How do we get more players?

[Tradesonred]

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

I'm new to the server by less than a week. I have brought along my cousin and (if they ever respond to my IP petition) my brother. I played Sullon Zek pre-WoW, and also had several level 60s on TZ/VZ emu server.
A prime example of what kills a growing server happened last night. My brother just got level 6 on his naked ass character and two level 8 twinks gank him in town (right outside the bank) take his complete savings of 12 platinum. My cousin inquired about it to them and got some BS troll response like it was RZ live in 2001 or something.
I understand this is red, but its the kind of thing that makes you rethink if you actually want to play the server. If you are level 20ish and lose a bit of platinum, its not going to make anyone quit a server they already invested that much time in. But if you are the kind of douche that bank ganks scratch level 5s 2v1, don't be surprised when you flow of new players is a bit stemmed.
Another thing that kills server population is one guild servers. SZ died eventually (along with RZ) because one guild controlled all raid content and people got sick of having nothing effective to do against people with 250% of their stats. Unfortunately there its not easy to solve this. As bluebie as it sounds, top guilds might want to let opposing guilds do some content until they can actually challenge them.
Also this exp on death thing is an easy fix. Just lower the amount of exp you lose. Losing some is good an all, but not the same as a PvE death.

The same things are getting repeated over and over because its common sense. If the devs drop the ball this time, i will be done and done with everquest 1, because i dont see myself playing on any other server than P99 red. Everything they need to make the server grow and fun again is in this thread and "Server not thriving" thread

I dont agree with the coin steal though, thats part of the learning experience. Next time, you send somebody with no coins to make sure nobodys at the bank zone and then you run in. Its what made Rallos Zek great, having to be on your toes like that. The adrenaline.

What does suck, is naked noobs getting xp griefed by twinks, thats gotta go, for the millionth time. Removing xp loss in pvp will also solve the major bore fest that is end game here. Will foster guerilla pvp and dominant clan(s) can finally get contested, etc etc etc etc etc

The server would have done alot better going with no xp loss and item loot straight off the bat. Now the dillema is that xp loss in pvp sucks bad and is creating all sorts of problems, but you need some kind of penalty for dying. Personally i think the loss of your mana/health bars and running back to your corpse is enough, but it would have been nice to see noobs bumrush twinks and loot their shit. As it is now, twink griefers will never, ever lose their gear making them alot more cocky and griefy than if they had the chance to lose their loot vs noobs who have nothing themselves to lose, gear-wise. Ditching xp loss in pvp is the best we could do with what we got i guess, and its needed.

[Philipangoo]

Cars I completely agree with you.. in fact in the past month or so since I leveled a melee to lvl 30 I have experienced first hand all those things that you wrote about.

At lvl 3 a twinked bard that conned red to me attempted to gank a naked cracked staff wielding melee.

At lvl 16 I zone crashed on the boat trying to go from FP to BBM and I was stranded in OOT It sucked even more because I had a swimming skill of 1. When I was shouting asking for a port the only response I got was from a FoH player that asked me "what level are you".

At lvl 22 I was in Unrest, and I had my first real PVP experience against a Ogre Shaman I think his name is Powered. Apparently he is in Azrael now but at the time he jumped my group of 4 while we had a pull. We rooted him and blinded him but before he died his body poofed like one moment he was here the next he was gone. There was no gate potion message, no OOR porter message, no message at all. He just warped out of the zone. Upon sending him a tell he was zoning, and disconnected.

At lvl 25 again in unrest, I had a basement group which was purposely trained by a higher lvl Titanuk. I guess he was upset about us killing his twink earlier ? I have no idea why he would have trained us for no reason.

At lvl 29 in Unrest I was attacked by a epic wielding rogue, and a Woodsman staff Ranger. Given that half my armor is cloth, it was a pretty one sided fight. Although I did almost kill Mrbig. When I was running back on my CR, the ranger came out and attempted to snare me. As I zoned in to get my body both of them proceeded to attack me before I even got the chance to loot.

I decided to just log for a bit and when I returned 30 min later, /who yielded 0 people in unrest... gee I wonder why.

