Shards of Dalaya (new to eqemu old to us)
 

Hey, so just wanted to welcome everyone in the EQEmu community to come take a look at Shards of Dalaya. We have had an awesome server and awesome community for I think over 10 years now with tens of thousands of hours of custom content and a big active development team. Just a huge amount of neat new custom systems and a great very active Player-base. We just completed our port to a newer EQ Engine so we could get listed with you guys and many of the EQEmu team have been extremely helpful with this process. Just wanted to welcome everyone to come check us out. More information can be found on www.shardsofdalaya.com and you can get a feel for the sheer scale of the server at http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/ Hope to see some new faces around here soon. Thanks to everyone at EQEmu that helped us with this transition.

*We literally just ported to the new engine today and things are 99% working and everyone took off work to catch bugs but bear with us if you try to forage and it makes pudding leak out of your monitor or w/e

I tried that server a while back.. When it was Winter's Roar. At the time it was run by folks that were far less than kind.. Neat custom content, but the way players are treated just wasn't worth it. No thanks.

Good luck getting a population that the tier 1,235,423 raids require. Nothing better than getting really into a server and smashing your face into a glass ceiling so hard you'd rather be playing a zamthos server.

Plus I haven't ever heard much about it these days other than there's one clique guild in the higher end, and they love noobs as much as Maze loves posters that can't search.

^All of this is said out of bitterness, this server has been around forEVER, and it truely sucks that all the cool shit is basically undoable until there is a revival and the reputation of the server changes.

Wiiiiiiipe! I'd play it in a heartbeat.

It's a great server, with great people playing. Sorry you had a rough experience many years ago, but the population and leadership is completely different now. I personally never even played when it was winters roar so I can't say that you are wrong. But I will say that many of the players I have met on SoD are lifelong friends now. As far as the low end content and tiers being inaccessible, this is to a degree true, as the server has been around long enough to be top heavy. However, almost everyone plays alts and enjoys lower end content and many of the larger quests in the game require clears of lower end content. I am not saying that you will be able to find a guild of tier 2 people to play with at the moment, but lower tier content is frequently cleared for quest reasons and people are usually very happy to have characters along that would use the gear. There is plenty of room to progress and plenty of room in groups for less seasoned characters. We are hoping with the addition to Eqemu to attract a new playerbase influx at the lower tiers also.

no thanks. that Wiz guy put a really bad taste in my mouth. You guys have fun. You will not see me there.

Welcome to the EQEmu community. Does this mean SoD will be more open with sharing bug fixes, custom content, helping the community of developers, fixing client support, etc or is it still going to be super proprietary?

They definitely have a kick ass website, I will give them that. Very well done.

Ok, well I am sitting in the same room ATM with the current Lead Dev on the server, he says: "Tell him I agree with him, that guy is a jerk. People who miss Wiz have like battered wife syndrome, they are nuts"

We has not been a part of the project for at least 7 or 8 years I Don't think anyone has even talked with him.

I'm not trying to change your mind but yeah it is different now.

I am not the most knowledgable person about this, but.....
AFIAK, we have already been contributing for some time, Zaela has released like 10 tools for Eqemu and KLS has built LUA implementations are *maybe* part of EqEmu core now?

I know that we could not have gotten where we are without a lot of help from EQEmu folks who have helped us track down a lot of bugs and now that we are on similar platforms we are looking forward to a lot of future collaboration. We are all Nerds at heart that like talking about nerd things and comparing notes.

SoD developers are regular contributors to EQEmu and have been for awhile. (They probably wouldn't have made it to preferred if they weren't)

I was about to say, I have seen KLS changes to the repository consistently even when we were on Google Code. I just never knew what server KLS worked for until now.

KLS is also an admin on PEQ.

Nice to breath a long sigh of relief. Too bad they had admin status on eqemulator before these things were realized.

newer clients supported? won't let me log in using HoT

I was just reading through your rules and tbh they are very very strict...I wouldn't mind playing your server tbh but with all of those rules I probably never will. So many people will never read that stuff and slip up and break a rule and even the ones that have read through them would most likely slip up at some point.

IMO you guys could be much more successful if you eased up some on whats allowed and whats not allowed.

One of the biggest draws in the eqemu community are the servers that people can get on, relax and just have fun, not having to worry about some dev hell bent on banning you for simple stuff that isn't game breaking.

There is no HoT client.

picky picky ... ok UF with HoT files

Well i agree with you there and there are a lot of rules that I could do without also. having said that, bannings are incredibly rare and i can't think of anytime that bannings didn't have to do with someone actively cheating on the server by using macroquest or something like that.

Woah image sup man long time no see.

As for the rules and bannings and whatnot, the only bans that have ever stuck have been people actively cheating or doing malicious or nasty things to eachother.

I would like to point out at some point i was a total asshat got banned for mq2 made a big stink like a teenager does and woldaff still let me back. 9 times outa 10 if you break a rule you'll just get a warning and that 1 time outa 10 is someone cheating, content skipping, or repeatedly breaking a rule. Shards has to have one of the most forgiving staff i've ever encountered.

