Patch notes for IoR server

I understand the arguments of those that feel slighted. I have also played dedicated raiding toons for years on the live servers and it felt like a bit of a burn not to have those perks. However, I have no interest in moving those toons to a new server.

Just for fun though, i rolled a new toon on IoR back in May and it took less than a month to have him to Epic 2.0 status. When FG came out, myself like many others on IoR, wanted to check out the shiny new server, which sort of depleted any gains IoR may have made, population wise, and the server seemed like an open wound... unable to heal.

Money greases the gears for any business... DBG is out to make some money, either through transfers or Krono or something else that a player may see as beneficial to their play style... If DBG can get you to pony up a few bucks to transfer on over to IoR, then they have achieved their goal of making money.

But, the greatest part is... you don't even have to transfer. You can just make a new toon and enjoy the perks for yourself. Yes YOU!, the grumbly gamer that looks at this as a knife in the back... which it's not. It's an attempt by DBG to accumulate additional revenue and gain more population on a deserted server. I know, I know... "What about my live server, it's deserted, too?" But, maybe not as deserted as IoR, right?

There is no "win" scenario here, but you CAN roll a cool new toon and start over on IoR and reap the rewards of the eternal perk goddess with no (zero) downside. (except having to do the grind again... which, like i said, only took me less than a month, so not too bad, eh?)

Something about the 10th commandment seems relevant right about now and if i were religious, i'd probably quote it.

Mph would you people quit whining, want the perks join the server.

Neither do I, but I don't really care. I'm not transferring so /shrug. I speculate that the reason they care so much about the server is it helps them catch errors. If some item or other is doing a booming business, they know to look at that item carefully. It's the "free trade" server, right? So anything very popular might be OP. I don't think anyone really knows how important some things are until players do a live test on it. Nobody ever answered me about how the Public Test server works, and from comments people made during Tinkerfest, the population seems low. So IoR might be a better Public Test than the official server. How you design something and how it works in practice are often two different things.

I disagree about the "server will fail" bit, but I do think F2P is a bad model for any game/business, and the rampant "HEIRLOOM" tag is wearing really thin. I mean wooo, let's protect that Resolve 7 drop from a weekly solo mission... woooo... it's just over the top I think. This part of the plan I do not understand. So you're saying the Heirloom tag is due to F2P somehow? I thought Prestige was the new Fabled.

He is referring to our guild, which isn't T4 due only to the summer slump. We would be T4 but our MT ragequit and half our healers got bored and left. Regardless, as far as casual raid guilds go we're quite high on the list and about half our raid force had temporarily moved mains or alts (I am mainchanging soon and xfering to make sure that I get ethereal benefits that I worked for on my current main.) I honestly think you're complaining about nothing though. If you want the perks, it's free with your sub you pay anyways. This was meant to breath life into a server that is a good concept and that many people loved. Leave it be. You don't need more free stuff.

Edit: Ice did indeed move his main to IoR. He is one of several.

Why join a server that has 60 people on it during peak hours?

What is Ice's character name, so I can see on EQ2U that his main character, with T4 raid loot has the server name "Isle of Refuge" underneath it. Otherwise it is meaningless and anecdotal.

Also, if you have to use special perks in order to "breath life into a server" maybe you need to realize that the server, nor the perks need to be there at all... Free trade should just be added to all servers and IoR should just be merged with AB and call it a day.

Could we Please, please, please stop making that suggestion?

I'm curious why. What is being protected? I honestly don't know. I"m not one of the greatest minmaxers or seekers after plat in the world, so I don't get why this is a problem.

He's a bull shitter, he doesn't have any T4 loot. None of us do, for reasons I already mentioned, but I think having this server seperate is good because it gives people who don't like the ruleset to be able to play the way they want to as well. Such as echoing, who seems to think that everyone from isle should die in a fire.

Short answer: No

To give us an even hundred during peak hours and to ENJOY the benefits, duh.

Cute, "We hate Free trade servers but give us the benefits", I like this one the best.

Haha, this is rich with wholesomey goodness!

It comes down to preference. I don't sell a lot of loot, and I don't buy a lot of it. However, when a nice item drops that can be sold, and everyone in the group agrees to sell it, that money is shared by the whole group, as opposed to the winner of a lotto roll. It is the dynamic I personally find the most enjoyable and equitable. It wouldn't be the end of the world, as for my playstyle it only comes up occasionally. But I still prefer things stay the way they are.