Despite all this I have to say my experience here has still been positive, given some of the friends I made and groups I have been a part of although they were few and far in between. My point is alot of people think that the population destroying is caused by Nihilum or end game gear farming denial. In all honestly I don't think 80% of the people that had the experience I had on this server would have stayed as long as I did. People grief rampantly on this server. All those experiences above except for being attacked by twinks normally I /reported and /petitioned, but it really didn't change anything... I have just come to accept that it's the nature of the server.

[Tippett]

Philip dude sounds like you are spending 90% of your time in the one zone on the entire server that has all the griefer twinks and trainers planted in it.

Might wanna check some other zones out imo, Unrest will give you an extremely skewed view of the server all. (Like to going a poor country in Africa and saying the whole Earth blows)

[Elderan]

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

At lvl 22 I was in Unrest, and I had my first real PVP experience against a Ogre Shaman I think his name is Powered. Apparently he is in Azrael now but at the time he jumped my group of 4 while we had a pull. We rooted him and blinded him but before he died his body poofed like one moment he was here the next he was gone. There was no gate potion message, no OOR porter message, no message at all. He just warped out of the zone. Upon sending him a tell he was zoning, and disconnected.

This is called insta poofing. This happens when people exploit ip exemptions (there are other ways I wont go into here). Basically they can make their toon poof instantly avoiding death in pvp or even in pve some people use it to pull. This tactic is ILLEGAL and a bannable offense if caught.

There are far too many known poofers on the server who have been reported over and over and never get banned.

I want to make it clear. Someone can /q out and poof as well without an ip exemption. But when this happens you will see LD above their name and it normally takes 20 seconds or so for them to poof. This isn't illegal.

[Cars]

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

Despite all this I have to say my experience here has still been positive, given some of the friends I made and groups I have been a part of although they were few and far in between. My point is alot of people think that the population destroying is caused by Nihilum or end game gear farming denial. In all honestly I don't think 80% of the people that had the experience I had on this server would have stayed as long as I did. People grief rampantly on this server. All those experiences above except for being attacked by twinks normally I /reported and /petitioned, but it really didn't change anything... I have just come to accept that it's the nature of the server.

Yeah I don't consider being PK'd being griefed, that's what happens in PvP environments and the server is exactly as I imagined it. Most PK's are not looking for a fair fight, so you have to always be on your toes which I find exciting. I actually appreciate when someone sneaks up on me and starts a vicious brawl cause it's exciting, even when I am the underdog I find the PvP fun. Corpse camping and all the high level people griefing newbies is just dumb, because those same dudes come in here and cry about low pop. My experience in general has been awesome, and I actually find EQ fun again. I have made some pals that I don't mess with, and I have made some rivalries that I just take in as good fun. If you can't eat a no honor death or two, then you shouldn't be playing on red imo.

That said, there are still some things that could be changed to make starting here easier for newbies, really all changes should be made in the name of server growth as the higher the pop, the more fun the server will be.

[Philipangoo]

I knew Unrest was a hot zone, prior to that I had spent 7-8 levels in Kunark at Lake of Ill Omen. But something about being the only person in a huge zone like LoiL in a MMO just isn't appealing.

I didn't spend all my levels at unrest, only when I found a group there via OOC global or in Guild Chat. In fact I only spent like 2-3 full levels there and I had all those experiences lol.

[JurisDictum]

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

I dont agree with the coin steal though, thats part of the learning experience. Next time, you send somebody with no coins to make sure nobodys at the bank zone and then you run in. Its what made Rallos Zek great, having to be on your toes like that. The adrenaline.

That's a pretty bizarre stance to take. On one hand, its just lame for someone to lose exp for PvP. But their entire bank getting lost is just fine.
Pretty much outlines why RZ was always a garbage server of blue guilds, half naked casters and griefers. Lol..RZ...where the highth of pvp was deleveled twinks. Bar non the worst end game PvPers BTW, once Zek combined all player bases. But I'm sure they were very good at ganking the newbie zones.
You might disagree with my tastes in all. But it does discourage the bran new players...fact.

