Yeah, and the only winner of the Discord server who wasn't in a blatant hacker guild was Marc Merrill, creator of League of Legends.
The point of not letting people get ganked for the first few levels so was folks could at least learn the bare minimum basics of the game and play a bit. Otherwise it's a new person picking up EQ, immediately ganked in 4 seconds, then bye bye customer. No one foresaw it because this was way, way back in EQ history. You're viewing this as someone who has seen the game for years and years. And has knowledge people didn't back then. No one, absolutely no one, could have foreseen how disruptive Fansy would be. The man was a genius not only with his funny chatting but his execution of the training. It was absurd to watch firsthand. Photos don't do it justice. Same thing as when he came back and charmed the priest. Anyone could have done that but no one did...because no one thought of it or foresaw it happening.
Somehow I don't think Sullon Zek customers were customers that came straight to SZ as their first character. Oh, yes, I'm sure that to be technical, sure, there might have been more than zero people that went there as their first character upon joining EQ. Not a significant enough amount to require planning or concern for though. I'd say 99.99% were people that had already rolled through either Rallos or even a PvE server, and if they couldn't handle being killed at level 1, then, they'd have likely just gone back to Rallos or their PvE server. Not before doing a lot of complaining, of course. In hindsight, I wonder - did Verant/SOE/whoever at the time, did they really create SZ as a no rules server because they perceived a demand for it, or did they create a no rules server in hopes of reducing their petition load from other PvP servers? If the latter, they certainly didn't think it through.
The real point is, there is no point to eq pvp besides ganking or to contest an open world mob (maybe?) There is no battleground or arena to chase honor points for gear. Theres no incentive to take over a zone, especially now with agents of change. EQ had a team vs team style pvp server, a bit more involved than alliance vs horde but theres still no point to it. There is nothing gained to go run through g fay and kill all the elves. No capture points or scenarios that give one side an advantage over another. So why bother unless i just feel like being a tool? Lol Whats my objective on a RZ style server? Dont kill my groupmates when i cast ae’s? I’m all about pvp, but i’m failing to see the objective.
Liked, because I think a DAoC progression server will be boss (especially interesting in a game where everyone can point to one exact spot where the game went off the rails) But best PVP mmo ever? You misspelled EVE online.
Well it's all subjective. I never played EVE and from what I read about it, it was a pretty epic game, but for me personally I wouldn't put Eve in the same category because I wouldn't even compare it to games like EQ/DAoC/WoW style fantasy games. Maybe it's just because I've been playing online games since the mid 90's and I'm set in my ways, but when I think of mmorpg's a game like Eve would never pop in to my head for that category, even though I fully understand it was an mmorpg. I guess I should have said DAoC is the best fantasy pvp game ever made to be more specific.
Biased? More like you went off your meds. You've got a weird amount of anger about this. Everything you said was inaccurate (up to and including the notion that there's some caster advantage in EQ PvP; nobody who has played on a PvP server in the last 17 years would say that). You weren't there, you don't know. EQ PvP has had its seasons, some less balanced than others, almost all of them much better balanced than they are now. As for toxic environment? Just not true. RZ was never toxic. VZ was never toxic. TZ is debatable depending on how you feel about the whole-world-vs-the-one-dominant-guild environment it had. I think most TZ players liked it, you were either in the empire or you were the underdog. That was fun. SZ was probably the closest to what most would consider toxic, but it had its moments, too. Zek didn't really start to turn toxic until the population went into the toilet, which happened maybe 3-4 years post-merge. When there aren't enough good people to fill good guilds, it's a matter of time until stuff gets bad. Another factor is that third party cheat programs just became way too easily available. When you had to compile your own, it was under control. Once you could pay $9 a month and get a fully functional pre-compile with things like ghostkill and nodelay in it, that was the beginning of the end for honest PvP. Point being: Every server is unique, and is the product of its circumstances. At minimum, 3 out of 5 EQ PvP servers had good social environments throughout their history, and 4 out of 5 had good social environments for some significant chunk of their history. The funny part is you're arguing with the wrong guy. Independent of the stupid question of dev resources (do you hang out at the development offices? do you actually know how they spend their time?), I'm in agreement with you that time invested in PvP at this point would probably be a waste. Too many years of neglect have gone by, and even if they overhauled things completely, so many of the good players left the game so long ago that the overwhelming majority would simply never come back, and Zek (or a new PvP TLP) would continue to be toxic.
