Free Trade, is it really that popular?

Mischief was meant to be a one off and it should stay that way. Another free trade server and you just cannibalize the population on Mischief and it loses its unique identity. Personally I can't stand free trade, to me it just takes all the fun out of the game.

Has it been stated somewhere explicitly that Mischief will get merged into FV. If it hasn't, then it doesn't make much sense to me to assume they would. Mischief has random loot and extra loot features that are incompatible with FV. If anything I'd see Mischief becoming its own stand alone (and 2nd) free trade live server. Further with Mischief having been so popular, I would also assume that it will have clones every 3 or 4 years or so that can then be merged into the Live Mischief server as they run their courses.

I mean you cannabalize the population of every TLP with every TLP not really sure that's a concern for DBG...

Personally think free trade is great, and I actually think that it solves a lot more problems than having "NO DROP' items solves... but I don't really think EVERY server should be free trade.

Stick with what keeps the doors open, roll out a niche every so often.

I don't think it was meant to be a one off and I don't see any evidence to suggest it rather it is more that they don't want to repeat the server with the next set and draw people away from the current ones. I see no reason why they won't use these rules again down the road with how popular the servers still are.

Never stopped them before

Well they didn't recycle that special ruleset this time around.

I'm just saying maybe they had different motives

And I am just saying we have nothing to suggest that the server was a one time deal and considering how popular it has been I would think they would like to try it again in the future. Though a lot of that will depend on how the server looks in the future.

Yeah that's reasonable. I don't think it's something they'd never do again. I just imagine it's something they'd do sparingly.

And I was originally responding to someone claiming it was a one time deal which would seem strange for the amount of work that was put in to it.

Free trade isn't popular. Its OK to players. VERY VERY popular to Krono lords and 6+ boxers.

Make a NO TRADE server and watch how the forum posts will spam against it. Its just the krono lords army of accounts. 3 guys with money in the game with 50 accounts is a very squeaky wheel.

Poll is obviously fake news. Everyone knows Rizlona is the second most popular TLP besides Mischief.

How can you make a poll asking "Where are you playing currently"? instead of asking, do you like Free trade, Random loot, fast xp, True box, non true box, quest or w/e.. to see what rule-set they like. The latest server normally (except miragul and coirnav) reflect the highest population, however, it does not reflect the question you're trying to ask on this thread.

Most of the people I know that are currently playing and will not move from Mischief is not because of the free-trade, but for the Random loot pinata ruleset '' You can level super fast and get best in slot in no time!'' .

Because when TLPs make it to live, they become standard live servers? There is no reason to assume there will be an exception to Mischief, selos merged to a plain ole server even though it had bonus XP and half raid lockouts, miraguel is merging this summer even though it had free heroic toons

But go ahead buddy and keep dreaming

It will depend on how the server is doing when that happens if the population is still high enough they might not want to merge it with a high population server. Generally by the time a TLP reaches live the population has died down enough that they can merge it with a low population server without any issue but they only have one server to merge these with. At this time I think it is a bit early to say what will happen to it and I hope they keep this special ruleset around once it hits live instead of getting rid of it.

Selos' ruleset was to be faster (hince the name) - unless you have a time machine, once you reach live, there is no more going faster. Mischief on the other hand is quite different, as it is not just free trade but randomized loot. While FV could support the free trade, randomized loot requires its own server.

I don't feel that Thorneblade/Mischief are good measures for Free Trade popularity.. Normal live servers vs FV is a better diametric to base from.

Thorneblade and Mischief have multiple rules that can swing popularity of said servers. Being a TLP is generally popular, especially up to a few major expansions (PoP and OoW tend to be "final" expansions for some of the more vocal groups). More over (and mentioned elsewhere in this thread) the random loot is a HUGE difference.

I saw it on live, but much more obvious on an aging TLP... After enough progression/farming, interest tends to fall off on raids. Quite a few (normally higher attendance players) get burnt out of repetition and start only showing for the event nights where specific loot drops. This was made better and worse when raid currency was added (so VoA and beyond). Now.. Mischief really doesn't share that. Pooling the loot tables means any raid could drop any item for said tier. It will be interesting to see if raid currency has any additional impact there, but the fact that the loot isn't tied specifically to one event, means that if the raids are spread across multiple days, there's more reason for everyone to show up and see what's in the box.

I feel that's the biggest draw/popular aspect of those servers. It wasn't free trade.. it was that killing X didn't necessarily mean you got NPC X's loot, but could be NPC M's loot. It meant you didn't have to fight with crowds for very specific spawns, rather you could find a good named camp away from the "hot spots" and still have a chance at those items. It meant that you could still get "End boss" loot from an expansion, even if you couldn't manage to beat a specific event. That's where I see the popularity come from.

That's what piqued my interest. I just didn't want to possibly get stuck on a server due to Free Trade, so I didn't partake.

True. The difference though, which we have evidence for, is that three similar ruleset TLPs all maintained very good populations (and still do) simultaneously. Mangler population remained medium-high population with the launch of Aradune and Rizlona. That's three non-FT servers all co-existing with fantastic populations. Mangler still is a solid population and it's all the way in what, UF or HOT now? Both Rizlona and Aradune are perfectly fine still.

Meanwhile, you have two FT servers and one is already on life support just 11 months later and has reported worse overall population numbers than Mangler, Aradune, and Rizlona starting as early as Luclin.

Thornblade still hits medium population levels according to eq resource so I would not call it on life support.