Im a RIOT member, please MERGE for more COMPETITION!

[SantagarBrax]

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

It's not like customer service rep's nor admin care what we think about any of this.

Unless you have a @Speaker role in the UN, I should add.

[Pint]

Blue rotation please

[cd288]

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

The essence and nature of this game is competitive and cooperative, at all levels from soloing, grouping, through raiding. Interaction is key in this Project, just as it is within all mmo's.

There's no denying it yet people still try to advocate for some bastardized hybrid template beyond simple meritocracy and interaction. Project 1999 would be a ghost town without competition and interaction, just like all the other emulators in existence.

@Ekco - Yes, Quake meta only devalues this entire Project and hastens its doom by rewarding all the instant gratification folks. They're incapable of "looking down the road" towards the eventual end of said road. Menden seems fine maintaining this course of action based upon past comments and current actions.

@Klaz - There's a reason why the military moves a recently promoted NCO from his team and former buddies in the lower enlisted bracket instead of leaving him there "in charge".

We're all just pissing in the wind anyways. It's not like customer service rep's nor admin care what we think about any of this. Sit back and enjoy the ride. /popcorn

Quake meta is fine. At least it gives more raiding opportunities which is fun. Sitting around waiting for a 24 hour window is boring af. It's much more fun when everything pops at once and everyone is scrambling and strategizing what to hit and when.

[mycoolrausch]

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

The essence and nature of this game is competitive and cooperative, at all levels from soloing, grouping, through raiding. Interaction is key in this Project, just as it is within all mmo's.

There's no denying it yet people still try to advocate for some bastardized hybrid template beyond simple meritocracy and interaction. Project 1999 would be a ghost town without competition and interaction, just like all the other emulators in existence.

@Ekco - Yes, Quake meta only devalues this entire Project and hastens its doom by rewarding all the instant gratification folks. They're incapable of "looking down the road" towards the eventual end of said road. Menden seems fine maintaining this course of action based upon past comments and current actions.

@Klaz - There's a reason why the military moves a recently promoted NCO from his team and former buddies in the lower enlisted bracket instead of leaving him there "in charge".

We're all just pissing in the wind anyways. It's not like customer service rep's nor admin care what we think about any of this. Sit back and enjoy the ride. /popcorn

In actual everquest, sold in a box and played by paying subscribers, there were new tiers of content released every year, so the most hardcore, to the most casual, had new content every year, just in the case of casuals it was several years and tiers below the cutting edge.

That's opposed to a raid rules only form of perma velious p99 where you'd have 1 guild (maybe 2) killing all the content across every expansion in the game within minutes of it popping, and everyone else having nothing to do. I don't know why you think that could work as a server.

[SantagarBrax]

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

In actual everquest, sold in a box and played by paying subscribers, there were new tiers of content released every year, so the most hardcore, to the most casual, had new content every year, just in the case of casuals it was several years and tiers below the cutting edge.

This is far from the the truth. I was there from a week after launch in '99 - '06.

Luclin didn't have a lot of content for "casuals". Most were still in velious / kunark era with a few still in Classic at launch. There's a phenomenon described as "catching the train while it's going somewhere", and this was true in Everquest before zones/expansions became ghost towns. There's a finite amount of time before even casual players suffer beyond repair.

Luclin brought in the bazaar, killing the Gfay/EC markets, and port scions diminished druid/wizard classes. Yes, it was "better" for a lot of people because they didn't have to sit there and manually sell items. However, it removed that crucial human interaction. Paludal Caverns was implemented and no one ever leveled anywhere else from 1-20 in all of the previous expansions, thus killing any sense of adventure in the previous and future timelines for all lowbies/mids. This is the expansion where the cracks started to appear, yet for raiders it wasn't a big deal.

PoP didn't really have anything for the casual players outside of Bastion of Thunder. Add in port stones to completely remove druids/wizards from porting, etc. Adventuring for casuals was essentially killed.

LoY had a few QoL improvements (shared bank), a few spells, and another component that was detrimental towards human interaction again, the LFG tool. LoY is when we all knew "something was wrong" as the expansion dropped in 4 months after PoP launch. No one really went there on Xegony, it was always a ghost town. /who all friends went the way of the dodo bird as you just hit the LFG tool if you didn't find anything in guild chat. True friendships were sacrificed for expediency and a few minutes of time.

