Recent Decline In Population

[stormlord]

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

Honestly the idea of at least time locking the expansion progression staves off the inevitable, and the player base has the right to choose to hold off on releasing the next expansion. That lends some credence to the idea but the way the dev team on P99 is working makes it seem more like a, "Jeez I just heard of this new expansion coming out I wonder when they'll give us more information!" like it was in classic rather than the voting system Fippy has where it's simply, "Kill these mobs and let's vote to have the next expansion released in 90 days so we can get to bigger targets."

P99 at least leaves some appeal to exploring the world on alts or even on mains, regardless if you're raiding targets. For those that get bored and want ultra fast progression right back up to live, Fippy is a good idea.

The thing this all underlines for me is the importance of redefining what progression means in games so that it includes all of the content on more equal terms. Too many games mudflate and anything older than a year or two is left to rott out back in the shed. The problem with this is that progression players, the ones that want to see older content because they haven't yet, have to slog through cobwebs and trash to experience it. What's going on is little to no attention is given to this gameplay style. What they do is make a progression server, IF you're lucky! And it's an afterthought. What I want to see is a real effort to define the progression play-style and to implement it in an inclusive kind of way that doesn't alienate sub-populations.

Looking at EQ2, I see some positives. For example, it's easier to do older content than it once was. You flip on AA's and your power increases. This is a necessity because fewer people will be doing it. But the problem is that a lot of it still has not been adjusted to reflect this new reality. For example, if 4 people were needed back then to pull a lever or to spawn a named, this constraint STILL remains. So they need to find some people to help them do it, which defeats the whole purpose of making older content easier for progression players to experience it. Another example are tradeskill items or quests that might need particular items that drop randomly from somewhere. The problem emerges whne you realize there's no economy for this older content so you either have to grind for the item or just give up. The drop rate or the mechanic used needs to be changed. So making the content easier is not the silver bullet because it won't address little things like this that can hold back a progression player. If the content is detailed and diverse you have to go through it with a fine tooth comb or you have to plan ahead so sh** like this doesn't happen.

And HOW you make content easier is important as well. For example, you can offer super items that make it easier in the latest expansion, for new players. YOu can make it drop on trash in all expansion, like defiant armor in EQ1. Then they go back to the older content and mow everything down like Rambo. This problematic and miserable because it ruins the sense of reward a player gets when they succeed. They find out that the reward is worse than what they have! Increasing defense/offense in certain content or at certain levels with each new expansion is probably a better method since players can still do the older content but they can find a useful purpose for the rewards as well which will be a nice touch and not ruin the reward.

Even WoW is mudflating. I've read about it here and there. I know that they tried to revamp some content which was a great sign. But even they have a bottom line and content that was once doable and purposeful is not anymore. They're turning a blind eye to it. This problem is industry-wide.

Just a imagine a human body that's slowly shedding body parts because it can't circulate enough blood to keep it all healthy. What's going on is our current methods in the industry are not solving this problem or they're not looking ahead far enough. My feeling is that they're centered on the latest and shiniest, but anything else is on the back burner. This is where it all falls apart. Progression players are left behind in the dust and bitter decay to crawl among corpses and broken remains looking for the game.

[Ledzepp02]

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

its summertime yo !

[Messianic]

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

its summertime yo !

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Daywolf]

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

SWG Pre-CU truly was an epic game

Yep, pre-cu was one of my top all time mmo's, and I've played many. UO, SWG and EQ were the best, hard to choose a top favorite as they were all so different. pre-aos, pre-nge/pre-cu, pre-pop. Now their all about the same lol. But Pre-cu was just the best faction wars hands down. SWG should have skipped the CU and all game changing ideas and just focused on JTLS/space content, but they decided to "fix" what was not broken at all. ah well.

[Trademaster]

Pre CU was the best MMO sandbox released, IMO. The problem was, that it was nothing but a sandbox, and asking players to generate content is asking for a lot more than most players are willing to give. Especially without any devo tools available. If I were masochistic enough to try to split my time between two MMOs (again) my second would be swg.

[hdawg06]

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

SWG Pre-CU truly was an epic game

The SWG emulator project is actually starting to see some promise, but it will probably be another 2 years before it is actually ready to play. It is buggy as heck atm.

[Duie]

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

I agree that this is a very easy thing to fix... thing is, are you guys willing to kick your casual members to the curb and accually progress to the new content as the did on live? VP not out does hamper this , ill give you that .

It would be a lot easier to come up with a solution with 1 or 2 hard core and the casuals being able to do the old world scraps until they are accually ready to advance....... Idea world granted.
On my guild on live you had to have full planer before you were even able to app after kunark. something like this could benifit both parties as well as keep people intrested. problem being, is either one is willing to do this.... the answer so far is no.

3 day spawn on Trak.. lets hope Epics come out soon followed by VP so you guys can advance past all this stuff.

PS. I have been on both sides of the fence playing EQ . I feel that a better way for raiding to be done would benifit the comunity as a whole and would also keep people intrested in the game longer. This is not a Slam on TR or Ascension as id probally be right there with them if real life allowed it .
They will be a point on this server where something will have to be tried or we will just end up with 300 to 400 people guilds all cockblocking one another. The trend has already started tward that.

I guess i wasnt too far off after all sir

[Qauz]

wait for winter to hit and see the numbers climb

[wrxBRAH]

hit the reset button. watch the numbers climb back up while making all the hardcores rage at their lack of pixels. win/win and buys the developers a lot more time to code/fix/test vp/epics and whatnot.

[Messianic]

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

hit the reset button. watch the numbers climb back up while making all the hardcores rage at their lack of pixels. win/win and buys the developers a lot more time to code/fix/test vp/epics and whatnot.

....Die.

And i'm not a hardcore...