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

No not at all.

Can you produce some actual figures? Numbers? Charts? Anything?

Or you just want to mask as an intellectual to talk down to people who don't like oakwynd?

That gives 0 indication on what levels the players are, what they are doing, how social the server is and so on.

As I said before, from my impression on being on the server, it's 90% people trying to farm krono.

Key word, trying.

Business may be slow because there's a lot of competition.

Again, I don't know because I am not one of these people.

That's a serious reach. Like, wow.

And my experience is spending hours and hours asking people to group up and being ignored.

But of course you will say that it's just me, I have a bad attitude, etc etc, any excuse in the book to try and make oakwynd look like a success.

Some of the best times I had in everquest was doing small man raids.

Not with one group I boxed but with 10-12 people all boxing 2-3 characters to get raids done.

Something that is rare on other servers because what's the point?

It's not a reach at all.

My old friends and everyone I talked to all went to oakwynd specifically to farm krono, no other reason.

Thing is there is a lot of competition because, again, the majority of people on oakwynd are trying (key word TRYING) to farm krono.

That's it.

This entire forum has turned into a few people rabidly trying to defend oakwynd and paint it to be the dream server with any dissidents being shut down or bullied by the same group of people here ( you know who you are liking each other's posts all day )

People wanting to farm krono or group with friends/guildmates rather then random groups doesn't mean that the server is dead.

Well I was being a devil's advocate, auction channels as something that you HAVE TO VOLUNTARILY JOIN will always inherently be less and more variable. Whereas Generals default to being joined and you have to VOLUNTARILY NOT JOIN.

Don't need "charts and figures" to demonstrate what EVERY SINGLE PERSON THAT ACTUALLY PLAYS EQ HAS EXPERIENCED anecdotally on previous TLP servers.

On a typical TLP, MOST people level cap and then either:
a) Farm group loot
b) Do other stuff in the meantime and only really log on for raid days

MOST do not bother alti'ing too heavily. But here we have a server ruleset that ACTIVELY REWARDS and ENCOURAGES alt'ing - so *gasp* we've got tons of folks working on their 2 and 3rd characters on a trip to L50 in an eternal cycle.

In my guild, we flag alts pretty accurately, and we've got (not counting boxes which we DO NOT flag as such) an average of 1.2 alts per main with the current roster. On past servers of mine, I found it a rarity to see more than a few people alt'ing.

So yes, it'll make the demographics drastically different when there is really only one common option after you're max (which does allow pity spots to those 33+) compared to here where alts can land anywhere in the spread.

Heck, for it not being a high demand server - I ran into an obvious "hack program that cannot be named" user in NK yesterday - and at least one other I suspect, but never caught red-handed. Seems like a waste of time to put that kind of effort and risk into a dead server for those types.

PS - You're very much demonstrating your thought methods and the groups you clearly involve yourself with online. Not being able to see the difference between something being black and white "AMAZING" and "CRAP" gives you away - as well as the "Oh, the evidence I like is perfect and fine - but disputing it, any piece of evidence will have flaws" even when using identical sources. (similar will always be flawed to at least a small degree though - although it can give a solid idea of a trend)

Honestly, yes. I think you do not like Oakwynd so you go to the forums to attempt to conspire some silly inarguable debate like "i just get ignored" since it can't be proven.

I've spent the entire month forming groups within minutes, hence why I asked what time you're attempting this at. To me, if you're trying to group in normal hours, you would have to try exceptionally hard to not have a group.

Not sure you deserve a forum ban. Though having read your replies here, I'm not surprised you're having trouble finding groups.

Perhaps take a break, spend some time outdoors, do something else for a while? Worst case, find a therapist who can help with your anger issues with krono farmers. If you have some insecurity or entitlement issues about EQ groups, they might be able to help with those too.

I mean, if there actually is a decline in the population of a new TLP this early, can we really be surprised? There is only a limited amount of the population that wants to repeat 25 year old content every year. The decline people are likely seeing (if there is one, I don't actually know) is probably tourist players leaving and going back to their home server. People who joined Oakwynd, leveled a character or three, made some Krono and are now taking their haul and riding off into the sunset. This would be my guess, but like I said, I don't play there so I really am only speculating.

A few things that we should make note of as a starting point.

