The death of the solo server?

[Blazenfury]

I havent played in a few months but when I did, there was 5-6 solo servers and some of them were progression based. I did a quick look at the server list currently and there is nothing. Zipp is not a true solo server and irrel is custom content.

Very disheartening to see all the good solo servers go away. All I like to play is EQ single player. I've looked into hosting my own server for such a thing but all the files it takes and the walkthrough are just too confusing for me.

Sad times indeed =x

[Fadedspirit]

Solo servers only last about a month. Everyone solos to end-game in a couple weeks, and then get bored in a week or two after that without anything to do.

More will pop up later, but they do not have staying power whatsoever.

Hope this helps, and sorry for your plight! :(

[Furniture]

I've been running a solo server with no boxing for months with a healthy community, although we recently switched to a long term progression server, we are having a blast on the vengeful soloist.

[Furniture]

And we have been redone so it will not take a couple weeks to max out

[Blazenfury]

I've been running a solo server with no boxing for months with a healthy community, although we recently switched to a long term progression server, we are having a blast on the vengeful soloist.

Yea I saw your server but you've switched to a small group/ small raid server right? I liked the idea of what it was before, but the new idea I have no interest in =x

Maybe I'm wrong tho? Is it still solo all content?

Thank you

[Blazenfury]

Solo servers only last about a month. Everyone solos to end-game in a couple weeks, and then get bored in a week or two after that without anything to do.

More will pop up later, but they do not have staying power whatsoever.

Hope this helps, and sorry for your plight! :(

Yea that's definitely true. I don't see why the admins take them down though. Isn't there always new people coming through? I guess those servers will never have a huge population and community but it's a solo server it's not suppose to.

If I had any idea how to work through the laundry list of how to run my own server i'd be great. I had no trouble running my own world of warcraft server because the emu crew package it all together. The eqemu thing is just all over the place lol

Thank you for the helpful reply!

[atrayas]

The problem with all the solo server I've played on is that they all give you to much in the beginning, be it starter gear, insta epics, free buffs, it makes the server to easy.

The idea of a true solo server should be no bots, no boxing, progression based with real rewards..you want your epic 2.0, do the actual quest, not a dumbed down grind fest. Want underfoot loot, then you need to level to 85 while progressing through previous tiers of content to get there.

If you give people real rewards for playing on a solo server vs instant gratification you would retain more players overtime imo.

The downside of a solo server is the social aspect...there isn't much. People log in, do there own thing and log off with the occasional high end player coming down a few tiers and steamrolling the content for someone else, and in essence defeating the purpose of the server.

[Kingly_Krab]

The problem with all the solo server I've played on is that they all give you to much in the beginning, be it starter gear, insta epics, free buffs, it makes the server to easy.

The idea of a true solo server should be no bots, no boxing, progression based with real rewards..you want your epic 2.0, do the actual quest, not a dumbed down grind fest. Want underfoot loot, then you need to level to 85 while progressing through previous tiers of content to get there.

If you give people real rewards for playing on a solo server vs instant gratification you would retain more players overtime imo.

The downside of a solo server is the social aspect...there isn't much. People log in, do there own thing and log off with the occasional high end player coming down a few tiers and steamrolling the content for someone else, and in essence defeating the purpose of the server.
These ideas may sound attractive as a player, to you, but as a developer you have to look at what is attractive to more than a select group of individuals, which usually involves absolute majority.

[Furniture]

Our server has not turned small group/raid based. Its still 100% soloable. It is gear based so a naked character is as strong as a naked character on live with mob stats not weakened. Instead we have custom bonuses on gear (see the server overview here: http://eroticeverquest.proboards.com/thread/3/server-overview )

We have wiped/relaunched the server (really a brand new server now) with classic zones and classic spells and will be unlocking more expansions leading up to what we had for months (all expansions unlocked). We are still figuring if we will be unlocking expansions timelocked globally or through quests. We also do not allow boxing.

We also do not provide any starter gear/spells/quick exp anymore so it is much more hardcore then it was before and that has turned some people away. Pretty much all the issues listed here with solo servers are not present on the Vengeful Soloist. It is a long and harsh road to become powerful to solo bosses and is all about the work you put in to get there. To allow you to progress through a dungeon without downtime there is an instant 100% heal after 10 seconds out of combat but the encounters are very difficult until you get yourself better gear. (even then it is still difficult but doable)

[atrayas]

These ideas may sound attractive as a player, to you, but as a developer you have to look at what is attractive to more than a select group of individuals, which usually involves absolute majority.

It actually is not attractive to me but in order for a solo server to achieve longevity these are what would have to happen. You cant retain a playerbase when all of your players max out in a matter of weeks and become bored. You must give them something to strive for.

Me as a player, yes I like to be powerful as quickly as possible but at the same time I don't want to be bored...this bodes a problem to me as a player, as I can either play a solo server that offers all the buffs, bots, and gear I could ever want but in a couple of weeks I'll be bored, or I can choose a server that while it I a solo server I'd have to invest real time to achive my ultimate goals.

Alakamim is a good example of a decent semi-solo server. It has 70 tiers of progression, any race/class/god combo all with unique perks. A ton of content to keep any player busy but at the same time doesn't require the work of a guild to accomplish anything, so the working man/woman can log in, play a couple hours and log off feeling satisfied. Although this server isn't technically solo (has bots, buffer, certain gear can be bought for a price) it is still somewhat challenging and takes time to attain your goals.

A bad example of a solo server is webbes, peqzone enabled, mq2 allowed including warping, and mob balancing is horrendous ( HoT raid mobs have around 8-12k hp).

The vengeful Soloist just recently went through a complete wipe and I have yet to log back into it but from what I can see Furniture is going the route of a true solo server. The x5 stats idea is unique and allows for true solo without bots or boxing once you start to get gear. The only problem with his setup is getting started, the first 20 levels are horrible, but once you get past that it becomes more manageable. ( I know this from his last incarnation of the server)

[Davood]

my server has 30 tiers (40 more on the way when i have time hah) and very few people have put in the time and effort to get past tier 7 or so (only 2 people reached tier 30, and only about 8 people chose to become gods after tier 15), it is all soloable, and i have no limits set to how many toons you login, just a limit of 5 bots per toon is all.

[Davood]

its more or less "SOE" styled content, up to tier 8-9 or so, then it becomes more and more custom as far as the encounters, but the npcs and loots and spawns are all the same as live all the way up to tier 70 (tiers 31-70 are WIP and missing alot of spawns and polish so are locked atm)

[Davood]

oh yeah. uh h the tiers are

1 = all of vanilla eq
2 = kunark
3 = velious
4 = LDON (100% custom, but every zone is used .. you only have to complete 2/5 of them to pass the tier)
5 = luclin
6 = special challenge tier (100% custom)
7 = PoP (5% custom)
8/9 = GoD
9/10 = OOW
etc, after OOW its more or less 100% custom spawns and such with only reference to live being the npcs names, sizes loot tables and wander tables.

late last year i wrote an internet spider that collected everything from raidloot.com, allakhazam and some other places, and automagically turned it into a massive spawn , loot, and ability SQL insert query so i could automagically create 90% of the live experience all the wayt to Rof (the other 10% being the shitty assed scripts requiring 50 people to complete. no thanks ! i dont expect mroe than 20 people every on my server and not in the same zone haha)

[Davood]

Solo servers only last about a month. Everyone solos to end-game in a couple weeks, and then get bored in a week or two after that without anything to do.

More will pop up later, but they do not have staying power whatsoever.

Hope this helps, and sorry for your plight! :(


my server has been around for years :(