team or pure red?

[mitic]

i think red99 has the potential to attract enough players to make teams a viable option. it doesnt necassarely has to be 3teams. just good and evil alligned should fit perfectly. i loved the zone control aspect on sullon back the day!

[Lasher]

here we go again

[greatdane]

Good vs. evil would be pretty lopsided since there's only three evil races (four in Kunark) and the non-evil races that can be evil via religion would start in the middle of enemy territory. A two-team setup also inevitably becomes unbalanced because there's almost no way for two sides to remain evenly matched. A third team would be necessary, and the SZ setup could work, though I don't like how one team has monopoly on two of the strongest PvP classes while the two other teams just have the largely irrelevant dru/pal/rng.

Personally, I think FFA would be nicest since part of the incentive to create a PvP server is presumably to let players handle camp and raid disputes among themselves, and that wouldn't work so well with teams. Could also try something new like continent-based teams. Faydwer - Main Antonica - Qeynos/Halas/Odus sounds like an interesting experiment. That limits classes even more, though. Or we could go the modern MMORPG route with three teams that aren't distinguishable in any tangible way and the smallest one gets a +25% XP to encourage roughly even numbers. Just have team 1, team 2 and team 3, and give each new character three different books to turn into PoD at level 6 to determine which team they join. That seems like it could provide a nicely competitive and fair (by design, at least) PvP environment.

So, either no teams or three teams. Two teams just becomes a WoW/WAR 3:1 snoozefest as soon as it becomes obvious which team the latest incarnation of Heresy decides to join.

[solid]

Not gonna have the pop for teams

[mitic]

Not gonna have the pop for teams

this is not the corrupt garage box we are talkin about. 400+ pop, mark my words!

[vinx]

here we go again

[solid]

this is not the corrupt garage box we are talkin about. 400+ pop, mark my words!

Shouldn't really be discussing teams unless we're dealing with thousands of people (we won't be). Whatever pop r99 gets will sustain a red server np, we shouldn't even bother trying to deal w/ chopping the playerbase to pvp with/against in half, let alone in thirds, with a few hundred potential players.

Futhermore, if I were hardcoded and forced to have to ally with most of you fuckheads I wouldn't even bother.

[Smedy]

i am always on the pure team, clean whistle, no free fungis or gm favors. /eye lasher

[georgie]

c'mon noob....

[Ziggy]

D) 4 teams

however i do share the population concerns, let me say that it SHOULD NOT be less than 3 teams.

a 2 team environment is not fun, it draws the line between friend and foe too boldly and has the potential to become unbalanced

[mimixownzall]

Not gonna have the pop for teams

Really? Then how is teams any different than the 2 or 3 major guilds on the server all competing?

Might as well have 2 or 3 teams. It helps the new players find groups and find a sense of comradery.

Doesn't have to be Good vs Evil. can even out the races where all sides get all classes.

[georgie]

Really? Then how is teams any different than the 2 or 3 major guilds on the server all competing?

Might as well have 2 or 3 teams. It helps the new players find groups and find a sense of comradery.

Doesn't have to be Good vs Evil. can even out the races where all sides get all classes.

i get where you are coming from, i from one am new to boxes and will be looking for sailors to join my ship. or the other way around (;

[Foxx]

i dont wanna be on a team with a bunch of douchebags and faggots that i hate, and not be able to kill them and be forced to train them over and over just so i can get rid of them.

[Wonton]

i refuse to voice my opinion in such a horrendous matter!

[JayDee]

437 teams

[Tombom]

i dont wanna be on a team with a bunch of douchebags and faggots that i hate, and not be able to kill them and be forced to train them over and over just so i can get rid of them.

Thats the gist of it.

[Titanuk]

Not gonna have the pop for teams

[Scribbles]

how about each player gets their own team

[Scribbles]

o wait

[epicentre]

3 teams.

I wanna pwn shortlings :)

[Galacticus]

I dont know who said it but they said it perfectly before....


If you have teams your taking the power away from the players and giving it away.

If you have 600 people on a server with two teams, thats 300 people you cant pvp with. That sucks, half of them you dont know, a quarter you hate, whatever.

If you have no teams, players can then choose their own "teams" by forming guilds.

