Population decline since velious release?

[JayDee]

There was a surge in players before velious. Some people even going as far as forecasting a 3,000 sustainable population once the expansion debuted. What I have seen is actually the opposite. I understand it is saturday morning right now, but the population is at 550 which seems low.

None of my friends have played since the first couple days to my understanding. I personally find myself in a precarious position where I can't conceivable raid (at least with expectations of receiving anything in return), can't camp sought after items like beads, can't complete quests like bfg.

Again, my group has taken a small break from the game entirely so I could basing this on the limited information I have, but I do get the impression that people are less enamored with the way velious launched.

[Messie]

Not sure if this is an attempt to be sarcastic, troll, or genuinely a post from someone who doesn't know server demographic / time zones..., but you're asking why the population isn't above 600 currently when it's 6:40 am EST currently and 3:40 am PST. You said yourself you're aware it's Saturday morning... Most of the people online on this hour are from Europe or other places around the world that are not the U.S. 550-600 online during the servers extreme off-peak hours is pretty nice. I'm proudly one of the 550-600 on around this time !

In fact...this time is great...the ONLY time frame in the day where you can go and find most camps uncontested, because most of the server population is asleep! So, enjoy it.

During peak hours the population still seems to be pretty high! Sure it may have dipped a few weeks after velious, but thats because many people have reset their schedules back to reality after taking a week off to nerd out on the lovely velious release.

[Messie]

Additionally, I have quite a few friends who play consistently around this hour and for the next few hours. I'm not sure what level and classes your toons are, but feel free to hit me up in game and if I don't have an alt or two that could group, I may be able to help you find some competent players in your level range! :)

[Rooj]

I've been wanting to make this post myself. Earlier this year I think I saw the server get up to over 2000, maybe it was even closer to 2100. I was expecting even higher numbers once Velious launched, but like you, I'm seeing the opposite. I am sort of wondering if it has anything to do with SOE publicly acknowledging P99 a while back and giving us positive press, so a bunch of folks from Live came over to play who wanted to experience the olden days. But then they saw the forums and logged in to the game and saw how some players and even some staff behave (not bashing on the staff, you do what you do and how you want to, but a lot of the EQ type folk aren't into it - feels like there's a loss of forum activity as well :\) and were too turned off by it. It's certainly a shame because I'd love to see the population rise even higher, otherwise I'm afraid with the landmass having grown for us and the population spreading out, some older zones will have less activity and may become difficult to keep new players interested - just like what happened on Live.

And I certainly wouldn't mind if there were more people playing at 4 AM with me ;D

[Bboboo]

They all went to red serv....lol sorry I can't finish the joke.

[Verath]

It's summer man. It's nice out and summer is generally when people go on vacation.

Thought it was common knowledge that in MMOs population dips in the summer and rises in the winter.

[Doors]

Velious is a true neckbeard expansion.

Anything good you want from it will require massive amounts of time to be put in. People are def. excited for it but eventually reality sets in and the time requirements become unrealistic for most people.

[jaybone]

Need luclin and pop. Thanks

[Masakizt]

velious too little too late

[fishingme]

Probably as simple as so many people burnt themselves out on kunark only for velious to open up with a crap load of 60s farming everything in velious. It's the last planned classic expansion that will release on this server, the game is practically over in terms of progression. I'm just waiting for the hardcores to finally quit because they've burnt themselves out and have come to the realization they've just lost a ton of time.

[Thulack]

troll post.

[Ele]

People must really want Luclin models.

Too bad.

[jaybone]

People must really want Luclin models.

Too bad.

We will get luclin

[myriverse]

Just prior to Velious, the population would consistently top out in the 1300s each day.
Since Velious, the population was somewhat consistently topping in the 1500s, but it has slowly dropped to 1400s.

There's actually been a rise, which seems to be dwindling back to normal levels. Shiny Precious doesn't stay shiny, does it, Precious?

[SamwiseRed]

probably because Velious sucks. same dumb dragons except with more HP! I didn't enjoy velious on live so pretty sure I wouldnt enjoy it on here. classic eq the only good era and by classic i mean vanilla.

[heartbrand]

Issues with Velious on p99:

1) Still not enough content to go around. One guild can still easily monopolize the majority of raid mobs.

2) Not a lot of non raid content. I blew off work for about a week and managed to be full thurg armor, 2x BoB, ring 9 coldain, dragon neck , alliance neck, beads etc., with work done on several PoM flowers. Without AA's or leveling grind, there's little non raid gains to be had now.

