What happened to Stormhold?

Discussion in 'Zones and Populations' started by Liliun, Dec 26, 2016.

  1. Liliun Member

    Granted I left for a while because of RL, but I have returned to a ghost server. There is a fraction of the player base that there had been, and I can only guess that it will get worse as more expansions are released.

    So I have to ask, what exactly happened? I've heard conflicting testimonies from folks in-game about what drove the masses away, and the most common answer I hear is that the casual player base felt the expansion release was happening too quickly.

    This of course makes me sad because this was so much fun at release and for the next few expansions. I personally have no interest in live, and when Stormhold finally wheezes out its final breath I'll probably quit altogether if there is no other alternative.

    That being said, I realize Stormhold isn't all that old, but is there a possibility of another TLE expansion being released? Perhaps instead of voting unlock on the expansions, make it a set period of time, such as 4 months, between expansions. Every couple of months simply doesn't allow enough time for the average casual player, and people will go into it knowing exactly how much time between expansions rather than rage quitting because it is taking too long or too short based on other peoples' votes.


    I realize this system might not be exactly what everyone wants, but the faster release is already available on Stormhold. A slower release would allow folks of all types of player styles to play the way they want without the pressure of having to get it done before the next vote. The more hard-core folks can still do their things, they just have to wait longer for the next content to tackle. This won't "fix" all of the reasons that every person left, but maybe some of them can be addressed.
  2. GReYVee New Member

    There is a laundry list of reasons surely but at the end of the day it comes down TLE being an experiment that they did not get right. I don't see this being much different a second time around and believe the 90 day release average was a pretty good middle ground and not the cause of a max exodus. Shattered Lands and DoF simply had too little content for the more active guilds/players (by 90 days many of us had completed everything and in some cases on more than one character). Things went a bit sideways in KoS also and Stormhold never fully recovered from it. There seemed to be, among the vocal crowd, an even split between players that felt dungeon content was too difficult, and dungeon content being about as balanced as you could ask for. I think the difference here would be well geared vs non geared players. A few attempts at basic tuning resulted in these wild swings in difficulty. Raiding was inexorably affected by it as well and there were some very strange results from this -- one being that trash clearing was more difficult by a large margin than bosses themselves. The more stubborn players persevered through it anyways to only be rewarded with backwards item progression during EoF/RoK releases and a dwindling population.

    I personally felt I got my money's worth in entertainment but a few months ago it became pretty obvious things were not going to change for sometime. Maybe I'll come back again.. maybe.
    Feldon likes this.
  3. Springelf Active Member

    I came back after 5 months away about a 6 weeks ago. It seemed from my asking that a lot of people went to RTT. Which, when that was first announced, I figured would gut the server. People want to go where they can be "first" at whatever. And the new expansion will pull people to live. Now that RTT is closing I have been seeing people return. BUT now, its holidays and that always seems to empty the game out (no idea why....you would think with time off people would play more *shrug*). I have my fingers crossed that when TSO goes live people will come back. Also the new expansion on live might lose the new car smell. I just have all my fingers and toes crossed that it picks up.

    I doubt they are going to make a new TLE sever. They didnt seem to want to devote the time it needed to work right the first time around :(
    Meneltel likes this.
  4. Caiss Member

    RTT was a huge killer to Stormhold but was not the only reason. IMO there was ZERO challenge in the game at the first few expansions. With the stats not being the same or even similar to launch it just made everything so easy. A lot of the gear has stat changes over the years and Devs did not fix a lot of them. Im not to sure on Stormhold cause I was on Deathtoll at first but class balance was you had your 2-3 OP classes and everything else sucked or could not come close to doing the same as the 2-3. Cant say much after KoS cause that's when I quit and saw how they were gonna handle everything.

    Will another one come out? Maybe. I think its on the Devs at this point to learn from their mistakes from Stormhold/Deathtoll and fix what needs to be fixed. Fix a lot of the big problems and maybe it will be better. If they said new progression server coming January with 4month unlocks to next expansion it will never be successful because the hardcore grinders were done with the expansion in about a month with the casual in about 2-3 (reason being most content was not a challenge). If they tweaked a lot of the stuff then I could see it but the first few expansions would be a disaster because the content imo is boring and not enough. KoS is when the fun starts for me and gets good imo in EoF. So that first few months would be awful and it showed on the TLE servers because lot of people got to max and then quit till next expansion.

