Why not have TWO progression Servers...one that goes fast and will change to Live servers when they catch up and the Other a SLOW progression and will stop and not advance to the Defiant Gear expansion, as that ruined Fippy and all the raid gear we worked so hard to obtain
Or just have 2 identical servers so they can be merged down the line when the population on them thins out.
I like the idea of their being a choice of Type A and Type B. It seems that some people want a competition and others want a home. Based on past experience, the two don't seem to mix well. If one server was designed for and encouraged competition while the other focused on the community aspects, everyone might be better served.
One prog server and one server that stops progressing. Two servers to support the TLP rush. One of which will stay that way and the other goes the way of Fippy.
One hard core where the mobs have 30% more life, hit 30% harder and player damage and life is reduced 30%.
One locked server for all in level 65 implemented in a classic fashion and one Fippy where people compete unlock too much and quit on unfavorable content.
Are there any new ideas to be touched upon in this thread that haven't already been talked to death in threads over the past week?
Opening only one non-instanced server will be a huge mistake. Initially, there will be an overwhelming demand for this server, far more than a single server can meet. While people are looking to reminisce on old times, they will find that there won't really be enough to do due to a lack of available mobs to kill. People forget how long the spawn times of some of the old world zones are, and how few places to kill there really are before Kunark. In that time, many people will try to play, get frustrated due to the vast overpopulation and quit, and the amount of subscriptions rising and quickly falling will reflect this. Most of these people will not come back, but some will down the road for particular expansions. On the flip side, as time goes on, players will quit playing due to a variety of reasons. They will quit due to realizing that EQ is a much bigger time sink than they remembered, due to getting a new job or having family duties, due to their guilds failing and the people they play with going a number of different ways, due to passing the expansion they were most fond of, due to being in an expansion they hated, generally people will quit for a huge number of reasons, but quit they will. I've played on Fippy since Planes of Power and currently still play there. I led Darkblood of Solusek Ro for over two years and only very recently did we quit raiding, and as a leader of the servers largest guild for a substantial period of time, I was very in touch with why players quit, as it was extremely important for me as a recruiting tool, to know when to expect numbers to decline, when they would rise, why people played, ect. It may be too late, it may be in vein, but I believe the most optimal way to meet the demand of the huge number of players who would pay to play in old EQ would be to open multiple servers initially with the intention of merging them down the road. And I cannot reiterate the importance of merging them down the road. Vulak got ignored for a long period of time until server transfers were allowed and I guarantee a countless number of players quit due to a lack of options on Vulak, as Vulak had a significantly smaller population than Fippy did as time went on. While it's true that people will quit due to too many people, the opposite is true with too few. If you open 5, 6...10 servers on day 1, I can gaurentee initially that it will contribute to keeping players from quitting due to the initial overpopulation of the servers. As time goes on and servers dwindle, they will need to be merged. This would solve the problem of overpopulation but at the same time keep a sense of competition. Additionally, you could allow server transfers as a way to create an additional revenue stream, and as a way to allow people to freely play the game the way they like to play it with the people they enjoy playing it with. But please keep in mind that by the time you realize that you are missing out on income from overpopulated servers and people quitting, it will be too late. You are already putting in the effort to recreate EQ with some of the old mechanics, please do not miss out on what happened on past servers in regards to initial overpopulation. The one thing I have no idea about is the cost it takes to operate additional servers. I don't know if it's more expensive to create more servers, I don't know if it would require staffing more people. If it does not require more people to staff and the server costs are reasonable, then there is no real downside to doing this. And one last thing, absolutely do not allow voting on expansions to unlock. Pick a time and stick with it. I saw first hand how the Gates of Discord no vote crippled Fippy's numbers. There was a huge exodus of players who quit never to return when the expansion was voted no.
I'm sure we being darkblood members had nothing to do with the no vote for GoD. *whistles innocently*
Yeah most DB members were pretty scum baggy. #dramaz but it wasnt just GoD voting! :X ah well Well not all of em, maybe like two guys I played with while levelling in vanilla !
I think he makes some really good points. People quit for a variety of reasons and I know there were a bunch of people who quit playing on Vulak, because there was no one to play with later on. They really needed to merge Vulak with Fippy much earlier than they did. While I think 5-10 is a lot of servers, it really wouldn't be a horrible idea to have multiple servers just for Classic and maybe even Kunark. If they have shared and timed unlocks, then merging them becomes easy - one of the major issues is a server's current progression.
Yeah I agree, though I think 2 or 3 servers would be best. This is simply because EQ is at its best in a crowded world rather than the FFA feeling of underpopulation. Inconveniences of crowding is part of the game. It forces you to interact and go out of your way for a group. That said, I think they should make up their mind on the number sooner than later. Vulak suffered because it was so obviously an auxiliary server to relieve Fippy. If all servers are announced at once and stuck with, I think the trajectory of each would be better overall.
