Simply raising XP doesn't really help casual players.

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Strawberry, Feb 28, 2019.

  1. Green_Mage Augur

    Well IDK where this "only 4 picks" idea came from -- but I'm pretty sure I've seen far more than that before.

    There probably is some kind of server stress limitation preventing unlimited picks -- and I probably should have thought that one through more. That being said, there is still the option of instancing if picks do not work, and think simply adding as many picks as possible would be a "good enough" compromise.

    After everything said here and elsewhere -- If you still want to argue casual players want to have players blocking them from the camps they want to go to -- IDK what else to say. I'll just roll my eyes at that point.

    Same with all these "blocked by other players" mechanisms.

    Now I'm not arguing that no one wants older, slower, more classic EQ and everyone wants casual EQ. But its stupid to argue that there is no one except me a few other form posters that want a server that caters more to casuals.

    And that's what were talking about here right? A casual server? We're not talking about all servers.

    But I think some suspect as I do -- the more casual friendly the more popular the server. For reasons Candystore just pointed out.

    IDK where some of these contrarian posters are coming from. We start with "well people need to stick around for older expansions" and somehow we end up with "well EQ fundamentally different than WoW and that's what they want."

    Well are EQ's later expansions more WoW-like or not? My understanding is all the mechanisms im pointing out that block casuals -- are not there in later expansions...why do you think that is?

    Keep in mind the other factor is that what worked in the first TLPs might not work in the 20th TLP to be released. People get less patient with the first expansions of the game after a play-through or four.
  2. Ceffener Augur

    I think people underestimate how much the millions of unit sales for Warcraft 1-3 (Diablo and Starcraft didn’t hurt either), helped to drive the success of WoW. Obviously having a large fan base already is better than being another generic fantasy game. Though Star Wars Galaxies and The Old Republic have also proven it doesn’t guarantee success (WTF is with the inability to capture a large mmo market with Star Wars). WoW, ESO, and FFXIV (XI was a success also) happen to be the top 3...and share the common theme of large fanbases.

    Generic fantasy game is going to have a tough time imo.
  3. ShivanAngel Augur

    They definately had that helping them, a massive company like blizzard putting out an MMO. Who at that point had not played, much less heard of starcraft, warcraft or diablo... I know I had played them all.

    The star wars game was poorly done at first iirc. Not to mention most people didnt have the computer to run it, 3d graphix cards were still an ad-on and didnt come stock in most household computers. had it been put out today, with modern graphix and been polished on release, i wouldnt be surprised if it was the first WoW contender to date.

    Not to mention WoW on release was incredibly polished and well done for an MMO, most have been pushed out to fast and we all see what that does to them.

    Rift was one of the less known and was actually a phenominal game imo, just didnt have the exposure.
  4. Candystore Augur

    let's recap

    Classic, The Ruins of Kunark, The Scars of Velious, The Shadows of Luclin

    -very unfriendly to casuals, huge travel timesinks, corpse runs, all loot is locked behind tedious spawns

    The Planes of Power

    -casuals are sick of running for 2 hours to get to their group, portals stones allow for friendlier travel

    Lost Dungeons of Norrath

    -casuals are sick of fighting over spawns, a much better currency system is introduced

    Gates of Discord

    -developers think casuals have it too good now, and SoE decides to **** them over completely, if your tank doesn't die from Kyv and Noc DD, we'll make sure ukun with selo speed will train your group

    -half the casual EQ population runs off to WoW

    Omens of War

    -developers give casuals group gear, what they didn't tell you is that they need 400 hours of Dranik Loyalists factioning to get it

    -half of the casuals that didn't run off to WoW yet, are now also downloading the WoW client

    Dragons of Norrath

    -developers panic, screwing over casuals was fun so far but now the population is tanking

    -they finally do the right thing again and give players LDON 2.0, DoN, easy to get to missions with good rewards

    Depths of Darkhollow

    -upper management at Sony tells developers they did a good job, and LDON 3.0 is introduced, DoD

    The Serpent's Spine

    -another good expansion for casuals, even newbees get new zones now, casuals rejoice

    -small raids are introduced, casuals timidly come back from WoW

    Underfoot

    -oops, no actual casuals are invited to beta, all the group content is tested by raiders with 100,000,000 hps

    -on expansion release, casuals tell developers that mobs in cooling chambers kill them in 1 round, fully buffed in max group gear.....developers argue this is properly tuned...