    Im hoping that with the event servers (I believe there will be another due to its success) the Devs are taking notes on what needs to be fixed and then implement that into the future progression servers and event severs. (Hoping for another progression/event cause ive not touced the game since Sept since I find it very boring and heard new exp was not any better).
  5. Finora Well-Known Member


    With this, just my experience but doing some of the Frostfell quests are a real pain in the tush on Stormhold. If people do have characters they are still interested in on other servers they may have opted to spend more time on those. I know The regular servers have been jumping.
    People may have also let their subs drop over the holidays, having spent more money on RL things. I expect at least some will return for TSO though.


    As for another time locked progression type server, I know EQ1 has had multiple special servers like Stormhold that have been pretty popular, but they have also had a lot less to deal with mechanics wise to make them work well. EQ2 has changed how it worked so many times it's not even funny. EQ1 seems pretty much like the same old game from 1999 when you are in the newbie areas.


    I hope at least they've learned some lessons with Stormhold and if they create another it will go more smoothly.
  6. Steelviper Active Member

    That is just my feeling and observation - I've been playing on TLE too - but, as people above mentioned, there's barely any challenge, and thus motivation, to play it. RTT was there for people to get their gear upgrades, and most got them on Live servers, and that is where I see most people, too. From my perspective, players and devs both lost interest in TLE server - as can be seen with the Kunark Ascending playing which is going on now - so it just limps along with people who still have interest in playing there.
    This game is just too old to "actively" replay old content, and you can play it on Live servers anyway if there's interest. TLE remains an "odd dying project" just like Drunder was, just like Isle of Refuge was.
  7. Kcool005 Active Member

    I don't feel TLE stormhold is dead at all.. It's pretty populated, every server on eq2 is hurting in general. The game is just old.. Live just got a expac.. TLE gets Tso most likly soon. Everytime you're at the butt-end of a expac population dies off. Then when the new one comes out it repopulates for a month or 2. - The itemization isn't perfect yet, but its actually getting better also. They've been putting more work into TLE then you guys are noticing. I mean they just launched RE2, Veksar, and SoH, and actually put gear progression that makes sense, minus some items that still need to be tweaked / added stats..

    -Long story short. RoK has been out a bit.. everyone is waiting for Tso then it'll repopulate.
    ringgirl_UFC likes this.
  8. Kcool005 Active Member

    also they barely have the Dev team for live + Stormhold.. It would be utterly unintelligent to make another TLE server that they need to watch over. -- Stormhold is fine.. i still don't have trouble making groups at any level, or filling the raid force every night.
  9. Meaghan Stormfire Well-Known Member

    My guild left due to broken RoK itemization, VP gear in particular, and the blatant unwillingness/inability of Daybreak to address and correct it.

    Each expansion launched broken and Daybreak would consistently kick the can down the road with , "Oh, we'll get this fixed in the next expansion release." Except things always remained broken, or were fixed in such a manner that broke other things, and then the can would get kicked down the road again. And again. Eventually you reach a point where you've had enough.
  10. Bhayar Well-Known Member

    This in a nutshell. It started when some update the devs implemented totally hosed loot drops in PoF (and it's still that way over 8 months later). Itemization of loot tables from zone to zone is illogical. You can get better loot in BB/Steamfont than you could in higher level zones. Travel remains ludicrous. The inability or unwillingness to fix known issues finally caused many people to throw in the towel. I think initially, people were willing to give the devs a chance to fix the issues ( I won't even go into the tank mitigation issues when raid guilds were using summoner pets to tank raid instances because tanks were getting one-shotted), but it became clear Stormhold was not ever going to "work" properly and things were going to continue to implode. That and the "voting" fiasco that happened some months ago caused a number of people to really question where Stormhold fit into the scheme of things. Many people simply became disillusioned, populations dwindled to virtually nothing, and I think ultimately people could see the end of the Stormhold experience. By that, what happens when Stormhold actually catches up to live servers? I think people simply saw no future in continuing to play on SH with all the problems, the slow leveling and in some cases, what was being seen as an experiment in making SH a cash cow. Why should people on SH pay the the same price as a vit pot on live, but you had to choose either an ADV or a TS vit pot, when you got both of those refilled by buying one vit pot on live? What appeared to happen is had there only be one problem or two, it wouldn't have been so bad, but the progression of unsolved issues coupled with the perception that devs were appearing to completely ignore the issues on forums, finally had enough people saying, "we've had enough. It was fun while it lasted, but it isn't fun any more...especially with populations virtually non existent." I had fun while it lasted, but I have to say the last 6 months has convinced me not to waste any more time on SH. Guilds have either entirely left en masse or many are dead or dying. It's rather sad, really.
  11. Bhayar Well-Known Member


