Population

[ChaosSlayerZ]

e.g. i don't like boxing more than a few, but i don't get jealous about a guy boxing 50 toons. i'm a little jealous of what's required to run 50 toons, i mustl admit! but, that has nothign to do with "me/you" playing the game of EQ.

As said above the issue in equal playfiled

If server set up is group oriented, yet mass boxing is allowed, then 1 guy looking to play the group game finds himself completely alone and without a group, because no one really groups, but runs a box army. And that sort of defeats the whole purpose of a "Group server".
Even if we talking a server with thousands of player, where SOME people run a box army, then we have a different issue where couple people running boxes interfere with ability of others to play because they solo claim the content meant for a whole groups.

[mjbcb0717]

The best solo server right now is casual dreams it's actually balanced out were you can't blaze trough shit all the little edge things poru has you may look at it like oh this is going to be easy. Nah its not content might be scaled to solo but it's going to take you a bit to get to 65 then work on AA to do the custom world bosses and potime will take you several hours to clear I went back because there are no fun solo servers anymore besides this one. No PEQ no GM commands you still gotta run were you wanna go granted pok is open and there is a porter but only takes you to city's and small zones so you will need to work here to get some were nostalgia with a little kick I call it

[kokey98]

There's a fundamental difference in how we perceive reality.

inclusion provides the best probabilty for population, if people don't get emotional about things.

we are discussing play preferences, and excuding any type will reduce #s - i think that can be agreed upon, but not necesarily where it ends for each individual.

maybe that is the intention to reduce #s, nothing wrong with that, either. this isn't a "how-to" or "you should" this is simply discussing real motivations and working up from there, instead of a top-down inductive approach which leads to all sorts of fallacious reasoning being manufactured.

prefer a server anyway you want, but the assumptions/inferences some make are not causality. (everyone should be required to study "logical fallacies" in school) this isn't an reply to tell you to prefer somethign else, its to highlight that the real reasoning motivation is actually different than what is communicated.

even so, it doesn't have to change your mind, either... this is a video game which is about entertainment... if somethign is not fun, even if irrational about it, it is not enjoyable... that's normal. and since it's a video game, hurts no body.

with that said...

- the rules of the server do not cause behaviour... a server's rules may attract a certain type, but that is different. someone who won't group will still not group regardless of boxing/bots or any relavent rules. it is a pre-existing preference to play.

-behaviour is not a pathogen. it isn't a communicable disease. it may be true that the proportion is less/more than it was before, but that's not relevant, either. if i was to guess like that, i'd go a different route and blame the personality types that drawn to mmo's as the reason it's difficult to get a group.

-one person above clearly sees it as a competition between players... i don't in anyway.. i haven't even inspected a player in ... i can't recall doing so.. and likely an accident before i turned the click option off. this is a personal choice as to how to "be"... not somethng you should apply to others as universal truth and cause for this or that. this doesn't negatively impact others, so it probably should be as inclusive as possible for long-term success.

-it is an even playing ground, if all have the same options available. they are choosing to do it that way becaue they like it that way. (and vice versa)

so, if there's no rational reasons, what's the real motivation?

the fact that someone got 'more' while feeling they did less to achieve it. sounds more like jealousy (the word choices above hint at it too, not just in this thread but anytime someone tries to explain why boxing is unfair, ever).

there's no other reason to dislike it. (tried to stay general, this applies more so to bots, mercs, boxing)

the people that don't like boxing on small servers more than likely don't like others getting stuff that they cannot get or don't have, because there's no other rational reason on a small server. there is no leaderboard, there is no fierce competition for resources in the game etc. etc... so, if no toes are stepped on, all you have left are personal feelings about the matter.

-eq an even playing field? the game is inherently coded to be unequal in so many ways. i'd argue it's not the "spirit" of the game to begin with. this particular concept is neither logically for or against anything related. it might be a popular thuoght, but that doesn't make it a truth.

-Stratificaton of players is inevitable no matter what rules you choose. players being better than others, in regard to gear, is guarnateed to occur 100% of the time.

(i don't like to box, btw. it's 100% inconsequential in my experience if others on a small server box. eq has many options, and if it's the "last" dungeon, that's a bottleneck you can never avoid.)

[ChaosSlayerZ]

I will disagree with you on 2 points:

RE : numbers. When you say that excluding ANY type of player just causes reduction in number of players is only partially true. Let say we want solo/group no-box server. A guy comes alone and says - I want to group staff with my 12-box team. We say NO - he leaves. Did we just loose 12 players? No lost 1 guy who wanted to do group content solo - therefore he won't be grouping AND he would be competing for content. If we would let him Box - then everyone can box. Then suddenly people who were could box but were fine with grouping all start boxing - and group content becomes EXCLUSIVELY boxer thing.
Its not like I want to intentionally exclude players, but server goal is server goal - you can't have a PvP server when 99% of people don't want to PvP.


