Email to 3000+ ex VZTZ players

[Avon Barksdale]

Originally Posted by Tr0llb0rn [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

so true

solo ranger gets to 40+ np

vile and others get gear and PL and do not break 21 and /cry


xp not the problem, player motivation and a lack of appreciation for true classsic red EQ is

I wouldn't call it "np." I grinded my ass off and my job didn't have a whole lot going on in winter months (whereas I put in 27 hours this week already by last night and I'll be on overtime Thursday-Saturday).

That being said, the biggest problem as I saw it was how GMs handled drama. The fact that this was (I hesitate to say "is a server") a PvP server should have made it so much more enjoyable for them to moderate than blue. Don't want to deal with players crying and shit? Ignore it and they'll learn to shut the fuck up. PvP makes everything essentially fair, other than class balance/lack thereof. One person trains? So can another. In a raid situation you can spam pumice/CC that fucker before he drops a train on your raid and just get him killed. As a GM, if you don't want to read a bunch of crying and pore through fraps and SSs and whatever, then just don't police training. People will learn to adjust and deal with it. What they did instead was throw themselves into situations they were adamant about not wanting to deal with, how the fuck does that make any sense? They're "volunteers" right? They said it so many times. They must be "volunteering" because of some sense of satisfaction they thought they would get out of it. Amelinda, for example, I'm pretty sure was in it to help people with rezzes after server crashes (a noble cause), put on GM events (which also would have been fun for BOTH players and GMs), and just generally interact with the player base, show up and toss illusions on people or whatever. Instead she got sucked into the drama. Fucking stupid. Ignore drama, do the things you "volunteered" to do. And because GMs were so pissed about dealing with drama, and players were so pissed about how GMs dealt with drama, there was a distrust between the two parties which resulted in features requested by the player base to be largely ignored/written off. The only thing they ever did afaik is increase xp, which didn't help anything. If more than 50% of your population wants yellow text, yes/no on xp loss, leaderboard, whatever, give it to them. It won't be the "perfect" server in all likelihood for any one person, but if you can keep the majority of the people happy with your features, then everyone will stay because they have things they want and a healthy population of other players who have things they want with whom they can play. I remember Lazortag making some retarded analogy about "If I'm selling lemonade, don't tell me to sell Iced Tea" or whatever. And being the brown-nosing nerd that he is, the GMs ate that shit up and loved it. So let me explain why that shit was retarded. Nobody was selling anything, it was being essentially given away with tips accepted. Why would someone give something away? The only way I could rationalize that is out of a desire to make people happy. So then if a large percentage of the people enjoying your free lemonade brought up that they would further enjoy a little more sugar, how is "FUCK YOU" a reasonable response? Not to mention if P99 red actually were a lemonade "business," congratulations, you're broke now cuz you ran that shit into the ground.

TL;DR: GMs made the server a bad experience for themselves by complaining about having to deal with drama, yet dealing with it anyway instead of letting PvP handle that. Because the server was a bad experience for GMs, they made it a bad experience for players and it died.

[heartbrand]

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

I wouldn't call it "np." I grinded my ass off and my job didn't have a whole lot going on in winter months (whereas I put in 27 hours this week already by last night and I'll be on overtime Thursday-Saturday).

That being said, the biggest problem as I saw it was how GMs handled drama. The fact that this was (I hesitate to say "is a server") a PvP server should have made it so much more enjoyable for them to moderate than blue. Don't want to deal with players crying and shit? Ignore it and they'll learn to shut the fuck up. PvP makes everything essentially fair, other than class balance/lack thereof. One person trains? So can another. In a raid situation you can spam pumice/CC that fucker before he drops a train on your raid and just get him killed. As a GM, if you don't want to read a bunch of crying and pore through fraps and SSs and whatever, then just don't police training. People will learn to adjust and deal with it. What they did instead was throw themselves into situations they were adamant about not wanting to deal with, how the fuck does that make any sense? They're "volunteers" right? They said it so many times. They must be "volunteering" because of some sense of satisfaction they thought they would get out of it. Amelinda, for example, I'm pretty sure was in it to help people with rezzes after server crashes (a noble cause), put on GM events (which also would have been fun for BOTH players and GMs), and just generally interact with the player base, show up and toss illusions on people or whatever. Instead she got sucked into the drama. Fucking stupid. Ignore drama, do the things you "volunteered" to do. And because GMs were so pissed about dealing with drama, and players were so pissed about how GMs dealt with drama, there was a distrust between the two parties which resulted in features requested by the player base to be largely ignored/written off. The only thing they ever did afaik is increase xp, which didn't help anything. If more than 50% of your population wants yellow text, yes/no on xp loss, leaderboard, whatever, give it to them. It won't be the "perfect" server in all likelihood for any one person, but if you can keep the majority of the people happy with your features, then everyone will stay because they have things they want and a healthy population of other players who have things they want with whom they can play. I remember Lazortag making some retarded analogy about "If I'm selling lemonade, don't tell me to sell Iced Tea" or whatever. And being the brown-nosing nerd that he is, the GMs ate that shit up and loved it. So let me explain why that shit was retarded. Nobody was selling anything, it was being essentially given away with tips accepted. Why would someone give something away? The only way I could rationalize that is out of a desire to make people happy. So then if a large percentage of the people enjoying your free lemonade brought up that they would further enjoy a little more sugar, how is "FUCK YOU" a reasonable response? Not to mention if P99 red actually were a lemonade "business," congratulations, you're broke now cuz you ran that shit into the ground.

