SoE doesnt need to touch pvp at all. EQ2 is a PvE game and it should live through that. Nagafen is a server with pvp enabled. We didn't ask for anything else. All those extra additions including battleground which were pvp only directions is what turned the server into a ghost town.
Nagafen was not the most populated server when BG's came out. Nagafen population was already suffering. Battlegrounds weren't even heavily populated by Nagafen players at the start, because raid gear was incredibly overpowered compared to PVP gear at the time, and blue raiders were annihilating the few red scrubs trying to weasel their way out of having to actually PVP for PVP gear. Fact: Strike queued for battlegrounds with 2 groups one night and got placed against a full Onyx premade in Ganak. Strike won. If PVP gear or PVP skill mattered, that wouldn't have happened. In fact, that's the reason I started the guk.battlegrounds channel back then in the first place. I wanted a place to talk trash following that exact match. To which the reply was: BG's aren't PVP, and they're not worth Onyx's time or effort. I don't know if that became the official guild stance or not, but I stopped seeing entire Onyx premades after that. So clearly, it isn't a universally appealing player siphon. And in the end, I'll repeat myself: Maybe Battlegrounds didn't IMPROVE the experience on the Nagafen server, and maybe it did hurt the desire to PVP later down the line, but telling the PVP server they can't participate in cross-server PVP would be an incredible slap in the face. People would have gone to blue servers just to do it, or complained until it opened on Nagafen anyway.
Battlegrounds in EQ2 have had the same effect on open world PvP that they had in WoW. Yes, TM/SS battles were a lag-fest for anyone with a substandard PC, but they were also BY FAR the best PvP WoW ever had ... & they died entirely when the Battlegrounds were released. Drunken raiding of other faction towns was a riot ... but it died as soon as the Battlegrounds were released. Battlegrounds don't hurt the desire to PvP; they instead largely or even wholly destroy the desire to do OPEN WORLD PvP. As someone else said, it's not necessarily SOE's fault ... it's human nature. Battlegrounds instances, just like PvE instances, are controlled environments where you don't have to worry about the "wild card" of surprise competition. They have just as much a canned, "fake" feel to them as do PvE instances. I realize that the MMO genre is, by nature, infested with Incredible Resurrecting Gnoll syndrome, which is why we have to keep defeating the same bosses in the same instances, over & over & over again ... but the last thing the MMO genre needs is for that feeling to be constantly reinforced by making the bulk of any meaningful content instanced, while doing everything they can to water down, or even eliminate, any feeling of competition with other players even in openly contested zones. Personally, I'm getting heartily sick of the entire genre, mainly because I'm sick past my ears of instances. EQ1, with its entirely contested dungeon structure, was far better in this regard.
Over-instancing is definitely a problem. I'd say that's the larger problem at work, and battlegrounds are just a slice of it. Even if battlegrounds didn't exist, the sheer amount of instances and the linear overland zones are hugely inhibiting of PVP interaction. And again, PVP servers lose population at a cascading, exponential rate compared to PVE servers. No matter what cost the PVP servers the initial chunk of population, which I contest was way before battlegrounds came into the picture, the fact is.. PVP servers always struggle when numbers start to fall.
Onyx was terrible at pvp so your point is? Even with the best gear and big player pool to draw from, they often got beat by Nagafen pvp squads. There is some decent pvp that goes or went on here and there in BGs but it is not a place to judge how good you can pvp.
Off-topic note, what exactly does entail being "good" at PVP? Battlegrounds doesn't count because it's "fake", but a proper battlegrounds match is the only goal-oriented even-numbers PVP EQ2 has to offer. And dueling doesn't count because it has weird rules and is a 1v1, and classes aren't balanced for 1v1. Open world PVP counts because ganking is possible? So is that what makes for skilled PVP players? And does it count if you bring many skilled friends? Is it who you know that makes you a good PVPer? Or is it simply gear and button pressing that determines it? Just curious. To me, the only legitimate pvp is raid versus raid contested pulls. Everything else is just a silly joke.
I smell a hater. Was only about 4 or 5 a teams worth mentioning in the entire history of pvp and Onyx had 1 of em. I am B or C team material so it aint hubris. Contested pvp didnt count. First off using the word contesting, while participating in such activites, was a suspendable offense. Second fighting difficult strats while in pvp combat nerfed heals and more importantly cures. The cures alone meant a solo player with high run speed could wipe 24 very good players fighting 1 mob. I am an expert on dkp pvp(formerly known as contesting). If you have any questions feel free to ask. I was the best corpse camper ww.
Lol. It didn't count if you consider killing the mob as a requirement for contested PVP. As I understand it, at the beginning, contested spawn means "kill it before someone shows up!" or you fight back and forth until someone gives up. Regardless, that is the only way in which MMO PVP can legitimately function: When there's an NPC in the middle. Otherwise, what's the point of PVPing in a PVE MMO?
