Final Beta Push

[girth]

Guys he said GUIDs, not guilds. Jeez, talk about an overreaction. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Teneran]

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

Of course things will degrade to the same point eventually, but at least you will get a truly classic Velious experience, until the server reaches end-of-life a while after Velious is released. There is nothing you can do to avoid the end-of-life degredation scenario, but you can make the experience leading up to it as classic as possible by having an accurate release timeline.

I hear what you are saying on the release timeline and it's a valid point. However, it's not 1999 anyone and there are real negatives to this idea too.

Let's have a quick look at what a wipe might look like. The server gets wiped while they finalize Velious. Right now, at primetime about 1500 people are online, with the launch of Velious coming perhaps even more might be interested in playing but let's just assume it's 1500-ish. So ... Day 1, 1500 people roll a newbie and get out to their respective newbie areas to level up. What could go wrong? Hmmmm, how about a week (at least) of a cluster f$%@ lag fest in every newbie area in Norrath? 300 people in Gfay, etc. etc. where everyone is trying to tag a large bat the second it pops to level up and get out to someplace better. Don't believe me? Ask anyone who rolled a toon the first few days when they launched the classic server on EQ Live years ago. It was unplayable for days.

Meanwhile, the serious hardcores are on a 20 hour a day marathon for a week straight, living on a diet of red bull, 5-hour energy and meth while they race to level ahead of the masses.

3-4 months later the ubers are all at 60 (again) locking down all the classic content worth doing. ok, maybe it's 6 months before it's the same thing we have now .... IDK but it gives a window of months, at best, before everything is back to normal.

What might actually solve some of the current problems is Luclin (yea, i know it's never going to be launched). the reason is, with Luclin there is even more content, all the best items are no-drop and the game doesn't end at 60 anymore with AA advancement. In Luclin you have people playing their mains XP-ing in high level areas to get AA and there is much less incentive to camp many old world items that are heavily camped today because people can get better items and they need to be earnign AAs to be effective on raids.

That's my take on it anyway, but others may disagree. The opinion of the Developers is all that matters anyway. Maybe a compromise is launch a fresh server?

[salimoneus]

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

you seem like youve been around long enough to have seen nilbog say he wants to start another server with truely classic timeline after dev work is done so he can play

also that theyll never wipe

maybe you have seen it and just arent to quick on the uptick

I've heard a lot of things mentioned in the past, but just because something gets mentioned doesn't make it so. A new server would be awesome if it is truly on the table, I just have some doubts about the feasibility of them having the resources to support 3 servers. And there's the question of if a completely new server would have a sustainable player base, assuming a large chunk of the current blue population remains on blue. If given a choice to remain and get "phat lewtz" in Velious with any of their 5 60 alts, or start from scratch, I have a feeling a good number would choose to remain and collect shiny pixels for each of their 5 60 alts.

OTOH if the only choices were to start over or quit, I think that would increase the population of the new server significantly to a more sustainable level. And these would be people who enjoy the entire game, from the low level grind all the way up, which is the type of player I remember most from the classic days. The hardcore end-gamers still had a presence obviously, but nothing like on this server. Just look at the ridiculous raiding rules that have been implemented to alleviate the end-game issues on blue and that tells you all you really need to know. It's nothing like classic at all.

[fishingme]

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

If you're going to say take down blue, take down red as well, else blues will just go play there. Agreed on the wipe, best thing that could happen to this server.

That's true, some blues will go to red but that's not a bad thing because there wouldn't be much more than 150-200 blue players that would go there. Also, don't need a bunch of red players on the beta server. There probably would be a point where red would need to be taken down also but it wouldn't be right off the bat. Yep, wiping blue would be great, would change the raid scene from "look how quick i can log onto my 60 alt parked at trak to actually having to race for the mob.

[fishingme]

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

I haven't been here that long but why would a wipe be in order? I'm having fun building my character but don't want to start all over again 6 months into it; rather, I'm looking forward to new stuff at higher levels, not the 1-30 grind again.

if established players are bored, re-roll, don't twink and pretend the server got wiped.

Hard to do when only 1 out of 10 players is untwinked

[Schwing]

How does that make it hard to do?

[fishingme]

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

I hear what you are saying on the release timeline and it's a valid point. However, it's not 1999 anyone and there are real negatives to this idea too.

Let's have a quick look at what a wipe might look like. The server gets wiped while they finalize Velious. Right now, at primetime about 1500 people are online, with the launch of Velious coming perhaps even more might be interested in playing but let's just assume it's 1500-ish. So ... Day 1, 1500 people roll a newbie and get out to their respective newbie areas to level up. What could go wrong? Hmmmm, how about a week (at least) of a cluster f$%@ lag fest in every newbie area in Norrath? 300 people in Gfay, etc. etc. where everyone is trying to tag a large bat the second it pops to level up and get out to someplace better. Don't believe me? Ask anyone who rolled a toon the first few days when they launched the classic server on EQ Live years ago. It was unplayable for days.

Meanwhile, the serious hardcores are on a 20 hour a day marathon for a week straight, living on a diet of red bull, 5-hour energy and meth while they race to level ahead of the masses.

3-4 months later the ubers are all at 60 (again) locking down all the classic content worth doing. ok, maybe it's 6 months before it's the same thing we have now .... IDK but it gives a window of months, at best, before everything is back to normal.

