An idea to address long term retention

[One Tin Soldier]

In the interests of full disclosure I should admit that I'm one of those people who will never see any raid content on this server. So, yes, my suggestion was motivated purely by my own selfish desire to have something more to do. At this point with my main I'm basically done with the server and leveling alts is too boring when there aren't enough other people around at my level.

I quit playing last spring or early summer. I came back for the red server but that was a bust as far as I'm concerned (low population=no fun). So now what? My main is 53 but I explained in another thread why I lose interest as I approach max level. It seems pointless to grind out those last levels just so I can retire him at 60. I've logged in with a level 20ish alt a few times lately but the low level game is too dead and soloing is too boring.

I'll admit even I have some doubts about my suggestion but I was just trying to come up with something. As it stands right now I have no desire to log in and play and I'm basically just waiting for Velious so I can revisit some of those zones. If we could get a whole wave of people all going up through the levels again I could ride that wave and have fun again for a while.

[Flunklesnarkin]

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

In the interests of full disclosure I should admit that I'm one of those people who will never see any raid content on this server. So, yes, my suggestion was motivated purely by my own selfish desire to have something more to do. At this point with my main I'm basically done with the server and leveling alts is too boring when there aren't enough other people around at my level.

I quit playing last spring or early summer. I came back for the red server but that was a bust as far as I'm concerned (low population=no fun). So now what? My main is 53 but I explained in another thread why I lose interest as I approach max level. It seems pointless to grind out those last levels just so I can retire him at 60. I've logged in with a level 20ish alt a few times lately but the low level game is too dead and soloing is too boring.

I'll admit even I have some doubts about my suggestion but I was just trying to come up with something. As it stands right now I have no desire to log in and play and I'm basically just waiting for Velious so I can revisit some of those zones. If we could get a whole wave of people all going up through the levels again I could ride that wave and have fun again for a while.

It sounds more like there are things to do in p99 but you have no interest in accomplishing.

Maybe you could try another game for a while then come back if you get the feeling for p99 again.


Could also play more than one game at a time.. nothing says you gotta be exclusive to p99... (i don't see a ring on that finger ;p)

[cmdrrickhunter]

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

At this point with my main I'm basically done with the server and leveling alts is too boring when there aren't enough other people around at my level.

I'm going to suggest something very "off the wall," so take it or leave it: try Roleplaying.

EQ, like every MMO I've seen (other than EVE) is patterned after single player games where you play a bit, get more powerful, reach an ending, then put the game down. Only they don't want you to put the game down, so they add something like raiding which slows down the "get more powerful" phase asymptotically so that you never "reach an ending."

WoW (might as well discuss everything, even the "hated enemy") tried to solve this once with dailies. Their solution there was "make the game so much fun to play that you don't mind sitting still with no progression. It almost worked... got darn close.

The only solution I have seen is to build your own game within the game, and that's what RPing accomplishes. Make your character into something more than two dozen numbers and 75ish polygons. Use your imagination to go beyond the game, and then you're only limited by your own imagination, not the game mechanics.

When I RPed on live, I knew a cookie vendor who would do nothing but wander around the EC auction area, selling cookies. For fun, he even invented his own quest (complete with text in [brackets]) to get people to interact with him more. I, myself, was a shapeshifter for a few months. Its terribly amusing playing an enchanter who wants to melee in illusionary forms.

Of course, RP requires a culture who is willing to play along and make things interesting... one RPer often gets laughed at, but in my opinion its the highest form of play EQ allows. It harkens back to the original purpose of DnD. And it needs not a second of time from our illustrious developers, leaving them all the time they need to keep the poor raiders on the treadmill.

[Fazlazen]

For a guise, maybe i'd be willing to lvl to 60 again.... Hmmm I dunno

[Grozmok]

Raiding is what killed the game in the first place.

Let's not repeat history, shall we?

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Flunklesnarkin]

Wasn't trying to beat you up man... its just what i do when i get frustrated or bored of a game... I try another until I get the itch to go back.

[Mardur]

EZ Server has remorting and it's terrible because you have to grind 1-75 or whatever the max is there 100 times to do raid content.

[Ryba]

When the original p99 runs out of expansion material, double-down on the server and allow people at level cap on old p99 to trade in their character for a modestly geared level 30 of any class on a new p99 running vanilla EQ. Then just follow the same progression timeline as before.

It fragments the population, but so does doing nothing. I would say release Luclin if it was possible to leave out the cats.

[bluejam]

Velious: massive content, will keep people busy for a loooooong time, raiders and non-raiders alike. All those tiny and big quests, events, raids, fun zones to explore (ToFS <3). The old raid targets (classic + kunark) minus a few high profile encounters will be left alone by the top guilds, so lower guilds can explore new playing fields. Hell, Vox had been up for more than 3h today before she was killed.

Future of the server: it has been discussed at length already. Too lazy to look up the correct thread, but there are a few. I believe the best way would be integrating a customized version of Luclin and PoP. No fucking cats on the moon, no updated models, no bazaar, no PoK books, no guild hall (maybe). I did like the concept of AAs though. A modified version, a limit that makes you have to choose between additional skills would be a decent way to balance it, e.g. as a druid I could train my class-AA healing abilities OR make my dots more efficient.
Sadly many of the new zones don't fit in with the classic feeling from the graphics perspective, but I doubt there're ppl willing to fashion complete new ones (if that's even possible).

There are a lot of possibilites. It all depends on what the dev situation will look like in the next couple of years. I estimate we will see Velious earliest mid 2013 - though I've heard that quite a bit of work has already been done and there's not so much pre-revamp information to gather / fix.

Afaik the dev team wants to experience classic EQ from a player's stand point some time -hence the server duh- whether this means that they will drop all development once they're happy with Velious (patches etc.) and roll a new server to enjoy their sandbox by actually playing or they will play and think about adding new content on the side isn't clear yet, although Nilbog has already mentioned that he'd rather implement custom content than cats on the moon. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Grozmok]

I think an intelligent move would be to wait until the majority of your playerbase is close to max level, THEN release your additional content.

Releasing it early will screw lower level players that need/want to group in some of the older zones since everyone is going to bail to check out Velious. It also screws the value of older items for the haves, but it makes things cheaper for the have-nots.

Just my 2cp.