Red99 Stimulus Plan (some constructive feedback)

[Potus]

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

There's no adjustments that can be made to exp or anything about the servers that will increase population.

Have you read the thread? It's literally full of people saying they'd be able to play if the server reduced grinding/upped the exp rate.

[hotstud]

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

Have you read the thread? It's literally full of people saying they'd be able to play if the server reduced grinding/upped the exp rate.

Oh you mean this thread that has all of 91 posts in it with the majority of those by the same people? Yeah, I don't think increasing the population by even 100 people would make much of a difference. People don't play 24 hours a day. I'm guessing there is something like 10,000 accounts for R99 which gives us our average 300 pop size.

I want to see an online population of 1,000+ like EQ is supposed to have. Changing server rules is never going to get us there.

In fact, I would guess that increasing exp rate would actually harm population in the longterm. People who play all the time will leave because casuals will be clogging up all their camps and raid mobs, people who play casually will leave when they reach 50 quickly and realize there is nothing left to do now but fight over raid content which requires hours on end to actually accomplish anything, and everyone else won't be as attached to their character when it takes so little effort to hit 50. If people aren't having enough fun before hitting 50 to keep playing the solution isn't to make it easier to hit 50.

Server population is going down specifically because server population is too low. It's a vicious cycle that is going to leave this server with less than 20 people playing on it within the next 3-6 months. I haven't played in the last week after grinding to 35 because it is clear to me that this server is dying and it's not worth putting in the time.

All you have to do is ask yourself why there isn't even an auction zone that provides a central hub of activity on this server and you have your answer why the server is dying. The population is too low for it to be worth it. PvP at the bank in the auction zone and so on were always hallmarks of EQ PvP and they are 100% absent here.

Like I said, the only way to increase population is making the game more accessible to people who want to play a free MMO and then doing some basic advertising. Anything else is rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. It doesn't matter if some change you make results in 50, 100, or even 200 more people being on at any given time. PvP servers need closer to 1,000 online at a time for them to be enjoyable.

I for one have quit playing because I'm fucking sick of seeing the same fucking people every time I login and everywhere I go. I mean honestly I probably know more than half the people online at a time. I don't want to login and see the same fucking people at the same camps every single time. There is nothing happening on this "PvP" server except a bunch of people grinding experience thinking that getting to 50 is going to somehow make the PvP fun and a bunch of people complaining that the experience grind is too slow and needs to be increased to save the population. There is no auction zone to go hang out in, there is no guild battles going on, not a fucking thing is happening on this server except people grinding experience with blinders on to the reality that this is a blue server with PvP enabled due to the low population which will only be increased by making the server accessible and advertising it.

[Potus]

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

Oh you mean this thread that has all of 91 posts in it with the majority of those by the same people? Yeah, I don't think increasing the population by even 100 people would make much of a difference.

Oh ok, so instead of going after people who are stating they want to play the server if the exp rate was increased, you want to instead:

1. Have another website warez the EQ client and put the P99 code on it, exposing themselves to the legal wrath of Sony
2. Then magically scrounge up money to advertise to people who play free MMOs hoping they'd come and play a 10 year old game they've probably never heard of
3.
4. Profit

Great idea.

[hotstud]

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

Oh ok, so instead of going after people who are stating they want to play the server if the exp rate was increased, you want to instead:

1. Have another website warez the EQ client and put the P99 code on it, exposing themselves to the legal wrath of Sony
2. Then magically scrounge up money to advertise to people who play free MMOs hoping they'd come and play a 10 year old game they've probably never heard of
3.
4. Profit

Great idea.

Increasing the exp rate will not only attract players it will also cause others to quit.

1. They don't have to put the client on the site, only link directly to it, which is not illegal. It's simply overly risky for P99 but wouldn't be for someone not associated with the project.
2. No, I suggest that Project 1999 get listed on the many sites that have listings of free MMORPGs. It doesn't cost anything. I would also suggest a volunteer workforce here that is dedicated to promoting the server by posting on gaming forums, etc.

People here just want their specific idea of EQ PvP. They want item loot, they want no level range, exp bonus, blah blah blah. Wake me up when more than 300 people are even playing at a time and maybe then it will be worth discussing changes that have already proven to be less popular than EQ PvP already was. RZ wasn't as popular as VZ/TZ because it had item loot, SZ wasn't as popular as RZ because of no level range and whatever else it had.

