Has anyone else noticed...

[rathma01]

I have kind of a rule whereby if a server's first zone is crushbone and the 1.0 epic weapons drop there then it's probably a good idea to find another server.

I started thinking about this when 90% of the "custom" servers were built around crushbone, and it seemed more like a custom-legit tutorial zone that spanned across all servers than actual custom content. Once you finished that zone and had your epic you could get started on the actual server.

"lol epics in crushbone, bye!"

[Tharkun]

I can certainly understand were people come from on this...

As EQ progressed from launch to today (or until you last played) the game radically changed. Heck I didnt start playing until just before the server merges, and the is radically different from then.

Everyone has their own ideas of what should be, and as Trevius pointed out sometimes you may like how it was done on another private server and use a form of that feature.

I know I have some things I want to do on the server I'm working on. It'll be slow as I have not coded in a long time, and have not used PERL before. Fortunately I'll have all expense paid vacation to a nice sunny, warm, secluded part of the world for 12-15 months to work it all out.

Honestly though... instead of trolling a board and rebuking an entire community about what you think they shouldn't do. Why dont you put a server together and show us how it's done.

[Secrets]

Originally Posted by trevius

Secrets, what happened to the "The Divide" server project that you were working on with some guys? Hopefully you can find something to do that you enjoy soon so you aren't moping around trolling the custom server owners by generalizing them with a negative overtone :P Looks like you got quite a few custom server devs to pop in this thread to defend themselves and their projects. Honestly, I take a bit of offense to your post and I wouldn't be surprised if other custom server owners do as well.

I actually regret posting something like this now. The main idea is polished content is better than non-polished content. I agree, some of these concepts work for a smaller playerbase. I, in no way, meant to troll custom server owners. I just think that a lot of what people do could be more polished. Maybe that's a perception thing, I don't know.

I am sorry if I offended anyone; that was not my intent. I actually had a few people contact me about helping with their servers after this.

The Divide fell apart because I felt that it was not going to happen. I ended up slowly leaving that realm because of flaky people (not naming specifics.)

I have my visions, and people have theirs. I'm not telling people how to run their servers. I probably came off a little bad in that regard, however, I feel like some servers rush things way too often, because they are pressured by a demanding playerbase.

I'm just starting to see fundamental flaws in creations here, and I wish there was a way I could help out without joining people's dev teams. That is why I made this post, not to attack someone's hard work, but instead inspire creativity. That seems to be not the case of what I did.

And just for the record, I have no hatred for anyone's visions of games. I have my own, and they have theirs. I am more than often able to adapt to their visions, and offer my talent & ideas. I suppose I was acting forceful to this community.

I am sorry for posting this as I re-read it and it does seem very harsh, you are right. Hopefully this will clear things up a bit.

[Secrets]

Originally Posted by Tharkun

Honestly though... instead of trolling a board and rebuking an entire community about what you think they shouldn't do. Why dont you put a server together and show us how it's done.

I'd be more than willing to do that, if it wasn't by myself. I have my own visions, but not enough time to implement them.

I am in no way trolling, or intentionally trying to do that. I only want to see people excel in their creations, and I suppose forceful or manipulative isn't the best way.

[Secrets]

Originally Posted by Davood

you can complain all you want; but just like the marketplace, it's the players that determine if your server concept is successful and they decide by choosing to log in to your server or not; im happy with my tiny handful of regular players. my server is mostly for me to learn more about sql , and over the last 2 years i've been creating my own private changes to the game which I merge with every peq release.

I don't get paid for my work, and the only thing I get out of it is more learning, so even if there are 5 people on my server on average over the course of a week, I am still happy.

I suppose this is also true. I've seen the weirdest concepts work wonderfully lately, and it's not about the population, it's more about loving what you do.

I love what I do, except I kind of love what I do to a point where it becomes protective.

I know I would not know a fraction of what I do know now because of the community here, and how kind they were to teach me things.

I am a traditional EQer, so I do not always see things differently. Maybe they can work, maybe they cannot. I'm very black and white in my thinking, which means I often say yes or not to a concept, and never compromise on two concepts. A lot of what servers do today is compromising between two concepts to balance them.

Another thing is unheard of ideas. I personally like these unheard of ideas that servers implement (stuff like voice tells for NPCs, bots, etc), but I suppose it's the feeling of seeing everything with them which makes it 'bad', but then again, if everyone has it, it may be a good concept.

Maybe I should just stop talking now. I'm rambling ideas as they come up. :(

sorry for triple posting, feel free to merge these.

