Sirken Live! Ventrilo Interview on stream 6:30 EST

[sanforce]

I thought it was a great interview and explained the GM's lack of intervention in the current raid scene.

It is for the server to decide how we want to handle raid mobs, not the GMs. The current mechanics are in place to allow others to compete, if they so want. The fact that the more hardcore guilds don't want to band together and compete with TMO is nobodies fault but their own. FE's recent attempt was a good one, but they have seemed to fall apart recently.

FTE shouts will be a good thing to let everyone know who is currently engaged, so guilds aren't assisting other guilds without knowing until 10 minutes after the mob is dead.

Simulated server restarts will open up raid mobs because the top few guilds can't be everywhere at once. If they fail to position themselves prior to a simulated patch, or fail to down a mob, it is their own fault.

[Karafa]

Staff works hard here, and I appreciate Sirken going out of his way to do the interview. A+A+

[Handull]

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

Rolling out Velious anything but the whole is a huge slap in the face to everyone that has been waiting and will only further compound the overcrowding of high end zones.

Holding back ToV, Plane of Growth and Plane of Mischief denies 4 of the 5 alternatives for class armor upgrades piling everyone into Kael for Thurgadin based armor.

i completely agree. if they release velious bit by bit, then one guild can continue to dominate that specific content and move on to the next zone when it is added.

i also think we could do away with variance all together when velious starts and see how it goes. Might have to bring it back after a while, but I really don't think it will be needed at least for a bunch of old world content. Mobs that have niche drops might still need variance, but most stuff classic-kunark won't

[Stinkum]

i remember when everyone was saying the exact same thing about kunark supposedly being the penicillin cure for raid overcrowding

it didnt end up being true then and it wont be true for velious

stagger that shit

[Alarti0001]

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

i remember when everyone was saying the exact same thing about kunark supposedly being the penicillin cure for raid overcrowding

it didnt end up being true then and it wont be true for velious

stagger that shit

Kunark offered 5ish new targets without VP. Who said it would be the solution for overcrowding cause they are an idiot. Velious offers 55+ new targets.

[xarzzardorn]

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

Whats worse? Tiggles voice or the having to listen to him suck up to Sirken for an hour?

Real talk.

Honest questions would be helpful to the server... just saying.

realtalk you're a dumbass

[Estu]

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

Whats worse? Tiggles voice or the having to listen to him suck up to Sirken for an hour?

Real talk.

Honest questions would be helpful to the server... just saying.

Tiggles asked the questions that people told him to ask by sending him tells or posting in the stream's chat room. If you want "honest questions" then ask them yourself.

[Noselacri]

Having listened to the interview, I find it disconcerting that even a veteran GM can be completely oblivious to the cause and solution of the endgame congestion issue. Sirken is clearly of the opinion that it's the players' problem and that they should find the solution, but he fails to realize that the problem is not created by the players, it's created by two factors:

1) Emulated servers have a vastly higher proportion of endgame-qualified/seeking players, i.e. players who are able and willing to raid the high-end content. Back when EQ Live was relevant, these players were a tiny minority, so few that it didn't really cause this problem at the time.

2) There were twenty-something servers to choose from, and if one server was overcrowded, you always had the option of moving to a different one. There was enough content for everyone if you looked beyond the server borders.

P99 has been the exact opposite in both regards. There's only one server's worth of content for an amount of high-level players that could fill three or four classic servers' worth of raid guilds. It's ridiculous to call this an issue that players must solve amongst themselves. Sure, GMs didn't swoop down to tell people how to play the game back then, but that's because there was no need for it. People got along because if they didn't, they had alternatives. If there just wasn't enough raid content for another guild, those players could move to a different server. If the servers were getting too crowded, SOE would open a few new ones.

