How to save red

[loramin]

I know this is a crazy idea, but maybe Red didn't fail because it lacked character transfers, or because it lacked *your personal pet PvP rule here*. Maybe Red failed because it's toxic community scared away most people who tried it, and many of the people that continued in spite of it were the types that enjoyed/increased the toxicity, making it more toxic over time.

Maybe that prevented the population from ever growing beyond the people who enjoyed/could tolerate that toxicity, and so maybe the way to save Red isn't to imagine new server changes, but rather to figure out how to make the community itself more inviting. And not just in the "this is Derubael's pet project for the week" way, but in a way that sustainably discourages players from just making other players' lives miserable and instead encourages respectful/competitive (and in my book, fun) PvP.

Maybe ... but I'm sure the kind of people who enjoy griefing (which I would guess is a big chunk of Red's current population) will tell me why I'm wrong and why what Red really needs to grow is MORE grief.

P.S. For the record no I didn't play PvP on EQ in classic, except for taking a toon up to like level 20 on Sullon Zek. But I did play mainly on a PvP server in WoW (and played tons of battlegrounds on my non-PvP servers), and I enjoyed it, so I'm not some MMOG PvP hater.

[Nathaniel]

I simply wouldn't care if my character was copied to red. I would never play them there anyway because I have zero interest in PvP.

[SlankyLanky]

eq pvp always sucked. red always sucked. theres no saving a server that 100 people play on. those 100 can keep playing it, and let blue keep being the shit show that classic eq raiding was.

[Squire]

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

I know this is a crazy idea, but maybe Red didn't fail because it lacked character transfers, or because it lacked *your personal pet PvP rule here*. Maybe Red failed because it's toxic community scared away most people who tried it, and many of the people that continued in spite of it were the types that enjoyed/increased the toxicity, making it more toxic over time.

Maybe that prevented the population from ever growing beyond the people who enjoyed/could tolerate that toxicity, and so maybe the way to save Red isn't to imagine new server changes, but rather to figure out how to make the community itself more inviting. And not just in the "this is Derubael's pet project for the week" way, but in a way that sustainably discourages players from just making other players' lives miserable and instead encourages respectful/competitive (and in my book, fun) PvP.

Maybe ... but I'm sure the kind of people who enjoy griefing (which I would guess is a big chunk of Red's current population) will tell me why I'm wrong and why what Red really needs to grow is MORE grief.

P.S. For the record no I didn't play PvP on EQ in classic, except for taking a toon up to like level 20 on Sullon Zek. But I did play mainly on a PvP server in WoW (and played tons of battlegrounds on my non-PvP servers), and I enjoyed it, so I'm not some MMOG PvP hater.

Ah as I read that I could tell you had not played red here and made the same misconceptions that many do here. Let me begin by saying of course the vocal minority of Forumquesters created a level of toxicity which was newbie unfriendly, we as a community have to be accountable for that but to insinuate that mean spirited banter is the only issue that plagued red is being myopic.

Mechanical changes such as (early on in the server's lifecycle) taking exp loss upon a pvp death, implementation of the global ooc which allowed toxicity to spread game-wide, yellow text which caused a name-and-shame element to pvp (all of the preceding were not classic, btw) inhibited player growth and retention.

Hell, I remember 12 people I was leveling with quitting after they throttled down the exp rate, that caused more player bleed than any toxic griefer, whom were allowed to wear epics and kill players at a 8+/- level range, which was later changed.

These are just a couple of examples, there were also a lack of any CSR for like 2 years (an environment not even the blue raiding scene could have endured, think of all the artificial rules and rotations required to keep blue going) so my point is, yes, the red community has some rotten and loud members, but you can't in any seriousness claim there wasn't serious structural problems and neglect from almost the very beginning. Don't get me wrong, I know the staff does this all for free, and I'm grateful, but I'm also just trying to paint a more accurate picture of server history.

tl;dr muh toxic community isnt the only issue that hurt red. mechanics and policies were at least as, if not more damaging.