What might actually solve some of the current problems is Luclin (yea, i know it's never going to be launched). the reason is, with Luclin there is even more content, all the best items are no-drop and the game doesn't end at 60 anymore with AA advancement. In Luclin you have people playing their mains XP-ing in high level areas to get AA and there is much less incentive to camp many old world items that are heavily camped today because people can get better items and they need to be earnign AAs to be effective on raids.

That's my take on it anyway, but others may disagree. The opinion of the Developers is all that matters anyway. Maybe a compromise is launch a fresh server?

Okay, since you've hit the negatives of a wipe I'll toss in some positives

All RMT plat will be wiped
Due to your join date on the forums I'm going to assume that you werent around for people legally selling their accounts for plat, so, People won't have 10+ accounts with cleric rez sticks and whatever, yes, you probably don't have 10 accounts with a 60 on each but a lot of people from the older guilds do not just because of bought accounts but because when people quit, they give theirs away.
People won't have millions of platinum
I'd imagine at least some of the hardcore players will be casual instead of hardcore
not every one of the people with multiple 60s leveled at the same rate they've just been here longer (server has been up for 5+ years)
No duped platinum, technically blue server is beta
We will be a much better ruleset put in place instead of one that's just been added to that is not classic
Items like pre-nerf fungi staff and manastone will be back in the game to be camped by a new playerbase instead of the 200-250 people we had camping them back at server's beginning.

Now to what you've said

Yeah, gfay will be a sh*t storm, but I think you forget that there's more places to level than just Gfay/CB, For instance qeynos, qeynos hills, Nro, blackburrow, Butcherblock(remember chessboard?), West karana, North karana, everfrost, permafrost, Runnyeye. Those are just some of the alternatives for 1-20.

Serious hardcores, okay, so what they seriously hardcored once before on blue 99 who cares.
If you can't achieve 1-60 in 4-6months, don't whine about others that can, the point of a wipe isn't necessarily to fix raiding. You want another rotation then do another rotation and you'll get your dragon mobs.

But the original reason why I suggested a wipe was because launching a new server has been brought up but people (mostly tmo/bda) didn't like the idea, along with some of the normal player base because they're afraid that too many casuals would change servers which at that point they would essentially lose their years of slaving themselves to a video game to become wealthy inside of it. Reality of the situation is that P99 was most fun to play when the player base was between 300-600 players. With a new wipe or server, you would even seen less duo's/trios because no twink gear for a duo/trio means sitting down for 5-10minutes after every 2-3 kills. What would be okay is at a certain point into the wipe's life say 4 months down the line, that there is a group bonus like red, but not as significant as red's to promote grouping instead of duos/trios.

[fishingme]

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

How does that make it hard to do?

Well, I make a newbie druid and I'm placed in gfay, I fight with my *club until i can afford a small round shield from a merchant. I obtain lvl 9 and get some awesome new spells after which I roll into CB to where I find a warrior twink and a monk twink both not grouped destroying the entire zone. I run over to slavers, oh damn it's all dead, well I decide to go to trainer hill, Oh all dead... I run over to the castle just for shits and giggles, oh castle is completely depoped, I run up through the tower and hop out of the tower, I land on a freshly repopped Orc Warlord and die while the twink who recently killed the castle area is running back.

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[Lorian]

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

Well, I make a newbie druid and I'm placed in gfay, I fight with my *club until i can afford a small round shield from a merchant. I obtain lvl 9 and get some awesome new spells after which I roll into CB to where I find a warrior twink and a monk twink both not grouped destroying the entire zone. I run over to slavers, oh damn it's all dead, well I decide to go to trainer hill, Oh all dead... I run over to the castle just for shits and giggles, oh castle is completely depoped, I run up through the tower and hop out of the tower, I land on a freshly repopped Orc Warlord and die while the twink who recently killed the castle area is running back.

Loading please wait....

Not sure I agree. Im a newbie myself and I'd say that if you are lv 9 you probably saved enough plat by selling CB belts to get yourself a decent weapon and some basic gear to get your mana pool up a bit. You dont have to have a higher alt farming stuff to have good gear on p99, when gear is sold for peanut money even the noobest of noobs can be competative. At least that is my feeling.

[fishingme]

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

Not sure I agree. Im a newbie myself and I'd say that if you are lv 9 you probably saved enough plat by selling CB belts to get yourself a decent weapon and some basic gear to get your mana pool up a bit. You dont have to have a higher alt farming stuff to have good gear on p99, when gear is sold for peanut money even the noobest of noobs can be competative. At least that is my feeling.

Id check this in game myself if I had p99 on this laptop, but that's a lot of cb belts by lvl 9 just for your spells. Then it's about an equal amount of belts for the patchwork armor from the belt turn in in kaladim. At any rate, I'm talking about twinks that have more than 2-4k in their gear. A lvl 9 druid isn't going to be making that kind of platinum, lets see, I'd say a newbie druid in gfay could at most make 200-300 plat, with deals in EC and not being a person who buys low sells high, you could only hope to get 4-5 pieces of gear that have wisdom on it, depending on what the prices of the items im thinking of are going for right now. So let's say that's a maximum of about 15 wisdom points for that much platinum. Now lets look at the normal twink, mostly in plate armor, fbss, good weapons for their specific class, about 200 HP solely due to +hp items.