Population

[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.