    -named have a spawn rate of 1 in a billion, developers argue all is good....

    -this is starting to look like GoD 2.0...no wait, this is worse than GoD

    -after 2 months back and forth between players and developers, SoE admits there might be a problem with tuning and spawns

    -too late, casuals reinstalled WoW and are never seen again in EQ
    Koshk and Hinastorm like this.
  5. Green_Mage Augur

    Yea but it should be noted that the more difficult expansions are fundamentally easier on TLP than they were on live. Classic is extremely easy on TLP and the only real block is competing with other players. Where as in the day, people had no idea what to do and not a lot of gaming experience to draw on. Not to mention no one had as high expectations of content experience.
  6. Sturn Augur


    Yeah except that nobody is logging on to all of those new age MMOs.
  7. xakanrn Augur

    erm what are your sources?
    I can list at least 10 "newer" mmo with population well above 100k subs and not counting the free to play accounts
  8. ShivanAngel Augur

    uhhhhh World of Warcraft.... it IS the New Age MMO.... few million subs doesnt lie.
  9. Sturn Augur


    100k is nothing though. The market for casuals is in the millions. If those games were so good at targeting that audience then their sub numbers wouldn't be so low. If Pantheon gets say 500k subs, will it be a success since it is more than those casuals or a failure because it fails to kill WoW?
  10. Sturn Augur


    The amount of subs you have doesn't make it so your game was released ten years later...
  11. ShivanAngel Augur

    When i said new age mmo, I meant the "model" that WoW based its game off of.
  12. Doze Augur

    Elder Scrolls Online also still got a couple of million subscribers - and they are about to get their first dragons this summer - I'd be surprised if that didn't see at least a temporary rise in subscriptions.
  13. yerm Augur

    Ever seen those crazy dudes in NYC holding the signs telling you to repent because the world is about to end?

    Basically the same as people thinking pantheon is coming soon.
    Fallfyres likes this.
  14. Ceffener Augur

    Did it hit 500k for a month or two and then lose 90% of its players? That’s the most common theme of the next big MMO for the last 14 years. Only a couple have been successful at keeping their launch players and growing.

    Pantheon is going to have the problem of players attitude of “we paid for your game and your not doing X”. Normally when players make that statement they forget about the actual investors who put millions into a game long before players spent a dime. Priority number 1 is returning profit on that investment. Pantheon is going to have many investors and we all know how fickle mmo players are.

    Assuming they even get a game released.
  15. Doze Augur

    I think we may finally have arrived at something resembling the truth. Noone that still plays Everquest (least of all those playing on any TLP) is actually a casual in the most slack meaning of the word, since all the real casuals went on to play WoW etc. ....
    Fallfyres likes this.
  16. PwnQuest Augur


    This :)
  17. xakanrn Augur

    your comment was Nobody is logging into this new game mmo and not about them having 1million or whatever
    if a game has a 100k subs and more who are free to play its hard "nobody" is it
    And off my head again i can think of at least 5 "new age" mmo that had or still has more subs then EQ at its prime
    By the way if pantheon has 500k and can keep even half after six months it will be a runaway success tbh.
    Wildstar had shipped about that at launch but 3 months down the line ... well history books know
  18. Candystore Augur

    Pantheon is just a straight up scam.

    I'm not surprised that Brad, who fired Vanguard devs in a parking lot while doing coke on the job, is involved.

    $1,000 to $10,000 for beta access.

    [IMG]
    Koshk likes this.
  19. ShivanAngel Augur

    pay to beta is the new thing, just sayin...

    Think they call it "pre-release" tho
  20. Koshk Augur

    So...umm...exactly like EQ, and the TLP posts the past few months?