Can we talk about the future of P99?

[Tewaz]

First off, I love P99. I messed around a bit in Classic and eventually made my Bard Tewaz the night Kunark dropped. I was running around killing stuff in Black Burrow and there was a fun event where mobs would drop an item that you could turn in to an NPC and get some random piece of gear back. I got a Froglock Crown and I was absolutely floored. I got up to my 50's, joined Knights who say Ni and did a bit of poopsock raiding, but mainly spent my time aoe kiting all of OT and BW with some of the legends like Deejay and Hmotzart (sorry for the 25 mob limit). I've played off and on since then. I usually play about 6 months per year with some pretty intense play during the Red exp increase in 2015-2017 and on Blue over the past two years.

I have played to 60 on red and blue and into the 50s on Green. I've raided from scratch with people trying to steal kills in HoT to gear their first toon, I've killed every target in the game and made probably 100 alts at this point. I've done the poopsock meta, the trainout meta, the OBS meta, and even the get camped until your entire guild quits playing Red meta.

All this to say, I'm worried about our servers and there is a huge elephant in the room that no one at the top, CSR, or player level really wants to talk about.

We are losing players across all servers.

Whether it's Quarm, stale meta, 15 years of P99, old age, whatever, players are leaving the server.

On Blue we are seeing more and more common targets sit up uncontested like Vindi, Ayillish, and HoT Minis. The EC tunnel is full of WTB and almost every item for sale is a high end item. Targets people want being left up is cool I think, but it is also a sign of failing population.

So I wanted to start a thread talking about the future. Here are the limiting factors:

1. CSR has made it clear that future development on the server is delayd, so suggestions should keep that in mind. Examples: No Luclin or custom content, no major changes to things like spawn windows, respawn timers, mob pathing, or drop chance, etc.
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2. Merging seems to be off the table. It was a part of the initial idea for Green, but appears to be dead for unclear reasons. That being said, Green (and Red too, why not?) being merged into Blue would do a lot for project health.

3. Certain players/guilds that constantly push the envelope of what is tolerated in the raid scene are not going anywhere. CSR hasn't dropped permanent bans since Sirkin's reign, so suggesting their removal is pointless.

So what are your recommendations to improve the project and keep it growing/thriving past year 15?

A few of mine:

1. Try new metas for the raid scene, but try ones that have a possibility of becoming THE meta. No SoW FTE lock and camp rules are the two put forth and they seem like they are meant to vex 95% of the raid scene population.

2. Shake up natural respawn windows. This is the 100% largest issue with the raid scene in my opinion. Classic or not, a 24 hour window on ST golems is absolutely insane. Even if the respawn is classic, race lines, FTE yellow texts, and train pulls are clearly not classic. It is also a pointless mechanic that wastes people's real life hours when most of us have already given years to this server. It's just silly to have it in a game in 2024. Addressing this would also lead to less gigantic guilds.

KWSM on Blue put forward an idea to reduce spawn windows by making any spawn in the first half of the window stay up and become an FTE race at the half way point of the window, and if mob spawns in the second half it is FTE like normal. This single idea would instantly increase participation for natural respawns, it requires no development and would be policed by the players easily. Socking half a window would appeal

3. Standardize player agreements for Scout, Ring 8, Ring 10, and Angry. Level range, time to roll, time to kill can all be easily standardized across both servers.

4. Address the bottleneck camps in the game like DS. As the server population drops and new players choose other servers, the demand for these types of items increases. I don't have any ideas for this outside of developer changes, but it is an issue that will slowly increase over time unless there is a population decline.

5. More Quakes. I know quakes are meant to mimic server crashes in the early 2000s, but this is the single best event on Blue and more of these in prime time help players that have played the game for 10 years and don't have items they're chasing.

6. Legacy items. This is more of a blue problem. As players retire (or get banned) a lot of this gear has disappeared. Beads are needed by a lot of guilds for pulling HoT and they are clearly an advantage item that is a MUST HAVE in the current DA train meta. Sure Eashen and other targets are doable without but taking 30 minutes to kill Eashen greatly hinders a guild and that can hemorrage members very quickly.

