[Dulu]

Rogean was gracious enough to sit down with the PvP community tonight and discuss the possible upcoming PvP TLP server, as well as Project 1999 Teams, and the possible future of Red99.

Below is the transcript. I have left out some 3rd party/irrelavent comments from people not engaged in the conversation, and cleaned up some of my own grammar/formatting, but Rogeans answers are unchanged. Enjoy!

Rogean: PvP TLP? :thinking:
It would probably have instancing :eyes:
DULU: @Rogean instancing is something we are willing to deal with. Its not so much about the specific rulesets: the goal of our crusade is to prove there is an interest in classic everquest pvp.

Beimeith:
Of course there is an interest...of about 50-100 people. Which is not enough to justify a server and the massive amount of work it would take to make it not horrible.
Eq pvp has never had mass appeal
Rogean: imo the biggest problem isn't a lack of players.. it's that they only live for the initial opening. If we were to open a brand new pvp server, it would be popular for a few weeks, then people would want another fresh start again.
! Jsyn:
Whats wrong with fresh restarts? Path of Exile and Diablo do it all the time
its also huge in the WoW private server scene to play the newest server
people with too much time on their hands love it ;p
Rogean:
Because you have a dilemma.. you start a fresh server and then 2 months later, what happens.. everyone loses their chars? That's not fair to the people who want to continue playing.. just keep opening new servers? Then you're left supporting +1 server every few months, which is difficult for a volunteer team as it is
Zubek:
I think something different may have more sustainable appeal, like a teams server
Rogean:
I'm not against a seasonal server but it would have to be just that.. declared ahead of time, this is a seasonal server, it will be gone in x months..
Hence why we're not going to just wipe the red server.. we've gone on record that unless it's declared ahead of time before the server opens, you'll never lose your chars
! Jsyn:
If its known before hand that the style of server will reset thats just what it is. Each time the reset occurs I'm sure you'll have just as much if not more players there ready to grind all over.
Yeah, I totally get and respect that.
Zubek:
So what are the plans for the PvP community as far as Project 1999 associated products go? I understand you had SOME plans but did not want to disclose them until green had launched, given green and teal have now merged perhaps u could engage on that topic?
Rogean:
Part of my idea for the pvp community (Mentioned back in october) included a seasonal server, but it was going to be one part of the solution.. something has to be done with red, I don't want to open a second permanent server and have to support both.. I'd like to make red relevant again, if that means transforming it into something else, so be it.. but how many would come back to play is the question
Zubek:
IMHO red should be the blue style museum a second PvP server, whatever form that took, gets characters placed into at the end of its "life cycle"
but i understand you not wanting to open an additional server
perhaps red could be merged into Blue then?
! Jsyn:
Tough situation for sure. But in my opinion the only way it'll be and stay relevant is like you said a seasonal approach.
Rogean:
There's a lot of people that don't want to play a seasonal server either though... they want to pvp but also their raid gear actually means something. I had some ideas, maybe I'll just have to lay them out in a forum post to see what people think, before I do a ton of work making it happen

Zubek:
i think the red community would appreciate it, the PVP TLP community has grown pretty well and we've gotten a lot of outside support from outside the normal red99/roz communities.

Rogean:
The nice pro of a seasonal server though is that we could constantly change up the ruleset every iteration.. discord, teams, ffa, etc
DULU:
As far as red, I think if you brought it to the community that is still active there and put it to them bluntly "Do you want to keep your pixels on a 40 player box or have a fresh p99 pvp server?" I think many, myself included, would be willing to sacrifice our geared characters.
and by sacrifice, I mean merge to blue
Rogean:
If it was up to me alone I would have already merged red into blue years ago


Rogean:
I didn't get any other supporters from the staff on that idea though
DULU:
It makes sense - you guys want to protect your reputation. You said you wouldn't do it, and that's fair. But I think the overwhelming majority of players would be OK with you doing that, if you asked them. It's a tough situation.
Rogean:
I never said we wouldn't merge it, I only said we wouldn't delete the chars.. so I'd be all for merging it into blue.. but there's a lot of concerns that staff had, such as a sudden influx of raid gear from red that was easier to obtain because of lack of any pvp competition.. influx of legacy items, etc
Dulu:
thats true, but I think much of that concern is mitigated by the release of Green now? Blue is sort of a 'completed' server

Rogean:
I'd love to do what some other MMO's have done.. like I still play swtor and they got rid of the pvp servers and just allowed you to declare which you are, and pvp had it's own instances, essentially it's own server but it's still the same server.. and just the sanctuary zones were shared between them
Alas, I ripped out essentially all of the instancing code from P99 :rofl:
! Jsyn:
Now that would be awesome. Thats how WoW does it now on retail
Rogean:
Doesn't surprise me.. swtor copies everything from wow :neutral_face:
DULU:
Live has many, many problems, and the 'Zek' server is just a lost cause.
The TLP's have promise, if they have one with a good pvp ruleset
it could work
Rogean:
needs to be teams.. it's the only way to protect the newer / isolated players
otherwise you get one guild strong arming everyone

DULU:
Agreed 100%. Preferably 3 teams, to help limit cross teaming.
Zubek:
players need the built in support network of a team, the competition for control of resources etc
hardcoded to prevent xteaming
Rogean:
3 teams might segregate and already extremely small community a little too much
Rogean:
I also would like to avoid 'good vs evil', because naturally.. everyone goes evil :neutral_face:
DULU:
Really? In WoW wasnt alliance always more popular than horde?
Rogean:
Not sure, never played wow
swg and swtor the empire was always stronger
DULU:
what are your thoughts on hard-teams vs soft-teams? Should people be able to trade with the other team(s)? communicate?

Zubek:
it depends on the composition, i liked the evil VS shorties+elves VS races of men but like Dulu said that can be discussed at length down the road
I'd just like to see Rogeans current ideas and open that up to discussion with staff at some point before I get overly specific
Zubek:
@Rogean Anyway nice speaking with you, hope to see you at our community event on February 29 at 8pm EST
Rogean:
:eyes:
Dulu:
Thanks. So do you have any timeline in mind for a teams pvp server? Should people hold their breath? rogean pls
:smile:
Rogean:
Soon (tm)
(but not really soon, haha)
! Jsyn:
Daybreak would love for you to take all the PvPers off their hands
Rogean:
Heh, I'm sure there's mixed opinions about that
Zubek:
Well we'll find out, our army is growing and its 10 days until DDAY
and we've gotten a lot of good traction and media interest thus far
so we'll see
DULU:
thank you again Rogean, seriously
Zubek:
Yup, look forward to the forum post you mentioned.
And I know you don't play Everquest much less EQ PVP but when/if the TLP PVP server comes out, feel free to hop in, you just might like it.
Rogean:
Might come as a surprise but I enjoyed later everquest expansions more than classic.. like, pop, gates, omens, etc. I enjoy running p99 because it's a hobby and a passion :slight_smile:
I"d love to add AA's to blue, without luclin
But that's on the 'wish list' of coding you could say
Anyways, back to irl work.. busy week :sob: