Fresh start or /movelog for blue rotation server?

[Hailto]

Hypothetically speaking, if a new blue server with raid rotation were to happen, would you prefer a fresh start or a /movelog copy from the current server?

[Ele]

Fresh Day 0 with Velious with your character name already reserved from your blue or red account.

Just like a new server in late 2000/2001. No legacy items, no mass amount of overpowered clickies, no massive bank accounts, no mega twinks.

Some might call it paradise.

[Raev]

Some might call it paradise.

[Hailto]

Fresh Day 0 with Velious with your character name already reserved from your blue or red account.

Just like a new server in late 2000/2001. No legacy items, no mass amount of overpowered clickies, no massive bank accounts, no mega twinks.

Some might call it paradise.

Yeah that would be amazing.

[kaev]

Fresh Day 0 with Velious with your character name already reserved from your blue or red account.

Just like a new server in late 2000/2001. No legacy items, no mass amount of overpowered clickies, no massive bank accounts, no mega twinks.

Some might call it paradise.

Some, including me, yeah. But there appear to be plenty who disagree. I'd love to see it, but I don't have any real clue as to how viable it would be. There're plenty of casual players very attached to their existing pixels and their multiple leveled up alts. There're plenty of casual raiders who only really love the raid game, witness the popularity of paying pp to stare at a wall in Chardok instead of playing the game.

Also, I'm wondering how you'd convince our glorious p99 overlords to provide it, given their avowed goal for the project.

[Jfertal]

Didn't nilbog say he planned to do a fresh start with exact timeline once velious is done and perfected?

[Ele]

Didn't nilbog say he planned to do a fresh start with exact timeline once velious is done and perfected?

It has been suggested by Devs as a "would like to do," just like teams99. Nothing official yet on either.

If Velious came out today though, then the earliest that scenario would happen is at least 1.5 years away.

[Jfertal]

Yeah it would be a long wait, but im sure velious will keep people pretty happy and content for years to come

[Ele]

Also, I'm wondering how you'd convince our glorious p99 overlords to provide it, given their avowed goal for the project.

Would be nice once Velious Beta is complete to wipe beta and turn it into a Velious Day 0 release server with Old World/Kunark/Velious unlocked.

Let it run for a few months and see where people choose to go. It certainly wouldn't be an issue if the population isn't there to just let people move log to red or blue with no ill effect as it won't bring in any legacy items or massive amounts of plat.

[Magnar]

It has been suggested by Devs as a "would like to do," just like teams99. Nothing official yet on either.

If Velious came out today though, then the earliest that scenario would happen is at least 1.5 years away.

It would happen a lot faster if the staff didn't have to keep dealing with PetitionQuest and could focus on other things. For example, just because Sirken isn't coding, doesn't mean he doesn't have a hand in getting Velious out the door as soon as possible. The more time he has to spend answering raid petitions over people's bullshit, the more time he has taken away from working on actual things. Throw Rogean, Derubael, and everyone else who multitasks on staff into the mix and that puts deadlines WAY behind.

[Asap]

so fresh so clean clean

[Ele]

It would happen a lot faster if the staff didn't have to keep dealing with PetitionQuest and could focus on other things. For example, just because Sirken isn't coding, doesn't mean he doesn't have a hand in getting Velious out the door as soon as possible. The more time he has to spend answering raid petitions over people's bullshit, the more time he has taken away from working on actual things. Throw Rogean, Derubael, and everyone else who multitasks on staff into the mix and that puts deadlines WAY behind.

The bosses have said time and again that CSR and Dev work are separate.

There are a number of devs/coders working behind the scenes, as they get the time or inclination to work on it.

Sirk/Deru might pop on beta from time to time to check out people's raids, but them having more free time won't get it out any faster.

[khanable]

Voted fresh start because a classic->kunark->velious progression server would be amazing a few years down the road.

Not interested in it as a "fix" to the raid scene, though.

[Hailto]

Voted fresh start because a classic->kunark->velious progression server would be amazing a few years down the road.

Not interested in it as a "fix" to the raid scene, though.

Yes

[Ziggy]

all the butthurt in the raid scene is just the effect of being stuck/bottle-necked in kunark for 4x longer than live. even on our low-pop (by live-era standards) server there are far too many people trying to get in on the raid scene, and far too few mobs to support them. velious does a good job of spreading players out more, but i suspect we will be having this same conversation about poopsocking rare velious content if nothing new comes out after 4 years in that expansion...