Another point is on "behavior is not a pathogen" . Oh this one is tricky. One MMO dev who worked early in his career on EQ, and then worked on Guild Wars 2 have said that "The game will FORCE players into a pattern and players will observe it". It doesn't matter what crazy rule set you come up with, if there is sufficient desire to play your game/server overall, the players will accept the entire rule set and push others to do so as well. Of course this is more relevant for actual MMOs that have tens of thousands of players, and not Emu server with 20


And finally - yes some players are better than others no matter if they solo, group, raid or box. Some play MUCH longer and therefore can get a lot of progress faster and may even burn out sooner. Those things are natural, but server NEEDS to chose a preferred mindset - if you allow EVERYTHING - then you will mostly get 12-boxers, and then that casual solo guy who likes to group occasionally won't even come because he will feel lost and alone

[Albator]

Mabye you didn't like my last example kokey, lets look at another example where we liken an mmo to a real world. The world has rules. Laws of physics. No one gets to break these laws. If someone could just turn off gravity for himself that wouldn't be fair or natural.

Since an mmo tries to mimic a real world in many ways then there should be rules everyone is subject to. Since it is a game people want to choose a ruleset that they think is fun and want it to apply to everyone so it is fair and natural like a real world.

[The_Beast]

Originally Posted by kokey98

you'll also notice the only successful standard ones also do something to make the game a bit more solo-friendly (solo includes boxers, too).

I guess that would depend on the individual opinion of just exactly what defines a successful server on the standard list. EQTitan has been around several years,
and maintained the highest population on average. Anything else I see on that white list (today) with a population over 10, is not that old of a server. At least
not what I call older than recent. But it's a matter of whether you interpret successful as uptime, xx population or both.
In my opinion, if a player has a big desire to solo all content, they probably have no need to worry if a server has a population of any kind. You could be the only
one on a server and enjoy the game, unless you're OCD on the chat preference. I've literally seen "solo" players preach about MMO's being a social game, but no,
some might agree that "solo" and "mmo" do not go in the same sentence. If one is going to take the EQ out of Everquest, might as well leave the mmo behind and
concentrate on solo content.
When I read many of the comments of preferences for a solo friendly server, it seems to focus more on the high end of the game, doing raid bosses, etc., so I am
almost inclined to believe that if one created a solo server with instant access to the high end, you might see many of those soloers jump on for a day and get
their "fix". When you glance of some of those new server stats, you might notice the surge of players shortly after launch (aka. max players), while they bulldoze
the content before the population melts down to an average when the food is gobbled up faster than the kitchen can put out more.
For any dev to make a choice between solo and non-solo server, it's a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" scenario. There is hoards of players out there
that like that classic non-solo grind, you can see that in plain sight on the list, but they already have a place to eat, so any new servers now have to settle with
the leftovers if they are hungry. Hence, the small army of casual solo players. I noticed about 240 of them inhabiting the solo friendly servers earlier today.

[tdanger84]

the reason solo players comment more on the high end preferences is because that's usually the point in which we can no longer play and our inquiries are to see if they are doable or not. no one want to invest their time in 60-70+ level to find out they hit a wall and cant use their acquired gear and skills to take out the next hardest boss, or can only kill trash mobs. I disagree with the idea of instant access to high ends and the assertions that solo players want to bulldoze through everything. challenge is expected, just not impossibility.

it is clear that the player base is quite divided but one thing for sure is that we are all out here still beating this dead horse. so whatever server one makes, there will be people trying it out. go ahead and make your server of solo bosses with finely tuned bots. I can assure you that I will be there to at least give it a shot and I know that others will too.

[The_Beast]

Originally Posted by tdanger84

I disagree with the idea of instant access to high ends and the assertions that solo players want to bulldoze through everything. challenge is expected, just not impossibility.

That makes an interesting point, but consider this example, (in theory), if you logged on to a server with content setup for that exact same classic grind like P99
up to, let's say level 55. Then after reaching 55, you are then eligible to spawn bots and start doing higher end mobs that are doable by soloing (with bots).
Does something like that fall into the "expected challenge" category ? That's not something within my goals, but the scenario presents a relevant concept.
I really like the whole idea of the bot system, only because it provides an grouping alternative that may not otherwise be available, without boxing. It does come
with a disadvantage though, which I am considering putting some effort into a solution for it. If a player spawns 5 bots, he may have just found himself a group,
but they come with no gear. You have to not only hunt for your own gear, but for the entire group you just joined. It's what I call unfair mechanics that way.
My initial intentions in "finely tuning" the bots is making an attempt to mirror player characters, especially with base stats. Just for example, I noticed if a
player rolls up a level 1 halfling warrior, you're looking at an AC of 31 to start. But it's bot counterpart has a base AC of 12.

