[Poll by Post] Red99: A short questionnaire for our Blue community members

[arsenalpow]

If you played on Red 1999 in the past, why did you quit?
N/A

What did you like about the server?
I like that it's at least an attempt at everquest PVP. I probably have more EQ pvp experience than most people. Started on VZ the first week it opened and SZ day 1 until PoP. The ruleset and playerbase will never live up to my previous experience.

Would you want to play again?
Nope.

If not, why?
PvP is all about PvE unfortunately. No amount of skill can overcome 2 years worth of VP farming. How do you slay that which has no life?

If you have never played on Red 99, what has kept you away?
The playerbase on Red is mostly VZTZ degenerates and it's easily the worst accumulation of trolls and no lifers I've ever seen. You can't PvP without being called a faggot 7 times and being spam clicked by 17 different instagib items. Sullon/Vallon were fun attempting to be a shark in a sea full of fish. When it's a sea full of sharks it gets pretty bleak.

[Byrjun]

If you played on Red 1999 in the past, why did you quit? What did you like about the server? Would you want to play again? If not, why?

I played on Red 1999 when it launched. Probably the worst online community I had ever encountered. Then it got to the point that Nihilum was the only guild on the server and it felt pretty pointless to play a pvp server at that point so I quit. Blue had more competition than Red.

That was back when people actually played on the server. Now with an average population of 80 there's no way I'm going back.

Wipe it clean, try to do teams or something and hope the community that decides to roll there isn't so awful again.

[phacemeltar]

ive only known about project1999 for almost a year now. when i first started, i wanted to join the server with the highest population to increase my chances of finding a group. i like how friendly people are on blue, and also how there is usually high chances to find a group at any level camp.

i have recently made a toon on red that i plan to solo with when the pop on blue is excessive. i like the concept of pvp combat, but i am not really a huge fan of how it currently works. FFA to me seems a little extreme, and i could think of many situations when this could make for a bad experience. i have mentioned this on forums a few times, but if there was an option to play on a race-based teams server (more than 2 teams, each race is its own team, racial ooc, common skill unlearned at start for non-humans) then i would be there 100%. the only thing that really keeps me from playing red is that everyone is a potential enemy, making it really hard to bring myself to look for groups to level with.

[Grimfan]

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

Totally with chewie on that. Chances are when you see another level 5-6 character XP'ing they'll be as naked as you....maybe they'll have a cracked staff though [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You won't win every fight, but you won't win any fights if you sit in the EC tunnel watching auction spam and sow requests go up the screen.

I feel like this is an okay example of why I'm not that interested in the PVP server in general. Every time I hear about it I think I might try it out, then someone says they are not that interested, and all you hear are subtle digs at the person, and how awful they are because they prefer a more PVE focused environment. I love EverQuest PVP, but part of the love of it comes from having a really great community and I'm just not seeing it when I read the forum posts.

Sorry if I offend you btw Swish, you're just a primary example of someone that posts digs at people for enjoying blue. I get that you (and many others) find the blue lifestyle to be boring, but telling people how they are wasting their time playing it is just crappy and it doesn't make me want to play your server any more, and if I were you, I'd keep this thread to just a poll and stop defending/promoting the server and just let people say what they dislike about Red and why they do not want to play there.

Edit: Oh yes, and I am really looking forward to teams, that is my favorite PVP ruleset.

[pasi]

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

As part of our ongoing promotion of Red 99, I would like to pose this question to our blue community members:

If you played on Red 1999 in the past, why did you quit? What did you like about the server? Would you want to play again? If not, why? If you have never played on Red 99, what has kept you away? (If the answer to the last question is simply "Not interested in PvP" you do not need to post, but thank you for reading!)

I believe this question may have been asked before by one of your Red community members, but I wanted to get something official. You'll notice this is not a poll, so please place your comments in a post below. Please provide as much detail as possible.

I humbly request that you do not include suggestions on how to "fix" or "improve" the server, but instead simply answer the questions provided above. If you have suggestions for the server, I am always happy to receive them in my PM box!

I'll bite. Wall of Text inc.


It became clear early on in Red99's development that the direction that the server was going in a direction that I didn't agree with.

1) For starters, I wanted a hands-off GM policy server with hardcoded rules and anti-hacking stuff. Perceived GM favoritism is a pretty serious thing with the playerbase I knew we were going to have. You'll note that the server was a ghost town for a long fucking time after the Holocaust banning which was blatant GM favoritism.

