Isn't it time to find out what lies in the future for the servers?

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Yes but many blue players don't *want* green to be merged in. And many green players don't want a merge either. So you will inevitably upset somebody, the question is which demographic really sustains the project?

That answer is easy. Most players don't want to give up their awesome characters. Many people will complain about a Green/Blue merge, because it will upset the economy, but they will happily play their manastoned character while posting in Rants and Flames on the forums.

If you just delete Green 1.0 and Blue (and force people to roll new characters), you are just going to bleed hundreds of players each time you create a new Green server. Remember, there will be NO economy on a deleted server lol, and for most people that is worse than an economy that is not desirable but still functioning.

[Ooloo]

Well I think the word "most" is doing too much lifting there. There are certainly people who fit that description, I just don't think it's most. I had no problem at all bailing on my 60 raid-ready blue toon when green launched, cause green is like the maiden voyage purpose of the whole project. Let's not forget the vast majority of players already *have* bailed on other awesome characters in their storied everquest careers. The willingness to re-roll is kind of a requirement for p99 unless you're the rare breed who is playing here and is actually new to everquest.

I would wager that most people who play or want to play, or would play here, feel roughly the same. But granted that's just based on my gut and not any kind of data.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Just look at the Server populations and you can see the answer. We have had plenty of time to see a complete decay of Blue if it was going to happen.

If you were correct, and most players wanted to play on Green exclusively, the population on Blue would probably be around 200-300. It would consist of the hard core raiders who want double the raid targets, and the people who like boxing on Blue/Green.

Instead, you see a fairly even population split, indicating a lot of players like their Blue characters more than the idea of re-rolling. I can guarantee you a lot of players on Green have become attached to their characters in the same way. Now that people have their manastones, beads, warder loot, etc., they want to PLAY with those items.

Unfortunately EQ just takes too long to progress, and in the years that go by between servers, people become more or less busy. Some people could play 12 hours a day on Green for two years, and then they have a wife and kids, and they can't do it anymore. If they want to play a little bit for nostalgia, fun, etc., they can hop on their OP character and have some fun. It isn't like Diablo 2 where you can get into Hell difficulty in a day or two, and already start farming end game loot.

[Ooloo]

No as you mentioned before you can box blue and green. We wouldn't really know how many people prefer to play on which server unless that wasn't possible.

And I also didn't suggest "deleting" blue and green. They would be combined into a museum server with no raid mobs and no quests. You could still log your chracters in, farm loot from non-raid mobs, tunnel quest, whatever. It would just encourage people to maybe reroll. Your p99 blue character doesn't exist in a vaccume, it could be deleted tomorrow if the project becomes financially or personally too much of a burden for the owners and we shouldn't forget that.

This way all those characters would still exist, they'd be rolled into the museum, and the progression ("green") server would become the primary server, because classic everquest is the primary goal of the project. A perpetually frozen end-stage velious is hardly classic. A repeating classic era progression server like a diablo 2 ladder is much more in tune with what most people are here to play for.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

No as you mentioned before you can box blue and green. We wouldn't really know how many people prefer to play on which server unless that wasn't possible.

And I also didn't suggest "deleting" blue and green". They would be combined into a museum server with no raid mobs and no quests. You could still log your chracters in, farm loot from non-raid mobs, tunnel quest, whatever. It would just encourage people to maybe reroll. Your p99 blue character doesn't exist in a vaccume, it could be deleted tomorrow if the project becomes financially or personally too much of a burden for the owners and we shouldn't forget that.

This way all those characters would still exist, they'd be rolled into the museum, and the progression ("green") server would become the primary server, because classic everquest is the primary goal of the project. A perpetually frozen end-stage velious is hardly classic. A repeating classic era progression server like a diablo 2 ladder is much more in tune with what most people are here to play for.

Your museum idea is the same as deleting the server. It is basically just an expensive Magelo page[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It sounds like you seem to believe something like 600 players are boxing Green/Blue. If that is the case, we are in serious trouble as a community, as it means we have been bleeding players left and right.

You also seem to think there aren't hundreds of players who no longer want to re-roll on Green. They must be taken into account too, as they will not re-roll again.