[Tharkun]

I can definitely relate to the any sort of "open mouth, insert foot" moments.

I think everyone in this community will agree that EQ is a great game, and that some point has become wayward.

We all have different views of when that happened, but all have valid points regarding the issues.

When you get down to it... most of the community is standing on the shoulders of giants. The Dev team took on the enormous task of creating the emulator from little more than packets sniffed from the client. They've done a fantastic job. They have also improved the server imo, from what was originally created. One the reasons why SOE wont or very rarely changes classic content, is it's almost all hard coded and difficult to change. Where on the EMU a lot of this is now databased.

<tips pointy hat>

[Secrets]

Originally Posted by Tharkun

We all have different views of when that happened, but all have valid points regarding the issues.

I don't think it is an issue, but instead an opinion that I let get out of control and tried to force on people. I'm sorry for that.

[Speedz]

I have seen many servers come and go in the time I have been with EQEmu. That is the nature of the emu (any emu). They come and go, they start and stop to restart different later as something else.

As a server OP, if it ain't fun to make why do it? Most (not all as I won't generalize) that I have seen start their first server in such a way where they remove all the things they disliked on live. It is sheer obviousness that Sony designed the live server to have so many annoyances that people share. So in actuality it is a rather no brainer to see new startup servers with these things you point out.

In essence for the server OPs they are (at least for me it is/was) setting up the EQ they would have liked it to be when they were most annoyed, most stressed and/or most disgusted. This is human nature to remember the negative the best and negativity stays with us longer.

So, once the negativity is quenched by the server running long enough and the "newness" wears off. THEN they either leave it up and keep having "fun" or they get bored and take it down to never start another.....or they rethink their ideas on the basis of it being completely detached from SONY and make a more balanced or fun server in a different way.

Many that have their own servers that used to play on live loved the essence of EQ. Ranting about how you think they should have fun won't bring about any constructive collaborations. If anything, if rants or complaints in such a general form get out of hand and start to pollute the general mind set it could drive some to say hell with this and use a non-emu login server and cut you(us) out entirely.

Its like television. You don't watch every channel your set receives right? You don't always watch it or watch it when there isn't anything on you like on any channel, right?

So is with the server list. If they don't offer what you like, don't play on them. The advantage we have here is, you can play on live or make your own if you don't like whats on the menu.

I think the whole emu experience is an evolving experience for all involved. Seems your emu experience has evolved past your willingness or ability to accommodate it (read between the lines here this is not an insult. I mean you no longer or perhaps never found fun in an easy EQ experience. But not everyone has that in mind here for themselves.)

Now for players, I feel it mirrors server OPs. They have the same drive to want the stuff that was either too obnoxious or hard to obtain, even tedious and not wanting to repeat everything that has been done before. So they at first want an easy play experience. Heck some never have the desire to change this type of game play they desire. Some do and they look for a new server or turn into a server OP and make a different server than they see on the list. Of course some never want to be spoon fed, and there is nothing wrong with that.

But you will never get people to change the server they host in such a manner as this. You say you don't want to do it alone. Well then you are stuck with 4 options. Organize a group to get one going, suck it up and start one for yourself, play what is out there and deal with it, or not play at all. We all have those choices. We all pick our path. You will get no where trying to mold a path for others.




edit: btw I took a bit to write this and all posts after the first page were after my hitting the reply button. so my comments are in responce and relation to the first page only.

[Speedz]

Originally Posted by Secrets

I actually regret posting something like this now. The main idea is polished content is better than non-polished content. I agree, some of these concepts work for a smaller playerbase. I, in no way, meant to troll custom server owners. I just think that a lot of what people do could be more polished. Maybe that's a perception thing, I don't know.

I am sorry if I offended anyone; that was not my intent. I actually had a few people contact me about helping with their servers after this.

The Divide fell apart because I felt that it was not going to happen. I ended up slowly leaving that realm because of flaky people (not naming specifics.)

I have my visions, and people have theirs. I'm not telling people how to run their servers. I probably came off a little bad in that regard, however, I feel like some servers rush things way too often, because they are pressured by a demanding playerbase.

I'm just starting to see fundamental flaws in creations here, and I wish there was a way I could help out without joining people's dev teams. That is why I made this post, not to attack someone's hard work, but instead inspire creativity. That seems to be not the case of what I did.

And just for the record, I have no hatred for anyone's visions of games. I have my own, and they have theirs. I am more than often able to adapt to their visions, and offer my talent & ideas. I suppose I was acting forceful to this community.