First. even if Oakwynd is not as popular as the most popular Everquest server of all time (Mischief), it is still far more populated than any live server was during classic and p99 is now. Its 10am est and there are 70 people in Unrest at the moment and there are 3 full, 400 person general chat channels. Back in the day, servers were capped at much lower than the current Oakwynd population.

So Oakwynd is far from a "dead" server. Its just not as big as the biggest or as big as people hoped. If you're looking for a TLP still in the early stages, Oakwynd is a blast.

Second, a lot of people were disappointed with the ruleset that went in with Oakwynd and with the promise of something big/special next year, skipped it. People also didn't understand the FTE system (which was horrifically bad on test server) and the "evolving" ruleset of Oakwynd doesn't *really* kick in until at least Kunark. A lot of people were looking for a mischief clone and were disappointed to see a curveball ruleset. I think the combination of the poorly rolled out FTE system (which has been updated and works great imo) and the odd ruleset that doesn't really do much to differentiate the server from a yeli/phinny clone server in Classic left people who were expecting something more a little disappointed. The insane success of mischief I think proves that the game being 20+ years old is not really killing TLPs.

Third, Krono farmers showing up to get Krono before going back to their home servers is a thing on literally every server and is of course a valid critique here. However, Krono farmers who engage in this type of behavior have not been a TLP killer since AoCs/picks for a couple of reasons. Mostly, they don't group. They just run bots and sit on high-value camps and sell in EC. They don't really group and they don't really participate in guilding/raiding. so when they leave its not like the number of groups dries up.

In conclusion, I don't think folks are wrong that Oakwynd has a noticeably lower population than Mischief did. But I do think that its population is sufficient to have it be at least as successful as the last few standard TLPs. I've leveled a few alts and I haven't had any trouble looking for a group. I actually had a harder time finding groups on my first char than I did subsequent chars.

FTE actually so far I feel has been pretty good, IMO the drop off is because its Classic launch AGAIN. Pretty sure almost every TLP has been a Classic launch. IDK about others, but thinking about doing Sky/Fear/Hate for the 10th TLP. No thank you. FFS start a TLP with at minimum Kunark, even better would be with Velious. Then just extend the time to unlock Luclin by 4 weeks. I have 0 incentive to log in right now, farming the same 3 zones since 2013

Agreed. FTE is a great improvement--not as impactful as, say, picks or AoCs, but certainly an improvement to the game that takes some of the unfun frustration out of the game.

I think you're right though that Classic is a bit too plain. The evolution system should have had something for the unlocking of the hole. Either an exp boost or mob spawn reduction or something else (i don't know what would have been viable from a code perspective).

I get it that this server is supposed to "evolve" and it doesn't make a TON of sense to start "evolving" in classic, but the server has the highest population in classic and it would have made sense in my view to have that featured prominently while most people are experiencing the server.

Selo started in Luclin and Vaniki started in GoD which was different. Both of those servers should have been a lot more popular than they were

The server is a great server IMO and I see much activity. Many pics in many Zones. I lived in the tunnel for the first 2 weeks after hitting 50 on my chanter. Made my 30+ Krono to be able to spend as expansions come and am now back out there leveling a Shaman and then an SK. With the new XP bonus rules it makes a lot more sense to get to leveling. This is the first server that I feel I can actually try out some of the classes I have never tried before and look forward to it.

In short, this is a players server, IMO, not your typical TLP by any means and I love it.

The server reminds me of a less populated p99 server. the lower level zones are basically empty with the exception of PLers and box groups. the level 50 players are in EC or fighting over some of the more wanted drops to try and sell with their box armies. OOT has 2 picks right now both with 30+ most of those people are 50 and on cyclops island in box groups. It only seems like there are a lot of people because of the amount of boxers. I am in a smallish guild and only a couple of us aren't running multiple boxes.

It's the back half of Kunark and there's a MASSIVE XP bonus happening in 4 days or so. To think folks aren't dialing down is silly.

And mind you OOT is generally the bottom of most people's list to XP it - last night at roughly the same time, The Hole had 7 full picks.

You weren't attacked. Seriously. Words are NOT violence, and you are NOT a victim. Why not just quietly go back to Mischief, as I was totally prepared to do, had my experience not been close to what I expected? You didn't state facts, you stated opinion, just as I am doing when I say Oakwynd does not suck. We don't agree. I'm not attacking you because I disagree with your opinion.

Sorry for the late response. I'm retired, and I just started traveling the country last week. I'm only inside on the computer because there's a thunderstorm right now, at the state park I'm at.