haha truth, perhaps no surprise at all!

Of course part of me is just jealous: I've never been lucky enough to start playing any game or on any game server anywhere near launch. I've been late to the party for 15 years of gaming and would love a chance to be on equal footing even if it only lasted ~3 days before I fell behind due to having a job!

Same Troy, even on P99 i started in June 2010 and not even on what turned into my main. That said, I suppose partly due to good fortune/networking personally, I can say it's fully possible to level up and end up relatively geared. Really, the only items you likely wouldn't have are Lustrous Russet and Sky 41% haste/caster equivalent items solely due to LR not dropping and Sky going unraided.

^^ I thought you quit ?.

On topic,
I've never had a problem finding or creating a group. I have a feeling a lot of the posters including OP walked into guk or solb, shouted a couple times for a group and after not receiving any tells in 4 mins they proceed to run to the forums to tell people how hard it is to find a group.

Protip: /who all LFG

I did, I'm unsure why not playing on the server discludes me from posting on the forums.

This is a bad idea because: a) veterans don't want to start over (i assume) b) it would fractionate the population with 2 servers. Since your'e innocent and ignorant of the details, I forgive you readily.

EQ is a group-based game. It depends on a broad population to survive. This is probably one of its fatal flaws. If I could have a chance to design its next incarnation, I would address this part of it immediately. But we can't since this server is not about changing EQ it's about reliving the glory days. So we're bound to the laws as they were then. Thus, we have to respect the laws that forbid us from ignoring population. This means we need a population AT LEAST 1000 but 1500 or more would be preferable, especially when velious comes around. This server is becoming increasingly top heavy too. Finding groups as a new player and feeling like you're part of a community is going to get harder and harder without a rich supply of new players coming into the game.

In regards to new players we need to think about incoming new players, not total population. Sure, veterans will make alts, but we can't depend on a population of alts to give new players groups to join unless our total populations were, i'm guessing, in excess of 2500 or more. Plus, alts tend to solo since they're twinked.

I always point at MMOcharts.com. According to their data for EQ - which is prone to error but the best we got since SOE hasn't officially published the exact details - incoming rates of new players decreased all the way from 1999 onward to the current period. It's this variable that we must set our eyes on most when addressing the experience of a new player. This variable is like aging in people. It slowly kills. Without a fresh and adequate supply of incoming new players then each segment of population that's leveling up will find itself broken without enough population to meet its needs. This will lead to predictable outcomes. No one likes to /shout Lfg!

I think what we need is a next generation MMO that has an open environment like EQ does (non instanced) but with new features that set it apart from other open environment counterparts, like Vanguard. Basically, the game needs to be able to operate at low population as well as it does at high population. To do this it must solve the biggest problems that come with non-instanced worlds: finity, high competition, etc. There're a variety of ways to go about it, but what the market needs are concrete answers that solve the problem simply and economically. We need working examples, not discussions. The sooner the better, for these games.

In the process of solving those problems we also need to solve: camping, repetitive gameplay. Next to the problems that accompany open environments, I think these are the next in line.

Marc has another great point: get off your ass and make things happen. You can't blame anyone else when YOU aren't having fun. If YOU aren't doing something YOU want to be doing, then YOU change what YOU are doing.

Also, if you are worried you are behind the gear curve, you are playing this game wrong. Only the melee classes are dependent on gear, the caster classes still function at 90+% performance naked as they do with 100kPP worth of gear. If you do happen to be a melee starting out, then you will be a bit behind the 8-ball, but good player skill will still allow you to function well enough that people ENJOY grouping with you and SEEK YOU OUT when you're online.

You don't have to be twinked or high level to enjoy this game, and if you think otherwise, then hop over to the EZ Server, PEQ, or TheHiddenForest where its a lot easier to get high levels and amazing gear. Then come back here and tell me those are as rewarding as a true(er) classic experience. What you really want is the adventure of leveling/gearing up, so enjoy that adventure.

The journey is the destination. By the time you have "caught up" and you are max level with BIS gear, you'll be bored. You'll remember when you got that awesome gear and it MATTERED, you'll remember the joking you did with that buddy/guildee that stayed up with you camping horribly_long_camp01, you'll remember that wipe that took FOREVER to recover from and that boss kill that you pulled out of your ass at 1%. These are the experiences to treasure in EQ, and everything in between. Stop trying to "skip to the good parts". This whole game is the "good part", that's why we're playing a 10 year old game when the mammoth of WoW and the newness that is Rift are just around the corner. If this description of the game doesn't sound like you want, then go find one that does, where the destination is easier to obtain and the journey is by yourself. Only when you realize the journey is the destination will you realize why you really enjoyed EQ the first time.

Falkun, you are my hero. I wish I could rate your posts separately from this thread.

People didn't have two years of being level 50 to farm (or dupe) plat before Kunark came out either on Live.

Live did not have the population of level 50s to start Kunark as P99 did.
Live did not have the population of level 60s to start Velious as P99 will.

I was here during beta and at launch and I would have to say that if the server had the population at launch that it has now, it would have been way funner.

Anyone else that was here at launch will remember......remember how empty every place was. I was in HighKeep about 2 weeks after launch and there was NO ONE in there! EC tunnell was lucky to have 20 players there. No one had anything to sell yet.

Anyway, I started a few server on live when they launched, and it was fun! I am not saying it should be done here, but I do not see any reason why, after Velious is launched for a year or two, that a new server cannot open and start all over again.