So a couple things that need to be clarified: #1 EVE Online is the best PvP MMO there is. They understand and accept the toxic nature of PvP and designed an environment where the toxicity fuels more interest in the game, rather than chasing people away. That's not to say people don't get chased away, it happens frequently, but there are so many options that it isn't the first choice for most players. #2 All PvP is inherently toxic. Being toxic means that it spreads the behavior that ruins the environment that it needs to survive in, strangling itself out of existence. The absolute best case scenario for any PvP encounter is that both parties (individuals or groups) end up in an engagement, there is a clear winner/loser or tie, and both parties disengage, satisfied with the encounter. This generally happens with reasonably balanced encounters (either by class mix or player count) where there is no cheating. This is the PvP that people tell stories about and use nostalgically to encourage others to PvP. But this is not the average PvP encounter that most people will witness. More likely though, is that the average encounter is a person working on PvE content being surprised by another player. Those often end poorly for the person who was surprised, and the less of a chance they had, the more likely they are to come away from it with an inclination for toxicity. "Well yeah they got me, but I'll get somebody else to make up for it." It's that internal need to feel like you didn't come out of the situation badly. Gankers breed gankers, because ganking is inherently toxic. Other PvP games recognized this, EVE thrives on it. WoW mitigates it with battlegrounds where you can get your toxicity out against random players, without running into that guy next week when you are vulnerable and doing something important to you. The people who enjoy PvP like the toxicity to some degree, ganking somebody--knowing they will do it to somebody else--makes it even more worthwhile. Some more than others of course, which is why Zek is in the situation it is in. Only the most miserably toxic of players could survive or enjoy the inevitable environment they find themselves in on a server like this. They've driven away those who were better stewards of the future of the server. In EVE the most toxic players tend to end up together, turn on each other, and create more content for everybody else. EQ isn't setup that way, it's all very a la cart. You go looking for targets, hoping to kill them, and each time you do you increase the chance that there will be nobody to kill the next time you go looking. Until PvP players can acknowledge the true nature of PvP they will be doomed to play on servers where they may eventually find themselves alone.
EVE is hard to compare, because it's flying a ship like an RTS, not as a personal avatar. Also, no one seems to want to acknowledge that any MMORPG with levels and gear progression makes entry onto PvP harder as times goes on. The players still there are very well geared, and starting a new character means you're going to be incredibly weak and unable to compete. And with proper open world PvP freedom, the ability to encounter PvP on your way to leveling can slow or prevent leveling, and it can slow or prevent a new character from gearing up as well. That's just reality, it's not toxic in and of itself, but it can discourage new players from starting on a mature PvP server, and players that have been on a mature PvP server and whom, if it was a PvE server, might have created a new character for a change and kept playing, are less likely to do so. Zek is part of EQ that's 19 years old just like every other server is, and it's subject to people quitting/moving on to other games just as any other server is. But it has the above going against it for people coming back to it later since they'll be behind. It doesn't mean that every single player who left Zek left because they were ganked until they left. This is a big reason why the popularity of a PvP TLP might be surprisingly high, at least for 2-3 expansions. After that the gear and AA gap can get very wide again, discouraging new character creations. Especially in those mid-expansions where the gap has widened but instancing and such is still not available. Also, if people corpse camp in EQ they treat that as the lowest of the low. But EVE has corporate betrayal that can reach epic proportions and can have real money value to it, representing the loss of months of work for dozens of players.
