no global ooc in offpeak killed the game

[Excision Rottun]

Originally Posted by stormlord [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I almost wish EQ had a card game or something that we could play in EC while waiting, but that's not the only thing that could be fun.

/gems

[Xenephex]

I don't mean this as snide, but welcome to their world. It's hard, it's inconvenient and it's tedious in a multitude of ways - just like it was when we all started. And back then, the devs did not care about our opinion; they really did not want to know what we wanted.

We bitched, we moaned, we groaned - and we kept playing. And we rushed back here when we found out about this server.

I can think of a bunch of things every day that I wish were different; would it really kill the game to leave the translocators up all the time? How about... well, you get the idea.

As soon as they start running this according to polls, we're headed downhill. Because what most of us are going to want is to make it easier - just little things that won't really affect things all that much. Just because that is really inconvenient.

And eventually, we'll get what we want, and then discover that we're just not enjoying it that much anymore, and we probably won't even understand why.

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Xenephex [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I don't mean this as snide, but welcome to their world. It's hard, it's inconvenient and it's tedious in a multitude of ways - just like it was when we all started. And back then, the devs did not care about our opinion; they really did not want to know what we wanted.

We bitched, we moaned, we groaned - and we kept playing. And we rushed back here when we found out about this server.

I can think of a bunch of things every day that I wish were different; would it really kill the game to leave the translocators up all the time? How about... well, you get the idea.

As soon as they start running this according to polls, we're headed downhill. Because what most of us are going to want is to make it easier - just little things that won't really affect things all that much. Just because that is really inconvenient.

And eventually, we'll get what we want, and then discover that we're just not enjoying it that much anymore, and we probably won't even understand why.

I think we had it easier with our higher population and p2p service. I don't know about what others thinks, but I remember a lot more people in the zones in 1999.

But stop making this an 'easy vs hard' argument. That's the root cause of all this confusion. This is less about easy vs hard, and more about classic vs live. They're different games. That's what matters. When EQ lost population over the years, the developers were forced to make some things easier, but overall, the difficulty or tediousness of the game remained the same. That's what so many people don't understand. The reason people want classic, the reason project 1999 exists, is because it's a different game compared to live. So all of the changes over the years to compensate for falling rates of new players and because of attrition made EQ, gradually, over time, into a completely different game. It was not a change of opinion. It was necessary!

Let me restate: classic is a different game compared to live.

I'll give an example. Global chat. We all know the connection between population and global chat (or i hope so). If there're enough people, we don't need global chat. If there're too few people, we need global chat to compensate. Understand? Same thing applies to everything else in the game. When population falls, the game necessarily must be easier, but that doesn't mean it's easier for players!!! Understand? I hope so! It's all relative. Hard at 200 population is not equal to hard at 1000 population. Stop thinking in absolute terms.

[Taxi]

Im thinking more in terms of whats healthy for the server, trying to get the EC tunnel is great, but is it at the expense of new players feeling the server is empty and giving up? For me thats the first thing that struck me different from VZTZ, the auction channel, the chitchat in OOC, made it a lively place.

Now the number of players is still high, i guess this is a good thing if people go with it and use EC alot, just hope it stays that way.

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Taxi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Im thinking more in terms of whats healthy for the server, trying to get the EC tunnel is great, but is it at the expense of new players feeling the server is empty and giving up? For me thats the first thing that struck me different from VZTZ, the auction channel, the chitchat in OOC, made it a lively place.

Now the number of players is still high, i guess this is a good thing if people go with it and use EC alot, just hope it stays that way.

Well then reread my post because I 100% agree. The last paragraph is especially important to understand.

Let me give another example. If you have a huge landmass, and only 10 people, you're widely distributing them and thus isolating them. If you have 1000 people distributed over the same landmass, they're more closely scattered and less isolated from one another. If the game requires players to work together to accomplish things, then players that're isolated will be unable to play the game. Understand? This rule, or concept, exists in all mmorpgs, in different forms. It doesn't matter how you travel or move around. The rule still applies.

[Toony]

Originally Posted by Taxi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Im thinking more in terms of whats healthy for the server, trying to get the EC tunnel is great, but is it at the expense of new players feeling the server is empty and giving up?.

They were going to give up anyway. Anyone who's played classic eq can do a /who and realize the zone isn't empty and start using the local channels.

[girth]

/who <zone>', right? That even lists anonymous players.

I don't get that when I do it. I also don't get anon people when I do for instance a /who all 50 cleric - yet I have people I know that see anon when they do both...

Whats up with that?

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by girth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I don't get that when I do it. I also don't get anon people when I do for instance a /who all 50 cleric - yet I have people I know that see anon when they do both...

Whats up with that?

I'm not 100%. I know that /who returns anonymous players. I'm not 100% that /who <zone> returns anonymous players. But the rest of the points still stand. All global chat does is (more conveniently, but at the cost of increased spam, especially during peak hours, and of, as some say, unique communities) better connect you with anonymous players and those who're probably already too far away to make it practical. And anonymous players are probably not the ones actively looking to group with you or talk with you, or they wouldn't be anon.

If you can't find a group locally, the fault is not on lacking global chat, the fault is on population. Because if you have to run across the world to get a group, then this game is broke. One way to resolve that is to add world teleporters or pok books. Another way is to increase population. There're infinite ways.

At some point, we reach a population where we don't need global chat. There're arguments for and against. When I voted, I voted against removing /ooc until population increases. Now that it's removed, I'm doing what I can adjust and make it successful. These points, which i've made a thousand times, are separate from the fact that if you can't find a group unless you run across the world then the game is broke. Global chat won't save us if we have to run across the world to get a group because at that point, it's a matter of distance, not chat.

When the number of zones exploded in live, and population steadily (slowly) fell, they added luclin spires and pok books and guild hall portals. They did that to overcome the vast distances between players (lots of zones!). In fact, even without a falling population, they still would have had to add teleportation methods. Either that or they could make some zones hub zones, and have multiple connections to zones from multiple zones. A live developer recently stated that every zone in live is about 5 zones away from any other zone (2008-09).

[JayDee]

Originally Posted by stormlord [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm not 100%. I know that /who returns anonymous players. I'm not 100% that /who <zone> returns anonymous players.

anonymous players do not show when you /who all [zone identifier]

[girth]

correct, but I've seen somebody do a who all 50 cleric and see like 4 50s and 4-5 anon 50 clerics.