[loramin]

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

Ah as I read that I could tell you had not played red here and made the same misconceptions that many do here. Let me begin by saying of course the vocal minority of Forumquesters created a level of toxicity which was newbie unfriendly, we as a community have to be accountable for that but to insinuate that mean spirited banter is the only issue that plagued red is being myopic.

While I didn't mean to suggest Red had only one problem or only one cause of it's problems, it does have a single core problem: low population. I honestly don't know if the toxic community is the biggest factor contributing to it or not, I just know that Red will have a very hard (maybe impossible) time reaching sustainable population as long as the community remains as toxic as it is. It's just hard to add people to the server when they keep leaving because they got repeatedly killed by de-leveled griefers, were offended by the talk in OOC, or were horrified by the "the vocal minority of Forumquesters."

There's nothing wrong with pontificating about how much better the server would be with this rule added or that rule removed. But none of those suggestions (that I've heard) in any way address the toxic community problem. The simple fact is that a lot of Red players live for schadenfreude (although I'm sure a lot are also like Swish; not trying to paint the whole server as toxic). Those people scare (many) people who aren't like them away from the server, and this limits the server's potential population. Whether or not that's the only problem, it seems like one that must be addressed if Red is ever going to succeed, so I just wish I saw more talk about how to solve it.

[Squire]

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

While I didn't mean to suggest Red had only one problem or only one cause of it's problems, it does have a single core problem: low population. I honestly don't know if the toxic community is the biggest factor contributing to it or not, I just know that Red will have a very hard (maybe impossible) time reaching sustainable population as long as the community remains as toxic as it is. It's just hard to add people to the server when they keep leaving because they got repeatedly killed by de-leveled griefers, were offended by the talk in OOC, or were horrified by the "the vocal minority of Forumquesters".

There's nothing wrong with pontificating about how much better the server would be with this rule added or that rule removed. But none of those suggestions (that I've heard) in any way address the toxic community problem. The simple fact is that a lot of Red players live for schadenfreude (I'm sure a lot are also like Swish; not trying to paint the whole server as toxic). Those people scare (many) people who aren't like them away from the server, and this limits the server's potential population. Whether or not that's the only problem, it seems like one that must be addressed if Red is ever going to succeed.

We can't change the core red player's psyche. We can change server mechanics and policies.

[loramin]

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

We can't change the core red player's psyche. We can change server mechanics and policies.

That's kinda like saying "we can only patch holes in half the boat": even if you patch the holes in the other half, your ship is still gonna sink. But I'm not sure server mechanics and policies can't address it, I just haven't seen anyone suggesting such changes.

One simple example: de-leveling. I haven't heard anyone even mention eliminating it (or rather making people's skills reset when they de-level), and it's probably because it doesn't seem like a problem to most of Red's population because they've long since leveled past that point (and some have now become the deleveled griefer).

But to the new person trying to play on the server for the first time and getting repeatedly killed by a de-leveled griefer, it's a really big deal. And if you want to grow the server's population, you need that person not to quit.

[Swish]

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

We can't change the core red player's psyche. We can change server mechanics and policies.

One of the highlights in terms of trying to change red for me was Eunomia policing OOC to the point where you couldn't chat out of character except for posting an auction or LFG message.

So 2 of the top players (1 from Holocaust, 1 from Azrael I think) engage in pvp combat, and the inevitable yellow text hits.

People can't say "pras", they can't comment on any of it (which is stupid honestly)...what happens?

People increase the spam on their auctions in appreciation of the kill.

I tried to get a guild together called <Pras That> to circumvent the chat moderation (guild adverts were allowed), but Eunomia's response was "absolutely not" [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Baler]

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[loramin]

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

One of the highlights in terms of trying to change red for me was Eunomia policing OOC to the point where you couldn't chat out of character except for posting an auction or LFG message.

Yeah I don't mean that sort of thing, but I guess it's a fine line. And maybe eliminating de-leveling isn't the greatest example: you'll still have griefer twinks, and the only fix for that is making everything no drop.

But I do think there has to be something that can be done to make it so that new Red (or Discord or whatever) players experience the thrill of PvP, rather than the slog of being griefed. And I really do think if that happened it would raise population.