In essence thats what a guild represents: your team.

[Wawaka]

Old school teams ( will create more pvp at low lvls), with the pvp flagging code rogean was working on.. (flag oor healers etc)

If you ever tried leveling on project 1999, you would know exp is so crazy, and you wouldnt get past lvl 8 because of all the ppl farming the same place.

[solid]

Really? Then how is teams any different than the 2 or 3 major guilds on the server all competing?

Might as well have 2 or 3 teams. It helps the new players find groups and find a sense of comradery.

Doesn't have to be Good vs Evil. can even out the races where all sides get all classes.

If 2 or 3 guilds competing on a FFA server is analogous to hardcoded teams, as you say, then why would you bother hardcoding teams at all? Sounds like not hardcoding teams is a win/win for both your cause and mine.

Also, the comradery argument is a non sequitor, as far as I'm concerned. To believe this, especially enough to build the server around, you'd have to conveniently ignore all the x-teaming done throughout EQ team pvp history.

Lastly, any potential gains from hardcoded comradery (and they're dismal, if at all) are far outweighed by the costs of being forced to ally with people you'd rather not be, and reducing any action you might have w/ them to sameteam-training. (Which was about the only thing illegal on Sullon, outside of hacking)

[JayDee]

I like using big words to assert my intelligence but in actuality it detracts from my arguments

[greatdane]

It's hilarious how terrified the red99 community is of anyone who can formulate a proper argument.

[vinx]

If you have no teams, players can then choose their own "teams" by forming guilds.
In essence thats what a guild represents: your team.
Ive said this a few times in posts
coming from VZ and witnessing the evolution from teams to x-teaming first hand, i can see where this wouldnt work on a server like R99
It may have been viable with 1k+ on VZ in its day, but it still wobbled on the edge of collapsing (which it finally did)
so yes, in essence, your best team build will be one that you can create and maintain (an not be hardcoded with derps)

solid may have over saturated his response but his points are solid

[vinx]

Granted, i had a great time playing in an all elf guild killing everyone else
but that greatness was matched in how bad it sucked at times to

Examples: (playing elf)
* cant kill other elves who are healing the other team while you are engaged
* 2 elves kill your duo buddy .. cant kill em
* someone on your team bein an ass in a group.. cant kill em
(could be anything)
* loot whoring .. cant kill em
* uncalled for /ooc? .. cant kill em
* boots you from group? .. cant kill em
* says your fat? .. cant kill em

whatever, theres been a few times i loaded up SZ, RZ or a FFA server. but each time i had some 50+ who wouldnt let me get out
past the newbie gaurds before i got one shotted. (tried for hours!- did get 20+ a few times but said "F" this)

Essentially teams won out in my head.. it was fun being part of a race guild (team) anyway
the whole guild philosphy of defending those that were weak, hunting PKs or engaging other races on sight without a cause was fun
it seemed to hold more of a sense of purpose then just PVE everquest and FFA PVP
and that sense of purpose kept me from joining FFA
but the server wore on, and eventually everyone realized things needed to be done together
and new content didnt warrant teams so x-teaming came in.

imo, teams had its heyday and EQ endgame holds no place for teams
its only fun 1-49 or in classic but will die with further expansions
If you want or desire that sort of purpose, create a guild or team with that charter in mind... make PVP fun!

[Vondra]

Either no teams, or 3 teams. Two teams sucks. It'll probably be lopsided from the beginning then get even worse as people just pick the stronger team intentionally as things move forward.

[greatdane]

A lack of teams doesn't have to mean a lack of level range. I think it's pretty much decided that there'll be a +/- 8 levels range to prevent the SZ bullshit of level 60s teabagging newbies in Crushbone all day. No-teams seems like the only viable solution if we want a healthy, competitive PvP environment. It'll be a little rough in the beginning, but it's the best way to ensure minimum ridiculousness in the long term.

[Nirgon]

i think red99 has the potential to attract enough players to make teams a viable option. it doesnt necassarely has to be 3teams. just good and evil alligned should fit perfectly. i loved the zone control aspect on sullon back the day!

Again, let's have teams so everyone rolls team evil. Bet you're the first Einstein to try and encourage this then "secretly" roll your "leet" iksar monk or ogre shadowknight.