    Frankly, I'll be shocked if that happens. People left SH long before RoK actually launched and many were saying that RoK was their favorite expansion. Guilds have been imploding long before RoK arrived. We blamed the Trakanon launch, summer months, you name it. Oh, they'll be back in winter and when RoK launches. Guess what, populations have still been dying. You may be right, but my take is, too many mistakes have been made and people threw up their hands and simply left. You'll know in one month whether it will repopulate when TSO launches, but I'm thinking it won't help. Which is too bad.
  12. Meaghan Stormfire Well-Known Member

    Daybreak was able to coast along on the sheer goodwill of the initial playerbase on Stormhold, because this kind of server is what we'd wanted for YEARS. Eventually that goodwill began to dwindle away about the time instance bosses in DoF quit dropping loot and the issue was blatantly ignored.

    Personally, I always said to myself, "I'll give them to RoK to get this thing figured out."

    And I did.

    And they didn't.

    The End.
  13. dirgenoobforreal Well-Known Member

    I quit after I cleared the DoF content and I believe I did a bit of the KoS content too. I was by far the best geared Illy in those expansions.

    While the questing in KoS was alright the group content was as boring as always, borderline trivial. It was awesome being able to group up in a few minutes and general chat was amazing. But doing the same content and it being so easy ... Thats why I quit.

    Also a lot of people spend hours on the beta server for DoF reporting issues with dungeons and raids and several items being wrong. I believe DBG fixed 1 out of 5 issues that expansion before opening the next.

    If they put actual effort into it im sure it would be the most populated server by now, but they didnt and they wont.
  14. Caiss Member

    At this point I think Stormhold is just a testing server. They have seen what is broken and what is not. Rather than fixing everything on the fly, the next (if there is one which I believe there will be) TLE/progression server will be where it needs to be. Will still probably have broken stuff such as stats too strong/too weak and once that server goes through a round of testing another will come out. IMO ive played both the EQ/EQ2 prog servers and EQ seems to be ahead of the curve but they have also had more servers and fixing stuff in that game is 100000000% easier than EQ2. They tested a lot of stuff and fix things between all the servers.

    In wrap:
    Stormhold was the testing server of what is to come if they decide to fix stuff. The prog servers were very popular at launch but nothing was changed and it wasn't fun or a challenge. If they made the right adjustments then it may not be bad. If they launch another TLE server with minimal changes it will fail. If they devote a little time and fix things here and there to make it fun then I see it being a huge success.
    Dude likes this.
  15. Caul Shivers Active Member

    First of all, it's very hard to judge things right NOW, as we are very deep into RoK, and people are simply bored.

    RoK is an iconic expansion due to its iconic mythical quest lines and tiered raids and VP/Trak.

    That said, those raid encounters were always simple mechanically (apart from like 4-5 mobs, Nexona, Trakanon, Byzola, Tangrin, Maestro) and some simply served as gear checks (like Druushk).
    There is no gear check on TLE. You deck yourself out in heroic gear and you're almost on par with any toon farming Byzola and Trak.
    There are so few real upgrades and most have to do with percentage based procs that half of the fun in raids is just not there (seeing chests drop and knowing whats in it is mostly just "whatever" loot).

    Content wise, TSO offers much more. Maybe 5 months into TSO people won't be as bored (assuming the itemization and balancing is done properly).
    20 heroic instances compared to 4, 4 proper raid zones compared to only VP.
    And if you bring in RE and Veks and SoH, I assume we'll still get the Munzok/Kurn/Ward of the Elements stuff in as well.

    ...

    Overall, though, population on SH has been going down for a while now.