The total lack of regard for this is the reason I no longer play, and is the most frequently cited reason for people quitting the server. It's the reason P99 has always struggled to break 1k players despite being literally the only serious option for classic Everquest. It has been a source of constant complaints, of disputes so severe that generations of GMs have quit over it, and of so much bad blood between players, from the very infancy of the server; and the problem ultimately stems not from the playerbase's inability to cooperate but from the staff's ignorance of the reason for this problem and unwillingness to acknowledge that it's caused by something other than players being idiots.

It's holding P99 back, keeping it from becoming something truly great, and it has robbed so many players of the full experience that they could have had at no consequence to the server and at no additional cost to the owners. The quality of the server itself is amazing, it's a near-perfect replica of classic Everquest, but the way it has been handled made me lose hope in the possibility of improvement because the administration simply won't accept that the problem cannot be solved by the playersbase. What are players even supposed to do about the fact that there simply isn't enough content for them? They can at best take over as the new top raid guild and thus push the issue onto somebody else's plate, but they'll only have shifted the problem around and saddled somebody else with it. Players cannot solve an issue that cannot be solved by any action on their part. They can't create additional content, and it would be unreasonable to expect guilds to refrain from raiding out of courtesy to others.

As long as this ignorance and misconception remains the staff's stance, nothing will improve. It's such a shame and a waste because hundreds, possibly thousands of players have tried P99, found the quality to be fantastic, and still quit after realizing that they wouldn't be able to do what they wanted because there simply isn't room. It's even partially responsible for some of the other issues, because the server would not have become so economy-centric and thus RMT-plagued as it is if not for the fact that buying high-level tradeables was the only way for many players to progress after a certain point, due to the fact that raiding is unavaiable to most. It's the elephant in the room, the #1 problem, the defining conundrum of P99, and yet the developers have always refused to acknowledge it.

Do the right thing, if not now then at least by the time Velious comes out. Find a solution to this fundamental problem instead of blaming the players for something that is neither their fault nor in their power to resolve. I recommend creating shards that contain only the high-end raid content, and then giving each raid guild free access to transfer to and from their own designated shard at will. It wouldn't dilute or compromise the main server because there would be no reason to stay on these shards after a raid session if there is no other content. It would adequately simulate the existence of many servers without ruining the population of the one. It should be easy to implement restrictions that prevent abuse from guild-hopping and double-dipping and so on. If you don't do something like this, P99 will remain the server that has amazing content and quality but is forever held back by a fundamentally broken premise.

[kickinit]

Appreciate what Tiggles is doing here and thanks for Sirken for giving his time.

I also was watching Sirken Twitch last night (mostly while in sky/hate). It was pretty interesting just watching him float around and change over to different characters. Was pretty cool to see what goes on behind the scenes.

[sanforce]

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

Sirken is clearly of the opinion that it's the players' problem and that they should find the solution

Yes, clearly, and we all knew that was the staffs stance before this interview.

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

The total lack of regard for this is the reason I no longer play

So you couldn't handle the server "rules" and left because of it. Also, you no longer play here so your opinion doesn't matter much.

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

I recommend creating shards that contain only the high-end raid content, and then giving each raid guild free access to transfer to and from their own designated shard at will.

Not classic, play WoW or create your own emulated server with your own set of rules. The content on this server is great immitation of the classic game and the creators/staff have decided to take a "players set the raid scene" stance.

The raid scene didn't have to turn out like this, but this is the direction that players have decided to take it. The server is top heavy, and mechanics have been implemented to give everyone a fair shot. Yesterday, for example, FE got FTE on Sev, pulled the dragon across the zone, and then wiped due to insufficient numbers. If the FE officers had done a better job at managing their up and coming guild, they would have probably had enough members present to down the target. If BDA/Taken/Divinity had some sort of raid alliance setup, competed for FTE (completely fair system), and had some sort of mobilization strategy, they too could have competed for the target. As it stands, FE failed to down the mob, TMO was ready, and got the kill (damn you TMO!). [edit - I got to watch this encounter due to Sirken's stream, thanks Sirken!)

I fail to realize how your casual play style is a good excuse to be given raid targets without competition, when there are other people who are willing to compete.