POLL RESULTS IN!

If there's no instancing or a credible alternative to solve the problems from last time I'm not going to play at all on it. I love the old content but that was just not fun. I'm rather disillusioned with some of the posts regarding cheating and 3rd party software too. I think I might just be done with EQ.

Ugh yeah that makes no sense, there was a huge out cry for instances

[/quote]Based on player feedback, we're leaning toward not instancing classic content.
From reddit, regarding instancing:[/quote]
That's basically the same statement Roshen made 1 month ago before all the discussion about instancing on the forums. I'm not sure where Roshen is getting his "player feedback" from. Which forums should we be posting on?
Here's some player feedback, I'm amazed and extremely disappointed to see Roshen post that on Reddit 1 hour ago!!!

There was a hugecry on forums, which was the same 4-5 people saying how much they wanted them. The forums generally dont accurately describe what the majority of players want, they generally describe the few who arent happy with the way things are.

As much as some people want, instancing, as well as raiding have always been something that the vast majority of players never ended up doing, and people do actually like things the way they were. A very large portion of the new servers players are going to be people who are already playing on live and have grown bored with that, and dont want the exact same thing just at a lesser version on the new server, which is all that it would become.

Honest question, has anyone ever had an experience with a server that had greatly increased spawn rates that spawned at random intervals? e.g. Instead of Nagafen routinely spawning at 8:00 PST on the dot every week because thats when the poopsock counter says its time for Naggy to spawn, instead it could spawn randomly +/- 1 to 3 days (at any time of the day/night) and at a higher frequency.

Would this solve anything if instancing was not in the devs playbook? Would it encourage racing and mobilizing to targets? Or would it just encourage people to logout a guild full of mages in the raid zone and 2 AM batphone calls?

Curious for feedback. I'm sure its been brought up before. If they are not considering instancing, we need to be clever and think of something that won't cause (an even worse, slower paced) Poopsock Cesspool 3.0 for minimal developer time and effort.

I gave him an appropriate (and civil) response on the matter over there - to link it here as well...

As follows: Curious Roshen, How did you come to that idea based on "player feedback"? Last couple weeks when I was worried that the idea didn't have much player appeal I started tallying unique names speaking in favor of and against in an Excel (and occasionally a few people did switch to FOR from AGAINST) and the list is drastically longer on the FOR side. [On the Live forums]
Now I'll admit I slacked off in the past week or so - but the handful of people discussing instancing the past few days have been largely PRO again that I've seen. But it's not tabulated - so it's possible it's all old positive people that I counted before and new con people or something.
Certainly with any split on the issue it at least makes sense to put it to a poll, unless you guys have no intent to follow through with doing it regardless of what the playerbase want. And with the toxic nature of TLP 2.0 - I think not doing something to address the drama issues is not going to behoove a successful server. [Not that instancing is the only potential solution - but right now you have people's attention with the hype train, 6 month unlocks with nothing to deal with the drama is likely going to be a deal breaker for some people - that's over 2 years they've got to potentially wait before they have a chance at raiding if they're concerned with staying out of the way of drama - over $250 spent on a product they can only access "half of" unless they compete which will likely involve unethical methods if TLP 2.0 was any indication]

Care to see the Excel (admittedly about a week out of date) with unique names speaking in favor or against instancing? The pro side was nearing three digits. The con was breaking twenty. [It does help that there was a few defectors though, I think it was over 20 before the defectors]

Thats the thing, almost at 3 digits is going to be a very very small portion of the playerbase, and you were getting the names based off of the live forums, which is the minority.

If you want to get a more accurate list, youll want to ask current end-game raiders who have alts with thousands of overcapped aa's, not the people who are more casual and will make up a smaller portion of the server. Its similar to asking someone is a democrat in texas or a republican in california.

You could quite easily say that the same 4-5 people were crying out against instancing. There seemed to be more people posting in favor of instancing including hardcores from last time. Based on the customer/player feedback on these forums it appeared that there's plenty of interest in instancing to save us from another GM free wild, wild west experience.
There was no in game poll or vote on the subject so where else could Roshen be getting his feedback from?
Any time in classic, kunark, velious and SoL where it's wild west rules, not for me, maybe if there's any population left I might try in PoP.
If DBG are going to do nothing to combat the bs that went on last time and we already know there will be no GM's then don't advertise it as PvE, you know the competition is coming from other players and not the content. Maybe call it a PvTG (Player v Top Guild) server, just don't call it PvE, Customers expect some kind of rule enforcement on a PvE server.