TL;DR: GMs made the server a bad experience for themselves by complaining about having to deal with drama, yet dealing with it anyway instead of letting PvP handle that. Because the server was a bad experience for GMs, they made it a bad experience for players and it died.

Great post. Loved the part about the lemonade stand.

[Avon Barksdale]

Three months of being away from my beloved forums packed into one post. But seriously, if we could start the same server over with a different mentality on how to run it, I'd be out buying an actual computer tonight, probably ready to pimp another badass Human Ranger.

[Harr1son]

Originally Posted by fiegi 2.0 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

another harrison account

the kids got determination you gotta give him that

But what he is trying to say is still yet to manifest itself. All I hear is QQQQQQQ and Cry cry cry.

Sads whiny waaaa. Really needs tissue. Cryin, crying ocean of tears. 'Nilbog and Brogean are mine frends, look I talk to em all teh tyme in IRC, look hat wat i'm tellin you. i'm seriously really telling you but you just can't get it. I cry, then you cry, crying about cries. But look. I'm really telling you something because i'm online with the bosses and I can spam spam cry because wow, I'm freelin that really online specialty."

[Avon Barksdale]

Lol @ "Location: The Wire." HB pimpin' them Westside projekts!

[Harr1son]

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

I wouldn't call it "np." I grinded my ass off and my job didn't have a whole lot going on in winter months (whereas I put in 27 hours this week already by last night and I'll be on overtime Thursday-Saturday).

That being said, the biggest problem .......

I read that. Just had to break it down into 8 pieces and come back and nibble here and there but yea.

ok now so it's summertime 2012 end of the world. End of teh box. Strange urgency and discontent with pretty much god damn mother fucking everything, has spoiled the dinner. ya'll actin like there has to be some profound 'change' before people can play EQ. some ppl waiting for kunark, some for population 200, some for rogean to send them a personal message saying I will get to looking at your

FUCKING CRYING AND PERSONALIZE THE SERVER FOR YOU

instead of just getting online and playing. the box is fine. the trolling is just way out of hand. if people weren't so fucking god damn distracted with forum drama, and wanting shit burger kings sized, ya'll grungy mother fuckers get to play a HQ free server and now you want some dessert before you finish your dinner, because you feel entitled by your eons of everquest grindage.

josh you need to shut the fuck up. VZTZ was the shit, and your ass couldn't hang in any competitive environment besides winning the most insanely idiotic shit ever said in everquest history

Holobads you need to stop thinking you're gonna just walk up and dominate a Box, because you have a lot of PVP experience. The game is still easy and a bunch of bluebies can still win it because thats what the game was initially coded over, who can sit together and steam up ventrilo while u buff and get ready for raid mob.

They want loot. they got it. you want PVP, and loot, and a revolutionary custom fleshlight everquest box fine tuned for your ultimate glory. its 13 year old game. stfu and play. ya'll some noobs.

[Harrison1]

Lol look how mad this faggot got over me insulting that laughably bad shitbox

[bilbobaggins]

dojii you should check out toz it plays a lot like vztz did.

it's fun.

/shrug

[bilbobaggins]

i mean't LoZ not toz.. can't edit post for some reason

[bilbobaggins]

i also should not have an apostrophe in the word meant.

+1