There are parts of the games that still compare pretty well. In EVE, despite flying a ship, you will find yourself out somewhere, trying to do something. People will come along and find you and try to blow you up. This happens constantly, the only real defense is living in space that is remote or flying with lots of friends. Even then that doesn't always save you. What you describe about the level and gear disparity only makes the situation worse. That is added on top of the toxic nature of PvP. It's why a TLP is likely the only good shot that a PvP server has at succeeding, and why it probably won't stay successful even if it starts that way. I'll just reiterate that I want to see as many people paying for EQ as possible, and that includes PvP players. But I recognize that the play-style is inherently doomed conceptually, and the current implementation is sub-optimal. Combine that with the general abandonment of the concept by SOE/DBG, and abandonment by the players, and you can see why some people would be so against it. I've seen the worst kinds of treachery in EVE Online, personally, and have come back for more. But each time it takes a little something from you and eventually it drives you away. And sure, you go back because shiny spaceships, but the cycle just repeats again. It doesn't matter how much you enjoy flying your favorite ship, if you can't take it anywhere useful, or if you choose to anyway and lose it in short order.
You're basically right. The original PvP servers weren't like this, but they had more developer attention, and it was also fundamentally true that people played MMOs differently when they were a newer phenomenon. If a new PvP server were released today, I expect it would turn out largely as you describe: All wolves, no sheep, and in relatively short order. It's definitely possible to design a ruleset for an open world PvP MMO that would discourage this dynamic, but the fact of the matter is that most people who want a rich PvE MMO absolutely don't want open world PvP to go with it, and most people who want open world PvP are for more invested in the PvP element than the PvE, so they're fine with playing games where the latter is pretty shallow. There just isn't a sufficient audience for a game that has the PvE chutzpah and complexity of EQ in its heyday, but with carefully designed open world PvP that actively seeks to avoid the phenomenon you described.
Zek is currently on a campaign to recruit back old PvPer's and new ones to the server. Many of the hackers have been banned and a new wave of players are joining us. Members of Ascending Dawn are surfacing as well. So old schoolers are popping up to see what the new buzz is about. There is a major wave happening to Reform the server of it's former ways. And it starts with you. New server event's are forming as we speak such as "Every man for himself". We are hoping to turn things around over the next month through heavy promotion and co-operation. Even old enemies are getting together to discuss ways to make the server better. It's crazy but true. Everyone on Zek realizes that the server needs to grow and that everyone benefits. And as far as toxic people, all you have to do is leave your house or go to work to encounter them. Or worse...watch the news lol. I hope you guys will help us grow. Thanks.
If they can't keep hacks of servers they made "agreements" with the hackers with... well, I sure pity the idiot who falls for the idea that they keep the hacks off the other servers. Lol
My memories of PvP on Tallon Zek circa 2000 were very positive. I played on the evil side and there were so many players leveling up in the Nektulous Forest. I was a cleric. We'd sometimes get raided by the light side and higher levels would charge in to help. Eventually, we began to venture out into other zones, occasionally running into enemies. It was tremendous fun and I loved the people I played with. But because you had the evil side and the dark side, you had good guys and bad guys in the sense that you were on a team. I remember a guild starting up that was a cross-team guild and it was very controversial. I actually logged on my old cleric recently. She had no merc and her gear is so pathetic. But I got a merc, got a quest, and added two levels to my little cleric. Of course, except for POK, I was the only person in any of the zones I played on. I doubt any current day PvP would work for reasons set out above. But I guess I was in the early days of PvP when they're were still a lot of sheep like myself and the wolves were manageable, because you had higher levels on your team looking out for you.
Trindamere was one of the winners. Searyx is another. I was guilded with Marc for years on Tallon Zek and knew Searyx from another guild on the same server. I know Searyx didn't use any hacks either. I don't know the other winners though. http://everquest.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=2924
You should make some plans for one...PvP on Zek back in the day was 10x more fun than anything EQ has to offer today.