I was also having trouble getting this running, just found this on their forums. Hope it helps! :)

https://shardsofdalaya.com/forum/thr...er-1-90.27712/

This worked for me actually with UF
https://shardsofdalaya.com/forum/thr...g-phase.28953/

Thanks guys. I don't see a lot of what goes on behind the scenes. I just pray that whenever a big name steps into our little world that they help us make it better :D

I actually played on SoD a long LONG time ago, can't remember anything negative about it or why I quit (probably just one of my phases). I do remember even then there was a TON of custom content, the stat mod system, etc.

Haha I've been around, least for a few years now, where have you been?? I had a hiatus obviously for a mix of reasons, still try to use what little hobby time I got these days to do eqemu stuff

Is there any way to allow rof2 to work for this?

I am a little confused as to how to connect through the eqemu server list. And exactly what clients are supported for connecting through eqemu?

Also, this is not a new server, so it already has an established population, correct? What will entice new players if the majority of the server is on end game content? Why not launch a new empty server for the eqemu community?

Probably because they value the community they've been building for 10+ years more?

There are currently multiple progression guilds that are gearing up through the content with a no ringer policy. My bard is in one right now that is currently wiping to teir 2 content while i post this.

Also there are multiple avenues for new players to get their character(s) to higer teirs on their own, many through new mechanics that are unique to the server, such as treasure hunting and bounties.

I would first like to say this isn’t meant to disrespect SOD in any way. After looking at their forums and wiki it is obvious the amount of time and effort that has gone into the project. I would like to thank everyone who has volunteered their time. SOD looks like it has amazing potential for a fun gaming experience.

With that said, the question I perviously asked was a valid source of discussion. Why should a new player start on SOD, which is extremely top heavy?

I logged in a new character and of the 100 people online only 10 were under 50. So, low level characters are going to experience the exact same problems of other low population EQEmu servers. Looking at the interactive zone connection map on SOD’s wiki there are tons of places to go and things to do at low levels. But without groups, the accessible content for a solo or boxed character(s) will be limited.

Maybe I am wrong, but it seems to me that SOD is not the place for the casual player. There is no population to support players who enjoy the journey more than the destination. It is a grind to the top just to grind some more.

Are levels 1-65 obsolete and the Game doesn’t really start until end game? If, so ..

This comment just reiterates my point. The raid tiers are end game, but what about the beginning.

I would still vote for a new empty server for the EQEmu community.

yes, this is more or less correct and I probably didn't understand where you were coming from. It is fairly easy to level up (most people box or start with a friend to 65) and I would say that 95% of the servers content is post 65.

pre-65 most of what you are doing is getting acclimated to the game mechanics and walking through the "main quest" and getting a lot of the servers extremely dense "lore"

A fresh 65 is basically a beginner character and a "progression guild" that raids a few times a week might take about a year to get to end game content (much of which has not been beaten yet by anyone) but there are solo progression options as well as content limited to a single group that provides alternate advancement options.

Some people have been trying to get sod wiped / 2nd server opened for awhile now but the staff aint having any of it. They feel that the amount of new players they would gain wouldn't offset the amount of veteran players that would leave.

i am also in the group that believes the game is too top heavy and its really not worth playing anymore.

Name one server that isnt.

That is what Everquest is, grinding for levels, grinding for gear, grinding for progression... when the grind stops, people get bored of the server. Should be happy there is alot to grind.

I think they'd be surprised just how many people would come back if there was a wipe. And by how many veteran players wouldn't leave.

Shards on EqEmu 2016
 

I am one of those casual players you speak of. I got on Shards here and there 2011 - 2014 and leveled up to around 30 with RL friends...but...when they got busy and couldn't log in, there were no groups to be had. We eventually stopped because of the low population.

I love Shards, don't get me wrong. I wish it had the population Project1999 has. The server is fantastic and the people i encountered on SoD (although few) were awesome to me.

For me, EQ is about grouping and teaming up and having fun with other players. If I have to Solo I will spend my time on DragonAge, ElderScrolls, or the Witcher.

I think a new SoD server would do well for you guys.... It would entice more of the EQEmu community to come by and give it a whirl. It would be nice to see lower than 65 toons on there.

With all that being said, I debated trying P1999 but I was wondering if it is top heavy as well? As a more casual player looking for groups I'm hoping there are a few 20s and below on there...

From my point of view, if SoD were to do a full wipe it would probably have a much higher population.

90% of the people I played with quit, after the initial population loss.

Reward those who achieved max level or above a certain level with a claimable clicky or something.

I agree. SOD has 10 years of quality content from level 1. But problem is, its same like starting WoW today and looking for people to do Ragnaros raid with you. You have to get everyone back to same tier more or less to get new people someone to play with.

Doubt it'll happen but i would definitely play on a fresh start sod server in a heartbeat.

Seems to me the server needs an incentive for the high end players to roll alts. Im sure if the devs were up to it they could come up with something interesting for the higher levels to do with alts that could benefit there mains. Maybe a mentor type deal or something similar, possibly earning alt currency of some sort when they are mentoring someone and the coins can be used for w/e the devs deem fair. Just a thought.