Teams PvP confirmed by Rogean, transcript of convo..

[Sguchi]

Sounds fun

[Tradesonred]

To me the wildcard for population here are streamers: Im re-downloading warhammer online emu right now (return of reckoning) because some streamer gave favorable reviews for the emu and population jumped from 400 to 2900. Pop might not stay forever but it really made me think its still possible for emus to get pops in 2020 provided the game and server setup is fun enough to retain a pop.

And heres what to me is the kicker:

Imagine this happened here in 2011, server jumping from 500 to 3k at launch. What would have happened? Likely just more fun for griefers to make people quit, for a little while more.

Whats important is you have a window to make it work, if it doesnt gel during the first few months, you lost that opportunity. Red re-launch will be that opportunity for EQ classic probably for one of the last times.

The game needs to be fun for people unfamiliar with the game you succeeded in attracting, to retain them.

Having fast levelers camp your zone for hours, with you having 0 chance to fight back, not fun. You have to think this through like the worst outcomes will happen: If theres a way to grief, you can be sure it will be milked to its fullest potential by the worst aspect of the red population.

Now some irritation is to be expected for new pvp players: You will have to learn the game, through pvp, you will die alot. That will filter out part of the pop who just isnt cut out for EQ pvp. A problem arises when, exactly like what happened at red's launch when the learning curve is too steep because the players cant practice. They are getting so crushed, that they just cant get good at it. New players that are potentially EQ pvp material can hardly learn pvp because practicing at it means you will get hurt so badly (massive xp loss or in red's potential new iteration: pvp means 95% of the times getting one shot, over and over by a griefer) it will make you quit the game when you do the fun vs tedium calculation in your head.

That was the beauty of Wow, even at 27 vs a 52 hunter, you could still dmg him if other players were around. It would make you practice at getting better, while having fun at it. Thats what Rogean seemingly never got, he viewed pvp strictly as a means to control PVE, not as fun in itself. Getting crushed through xp loss on red during launch was not like getting killed over and over in wow pvp, for alot of players it would make you try harder, approach the situation from different angles. You just dont try to approach a pvp situation from a different angle if you are taking massive xp hits each time you die. You avoid it. The same is true for a teams server where 9 times out of 10 encountering a red player, you will die in one or 2 hits. You can see that coming from miles away: Once again, pvp will be something you avoid 95% of the times, not something fun you participate in daily (my experience on Rallos), its so predictable.

So that will play out in red's re-launch as well: If you cant evade pitfalls like griefers running the box (which will happen if you let them just port around and one-shot newbs, that i need to point this out to counter-argument Rogean isnt a good sign in dev direction for the box) the pop will drain out fast again. New players' experience will be once again to be shit on 24/7 by vets because of the way devs set up the server, which leaves no room for unexperienced players to get good at the game and enjoy themselves while doing it.

[Danger]

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

To me the wildcard for population here are streamers: Im re-downloading warhammer online emu right now (return of reckoning) because some streamer gave favorable reviews for the emu and population jumped from 400 to 2900. Pop might not stay forever but it really made me think its still possible for emus to get pops in 2020 provided the game and server setup is fun enough to retain a pop.

And heres what to me is the kicker:

Imagine this happened here in 2011, server jumping from 500 to 3k at launch. What would have happened? Likely just more fun for griefers to make people quit, for a little while more.

Whats important is you have a window to make it work, if it doesnt gel during the first few months, you lost that opportunity. Red re-launch will be that opportunity for EQ classic probably for one of the last times.

The game needs to be fun for people unfamiliar with the game you succeeded in attracting, to retain them.

Having fast levelers camp your zone for hours, with you having 0 chance to fight back, not fun. You have to think this through like the worst outcomes will happen: If theres a way to grief, you can be sure it will be milked to its fullest potential by the worst aspect of the red population.

Now some irritation is to be expected for new pvp players: You will have to learn the game, through pvp, you will die alot. That will filter out part of the pop who just isnt cut out for EQ pvp. A problem arises when, exactly like what happened at red's launch when the learning curve is too steep because the players cant practice. They are getting so crushed, that they just cant get good at it. New players that are potentially EQ pvp material can hardly learn pvp because practicing at it means you will get hurt so badly (massive xp loss or in red's potential new iteration: pvp means 95% of the times getting one shot, over and over by a griefer) it will make you quit the game when you do the fun vs tedium calculation in your head.

That was the beauty of Wow, even at 27 vs a 52 hunter, you could still dmg him if other players were around. It would make you practice at getting better, while having fun at it. Thats what Rogean seemingly never got, he viewed pvp strictly as a means to control PVE, not as fun in itself. Getting crushed through xp loss on red during launch was not like getting killed over and over in wow pvp, for alot of players it would make you try harder, approach the situation from different angles. You just dont try to approach a pvp situation from a different angle if you are taking massive xp hits each time you die. You avoid it. The same is true for a teams server where 9 times out of 10 encountering a red player, you will die in one or 2 hits. You can see that coming from miles away: Once again, pvp will be something you avoid 95% of the times, not something fun you participate in daily (my experience on Rallos), its so predictable.

So that will play out in red's re-launch as well: If you cant evade pitfalls like griefers running the box (which will happen if you let them just port around and one-shot newbs, that i need to point this out to counter-argument Rogean isnt a good sign in dev direction for the box) the pop will drain out fast again. New players' experience will be once again to be shit on 24/7 by vets because of the way devs set up the server, which leaves no room for unexperienced players to get good at the game and enjoy themselves while doing it.

can I get a tl;dr version of your solution to this issue?

[Christina.]

I read that long comment by tradesonred but he didn't offer any solutions at all throughout the 20 paragraphs hehe.

[Tradesonred]

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

can I get a tl;dr version of your solution to this issue?

Pointing out problems is the first step to resolving them. I certainly dont claim to have all the answers, but looking at it at this point, one solution would be to not launch a teams server if its just gonna be 2 months of vets shitting on people poking to see if they might like it until the server stabilizes at 50 pop in record time.

Solution if no one else provides solution to how to prevent say, a 50 druid going into blackburrow to one-shot lowbies is to run a FFA server, which is less griefy.

Approach it like young doctors would, first do no harm. If teams is going to be demonstrably worse, with no one able to solve its apparent problems, then dont do it. And if you are going to launch one despite all these issues, certainly dont put xp loss in the mix because "its not call of duty".