3) People entered Velious after four years of kunark with stacked characters and easy access to end game kunark loot, thus trivializing much of the Velious gear.

4) The raid content is incredibly easy outside of AoW / Tunare (and now Vyemm). Everything was basically doable day one with no effort.

5) No further content means once you've decked your character out the realization sinks in that there's nothing left to ever do on p99, which doesn't take very long if you're an end game player.


This is why PoP will to me forever be the greatest expansion. Tons of tradeskills, AA's, challenging groupable content, raid progression that can't be steamrolled in the prior expacs gear, enough content for both groupers and raiders and casual trade skillers. PoP was the pinnacle of EverQuest.

I know not everyone is a power gamer, so there will be disagreement with my points, but if you're not someone who likes to just stroll through iceclad for the view or do ToFS for the experience rather than the vendor junk that drops there, then there is no denying that Velious is small and boring outside of raids.

[SamwiseRed]

PoP was the first expansion that actually made raiding interesting to me. Starting with the PoJ trials to plane of nightmare shit to other flagging. It was p good. heartbrands post is pretty accurate though. I can see people burning out completely in a few weeks.

[Vanquisher]

PoP was def the most fun i ever had in eq, HB post is pretty spot on

[jaybone]

These servers would have been a lot more fun if it didn't take velious 5 years to come out.

[heartbrand]

Id also add that Luclin / PoP to me was the pinnacle of itemization where casters started to get meaningful upgrades with focus effects rather than just a bigger mana pool that was irrelevant anyway a lot of the time. Simultaneously stat glut didn't kick in yet where NToV gear from two prior expacs was still relevant in PoP through a couple of tiers.

[webrunner5]

PoP was def the most fun i ever had in eq, HB post is pretty spot on

Very true, both counts. :)

[jaybone]

The great thing about PoP would be all the tiers of raiding guilds you would have.

[Rooj]

I know it won't, but I really really really want the server to continue the timeline. I really want to continue to experience things I never got to on live with my guild and the friends I've made here. With a few differences such as no bazaar or nexus portals, and if it goes all the way to PoP, maybe no PoK books. Keep the social aspect to the economy and travel... small things like that are what slowly began to chisel away at what EQ was meant to be.

[sulpher01]

troll post.

Either troll post or just stupid.

[fishingme]

Issues with Velious on p99:

1) Still not enough content to go around. One guild can still easily monopolize the majority of raid mobs.

2) Not a lot of non raid content. I blew off work for about a week and managed to be full thurg armor, 2x BoB, ring 9 coldain, dragon neck , alliance neck, beads etc., with work done on several PoM flowers. Without AA's or leveling grind, there's little non raid gains to be had now.

3) People entered Velious after four years of kunark with stacked characters and easy access to end game kunark loot, thus trivializing much of the Velious gear.

4) The raid content is incredibly easy outside of AoW / Tunare (and now Vyemm). Everything was basically doable day one with no effort.

5) No further content means once you've decked your character out the realization sinks in that there's nothing left to ever do on p99, which doesn't take very long if you're an end game player.


This is why PoP will to me forever be the greatest expansion. Tons of tradeskills, AA's, challenging groupable content, raid progression that can't be steamrolled in the prior expacs gear, enough content for both groupers and raiders and casual trade skillers. PoP was the pinnacle of EverQuest.

I know not everyone is a power gamer, so there will be disagreement with my points, but if you're not someone who likes to just stroll through iceclad for the view or do ToFS for the experience rather than the vendor junk that drops there, then there is no denying that Velious is small and boring outside of raids.

Well what did you seriously expect? This is why you don't hardcore raid or be in the most dominant guild(s) on the server, or practice mobs on beta. Of course Velious is going to be trivial.

[heartbrand]

Well what did you seriously expect? This is why you don't hardcore raid or be in the most dominant guild(s) on the server, or practice mobs on beta. Of course Velious is going to be trivial.

Your solution: Don't play the game: love it. Sounds like when Blizzard complains that isn't a lack of content that's an issue its that people are playing the content too much!

[Swish]

I quit Hearthstone because of the matchmaking system. Nice to get steamrolled on your 4th/5th game by a guy with an almost full gold deck...subtle message that you need to invest in the game or just lose 75% of matches.

Still plenty to enjoy on P99, even if you have to change venues to do it.