[Magnar]

all the butthurt in the raid scene is just the effect of being stuck/bottle-necked in kunark for 4x longer than live. even on our low-pop (by live-era standards) server there are far too many people trying to get in on the raid scene, and far too few mobs to support them. velious does a good job of spreading players out more, but i suspect we will be having this same conversation about poopsocking rare velious content if nothing new comes out after 4 years in that expansion...

The Velious conversation will be within months of launch. There aren't 10 additional levels plus massive epic quests to attain in new content. Aside from Coldain rings and shawls, it's mostly just faction grinding and drop loot.

[Clark]

I don't think anything would be transferred from one server to another.

Sounds preposterous.

[Swish]

http://i.imgur.com/ukBSczM.gif

[Doil_Boil]

Don't need old pixels on a new server.

[Buriedpast]

Fresh Day 0 with Velious with your character name already reserved from your blue or red account.

Just like a new server in late 2000/2001. No legacy items, no mass amount of overpowered clickies, no massive bank accounts, no mega twinks.

Some might call it paradise.

This man. He knows.

Identical to Vazaelle. No Donals, no prenerfs, none of that garbage like /tar * named cycle farming, no huge abundance of 2-3mannable stuff. Just A perfect world. It would be awesome to meet folks I otherwise wouldn't, forge new friends, do that awesome stuff like those crazy 10 man lower guk groups to get stuffs.

The most important part is that it wouldn't be about the raid scene. We wouldn't need rotations, we would just need a fresh start and a chance to set the mood from the get go. A server and it's raid scene is largely the result of it's people, and I believe the people who would leave their p99 pixels are not the 'shit this place up' kind of folk.

An interesting thought on top of this (which I've suggested as project2000 for over 2 years) would be to restrict p1999 access somehow. So you avoid the batphone neckbeardig whilst also playing 2000.

[Buriedpast]

all the butthurt in the raid scene is just the effect of being stuck/bottle-necked in kunark for 4x longer than live. even on our low-pop (by live-era standards) server there are far too many people trying to get in on the raid scene, and far too few mobs to support them. velious does a good job of spreading players out more, but i suspect we will be having this same conversation about poopsocking rare velious content if nothing new comes out after 4 years in that expansion...

It has multiple reasons which I won't go in to, but predominantly restricting us from VP until we burnt out from killing weekly Trakanons, until a second guild was keyed for over 9 months stuck the knife in deep. It forced the top guild to become the co-top guild, due to burnout on our part, and a massive steam engine of fresh blood on tmo's part. I don't hate them for it, they did and still do very well. But in no way were they competition especially if VP was opened to us when it should of been. This bottleneck was the start of a long list of problems emerging resulting in a highly inflated 60 raid presence, and ultimately a sour grapes situation.

The other key point of p2k would be we (neckbeards) don't have multiple 60's. We would still be on top no matter where (as players, not guilds!, there is a natural order you fall in based on personality/commitment/playtime/knowledge/friends). But the entire server would still be open to everyone else, and I honestly believe we could create a sharing and open way to play the game at all levels.

The lower and mid tier of the game gets better as it takes more people, more groups etc to achieve things. Unlike now when I can go and 3 man prot/tola with ease and redundancy, it takes groups to do the same on a new server, still in crustacean shell armour etc as we leveled up with velious available. The spread of people also would go a long way to avoid conflict, as camps are far more open with velious available as an alternative to KC for pugs. It's just something I, not anyone else can possibly ever experience on p1999 now or ever.

[Pan]

The thing that's lost in this conversation, I think, is that if there is a niche for shitting things up, humans will shit things up.

Unless there's an enforced behavior set from the top down, any new server will look like this one eventually. That's how humans work.

[kaev]

The thing that's lost in this conversation, I think, is that if there is a niche for shitting things up, humans will shit things up.

Unless there's an enforced behavior set from the top down, any new server will look like this one eventually. That's how humans work.

Server environments on live varied a fair bit, despite a common ruleset. It all depends on how the community comes together, you can't impose good behavior. At best you can minimize rewards for douchebaggery. A focus on control and/or penalties just contributes to the negativity, it makes things worse not better. You can't foster the good when your attention is all on the bad. Life amongst the Puritans was shitty, they had to leave Holland for the New World to stop losing all their children to the friendly people around them.

[Pan]

Server environments on live varied a fair bit, despite a common ruleset. It all depends on how the community comes together, you can't impose good behavior. At best you can minimize rewards for douchebaggery. A focus on control and/or penalties just contributes to the negativity, it makes things worse not better. You can't foster the good when your attention is all on the bad. Life amongst the Puritans was shitty, they had to leave Holland for the New World to stop losing all their children to the friendly people around them.

