Classic Server; Ragefire; Boon or Doom?

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by The Badger Lord, May 6, 2015.

  1. Lejaun Augur

    There are quite a few people, myself included, that would be very happy with six months of classic. Some really enjoy that era of the game. It is almost an impossible task, but I imagine many more would feel that way if it was closer to the feel of original EQ. Great spots were often taken, but it was not impossible to get in.

    I'm fairly confident that with the ease of boxing, the knowledge about the zones and loot and game, and people's desire to be "the best" on the server will ruin the experience for many. If there were some magical way to eliminate those problems, peoples willingness to stay on a classic server would be extended.

    I forsee a huge mass of people playing that dies out after a month. The major spawns will be dominated in the first week and locked down. Some people will quit when they realize there is nothing for them, others like me will eek along and just try to enjoy other areas with what I can, and hopefully meet some great people like back in the old days.

    A couple of months into the game, the casual players like myself will start catching up to the min/max rushers. Many of these will quit because there is no more content for them. I'll keep chugging along slowly, trying to make my own niche in the world without griefing and ruining the experience for others.
  2. The Badger Lord Augur

    So the forums are buzzing today with the new FFA policy being official.

    What does this change for any doubters of wisdom?

    FFA is at its worst when your in an overcrowded world. The more spread out people are, the less it happens.

    6 months of classic is a nightmare, however people wanted to believe it was a dream. When the nightmare becomes reality, the dreams will fade.
    Indrigoth likes this.
  3. Gwoben Journeyman

    6 months classic would be OK if it was real classic where you spend a few weeks at the minimum (usually months) to get max level. On Ragefire players will be much more powerful. There is no exp penalty on lower levels, no corpse runs, much more powerful spells/pets/fists, more return from AC, no race/hybrid penalties, etc. The only limiting factor will be mobs giving exp on your level. Average group will be able to hold camps 4x size of what they could kill back then. Kunark and Velious will be not much different. I do not see how 1 year of classic + Kunark is better than 6 months of each.

    If EQ developers value votes so much, why not start votes every two weeks after all the bosses are defeated? If people want maximum nostalgia they will vote "No" anyway. Do developers fear that people may change their mind?
  4. Burdi Augur

    From a marketing view point, this server seems to accommodate schedule of busy casuals that will not play that much but may subscribe for longer.
    Then it is difficult to say if the concept will be successfulL, but it give the opportunity to this non playing clients base to have a go at their own rhythm.
    As for hardcore players, they will be pretty much done in a matter of a week or two.
    Tachyon likes this.
  5. The Badger Lord Augur

    Did anyone change their minds? Could 6 months of classic be a server killer? A major downer? Or No Effect whatsoever.

    I think the KS policy that was previously mentioned by devs before the vote, is now understood by most. The policy was mentioned previously (its now just more official) , so I'm not blaming Daybreak.

    Yet the "DPS is king" or whatever they are calling it is going to amplify some problems faced on Fippy. To me, class balance becomes even more of an issue (talked about in another thread more). The number of mages and monk will be more than Fippy. The raiding scene becomes more of a problem. The length of classic becomes more a problem.

    These could still be resolved (or improved) by hosting an official vote on Ragefire itself at some point (the start, 1 month in, 2 months in) to accelerate Kunark's Release. Class balance can be still be fixed with simple solutions as mentioned in the other thread.
  6. Jezzie Augur

    There's so many what ifs. I'm truly hoping for the best but I'm expecting the worst, that way I won't be too disappointed. 6 months of classic is way too long imo. and if it's too frustrating then I'll just find something else to do till Kunark.
    I'm hoping we don't see personal zerg forces monopolizing areas such as L.Guk,Runnyeye etc. The RMT crowd must be chomping at the bit now that everything is dps race. Fully automated boxes could absolutely own the few decent zones in classic end game content.
    I think Daybreak will have to police the automation because if the only way to compete for named is to pay for a 6 box and use a 3rd party program, people will leave fast.
    I have a very negative outlook on my expectations for Ragefire but I've not given up hope, I've been having fun on beta. People have been cool and it's been fun hitting the old zones again. I just hope the fun spills over when the server goes live.
    I didn't change my mind Badger, I voted Velious and I still believe that was the right choice, just not the most popular:D
  7. Tachyon Augur

