Why is Red Dead?

[Zuranthium]

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

The server never had 400+ pop post week one of the server opening, and it certainly never hit 400+ after November of 2011. I think the highest it ever hit post 2011 was MAYBE 300 for a day.

The pop of the server after they introduced the large exp bonus, level range for PvP, and LNS policy began to shoot up dramatically and peaked during the first week of Velious if I remember correctly, as people wanted to try the new content. I do recall 400 people on Red and 1,600 on Blue at some point during this time, because I specifically remember thinking "nice, Red's population is at 25% of Blue's right now, not bad!" And it was quite regularly over 300 for a few weeks after the expansion and even before that on some days during Kunark era, after the server changes were put in and an influx of people were trying it out.

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

The entire history of the server was one guild choking all the content, from Nihilum, to Empire, to Apex. The only difference with Empire was that the leadership didn't care about killing every single raid mob and whether or not someone killed Phara Dar or not 2 years into Velious.

Empire 100% did care about killing every single raid mob during Kunark. The only reason they didn't during Velious is because they already had a huge core of fully geared out Kunark-content toons + the new top-tier equip was vastly superior to all other content (which is what they DID systematically lock down for themselves), and most importantly because there was too much content for the guild to actually raid with the shitty ass leadership of only ever having 1 raid force. Empire leadership didn't "care" about the other content at that point because they were scared of ever not having a massive uncontested raid force for top Velious content. It was physically impossible for them to raid anything else with this lame mentality.

I didn't play during Apex era, but considering how much numbers dropped, I'm sure that whoever was left went back to caring about Veeshan's Peak content because nobody at all on the server was even capable of doing top Velious content. So of course they will turn their attention to locking down whatever the top content is in the game that can actually be raided.

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

To the final point about this mythical contesting and competition; you don't want competition. Competition in Velious is two sides sitting at a zone line for 6 hours refreshing buffs until either one side engages a mob, at which point the other side will then engage them while they are mid PvE, or the other side loses interest. It is incredibly boring and uninteresting.

That's not true. If there was any leadership with an actual PvP mindset in the top guild, then they would actively be going after whoever the challengers were, killing them and forcing them to LNS. As it was meant to be. Empire never even tried to do that. They just sluggishly rolled around with a raid force more than 2x as big as anything else, thus making it impossible for any real PvP to happen at all.

On the first day of Velious when <Friends> had their full guild amassed in Kael for example, it would have been 100% possible to see actual real PvP for zone control if numbers were more even. Instead, Empire just rolled in with 100 people, shoving them out of the zone and thinking they were hot shit for being able to win 100 v 35.

There was ONE instance of actual PvP that Empire ever had in Velious when I played, which was a 30v30 in Cobalt Scar after raiding was already over for the day and enough Empire people were still logged on and moving through the area when a "large" <Friends> team happened to be sitting there. Empire won but probably only because of being geared better, so it wasn't even that interesting of a fight despite the even number of players. And this is exactly what killed the server. Since Empire had been hoarding all the drops, and the game is ridiculously gear dependent after original EQ, we couldn't even have a good PvP fight one time when it didn't even matter to contest anything.

Your initial point about "another guild engaging a raid force while they are in PvE" is irrelevant to begin with. SO WHAT if a group of 30 Friends people were to engage, say, 50 Empire people while they are trying to clear a trash mob in ToV entrance. That would be perfectly fine! It would present an actual challenge for Empire, which is what PvP is supposed to be, and Empire would still likely have the upper hand in that situation! But this is what Empire strived to avoid at all costs. No competition whatsoever. Only uncontested PvE content, so that they could be way better geared than anyone else and think their life matters and they are "strong powerful men" for being able to do such a thing. PATHETIC.

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

As gay as it sounds, this game would be a lot more fun if Raid mobs were decided in some sort of 25 v 25 or 50 v 50 combat with the loser admitting defeat for the night or something.

That's not "gay" at all and it was something I constantly suggested back in the day, including as a weekly kind of competition between guilds. The idea had GM support as well, but the community never came together to make it happen when we had the opportunity.