(Luckily Nilbog isn't a smacktard)

[Aenor]

i think red99 has the potential to attract enough players to make teams a viable option. it doesnt necassarely has to be 3teams. just good and evil alligned should fit perfectly. i loved the zone control aspect on sullon back the day!

Please go play wow so the server can tell you who is on your team.

[Knuckle]

here we go again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A949JshqvbI

[Cfullard]

If you don't have item loot it supports carebears.

Full range PvP meaning anyone can attack anyone causes griefers and destroys the server. This isn't a garbage VZTZ box 7.0 were talking about here, if you want that bullshit then perhaps you can get one of the many fanboys of VZTZ pvp (casters dominated, pure melee suffered badly as they were griefed) to start that abortion over again. Live PVP never had OOC broadcast because it was stupid and you never got the full picture of what happened. VZTZ pretty much revolved around a bunch of people in two guilds who then griefed the hell out of smaller guilds into they absorbed.

If you are so anti-social that you can't handle being on a server with people you cant kill then again, VZTZ is for you. If you are so screwed with social graces that you can't simply IGNORE someone on your team you do not like you need to get rid of that monitor tan and interact with the real world.

There's a very, very good reason VZ TZ had maybe 60 people on it when people realized that it was the same server as before. You ever heard of the polishing turd arguement? As much as you polish a turd it's still a turd. Make this server a 2 or 3 team server and see where it goes. On a lighter note, this is a chance to do something different, not pull out the abortion that is ANOTHER VZTZ server because we see how well that did, now didn't we?

[Nirgon]

Bugs, cheating, shit that flat out didn't work (strength? hit calculation? armor?) repeating known bugs to get on top without risk of losing ill begotten goods to ensure a stay on top and numerous server wipes were a problem you want to examine, not teams.

[Cfullard]

Again, we've done FFA PvP to death, why would want to make another FFA PvP server? If I want a working PvP FFA I can just go to live, I can't get teams there anymore. And it wasn't because teams didn't work, it's because most of the people there quit the game and the server fell apart due to massive expansions bringing NO pvp to the table due to distance problems.

[Nirgon]

I'll be making an ogre warrior. Let's do teams.

[Billbike]

Again, we've done FFA PvP to death, why would want to make another FFA PvP server? If I want a working PvP FFA I can just go to live, I can't get teams there anymore. And it wasn't because teams didn't work, it's because most of the people there quit the game and the server fell apart due to massive expansions bringing NO pvp to the table due to distance problems.

Exactly! Ok simple fix:

1. Divide the limited population in to teams.
2. Make it where they can't talk to the other teams.
3. Give all player models glowing eyes and exaggerated 10 inch elf ears and eyebrows!

[Knuckle]

Again, we've done FFA PvP to death, why would want to make another FFA PvP server? If I want a working PvP FFA I can just go to live, I can't get teams there anymore. And it wasn't because teams didn't work, it's because most of the people there quit the game and the server fell apart due to massive expansions bringing NO pvp to the table due to distance problems.

Masses have spoken. FFA PVP. And this just in, the live pvp server is complete shit with 17 expansions, this is classic everquest pvp, point negated.

[mimixownzall]

i dont wanna be on a team with a bunch of douchebags and faggots that i hate, and not be able to kill them and be forced to train them over and over just so i can get rid of them.

Then reroll... worked on SZ.

[mimixownzall]

To believe this, especially enough to build the server around, you'd have to conveniently ignore all the x-teaming done throughout EQ team pvp history.

Really? All the x-teaming done throughout EQ team PvP history? Name specifics. I spent most of my EQ career on SZ and the only 'x-teaming' done was when a goodie bought an evil bard and trained Fear. That wouldn't fly on red99 as training is going to be illegal.

Lastly, any potential gains from hardcoded comradery (and they're dismal, if at all) are far outweighed by the costs of being forced to ally with people you'd rather not be, and reducing any action you might have w/ them to same team-training. (Which was about the only thing illegal on Sullon, outside of hacking)

If you don't people, then re-roll. Everyone is going to have someone in their guild they would rather not be around, but put up with it because they have other friends they like.