[Faerie Blossom]

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

Listen man, your wrong. Nihilum is not the problem for NEW players, they are a problem for level 50+ chars that want to loot high-end gear or enter the raid scene.

Anyone joining this server knows that you have 3 choices that should determine your end-game expectations. You can join Nihilum and farm pixels hard on sundays with little competition, then PvP with huge advantages. You can Join Nihilum's competition which are outnumbered and outgeared knowing the only way to beat them will be to out-number them eventually well picking up a few boss kills here and there. Or you can gather the best gear you can find outside of Boss mobs and run around the world PvPing exclusively. But all of that is END game and has no place in a thread about getting more NEW people to the server.

New player's need incentives that are provided in lieu of a greater population. Where on blue you can get xp groups easy, ports easy, binds in cities the moment you get there for melee's, etc, etc. Red doesn't have these things because of the population and that is a huge detterent to new players as this is where I imagine most of the grief happens, atleast the grief that gets people off the server. Assholes know that player's can't easily speak to the community at large until lvl 10 (Global OOC activates) and you see twink PK's crushing kids that just took a 45 minute boat ride to a city, just to be merc'd before they could get a bind. High level Bards cock-blocking mobs in newbie zones or higher level monks, Sk's and Necros FD training etc etc. THAT is the shit that gets people off the server and I guarantee you that nihilum is doing very little of it.

I say all this as a Blue convert, that came to the server without any inherited currency from blue, I have levelled my own char from scratch and I have no intention of joining nihilum. I am practically your target market.

I would limit global OOC and make it activate at lvl 5.
I would add yellow text.
I would add a group experience bonus (1-2 players get the server 25%, 3 players 35%, 4 players 45%, 5 players 55%, 6 players 75%)

Then I would wait and see what happens.

100% this. The majority of my gear has come from kind Nihilum players, and their presence has done nothing but encourage me to play. What has bothered me (beyond the low population) has been low level fungi twinks like Dareal (who never managed to PK me but was a nuisance) and being FD trained by Azrael while I was trying to exp. I guess they thought I was a spy watching them buff before going after Vox, but does that give them the right to train? Why are the needs of the high levels more important than some random 20-something that might be a Nihilum spy? It doesn't bother me when people attack or kill me via PvP, but I was under the impression that training was not allowed here. There are already FFA zones that basically make good pre-50 exp zones like perma off-limits; why train the newbies medding to kill more mammoths in EF?

Anyway, I've met very kind and helpful people in both Azrael and Nihilum, and I'm sure it was an isolated incident. There's just an air of paranoia surrounding everything that happens here, and if training is considered a viable tactic at the high-end (outside of VP) then I don't think I belong here.

[Tradesonred]

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

That's a pretty bizarre stance to take. On one hand, its just lame for someone to lose exp for PvP. But their entire bank getting lost is just fine.
Pretty much outlines why RZ was always a garbage server of blue guilds, half naked casters and griefers. Lol..RZ...where the highth of pvp was deleveled twinks. Bar non the worst end game PvPers BTW, once Zek combined all player bases. But I'm sure they were very good at ganking the newbie zones.
You might disagree with my tastes in all. But it does discourage the bran new players...fact.

If youre gonna quit because you got coined, and cant learn to do a /who while you got plat on you, complain instead of thinking that next time youll be more careful, chances are youre not cut out for EQ pvp anyway. (im talking in general, not to you personally)

On the other hand, xp loss in pvp is so bad its gonna turn everyone away.

[Cars]

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

If youre gonna quit because you got coined, and cant learn to do a /who while you got plat on you, complain instead of thinking that next time youll be more careful, chances are youre not cut out for EQ pvp anyway. (im talking in general, not to you personally)

On the other hand, xp loss in pvp is so bad its gonna turn everyone away.

Yeah to an extent I agree, I mean someone getting coined at the bank isn't terrible when it's two 30+ players cause even a twink isn't going to one shot someone and that just comes with the territory, but at least escape or a quick banking is still possible. A level 12 wearing 20k+ worth of gear dropping a new lvl 8 player for his 12 plat life savings is pretty retarded.