How do we get players to return to Project1999?

[radditsu]

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

Everyone seems to be caught up in the raiding aspect, when I think the real issue is that no one is around at the lower levels. It's hard to get new people to play when those new people have no one else to play with. Some come with friends, but a lot are just trying to relive the memories and group up at the lower tier.

Heck, when there was around 1k people peak the lower tier was really fun because you could get groups within 30 minutes between 10-30. Now I see almost no one on at all in that range.

So the question would then be, what would bring back the lower level people? Only non-classic things would really do. Global chats, faster XP, easier mobs, hotzones, etc have been mentioned, and I think it's a start. These were added in to later expansions for a reason, and that's because new people just stopped joining.

I don't know if those "non-classic" solutions will fly here, but hopefully something can be figured out before the server is reduced to 50 people at peak hours...

I actually just started leveling on the server at the end of January. I made it a point to engage anybody who was lfg in a few zones. I found 4-5 good people that I leveled up to 40 with. Unfortunately the glue of the group stopped playing and the rest started logging in less and less. I had to do most of the rest soloing. Which is unfortunate. What I am not seeing is groups in solb/guk anymore. I ground out level 58 Soloing LDC's. That should have not been an option due to population. Now that I am leveling a shadowknight (14) I have not seen anybody leveling in the same fashion. Maybe the weapon skill hurt us that bad in the short term, combined with the D3 release. I really loved velious's 35+ dungeons. I loved Crystal Caverns "back in the day". Exp seemed a little faster.

The hybrid penalty really hurts people wanting to go with paladins and rangers. Along with the stigma of playing these classes. Sk's can get a pass a lot due to their excellent aggro generation. But I am seeing a bunch of them grind up to about 55 and quitting. Without a 40% penalty they would be near the top of that final hump. Maybe creating just a global lfg channel, or enabling of the lfg tool would be a good idea. People seem to like alts to go /role or /anon. The hybrid penalty would be on an faster timeline than classic. But due to velious being postponed it would not be outside of the "real life" time frame.


Also I hear that Full Circle guild is doing big things at the lowbie level.

[Danyelle]

Putting in non-"Classic" changes is a conflicted and complicated area.

There are many different things that were put into the game post-Velious/Luclin that were "necessary" changes. Many people would think they were put in to casualize the game and remove the challenge or immersion. In fact they were put in to eliminate needless headaches. Examples off the top of my head are the LFG tool, removal of steep hybrid penalties, Guild manager tool, raid manager tool, buff section of pet window, mana display, xp percentage display. zoning pets, pets not dying on invis/hide, chat channels, etc. People often confuse these changes with changes that DID (based on opinion, yet it's usually universally agreed upon) ruin the challenge or immersion of the world of Norrath (PoK books, corpse summoners, soulbinders, map tool, etc).

Here's where the conflict comes into play. The server's, very obvious and heavily stated, goal is to create a server that emulates Live up to Velious exactly as best as possible barring unchangable client code (as is evidenced by things like re-implementing the bug where pets can proc rune swords on any mob not just summoned mobs). This is indeed a noble cause. However it conflicts with common sense in many areas. Some things about Classic EQ should have been changed from the start. Likewise certain later features also should have been in from the start, and there's a reason those things were put in later on as the developers realized it and came across the means to do it that they may not have had when the game was first released (who the hell wants to have to type "/who guild all" only to come back with a who list limited to a certain number of characters, that doesn't bypass anon/role? To be unable to manage a guild as precisely as you could with the manager? Tag alts for quick identification? Add notes to quickly see the flags/keys of a player in-game? This kind of thing didn't "ruin immersion". It fixed something that was implemented poorly from the start.)

Some people fear these changes. They wonder where the line ends on what should be put in and what shouldn't. Polls won't help determine that either. Put a poll up that says "should we put PoK books in" and most people won't be thinking of the immersion or the effect on porting classes, they'll be thinking of the saved time and platinum and vote "yes". Smudging the results. Others may blindly vote "no", out of anger, on anything for the sake of Classic. You'll never get results that truly display those "necessary changes". But at least it's a start.

I've always believed, Red should either be taken down, or a third server put up. At least once Velious goes live. One stays stagnant at Velious, maybe wipes and rerolls every year or two. The other, rebuilds expansions from Luclin+ in a Classic way. Adding in those "necessary features" as agreed upon by the community, and taking out the ones that ultimately put the knife in Classic's back. To please everyone. Of course a 3rd server would cost money (hence the taking down Red part), they would also need to pick up more developers and Guides. But I think if it could be accomplished it'd be worth it.

