Population

[The_Beast]

Originally Posted by Mistmaker

fit those that have a family

Just for the sake of topic, I am not really sure I understand the difference between "yesterday's" family man/woman playing EQ and today's family player.
I noticed some of today's players make an implication, that all the people who played everquest back when it came out, were "alleged" single young people
with not much RL responsibility, allowing them the time to play that regular Everquest grind back then. But people like myself and many others I knew,
we already had a wife, kids and full time job when Everquest was released in 1999. No, we couldn't spend 3-4 hours a day, but I never spent that much
time on any game, even when I was single and care free. The original Everquest was definately not a game setup for impatient players. It wasn't a deal where
you would eventually see "Game Over". Somedays, I had just enough time to login and add 100 plat to my bank and logout, then go watch a movie with my
wife. There was always tomorrow.

[Mistmaker]

I have played many games that are not fit to play and have a family (kids etc) if you wish to advance past group/solo items. These are the ones where your 100% attention is needed during the raid or even just to stay alive. Back in 99 (if you raided at all) you even had guilds that would kick you out of the guild if you were not fully devoted to what was happening during the raid. WoW was extreme for this and and I also know EQ2 was too.

I don't think the game was designed for family back then. Could you think of playing EQ with your 7 year old? After his first CR he would never play again. Today I play with mine on Asgard, because all those game frustrations I removed. I think today's family player also has kids that they involve. That was rare to see back in 99.

The EQemu servers I think would be more difficult to play if you have a family are the ones that I had problems playing. So from my experience with 4 kids and 3 dogs anything that requires me to play an FD class like P99 I found to be difficult. I would also say anything that requires me to play a box team like EZServer would also be difficult.

So server fit for family would be IMHO those that dont require you to run a large box team and those that you can include your kids. If you wish to play on p99 make sure to apply for that IP exemption and then watch your kids fight over who gets to play when you only get 1 extra for access.

I speak from my own personal experiences and others may have a different experience so just telling it how it has been for me. Back in 99 i was married and had a child then too so again I'm talking from my experiences.

Originally Posted by The_Beast

Just for the sake of topic, I am not really sure I understand the difference between "yesterday's" family man/woman playing EQ and today's family player.
I noticed some of today's players make an implication, that all the people who played everquest back when it came out, were "alleged" single young people
with not much RL responsibility, allowing them the time to play that regular Everquest grind back then. But people like myself and many others I knew,
we already had a wife, kids and full time job when Everquest was released in 1999. No, we couldn't spend 3-4 hours a day, but I never spent that much
time on any game, even when I was single and care free. The original Everquest was definately not a game setup for impatient players. It wasn't a deal where
you would eventually see "Game Over". Somedays, I had just enough time to login and add 100 plat to my bank and logout, then go watch a movie with my
wife. There was always tomorrow.

[sunbeam]

Originally Posted by Mistmaker

I have played many games that are not fit to play and have a family (kids etc) if you wish to advance past group/solo items. These are the ones where your 100% attention is needed during the raid or even just to stay alive. Back in 99 (if you raided at all) you even had guilds that would kick you out of the guild if you were not fully devoted to what was happening during the raid. WoW was extreme for this and and I also know EQ2 was too.

I don't think the game was designed for family back then. Could you think of playing EQ with your 7 year old? After his first CR he would never play again. Today I play with mine on Asgard, because all those game frustrations I removed. I think today's family player also has kids that they involve. That was rare to see back in 99.

The EQemu servers I think would be more difficult to play if you have a family are the ones that I had problems playing. So from my experience with 4 kids and 3 dogs anything that requires me to play an FD class like P99 I found to be difficult. I would also say anything that requires me to play a box team like EZServer would also be difficult.

So server fit for family would be IMHO those that dont require you to run a large box team and those that you can include your kids. If you wish to play on p99 make sure to apply for that IP exemption and then watch your kids fight over who gets to play when you only get 1 extra for access.

I speak from my own personal experiences and others may have a different experience so just telling it how it has been for me. Back in 99 i was married and had a child then too so again I'm talking from my experiences.

To go along with this, how many of us in this EMU community are totally new players, as opposed to people who played in the past on live?

I'd go a little further than that, and say most of us started sometime between launch and PoP.

This game is getting to be 18 years old. The graphics alone are a hard sell to new players. I know I've showed it to my nephews, and they are pretty meh about it (though they like Dwarven Fortress, go figure).

But what you can and are willing to do as a high school or college student, and what you can or are willing to do when you have a full time job and a kid are different things.