I can guarantee you that in the long run increasing the exp rate will destroy the population here. You're still talking about trying to attract maybe 1-200 people which will result in an "online" population increase of like 20-30 if you're lucky. It's a total fucking joke, give it up.

Fuck if I care though, I'm already done playing here. Go ahead and double the exp rate, add item loot, and everything else that will turn this into VZTZ 2.0 complete with its 20 player population.

[georgie]

1

[Giovanni]

Institute a rested exp system where you accumulate an exp bonus over the course of the week for hours spent offline. This allows both the player that logs on for 2 hours a night and the weekend warrior that can only login on weekends to keep up with the rest.

Players who utilize their rested exp bonus while online will still level slower than players on food stamps grinding 16 hours a day. However, the players with limited time will at least feel like they making steady progress towards their goal.

Side note: Melees grinding on lightblue mobs solo with bandaids is fucking depressing. I am sure forcing prisoners to solo a melee was proposed as a method of torture in Gitmo, but water boarding was found to be more humane.

[Lazortag]

What I've learned from this thread is that most people asking for an exp bonus simply don't know how to play the game. I don't mean that they are bad players because they can't handle classic exp, but that they're bad players because they can't handle basic math. That, and they don't know the mechanics of the game.

Exhibit A:

Originally Posted by Doors

Searyx is actually right, the grind for levels 2-10 is beyond awful. I'm talking less than 1% a kill, at level 3, for a dark blue mob.

And this is at the time whenever you have no armor, weapons, fun things to kill, a guild, friends usually, or money.

Transferring some of that terrible grind during the most boring levels to later levels is not a bad idea.

Sorry Doors but I'm going to have to make an example out of you. At levels 1-4, any mob lower leveled than you is considered dark blue. So at level 4, even a level 1 mob is dark blue. The exp you gain from a mob has to do with their con colour, the zone's experience modifier, as well as their level relative to yours. The fact that a level 4 player can gain any experience at all from a mob that is 25% of their level should make you happy - at no other level can you gain exp from a mob that is a quarter of your level. Fact.

The reason you find the grind so slow in the early levels is because you're killing the wrong mobs. If you can't remember that a moss snake is going to give you worse experience than a fire beetle, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Exhibit B:

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

Side note: Melees grinding on lightblue mobs solo with bandaids is fucking depressing. I am sure forcing prisoners to solo a melee was proposed as a method of torture in Gitmo, but water boarding was found to be more humane.

In classic "light blue" didn't exist - light blue mobs would have been green instead and given no experience at all. On this server they give intentionally nerfed experience, meaning that you should not be killing them. Don't complain about getting slow exp from light blues - in classic you wouldn't have gained anything.

Exhibit C:

Originally Posted by xblade724 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Welcome to 1999 where we are all 13 years old and--oh wait, it's 2011 now and we all have full time jobs++ (well, some neckbearders may still live with mom, but hey)

So you think that slow exp is the biggest deterrent to a high population, yet blue99 and red99 are respectively the most popular pve and pvp servers on EqEmu. It wasn't a problem for blue99, it won't be a problem for red99. The people who aren't playing would have quit in a week anyway. See exhibits A and B.

Whatever you do to the exp rate, I will play along. I'll stick around no matter what the ruleset is so long as they don't allow boxing, because I enjoy the server and I'm not so bad that I can't deal with a ruleset I don't like. But if you increase the exp, some players will leave, and players who are already playing will enjoy the server less, and therefore log in less. You'll gain some players too, but overall you'll have roughly the same numbers as before while killing the classic feel of the game. There's literally no good reason to increase the exp rate.

[Massive Marc]

I think it's painfully obvious why the population has decreased. Two major factors have contributed to it, in my opinion. These are:

1: Hype. This server was hyped up so much, it was going to be the next big thing. Then when people realized it was just another EQ server, they decided to go back to their main and play the char they put hours and hours into with less risk of wasting time.

2: Exp Rate: Without going into classic/hardcore gamer arguments, lets face the facts. Most of us are older and simply don't have the time to grind out the exp. Softcores argument is that EQ doesn't start at 50, well for me it does. I've played the game over and over and over, that when I go into crushbone, I'm not in it to find friends, I'm not there for immersion, it doesn't have nostalgic value, I'm there to grind, get EXP and move on. I want to get to 50 as soon as possible to raid/group at high end dungeons/PVP with GEAR AND SPELLS.

