Can we talk about the future of P99?

[Jimjam]

Split teal merge blue and green.

[aaezil]

Many players failed to follow pnp or raid rules. Csr failed to enforce said things. Devs are absent. I think that pretty much sums up the last decade here

[Misek84]

On the topic of legacy items, how many Fungus Staff even dropped on Green. I remember rumors that when kunark opened on green there was a group down there for weeks and did not see any drop. This seemed ridiculous considering they weren’t not that rare on live since king was a lot more common on live.

[cd288]

Major patch with a ton of classic changes just dropped. Wonder if that means engagement is ramping back up?

I feel like I remember the staff saying there was lots of non-classic stuff they'd identified through Green that they would want to change for the next server. I'm sure it's more than what they changed in the patch yesterday, but I wonder if this is a sign that they're back to working toward getting to a position where Green 2.0 will be a thing.

[Lambparade]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Major patch with a ton of classic changes just dropped. Wonder if that means engagement is ramping back up?

I feel like I remember the staff saying there was lots of non-classic stuff they'd identified through Green that they would want to change for the next server. I'm sure it's more than what they changed in the patch yesterday, but I wonder if this is a sign that they're back to working toward getting to a position where Green 2.0 will be a thing.

I have very high hopes for a new server. Why would you go about bug fixing time locked specific things if you weren't going to release a new server?

Honestly tho I most likely wouldn't even touch a new green until kunark. I got a green characters now I'm still working on [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[WarpathEQ]

I wouldn't hold your breath. If you keep an eye on some of the bug fixes threads the devs have been making fixes for years that were never implemented because a new patch was never released.

So its not like all of a sudden in the last months the devs dug in and changed/fixed a bunch of stuff because they are planning a new server, this patch was just a culmination of all of the things they've address that have been brought up in the forums with supporting evidence going back several years. The fixes were done just needed a patch release to actually implement them.

[spoil]

I'm not holding my breath either, but surely a new patch means they haven't basically abandoned the project like a lot of people were saying.

[Jimjam]

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

I'm not holding my breath either, but surely a new patch means they haven't basically abandoned the project like a lot of people were saying.

People been fretting the project is abandoned for close to decades just cos there is no "everything is okay" alarm.

I'm not even gonna notice when the project actually does die, cos claims project is dead are now glasscock.

[Scroll]

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

People been fretting the project is abandoned for close to decades just cos there is no "everything is okay" alarm.

I'm not even gonna notice when the project actually does die, cos claims project is dead are now glasscock.

This.

[aaezil]

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

First off, I love P99. I messed around a bit in Classic and eventually made my Bard Tewaz the night Kunark dropped. I was running around killing stuff in Black Burrow and there was a fun event where mobs would drop an item that you could turn in to an NPC and get some random piece of gear back. I got a Froglock Crown and I was absolutely floored. I got up to my 50's, joined Knights who say Ni and did a bit of poopsock raiding, but mainly spent my time aoe kiting all of OT and BW with some of the legends like Deejay and Hmotzart (sorry for the 25 mob limit). I've played off and on since then. I usually play about 6 months per year with some pretty intense play during the Red exp increase in 2015-2017 and on Blue over the past two years.

I have played to 60 on red and blue and into the 50s on Green. I've raided from scratch with people trying to steal kills in HoT to gear their first toon, I've killed every target in the game and made probably 100 alts at this point. I've done the poopsock meta, the trainout meta, the OBS meta, and even the get camped until your entire guild quits playing Red meta.

All this to say, I'm worried about our servers and there is a huge elephant in the room that no one at the top, CSR, or player level really wants to talk about.

We are losing players across all servers.

Whether it's Quarm, stale meta, 15 years of P99, old age, whatever, players are leaving the server.

On Blue we are seeing more and more common targets sit up uncontested like Vindi, Ayillish, and HoT Minis. The EC tunnel is full of WTB and almost every item for sale is a high end item. Targets people want being left up is cool I think, but it is also a sign of failing population.