7. Communicate. That's it. Someone with any knowledge of the future. Please. Communicate.

The solution is pretty easy: Make this gear available during every CSR event. CSR has done this but it's so rare that it's absolutely insane. Most players on blue would probably delete two of their level 60 characters for a guise on one. We are at year 9 of Velious...Velious lasted 9 months on live. They added a casino on live in the next expansion with these items available. Also this would cut down on the RMT problem because no one needs to buy 1.3 million platinum to afford beads on Blue.

I remember loot raining on us during early P1999 GM events and also on live. Hell, I remember getting a Luclin item at a GM event BEFORE THE EXPANSION DROPPED. Adding any means of legacy items would be incredible and the only path to that now is CSR making it part of events. I'd throw a random guise on Velketor or some other super low priority target every quake just for the fun because why not?

I'd like to hear other player suggestions. I'd love to hear what CSR says about this. I would be absolutely floored to have even the smallest inkling of communication about the future of these servers from Nilbog or Rogean.

[enjchanter]

I suggest playing a better game

[Toxigen]

games dead lol

[Solist]

None of that is needed.

Whats needed on blue is quakes based off of how many lizards you kill. Keep stupid cabilis clear and it quakes more often.

[Namsaknoi]

Pre-Fear classic.

But would be only half as popular as green when new, and would be less populated than blue when the server cools down.

Will be the same raiding players who raid green and/or blue doing Vox and Nagafen, and will probably have similar set of farmers farming the typical stuff.

[Snaggles]

At max population P99 was a boutique experience. Now it’s even more sparse.

Instead of missing all the extra people think of yourself as a very peculiar influencer who plays an elf sim. It’s basically a custom server at this point…invite some friends.

[Croco]

rog/bog don't care if people play the server or not, nothing is going to change

[Ripqozko]

you all could of prob started before the server was already dead, been dead for 8 years. its a retirement home.

[Phoenixx]

I just wanted to take a moment and thank you for writing your suggestions. I don't understand why people feel the need to respond negatively. The intention is to help provide ways to "rally the troops".

I love playing on p99. Its been fun. I don't fee the content rush to get to the end months before the next expansion. I will continue to play, regardless of server population. When I want to break and play other stuff, I will. But eventually I'll make it back.

[Varja]

A very well written, and well thought out post. Despite the negative responses in this thread these are all very common questions and common talking points in nearly every circle of friends that I have in this game. Everyone is wondering about these issues. And these posters above me can attempt to be jaded and negative, but if you're checking p99 forums, you have interest in the future of this game. I know every time I come here it is for this topic of discussion specifically. The metas suck, the proposed metas dont seem to be working as intended. The only exciting time in this game is quakes and the drafts, which are quake based.

It's just weird because whenever you look at the P99 UN discord, csr is putting a decent a chunk of time responding to people and putting forth somewhat of an effort to manage the game. But it's only for bitchy irrelevantcraid disputes and proposing questionable metas. If you're going to put in time to the game, why not make it good? Events, legacy loot, ban PL and "Vanq".

I personally believe that the fact that timers are so concealed and shrouded in mystery is one of the worst things about the raid scene. 95% of the effort of raiding is getting the timer and waiting the long ass windows. Make it to where if a mob is eligible to be drafted for a quake, the guild that killed it has to post the TOD to the UN discord just like we do at the end of draft. Then we will have competition and races, and people can stream the raid scene. Give people some incentive to not hit 60 and join Riot.

Spawn the warders again. Do a Kerafyrm event. Why the fuck not? Maybe if a guild has no concessions or raid infractions for a certain period of time they get a shot at one of the warders as a reward, or spawn them regularly and raid infractions cause guilds to concede them for x amount of cycles.

I'm just throwing out random shit. I enjoy this game and I do appreciate the staff. Just trying to be positive and throw out some ideas to add to a conversation that I do believe should be had.