Interesting post, and a warning..

[Secrets]

I expected this to make its rounds here eventually. Before anyone blames any groups, you have to remember that these are large percentages due to the small population. I had 150ish peak players online. 35% of them cheated in some way shape or form. It wasn't just limited to warping, I include exploiting in that group as well.

Before anyone says, "well, isn't the red99 sky falling", it really isn't. During both incarnations I tried to keep GM involvement at different levels.

When becoming involved in the community and taking feedback, as well as policing things, I became horribly burnt out but the general playerbase was much happier as a result. You had a few sour apples that hated me, but that was to be expected.

The second time, I kept no GM interaction and let EQ mechanics police itself. The server became a hack-infested trainfest. Ask anyone who played VZTZ v4, they will tell you that.

You guys might think that no GM interaction is needed, but we really DO need active GMs. If you don't control the few people who are causing a disruption, everyone will think it's okay to cause a disruption and a chain reaction will happen where no one does PVP the way you intended or the players' intended, general mayhem will unfold resulting in one group quitting, then the other group quitting when they get bored.

PS: I'd like to comment on XP Rates: I still think the XP rates on P1999 are fine. Low-Mid PVP, to me, was the most exciting thing ever. It's your first impression on pvp though. I still think, if the population would support it, that level ranges would need to be tweaked to +/- 4. Since we're looking at 250+ players on launch day, the current ranges are kind of needed to ensure any kind of PVP, and I am okay with that.