A wall of text on the global XP modifier, global OOC

[Smedy]

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

Can we modify the experience to be 50% slower than blue? I think this would foster a community that is tight-knit and accustomed to overcoming hardships together as a group instead of as solo.

Furthermore, would it be possible to make the penalty for death more harsh? For example, if you die in Befallen perhaps a skeleton would steal a piece of your armor for his treasure horde each time you died. You could also make it that only players who are resurrected by level 56 Revivescence can get their bodies.

I have a dream of a server with gnomes, elves, dwelven (that's the true plural for dwarf; thank you Tolkien), and erudites band together to slay evil monsters, to quest after the holy chalice, and to liberate the cave of terror from the Yeti Queen's rancorous, green buttcrack.

Today I ask you, Derubael, to enable a global -50% exp modifier to support our journey to eternal glory in the eyes of the fishlord Phinigel Autropos. I implore you to implement these changes or Azeroth will be forever tainted by these unclassic mechanics such as Global OOC and the toxicity it brings to our fair lands.

I truly believe that a few more changes could be made to enhance the player experience of red99, as well. First, we have to have some sort of application or program that allows the player to "enter Norrath." You could do this in several ways; sending players hits of highly-concentrated LSD, a hammer to beat yourself over the head with to induce more brain trauma (not needed for Asperger's Virgins like Rallyd who is a fat fucking nerd and virgin). You could also have some sort of program that detects the players BMI and then broadcasts the number above the players head to induce as much grief as possible.

Can we truly the know the will of Innoruuk? I have studied him for decades, taking scrupulous notes on the practices of his followers, and I have come to the conclusion that he, the Dark Lord of Hate, Innoruuk, would prefer if we had some sort of Red99 Charity Drive. We could hit up half-way houses, drug rehabilitation centers, or anywhere else that lots of people congregate with little else to do. The plan of action would be to deliver as many laptops with Everquest installed on them. Then, we get them to play on Red99 (I'll write a walk-through in easy to understand language that the proletariat uses, don't worry). Next, we will form a newbie guild with them to make sure that there are people to group with. This is a win-win and if you don't support it the server will surely be enveloped in the celluloid-drapes of Rallyd's arms; bathed in darkness for eternity.

The final proposal, Derubael, and correct me if I'm wrong here, is to integrate Brad McQuaid back into Everquest. He was the maker of this great game, right? Here's how we can do it. Weekly raffles to win a date with the man himself. We can get Golden Corral to sponsor this. I'll be singing the song of The Shire while dipping my ribs in that chocolate fountain.

I sure hope we can see at least some of these changes enabled or else I'm going to eat myself into a frenzy in my shabby studio apartment. I will thrash and thrash around with my t-rex arms and my walrus-body until Susan from the 4th floor comes up and bangs on my door again.

Thank you and go fuck yourselves.

a+

[Gaffin 7.0]

lol tradesonred said 6-8 hrs to lvl a rogue to 12 with rubi bp are u fuckin retarded

[Faerie]

Actually don't do it by a fixed percentage. If you randomize the daily change while still keeping it really small people are even less likely to notice it.

[Not_Kazowi]

Removing ooc is the quickest way to make this server feel incredibly dead. Probably 85% of zones have no one in them which creates a ghost town feeling. Ooc brings the server a lively feeling, just police it don't remove it.

If you remove exp bonus you will lose people. In theory making people earn their levels and grouping is a great idea but it isn't reality. These things don't work on a 100 man server. Who cares if turn over rate is higher with exp bonus, it still adds population to the server and at this point we can't be picky on how we do that.

[Cid]

I think there might be a little confusion between the real Classic atmosphere that existed on Live where you were deeply invested in your character, especially their reputation, and what we have today.

That era does not exist anymore, cannot exist anymore and will never exist again!

MMOs have changed dramatically and regardless of what game you are playing, the social atmosphere in every game has been irrevocably changed by all the MMOs that followed EQ. Instant gratification replaced the grind, Auction Houses replaced the interaction of a barter system, and the technical acumen of kids has increased while the market age for MMOs has gone down.
The majority of EQ players back then were adults, and though kids played, a certain level of maturity and manners prevailed. Over the last decade those kids grew up and became the majority, but without a lifetime prior to social media and being inundated with technology.
If you ever played WoW you've seen the change firsthand. Sadly, that is what MMOs are like now, and no amount of nostalgia or clicking the heels of your ruby slippers is going to change that. The game you remember is dead, eulogized and buried.

If we can stop thinking this is ever going to be like Live was, we can probably put that energy into constructive ways to help the server rather than just picking apart the suggestions, yes suggestions, made by one of the few people who could actually fucking do something.