[Itap]

Your solution: Don't play the game: love it. Sounds like when Blizzard complains that isn't a lack of content that's an issue its that people are playing the content too much!

Lol, you guys are a blue guild on a red server.

[burkemi5]

About 1200 people on right now. 2:40 EST, beautiful day throughout much of the Midwest. Population seems pretty healthy to me!

[Taeoz]

I really wish the devs would reneg on their decision to never go past Velious. I mean, having a classic server and PoP server should be possible. Though I kinda get it that if they don't have the same feels towards PoP, then obviously they wouldn't want to spend time on it.

Alternatively, the custom content they've talked about before, could be derivative from PoP and Luclin. Make use of the existing assets and just add their own spin to them. Though some of the fixes that came with Luclin and PoP as far as classes were concerned (bow AAs etc.) would be great as well.

*sigh* p2002 sounds interesting, but it'll probably never get even close to the numbers that p99 has as far as users go and I'm not interested boxing by myself on an empty server. And having become accustomed to the level of...I don't know, professionalism(?) that the devs on p99 show, I don't think I could deal with any other servers.

[heartbrand]

Supposedly DB is doing a boxing free progression server. I'd try that but probably not until it hit Luclin / PoP as the initial mass wave of people and non classic shit is annoying.

[Swish]

Supposedly DB is doing a boxing free progression server. I'd try that but probably not until it hit Luclin / PoP as the initial mass wave of people and non classic shit is annoying.

I wonder how they'll enforce that without spending any money on it. Interesting idea.

[am0n]

.I don't know, professionalism(?) that the devs on p99 show, I don't think I could deal with any other servers.

Here is a developer's reply.

How about we start banning for hacking models, maps, because they can be altered to give an unfair advantage?

Do you think enforcing models revolved around someone "liking luclin better"???

You don't like classic models? They are in the spirit of the server. Sorry.

You wanna blame someone for it going in, when there are plenty of things to work on?

Red Server is over there. ====>

The whining is enough to make me push disabling the mouse scroll wheel next patch.

Get over it. You want luclin models? EQLive is F2P. Go whine there.

..... boy, I am sassy today. Heh.

So. In the Classic spirit. Besides scroll wheel, what other classic client feature would tick people off as much as spell timers, if it were removed?

H

[Voland]

I would love to see PoP, it would be like Al'Kabor server, but without boxing:)

[Taeoz]

am0n, I knew someone would bring that stuff up, hence the question mark. :)

They may not be professional as far as behavior, but they do stick to their guns. They set out to do something and they've been doing their best to achieve their goals. For a hobby project that is available for free, the work and effort they've put into this server is quite impressive and despite Haynar seemingly thriving on the tears of the players whenever he takes away a QoL feature, all of them can be defended as far as the server ideology is concerned. And this has been going on for years.

Even after so many years, they're still actively fixing things and maintaining the server. I doubt other emulated servers can match the dedication and promise equal longevity. I could be wrong though, since I don't really follow the EQEmu scene, at all.

[Landylil]

I was actually really excited for Velious, me and the friends I have that play on the server are all 55-60 and were going to return, but then they added the mandatory classic character models. Some of us used 100% classic models, most used a mixture of classic and Luclin. Pushed our group away from becoming active again for Velious.

[am0n]

Oh, there is no question about their dedication. However, dedication != professionalism.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

observations about population changes are accurate. over this past winter, server was hitting ~2k 7 days a week. Now it is down to ~1500 or less.

But for perspective, prior to the 2014-2015 population jump, weekend populations were ~1k.

And the server still was hopping, imo.

Blue only needs to worry if the population gets down to the sub-300 levels such as Red deals with and fools itself into thinking they got a happening server.

[Swish]

Close to 400 most nights, sorry to bubble burst.

[Itap]

When I started in April of 2012, we were lucky to have 500 during primetime, just to give you an idea of the population now.

I do believe there should be more playing here though

[Swish]

When I started in April of 2012, we were lucky to have 500 during primetime, just to give you an idea of the population now.

I do believe there should be more playing here though

More like 50 lol no pop server lawl

[Man0warr]

I quit Hearthstone because of the matchmaking system. Nice to get steamrolled on your 4th/5th game by a guy with an almost full gold deck...subtle message that you need to invest in the game or just lose 75% of matches.

Still plenty to enjoy on P99, even if you have to change venues to do it.

Gold cards mean nothing in Hearthstone. Also the ladder gets reset every month so for a period of time the best players are going to be in the lower ranks right along with everyone else.

