Is Oakwynd Already a Ghost Town? My First TLP Experience is a Major Letdown

I joined the Oakwynd server on June 11 and I've observed a significant decline in the number of players engaging in the Auction chat. What used to be a lively community where players sold a wide range of items has transformed into a predominantly krono and loot right buying market within a span of just one week.

I want to emphasize that I am not attributing the decline solely to botters. I believe it would be unfair to simply blame them as an easy scapegoat. Instead, I feel that the ruleset and fundamental concept of this or maybe all TLP server themself may be inherently flawed.

I really have not seen this on the server , I do think if anything it be caused by the following.

1. Dilution of people that play TLP's being spread across multiple Tlp servers, as people find server's there happy to play on and stick them out that equates to less people , even if slightly less on the next Tlp.

2. Legacy : I can gear my alts on the same account faster , instead of selling items. I can see people keeping more items for alts.

3. FTE with the ability to compete vs bots. I can see more people just flat out farming gear , need Geb's? It is now realistic to go and farm it.

This is most likely what is going on.

Before the white knights come in here to gaslight you, trust your own ability observe. I observed the same thing.

I'm sure people will come in here like this is a political campaign, "Trust the poll numbers, not your own observations!", "Look! It says High server population!", but having dabbled in essentially every TLP since ragefire, this seems like the lowest activity STANDARD (mostly) and single release TLP launched.

I can't say exactly why, obviously we can theorycraft about it all day, but I'm just completely agreeing with you here that it is the case.

Agnarr was less active than some other releases, being a niche PoP-locked server, but at this point in the TLP it was far more lively than Oakwynd is, that's simply the truth.

Maybe people actually playing an getting there own gear like well eq is supposed to be?

I have noticed this has had a negative effect on the server, people are hording for alts. Give me the bots over alt gear hoarders.

Thank you for your input, this being my first TLP I wasn't sure if this was normal or just applicable to Oakwynd.

This doesn't just apply to the chat channels, but getting groups during west coast time evenings. I am starting to really understand why folks bot, I spend more time LFG then actually playing.

There are quite a few factors at play here.

With every progression server released it effectively divides the TLP player base and it should be no surprise that Oakwynd's population while high is less than that of it's predecessors. Any new TLP regardless of it's ruleset will see reduced numbers while also leeching players from existing servers.

There are now 11 active TLPs to play on and in my opinion that's enough for the foreseeable future.

The 2nd factor is that the classic experience is easy, fast, and there was a bonus the weekend of the launch. Without the bonus leveling to 50 takes all but a few days casually and when you hit 50 you can effectively just login to raid.

If you're investigating server health/population and your unit of measurement is the activity of Auction, I feel your results are not going to make sense. You should be checking # of online players, # of picks, # of groups active, etc.

The auction in EC seems on par for most other TLPs, though i can't say for the slow periods since I am asleep or at work during that. But if this thread is to correlate Auction activity to server health, it couldn't be farther from the truth. I think there's a much larger need for the gear people collect - therefore they do not auction it off. Auction seems to be either farmers or tradeskillers, which seems fine to me..

Not to be facetious, but have you tried starting a group? Generally from what I've always seen, the people that most often complain about not being able to find a group are the ones that put little to no effort in it.

Im not sure how the auction market turning towards high sought items for KRs or LRs is an indicator of Oakwynd being a ghost town? Any zone Ive been to over the past few days has had numerous picks, sol a, unrest, upper/lower guk even mistmoore.

tunnel auctions are always lousy on no trade servers such as oakwynd. The server is also new enough that people are still trying to gear up their mains and alts, so prized items are slow to be sold, and often very expensive.

You are being facetious, but hey that's how to welcome people back to the game after 20+ years. When I login 9:00 pm pst, most zones my 14 level warrior can level in are dead or filled with solo players farming for quest materials.

Maybe I should play a mage, like everyone else on this server.

Maybe things will open up after Kunark?

I can't speak for OP but it seems they probably do the same thing I do.

I log into oakwynd, hit the popular zones and start asking random people if they want to team up.

I mostly get ignored.

This server is a krono grind.

The problem is 90% of the player base on oakwynd is there for one purpose, krono.

Meaning it's a sellers market.

I have seen it for myself, mostly all WTB krono and rarely a WTS krono.

This TLP is a big letdown and the new FTE rules are garbage.

Hopefully daybreak learns from this and makes a new free trade server next year and just let FTE be a memory of a mistake, never to repeat again.

It's a ghost town because you are not seeing people in engaging in auction chat? Funny how a server with a high population is suddenly judged on chat activity rather then people out playing.

It certainly has not been this bad on the prior TLP's.

Mischief was an explosion of people, you could easily log in any class you want and immediately find a group or make one.

The "people out playing" are krono farmers.

Possibly the worst metric of server viability that I've ever seen

So what's the best metric then mr smart guy?