I know in my heart it will never happen though. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Slave]

I don't think you guys understand. Killing everything doesn't give you rights to CT, it just makes it easier for the extremely large guild with the batphone to come in and take him off your little hands. Ambrotos is perhaps unintentionally taking away one of the few tactics that would allow a smaller force to defeat him.

[radditsu]

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

I don't think you guys understand. Killing everything doesn't give you rights to CT, it just makes it easier for the extremely large guild with the batphone to come in and take him off your little hands. Ambrotos is perhaps unintentionally taking away one of the few tactics that would allow a smaller force to defeat him.

Yeah but it would be the right thing to do for the guild that cleared fear to at least get a stab at it. If they fail, they are not going to get another shot. I know BDA would not pull CT through Divinity, for example, if they had cleared the zone ahead of us. It could be considered similar to pulling a mob through a raid. Unless the plane is empty its going to be a train. Its going to train whomever else is the zone. Stated above training for any reason is against the rules.

I will admit it will get murky when each guild gets relatively close together pulling a similar amount of mobs. Maybe then a FTE ruling goes down? Any other ideas?

[Ambrotos]

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

Yeah but it would be the right thing to do for the guild that cleared fear to at least get a stab at it. If they fail, they are not going to get another shot. I know BDA would not pull CT through Divinity, for example, if they had cleared the zone ahead of us. It could be considered similar to pulling a mob through a raid. Unless the plane is empty its going to be a train. Its going to train whomever else is the zone. Stated above training for any reason is against the rules.

I will admit it will get murky when each guild gets relatively close together pulling a similar amount of mobs. Maybe then a FTE ruling goes down? Any other ideas?

There are a few reasons as to why this is with Cazic. Mainly #1
1) He will warp under the ground when too many npcs are being kited. Seen it, been there and done that. Was a mess to res everyone. It doesn't matter if its a large guild or small guild.
2) Attacking him out right, and not kiting it around is done more often than not, and doesn't desync the zone.
3) Lowers the chance of a Guild training everything around and having it wipe the other guild racing them for it. History shows Guilds have done this, and trained other guilds. Thus the playerbase is the one causing this enforcement.

If people think kiting it around with the 90% chance of cazic warping underground is blocking smaller guilds from doing cazic, you are wrong. This isn't intended to help any guild have the upper hand. It's intended to keep a encounter from bugging out and training the entire zone onto everyone.

[Alarti0001]

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

There are a few reasons as to why this is with Cazic. Mainly #1
1) He will warp under the ground when too many npcs are being kited. Seen it, been there and done that. Was a mess to res everyone. It doesn't matter if its a large guild or small guild.
2) Attacking him out right, and not kiting it around is done more often than not, and doesn't desync the zone.
3) Lowers the chance of a Guild training everything around and having it wipe the other guild racing them for it. History shows Guilds have done this, and trained other guilds. Thus the playerbase is the one causing this enforcement.

If people think kiting it around with the 90% chance of cazic warping underground is blocking smaller guilds from doing cazic, you are wrong. This isn't intended to help any guild have the upper hand. It's intended to keep a encounter from bugging out and training the entire zone onto everyone.

Being in the guild who has been the sole killer of Cazic for months. He has never warped for us so your 90% statistic seems a bit skewed...like 90% skewed.

[Ambrotos]

I said when there were more than 1 guild doing it. I've been there and had to watch. The server is here for more than one guild, and there will be other than one guild there sooner than later.

Like I said the players can come up with something different, and if it makes sense I'm all for it. Otherwise this will be it.

[pojab]

enable pvp in fearplane, hateplane, vp. mobs ffa. problem solved.

[Zionized]

Stopping thetinfoiling on the forums would go a long way to not make me feel like im gonna waste 500 hours on this server get to 60, get some decent gear to raid and then have to endure countless hours of bitching and drama.

[Kevlar]

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

Stopping thetinfoiling on the forums would go a long way to not make me feel like im gonna waste 500 hours on this server get to 60, get some decent gear to raid and then have to endure countless hours of bitching and drama.

You get that impression too? Kinda sad the devs and gms put so much time into the project only to have players shit all over it at the end.