Didn't read all of this thread, but this guy got it on the first page:
Quote:
Originally Posted by heartbrand
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The barrier to entry is incredibly high on red. There is for the most part no one to level with, no economy to speak of, and it feels like a ghost town. The EXP bonus makes the journey to 60 rather quick on a solo class and the end game is a huge bore. There's only one guild to play, getting non vulak / dozekar items is incredibly easy, so you basically "win" EverQuest in a very short period of time. There's no EC Tunnel Quest so it's not as though you can go farm items and play the auction metagame; there's not tons of organic grouping going on to level alts up with; and everyone you play with at the end game has the exact same end game gear you do so there's little to no feeling of accomplishment. Couple that with the fact that there will never be new content and you have a recipe for boredom and disinterest.
Blue, despite having the same issue of a lack of content, has a [artificially] "competitive" end game scene which means it takes significantly longer to "win" the game by getting all your raid gear. This keeps the carrot on the end of the stick for you to keep on logging in. It also has a robust economy so for those who are interested in the metagame of acquiring platinum can participate in that. There is also an influx of new players to level up with again because when someone hears about P99 for the first time are they rolling up on a 19 person box or 600 person box? Couple that with the fact that a lot of people just don't like PvP.
All the talk about "toxic" player base and everything else just ignores the real fundamental issues with the server. A re-release, with a clear rule set, GM enforcement, a safe zone such as EC [yes guilds use it to buff up and prep, but the positives outweigh the negatives], classic EXP gain, and a higher death penalty; would all go a long way to driving up the population on this server. However, there will never be a wipe, and dramatic changes on this box where everyone has 11 vulak geared alts isn't going to generate any significant interest.
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Box needs a reset to vanilla (ideally w/ teams ruleset).
Relative "safe" zones were built-in on VZ/TZ/SZ and your allies/enemies were clearly defined. That lowers the barrier to entry for casual players.
If Kunark and Velious progression is necessary to keep on a low-pop box like this, I feel like they should be on limited timelines. There aren't and never have been enough players on EQEmu to support the size of those expansions on a red server. It's still high because this is Everquest in 2018, but it's not as bad as FFA. And if live servers were any indication, there's more PvP on teams servers despite there being "more targets" on RZ (which basically became a ghetto blue server while there were epic race wars for zone control on VZ and TZ).
I'm sure the hardcore playerbase has long since BIS-geared their 8th alt by now, so what else is left for them to do? I know I won't bother playing here again unless it does get reset because the current state of the server just doesn't interest me. If I wanted to grind PvE content by myself I'd do it on the blue server. There's no low or mid level PvP here.
Also, the playerbase seems fine. There's always a few vocal idiots but people are tame here now compared to VZTZ or early R99.