There is a reason why the amount of FFA PvP games coming out are non-existent: It suck.

I will play either way. I just feel that the server population would benefit more from teams.

[mitic]

Masses have spoken. FFA PVP. And this just in, the live pvp server is complete shit with 17 expansions, this is classic everquest pvp, point negated.

well, rite now its roughly 66% no teams vs. 33% teams so the demand for teams cant be negated yet... poll should be made sticky so more ppl can vote

(as long it isnt written in stone already by p99 staff what it will be)

[solid]

Really? All the x-teaming done throughout EQ team PvP history? Name specifics. I spent most of my EQ career on SZ and the only 'x-teaming' done was when a goodie bought an evil bard and trained Fear. That wouldn't fly on red99 as training is going to be illegal.



If you don't people, then re-roll. Everyone is going to have someone in their guild they would rather not be around, but put up with it because they have other friends they like.

There is a reason why the amount of FFA PvP games coming out are non-existent: It suck.

I will play either way. I just feel that the server population would benefit more from teams.

Lol @ no x-teaming on SZ. We x-teamed constantly in Hate if it served our interests, and so did everyone else. You must have pretty out of the loop, because it was pretty rampant, and we were always pretty unapologetic about it.


Next, I have no idea what you're basing your 'teams = more population' argument around, but you're ignoring the only population check that could possibly serve as a test, which is when all 4 Zek servers were up and running at once.

Population: RZ (no hardcoded teams) > VZ/TZ (softcoded teams) > SZ (hardcoded teams)

If you're going to claim 'teams= more population' the burden of proof is on you to prove it, because any data that we have indicates otherwise.


And finally, I'm not going to even dignify the 'if you don't like the people you're hardcoded to be on a team with, then just reroll' argument with a response.

[greatdane]

Really, it comes down to the fact that most of the purpose of making red99 is to let players work their disputes out among themselves. Teams are counterintuitive to that goal, and that's without touching the strong likelihood of unbalanced teams, x-teaming, and the fact that teams effectively reduce the population since there'll be not only less people to PvP against but also to group with. FFA allows you to group with and PvP against anyone, and since it's optimistic to expect even half of p99's population on red99, I think that'll become a necessity pretty quickly. Nothing indicates that teams will result in a larger population, and beyond the very early levels where you're so vulnerable and classes are so undeveloped that PvP doesn't have much of a point, FFA fulfills every purpose and solves every demographic-related problem that the server is likely to encounter. The number of players required to make the server well-populated is directly proportional to the number of teams, because the more teams there are, the more players it'll take. Without teams, we could probably do alright with a 100-200ish player average. With three teams, there wouldn't be enough on any of the teams to get anything done.

[Billbike]

I want to group, raid, or kill whomever I please.

Telling anyone to reroll on a server with classic xp is fail.

No teams. Don't listen to the commies.

[Ziggy]

im seeing a common misconception here; teams do not prevent you from grouping with anyone.

maybe you wont want to group with those gnomes, but you could

[Aenor]

Lol @ no x-teaming on SZ. We x-teamed constantly in Hate if it served our interests, and so did everyone else. You must have pretty out of the loop, because it was pretty rampant, and we were always pretty unapologetic about it.


Next, I have no idea what you're basing your 'teams = more population' argument around, but you're ignoring the only population check that could possibly serve as a test, which is when all 4 Zek servers were up and running at once.

Population: RZ (no hardcoded teams) > VZ/TZ (softcoded teams) > SZ (hardcoded teams)

If you're going to claim 'teams= more population' the burden of proof is on you to prove it, because any data that we have indicates otherwise.


And finally, I'm not going to even dignify the 'if you don't like the people you're hardcoded to be on a team with, then just reroll' argument with a response.

Source of this data?

[Musori]

I vote for a religious teams!

Bertoxxulous: The Plaguebringer
Brell Serilis: The Duke of Below, Duke of Underfoot
Bristlebane: The King of Thieves
Cazic-Thule: The Faceless, Lord of Fear
Erollisi Marr: The Queen of Love
Mithaniel Marr: The Lightbearer
Prexus: The Oceanlord
Quellious: The Tranquil
Rallos Zek: The Warlord
Rodcet Nife: The Prime Healer
Solusek Ro: The Burning Prince, Lord of Flame

11 teams!! Nothing feeds hate as mutch as religion!! Add 11 teams votable aswell!