LDoN was probably the first expansion aimed at bringing the "casual" player back into the fold and it wasn't all fun and sunshine either. Instancing, implemented. Players stopped communicating with each other during those runs. They'd que up the instance, maybe toss a hello out there in the first couple weeks of release, then they stopped doing that altogether after a month while continuing to complete the missions.. over and over again. It sucked donkey balls, yet we had to do it for the augments. Cracks widened into fissures from all perspectives outside of the hardcore raiders.

GoD released Feb., 2004 - 0 casual content and this was the last chance for "casuals" on Live and too broken for raiders, solidifying the plummet from the top for Everquest Live, never to recover again in the same magical capacity it once dominated.

OoW released Sept., 2004 - meh, not a casual oriented expansion and had to give the raiders something to do. The last true gasp of Live.

Wow release Nov., 2004

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

That's opposed to a raid rules only form of perma velious p99 where you'd have 1 guild (maybe 2) killing all the content across every expansion in the game within minutes of it popping, and everyone else having nothing to do. I don't know why you think that could work as a server.

It did work.

This was the natural order of a time locked emulator until Galach implemented bag limits. Historically, P99 had two competing top guilds. Guild #1 was on top, while Guild #2 was hungrier and coming for them until they eventually became the top guild.

No one ever told any "casual" guilds that they couldn't participate. No one was stopping them. All they needed was the will and ambition to do it. Instead, they misconstrued everything they've ever heard about raiding into the most negative aspects their minds could conjure up: "poops socking, 16 hour windows, toxicity, etc". They just had to try and they would find success. Instead, it was easier to make excuses and continue the charade "it's too hard". As a result, members from casual guilds would leave to raiding guilds to seek the opportunity at gear and an experience they possibly missed out on during Live. Rinse and repeat, yet no longer...

Here comes the draft, which limits human interaction as a whole to only which humans you wish to interact with, and we see the rise of instancing all over again and reminiscent of the downfall of Live. Evidence of further disruption to the natural cycle of a time locked emulator increases. Players from casual guilds no longer have to leave their guilds to raid or acquire raid gear.

Add in quake meta: devalues and disrespects everyone's time and sacrifices put forth for the entirety of the project, does the same for all items, and further propels this Project towards its doom.

Some individuals have expressed their "fun and enjoyment" with the current setup. I suspect those same individuals are the ones incapable of stepping back to view the larger picture and they're the same individuals that have always made excuses of why they refused to try in the past. The death of meritocracy is celebrated, history and traditions along with the longevity of Project 1999 be damned.

Perhaps, Rogbog are tired of running this project and are simply winding it down via these methods. If that's the case, then that's the case.

Long rant complete. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

For those incoming "TLDR" folks, continue worshipping the God of Illiteracy and believing your status is somehow increased from it. We all know who you are already and there's no need to remind everyone.

[unroot]

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

This is far from the the truth. I was there from a week after launch in '99 - '06.

Luclin didn't have a lot of content for "casuals". Most were still in velious / kunark era with a few still in Classic at launch. There's a phenomenon described as "catching the train while it's going somewhere", and this was true in Everquest before zones/expansions became ghost towns. There's a finite amount of time before even casual players suffer beyond repair.

Luclin brought in the bazaar, killing the Gfay/EC markets, and port scions diminished druid/wizard classes. Yes, it was "better" for a lot of people because they didn't have to sit there and manually sell items. However, it removed that crucial human interaction. Paludal Caverns was implemented and no one ever leveled anywhere else from 1-20 in all of the previous expansions, thus killing any sense of adventure in the previous and future timelines for all lowbies/mids. This is the expansion where the cracks started to appear, yet for raiders it wasn't a big deal.

PoP didn't really have anything for the casual players outside of Bastion of Thunder. Add in port stones to completely remove druids/wizards from porting, etc. Adventuring for casuals was essentially killed.

LoY had a few QoL improvements (shared bank), a few spells, and another component that was detrimental towards human interaction again, the LFG tool. LoY is when we all knew "something was wrong" as the expansion dropped in 4 months after PoP launch. No one really went there on Xegony, it was always a ghost town. /who all friends went the way of the dodo bird as you just hit the LFG tool if you didn't find anything in guild chat. True friendships were sacrificed for expediency and a few minutes of time.

LDoN was probably the first expansion aimed at bringing the "casual" player back into the fold and it wasn't all fun and sunshine either. Instancing, implemented. Players stopped communicating with each other during those runs. They'd que up the instance, maybe toss a hello out there in the first couple weeks of release, then they stopped doing that altogether after a month while continuing to complete the missions.. over and over again. It sucked donkey balls, yet we had to do it for the augments. Cracks widened into fissures from all perspectives outside of the hardcore raiders.

