lets be real.... The pvp servers always fails because of its own playerbase. You literally have people that rush to max level on their first character so they can easily farm twink gear out for their alt, master all their skills, level that alt to 15, and sit next to the lvl 10 quest hub waiting for that new lvl 9 player to hit lvl 10 and instantly kill them. Let alone the constant intentional griefing.
PvP server fails again
- Thread starter Polisashka
- Start date
Then as mentioned before, what causes these servers to die when the griefers are gone? I don't think it's being "real" to say that this is the only reason, it's one of the reasons that makes some people leave yes, but the griefers don't stick around. They are around for maybe one or two weeks after the launch of the server and they get bored and move to other games or back to a different blue server. The servers bleed population long after said level 10 gankers/griefers are gone. If this was the sole reason of the servers failing then why does Zarrakon not have more people playing on it? we cannot say level 10 killers killed the server, they aren't there anymore and the server still continued to die and I never saw anyone coming back even though I played on Zarrakon for a few months, this is a flawed logic. It holds some truth but we cannot say this is the "real" reason. There's some between the lines reading that we need to be doing. Also, whenever I talked to anyone about their reasonings for not playing anymore (about 20 people) not a single person stated it was because they were getting killed at level ten, or getting griefed, and I was not talking to people who did any kind of griefing themselves. I too like teens pvp but would intentionally leave level tens/greens alone.
Also, any experienced players are aware that if they are getting killed at level 10 they can group with guildies for protection, call for help in chats, and if none of these are available, they can go somewhere more safe. Some bad apples don't ruin the entire bunch, and it definitely doesn't cause every apple to be thrown into the waste bin. I recently logged into Zarrakon to population check and there's maybe one or two people on at a given time on either faction, meaning the griefers are gone. By this logic that the griefers are the reason, why have people not came back if it's safe now? I'm not saying you are completely wrong, but I do think you need to look for more reasonings that can explain what causes a bleedout when the wound was bandaged long ago and never reopened. There's more than one cut, and some go far deeper.
SolarFaire
Member
Perhaps PvP just is not what the majority of players enjoy? Perhaps some tried it, got ganked a few times and decided it was not what they want, perhaps the majority of PvP referenced people just opt to go play another game or PvE servers instead. Perhaps they should have just added a Priest of Discord type NPC like there was in EQ that would flag a character as PvP while still having the option to be in regular servers with the rest of the player base. Heck, I'd get m popcorn and watch you guys if I am not busy doing other things. But since Nagafen died, no thank you to any more PvP servers for me. But that is my choice. Just as playing PvP is other's choices. I'd also say just leave the current PvP server as it is, and open expansions as apropos, and people come or go as they see fit.
The griefers leave because the people they're griefing left. It's a vicious cycle.
griefer: Griefs players
Player being griefed: gets mad/annoyed/upset they're being griefed so they stop playing
griefer: stops playing because there's no player base
Everyone: whines there's no player base
Like no ******* **** there's no playerbase, there's a whole group of people intentionally making players lives playing a game the worst experience possible. These players being griefed aren't gonna come back because of the bad experience they already had.
I ALSO didn't say that griefing was limited to specifically the lvl 10 instant killing idiots. There's griefing at all stages of gameplay. Like sitting on the respawn point waiting for people.
People don't just come back to a server after having bad experiences, this is ALSO why video games die. People generally have a bad experience then ask for a refund, throw a bad review on it, and walk away and MAJORITY of the time never look back to try it again after a few patches.
The P2W nonsense is ALSO another reason people stopped playing Zarrakon.
There's a whole list and reason why people stopped playing and I could keep going on, 1) was largely the playerbase being well giant douchebags, and 2) the p2w nonsense. I talked to MANY players on Zarrakon that mentioned they stopped playing because of one or both of those that I listed.
It's important to keep in mind I mentioned in an earlier comment that I was playing long after the griefers were gone, and watched the server bleed the remaining bit of life due to the boost baubles. There was actually an okay amount of life left on the server (not big, but sustainable enough) until the developers decided boosting everyone to max with no bags, random AA, and 10 levels below gear was a good idea. I'm sure we'd both see different reasons for people quitting when we played at such different stages, with different people who experienced different things, but there's truly no need to be so condescending and aggressive over having your point challenged. We can both be right without needing to be a **** about it, correct?
I was simply pointing out that the reason you provided has not only been mentioned on this thread already but is most certainly not the only reason people leave. A lot of people enjoy genuine teens pvp play but had that completely taken away from them because of the restrictions to level locking, as well as removing city pvp, amongst a plethora of other reasons (like p2w being another big one). The server is nothing like how pvp used to be back when it was in a healthy state, and ultimately that is why so many people leave. The server is full of bad decisions. Otherwise, it would have lasted a significant amount longer. We've seen three pvp servers die and the biggest reason for them dying was ultimately developers:
A) failing to monitor the servers appropriately and
B) making decisions that were completely unnecessary that ruins the experience for more players than it helps.
that will never happen. the reason behind the pay to play tle servers, and all the P2W on live is because the games population is **** and doesnt make enough money to pay over paid developers who cant pull head from ass
Schmetterling
Member
SevenShadows
New member
Just not the same as open world PVP, I enjoy being the mouse in the cat and mouse game while questing as well. It adds some spice to the experience and a better satisfaction when you do get things completed. I really think trying to out smart the groups while sneaking around is fun...