I am sorry for posting this as I re-read it and it does seem very harsh, you are right. Hopefully this will clear things up a bit.

This post made me add my edit. But I stick to my theory of play/server OP experience evolution. The demanding playerbase I think is a major drive in the server types. Sadly I don't see that changing for a while. It seems ever since WoW came out, the general feel I got from the modern mmo players was "If it isn't spoon fed it's too boring to play".

We have a vastly different player base than once existed when EQ was young.

[Shin Noir]

@Speedz "WoW came out, the general feel I got from the modern mmo players was "If it isn't spoon fed it's too boring to play".".

Yes. unfortunately. As I noted too, custom is usually preferred for some as it allows them to quickly immerse themselves in nostalgia without dedicating their time starting from scratch like you did in EQ. It's not easy to go from Cloth Armor to end game with no resources in EQ, it takes time... Some people don't have a lot of that.

Custom servers alleviate the transition, and keep the ADD folks like me alert and interested with the changes you wouldn't expect. <3

[Speedz]

Yes I agree, I myself fall under the definition of "I don't want to keep redoing tedious crap I have already done over again."

No one get me wrong here, I do agree with the thread start in some cases. I would love new completely different content. But not annoying over tedious content. I also don't like to be spoon fed. So my balance is hard to achieve as it doesn't just stop at games. I have yet to even find that balance for myself.

Black and white thinking sucks when impatience is also there, this is where I suffer lol.

[ChaosSlayerZ]

I think that between hard core (EQ1) and spoon fed (WoW), EQ2 was a good balance of difficulty and progression, but IMHO they screwed up their class system. They made freaken 24 classes, where they only needed 12, and the kind of choice that WoW gave classes with talent system, EQ2 designers made for the players before the game even starts. (did they really needed 2 druids, 2 warriors, 2 bards and 2 rogues? Nope, not really)

As a person who played all 3 games, I eventually arrived at conclusion, that if you want a game system done right - do it yourself =)

I never had problem with EQ1 been too hard, nor WoW been too easy, but in my mind the only way to set up class system - is the way I think it suppose to be =)

Thats how I arrived at EMU, and been working on my own server AND system ever since =)

[krystlih]

Secrets,

Let me tell you I too am actually sick of it as well, and I don't care if it offends everyone. Unfortunately for me I've been trying to develop a server with some unique custom rulesets, and personally I am finding it difficult mainly because I cannot keep testers around long because I'm not offering 25x EXP, phat lewt, etc.

My original plan was to have a classic type server and offer unique PVP rules that would help balance EQ's PVP somewhat. I've decided to switch directions recently because I can't get/keep players on my server because not everyone wants the same old EQ grind they did 10 years ago. We've taken the direction of a hub zone and custom zones that hopefully when we roll them out will help attract players.

If you're a developer and need help testing your code its very difficult to do unless you get a good playerbase going, all the testing i've done with 1-2 man testing groups work fine and then others log into my server and find bugs that we never found without them.

[Tharkun]

When EQ was the only game in town, the grind was the only thing to do... but after grinding n characters to ## level, with #### AA's, grinding more faction for whatever the current expansion require to get to endgame, or keying, or flagging or all of the above.
So to sum up EQ:
Grind, grind, and grind...ooo and did I mention grinding?
XP multipliers are usually done to mitigate the monotony of these grinds.
could they be done better... probably... instead of a game wide multiplier... you could use the zone table and increase the XP in the lowbie zones... once the cons go green, the xp multiplier goes away. In the rule set... you can change the amount of XP needed to get an AA thus removing a multiplier.

I know a lot of people have this notion that the game starts at xx Level.
The servers that are founded on the notion that the game starts at xx level use the multiplier to accelerate the characters to that point. If the content is full filling I see no problem with this... giving out Tier1 and Epic 1.0 in CB... again if say SOE planned on those being level 45+ items, and the game starts at 60, what's the big deal... the content designers are helping to fast track players to see their real vision.

If you want a server with no XP multiplier to be successful... well I know what I would/will try. It will be a very time consuming build, especially with people that are doing this on the side. The challenge is, and always will be having lower end content that will keep people involved in the world you've created.
As Trevius said earlier... it will take a huge amount of planning to do this, and the average person unfortunately is not that patient.
Which brings me back to, instead of harping on how you think someone else did it wrong, either back it up with an alternative way, build your own server... or STFU

[Speedz]

Such a good post to be ended with a +99999999 agro modifier :-P great points made tho.