GoD released Feb., 2004 - 0 casual content and this was the last chance for "casuals" on Live and too broken for raiders, solidifying the plummet from the top for Everquest Live, never to recover again in the same magical capacity it once dominated.

OoW released Sept., 2004 - meh, not a casual oriented expansion and had to give the raiders something to do. The last true gasp of Live.

Wow release Nov., 2004



It did work.

This was the natural order of a time locked emulator until Galach implemented bag limits. Historically, P99 had two competing top guilds. Guild #1 was on top, while Guild #2 was hungrier and coming for them until they eventually became the top guild.

No one ever told any "casual" guilds that they couldn't participate. No one was stopping them. All they needed was the will and ambition to do it. Instead, they misconstrued everything they've ever heard about raiding into the most negative aspects their minds could conjure up: "poops socking, 16 hour windows, toxicity, etc". They just had to try and they would find success. Instead, it was easier to make excuses and continue the charade "it's too hard". As a result, members from casual guilds would leave to raiding guilds to seek the opportunity at gear and an experience they possibly missed out on during Live. Rinse and repeat, yet no longer...

Here comes the draft, which limits human interaction as a whole to only which humans you wish to interact with, and we see the rise of instancing all over again and reminiscent of the downfall of Live. Evidence of further disruption to the natural cycle of a time locked emulator increases. Players from casual guilds no longer have to leave their guilds to raid or acquire raid gear.

Add in quake meta: devalues and disrespects everyone's time and sacrifices put forth for the entirety of the project, does the same for all items, and further propels this Project towards its doom.

Some individuals have expressed their "fun and enjoyment" with the current setup. I suspect those same individuals are the ones incapable of stepping back to view the larger picture and they're the same individuals that have always made excuses of why they refused to try in the past. The death of meritocracy is celebrated, history and traditions along with the longevity of Project 1999 be damned.

Perhaps, Rogbog are tired of running this project and are simply winding it down via these methods. If that's the case, then that's the case.

Long rant complete. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

For those incoming "TLDR" folks, continue worshipping the God of Illiteracy and believing your status is somehow increased from it. We all know who you are already and there's no need to remind everyone.

pretty sad that the most competition the #2 guild on the server can provide right now is to *sometimes* kill bis mobs, that aren't vulak, during quakes

0 contested natural spawns

and yet, the folks who want to talk in blue-gen all day long are satisfied with the state of the game

[xdrcfrx]

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

pretty sad that the most competition the #2 guild on the server can provide right now is to *sometimes* kill bis mobs, that aren't vulak, during quakes

0 contested natural spawns

and yet, the folks who want to talk in blue-gen all day long are satisfied with the state of the game

Why is the #2 guild obligated to live up to your expectation of what they should be doing? Go build a crew and supplant them if it means that much to you.

[cd288]

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

pretty sad that the most competition the #2 guild on the server can provide right now is to *sometimes* kill bis mobs, that aren't vulak, during quakes

0 contested natural spawns

and yet, the folks who want to talk in blue-gen all day long are satisfied with the state of the game

This is a confusing comment. Kittens is prob #2 now I would say and as far as I'm aware they contest non-quake pops all the time.

[mycoolrausch]

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

This is far from the the truth. I was there from a week after launch in '99 - '06.

Luclin didn't have a lot of content for "casuals". Most were still in velious / kunark era with a few still in Classic at launch.

yes because that content was up for casuals, because the sweatlords were busy with the cutting edge luclin+ content which outclasses stuff like VP dragons (which dies on respawn to unclassic perma parked toons on p99) and most of velious. And so on with each new expansion up the ladder, leaving tiers of progression for every stage of player, exactly like i said.

It did work.

This was the natural order of a time locked emulator until Galach implemented bag limits. Historically, P99 had two competing top guilds. Guild #1 was on top, while Guild #2 was hungrier and coming for them until they eventually became the top guild.

It worked historically when the majority of the server was leveling their toons and alts and gearing them with the pure casual content (HoT, Sky, etc) so didn't care what was happening with the raid content. Dynamics change. The average player on blue today has multiple level 60s with full HoT gear, the only thing left for them to do is raid, so they need raid content, this is only obvious. Being forced to join the one guild with a monopoly on FTErs is the least appealing way to distribute raid content because it gatekeeps how it's all distributed by ~20 people, kills guild diversity, and all around drives the population down.

As low pop as blue is today im trying to imagine what it would be like if the server had stopped quaking, didn't draft, and never did bag limits. 200-300 active raiders in vanq logging in for dkp. every other guild dead. Probably mobs like drusella on the vanq dkp farm. maybe a single sky/hot casual guild survives. yikes.

