Project TheoryQuest

[knowom]

A problem with global fully randomized loot like Diablo is range is range so the results are like the lottery they are completely mixed and unpredictable. The flip side is with camps people tend to get territorial over them because it's a lot like creating a monopoly over loot within the game the way they are normally setup. Really I'd say neither system is perfect though providing duplicate camp locations to named mobs in a zone could solve a bit of that. It would require more effort is the problem, but end result could be more favorable.

Raid targets have similar issues, but compounded even further by the fact that they are in even more limited quantities along with having bigger barriers of entry to clear the game content. Guilds act almost like corporations within the game ecosystem in regards to raid content and there are often game loop holes that can be taken advantage of by bigger and or more efficient ones that can cripple or hold back lesser organized or time or resource restrained ones. The raid situation is particularly troublesome where servers do to little to scale the difficulty and requirement along with the loot quality well enough with not enough stepping stones in terms of progression.

I still believe you need a system of not to high not to low in terms of group and raid difficulty and it's corresponding loot rewards with a ample amount of stepping stones or else you'll run into the issue of too much political control and pull from the top 1% of the player base over the 99% in the same way capitalism is a bit broken and flawed.

[Davood]

have you played eve online? they have a fairly advanced economy one that makes anything done in other MMOs look like prison inmates trading cigarettes and favors with each other. if i were to redesign guilds and the economy, i would use eve as the model.. haha.

That said, and with regards to the initial post talking about no bots and group content only...

one of the fallacies that most of the new servers I see popup seem to have in their design mindset is "I will have 100s of people on my server right away!!!!". You might, but generally you will not; it takes time to earn the trust of the community and there are servers that have been around since the start that 95% of the people play on anyways so it is hard to define yourself differently enough to attract those stragglers who just don't quite like the "mainstream" server which has
1. better support than you can provide
2. 1000s of players visting on and off (most of the community)
3. multiple actual developers and GMs

How do you compete with that? Well the answer is NOT to simply try and make a server that simply has different rules in rules_values

youll need to think of a fantastic new story, possibly re-envision all of the zone connections (years of trees and sanctuary in the sky did this well)

youll need to not be thinking in terms of just copying the peqDB - try out some other servers, are they already doing what you are doing? Maybe you should join another project team that might only have one or two developers.

ive been hosting eqemu servers for people (for free) for years now and most developers seem to poof after ~4 months and then I never hear from them again and I can their servers after 6 months of inactivity (which i define as like 1 person checking it out every week). the successful projects require constant maintenance, the only way to get that is by having a team.

READ THIS IF if you suffered a TLR moment.

You launch your server.
few people log in (this is normal). your content .. is it tuned for small trickles of people? if so then great they will stay, if not then they will leave.
If you absolutely must have raid and group content. scale it down in the db temporarily until you develop the 100s of players you are planning for, then slowly ramp up the difficulty in line with the population.

[Shin Noir]

thanks for the tips Davood.
All valid points and concerns.
I hope, just like all servers, for a serious population, but that isn't my primary motivator, since I know it's unlikely with the pool of players we have.

• I want something a group of friends can do, so having 100's of people isn't my goal, if you come on with 2 or 3 friends and have a good time, I consider that a job well done. If nothing else, I'll play it with friends, and others can try it out if they want.
• I'm down for a EVE economy, assuming it can be itemized and converted to a EQ style engagement.
• Right now this is all a theory, anyways.