[Foxx]

I vote for a religious teams!

Bertoxxulous: The Plaguebringer
Brell Serilis: The Duke of Below, Duke of Underfoot
Bristlebane: The King of Thieves
Cazic-Thule: The Faceless, Lord of Fear
Erollisi Marr: The Queen of Love
Mithaniel Marr: The Lightbearer
Prexus: The Oceanlord
Quellious: The Tranquil
Rallos Zek: The Warlord
Rodcet Nife: The Prime Healer
Solusek Ro: The Burning Prince, Lord of Flame

11 teams!! Nothing feeds hate as mutch as religion!! Add 11 teams votable aswell!

agnostic needs a team pal

[Musori]

Oh snap! i forgot the most important one =) Make it 12 damnit! Agnostic is my personal favorit!

[hotstud]

Teams was fun because of the coin loot, it allowed for more raiding due to better geared players but the PvP suffered because of cross race guilds using immune healers and such. FFA was fun because you could attack anyone but the raiding suffered.

FFA with coin loot is the way to go. The only way I would support teams is if guild/group restrictions were coded in or guilds that cross invited from other teams became their own team.

[Billbike]

im seeing a common misconception here; teams do not prevent you from grouping with anyone.

maybe you wont want to group with those gnomes, but you could

Who doesn't want to group with gnomes?! But if I was a human, could I fight another human in an enemy group?

No?

Then I vote FFA.

[greatdane]

im seeing a common misconception here; teams do not prevent you from grouping with anyone.

maybe you wont want to group with those gnomes, but you could

Having softcoded teams brings even more problems. X-team guilds where you couldn't attack some of their members, unattackable healers, endless tears because half your group wants to invite the elf and the other half are homophobic... honestly, teams need to be hardcoded if there are to be teams at all. FFA gets rid of all the mechanical problems of other PvP rulesets, and the only real risk is a tougher beginner transition. Since virtually everyone who'll play red99 has already played on VZTZ and/or p99, it's not as if we'll get many actual newbies. I'm not too worried about that, at least.

[solid]

Source of this data?

I'll subtract 'data' and interject 'conventional wisdom.'

Frankly, I don't care enough about this debate to bother to find data; and by the same token, if something as rudimentary as the population makeup of the four Zek servers are news to anyone- they shouldn't be involved in this debate to begin with.

[Atmas]

Race teams were fun and made for interesting guilds like Liberation of the Underfoot (short only pvp guild). The only things that sucked were, as mentioend before the inability to kill someone on your team who was annoying and OOR healing.

Also it often ended up being 3 vs 1 with Short/Humans/Elves vs. Darks. But the dark team was also defintely the biggest team.

[Ziggy]

im sorry but i disagree. softcoded race teams (vz style) are clearly the best choice. yes there is x-teaming and immy healing. these things are classic and part of the game.

there is simply no other team setup as dynamic and fun as vz style race teams.


that being said, my second choice (and probably the one that r99 will choose) is ffa

[Nirgon]

http://unrealbusinesssolutions.com/unrealblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/office-space-300x163.gif

What the hell is wrong with you people!?

(And by you people, I mean why you think teams makes sense)

[Nimblerot]

Teams are a bad idea simply because we don't have the population to support it. I'm not sure why that isn't very easy to understand.

[mitic]

Teams are a bad idea simply because we don't have the population to support it. I'm not sure why that isn't very easy to understand.

oh look, we have a time traveller posting in our forums!

[Ziggy]

Teams are a bad idea simply because we don't have the population to support it. I'm not sure why that isn't very easy to understand.

I don't understand why you think population is going to be lacking, i think we can expect a MINIMUM of 300 players on launch day

[greatdane]

On launch day, yes. That's likely to drop by a fair bit as the new car smell wears off, and anyway the numbers are half to a third of the peak numbers for like 12 hours of the day. If we expect 2-300 players, which is a little optimistic, divide that by whatever number of teams and you have the effective playerbase for group/raid availability. For PvP, you have the playerbase minus your own team. With FFA, there's no such limitation and you've minimized the risk of population-related problems as much as you can without actually attracting more players; and since a significant majority seem in favor of FFA, it's safe to say that FFA will actually attract more players in the first place.