    KoS was really bad balancing wise (tanks were getting hit for stupid amounts), we had SOOO many broken raid mobs that either got fixed way to late or never got fixed at all (2 mobs in Lyceum, one in Labs, 2 in Halls of Seeing, and all the contested were broken and unkillable as well).

    EoF was a massive improvement and perhaps the best expansion in terms of balancing.
    It still had itemization issues (set gear was largely a joke, much like in RoK for most classes), but it was an impovement.

    RoK was okay, but had some major issues which I hope will be looked at before TSO launches:
    - raid set gear bonuses are outdated and mostly useless
    - all weapons of the same level have the same damage spread (you effectively get a weapon from a quest in Maidens and you're good for your off-hand as a scout for the entire expansion - provided you can change its awesome 4.5 sec delay)
    - some mythicals were either broken (necro pet) or had outdated procs (rogues proc 15 MA, whoopty doo)
    - everyone is capped on DPS and may as well be capped on MA
    - heroic content is a faceroll easy - so easy its actually boring to play a single target class in instances, just pick an AOE because the tank WILL room pull
    - basically too little content for a period of 5 months; people got bored

    To avoid this in TSO, I guess:
    - bring in Crit Bonus - other than that I have no idea how they'll make people gear themselves in TSO gear.
    +3 DPS and +3 Att Speed and +0.2 potency on items won't mean much.
    - tier the heroic zones properly - make tier 1 zones easy - sure. Hell, make even the tier 2 zones easy.
    But make those tier 3 zones harder with good rewards. Palace of Ferzhul, Befallen: Necrotic Asylum, Miragul: Crucible, Guk: Ykesha's Outer Stronghold, Mistmyr Manor - those zones were almost like mini raids at times, you couldn't faceroll them even decked out in end game raid gear.

    TLDR;
    RoK has too little content for 5 months on TLE difficulty with no gear farm.
    With proper itemization and mob balancing, TSO can last a LOT longer and bring people back.
    ringgirl_UFC likes this.
  16. Krov Active Member

    I highly doubt it will hold water and why I am basicly done with TLE. This is after EVERY expansion being broken from vanilla to current.

    Here is the why , most top end players already have T2 armor for TSO and most the shard gear bought and simply waiting on a itemization pass . I have every single plate , jewlery piece already bought as it stands right now that is obtainable.

    The only missing pieces are on a merchant that wont be reachable until it unlocks. After that its simply click click.

    This means itemization wise theres maybe 2 - 3 BIS heroic items for each class still not discovered as of right now besides raid gear.

    This leads to point two below for those missing items.

    I have enough shards to buy any BIS item the second TSO drops at 150 shards per this is without even doing a single dungeon.

    The remainder will be farmed out or aquired inside of three days or simply flat out bought off the shard merchant. That leaves only raid content. So lets move onto raid content ....

    Already have the x2 access quests completed and ready to go so this will be finished probably day 1 just for bonus loot and paterns. This allows you to merchant buy tier 2 raid pieces on day 1.

    So keep in mind heroics / t1 raid zones are trivialized inside of 3 days if not on day 1.

    This brings up are next issue with the original TSO and roadblocks that prevented instant clearing of the content.

    There is no itemization or gear check now that where in original TSO ie Crit Mit and lets not forget easy mode cures. The cure change alone trivializes about 50 % of the raid content in comparison to original TSO.

    I see Zarkon being killed inside of two weeks tops.
  17. Caiss Member

    So basically what Krov is saying is instead of content being cleared in 1-2 weeks it may be 3....
  18. Steelviper Active Member

    Which is why you might ask yourself - why even bother? Grouping on TLE just for the sake of grouping, since the gear upgrades are rather trivial?
    You can group in Live for actually meaningful upgrades, if grouping is what you're looking for. You can solo the same old content on Live if you have fun with it - I do, and often do it.

    Maybe it's just me, but I don't see much point in TLE anymore ever since DoF expac was unlocked. The only difference is that instead of running the old content solo, you have to find groups to be able to get through it. And with slowly dying population... again, what's the point?
  19. Caul Shivers Active Member


    Guild and friends and community and stats that aren't just quite yet as stupid as they are on Live.
  20. Springelf Active Member

    They got rid of all the shards acquired before TSO went live. Its not really going to slow people down at high end. They can crank thru those pretty quick. But, you dont feel like you are way behind the ball the minute the expansion went live.