AB = No Fun

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by Schortt, Mar 26, 2018.

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  1. Schortt Active Member

    You know I play a game to enjoy myself. Which I have for years on EQ. But now it just sucks. AB had hit the exponential rate of either players quiting or leaving for another server and I cant get a group to save my life, and have had troubles even running some PQs. They are rarely full now. which means we can't even get 24 people to join a big group.

    Only reason I made another thread was the last one was getting long. And I want a Dev to respond to me about what they are planning to do.

    Its your job Devs to make sure the game is still enjoyable, and on AB it has gone below the point of fun. I can't transfer 9 toons to another server. just not affordable. so my options are quickly coming to quiting I paid the big bucks to support the game when ever a new expack comes out... and have done so for the last several years.

    Devs I am asking you for some reason or way for me to stay. If I know there is a plan, i will suffer a while longer. But suffering without knowing something is going to be changed is just stupid.
    SierraDawn, Aussie_one, Karsa and 3 others like this.
  2. Roxxlyy Community Relations

    I'm not quite sure what you're looking for on our end here, and I may be misunderstanding part of the post.

    We'll be adding new content to the game as we always do, which is a "plan." In terms of the servers, we don't have any plans to merge AB to any other server (or vice versa) right now. The population on AB may be light at times, but we aren't going to force or try to convince players to move to or from any one of our servers to another?
    Siren likes this.
  3. semisus Does not play this game

    You really ought to reconsider that , a merge would provide more peope for people to play with
    Not only is it light but you also have to consider that AB has the roleplayers and for solo players vs other servers
    Hardly anyone to grp with

    If you really wanna see how it is , i suggest you log onto AB during prime time and see how many grps are running vs a higher populated server like maj dul
    SierraDawn, Juraiya, Karsa and 3 others like this.
  4. Mizgamer62 Feldon Fan Club Member

    That has already happened and that is one of the major reasons AB's population is suffering. A while back when there were still 8 US live servers, people were asking for mergers. At the time Holly wanted to do cross server grouping, but dropped that idea.

    Players were told that mergers were technically impossible. Their solution for that was to entice players to leave Antonia Bayle, which always had a heavy load at the time, by offering players free server transfers to any other server of their choice. Then after many people left AB, they ended up merging all of the other servers except for AB.

    After they merged the Euro servers, they decided to merge the Sebillis (Japanese) server with AB, but that didn't really have a huge impact on AB's population.
  5. Meneltel Well-Known Member

    It seems that many of AB's population was there only because it was populated, but some only group with guildies (such as me, for personal reasons) while there was still a large group/raid population, people started leaving because of the sheer numbers and went to other servers and started having more fun with people but not as much lag or problems due to the larger number of players on AB. Soon, more did so since they could join a server that was more dedicated to raiding and grouping (as it were) than AB and so the population slide continued. Part of the problem is that while EQ2 is a MMORPG, there isn't that much to encourage the RP part other than the basic races and classes in the game. All the rest is put in by the players. Some people do want to RP but are afraid of being ridiculed for doing it wrong... and there are some who do that very thing on AB. So I don't put all of the blame on DBG, but some of it on us. We don't make a new player/new roleplayer-friendly experience on AB. For many reasons. In the past, any open world event would be bothered by some of the non-rpers there on the server who would troll the event, forcing many if they wanted to RP in peace to do so in a controlled location, like a house or guild hall, allowing them to banish a troll from entering. Thus most of the venues and events are locked away, and I'm guessing few advertise in General, just on the RPLFG channel. And if you are a new or curious RPer, you wont KNOW about that channel.

    Too many burned out or tired RPers just don't want to bother to reach out to the few players on AB who may be interested in RP or learning more about it, while many are content to just RP with their clique and ignore those not of their friend circle or entourage. We need to get, as a RP community, more active in seeking new members to play with us, as well as DBGs helping us to make it a RP-friendly game. But with the shape of the game as it is today, I'm not sure that is really possible anymore.
  6. Kodamungus Active Member

    I was wondering what happened to AB. I've been playing since launch but took about 2 years off before returning last year. Long gone are the days when AB and LD were the hot spots.

    Thanks for the info.

    I guess the devs don't feel like something needs to be done, but whoever is running the show at DBG needs to be concerned. Server merges have been a thing at various points in the history of EQ2 so the throwing up of hands above is surprising.
  7. Mizgamer62 Feldon Fan Club Member

    It certainly is unfortunate for the remaining players on AB, but nothing meaningful, if anything will be done about it. That is ok with me though, because I don't want to pay $25 per character to leave my home server where my guildhall is and therefore, rather than suffer through the emptiness, I have just stopped logging in. I wish every one still on playing on AB all the best.
  8. Kaarkula Active Member

    Well... this isn't really on the Devs.

