Poll: Shards?

[Ezrick]

Originally Posted by Splorf22 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Three paragraphs is a wall of text? I weep for the Twitter generation [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But no, as I said its specifically not instancing. Instancing is I take my guild to the entrance of Sebilis, we say create-zone, and we get a new complete copy of sebilis whenever we want, i.e. infinite raid mobs. Sharding would simply be at all times there are 3 copies of sebilis, and your character can only go to one. Again, think of it has having different servers running Project 1999 for the high-end zones but only one copy of the low-end zones.

No, it doesn't work that way. To take the EQ2 instanced raid zones as an example: you would take your guild to Sebelis (it may be called for raid purposes 'Trakanon's Lair'), enter the zone and complete your raid. That raid zone then is unavailable to any player who entered for a set period of time (typically in EQ2 it was one week). The single group Sebelis zone would still be available to everyone, though without raid level mobs.

[Rhambuk]

Originally Posted by Splorf22 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The server would be fine with 1500 players . . . .

I remember when i first started running through Nfreeport and there was a level 48 mage soloing 1 city guard. All camps were full, all solo camps were taken, and every other guard in the city was being solod by another caster.

it's possible and I would love to see it, but people don't have the patience for that anymore.

[enr4ged]

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

There. Are. Nowhere. Near. Too. Many. Players. In. P99.

In fact, they could stand to gain quite a few.

Players not equal to characters... there are far too many "Characters" on this server... thanks to account trading, free accounts and way too much time elapsed thus far...

[Issues]

Every classic EQ server had a #1 guild, #2 guild and so on. Why would p99 be any different?

Everyone is searching for solutions when the only obvious solution is velious being released.

Two magic words to teh fix

More content. -----> The sole purpose of expansions.

My only concern is 2-3 years after Velious is released. Velious is the end of the line. THATs what the p99 community needs to be concerned about.

P99 will have to derail from classic to maintain player base. Like AAs year 3 after velious etc...

But thats wayyy in the future lol. Lets just get Velious out for now.

[myriverse]

Originally Posted by enr4ged [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Players not equal to characters... there are far too many "Characters" on this server... thanks to account trading, free accounts and way too much time elapsed thus far...

Sure, but the number of characters is irrelevant when only a certain number of them can be played at any given time.

[Ezrick]

Originally Posted by Splorf22 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So Noselacri made a post that I really like where he makes two good points. First, the problem with P1999 is too many damn players.

The problem has noting to do with the number of players. 99 has far fewer simultaneous players logged in (probably only a third as many) as a comparable server in the classic era.

The problem is that 99, given its limited development resources, did not follow the classic expansion timetable. Therefore the number of high level players, those who wish to raid, has been allowed to far outstrip the resources available to those players. Where on live raiding content was expressed as being for the "top 1%" of players, here we have the top 10% trying to shoehorn into the same content.

Though I don't suppose we could ever get proper figures, my guess is that there are probably eight to twelve times as many level 60 characters here as there were on live pre-Velious. There are way too many even to support when Velious is actually released. It can't be fixed short of waiting for Velious to be done, then launching a new classic server and then following the timeline of the expansions as they were on live. (Yes I know, even that wouldn't work entirely, people know a hell of a lot more about the game than they did on release). Limited resources, again, insure this can't happen.

On live, when Velious was released there were three guilds who could do the highest level content on my server and one of those was marginal. Sure we had conflicts, but there was enough content to resolve them. Here you have multiple high level guilds with all the players they need and nothing to do with them. The high level game transforms itself from PvE to PvP (or Guild v Guild if you prefer) and those players with the killer mindset are the ones who "win".

If you understand this and don't mind the cost to reputation that comes with the win-at-all-cost attitude you join one of those guilds. If you don't you simply stand around point your finger and say 'its not fair'. It's not fair in the sense that its not the PvE experience that you expected, but nothing can be done about it. This is exactly why many games after EQ embraced the concept of the instanced dungeon which is essentially what you are proposing.

Ezrick

[t0lkien]

If you want shards in any way shape or form, go to any of the hundreds of other cookie cutter MMOs available. Leave this one alone.

[fullmetalcoxman]

Originally Posted by t0lkien [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you want shards in any way shape or form, go to any of the hundreds of other cookie cutter MMOs available. Leave this one alone.

So you think it's fine the way it is?

[khanable]

not classic, no vote

[Noselacri]

The basic idea is to split the server into multiple servers and allow /movelog, but only the high-end zones. Each guild can only exist on one shard. If you are in a global zone (all the low/mid level zones like Qeynos or East Commonlands or Mistmoore) you could find players of all guilds leveling up together and wearing and trading gear obtained in any of the various shards. However, whenever you zone into one of the sharded zones (zones like Sebilis or Sky) the server checks your shard flag and moves you to the appropriate copy, exactly as if you were playing on a separate server.

That's not actually quite what I had in mind. A guild wouldn't simply get its own instance of all of Sebilis, it would get a shard (a separate server, basically) containing only the actual raid targets as well as their associated trash mobs if relevant. This is important as guilds would otherwise just stay on their shard to farm fungi tunics and Velious quest armor. So P99 would have one communal Sebilis server, but Trakanon doesn't spawn in it; instead, each raid guild can move at will to their own designated shard where Trakanon spawns on his classic spawn cycle. Not every raid mob in the entire game would need to be moved to shards, just the ones that really matter and cause conflict. Shit like Phinny and Doljomoljowhatever could remain in the communal zones.

This is really going to be the only way to have a raid scene on P99 that doesn't utterly fuck over 90% of the playerbase. Proposed solutions tend to get nowhere because the most vocal people on the forum are largely the ones who aren't affected by the current situation, being in the crowd that gets to raid. This is why a poll is pointless. It's like asking a bunch of corporate executives if the minimum wage should be raised -- you'll get a reponse that sounds like it's the worst idea ever conceived. The fact remains that the raid situation is the biggest elephant in the room of the server's entire history, the most constant and prevalent problem, and actually one of the things that deviate the most from how Everquest was back in the day.

Ignoring the server's biggest problem will just cause it to continue to comprise about 30% of the discussions taking place on the forum, and to make players quit in frustration. Like I said in the other thread, it's the reason this server has less than a thousand players at peak despite being the best emulated server ever made and the only serious option for classic Everquest. Unfortunately, the developers don't seem to want the problem to get solved.