Red99 Stimulus Plan (some constructive feedback)

[veto]

There are other websites that host the game..
http://www.warez-bb.org/viewtopic.ph...020&highlight=

that website has tons of links for it.. as for the patching then thats tough shit, you have to do that for any private server

i do agree with you though, but i guess the average person doesnt know how to find things on their own without being handed to them (where to get game)

[hotstud]

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

There are other websites that host the game..
http://www.warez-bb.org/viewtopic.ph...020&highlight=

that website has tons of links for it.. as for the patching then thats tough shit, you have to do that for any private server

i do agree with you though, but i guess the average person doesnt know how to find things on their own without being handed to them (where to get game)

It's not that people couldn't find it if they tried. It's that it's really not worth it to someone who is just looking for a free game to play and there isn't any advertising being done anyway.

Just looking at the search volume for "free mmorpg", it gets 3,000 searches per day. The search results for that term are almost entirely portal sites dedicated to reviewing, discussing, etc free MMORPGs.

Below is the general forum for the first result for "free MMORPG"

http://www.onrpg.com/boards/free-mmo-mmorpg/

The last post mentioning "project 1999" was 2 months ago and is in a thread about "good PvP" which was started before R99 even launched. No promotion was done there at launch, etc.

If you gathered up the top 100 free MMORPG portals, got project 1999 listed so it showed up on their directories, made posts about it on the forums, etc... THAT is how you increase server population. You could also be paying for advertising on AdWords, free MMORPG site banners, etc. THAT is how you increase server population.

You take traffic from sites like that and send it to a page that says, "The game that started it all is back. Relive classic EQ. Click here to start" and when you click it fucking downloads and all you have to do is click "play" and the game starts up, you register an account, and start playing.

Following this guide I guarantee you the servers would be overflowing within a couple months and new servers would need to be started and SOE would shut the whole thing down.

Seriously though, people need to stop beating the "add item drops! increase exp rate!" dead horse. That isn't going to do a fucking thing.

[hotstud]

I don't think anyone expects there to be an EC-like zone on a red server.

Why not? RZ, VZ, TZ all had auction zones that were well populated. It's only not expected because the population is so low it's not even worth auctioning your stuff to the 5 people who might show up. Might as well just go get whatever you want yourself.

Also, show me 20,000 people complaining about exp being too slow and you'll have a valid point. Like I said, 3,000 people a DAY search for "free MMORPG" and that doesn't even include terms like "free mmo, best free mmorpg" etc. There is likely somewhere around 50,000 people every single day looking for a free MMORPG to play and you're telling me the solution is increasing population is changing the exp rate, not making the server more accessible and advertising more?

It would be incredibly easy to get this server up to an average of 1,000 players on at a time if proper promotion was being done. This project has zero, zip, nada, none or at least it sure as hell seems that way.

The most effective way to increase population would be to start a community based promotion donation pool for paying for advertising, building a custom client that makes playing easily, and writing guides about "how to advertise project 1999" for volunteers that covers popular places to go discuss and promote project 1999 that anyone could do with 5 minutes of time.

Imagine if instead of everyone crying here about low population people were posting to those free MMORPG sites promoting the server and doing it in an organized manner where a thread is created and then a dozen people respond to it saying, "FUCK YEAH BROS! P99 IS WHERE IT IS AT! OMG!"

I would do it but I'm too lazy. Someone should get on this though.

[SearyxTZ]

I don't think anyone expects there to be an EC-like zone on a red server. This is why I was supportive of having a global /auction channel, though.

people who play all the time will leave because casuals will be clogging up all their camps and raid mobs

Uh... or they'll just kill them? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I mean that's why red servers are fun, after all. You get to kill people "clogging up" your camps.



From TZT:

I'd play if the exp level was faster, but no way I'm spending an evening grinding out large spiders to go from level 10 to level 11.

yeah exp rate is wayyyy too slow.

this is pretty key given how fucking unbearable exp was prior to the bonus

got to 4 and 3 quarters tonight, this is just way too much time though, don't think I can do it

I wouldn't expect any kind of immediate spike in population because of an increased early level exp curve especially with Christmas coming up this week, but there's no doubt in my mind that it would be beneficial for the long-term health of the server.

[gloinz]

20% EXP BONUS ALA SULLON ZEK

[Slave]

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

You get to kill people "clogging up" your camps.

Unless they are out of pvp range for you... which is just all too likely here, because INEXPLICABLY THERE IS A LEVEL RANGE FOR PVP, allowing all sorts of faggotry like out-of-range healers.