Realistically speaking the boxing count is probably somewhere around 100-200 players at best. It is not easy to play two games at once on two different servers, you can't even duo those two characters together. For most people you can really only AFK camp while boxing Green and Blue, or raid on both because most of raiding is waiting around.

[Ooloo]

Well what are you basing those figures on? I grant that I don't know, but then neither do you.

Everquest itself is just an expensive magelo page. That's kind of what I'm getting at, what players of this game value is as diverse as the players, but the project itself as a whole can only survive if the small handful of people who keep it afloat are willing to keep doing it. What to do after velious has always been the hard question with this project because of the nature of the genre. Most players back in 2000 were waiting for the next expansion. We know there isn't going to be another expansion here, so what's the next best thing? Well the next best thing we can wish for to a "new expansion" here is a new p99. That's what I'm getting at.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Well what are you basing those figures on? I grant that I don't know, but then neither do you.

Everquest itself is just an expensive magelo page. That's kind of what I'm getting at, what players of this game value is as diverse as the players, but the project itself as a whole can only survive if the small handful of people who keep it afloat are willing to keep doing it. What to do after velious has always been the hard question with this project because of the nature of the genre. Most players back in 2000 were waiting for the next expansion. We know there isn't going to be another expansion here, so what's the next best thing? Well the next best thing we can wish for to a "new expansion" here is a new p99. That's what I'm getting at.

People want to play the game. Your argument doesn't make sense that a fully functioning server is the same kind of Magelo page as a heavily gimped server. If everyone just wanted a Magelo page, they wouldn't play the game, they would just live on the forums.

I don't have access to the data. But I play on Blue, and if 500 players were just boxing, you wouldn't see anyone grouping, it would take forever to get responses to messages, etc. It would be pretty easy to tell that everybody is not paying attention. I have never had that kind of experience on Blue from the inception of Green until now.

While I cannot definitively prove it, I would be greatly surprised if most P99 players can multitask two different servers to the point that they are indistinguishable from a single boxing player.

Honestly you would see the same issue on green, because right now there are 800 players on green and 700 on Blue. If 500 players were boxing on both, it would feel like a ghost town on both servers, as I described above.

[cd288]

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

I mean there's no other alternative. Only a finite number of people at any given time even know about p99, and of those a smaller set are able to play regularly. If you keep bifurcating that population by opening a new green but allowing people to continue on the old server as if there is no new server, you'll keep shaving that population down eventually. The ultimate goal of the project is to experience classic EQ, which to me consists of the journey from vanilla through velious.

Think about the experience of starting a new character on blue, or even green right now, as an outsider. It's so topheavy there is nothing to do but rush to 60 and then hopefully get in the back of the line in some guild capable of raiding. That's hardly a classic experience, it's more of a specific type of late-stage p99 server experience now.

What’re you even talking about? There’s plenty of low level leveling groups on blue at the moment.

[cd288]

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

No as you mentioned before you can box blue and green. We wouldn't really know how many people prefer to play on which server unless that wasn't possible.

And I also didn't suggest "deleting" blue and green. They would be combined into a museum server with no raid mobs and no quests. You could still log your chracters in, farm loot from non-raid mobs, tunnel quest, whatever. It would just encourage people to maybe reroll. Your p99 blue character doesn't exist in a vaccume, it could be deleted tomorrow if the project becomes financially or personally too much of a burden for the owners and we shouldn't forget that.

This way all those characters would still exist, they'd be rolled into the museum, and the progression ("green") server would become the primary server, because classic everquest is the primary goal of the project. A perpetually frozen end-stage velious is hardly classic. A repeating classic era progression server like a diablo 2 ladder is much more in tune with what most people are here to play for.

You’re just biased and only want everyone to play on the progression server and just completely reset every time. You’re clearly worried that you’re not going to have fun on green 2.0 because you think people won’t want to start all over again unless they’re forced to. Guess we should just make everything work for you

[Gustoo]

Once green is at end of timeline there is no reason for it to remain distinct from blue so I doubt it will.

No more box pharming on two PvE servers at the same time, sorry!

If I played on green I’d be psyched to have my green guys re United with blue guys.