Related Thread: http://www.project1999.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=33605


2) Next up, I wanted teams. I still feel that the EQ PvP population is pretty small, and thought people were naive for thinking Red99 was going to be super populated just because it was Project 1999.

It really comes down to whether or not we want to try something different or just recreate VZTZ. I don't think we can assume that just because this is a Rogean/99 server, that we're going to have a large population (at least after the short term).

Again, I don't think there is going to be anything that will deter people more from the game than not having people to play with on a guild vs guild server. I agree that there is nothing wrong with essentially forcing players to join a guild to progress. For me, the issue is how soon. How soon should you be required to join a guild upon starting on this server? If you expect solo players to find a guild right out of the gate before they know people on the server, you are delusional. Some of the players will stick around, but the majority will quit.

Keep in mind that with no boxes and slow exp, a guild is going to be even more necessary than it was on VZTZ.

There are a lot of issues with teams, but most of these are not that hard to fix. Off the top of my head: Classes not available on both teams? Fuck lore, both teams have all classes. Crossteaming? Hardcode it. Two guilds on the same team going after the same raid target? Make raid zones (plus say, LGuk) FFA.

I think I nailed this one. Nothing stunts population growth more than new players not having anyone to play with.

3) I thought EXP-loss on PvP death was absolutely retarded for encouraging PvP. For levels 1-49, an EXP loss for most classes is way worse than losing your Dwarven Ringmail Tunic, and we know how much item loot deters folk. Furthermore, people already camped or gated at the first /who of someone zoning in - this only furthered that. Yellow Text from your enemies was encouraging/discouraging enough.

4) Rogean and Nilbog wanted to implement a system that made zone plugging not a surefire way to avoid death... and the playerbase rejected it. This would have been one of the greatest achievements in EQ-coding history.

Thread: http://www.project1999.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=46443

5) There was some admittedly dumb stuff (for the server's health) that I think only Lethdar and myself really wanted too: full-blown classic spells. Like, you could charm and fear PCs. I think EQ PvP from a mechanical standpoint is atrocious, but the ability to really fuck people over (even if it's just resource control) is the selling factor.

I still ended up playing and selling my cleric fairly early on. I don't really have the time for either red or blue, but I've got an army of wealth and characters on blue so I just play there. Plus, being able to afk or tab out to another game is a beautiful thing.

[bigsykedaddy]

I have never played on Red 99. I sometimes think I would like to try it out, but then I remember how much time I have invested in my toons on Blue 99. If we were able to copy toons from blue 99 to red 99 I would be in.

[Kazi]

How about that Jauna, eh? Hope she feels better after getting that off her chest.

I started P99 on red a few months ago but quit because of a lack of faith in the staff. In the face of an ever-dwindling pop initially due to a nerf, they had nothing to say but have faith and good riddance. With recent changes, I will give red another chance as the staff have followed through on their promise. Thanks for that.

That said, I feel the current exp is a bit too much. For example, a friend of mine went from 27 to 38 in about 12 hours with current group xp bonus. If we are trying to foster low level game, it won't work. I feel 200% bonus with a full group is safe.

[Ravager]

Tie PvP to faction and I'd consider playing.

Also, Project M.

Mindless PK for no reason in a fantasy world is dumb. Even the characters in Game of Thrones have motivation to murder someone more than "he was there".

[Jauna]

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

How about that Jauna, eh? Hope she feels better after getting that off her chest.

I started P99 on red a few months ago but quit because of a lack of faith in the staff. In the face of an ever-dwindling pop initially due to a nerf, they had nothing to say but have faith and good riddance. With recent changes, I will give red another chance as the staff have followed through on their promise. Thanks for that.

That said, I feel the current exp is a bit too much. For example, a friend of mine went from 27 to 38 in about 12 hours with current group xp bonus. If we are trying to foster low level game, it won't work. I feel 200% bonus with a full group is safe.

You know, I never even thought about it until now.. is Red99 slowing down production/development Velious for Project1999?

[Vega]

Hey Derubael, serious question. Why the push now for Red99? There have already been statements that Teams99 won't get dev attention till after Velious. So I guess it probably feels like Red99 is in limbo. But, if all the people trying Red99 now, plus even more who aren't, would be willing to flood a new Teams99 server, and the devs have stated that the two will not both exist for extended periods of time, why the push? If we're relatively sure Teams99 is the end goal why all the effort for Red99? It's actually not even a fair competition for Red99, since quite a few red people will jump ship for a new teams server in a heartbeat, aswell (Yay! New Server!).

I'm not trying to belittle your effort this week, cause I think it shows you care. But I'm just not sure I see the big picture.