[Nimblerot]

I don't understand why you think population is going to be lacking, i think we can expect a MINIMUM of 300 players on launch day

And you think 300 people is enough to support teams? From what I remember on VZ, the short/elf/human teams often combined together because of a lack of various support classes across each team for pve and a lack of pure numbers for pvp, and that was with thousands of players.

300 people is a lot less than it sounds when trying to justify mechanics that depended on numbers much, much higher than that. Good vs. Evil would be the only team setup that would have even a remote chance of not harming the server, but at this point why even bother? What will it really add to an emulated server in 2011?

[Nirgon]

For you people asking for teams, you're planning on rolling evil right? I mean, just curious.

[mitic]

For you people asking for teams, you're planning on rolling evil right? I mean, just curious.

ive never taken the easy road on pvp servers

[Rushmore]

70% bros. Looks like No Teams

[Nirgon]

How about the burn out after definite failure road?

I used to have the same let's fight the zerg mentality but its just a stupid idea in the end.

As far as teams how can they police people having characters on multiple teams? Do you know what that can lead to?

[Titanuk]

no teams, stop trying
fail trollers

[Nirgon]

^

[mitic]

How about the burn out after definite failure road?

I used to have the same let's fight the zerg mentality but its just a stupid idea in the end.

black prophecy was (and is?) alive for years on sz. invalid argument

[Nirgon]

SZ (home of those that fled their existing pvp servers in hopes of greener pastures / troll server) doesn't exist any more, rocket scientist bluebie ranger.

[mitic]

SZ (home of those that fled their existing pvp servers in hopes of greener pastures / troll server) doesn't exist any more, rocket scientist bluebie ranger.

still invalid since the closing of a server doesnt mean the failure of a guild. iam pretty sure that ive seen them on zek after anyways

[Nirgon]

I'm pretty sure you're high on under the sink drugs if you play anything but evil especially on non-item loot.

[greatdane]

Why is it so unthinkable to play non-evil? It's pretty much just ogres that are good tanks/shamans, nothing else is particularly great for the evil races. I would never play a troll on a PvP server, they have like 5 base fire resist.

Gnomes/halflings are really useful now that targeting rings are gone, and dwarves have +5 MR. Dwarven Ringmail Tunic is amazing for a really long time. I don't even think there are any comparable resist pieces in Kunark. As elf/midget only, that's a pretty big bonus for those races. A dwarf warrior essentially has 13MR/8FR/8CR over any large warrior, plus the advantage of small size. Slam is pretty clutch, but there's kickstun at 55 and anyway you're better off trying to juke spells since you're jousting anyway. It's only the three ogre classes that get any advantage at all from being evil, and it's a toss-up early on for warriors because that extra free 13MR is huge.

[Ziggy]

I'm pretty sure you're high on under the sink drugs if you play anything but evil especially on non-item loot.

1. Humans, the most powerful team, with access to all classes.
2. Darks with Cleric, Enchanter, Mage, Monk (kunark), Necro, Rogue, SK, Shammy, War, Wiz. And the best stats for many classes.
3. (tie) Shorts with Cleric, Druid, Enchanter, Mage, Necro, Pal, Rogue, SK, War, Wiz
3. (tie) Elf with Bard, Cleric, Druid, Enchanter, Mage, Pal, Ranger, Rogue, War, Wiz

Im only giving the edge to darks over elf/shorts because of the fatties... all in all the 3 non human teams are pretty even.

These teams would NOT be hard coded, you can group with anyone and attack anyone from another team.

[greatdane]

Oh, hardcoded teams based on race is a no-go. How can you hope for balanced PvP when teams don't all have access to the same classes and can't choose to group with the teams that do? It never worked out on SZ. If we are to have teams at all, it should just be three arbitrary teams that aren't distinguished by anything other than name - players would get three tokens and choose which one to turn in to PoD to join whatever team they want. This is 2011, why would we wreck the server from the start with those ancient, broken team models that never had any merit whatsoever?