[SantagarBrax]

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

yes because that content was up for casuals, because the sweatlords were busy with the cutting edge luclin+ content which outclasses stuff like VP dragons (which dies on respawn to unclassic perma parked toons on p99) and most of velious. And so on with each new expansion up the ladder, leaving tiers of progression for every stage of player, exactly like i said.

Ahh, you meant "casual raiding" and I agree with this statement completely. I am referring to casual content outside of raiding.

@CD288 Thank you for clarifying

With that being said, everyone who signed up for Project 1999 knew at the time, and ever since joining the community, that it was time locked into Velious..two expansions only. Everyone accepted this immutable fact. It was accepted then, yet it's no longer accepted.

Why not?

Why does Project 1999 have to change because your lives have changed?

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

It worked historically when the majority of the server was leveling their toons and alts and gearing them with the pure casual content (HoT, Sky, etc) so didn't care what was happening with the raid content. Dynamics change. The average player on blue today has multiple level 60s with full HoT gear, the only thing left for them to do is raid, so they need raid content, this is only obvious. Being forced to join the one guild with a monopoly on FTErs is the least appealing way to distribute raid content because it gatekeeps how it's all distributed by ~20 people, kills guild diversity, and all around drives the population down.

Great, you agree that the dynamics have changed this late into the project and everyone now has enough gear to be able to compete for targets. Before, that was one of the excuses. That's what "they" have left to do with their time, experience the adrenaline rush of unforeseen experiences that human interaction breeds via the competition.

"..a monopoly on FTE'ers.." This is a ridiculous statement and yet another goal post moving excuse on why any casual guild can't put in the time and effort, spread out amongst each other, to accomplish the task. You know, teamwork? Do you actually believe people started off as great FTE'ers? Everyone has to learn to crawl before they can walk, then run. How about just popping in and watching, like everyone else learned to do, then analyzing the data in order to be successful? Do some test runs, repetition, and become that next "Great FTE'er". None of you "casual raiding" guilds even tried to do that and only made excuses on why you wouldn't, circling inside your own echo chambers (guild chat) to the point where you convinced yourselves it wasn't even worth mentioning, let alone the effort. You'd rather tear down what you don't understand instead of building up to it.

Hell, I've personally offered to train anyone on this Server to help start the process. Not one person took me up on that offer, so I resorted to making videos on YT to help. Several people have contacted me in game to tell me "thank you, I learned just now from watching some of your videos!" I've never told anyone "no" when asked for anything in this game. I want to see more competition because that's more human interaction and the entire premise of an MMO.

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

As low pop as blue is today im trying to imagine what it would be like if the server had stopped quaking, didn't draft, and never did bag limits. 200-300 active raiders in vanq logging in for dkp. every other guild dead. Probably mobs like drusella on the vanq dkp farm. maybe a single sky/hot casual guild survives. yikes.

I never said "stop quaking", only the "Quake meta" of every 5-10 days. The server would be fine, just as it always was. You're not brand new here, your account shows 2014. Maybe you took some breaks over the years, which we all have and are indisputably beneficial, yet that's no excuse to continue making excuses. All I hear that you and casual guilds are somehow continuously being "victims". It's a tired old cliche at this point. Guilds change, people change, motivations change, etc. That change was forcibly removed replaced with this static environment we now participate in. It won't last. It can't last if this Project is to remain attractive.

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

..This idea that time and effort are disrespected by giving others a chance to experience content that have normal lives proves those people are hopelessly addicted and see pixels and boss killing as some sort of achievement...

You've always had "a chance". You and those that think like you just never took it, made up excuses, then moved the goal post of excuses like you continue to do to this day. I firmly believe you would do just fine as long as you guys learned to work as a team and stop making excuses. Your "normal lives" shouldn't impact the essence and nature of this Project. You adapt to it, not the other way around.

You still don't understand my point and where I'm coming from. It has nothing to do with the pixels and everything to do in which the manner it is obtained. That's where the magic lies in this entire Project. As I've stated before, no one remembers whose 46 monk alt looted an Abashii's. Everyone remembers the challenges of the competition, overcoming the adversity, the up's and down's in between those, and finally the moment of success or failure. These momentous events are what resound at the tops of our memories.

That's why we do it. Otherwise, this Project wouldn't have any appeal at all, especially this late into Project's life.

Stop stripping the human interactions and inconceivable, yet brilliant, interactions will occur...even 23+ Years into this "elf-sim".

There's still Life here, stop killing it by going against the natural order of the Project.

o7,

Unchained