Saw a pretty good idea in another thread - thought I'd pull it out and tweak it a bit: The idea would be to give points for victories with spoils going to the server with the most victories for a calendar month. Possibilities include: One weekend with Bonus XP. One month with 15% coin bonus. 10 Loyalty Tokens 1 Vitality potion Etc. The result would be two very populated PvE servers (this wouldn't affect PvP servers) Mechanics already exist for most of the above. In addition, I'd add some lore or roleplaying making AB a 'good' server and Freeport an 'evil' server. Of course you can be 'evil' in a 'good' world.
So you want PvE servers to have a PvP competition? I doubt many would participate. Result might become very empty servers.
I I am not so sure that it wouldn't work. It would very much depend on how it was implimented. The only game that I have played that does PvP well is Guild Wars 2. I would still be playing that if I hadn't gone through all the content in 3 months. If they could do the same sort of battlefields in EQ2 for PvP it would certainly boost my lagging interest.
We already have people from different servers engaging in PvP and earning rewards. It's called Battlegrounds. Hail, a_Thinly-veiled_merger_request_399
You could do this without merging the servers you know. As long as there are at least 50 players on server that are willing to pvp you should be OK. Even Guk has at least 50 players...I think, Well, a few people might need to box. Though I don't know if it would work out to well. I think a lot of people will share my opinion. EQ2 is hands down the best fantasy MMO on the market...in terms of PvE. I just don't think the game was designed to have PvP in it from the ground up. Which is a shame is it has the Qeynos vrs Freeport thing going on. Most people playing the game understand this and accept it...many even enjoy it and like not having to worry about PvP where other MMOs wil have PvE as an after-thought to the PvP aspect and it is there only to support it. When I log onto EQ2...getting into battlegrounds is the last thing on my mind. I'd prefer to see an EQ2 server Olympics. Have a PvP competition, a Raiding competition, a heroic dungeon competition, and even a solo competition. The PvP would be whoever wins of course. The Raiding could be the first raid to get the boss down, the heroic dungeon would be whoever completes the dungeon with the least deaths and finds and completes the most quests. The solo competition for PvE could just be going through a zone and getting points for completing quests and killing mobs...similar to the Heroic dungeon. I'd have rules in place though on the gear that can be used...save for maybe the Raid and PvP. In fact, the other competitions I'd suggest people start with the same set of gear provided to them and get better stuff along the way. Part of the game would be to decide what class gets what so there would be some character setup involved as well. Perhaps even start at 200 AA and have named mobs give AA points. Really test a player to think about their character on the fly. You could also have things get judged like the best house or guild hall. Player made book. Appearance slot fashion show. Emote usage in RP. Freakout over VoIP...there are all sorts of things in EQ2 that could be competitive.
I'd do server battlegrounds, but I agree with Vagrant: since PvP was tacked on as a afterthought (vs. being designed deliberately at inception) it's always been a problem. I am not confident that giant server battles would be implemented well. Would be worth a try, but it would be so much effort that would have to be 'just right'. I just don't see it.
Server battles wouldn't be pretty. Not that there aren't good pvpers on servers other than naggy, but good pvpers not on naggy are a pretty small minority
Well I just don't like the idea of rewards going to a whole server based on one aspect of game play that the majority of people never even touch. It would require a much grander scheme. This could even end up an entire expansion in its self...and I can tell you right now that I would buy it. That is if SOE thought it was a possible idea.
I would too - but I still worry about the PvP aspect of it. SoE has struggled with EQ2 PvP since it started. Initially, the producers said that this game would never ever ever be PVP. The ruleset was tacked on and kind of reverse engineered to work 'sort of' within the PvE engine (if these are even the right terms...). Then they changed their minds. PVP worked for awhile, while the servers were populated enough to smooth over the glaring problems, but as the populations thinned and servers were merged, the problems showed themselves to be pretty bad - the basic game underlying the pvp ruleset, along with class and faction imbalances just didn't work. They've bubblegummed and bailing wired that and it still doesn't help. Some of the problems we see in pve are made even worse in pvp (lag, loading issues, class balance..etc etc), and they have never quite been able to get a handle on it - although several very good devs have tried. Trying to do server vs. server battlefields would as an idea seem really fun. Even giving the server bonuses for those that went to the battlefield when others didn't isn't untoward - heck that happens in real life. If it were fun, those that adventured to try it would do word of mouth and those that have never pvp'd might give it a try. (Every pvp BG has a small few carrying a larger contingent - it would just be done on a bigger scale for your battlefield idea). If you had small server bonuses, but larger personal ones for playing them - that would balance out, I think. Those that have no intention of pvp'ing wouldn't have to, but those that are unhappy about the current server population of Nagafen would have a larger pool of people to battle (if it worked). "If it worked", though, in my estimation is a very huge, giant, ugly, glaring "If".