Remove the PvP level range and Play Nice, add teams, add item loot, remove No Drop tag.

I would go apeshit to play on a server like that, and damn the exp.

[Snukie]

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

Unless they are out of pvp range for you... which is just all too likely here, because INEXPLICABLY THERE IS A LEVEL RANGE FOR PVP, allowing all sorts of faggotry like out-of-range healers.

Remove the PvP level range and Play Nice, add teams, add item loot, remove No Drop tag.

I would go apeshit to play on a server like that, and damn the exp.

Obviously you have never seen a book on gamedesign. I dont mean to attack you personally but i can tell you if you do that you will have a huge drop. First of all play nice policy? Who will enforce it? The one GM ? She has already enough to do with all the other crap thats going on. How long do you want her to be online? What about us Euros? Shall we wait till late at night to log on so we can petition if someone is breaking the rules? How about we use recordings everytime we play so we can "prove" if things go wrong when a GM aint online.
I dont mean to disrespect you its just a friendly discussion.


@Hotstud All these "free" mmos are buisnesses and will suck out your money faster than any subscription based mmos. EQ Red is a hobby and will not attract anyone who hasnt any kind of relation to the game.

I personally would exchange some expierence with similar games on PvP basis that are emulators of old mmos. There are UO Freeshards for over a decade with hundreds of players based on Felucca PvP Setting ( Blank loot victims, stat lost etc) or the DAOC emulators. One in particular named "Uthgard " where i played on has arround 1000- 1500 players. I remember they had a very rough start too and as far as i can tell they did they following:

Staff got harder. If you break the rules or used "exploits" they would roll back the characters. If the people complained on the forums and bitched about it they were bannded. At first the server population dropped but word got arround and people started playing. What players need is a straight and firm line of rules, not many but which get dealed with.

They filtert the wayne from constructive feedback, which is done here im sure. They have a clear and easy access to patch information with all changes.

Moderated the forums. After all this is where people look first. They didnt banned players but they certainly wipef the forums clean from all the BS that was posted under false sections and warned people to keep it that way.


They were very strict at beginning but people adapted to it and new players came and knew only these rules and nothing else.
Well the server poped from maybe 100 active up to 1000 it was so successfull that even non-german speaking people started to play so they even opend a international sections in the forum also moderated by english speaking people which added another 400- 500 acive players.

Last but not least they have very strict rules for their staff interacting with players. I know lots of you have friendly ties with the staff here which is ok but naturally you let some people easier from the hook if you have known them for years rather someone who is totally unknown to you. Still if a server would work, staff has to be hard and fair.



I dont say the same could work with red99 but it worked for them. They have a very healthy Server even running in game events maybe some of the general ideas would work here too.


Here the link:
http://uthgard.net/en/rules

I must admit thought the rules are very "german".

[Slave]

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

Obviously you have never seen a book on gamedesign. I dont mean to attack you personally but i can tell you if you do that you will have a huge drop. First of all play nice policy? Who will enforce it? The one GM ? She has already enough to do with all the other crap thats going on. How long do you want her to be online? What about us Euros? Shall we wait till late at night to log on so we can petition if someone is breaking the rules? How about we use recordings everytime we play so we can "prove" if things go wrong when a GM aint online.
I dont mean to disrespect you its just a friendly discussion.

Wall of text because of me saying to remove the Play Nice policy, eh? You do realize that Play Nice policy IS in place on Red 99? You DO know what the Play Nice policy IS, right? Aha, I see you didn't. Well done sir, well done.

Thanks for agreeing with me though.

[Zalaerian]

Why not? RZ, VZ, TZ all had auction zones that were well populated. It's only not expected because the population is so low it's not even worth auctioning your stuff to the 5 people who might show up. Might as well just go get whatever you want yourself.

Let me help u out pal. http://www.project1999.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=59
Theres EC tunnel

[SearyxTZ]

I didn't make this thread to explore what "my specific idea of EQ PvP" is. If that were the case, we'd be playing on a permadeath server with full item loot.

That isn't the point of the thread. We want to get more people playing here. That's the goal.

I think there is a general consensus at this point that we can increase the 1-20'ish exp rate (in some way) and get a lot more casuals playing here, without really hurting the overall "classic" experience that is a lengthy 1-to-50 grind. If you have a valid argument for why levels 1 through 10 should take upwards of fifteen hours to get through, then let's hear it.