People didn't spend 30+ days played getting to 60 because the experience was slower. It took that long because you didn't have the slightest idea where anything was. No wiki, no Allakhazam, no EQtraders, no maps in-game or on the net. You can play through ANY game much, much faster the second or third time playing because you know where things are. What used to be learning experiences and secrets are now common knowledge.

No matter how much glamourizing is centered on grouping, being a warrior without healing buddy could be classified as massochism. Being a paladin or especially a shadow knight and instantly losing almost half your xp before racial modifiers are considered might even be more frustrating. Those are your tanks who cannot bind, cannot gate, cannot even cast sow, and are automatically at a disadvantage to casters in either offense and/or pvp capabilities.
Or how about a rogue so that every light blue mob has a chance to beat your ass so bad your barbarian rogue is beaten down into a halfling rogue before you get away. Or a cleric that has a seriously limited offense unless fighting undead, and despite the fact that a lot of us have no life, we're not undead.

There are new people on Red EVERY SINGLE DAY, I know this for a fact regardless of the exact number. Help these people out. Extend a fucking olive branch, don't expect those people to miraculously find each other all over Norrath to begin a lifelong friendship through gaming.
Help a newb, shit, help two newbs. You don't have to PL them to 50 and fully gear them, but a few pp for spells and some rotting gear out of your bank could possibly mean the difference between a pvp apprentice and the guy who went back to Blue.

Lastly, please do something about sharing raid targets. I don't really care what you do. You can spawn yourself as the raid mob and slaughter a whole raid if that's what gets you off, but claiming the people here are adults or saying GMs didn't on Live or that you shouldn't have to just doesn't work. We're not adults, we're giant, selfish children who somehow took control of the daycare.
Verant GMs were constantly around and getting involved and they did not joke around when it came to preserving the integrity of the game and the high fantasy atmosphere. Hell, I was forced to delete my first character because I refused to change his name from Bigmidget Tinygiant to something authentic to the world. Those GMs were worse than the IRS.
The role of a GM is a shitty one, probably far moreso than I even realize. You all have my appreciation and admiration for the work you put in, but I believe everyone volunteered for this (Regret that shit now huh?) and it is time for hands on action.

I have nothing against any guild, nor do I support them, but if nothing changes we might as well rename the game Monopoly. I do not know if nothing has been done because of apathy or trepidation, but the stranglehold that exists has a subsequent trickle down effect on the whole server.
I am not insulting Nihilum, because I am 100% positive that any guild trying to compete would do the exact same thing if they had the chance, regardless of the pious speeches and whatever pedestal they are standing on.

Until children are taught to share and disciplined enough to do it, they will snatch away any toy another child shows interest in. They do not take the toy because they want to play with it, but to prevent any other kid from being able to play with it.

Sound familiar?

[Tradesonred]

Its too late IMO to see things like this (OP). You wanna get people to log in on a low pop server, you need an incentive. Ive not been in a group once on my lvl12 rogue. Not once. (actually once or twice in crushbone for very short periods of time)

It took me something like 6-8 hours to get to level 12 and ive got a rubi BP, a FBSS and a hand me down piercer.

Its still a very long road to 52 with this setup.

Just try it. Roll a toon, a naked toon. Play on the server.

If you play everquest to be alone you might as well quit before lvl10. Guilds are actively recruiting lower level characters, so its not exactly be farmed at 52 by level 60s. You reach that sweet spot where people are going to help you with those last miles like i did a group recently, buffing them, healing, slowing for them etc... those are early 50s in my guild.

What you are saying, i would agree for a brand new server, with 600ish population, like how things started on red. Now what do you encounter the most on your journey to 52? Bored hard twinks out to grief you. At least at 52 youre hanging once in a while with your high level toon guildies for protection.

Again, i suggest you play on the server. It seems condescending a bit to say this but i dont know, i doubt youve tried to level a character to 52. Reach 52 on a character and then see if you want xp to be nerfed after. The population at low levels just isnt there. Yes wouldnt it be great if we nerfed xp and there was groups to be had and you could enjoy the journey etc... sure. But theres no groups to be had.

You want to encourage the few people there are at low levels to group up and enjoy the journey so it snowballs into a bigger pop? Then add a group xp bonus on top of the one thats already there.

Nerfing xp now will only entrench the old population more in their dominance. With xp that isnt a terrible hardcore grind, i can attempt to level a character solo (not because i think xp is better, theres just no one to group with), knowing ill get power leveled once in a while and helped at 52. Even with those advantages, if the xp is nerfed badly i will probably drop my alt and my shaman will be the only character i will ever level to high levels on red. Imagine a naked noob without any contacts on the server. So the newbies are losing a potential grouping partner because im not interested in boring myself to death on a really hard grind. On a theoritical server where theres groups to be had, and though the xp is slow, im enjoying the journey to 60, im not bored. But that isnt red99.