The issue with launching 2 servers simultaneously is you split the player population right out of the gate. This will eventually create a vulak situation where one is a ghost town, while the other remains strong. Launching a second server 4-8 months after the first would keep the populations more consistent, and if they had different rule sets, it would help. If the second server was a seasonal server launched ~6 months after the initial launch it would infinitely renew itself, and never get to the expansions no one likes. Anyone who missed the first boat can always try again later. The only issue with launching only one server is that the zones get bogged down with too many players. Increasing the spawn rate of mobs by 2000% or so in all zones level 20 and lower would fix that (mostly) and is also fairly easy to do on the programming side of things. That plus instanced raiding would leave the GM's mostly hands-free when it comes to player disputes and glitches, and allow them to focus on bug fixing etc. Also if kunark and possibly velious or luclin was available at launch, the available noob/leveling zones in those expansions would alleviate the initial press of players. In fact, all of the first 3 expansions were launched with lower leveling areas in mind. Personally I would like only Kunark (though i would also like BL and Zerker to be available at launch)
The problem with this is that one server cannot physically handle the sheer number of TLP players at launch. When Fippy launched, they HAD to create more servers because Fippy hit the maximum load and kept lagging/crashing/locking players out. If two+ servers were launched simultaneously with differing rule sets, players would have an obvious choice of which to play on from the start. This would split the player base, and while I imagine the split would be closer to 50-50, if it turned out one of the servers didn't draw enough players to make it viable, then we would know what the players don't want and could close it down, merge it, or wipe it and try a different rule set.
There are ways to get around this, easily enough. With increasing spawn rates in lower level zones, the zones will spread out quickly, but you can simply set the server up in the first place to handle higher capacity. Splitting the load to multiple server slots is easy enough, just take all the boat zones on one server, and split the rest of the zones up onto separate servers to allow more processing power. Once the population evens out throughout the higher level zones, you can shunt it all back to a single server. The issue with Fippy is they just hadn't anticipated such a huge interest in the first place, and it takes time to set up servers to handle high loads properly but almost no time so simply copy/paste the game and launch a second server.
I honestly feel 6-10 servers would be supported during classic, and easily. People forget how zones have close to 30 minute spawn times with mobs that are extremely easy to kill. You are absolutely right though, having a full server where people have the opportunity to get groups consistently is what people desire more than anything from my observation of people. That is why if you create multiple servers, you absolutely must merge them at appropriate times, even if it's as soon as Kunark or Velious. When the time to merge would be appropriate is up for debate. Another issue will be the huge holdup of epic 'raid' mobs. With only one server, and the introduction of krono, there will be huge advantages to buying epic items people are unable to get through their guilds with plat. Because of this, plat farmers will hold particular mobs, like Phinny, hostage, pretty much as long as epics are relevant. Having multiple servers launched in the earlier days with the intention of merging them later would alleviate the massive amount of need there would be for rare spawning epic mobs. Personally, if there is only 1 server launched, you won't see me doing much of anything until raid zones are instanced. I have zero desire to compete with 15 guilds and plat farmers for easily killed 'raid' mobs. And in regards to launching staggered servers, I couldn't disagree more. Any new server launched will cripple the earlier server. This is about to take effect on Fippy. I've known for a long, long time that any new progression server will absolutely cripple Fippy's population, regardless of what expansion was in effect, and regardless of how popular an expansion was. It's really not fair to a current progression server to launch a new one without considering the ramifications of what will happen to the original. It will completely halt any new influx of players and cause old players to leave, crushing the stability of the server.
Hmmm I do not believe that would be the case. Vulak's issue is that it was an overflow server that was only created after the capacity of Fippy was exceeded. In the months running up to launch, there had only ever been talk of 1 server, so everyone made plans to play on that server. If DBG decides on more than 1 server they will announce them at the same time. This will mean that people are able to organise as to which of the servers they roll on. So both servers will have a similar population at launch. I believe there would only be a large population disparity if 2 servers were launched with substantially different rule-sets. I believe it could work if it was a new set of servers, rather than just a 2nd server. If the initial launch is just 1 server, we revisit all of the problems experienced on Fippy, from overcrowding in every single zone to the rampant cheating / training. I honestly believe you are underestimating the problem. If you massively increase the spawn rate for those newbie areas you also massively increase the amount of processing that needs to be done by the servers, so they would require substantially more investment in server hardware. There is then the issue of what to do with that additional hardware /capacity when the population moves out of those areas. If it is a single server launch, then it will be Fippy v2 even if raid targets are either fully or partially instanced. People were trained out of desirable camps last time round, the same would happen again. The more people you have on a single server with a limited amount of places to exp and acquire gear, the more tension you will have. Yes, if Kunark was launched at the same time it could reduce some of the problems, but it would introduce others that have been discussed in detail in other threads.