    This is the Exec's hedging their bets that they an get more money out of xfer tokens then people quitting - both will happen but which one is going to win out?

    I think they are miscalculating this one.. from what I can gather from talking to people - this strategy is going to lose money.
  9. Castegyre Well-Known Member

    Whether or not their gamble is successful totally depends on what their end goals are. If we assume they want what is best for the customer, the server, or the game, based on the information that we have then this makes little sense.
    Mizgamer62, Meneltel and Tekka like this.
  10. Argosunited Well-Known Member

    Transfer tokens don't transfer guilds. If they did, maybe they'd be onto something.
    I see them losing a server load of paying customers if they don't do something, soon™
    Juraiya, Tekka, Mindsway and 2 others like this.
  11. Kari Well-Known Member

    I transferred my main and my alt to Maj Dul using the DBC that I get once a month with my sub. So although it may look like new revenue from an accounting standpoint, there was no new money changing hands. A lot of the DBC they get out of this won't actually be new dollars.
    Ruckus likes this.
  12. Ruckus Well-Known Member


    I'd really love to know how many hours a week all DBG employees actually play their own games for "fun" on their free time, especially EQ2.

    I just remember back in the day when the lead dev of this game used to tank for my old raiding guild on Unrest...during the end of his work shift. He'd have to quit mid-raid so he could ride his bike home at the end of his work day. He'd eventually log in from home and get back into raid.

    We were a mid-level raiding guild, so it's not like he was feeding us strats on how to kill end game raid mobs. In fact, he was actually finding bugs in the script that top end guilds used to be able to find a work around to get that encounter taken down. We'd stumble around over those bugs, and he'd be like "hang on, let me go get Raid Dev", and he'd pull that person into his cube and show him what was happening in our raid. A few weeks later, that PITA bug would be fixed and we'd kill that encounter and move on the next progression mob.
  13. Ruckus Well-Known Member

    Things new DGB employees learn from people who have been playing this game since launch.
  14. Ruckus Well-Known Member


    Long ago, they merged the "Oceania" server into Unrest (now Halls of Fate). The keyboards that the Asian countries used didn't allow for some characters to show up in chat, so if they were talking in channel, you'd see a bunch of these rectangle symbols in chat
    .

    This merger didn't help the North American based guilds on the server, because the Oceania countries played on a different time zone schedule. There was one major "late night" raid guild on Unrest that started around 9 pm Pacific time (west coast players and folks who worked 2nd shift were in this guild). We had a few Chinese, Korean, Japanese players, as well as a bunch of folks from Australia and New Zealand. This merger made Unrest unique, and turned it into a "24 hour" server, which it is today.


  15. Ruckus Well-Known Member

    Long ago, guilds were leaving their original server to MOVE to AB, because it was a newer server and the lag was not as bad. AB was ALWAYS showing up as "full" while the other servers were low and medium in the evening hours in the USA.

    http://progress.eq-raiders.com/


    ONE guild from AB is in the Top 25. Two guilds from AB are in the Top 35. Everyone used to flock to AB to raid, because of the new equipment, low lag, and high player population.
  16. Ruckus Well-Known Member


    Lose money and their jobs. New MMO games will be coming out, and those of us who are chomping at the bit to finally have a reason to quit will be gone and they'll end up doing to EQ2 like they did to Vanguard, which only had 2 servers in the end (North America and Europe).
    Rhodris, Mizgamer62 and Meneltel like this.
  17. Sixgauge Well-Known Member

    I see you're taking the "Stormhold" strategy on this.
  18. Leed Active Member


    Or could it be that they don't want to force everybody off of AB, and if they offered free transfers to everybody that would make things worse for those that stay to the point they would effectively be getting forced to transfer too? Having it cost money helps limit transfers off a bit, and keep more people playing on AB that otherwise might transfer off.
  19. Kaarkula Active Member

    No one would be forced off AB if there was a server merge.

    That's the point.
    Mindsway, Mizgamer62 and Sejreia like this.
  20. Poetic_Justice Member

    I agree with you 100 percent with giving the people the "option" for free server transfers. I understand that DB doesn't want a heavy top sided server and force people to merge but at least give them the option. I keep hearing more and more about the AB server and if it was me and I wasn't able to get groups or no one is active, I would simply not play or request a transfer.
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