Lets be real. We've all done these dungeons for hours and hours on end from years and years of playing. I really just want to get exp and loots without sacrificing sunlight and decent meals for 12 months.

[visage]

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

What I've learned from this thread is that most people asking for an exp bonus simply don't know how to play the game. I don't mean that they are bad players because they can't handle classic exp, but that they're bad players because they can't handle basic math. That, and they don't know the mechanics of the game.

Exhibit A:



Sorry Doors but I'm going to have to make an example out of you. At levels 1-4, any mob lower leveled than you is considered dark blue. So at level 4, even a level 1 mob is dark blue. The exp you gain from a mob has to do with their con colour, the zone's experience modifier, as well as their level relative to yours. The fact that a level 4 player can gain any experience at all from a mob that is 25% of their level should make you happy - at no other level can you gain exp from a mob that is a quarter of your level. Fact.

The reason you find the grind so slow in the early levels is because you're killing the wrong mobs. If you can't remember that a moss snake is going to give you worse experience than a fire beetle, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Exhibit B:



In classic "light blue" didn't exist - light blue mobs would have been green instead and given no experience at all. On this server they give intentionally nerfed experience, meaning that you should not be killing them. Don't complain about getting slow exp from light blues - in classic you wouldn't have gained anything.

Exhibit C:



So you think that slow exp is the biggest deterrent to a high population, yet blue99 and red99 are respectively the most popular pve and pvp servers on EqEmu. It wasn't a problem for blue99, it won't be a problem for red99. The people who aren't playing would have quit in a week anyway. See exhibits A and B.

Whatever you do to the exp rate, I will play along. I'll stick around no matter what the ruleset is so long as they don't allow boxing, because I enjoy the server and I'm not so bad that I can't deal with a ruleset I don't like. But if you increase the exp, some players will leave, and players who are already playing will enjoy the server less, and therefore log in less. You'll gain some players too, but overall you'll have roughly the same numbers as before while killing the classic feel of the game. There's literally no good reason to increase the exp rate.

You are by far the most annoying person on these forums. Everything you speak of has blue server written all over it. Go seriusly back to divnity and play on the blue server. I remember when your guild whined and cried a crap ton about poop socking. Now your gonna get all upset when people whine about exp? Your one to talk. Basic math and Eq? You do realize this isn't 1999 and people playing this game are generally all vet eq players? Lol at thinking your the only one who knows a fire beetle is more then a moss snakes as far as exp. Im sure well over 90% of the population does too retard. It doesn't negate the fact this is a pvp server not a pve. I believe the fair majority rolled on this server for epic Player verse player battles. Not Player verse enviroment. Therefor having more competition and people to kill relates to the exp rate. When it seems everyone lower than level 20 makes up less than 20% of the population as a whole. That say's something.
This is a pvp server. We should be encouraged to kill eachother. This softcore pvp crap is why I despise your guild as a horr

[Lazortag]

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

You are by far the most annoying person on these forums. Everything you speak of has blue server written all over it. Go seriusly back to divnity and play on the blue server. I remember when your guild whined and cried a crap ton about poop socking. Now your gonna get all upset when people whine about exp? Your one to talk. Basic math and Eq? You do realize this isn't 1999 and people playing this game are generally all vet eq players? Lol at thinking your the only one who knows a fire beetle is more then a moss snakes as far as exp. Im sure well over 90% of the population does too retard. It doesn't negate the fact this is a pvp server not a pve. I believe the fair majority rolled on this server for epic Player verse player battles. Not Player verse enviroment. Therefor having more competition and people to kill relates to the exp rate. When it seems everyone lower than level 20 makes up less than 20% of the population as a whole. That say's something.
This is a pvp server. We should be encouraged to kill eachother. This softcore pvp crap is why I despise your guild as a horr

Woah Visage (or should I say Kovenant), who buttered your bagels this morning? I noticed you quoted my entire post yet you didn't respond to any of it! Several people made comments about how blue mobs in the early levels weren't giving enough exp, and I was telling them why (it works differently here than on other emu servers). I was further arguing that the reason people are leaving is because they are too bad at this game and lack basic math skills. If people also don't know that light blue mobs are giving severely nerfed experience (something that also works differently here than on other emu servers), then they aren't going to make it very far and they probably would have quit regardless of a 20% experience bonus.