Good points, I think.

Also in play here is that the CS varied from server to server on live a great deal - depended on the personalities of the GMs (among other things). So it could be more than the server pop (individuals) in play there, too. But, in systems generally, if there's a niche (resources), that niche will be exploited in a way that benefits the most competitive.

[mr_jon3s]

Movelog defeats the whole point of a new server. It would just bring a bunch of items and plat to a new server destroying the economy before it gets a chance. When I think of a new server I think of starting fresh grouping with a bunch of people I don't know and having fun.

[Loadsamoney]

This whole "raid scene inflation, sour grapes" situation is exactly the reason why future MMO's moved to the "instance" system, so everyone can have a shot at the content without it being a shit-slinging contest between guilds. Because EVERYONE deserves a chance at it. Being allowed to even touch special raid mobs shouldn't have to be a matter of knowing the right people and conforming to a very specific guild and their ideals.

As far as this server is concerned, right now it's painful watching equal-level twinks in 50kpp+ gear able to slice through everything so easily when I have to struggle tooth and nail for beans. But I guess you gotta start somewhere and a movelog would not fix that.

Personally, I think there should be another Blue server for Classic>Kunark>Velious, but wipe it once every year, and make people start over. Kind of like Ladder in Diablo 2.

[wwoneo]

Voted fresh start because a classic->kunark->velious progression server would be amazing a few years down the road.

Not interested in it as a "fix" to the raid scene, though.

^ This

[jcr4990]

This whole "raid scene inflation, sour grapes" situation is exactly the reason why future MMO's moved to the "instance" system, so everyone can have a shot at the content without it being a shit-slinging contest between guilds. Because EVERYONE deserves a chance at it. Being allowed to even touch special raid mobs shouldn't have to be a matter of knowing the right people and conforming to a very specific guild and their ideals.

As far as this server is concerned, right now it's painful watching equal-level twinks in 50kpp+ gear able to slice through everything so easily when I have to struggle tooth and nail for beans. But I guess you gotta start somewhere and a movelog would not fix that.

Personally, I think there should be another Blue server for Classic>Kunark>Velious, but wipe it once every year, and make people start over. Kind of like Ladder in Diablo 2.Once a year might be too often. But I definitely love this idea. Have one legacy and one progression server. Every X period of time the progression server wipes and all the characters get moved to legacy server and it starts over again. I get sad every time I think about the fact that I was late to the P99 party and missed out on cool stuff that doesn't drop anymore. Plus the fact that I missed out on leveling up together with everybody playing their main char. That must've been a whole different experience. Now it's just groups full of twinked rogs doing 50% of a mob's HP in 1 backstab.

[Hailto]

Only way to make this happen is to be consistently vocal to the devs on p99 that we really want this experience. Would be nice to have one of them give some input about what they think about the idea for the future as well.

[myriverse]

Perpetual restarts seems to make the whole experience pointless imo.

Also, if this is ever done, I can't see anything but a fresh restart being pointed.

[Doil_Boil]

Perpetual restarts seems to make the whole experience pointless imo.

Also, if this is ever done, I can't see anything but a fresh restart being pointed.

Which scenario are you playing EQ in which it isn't pointless? :D

[Loadsamoney]

Which scenario are you playing EQ in which it isn't pointless? :D

Hey now, some people judge the quality of their life based on their pixels.

[myriverse]

Which scenario are you playing EQ in which it isn't pointless? :D
The one where my instance continues at pretty much my own whim.

[Doil_Boil]

The one where my instance continues at pretty much my own whim.

I just figured we all played for the experience of the game. Or did you win the game already?

[kaev]

Good points, I think.

Also in play here is that the CS varied from server to server on live a great deal - depended on the personalities of the GMs (among other things). So it could be more than the server pop (individuals) in play there, too. But, in systems generally, if there's a niche (resources), that niche will be exploited in a way that benefits the most competitive.

