I would probably have quit if I was on a low pop server. Pop on cazic looks good but I would not be opposed to a merger
All, I would say using population numbers that DBG would be a better way to establish whether a merger should happen or not. I would also say if people are starting to bring this up that something is a brewing and a look would be good. Grouping has had issues for sometime, maybe it is time to start changing some of the group situations or address it more. Brainstorm and see what things need changing like LFG tools, porting options to reach groups, time to complete group tasks, nonlinear task updating so updates occur without prerequisites, cross server grouping, mega server with instancing like on the TLP servers, ....etc. As far as the raiding numbers, EQ raiding just like the population has been in decline for years. Once again, maybe it is time to take strong looks at raiding. Are there things that can be changed like raiding tools, time on events, making raiding more accessible, ...etc. My thoughts, Rykard
I've been getting groups on FV. Despite me sometimes screwing up because I was not sober and multi-boxing sloppy, and figuring I wouldn't hear from those people again....nope, still keep getting groups, even when I don't want them. The more that the population shrinks on Live, the more that general chat starts to feel like one big guild. Everyone kind of sticks together as a whole, kinda nice to see
From what I've heard, the FV population is fine. They wouldn't be eligible for mergers anyway. If you're getting invited to groups, despite having to box AND being drunk, it sounds as if they're desperate and maybe the population IS too low there!
They should have everyone fight each other in a massive ranked tournament to decide overall positions and servers, making everyone fight to be with the best, tearing apart friends, guilds, and families. Then rebrand the game as ThunderQuest.
As Silv pointed out, it's the summer doldrums. We go through this every summer in Triton also. We will have beaten everything available and will have been on farm patrol for awhile. People going on vacations, others on forced vacations (in jail since hot summers and drunk people make for hilarious interactions). Previous expansions, we could make the weekly raids last up to 3 days (so we don't become complacent and too rusty). Now we are forced to split the events into two days because they can be easily done in one night. Ramping up from raiding once a week to the normal 6 days when a new expansion (now called campaigns {tomayto, tomawto}) releases can be challenging. Waiting for new stuff brings apathy and boredom. Your best bet is to have DBG look into server population levels starting around mid September. (Side note: Holy moly, kids are going to school starting around the 10 of this month!! Seriously?! I remember it wasn't until after the Jerry Lewis weekend telethon. Don't ask!!) However, I don't think the numbers have been good since the beginning. Decent, yes. I remember when they encouraged everyone to be online at once to record having 100,000 people (I believe it was that amount, forgive my memory if not) in the game across a multitude of servers. Shortly thereafter, they stopped displaying the actual number of players playing at any given time for any server.
As I see it, we are in a slow down for server populations right now, i.e. the summer. This is a yearly occurrence since EQ as an entertainment medium competes with other forms of entertainment, such as pool parties, summer vacations, picnics and so on. This year there were to factors which worsened the server population on the main servers, lack of content, both raid and group from the TDS expansion, and the TLP servers. I do expect once folks get back from their summer vacations, and tire of TLP servers and the new expansion rolls out, some of them will return to the main servers. The real issue is lack of marketing of the EQ game, and making long term investments. Specialty servers, like FV, Zeks, and the TLP servers are not long term investments into the game, since they pull their player population from live servers. Marketing would consist of doing things to increase EverQuest band name recognition and positive / fun perception of the brand name, specifically to non-EQers. The end state is to get those folks to create accounts, try the game out, like it and start paying for it and the expansions. Marketing is a long term play, whereas advertising is short term. Long term investments would be game wide, affecting all the servers such as updated all zones that look like they were designed in the late 1990's (East Wastelands) to something that looks like it was designed in the 2014 (Caverns). Long term investment would be enough content released to keep players busy throughout the year. I think TDS came close to that in the group game, but fell far short in the raid game. Long term investment would be marketing EQ to pull in new players, or get players who left EQ to return back to EQ. Long term investment would fix long standing broken quests / bugs. Long term investment would be going after exploiters and those who sell stuff acquired in game for non-game currency, such as USD, Paypal, Bitcoin, Yuen, Rubles, ect.
If they were to actively market this game again, they would have to fix up the UI. Have you tried starting this game with a clean character ini or a new install? You get a jumbled mess of a bunch of windows with no help on how to arrange them. That's not going to fly with 2015 gamers. This game does a horrible job of bringing a true newbie player up to speed on their own. Most of us run a custom UI to help, but learning where to go to get a custom UI, how to install it, MAPS!, how to create additional chat windows, setting filters, hot bars creating macros, etc. there's a tremendous amount of info to digest just to be able to get the UI playable. Then you have the graphics from 10 years ago, granted the devs have done wonders with what they have, but how do you convince someone new to play this game in it's current state, especially when there's so many other newer, prettier options out there. And even if they updated all the old zones to look prettier, there's no reason to play in those zones. It's so easy to level past classic EQ (classic, Kunark, Velious, Luclin, Pop) in today's game what would be the point? This brings up another point that I don't think anyone has answered, how do you keep old zones/content relevant once a player has leveled past them? IMO, the day they chose to create EQ2 instead of upgrading EQ1's graphics engine, is the day they sealed EQ's fate. That the game has lasted so far past that decision is truly an amazing feat. Look at WoW's player count they learned the lesson EQ didn't and kept it to one game. And now some point in the future we are going to have a 3rd EQ game (that has been rebuilt like three times already.) It makes no sense. If they would have focused on upgrading EQ over the years then they wouldn't be in this limp mode they are in now. This game is dead, it just doesn't know it yet. We have 5 years tops left of EQ1, but more likely 2-3 and then it's gone.
It should be nothing more than creating default layouts for more screen resolutions. The problem is it's taking a layout for something like a 800x600 screen and jumbling it up on a 1920x1080 or other modern resolution. It's nothing to do with the graphics or default skin so far as I can tell. I get a similar problem when I copy my config between a laptop with 1920x1080 and my desktop with 1920x1200.
And some of that "jumbling" would be solved if we could link windows together, so things would stretch or shrink as the game window size changes, but that would require programmer time. And while I agree it would help some, to have some default layouts. More than that would be needed to attract new players.
How long do you reckon it will take to people to get tired of TLP? We have people who haven't come back from Fippy yet.
They may never comeback, think about it, they've been over on the TLP servers for a couple months making friends, being part of a community. Then they comeback to Live and half or more of their old guild is missing. Where do you think they are more likely going to stay and play? Something else that comes to mind, these TLP servers were not really well thought with respect to new expansion content. I.E. if someone decides to stay on TLP; why would they buy an expansion they can only use on a Live server? So now they've turned a player that was paying a sub and buying expansions, into someone that's just paying a sub. Not very smart.
Man just make it so that people from any server can zone into instances with people from any other server and allow cross server instance invitations. That would make this game amazing. The only caveats are that you'd have to make sure if the people come from FV to disallow trades, and if the people come from zek to disallow pvp. I've just made your game 1000% better. It's a better idea than progression servers. Honestly it's probably a better idea than Everquest itself. If you have a better idea, let me know so that I can tell you that we can't be friends anymore.
I do not think they would ever do that. This would allow for cross server trading. i.e. start an instance, zone in, trade with the toon cross server, drop the instance.
Then disallow trading in these cross server instances altogether. That can't be too difficult. And don't let people drop things. But even then who cares about cross server trading? Where is the harm in all of this? Oh no, a more balanced economy... Just don't allow progression servers to join these instances and you're set.
Worrying about cross-server instance trade exploits is like worrying about over-population on Mars. Someday it might be a concern, but there are a few more relevant problems to worry about first.