[tdanger84]

sounds good to me. personally i really enjoy having systems to unlock bots rather than just getting them all at lvl 1. its one thing I enjoyed about ZippZipps server, you had quests to unlock them at various level intervals. I was playing around recently on Deadly Crusaders and it involves a quest system to unlock bots using tradeskills and level requirements. IMO an unlocking quest line system is a fun and rewarding way of obtaining the power needed to progress. And you are right, gearing is part of the challenge. i dont mind taking the extra time to gear out a group of bots if it mean I will be able to keep going. gearing is half the reason I play this game. my bank is always filled to the brim with everything i can collect from dungeons and I regularly hand it out to anyone that will take it. I would much rather use it to gear out my bot group than make 5 different alts to unload cool items on. killing that tough boss for that weapon upgrade or getting that lucky random drop is what this game is all about.

some of the other bot servers put merchants with defiant gear or such to gear out their bot armies but I would much rather just have increased drop rates on old world items and remove lore/no drop and lower rq lvls

[kokey98]

I just wanna say one thing, and off-topic, really... some replies missed something i mentioned as a preface to everything i said:

"maybe that is the intention to reduce #s, nothing wrong with that, either. this isn't a "how-to" or "you should" this is simply discussing real motivations and working up from there, instead of a top-down inductive approach which leads to all sorts of fallacious reasoning being manufactured."

ignore the "reduce #'s" portion.. that's not necessary, but it was copy/pasted. intention of the owner is their prerogative 100%.

the sole goal is not assumed to be population, but without some consistent level of pop. most won't leave their server open for long. end-users learn and change behavior because of that trend, too.

there are exceptions to that... i see some with 0 that have been running for years. i believe at least one of those a particular server owner also has 2-3+, and leaves the 0-one running for the occasional player. (which is exceptionally generous and comitted beyond any normal/reasonable standard)

what a nice guy, eh? and anyone else that doesn't take population personally and leaves their creation up as long as they do (any length) :p

i have fun dinking around on my local one (rarely, nothing playable if you need to fix encounters out-of-the-box install - no idea? lol), but i can see that being "enough" to keep one open on its own for someone more competent than i.

heh i may change my own conclusion.. a server owner's enjoyment is the strongest correlation to length a server will run :p

[The_Beast]

Originally Posted by kokey98

the sole goal is not assumed to be population, but without some consistent level of pop. most won't leave their server open for long.

Originally Posted by kokey98

i see some with 0 that have been running for years.

This says a lot about the "confilict of interest" that may occur between a new server and the player community, leaving no happy medium between John Doe
server dev and Jack-B-Nimble solo player. If one is putting an effort into the preferences of the public player base when developing a server, it's difficult to
even think about knowing what players do enjoy. When you look at all those (unsuccessful) "What are you looking for?" threads with maybe 10 replies out of
several hundred players, it leaves John Doe guessing at what he thinks may be a cool idea. It's not like you can rely on the polls for this campaign. Just roll
the dice and see what happens. The intentions and/or goals of John Doe wanting other players on his server, I guess, would vary. Some people would be
content with a small handful of players, while others may only be out to win a popularity contest, in which I advise people like that to see Shania, because,
"That don't impress-ah-me much" I don't think any less, or any more of a server that sits there with 0-5 players, than a server with 500 players. I would
actually respect and admire someone who would leave their server up with 0 population for a few years. It's not like you just opened a corner store, threw
up an open sign, and if no customers show up, you had to close the doors. It may be a different story when a server dev puts himself in a position with costs
incurred and relies on donations from players to help out, but I'm sure both the players and server owner are aware of the high risks of things going sour on
either end. On the bright side, having a 0-5 player count, a solo dev is not going to get "burnt out" running the server.

[atrayas]

I believe the biggest problem with servers in general, and I am guilty of this as well, are they are opened to quickly to the public and the devs change there original vision in order to please this current player base.

My advice for any up and coming server devs is to create a great foundation, go with your original vision and create enough content to keep players busy for at least 6 months before you even think of opening. Once you think you are ready invite a few people in for closed beta testing, once you get those kinks worked out, do an open beta test, track everyones account that participated then do a clean wipe of the characters table's and give out beta rewards upon your official launch.

As long as you are up front with all of this people will not get bent out of shape for losing a character, they just need to know going in that it is going to happen.

Far as the single player/group argument, well you can null that easily if you just take the time to learn more advanced perl/lua scripting. Allot can be done via scripting to keep things challenging for a solo player without inflating stats, hp, ac, min dmg, max dmg etc etc. If you want examples id be glad to share some of my work, just pm me here and ill give you my skype info.

You can also script in auto scaling and different sub events based on player count with perl/lua. It isn't that difficult, just take the time to actually learn and lean on these guy s around here like natedog or kinglykrab. You can learn how to do allot of unique encounters if you just take the time to learn.

[ChaosSlayerZ]

Originally Posted by atrayas

I believe the biggest problem with servers in general, and I am guilty of this as well, are they are opened to quickly to the public and the devs change there original vision in order to please this current player base.

My advice for any up and coming server devs is to create a great foundation, go with your original vision and create enough content to keep players busy for at least 6 months before you even think of opening. Once you think you are ready invite a few people in for closed beta testing, once you get those kinks worked out, do an open beta test, track everyones account that participated then do a clean wipe of the characters table's and give out beta rewards upon your official launch..

Pretty much this. Too many servers open up with "few customized zones" and "Adjusted XP rates" and people run out of things to do within 2 weeks.

Very few servers have that "VISION" worked up from ground up.

[javewow]

I dot loots