The speed to reach level52 must be reasonable so we continue to add population to this level bracket, where most of the population is. As more and more population reaches those levels, it becomes possible for new alliances, new guilds to pop up. Those people will then roll alts which will play with new players coming in, round and round it snowballs like this. They will have a high level toon they can use for some relaxing camping items for their alt time, helping other lowbies starting out, etc, etc... More options other than grind, grind or grind. Its too late now to want to have a slow, enjoy the journey server, you need to salvage whats left of red99. Either wipe the server and start it with slower xp (so the population is bottlenecked at the lower levels, giving you your enjoy the journey server), or be realistic about the status of Red99.

Thats another thing thats nice with slow xp like this but not crazy slow. Its that i get to try other classes.

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

The insane XP modifier literally prevents grouping, because even if everyone leveled at the same pace, unless they rolled on the same day the chances of them grouping up at any point is next to nothing. Even accounting for variable play times/effort, there will almost always be a disparity between levels because of how easy it is to get XP. And if you're a warrior, you might as well /q and roll a wizard, because you can't play here at all.

Ive not seen many players at all in fact. Population will probably double as Velious nears its launch. That will be the chance (probably one of the last) to jumpstart red again and make the population snowball in a good way. If you kill xp before server reaches 500ish regularly, mark my words, population will tank.

[krazyGlue]

Slather wins

[Squire]

Derubael,

I registered on here just to reply to your suggestions for the server, and as someone who literally started for the first time yesterday allow me to give some input from my perspective as a new player.

So I create my first and only character, Squire, a High Elf Paladin, and I begin killing bats and decaying skeletons as per usual, there is maybe 1 or 2 other people in Fay, mostly passing through. I figure I’ll see more people in Crushbone or in BB due to the rings and docks and carry on. At level 3, I move to the Kaladim newbie area to start collecting bone chips, same thing. I have the entire zone to myself.

I later move into Crushbone, around level 5, still the only person in the zone.

I'm pathetically beating shit down solo. I maybe run into one or two other people around Orc Hill and the Kelethin lifts, my only source of entertainment is the occasional cult-like chanting of "Pras" following some yellow text or some shit talk. Otherwise it’s the “wooshing” ambient sound of running around a polygon elf forest and my wife not shutting the fuck up in the next room.

I'd love to group, in no small part due to the fact that I'm a melee in patchwork, but it just isn't going to happen. The current population cannot support a network of groups at all level ranges, and holy fuck, if there wasn't an exp bonus I'd probably still be level 4, crying myself to sleep killing decaying skeletons and either rolled a druid with the explicit intention of supporting a Paladin via farming, not out of a desire to, but out of necessity, or to just simply quit. How about you let me play the character I want with a real-world individual exp bonus which also encourages people who are already 60 to make alts so I actually encounter someone?

Your notions about people wanting to be the fucking fellowship of the ring make me wonder if I've actually put more play time into red than you at this point. Likewise, this isn't most peoples first time playing Everquest, I don't want to "savor" being a dickless nothing jousting the one other person I encountered, who was a level 6 rogue with an epic. I want to get to where the party is, and have my asshole destroyed as soon as I ding 52.

Your ideas are great, for this hypothetical Teams server I read about, but not for red and it’s current incarnation, leave the changes to Alecta.

p.s. I named myself Squire and not Badass Champion Paladin Tarwine Jr because I have little PvP experience and would like to learn more. If anyone wants to give me some pointers on jousting etc I'd love to learn. Also, if anyone has some extra Paladin gear they wouldn't mind getting rid of I'd appreciate it.

[Pudge]

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

I'm pathetically beating shit down solo. I maybe run into one or two other people around Orc Hill and the Kelethin lifts, my only source of entertainment is the occasional cult-like chanting of "Pras" following some yellow text or some shit talk. Otherwise it’s the “wooshing” ambient sound of running around a polygon elf forest and my wife not shutting the fuck up in the next room.

...........

p.s. I named myself Squire and not Badass Champion Paladin Tarwine Jr because I have little PvP experience and would like to learn more. If anyone wants to give me some pointers on jousting etc I'd love to learn. Also, if anyone has some extra Paladin gear they wouldn't mind getting rid of I'd appreciate it.

Pras, I think I might take young Squire under my wing. Sounds like a badass in the making. And a true Paladin that would detest the nihilum scum.

[heartbrand]

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

Pras, I think I might take young Squire under my wing. Sounds like a badass in the making. And a true Paladin that would detest the nihilum scum.

PL'ing him as we speak