So I wanted to start a thread talking about the future. Here are the limiting factors:

1. CSR has made it clear that future development on the server is delayd, so suggestions should keep that in mind. Examples: No Luclin or custom content, no major changes to things like spawn windows, respawn timers, mob pathing, or drop chance, etc.
.
2. Merging seems to be off the table. It was a part of the initial idea for Green, but appears to be dead for unclear reasons. That being said, Green (and Red too, why not?) being merged into Blue would do a lot for project health.

3. Certain players/guilds that constantly push the envelope of what is tolerated in the raid scene are not going anywhere. CSR hasn't dropped permanent bans since Sirkin's reign, so suggesting their removal is pointless.

So what are your recommendations to improve the project and keep it growing/thriving past year 15?

A few of mine:

1. Try new metas for the raid scene, but try ones that have a possibility of becoming THE meta. No SoW FTE lock and camp rules are the two put forth and they seem like they are meant to vex 95% of the raid scene population.

2. Shake up natural respawn windows. This is the 100% largest issue with the raid scene in my opinion. Classic or not, a 24 hour window on ST golems is absolutely insane. Even if the respawn is classic, race lines, FTE yellow texts, and train pulls are clearly not classic. It is also a pointless mechanic that wastes people's real life hours when most of us have already given years to this server. It's just silly to have it in a game in 2024. Addressing this would also lead to less gigantic guilds.

KWSM on Blue put forward an idea to reduce spawn windows by making any spawn in the first half of the window stay up and become an FTE race at the half way point of the window, and if mob spawns in the second half it is FTE like normal. This single idea would instantly increase participation for natural respawns, it requires no development and would be policed by the players easily. Socking half a window would appeal

3. Standardize player agreements for Scout, Ring 8, Ring 10, and Angry. Level range, time to roll, time to kill can all be easily standardized across both servers.

4. Address the bottleneck camps in the game like DS. As the server population drops and new players choose other servers, the demand for these types of items increases. I don't have any ideas for this outside of developer changes, but it is an issue that will slowly increase over time unless there is a population decline.

5. More Quakes. I know quakes are meant to mimic server crashes in the early 2000s, but this is the single best event on Blue and more of these in prime time help players that have played the game for 10 years and don't have items they're chasing.

6. Legacy items. This is more of a blue problem. As players retire (or get banned) a lot of this gear has disappeared. Beads are needed by a lot of guilds for pulling HoT and they are clearly an advantage item that is a MUST HAVE in the current DA train meta. Sure Eashen and other targets are doable without but taking 30 minutes to kill Eashen greatly hinders a guild and that can hemorrage members very quickly.

7. Communicate. That's it. Someone with any knowledge of the future. Please. Communicate.

The solution is pretty easy: Make this gear available during every CSR event. CSR has done this but it's so rare that it's absolutely insane. Most players on blue would probably delete two of their level 60 characters for a guise on one. We are at year 9 of Velious...Velious lasted 9 months on live. They added a casino on live in the next expansion with these items available. Also this would cut down on the RMT problem because no one needs to buy 1.3 million platinum to afford beads on Blue.

I remember loot raining on us during early P1999 GM events and also on live. Hell, I remember getting a Luclin item at a GM event BEFORE THE EXPANSION DROPPED. Adding any means of legacy items would be incredible and the only path to that now is CSR making it part of events. I'd throw a random guise on Velketor or some other super low priority target every quake just for the fun because why not?

I'd like to hear other player suggestions. I'd love to hear what CSR says about this. I would be absolutely floored to have even the smallest inkling of communication about the future of these servers from Nilbog or Rogean.

Nah mate the 16/24 window garbage is far from classic. stuff used to just spawn in a week give or take a tiny variance.

This combined with the absolute refusal of staff to disband/remove problem guilds/players have left the game uninteresting to raid and sometimes horrible people you have to interact/communicate with when you do raid have made the server basically unplayable for a lot of people when options like quarm exist.