[Swish]

Gold cards mean nothing in Hearthstone. Also the ladder gets reset every month so for a period of time the best players are going to be in the lower ranks right along with everyone else.

Maybe not but the point I'm making is that the other guy isn't on "day 1" of playing, they should have new players finding their feet against other new players to be a good experience... ease em in gradually.

[Man0warr]

That's what the non-ranked game mode is for - you can't even play Ladder until you have high enough level classes.

[Swish]

That's what the non-ranked game mode is for - you can't even play Ladder until you have high enough level classes.

Yeah that happened in casual mode...4th/5th game and I get guy with all gold cards, got beat pretty good lol.

[Barkingturtle]

I have literally played thousands of hands of WoW cards and I have never run into one of these all gold decks I hear about. I don't even know why someone would do that. Why not d/e them for that sweet, sweet dust?

[Shjade]

I have literally played thousands of hands of WoW cards and I have never run into one of these all gold decks I hear about. I don't even know why someone would do that. Why not d/e them for that sweet, sweet dust?

Some men just want to watch the world burn.

In gold.

[fishingme]

Your solution: Don't play the game: love it. Sounds like when Blizzard complains that isn't a lack of content that's an issue its that people are playing the content too much!

No, my solution is moderation.

[Zemgus]

Id also add that Luclin / PoP to me was the pinnacle of itemization where casters started to get meaningful upgrades with focus effects rather than just a bigger mana pool that was irrelevant anyway a lot of the time. Simultaneously stat glut didn't kick in yet where NToV gear from two prior expacs was still relevant in PoP through a couple of tiers.

Agree

[keysmash]

Probably as simple as so many people burnt themselves out on kunark only for velious to open up with a crap load of 60s farming everything in velious. It's the last planned classic expansion that will release on this server, the game is practically over in terms of progression. I'm just waiting for the hardcores to finally quit because they've burnt themselves out and have come to the realization they've just lost a ton of time.

And then we can become the ones poopsocking our lives away. Sounds good to me.

[zanderklocke]

Even if this server did get another expansion, have fun seeing it in 6-7 years.

[fishingme]

And then we can become the ones poopsocking our lives away. Sounds good to me.

If ya want to poopsock, sure. I've done fairly well on my time spent here without poopsocking.then again I've been around since the first day. Could be harder for newer folk.

[fishingme]

observations about population changes are accurate. over this past winter, server was hitting ~2k 7 days a week. Now it is down to ~1500 or less.

But for perspective, prior to the 2014-2015 population jump, weekend populations were ~1k.

And the server still was hopping, imo.

Blue only needs to worry if the population gets down to the sub-300 levels such as Red deals with and fools itself into thinking they got a happening server.

This server was most fun when pop was between 250 and 400 primetime.

[kaev]

This server was most fun when pop was between 250 and 400 primetime.

I'll bet the tanks/rogues/clerics just loved the shit out of that.

[Huggz]

Wipe it clean 2015 - or just start a new classic server! This server is tiring as fuck.

New server please so we can get away from this joke timeline.

[Tasslehofp99]

250 people in ToV atm on blue, server thriving lol

[Mistle]

278 atm. Can you imagine what ToV is going to be like on the TLCs? Lol

[Bazia]

progress the timeline lol you'd be dead by the time PoP would come out

[lauremore]

The devs should do Luclin and Custom pop w/o the bazaar and nexus. They could actually fix all the crappy bugs in both expacs and make use of the zones SOE intended to, while keeping in AAs and more tradeskill items etc. etc. etc. To me, it seems that is the only way to go if they intend to keep the project going, because after a while ( say 3 months) most people will be super bored with velious.

[Maner]

The devs should do Luclin and Custom pop w/o the bazaar and nexus. They could actually fix all the crappy bugs in both expacs and make use of the zones SOE intended to, while keeping in AAs and more tradeskill items etc. etc. etc. To me, it seems that is the only way to go if they intend to keep the project going, because after a while ( say 3 months) most people will be super bored with velious.

Are you going to dedicate your time to do all the coding for nothing?

[fishingme]

Don't say that, people might migrate to red.

Its why i went red. Went back to blue due to 1 massive blue guild on red server, no real end game fun pvp activity

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

The devs should do Luclin and Custom pop w/o the bazaar and nexus. They could actually fix all the crappy bugs in both expacs and make use of the zones SOE intended to, while keeping in AAs and more tradeskill items etc. etc. etc. To me, it seems that is the only way to go if they intend to keep the project going, because after a while ( say 3 months) most people will be super bored with velious.