    BINGO!!!
  8. The Broken One New Member

    hardcore players won't quit. with 3-5,000 people, you only need 30-50 hardcores total to lock down almost all spawns in guk, solb,and not much gear in the hole, plus level 50s don't need exp so the hole kind of sucks.

    new ks policy doesn't change anything for me, there were problems before needing work, and they still here with new policy. think most players wont be jerks, only a few will.

    do think they should redo a vote on the ragefire polls
  9. The Badger Lord Augur

    It's what the majority of people have voted for, so for now we are going to honor that response. If it turns out that the majority of players on the server decide they want a change before that, we can investigate lowering those minimum times.

    My question has always been: how do you know IF the majority of players want a change? is it forums? Because unless there is a vote, there is no quantifiable way to tell.
    What are they going by? It simply doesn't make sense. And that's why I don't think it will be done. Simply putting in a vote on ragefire to launch kunark after 2 months is really the only way.


    .

    .
  10. MBear Augur

    Not to be too pessimistic, but are you sure they didn't say that just to keep a bunch of players from taking their money and walking?
    It was a very non-committal statement. Even if a clear majority wants to change it, they still have only committed to investigating it, not even to changing it.
    All they would have to do is not have a poll at all (no majority found, right?) or have a poll and say that it is not a clear majority without giving us the results (maybe 60% isn't enough) and they would have fulfilled their stated commitment.
    Fallfyres likes this.
  11. Drathus Augur

    Because the other thread was closed . . .

    You are confused.

    I am saying that this server is going to have far more raiders total than the original servers had.

    We had Soul Assassins, of which I was a member, and Tri Airs. We were sister guilds. We would field about 60 raiders total at any given time. We did joint raids of PoHate, Air and fear. We pretty much exclusively held down all raid targets at first, but later rotated the planes with other guilds. When Kunark was released, we were still dominating pretty much all the raid targets except for what the third guild picked up. For example, Soul Assassins and Tri Airs had about 95% of the Inny kills in PoHate from the release of the server until shortly after Kunark came out.

    Soul Assassins was lead by Ketsui and sometime between Kunark and Velious, Itzlegend took over and we renamed the guild Conquest.

    I said there were about 150 active raiders between the top three guilds. This is accurate. I am not talking about ALL guilds. I am referring to the guilds that actually attempted to kill raid targets. Towards the middle of Kunark, this began to change.

    Again, I ask you how many top guild raiders do you think this server is going to have? TL has stated they have 200 members alone.

    And my point over 300 raiders in one guild, needs just as much loot as 10 guilds with 30 members, is explaining that loot distribution shouldn't be analyzed based purely on the number of guilds, but rather on the total number of active raiders. The hunger for loot is going to be based on the expectations of the total. 300 raiders are 300 raiders regardless of how you distribute them into different guilds.

    So the question is . . . how many active raiders are we going to see on this server, compared to the original servers?

    I believe the ratio is going to be much greater than even Fippy and Vulak.

    They have used instancing of the initial zones to allow more people to actively enter the server. They have removed the server population cap which prevents people from logging in once that number is reached. They are doing this so they don't have to create two servers.

    So, yet again, I state that increasing the spawn rate would go a long way to alleviating the dearth of raid loot on the server.

    You are correct in one thing. The current state of the game will cause people to quit, smaller raid guilds to give up attempting to compete with larger dominant guilds, and people in smaller guilds that desperately wish to be apart of large scale raiding to jump ship.

    My suggestion was an attempt to alleviate this negative server evolution, rather than using it to justify doing nothing.
  12. MBear Augur

    I don't really disagree with anything you are saying. I think there were a few more guilds that were doing raid content by the end of Kunark but maybe it was into Velious and I just don't remember it that well. I do remember when CQ formed up. I remember Kliv as a druid being main tank in XP groups because he was a better tank with his geared up druid than the majority of the melee characters on the server at the time.
    I certainly wasn't disagreeing that speeding up the raid spawns would help. I am not a fan of instancing but I understand that something needs to be done so faster spawns might be a good partial measure.
    Agreed with the nature of your point about the 30 and 300, too, but I really do think that a lot of people that want to raid hardcore will either give up on it for a time or quit.
    Fallfyres likes this.
  13. Drathus Augur

    I agree 100% with this.

