A new PvP server ?

As daybreak/darkpaw experiments new features on tlps , i’d like to make a suggestion for a new tlp. This suggestions is inspired by an old critricism of the game made in 2000 by some game review that i recently discovered and that i would like to use to promote a pvp server for next tlp. It says the following :
« i had fun in Everquest for a little while. I could list the things i hated about this game , but i am going to save the energy. One thing i must mention is that the game play is crap. The game progresses terribly slow and worst of all it doesn’t progress anywhere in particular, just up. Up another level, up another level, up another level. Its about as much fun as climbing a ladder. »

Now come to think of it, what do players really seek ingame when they play everquest ?

Well, to get the best items possible for their characters is at least a foreseeable goal. Lots of hardcore players even have a best in slot sheet for that. Each expansion has its best items. Epic weapons for example. But for what ? To kill dragons and other bosses ! For what ? For better weapons and stuff again . For what ? To what end ?
As the critic said about leveling, the purpose of having gear has no end. It is a meaningless quest. No players will never be able to rule the world since new foes are throwed in. And even would all bosses be defeated once and for all, the game would not have evolve, with the same npcs respawning endlessly.
The only purpose which make sense and is meaningfull in my opinion is either the killing of certain bosses has a direct effect on the world or a way to rule the world over other players. Not the pixels, but the players. This is where pvp comes to mind. Ruling over other players by being able to kill them.
To Hunt and seek mobs for their gear now has a real purpopse, domination or survival.

Everquest wasn’t designed to be a pvp game originally, i don’t believe so, but a few pvp servers came alive.
Agreed , it takes a certain mentality to play on a pvp server. Some people have no interest in spending time and energy on killing another player.

I was one of them. And yet, this is how i discovered everquest.
A friend brought me in on that server so he could give me some gear.
It was Vallon Zek. It was a racial pvp server in its mechanics but the community of players made it a good/evil races. De facto, alliances were made out of necessity. Elves, dwarves and gnomes had to ally with each other in Gfay to level up to meet the other alliance made of dark elves , ogres, trolls ands even humans and erudits.

My first pvp death made me very angry and i wanted revenge. It happened as early as level 3. But as i got killed a lot, i learned from my mistakes. I should have used this spell instead of this one… I could have dispelled this debuff , or cast on this guy instead of the other…My fault if i didn’t travel invisible and/or without my see invis buff on, etc… As i leveld up i took the pvp attacks much less personaly.

Vallon Zek had its own mechanics: you could loot the coins and one item which was not no drop from another player whom you killed.

Players could engage within ten levels range. One was immune to any other players out of that range and of course also immune to any player of his own race.

Good or bad, those were the mechanics on that server.

Of course, any source of drama is heavily augmented on this type of server. Reputations are easily made but ironically, one was better off as a peacefull player rather than as a bloodthirsty player killer.

The settings could and should be reviewed for there were a lot of problems with the pvp features since the game wasn’t originally designed for it.

For example, the classes weren’t properly balanced to say the least. As regard to resists, an enchanter could hardly land a spell on a warrior for example.
A neutral npc could side with a player and create experience loss in an unfair way because of faction or lack of.
As a server based on racial wars, one just couldn’t level in zones controlled by the enemy races. Guk was controlled by the evil races, Unrest by the good ones. As a matter of fact, i discovered a lot of zones i never knew « back in the days » with tlps only 20 years later…

Nowdays, the developpers could work on it and make it more fun, more playable.

Again, i have no particular fun in killing another player, but the adrenaline of having to be constantly aware of my surroundings and potentially being attacked by ennemies takes the game to another level of addiction. To be able to kill another character to claim a camp by force seems more realistic in a virtual world than not being able to because that player has the same theoritical rights as you.
As elves or humans, being savagely attacked by dark elves and ogres ( or vice versa, as example) gives one a good reason to hate them and kill them on site. The role playing feature of a role playing game seems more real on a pvp server.

Could one seriously argue that there still is some real role playing on the tlps when a wood elf ranger groups with an ogre sk ?

Up to the developpers to find out how to make a pvp server fun and playable. It would have to take some new implementations but i am sure it could be achieved. The game has all the basis for an awsome pvp mode should efforts ( lots of) be made to implement fair issues.

Maybe the FTE rule could be an improvement to pvp. It could allow bounties, duels, and kills giving experience without making it too unfair. New possibilities to look into.

We’ll see if FTE is a good or bad implementation soon. But come to think of it, if the goal is really to prevent kill-stealing and training, another way is to make the server PVP.
There is no kill -steal issue left anymore as a result of one player or a party’s death. The conflict has been resolved. If i recall , the absence of kill stealing issues was even in the TOS of that server.


As for people training others, new implementations are required as this kind of behavior would be enhanced by the nature of this kind of server.

To conclude, i am sure there are a lot of players willing to level on a pvp server should they be assured that a lot of new features were implemented to make it fair and thus fun.

They have already stated that if you want them to consider a PvP server there needs to be evidence of support for it by seeing a higher population on the existing PvP server.

Attica Server
- no pvp, pve only
- no gm's
- no exp loss if rezzed
- at death your corpse spawns in any zone that has a jail of some kind in it.

