and no one can blame them because who wants to invest in an old product? At that time, they were putting their hopes in everquest 2. It's infinitely easier to reduce the difficulty a slight amount than it's to pay for advertising.
So this led to a game that had the appearance of reduced difficulty even though the difficulty, from a relative standpoint, had not changed at all. Most of the veterans in this forum, while I respect them and value their opinions, often mistake the changes to live, that were necessary, as an example of soe dumbing the game down. That's not what happened, and anybody who thinks that is fooling themselves.
Now we face similar circumstances here. Do we attempt to increase off-peak population, or do we give them global chat or make similar changes that can reduce some of the difficulties that make their lives hard? Keep in mind this is a group-based game, and in a low population something like this can be game breaking. Reducing the difficulties means finding a way for them to survive in a group-based game in a low population environment.
If you want to be proactive and do something about this without the help from developers, be generous and help out off-peak players somehow. Save some items for them. They need the help. The game they play is more difficult than the one you play at peak-hours. Have some sympathy.
Note: When I say 'low population environment', that also includes indirect processes that lead to something similar (i'll call it low population mechanics). For example, if you increase the number of zones in the game then you also spread out players more widely, thus putting them into a position where they experience low population mechanics. So when new zones entered into the game over the years in the many expansions, they had to respond to this. Their answers tended to be new traveling mechanisms, like the luclin spires or the pok books or the guild portals or the guild lobby summoners. Sure, if they could have increased the population by a significant amount, than people could have got ports from casters, but it would have to have been a large increase, thusly making it expensive and even risky. All of these things had (and have) the effect of lessening the difficulties, but the difficulty itself, from a relative perspective, was (and is) still the same. Players still had to work a long time to reach max level, max aa, max gear, and so on. Faster ways of traveling and leveling mean little when there're more places to go and more levels to gain.