    What I don't understand is why absolutely nothing is being even slightly altered to prevent this. I'm not a fan of instancing either.

    Increasing the frequency of raid targets is once solution - automated.

    Having a GM randomly spawn extra raid targets is another. However this isn't automated and requires ongoing GM attention.

    Having a raid day once a month to spawn as many targets as there are guilds would keep raiders subscribed each month and there would probably be much less attrition.

    Altering targets like Phinigel Autropos so they drop one each of all epic drops per kill, rather than randomly giving 1 or 2.

    Increasing the number of raid drops bosses have in their drop table.

    Any and all of these changes would benefit Daybreak and the population as a whole.
    MBear likes this.
  14. Jaxarale01 Augur

    I agree... trying to do anything would be better than flat refusal to even acknowledge the problem. I am a instance proponent and that would be my first choice but any of your suggestions would be better than doing nada!
  15. Kalex716 Lorekeeper

    If they do anything at all to try and help content at the top end, i'll sub and play.

    If they do nothing, I won't. This line of thought will probably only exist for a few more weeks before its too late, and I wouldn't want to start at all regardless of policy.

    Half the fun of a progression server is getting in on the action early in my opinion. I hope they realize this because all of the "ambiguity" they've left out there regarding timeline changes for Kunark, and policy changes with the attitude of "we'll fix it later if we have to" effect people like me greatly.

    More information now would help me make my decision.
  16. Diesel2015 New Member

    I don't understand why people come to a game that they have played in the past and want to alter it.

    ncreasing the frequency of raid targets is once solution - automated.

    Having a GM randomly spawn extra raid targets is another. However this isn't automated and requires ongoing GM attention.

    Having a raid day once a month to spawn as many targets as there are guilds would keep raiders subscribed each month and there would probably be much less attrition.

    Altering targets like Phinigel Autropos so they drop one each of all epic drops per kill, rather than randomly giving 1 or 2.
    Increasing the number of raid drops bosses have in their drop table.

    Do I hate when I need an epic piece and Phinny is permafarmed and never up? YES

    Do I hate when I am able to get in on a Phinny kill and he doesnt drop a staff for my magician's epic? SURE!

    But part of the fun of this game is the competition (even though sometimes it is unfair due to other's longer playtimes and hacking). But actually getting the pieces makes it all the more rewarding when it happens.

    If you want an easy button game, go play WoW. Or better yet, I have an idea.

    Why don't have all the toons start out with the epics and full quest gear!! That way they won't quit? Come on!
    Fallfyres likes this.
  17. Jaxarale01 Augur

    To answer your original question: Because the game has changed, the people playing the game have changed, the policies governing the game have changed, just about everything but swamp rat AC and health has changed...

    Putting 6-10 raid guilds in a sandbox and saying: "work it out" will not work. They are putting us in a situation that in no way resembles classic and expecting us to do it classic. Most servers only had 2-3 high end raid guilds and could work it out. You are at minimum tripling that and wanting to leave it the same while taking GM enforcement out...

    Get real
  18. Diesel2015 New Member

    Get Real! That's funny. So in classic, they increased the loot raid targets dropped, had GM's spawn targets because people did not have the patience to wait for the targets, and increased the rate of the targets spawned? You are contradicting yourself. You want a classic feel like the old times but want to change the way it was. You can't have it both ways.
  19. Jaxarale01 Augur

    You seem confused...
    I never said I want the classic feel... I think it was the worst possible way to run the game (see most every MMO now uses instances) putting people in a situation that not only lends itself to drama but creates it for no reason. The only reason it worked IMO was because of GM enforcement... which is now gone and replaced by dps wars.

    It is not me that is contradictory... it is DB.
  20. Diesel2015 New Member

    There was the same drama in classic (if you played it way back then as I have)

    So since we are talking about it, how exactly is having targets drop more items and increasing targets' spawns going to ease drama and tension between guilds, and especially between mage bot groups? Won't this just increase their wealth?