How many zones have a jail-like structure in them?

Should a guardhouse count?

Zones with jail cells that come to mind: Najena, Splitpaw, Lower Guk, the Hole. I am sure there are more...

That is a lazy answer of their part then. The pvp server as is, might have its advocates but so many issues are exisiting that i didn't mention. I don't think it can attract people unless lots of modifications are added.
It s all about details and a mindset of players wanting to level pve and with pvp options. I won't pretend to have much imagination, and have all the answers as to what should be done but lots could be done with all these unused deities. So far the game has gone either one direction ( pve), and another with a pvp server which we will not monitor for you (jerks ?) to deal with. No complaints taken. That s how i felt the company delivered the Sullon Zek pvp server.

Never heard of that, it is probably a private server. But having cells , a jail i nsome towns and characters able to be captured and released upon payment of bail or after a short period of time seems a cool idea.

Why should the devs create a new server for a ruleset that hasn't had people playing on it for decades even though it is available as a free server? Even the emulated PvP servers have a low population and they are not creating new ones even though they create new PVE servers.

"That's the wrong kind of PvP" isn't an argument that is going to persuade the devs

PvPers could create a presence on an existing or soon to launch TLP by turning 'red' and handing in the book. Yes, there wouldn't be a game imposed rule for specific types of alliances, but the players could do that themselves. And, yes there would be some who wouldn't "play fair" but that shouldn't be a reason not to do it. At least one 'casual' guild is intending to encourage it's members to have and play at least one red name character along with guild incentives for leveling and participating in PvP. But if it is just our guild that has members to turn in the books, it wouldn't be as much fun without others to do so as well.

That was actually tried on the Selo server by a guild called "Guides of Norrath" or something like that but it didn't fly

So only try once and never again on a server with a different ruleset and flavour?

This would be reason enough for DB to determine there isn't enough interest in PvP or even address the issues of PvP enabled on a PvE server (and yes, I do know there are issues with it).

I think the point is that there isn't much support for PvP despite what some claim.

There was a big PvP-TLP support in-game meetup planned on Test server a year or two ago. The forums and subreddit were alight with people who were excited to be there. Lots of people said they'd arrive. The plan was to roll up a toon, hand in the book, and show screenshots of a sea of red names who would be interested in a PVP TLP server. No discussions of rulesets, no down payment, just show up on a free server and do the bare minimum.

There were a dozen toons who actually showed up. Even if they were all individual people and not a couple of boxes scattered in, twelve people plus alts isn't going to sustain a PVP TLP. You've got years of bad reputation from PvPers generally being rude to the community at large to overcome, combined with EQ PVP being a much different skillset than EQ PVE.

A better course of advocacy is to persuade the devs to back the Quarm special event server that was PvP enabled but had a specific short lifespan - perhaps Sullon ruleset but with a /sullon command so that you could see which teams were ahead and which were behind in real time. There's a lot of data that could be shown in a window like that - eligible characters per race, deity, or faction combined with K/D ratios. Are gnomes really the master race? Give people a reason to dig into PVP but give them a definite end date before you advocate for another 8+ year server commitment that the devs are unlikely to jump on.

If there was a pvp community in eq we would see them red tagged and running around on every new tlp

I think the issue was that despite attempts to advertise and create interest the guild never got very big at all and it ended with red tagged players trying to group with non-red and that's really difficult due to the buffing situation.

Oh yeah, that's the issue and I need to explain. For a red and not red to buff or heal each other they need to be in a PvP area or /duel

Honestly they need to add a way for players to toggle the pvp flag as they want to which would allow them to pvp or to group with non pvp players as they want.

I recall playing a game where you could PvP at any time by targeting another player and clicking OK on a dialogue to attack them and you'd go non-PvP if you didn't engage in PvP for a certain length of time. Now I can't recall the name of the game

You are wasting your time, but if you think you have the social engineering skills to pull off what is required here's how you do it.

Step 1. Show there is enough players who want to populate a PvP TLP server by organising an event where a large number of unique individual players show up on Zek, name the date & time or window of time for the event & the devs will monitor the turnout to see if it is a viable number of players.

For reference I think we are talking 500-1000 players, not less than 50.

Step 2. Post the date & time & expected numbers you have players for - i.e. via facebook group sign up, a Discord Sign up or something that can be easily verifiable in your post via a public link.

Step 3. Have your mass of PvP enthuisiasts show up on time in numbers.

Step 4. Do not resort to "build it & they will come" or " nobody wants to show up on Zek for a hour or so because we hate the Zek ruleset" type of BS excuses, everyone has seen them a million times over already.

Step 5. If you managed to pull off the impossible & found 500-1000 people who were interested & all showed up on the day, you will get your PvP TLP

BUT

What I think will happen is nothing, except the things I said not to do in stage 4, namely just more BS excuses.

The reason that will happen is because the few PvP enthusiasts who post are completely delusional & think a PvP community is "just going to happen if there is a PvP TLP".

There is no EQ PvP community, it stopped existing a long time ago & it is never going to come back because they found much more interesting PvP elsewhere, in games that did it better. Nobody has proven otherwise, and I doubt they ever will.

FTE FT PVP server would be lit! I'd 100% play. Please Darkpaw!