Yes, but that doesn't mandate the pants-on-head cockblocking, leapfrogging, training, spying, stalling, & etc. that we've seen here. There were a number of live servers that were highly competitive yet had reasonable behavior by the top guilds. By reasonable I mean things like:
1. You don't fuck with another guild's attempt at a mob. If the mob was a big deal (Trak & Sev during Kunark are a couple obvious ones) it was always immediately engaged by another guild after a wipe, but the first guild on the scene with a legit raid force got their attempt.
2. You don't engage with inadequate force and stall/kite while the rest of your force gets its shit together. #1 doesn't work without this.
3. You don't train another guild's raid. No on purpose. Not "by accident". Not ever.
Once behavior like that was established as the norm on a server the server GM would typically enforce it on the rare occasions that some group started acting up. There'd be a lot of shit-talking during the run-up to an engagement on contested mobs, but actual douchebaggery was kept to a minimum by common consent. That didn't mean guilds wouldn't try to keep mobs spawning in their preferred time-slot, or make strong efforts to monopolize mobs that were bottlenecks to advanced content like Trak, but they'd seek to dominate by simply being better organized and more capaable at the game rather than by being unrepentant douchenozzles the way too damned many people are here.

And all of that was obvious to non-raiders observing. The racing and shit-talking and obsessive pixellust still turned a fair few off to the whole scene, but it was nothing at all like the raid scene on p99. This server's raid scene is very special in a very unpleasantly childish Lord of The Flies sort of way.

[Magnar]

One big fix to the issues on the current blue server would be, if there is a fresh restart on a new server, for the devs to come up with a way that only two accounts can ever be 'flagged' to log on from a single IP exemption. This will prevent the inevitable string of leveling accounts to powerlevel, having ridiculous amounts of characters camped all over the place, cut down on undetected boxing, etc.

[Loadsamoney]

Yes, but that doesn't mandate the pants-on-head cockblocking, leapfrogging, training, spying, stalling, & etc. that we've seen here. There were a number of live servers that were highly competitive yet had reasonable behavior by the top guilds. By reasonable I mean things like:
1. You don't fuck with another guild's attempt at a mob. If the mob was a big deal (Trak & Sev during Kunark are a couple obvious ones) it was always immediately engaged by another guild after a wipe, but the first guild on the scene with a legit raid force got their attempt.
2. You don't engage with inadequate force and stall/kite while the rest of your force gets its shit together. #1 doesn't work without this.
3. You don't train another guild's raid. No on purpose. Not "by accident". Not ever.
Once behavior like that was established as the norm on a server the server GM would typically enforce it on the rare occasions that some group started acting up. There'd be a lot of shit-talking during the run-up to an engagement on contested mobs, but actual douchebaggery was kept to a minimum by common consent. That didn't mean guilds wouldn't try to keep mobs spawning in their preferred time-slot, or make strong efforts to monopolize mobs that were bottlenecks to advanced content like Trak, but they'd seek to dominate by simply being better organized and more capaable at the game rather than by being unrepentant douchenozzles the way too damned many people are here.

And all of that was obvious to non-raiders observing. The racing and shit-talking and obsessive pixellust still turned a fair few off to the whole scene, but it was nothing at all like the raid scene on p99. This server's raid scene is very special in a very unpleasantly childish Lord of The Flies sort of way.

From my short time here, it seems that some of the people on this server are so serious about their pixels, it's almost disturbing, that someone could be obsessed with equipment on a private server of a 15 year old game that almost nobody plays anymore, over things like working a job, paying rent, taking care of a family, etc.

I'm gonna pull a quote from Phil Hellmuth when he was at the WSOP in 2008: To you it's Poker man, to me this is my LIFE.

[Ele]

http://i.imgur.com/FVSl3w9.jpg

[Ele]

One big fix to the issues on the current blue server would be, if there is a fresh restart on a new server, for the devs to come up with a way that only two accounts can ever be 'flagged' to log on from a single IP exemption. This will prevent the inevitable string of leveling accounts to powerlevel, having ridiculous amounts of characters camped all over the place, cut down on undetected boxing, etc.

Unless you play from a static IP address, your IP address will change each time you reset your cable modem. It will also change each time you log in from a different location or wifi network.

You could possibly flag accounts by machine and lock accounts to a single machine until people request to play from a new/different machine for the single account, but that creates a huge amount of work for CSR. It would cut way down on the number of shared accounts/trackers.

Limited password resets would also help cut down on account sharing. The risk of sharing your account with someone that gives out the password that you can only change a few times should cause apprehension in people before they pass it out.


The exorbitant amount of accounts is a symptom of no monthly fees. While I am sure some people more than happily throw down $200 a month to keep their 15 accounts active, a lot of people would have consolidated their alts into a single account instead of making new accounts for each new character. All these extra floating characters would have just faded away instead of being turned into inherited/shared guild accounts.