Solving The "Blue" Issue.

[Eisai]

...or call of duty fills their desire to kill people?

[Old_PVP]

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

This is very true, the only puzzling thing is that people definitely used to give a shit about it. The classic PVP servers had very healthy pops back then

Everyone always forgets about relativity. The classic PVP servers had a healthy pop at the time when EverQuest had a healthy subscription base of 500k players. You have to remember that EQ had like 40 live servers... and only 4 of those were PVP. Which means roughly 10% of the population enjoyed PVP enough to play on them.

Compare that to P99 statistics. Roughly 1000 people, maybe 100 active on Red? 10% of the total and decreasing due to neglect.

Compare new server launches - maybe 3000 people, PVP would have significantly less but would maybe settle around 300 range.

There has always only been 10% interest in EQ PVP.

[Ciderpress]

Well, by my memory there were many servers, and some of the PVE servers had lower pops than the Zek's, at least for a period of time. I don't think it's quite the same. There was clearly more of an appetite for a pvp ruleset. I think the nature of the average player is much more griefy on a free emu server than it was when the game was new and people had to pay monthly for access. The stakes were higher.

I've seen green approach 1k players as recently as this year during bonus xp, and there were still only like 20 tops logged into red, which is only 2% not 10.

[Eisai]

Fires of heaven on rallos paid players to move to their server during pop. They offered me $1500 + move cost and full regear(at the time a server transfer meant all items on the char were deleted) if i moved. I stubbornly stayed but they did entice our best tank and cleric to transfer (stomp & sirensa - cause names prove the truth of it) along with a few others. Not sure what they were offered though.

[Ekco]

it's like .2% if you add in the players on the other emu projects, p99 is literally third or fourth in popularity atm

pvp is like having optional linux client support and even eve online stopped doing that.

[Balur]

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

Well, by my memory there were many servers, and some of the PVE servers had lower pops than the Zek's, at least for a period of time. I don't think it's quite the same. There was clearly more of an appetite for a pvp ruleset. I think the nature of the average player is much more griefy on a free emu server than it was when the game was new and people had to pay monthly for access. The stakes were higher.

I've seen green approach 1k players as recently as this year during bonus xp, and there were still only like 20 tops logged into red, which is only 2% not 10.

Speaking as someone who rolled on the racial PvP server the day it was launched, the main appeal was that it was a brand new experience. Most of us never thought about how janky EverQuest PvP was because there was nothing to compare it to at the time. It was in a class of its own. Verant was writing the rule book in real time.

It's hard for a lot of us to go back to classic EQ PvP when we've experienced PvP in newer MMOs that have perfected the formula over the last 20 years.

[Ciderpress]

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

Speaking as someone who rolled on the racial PvP server the day it was launched, the main appeal was that it was a brand new experience. Most of us never thought about how janky EverQuest PvP was because there was nothing to compare it to at the time. It was in a class of its own. Verant was writing the rule book in real time.

It's hard for a lot of us to go back to classic EQ PvP when we've experienced PvP in newer MMOs that have perfected the formula over the last 20 years.

Makes sense. Also, when EQ launched ultima online was it's only existing competitor, which was both popular and infamous for it's pvp. I remember being tempted to roll on one of the original EQ red servers because I was coming from UO and loved it's pvp, but I rolled on Povar instead cause at least you could still opt-in with the whole priest of discord thing (fast forward 20 years and noooooobody actually goes red for real on a blue server). Just a different time and place.

[Old_PVP]

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

Well, by my memory there were many servers, and some of the PVE servers had lower pops than the Zek's, at least for a period of time. I don't think it's quite the same. There was clearly more of an appetite for a pvp ruleset. I think the nature of the average player is much more griefy on a free emu server than it was when the game was new and people had to pay monthly for access. The stakes were higher.

I've seen green approach 1k players as recently as this year during bonus xp, and there were still only like 20 tops logged into red, which is only 2% not 10.

This is probably true and it could be examined from multiple angles I'm sure. 10% of the total playerbase would be an ideal number to shoot for. Red has been decreasing over the years due to a number of factors. First impressions can make or break some things and EQ servers are no different. Red screwed up majorly when it first launched with PVP deaths causing exp loss. Resist code has never been coded correctly, or classic... which turns out is a big part of PVP, lol. Bowquest was never a thing in classic days, Line of sight for spells was never classic. The nerf of many clickies which were strategic in PVP. The list could go on, etc. etc.

Also, the ruleset itself needs to be reviewed. It's sort of a Rallos Zek ruleset, but not entirely. Item loot was left out, which actually is detrimental in many ways. It allows the creation of the super twink with no way to stop them. No item looting also contributes to the death of the anti-pk / pk dynamic which was seen on RZ.

Bottom line, Red needs some attention and changes in order to at least get back to that 10%.

[Ekco]

Didn't red players make their own server like 5 years ago, if it's a ruleset problem why did that fail.

[Old_PVP]

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

Didn't red players make their own server like 5 years ago, if it's a ruleset problem why did that fail.

Which server? Probably one of the many drugboxes over the years. Most those servers have problems with corruption and favoritism because the GMs inevitably end up playing their own box.

None of them had the clout or quality of P99.