You underestimate the nature of this monster. Do a forum search on the archives. Do you realize the *same* people have been anticipating and discussing Velious for 4 years?

And they waited. And if Velious was released in 2016, they still would have waited.

[topgun1027]

Probably as simple as so many people burnt themselves out on kunark only for velious to open up with a crap load of 60s farming everything in velious. It's the last planned classic expansion that will release on this server, the game is practically over in terms of progression. I'm just waiting for the hardcores to finally quit because they've burnt themselves out and have come to the realization they've just lost a ton of time.

If someone is enjoying their playtime then it is not wasted.

[Pariad]

I guess you forgot what happened after the Kunark launch.

[Thulghor]

The devs should do Luclin and Custom pop w/o the bazaar and nexus. They could actually fix all the crappy bugs in both expacs and make use of the zones SOE intended to, while keeping in AAs and more tradeskill items etc. etc. etc. To me, it seems that is the only way to go if they intend to keep the project going, because after a while ( say 3 months) most people will be super bored with velious.

I would be happy if they did some of the itemization and bug fixes to Velious that occurred in early Luclin. Blade of Carnage wouldn't suck (not that I'll ever see one), and a number of unpolished and buggy quests would actually work correctly (Field Supplies for one, along with the Coldain 8th Shawl Quest). Everyone is well aware that Velious wasn't fully finished by the time Luclin came out, due to SOE rushing things. Seems a shame to follow that same path which was clearly not intended.

While I did have fun with Luclin itself back in the day, I can understand why they're stopping at Velious. Luclin was a start of EQ going in a very different direction.

EDIT: While looking for sources to cite for Velious development, I found this old trailer for Velious. Definitely neat for its time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnDiB9liJMM

[maskedmelon]

They all went to red serv....lol sorry I can't finish the joke.

I did this and have been enjoying it immensely ^^v

[fishingme]

If someone is enjoying their playtime then it is not wasted.

Well of course, But my response was to the population decline.

[Tiewon Shu]

Most of the decline is probably people upset over the fact that Luclin graphics were blocked with the Velious patch. :D

[Roguejm11]

Issues with Velious on p99:

1) Still not enough content to go around. One guild can still easily monopolize the majority of raid mobs.

2) Not a lot of non raid content. I blew off work for about a week and managed to be full thurg armor, 2x BoB, ring 9 coldain, dragon neck , alliance neck, beads etc., with work done on several PoM flowers. Without AA's or leveling grind, there's little non raid gains to be had now.

3) People entered Velious after four years of kunark with stacked characters and easy access to end game kunark loot, thus trivializing much of the Velious gear.

4) The raid content is incredibly easy outside of AoW / Tunare (and now Vyemm). Everything was basically doable day one with no effort.

5) No further content means once you've decked your character out the realization sinks in that there's nothing left to ever do on p99, which doesn't take very long if you're an end game player.


This is why PoP will to me forever be the greatest expansion. Tons of tradeskills, AA's, challenging groupable content, raid progression that can't be steamrolled in the prior expacs gear, enough content for both groupers and raiders and casual trade skillers. PoP was the pinnacle of EverQuest.

I know not everyone is a power gamer, so there will be disagreement with my points, but if you're not someone who likes to just stroll through iceclad for the view or do ToFS for the experience rather than the vendor junk that drops there, then there is no denying that Velious is small and boring outside of raids.

Upvote ^

[Gilder]

Velious is a true neckbeard expansion.

This man speaks the truth.

And it's why the red server appeals to so many working professionals. We don't have time to sit around and grind through this shit anymore. Just wanna play games and see pixels.

[Gimp]

lol'd at "working professionals" and red in same sentence

[maskedmelon]

This man speaks the truth.

And it's why the red server appeals to so many working professionals. We don't have time to sit around and grind through this shit anymore. Just wanna play games and see pixels.

Pras

[Gilder]

lol'd at "working professionals" and red in same sentence

Don't lump me in with the trolls in OOC. I have a brother deployed in the army. We only get a few hours at a time. Red server only made sense because everytime we tried to play on blue together, we never got anything accomplished.

[Swish]

Don't mind Gimp, if you say anything red related he goes overboard and starts lashing out...would be the same if it was Mother Theresa posting about it.