And what exactly is the point of you arguing on a thread in a game you don't play and were never good at? It is comical that you feel the need to throw out some dumb comments about irrelevant things you clearly do not know much about. But alas this is one of many prime examples of people who have the ego of the best players that have played this game and yet lack the skill and knowledge..do not fear though...there are many upon many people out there that share this same problem as you do. Leave the pvp talk to people who actually play on nagafen and care what actually happens to their server. Have a nice day.
I have always been and will always be better than someone who flails their arms around wildly in an attempt to feel superior to their superiors. This isn't flames, kiddo. Go sit down, take a deep breath and remember: If you try hard enough, drink your milk, eat your vegetables and grow up big and strong, you can have an opinion too some day. Until then, I'll voice a common opinion in the midst of a thread lacking it. Thanks for caring, ma'am. On a more relevant note, of course. Pvp should be about fun. Plenty of people had fun with Battlegrounds, blue and red alike. My whole point was, throwing Battlegrounds on the cross for "killing nagafen" is hugely inaccurate and will inevitably detract from a true solution to the Pvp issue. Assuming the developers believe it. Which so far, they thankfully don't.
SoE took a few turns they shouldn't have. This has nothing to do with people not having fun PvP'ing. The big majority of players on nagafen came there for the added pvp. But they didn't come for the sole purpose of ONLY pvping. All SoE had to do was offer a great PvE game with only MINOR changes compared to the pve servers. No Battlegrounds No instant traveling No guildhalls No flying/gliding/leaping mounts This added extra difficulty to the game. EQ2 is easy as it is. Now you're not only worrying about killing bosses, but you have to worry about being contested by others players or more important, hunted down by them. I know the game had too many instances lately and not enough contested, but this just another issue. There you go, I just fixed the whole pvp issue within 5 seconds. Add SMALL pvp gimmicks to satisfy the hardcore pvp crowd but leave the rest as it is.
I rolled a character there and started to level. I checked to see who was on (I know I only see my alignment) and there were 13 people. Now it was rather late but I thought I had mistakenly rolled a character on Test Server. Shame on me for deleting my Nagafen toon that I started the day the server opened. If I recall correctly, I even got her to level 38 fury and 45 W.W. It was very packed the day it opened and it was so fun! Then all my friends tired of the PvP and went back to live server after about 3 months. It is definitely quiet these days.
Common opinion? From who? A blue server player playing blue server BGs? Sorry to burst your bubble of conceit, but the old PvP forum was archived, and the majority of posts are at odds with your "common opinion"...feel free to visit it to catch up on the history of the red server as seen by the red players at the time it was happening. Now? Now is a different story...the only PvP left is in BGs. BGs were no the only thing that killed the red servers...poor planning in regards to how "player comforts", like insta-travel anywhere, and lack of any worthy contested zones/dungeons would affect red server play were factors. But to pretend that making PvP zones (BGs), that you could insta-travel to, that were where you could /afk and gain the best PvP gear in the game isn't a huge smoking gun, then you are just making this topic a bridge that you can linger under because even your blue game has become boring. Thought exercise...be honest, please...next expansion SOE opens up RGs (Raid Grounds), where you can queue up for a raid zone, and get joined up with other from different servers and different guilds, no lockout timers. As long as you are willing to queue up, you can. Now the raids obviously won't be very successful, I mean you have 24 random peeps all running around, but a bit of complaining from those peeps has SOE offer a solution...even if you fail, you get tokens. Get enough tokens...get the raid gear that you want...the best raid gear in the game. Just gotta keep queuing. What do you think would happen to the blue server environment? Would you be ok with it? How would you feel when some of those die hard BG lovers camp your thread where you voice your (valid) opinion that RGs ruined the raid guilds, servers, and game that you loved? They might say that it wasn't RGs that ruined the game...it was already losing players. They would say that it was raids that weren't fun...I mean people on both red servers and blue servers had fun in RGs, so they must be popular. They would say that it was inevitable...I mean the Devs need to focus on what is popular (and RGs would be insanely popular!). You know, you are right! I do hope that a Dev is reading this. Please...any SOE Dev reading this, Smed? ...please make Raid Grounds a thing. Think of all the money you would make! People would buy more heroic toons to bypass the non-raid levels to get straight to raid gear! You wouldn't need to spend so much time developing new instanced heroic zones...make everything agnostic! Just keep the same ones...everyone would be queuing up for RGs anyways to get the best gear. Yes...definitely...RGs need to become a thing.
Very little of your opinion is close to the truth but that's expected when you're here on a pvp/bg forum with little to no knowledge of what pvp is and was. I've witnessed this plenty of times, no worries. That's not to say you didnt have a few valid points but all of that is lost when you go on a cringe worthy rant like this calling someone kiddo and ma'am lmao. I was honestly waiting for a mom joke too. Keeping it civil and original I see.