So be it. I just wanted to express clearly that your preference isn't necessarily universally shared.

I looked up "Issues" on IoR and if any of those toons are someone's main, they sure as hell are not their raid main. Looks like a bunch of alts to "try out a new shiny object" server...

Again, if you're going to talk about all the influx of people moving to that server, if they're moving alts that they might log in for a short while, it means literally nothing.

The point still stands, why a server is getting special treatment doesn't make sense. "Free trade" is perk enough, but it's not like they are getting MORE GEAR or SPECIAL GEAR from it, it just means that you don't see SLR anymore. Gear is sold on the broker instead. It means you don't have to unattune when you want to move one piece from your main to your alt after you get an upgrade. If IoR requires more money to play on, give them more perks, until then all increased item perks should be game wide and not special server specific. That's just my opinion.

If you disagree with me, that's fine, disagree. I'm not asking for anything to be taken away from anyone anywhere. I just think if you're going to make certain items "indefinite" on one server, you should do the same on every server. The fact that the ethereal belt was offered to that server before made available to the other servers is a shame.

At the end of the day, I'm against the free to play mechanic that was ever put in. It works out with Krono, and it works out the way they had it in CoE/ToV. But at the end of the day, making a server and throwing extra perks at it because it's "Gold Member Only" in an attempt to get people to move to it because they'll be gold member only, is kinda silly. Just make the whole game gold member only. Free Trade should be offered to every server to kill off SLR.

We dont have our own guild over there. Must be looking at someone else. I can definitely see your points. They might have meant something years ago, but the changes to IoR were to keep it alive as I'm sure what with stormhold and all they can't afford to do another server merger so they found a way to make the grind not so bad for returning players and alts while also giving life to a dead server and making a bit of cash doing so. I see no downside.

Edit: Guess we do have a guild. Was made today though- I'm out of the loop. There is a raid main there. It was moved because they are a new character not wanting to miss the ethereal event. Same reason i'm moving and many others. Of course we're just going for the next shiny thing. But I totally support the changes for the sake of full time Isle players.

Weird, I don't remember saying I hated the server, or the Free Trade idea at all. You must be confused. Reading comprehension and an unbiased opinion would serve you well.

Pretty sure I said I hated the idea that they were giving perks to one set of paying customers instead of giving it to all paying customers. I'm not moving my characters there because I enjoy raiding, and it would require moving my entire raid guild over there with me. So I'd have to convince 30 other players that moving all of their 5-10+ alts to a new server is worth it. You see the dilemma? Next time you attempt to quote me though, please don't put words in my mouth, you're just making yourself look stupid at this point.

Dear everyone saying "but this server needs help to build the population",

I have a news flash for you; EQ2 is a dying game. The population across the entire game is dwindling, it is not growing. It has not had growth in years, even before DBG took over. The current trend of a dying population base does not afford the ability to try to build a new server. There is a reason that in the last 5 years we have had server merges all the way down to 5 main servers. Those 5 servers are already struggling to keep enough players to support having 5 servers, why are we trying to add more servers? The current trend is leading to possibly needing ANOTHER server merge just to keep population on those servers high enough to support a viable community. This game is on life support. DBG is actively killing it by adding things like this "special server" in, where they give more perks to certain customers. The idea of "Breathing life into a dying server" requires killing off the other servers. I hope you understand that.

"But everyone has the choice to go make a new character or transfer over there!!"

You're right, and they can give up all the friends that can't afford to move, or give up on raiding if they enjoy that, because their entire raid guild isn't going to come over. Stop acting like that's a viable option, it isn't. Just because you play with 1-2 friends or solo 90% of the time does not mean that's how other people choose to play this game. The difference is, you can solo or play with your 1-2 friends on ANY server, there is no special perk that removes this form of gameplay from any of the servers.

They should just put Free Trade on every server, remove no-trade and Heirloom tags, and call it a day. That's how the game should have been played from the very beginning, Heirloom/No-Trade should be for very specific items, like epic weapons etc. etc. not items dropped from killing mobs.

Haha on the unbiased opinion part--good one! Seems there is a lot of biased opinions on this matter. A LOT. We should acutally make a few more threads regarding this. Agree?

These threads remind me of the time when they rolled out Freeport as the f2p server.

IoR is a special rules server just like SH & FG. Your sub allows you to take advantage of those servers...or not. As you prefer. Nothing has been taken from you. Just that another option for fun has been offered.