I know some of the "OG" players had families and stuff. But come on, if you were in one of the famous raiding guilds like Legacy of Steel, Afterlife, FoH, I really can't see that going well with a family situation.

Yeah, you can focus on being in the Complete Heal chain when your wife yells at you "Ok Gary, you are changing the diaper THIS time."

Cause yelling back "No can do Hon. It will take another 30 minutes or so for this mob. Thanks for understanding!" might just be a bad move.

You know writing that... I wonder if EQ has ever been used in a divorce proceeding? I can totally see it actually:

"Your Honor he neglected his family because he spent forty plus hours a week playing a fantasy game. The man might as well have not been in the household. Instead he was... let me look at this...'summoning mod rods and dropping them on the ground'...for the benefit of other people also playing this imaginary game, whom he has actually never met in person. Leaving his wife to assume total responsibility for the care of their child.

Additionally your honor, my client fears for the health and well being of little Ralph should his father gain custody of the child. She worries that instead of spending the time to cook a nutritious meal for the both of them, he will instead give Ralph a bag of Cheetos and a Mountain Dew, as that is apparently all he eats if left to his own devices.

Now I might also bring to your Honor's attention this matter of the 'poopsock'..."

[kokey98]

i knew one person who nearly lost his wife over eq within 2-3 years of launch.

he made the right choice and barely played after that. i knew a bunch of people that got burned out... same stuff happens with wow, too. they play less and less after each time they take a hiatus.

the game is a time sink, and the way it was made early on you had to play 12 hours a day to be as good as the 'best' players. an emu offers an ability to change that and many like that idea.

i think the perceptions in this forum are a result of group think at times in regard to how people play or what they want. realize a majority of people do not contribute on the forums... you have no idea what the masses think by reading forums that only 10% (more likely less) of people are a part of. forums require a particular personality to keep up on them... i've lurked around here for more than 10years and i've psoted more in the last couple months than the previous 9 years together.

you can see the servers (standard) that are successful are the ones operated with some consistency and can keep it online for years to come. certain server-owners pop up on occasion and consistently flake out -- more power to them, but i'm glad when someone points it out -- although they should learn to be less of an a@@ when doing it (i think a request from forum operators was in response to this - telling us to play nice(r) etc).

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).

once they start flip-flopping with rules, i typically leave.. it's a bad omen. likely a teen-ager who keeps seeing greener pastures instead of developing the one he's currently in (or she, i grew up when "he" is grammatically correct for both genders).. or worse they have conflicting goals and behaviours - i gues that could fall under flakiness.

standard servers:

-got plenty of boxer servers that are more of the same from preffered and legends

-got vog and nag lair that are more solo friendly... one has some custome progression, one is more 'legit' for a lack of a better word.

there's a bot server here and there, but they aren't as well put togoether as vog or nag lair... you either get high-end gear at level one or it's 1-swing and move to next npc etc... there's no middle ground with bot-servers, yet.

despite the commonn resonse you see in teh forums.. .there are not "many" bot servers... most are too easy or a complete mess or are simply inconsistent (you choose a way).

i'd like one closer to vog/nag lair type difficulty. i also don't want to take 3 months to get upto level - that's the easy part that has nothign to do with the actual game - pure time sink. i want to spend time gathering useful gear, and gradually working way up to more difficult end-game stuff. i've been dinking around with one on my pc, so maybe i'll jsut make it as i want, but that will take a very long time relative to what i can invest each day.

so, there really isn't a middle-road bot server... they are more like god-servers since you just mow stuff down. I'd probably liek imperium or raid addicts but i don't want a 1-85 or 1-100 server. so many levels is silly and plenty of other ways to accomplish whatever goal was the impetus such a large quantity. i want the end-game stuff to be slow and require better gear etc etc.. getting there isn't fun for me... i've deen it 1000 times between wow and eq... at this point it's the worst part of the game for me, lol.

---

even the more solo-friendly ones commonly say - but you'll have to group up for bigger stuff... but if i only have a few opportunties to group with someone and it's required to do important things on that server, then i'm very likely to quit logging in since i can't do anythign on my schedule... i have to hope some others are available and more importantly interested in helping (and vice versa).

on the other side... if i have 1 hour to play, i don't want to go sit around killing 1 npc for someone i don't know.. and i understand it's the same from their perspective, too.

most mmo'ers do have some sort of anti-social problem - whether it's mild or severe, it is there. Just google Nick Burns SNL IT guy -- that's a typicall mmo-er (from 18 years of experience with them, lol). it's like a game show when you group up, lol. "please, no whammies, no whammies, stop!" whaaa-whaaa, you lose.