[Ravenlof]

i miss SZ

[Kope]

1. Humans, the most powerful team, with access to all classes.
2. Darks with Cleric, Enchanter, Mage, Monk (kunark), Necro, Rogue, SK, Shammy, War, Wiz. And the best stats for many classes.
3. (tie) Shorts with Cleric, Druid, Enchanter, Mage, Necro, Pal, Rogue, SK, War, Wiz
3. (tie) Elf with Bard, Cleric, Druid, Enchanter, Mage, Pal, Ranger, Rogue, War, Wiz

Im only giving the edge to darks over elf/shorts because of the fatties... all in all the 3 non human teams are pretty even.

These teams would NOT be hard coded, you can group with anyone and attack anyone from another team.

Yes you are correct but only in theory. Like on TZ all 3 teams alligned to fight darks and darks still came out ahead sometimes. Way more people wanna play darks over anything else.

[mimixownzall]

Lol @ no x-teaming on SZ. We x-teamed constantly in Hate if it served our interests, and so did everyone else. You must have pretty out of the loop, because it was pretty rampant, and we were always pretty unapologetic about it.

Examples, please. I think your idea of 'cross teaming' is different than mine.



Next, I have no idea what you're basing your 'teams = more population' argument around, but you're ignoring the only population check that could possibly serve as a test, which is when all 4 Zek servers were up and running at once.

Population: RZ (no hardcoded teams) > VZ/TZ (softcoded teams) > SZ (hardcoded teams)

If you're going to claim 'teams= more population' the burden of proof is on you to prove it, because any data that we have indicates otherwise.

That is a really a bad example to base everything on. The servers weren't all released at the same time. If SZ had been released at the same time, I have no doubts that it would have held a higher population.

Another thing is Everquest was the first really popular MMO to come out. FFA was really all we knew.

One burden of proof came from my example of why there are no more games that come out that have FFA PVP. You know.. the one point you conveniently passed right over without comment. If FFA is so awesome and superior, then why is there not a huge outcry for it to return in MMOs? Because it sucks.


And finally, I'm not going to even dignify the 'if you don't like the people you're hardcoded to be on a team with, then just reroll' argument with a response.

Why not? People reroll all the time. These are called alts. Just make an alt on a different faction and see how you like it. If you came from SZ, then you would know this happened a lot.

[JayDee]

on his level you are not

[mimixownzall]

On launch day, yes. That's likely to drop by a fair bit as the new car smell wears off, and anyway the numbers are half to a third of the peak numbers for like 12 hours of the day. If we expect 2-300 players, which is a little optimistic, divide that by whatever number of teams and you have the effective playerbase for group/raid availability. For PvP, you have the playerbase minus your own team. With FFA, there's no such limitation and you've minimized the risk of population-related problems as much as you can without actually attracting more players; and since a significant majority seem in favor of FFA, it's safe to say that FFA will actually attract more players in the first place.

No such limitation? So if you have two or three guilds with 70-100 people, that won't limit it?

[Ziggy]

Yes you are correct but only in theory. Like on TZ all 3 teams alligned to fight darks and darks still came out ahead sometimes. Way more people wanna play darks over anything else.

Thats how it played out on TZ, and somewhat similarly on VZ. It could be a completely different story on red99. At the start of the server, any race or combinations of races could rise to supremacy.

Lets say the dark team was way over populated. There are mechanisms in classic to deal with such a situation. (Guild wars, PoD)

[Nirgon]

If FFA is so awesome and superior, then why is there not a huge outcry for it to return in MMOs?

A large base asked for it in Rift and didn't get it. All of these 2 faction "pvp" games are shit for pvp. You know it.

[greatdane]

Team PvP rarely works. It can, but it usually doesn't. 2-team PvP is especially terrible and I can't think of a single game where it hasn't just made non-instanced PvP pointless because one team automatically grows much bigger than the other. 3-team can work, but the main concern is whether there'll be enough players to sustain it since it'll have to be hardcoded if we want to avoid bullshit like healers you can't attack. Teams that restrict class/race choices also just promote lopsidedness because the classes and races are nowhere near balanced. If there are to be teams, it should be the player's choice which to join, unrelated to their class/race choice. Just have characters spawn with three books and at level 6 they can turn in whatever book represents the team they want to join. Then give +20% XP to the smallest team to encourage roughly even numbers.

