Summing up the No-Box sentiment

they could have just instanced raids on ragefire and lockjaw and i dont think we'd have seen the population dips we have. box armies can be annoying depending on who it is, but they can also be helpful. if you had just instanced raids from the start on these servers it would have solved the vast majority of problems to begin with.

Ah but you remember... they could not cause it wasn't "classic" to instance...
Then there was something about how casuals didn't deserve to raid...
Then there was something about how it was too much work all the sudden...
Then there was...

I'm sure you get the point =)

Oh you mean the Goldilocks crowd? What happens when they acquire all the items they want, which will come at a much faster rate since everything is instanced, and they quit...again?

noBOT server = Empty
Ragefire server = Empty
Lockjaw server = Empty

With that math you could call the live servers empty also, been over there lately?

Depends on lockout timers.
Depends on any raid target buffs (if any) that would offset the instancing.
Depends on if the experience on a server with a radically different climate creates stronger loyalty.
Implying loot is all EQ offers. smh.

If I'm understanding your terminology right, the "Goldilocks Player Base" is looking for something "just right". So doesn't it stand to reason if they find it, they would stick around because they are enjoying it?

Obviously the friendships they made didn't keep them around..

Eh, fair enough. Different strokes for different folks

vox and trakanon are still open and account for about $50/month each

That's only because merging would be a pain

But you're OK with instancing content that was designed to have competition to get.

Got it.

The issue is enforcement, which will be difficult to say the least.

First, there is huge incentive here for RMT'ers to find a way around the no box issue and monetize. Getting a monopoly on the server would be lucrative.
Second, how do they enforce it? Takes a live person. Let's say you hire a kid out of college, pay him 40k a year to enforce full time, now add a 32.5% fringe rate for benefits etc (pretty standard rate). You're now spending $52,500 on just enforcing the server, let alone time devoted by dev's, sys admins, etc.

It's a pipedream.

And behind it all was... They were too lazy to try and figure it out...

Sadly after the launch of these servers showed just how many people and how much could be made off these servers.. On day 2 they should just said.. Ok we are looking into instancing raids because anyone with a brain cell can foresee how big a cluster f*** raids are going to be with this many and we just don't have the manpower to police all of it and all its going to do is 2 things:
1. Drive people into all 1 guild where you are nothing but 1 more zergling.
2. Drive people back away from the server that shows so much promise and revenue potential.

First of all - if this was true - wouldn't TL and Faceless have collapsed already, since they're getting stuff far faster than ANY instancing plan will likely be?

Back in the day I did a comparison of 3 day spawns being "shared" across the server and 7 day instancing in their level of loot saturation - as well as my suggestion of 14 days (which was a "classic timeframe" - 1 week spawns with two guilds fighting over them was the norm on most servers - so 14 days assuming a 50/50 split) - and you'd need something like 4 raiding guilds clearing all content to make 7 day instances outproduce 3 day spawns and somewhere around 10 for 14 days. (I'm not redoing the math right now - if someone cares to they can though to shutdown idiots like you)

Now mind you with spawns that have a ~1 day minimum as they do now that would accelerate those numbers THREE TIMES further apart.

We'd need something like 12 raiding guilds with 7 day instances to be equivalent to 1 day spawns and over 30 to be equivalent to 14 day instances to 1 day spawns.

Again those are rough numbers off memory (with a quick x3 multiplier off those rough numbers) - they might be off or I might be forgetting an assertion included with the numbers but regardless the point is key that instances will likely be FAR slower reset than the current spawn rates on TLPs - so the "people will gear up faster" argument will be even more nonsensical than anyone with a clue already knows it is.

(Frankly, if the argument had any legs - Faceless and TL would be at death's door because they're saturated with gear to the gills... but yet they're not...)

PS - I personally was ready to quit before the rotation nonsense started because I was looking at spending $15/mo for literally zero content besides grinding plat. And then the rotation proved to me very quickly to be a bad idea because of the whole rumor and innuendo nonsense effect presenting itself to the wife very quickly. [She said for a mob we were passing due to time limits that "she would've preferred it would've gone to X guild" - while she still followed the rules and let it go FFA to everyone equally - she didn't actually do anything biased, but just mentioning a preference started a whole drama fit from Y guild when X guild informed them] (which was honorable of X to do, if she ever would have intent behind manipulating that, but she didn't... just expressing how she wished things would turn out)

Funny thing, if you go back and read some of the threads by those of us here before the server even launched, just about every problem that has happened was brought up to the devs... and not a single one of them except the noobie zone balancing was addressed proactively.

I'm only hoping now that the expansion is launched besides some possible bug fixes.. They'll start maybe working on some bug fixes on the TLPs again aka the iksar weapon/armor quests.. I kinda feel sorry for non twink iksar warriors atm

Wasn't raid instancing the "Let Us Vote..." campaign primary point? I think so, but it's been a bit and I'm getting old so...

I don't mind people multi boxing as long as they don't artificially and on purpose create bottleneck to sell stuff more.

A very easy thing to fix this is simply to make item no drop and NOT multi quested allowed.
probably 2 changes to do on an item code for a total of 5 min work.

Job done

Yes, and the dwindling numbers are a direct reflection of customers being dissatisfied with the product and the service. But, hey plod ahead......

Yes sir you are correct... remember all the sigs people were making and the polls and post? It was a nice campaign despite the few that tried to derail it. I like to think it helped get us this new server in some small way.

Nope, because they aren't part of what I was referring to as the Goldilocks crowd. They obviously love to play the game and aren't going to get bored and quit after a few month's.