[ChaosSlayerZ]

Originally Posted by kokey98

even the more solo-friendly ones commonly say - but you'll have to group up for bigger stuff... but if i only have a few opportunties to group with someone and it's required to do important things on that server, then i'm very likely to quit logging in since i can't do anythign on my schedule... i have to hope some others are available and more importantly interested in helping (and vice versa).

on the other side... if i have 1 hour to play, i don't want to go sit around killing 1 npc for someone i don't know.. and i understand it's the same from their perspective, too.
.

Well the quest/raiding system doesn't need to be set up this way where it takes 40+ people 2-4 hours to kill a mob that drops nothing but just 1 epic quest part for 1 person. The fact that it was this way on LIFE doesn't mean it has to be.

So log in as a solo player for your 1 hour - and do your solo thing.
If you happen to stumble upon a pick group/raid - you do that, get something out of it and log off.

[kokey98]

Originally Posted by ChaosSlayerZ

Well the quest/raiding system doesn't need to be set up this way where it takes 40+ people 2-4 hours to kill a mob that drops nothing but just 1 epic quest part for 1 person. The fact that it was this way on LIFE doesn't mean it has to be.

So log in as a solo player for your 1 hour - and do your solo thing.
If you happen to stumble upon a pick group/raid - you do that, get something out of it and log off.

but, that's kind of the point i was making. you can only do your solo thing for so long before you cannot improve your character on your own. at that point if the server has no population... it's more like log in, can't accomplish what needs to be done, and then log out and do other things.

the only thing i meant to convey in that paragraph is it is a logical contradiction to make a solo server that requires groups for the important stuff. finding couple people is no different than finding 40 if they do not exist or are not common enough to rely on being there. some servers do the 2-3 people needed and if they average ~15-20 players i bet they can get away with it. let the course of the server dictate, not try to forcfe somethign that's not possible except in a dream.

(again we each have our own lives... it's not obligatory that the one other person who logs in helps me or i him. the comment about hte hour, or limited time available, was because i like to play a video game for that hour, not don't play a video game for an hour.)

[Mistmaker]

I think 15-20 is extreme. We average maybe 3 level 70s on during peak hours and those players have no problem doing the 2-3 player raid content on our server that averages 5 players online.

I think a lot of people have difficulty coming out of their comfort zone and reaching out to others to either help them advance or group with them to do the content available. They come online with a goal that they are going to do A, B, C then logoff or they have been on a bunch of other servers with a "partner" and choose not to contact anyone else to include them in their comfortable group. So if your not able to make that 70 group why not help that level 68?

I think many players think they have no time so they can only do certain things while online. I think this is an excuse to not reach out to others. If you look at how much time those people that say they don't have time are really online doing A, B, C, ...SOLO... they could have spent 2 minutes reaching out to others and doing content together with someone else.

Originally Posted by kokey98

but, that's kind of the point i was making. you can only do your solo thing for so long before you cannot improve your character on your own. at that point if the server has no population... it's more like log in, can't accomplish what needs to be done, and then log out and do other things.

the only thing i meant to convey in that paragraph is it is a logical contradiction to make a solo server that requires groups for the important stuff. finding couple people is no different than finding 40 if they do not exist or are not common enough to rely on being there. some servers do the 2-3 people needed and if they average ~15-20 players i bet they can get away with it. let the course of the server dictate, not try to forcfe somethign that's not possible except in a dream.

(again we each have our own lives... it's not obligatory that the one other person who logs in helps me or i him. the comment about hte hour, or limited time available, was because i like to play a video game for that hour, not don't play a video game for an hour.)

[ChaosSlayerZ]

Originally Posted by kokey98

but, that's kind of the point i was making. you can only do your solo thing for so long before you cannot improve your character on your own. at that point if the server has no population... it's more like log in, can't accomplish what needs to be done, and then log out and do other things.

the only thing i meant to convey in that paragraph is it is a logical contradiction to make a solo server that requires groups for the important stuff. finding couple people is no different than finding 40 if they do not exist or are not common enough to rely on being there. some servers do the 2-3 people needed and if they average ~15-20 players i bet they can get away with it. let the course of the server dictate, not try to forcfe somethign that's not possible except in a dream.

Well then how about look at it this way - server has 3 different progression lines: for soloers, for groupers and for raiders - and each type of players follows his own goals. So all your important staff as soloer - is solo
If you want move on to group thing - then you no longer on a solo path and requirements are different.

[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.