[solid]

INC TLDR

Examples, please. I think your idea of 'cross teaming' is different than mine.

It seriously occurred constantly, and everyone who was a factor on SZ has their fair share of x-teaming stories.

Personally, I saw to it teach the good team how to beat certain encounters/DPS for them during the days when it became evil v. neut, and good team was a comedic sideshow, in an effort to make them more competitive vs. neuts (and also to loot Sleeper's Tomb rogue masks).

Also, when Hate/ToW had their no-training-raids deal (lol @ Toodles for that one) we would call in/log on BP members all the time to train ToW raids, it's just the way it was. Same kind of faggotry occurred when Hate/Vindi (both evil guilds) were going at it (mostly pre-guildwar).

This is only relevant, of course, to dispute your 'team camaraderie' claim- which was bleak to say the least. Unless you were into role-playing then you just did w/e it took to get more pixels- if that meant x-teaming, then so be it.

As an aside, if you want to have your elves only RPing guild, a FFA server doesn't stop you from doing so.



That is a really a bad example to base everything on. The servers weren't all released at the same time. If SZ had been released at the same time, I have no doubts that it would have held a higher population.


Really? You have 'no doubts' that SZ would have had a higher population? I loved SZ and all, but it was a shit-hole. You can't honestly mean that.


Another thing is Everquest was the first really popular MMO to come out. FFA was really all we knew.


That's bullshit, even ZMUDs had pvp teams based on races/geographical starting area, well before EQ came out. (ZMUDS inspired lots of EQ mechanics)


If FFA is so awesome and superior, then why is there not a huge outcry for it to return in MMOs? Because it sucks.


When the MMO community is only concerned with making WoW clones (warhammer, rift, etc.) you're not going to see too many FFA games. But you do have Darkfall, Guild Wars, and such that have FFA pvp.


Why not? People reroll all the time. These are called alts. Just make an alt on a different faction and see how you like it. If you came from SZ, then you would know this happened a lot.


Well, it did happen, but not a lot. You couldn't just 'make an alt on another faction' on the same account on SZ. So 'reroll' literally meant to reroll a new character from lvl 1, if you wanted to change teams- it wasn't just an alt. OR you could pay another, seperate, subscription fee to have your alt- which wasn't very appealing either.

Teams.

That Kings and Bandits PvP server was terrible since everyone was FFA. It was guild of 8 people vs guild of 8 other people then no reason for anyone else to even log on = dead server.

No, Kings and Bandits was terrible for reasons other than FFA.
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And finally, I concur w/ everything greatdane has said.

[Ziggy]

Team PvP rarely works. 3-team can work, but the main concern is whether there'll be enough players to sustain it since it'll have to be hardcoded if we want to avoid bullshit like healers you can't attack. Teams that restrict class/race choices also just promote lopsidedness because the classes and races are nowhere near balanced. If there are to be teams, it should be the player's choice which to join, unrelated to their class/race choice. Just have characters spawn with three books and at level 6 they can turn in whatever book represents the team they want to join. Then give +20% XP to the smallest team to encourage roughly even numbers.

http://knowyourmeme.com/system/icons/554/original/facepalm.jpg?1248715065

[mitic]

70% bros. Looks like No Teams

60% and falling, bro!

[Titanuk]

mitic, your efforts are pathetic for teams, just give up its not going to happen lol

[il Siciliano]

As much as I enjoyed teams on VZ, and even more so locked teams on SZ, you can't form teams without a guaranteed population. I imagine we will have 2 power guilds battling it out. That should be fun enough... Torrent and Defiant battles on VZ were soooo sick.

[Wonton]

Why would you want teams? That just means less PVP. I don't really see any advantage in hard coding teams.

Here we go again..
Same old shit dog, just a different day
Here we go again..
You know how *****z do, when we play, how we play
Here we go again..
A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do
Here we go again..
So if it's fuck me *****, then you know it's fuck you

[greatdane]

I loved SZ and all, but it was a shit-hole.

I remember a point in time, well before EQ really died, when you could /who all on SZ and not get "list too long".