Are current end-game raiders actually the players who will be playing on this server?

And also, even if the sample size of this forum is too small, is Reddit good enough? If someone has Excel spreadsheets of this forum, do they have one for the Reddit? Reddit, where you don't even have to have an email to sign up and post?

I would think that the raid drama that went on on the prior TLP servers should be the only source they need. Now, to be super specific, maybe they are planning to do something, but just not instancing. Communication is key, and sure, we got a lot of communication today, but this issue is just too important to be silent on.

I'd welcome the idea of officially polling it - my point was his statement goes in the face of the only evidence available. Sure, a poll or something like that might disprove it how the forums appear. (although I'd have my doubts - everyone I know in that boat has scheduled raids, camping out for a TLP spawn would cause them grief on their main server - I'd imagine they'd be MORE LIKELY to support than be against, but that's just my own speculation)

I'll be playing regardless - although 2 accounts (wife and I) instead of 5 like we'd been considering - I won't care about leveling up efficiently if it's six months and there's likely nothing to do once I'm done leveling. I'm also reconsidering doing a yearly sub and instead month to month where I very well might quit between capping out each expansion - since I have no interest in dealing with the drama that was involved in 2.0 raiding. (And 3.0 is shaping up to be worse with minimal GM presence)

Sure it is. There has been plenty of opposition to instancing on these forums, you have just conveniently ignored it because it disagrees with your position.

Plenty? Sure, the majority? No. [at least assuming my muse below didn't happen to a moderate degree.... but it's possible it did]

Of course something interesting I just realized that I can't track - is that every single person opposed that included a mention of things not to be mentioned would likely have had their post removed.

People that play on such things that people aren't supposed to would often be biased that way, so that's alot of CON people that would've been lost because of moderation from my view that they could see.

3 digits? you over estimate how big this play base is.

Nobody ignored those posts Machen, they were (for the most part) replied too with good arguments as to why instancing is needed, especially on a GM free server. If it goes ahead as repeat of 2.0 but with slower progression then I'll just go ahead and wish Twisted Legion many happy years of fun on their new server, and I hope you all don't get bored and leave like last time

I've only ignored in the sense that I don't reply unless they have reasons. I still see the opposition and it's much smaller than the pro movement. This is based on the only data we have, posting here on the forums. "Plenty" is subjective while the ratio Vaclav put together is objective fact.

Well Aen - don't forget though there's a ton of factors that could screw up what I tallied.
1) Any typos on names I made would end up having someone count twice.
2) I've got no means to filter alts. (So say you and I were the same person - I know we're not - but hypotheticals! We should count as 1, not 2 - and F2P accounts can post and can be made in almost no time, so there's probably at least a couple)

It's not impossible its a bit lower if I cared to do a detailed double check + however double acct people would be determined.

MOSTLY objective fact - note a few challenges I've been quoting to it the last couple minutes - it's certainly flawed to a degree, but handy as a vague guideline I guess though.

[Also I skipped human error of me misreading someone as positive when it was negative or neutral likely had some occurrences too]

If there will only be 1 server, I'm starting to wonder if greatly reduced spawn times on bosses wouldn't be a much better option than instancing. It reduces the absurdly long wait time on high demand mobs while keeping some of the competition that there once was. Would something like 18-20 hours respawn times on major bosses be unreasonable?

And at least some of the opposition I've seen was not focusing on "maintaining the classic experience", but on preventing flooding the server with gear. If they want to make it an all tradeable server, then I'd buy that argument. But with standard no drop tags on nearly everything, instance-obtained gear is not "flooded" (and if it was, then what about every expansion from GoD or OOW forward?).

Point is - if the reason for the opposition is not purely focused on the "Classic" experience, why count it with the same weight?

Back in 1999, I created a character with a name from another game's intellectual property. Within 10 minutes a GM was forcing me to change it. Point being - the Classic experience had heavy GM involvement. If we're not getting that here, then the Classic experience has already been reduced, and instancing is a necessary counterpart to that. (Not that I would want GMs policing raid schedules anyway, that's not any more of an acceptable situation)

18-20 hours on what was previously 7 days? Sure...and 24 hours down to 6 hours, for example. Yes, that would be a nice compromise.