Bring back Battle fields, that was open world.
In 3 different zones at different levels, and you could decide if you wanted to join or no.
DENSER
Member
It is yes, but a wider margin of levels is more interesting to push us to 'arm ourselves' against those vendettas.
The player is therefore more tempted to make micro transactions to hope to survive against a 10 above level player.
Whether through extra speed or other potions
The level difference got bigger and bigger as the zone level increased so a level 80 could not attack a level 5
the level difference went from 4 levels to 6, 8,10, and 12 .
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The first response is interesting, and it would be nice if more people had the mindset that you as the player can make differences in your gameplay to counter people being mean in pvp, because the truth is that people have a lot more power than they think they do just in their gameplay choices alone. There's no such thing as a "nice pvp server/game" and yet there's several games out there that also have terrible communities and are pvp only but have hundreds of thousands to MILLIONS of players (ex. league of legends, call of duty, etc) Back to mindset, here's an example - if you're getting griefed at a rez point and you keep reviving at the same rez point, or not calling to home before your immunity wears off, even though its true that the person doing the griefing is being unsportsmanlike, the fact you keep letting it happen to yourself is also an issue and speaks that you don't have survival intelligence and probably shouldn't play on a server where you get punished for making crucial mistakes like this. I don't care if people disagree with this point, it's a simple fact that if you make the same mistake over and over again that you don't have common sense, the game has far more than one avenue to play (at least before level 50 anyway) and you absolutely can take advantage of them. But people would rather give up and blame the community instead of taking some personal accountability and trying something else.
However, all that said - Your second reply is absolutely terrible. You're encouraging microtransactions (pay to win?!) to counter a player that massively out-powers you as if this is a good thing. MMORPGs need strict level ranges to keep things at least somewhat fair, even a player being 4 levels higher than you can give them a huge advantage, 8-10 is simply unacceptable. A level 72 doing quests at the kylong docks getting smashed by someone with a mythic weapon is ridiculous. Things need to be fair to discourage pay to win, and pay to win shouldnt even exist in pvp to begin with. The shop should be cosmetic-only if there even is one. Wider margin of levels is not "more interesting" it's simply put - a bad feature that creates nothing but unfairness for 95% of the underdogs, you are hugely in the minority here.
If it is in relation to what I wrote.
I don't encourage ptw in any way, but the game does .
Obviously I agree with you, but the game system, developed by the team, pushes you to think about it .
That's the whole appeal of this type of server, of pvp, whether on eq2 or elsewhere, playing on the player's frustration, to make him think that with a little $, he will do much better.
There's no appeal in p2w pvp, any game that has it quickly fails. It doesn't make things more interesting or more appealing, it makes most of anyone who loses feel like it wasn't fair. What's to stop a level 80 from activating a potion to beat a level 72 even easier than it already was? The twinks will do everything in their power to make them even stronger while the little guys just give up because they don't want to have to spend money to even think about having a chance. I'm glad we can agree, but the terminology used sounds like a defense of the pay to win atmosphere, and I think that's the last thing we need at this point.
axxis32
Member
Hey, I dont play PvP, I hate PvP (mainly because my skill at that playstyle is minimal, at best) but... you guys do know that eq2 was never made with PvP in mind. It was an afterthought that got tacked on, and had to use it's own ruleset. With DoF we got limited PvP (arena (battlegrounds?) in MajDul, Freeport and Qeynos, and we could only use those arena champions), I think it was with KoS that we got the first PvP servers, but those were destined to fail, since the game had not been developed nor balanced for PvP play.
Probably everyone knows the game didn't originally include pvp, as it's constantly brought up like it's some sort of meaningful insight.
I don't think you can say pvp servers were "destined to fail" when they existed and were highly popular for nearly a decade after they were introduced. If your claim were true, they wouldn't have stayed popular for half a dozen expansions after KoS.
This. And also how every time pvp comes back to the game thousands of players return to have fun once again because pvp is what made the game fun for a lot of people, and they will keep coming back for it if it's there. It's not destined to fail at all, if we have an origins pvp server just like what they are doing for pve - the server would be great. The developers just need to make sure it's actually as close to original pvp as possible and it'll be golden. The more rules that get changed, the more people leave, because things truly were at their prime in earlier stages.
Schmetterling
Member
I have played Runes of Magic on their PvP server, it was one of those places where everybody could just kill anybody.
I complained about this level 50 something killing me as level 8, he went ahead and killed me over and over again.
I tried to get away from him by changing into other copies of the same zone( something you could do even when dead)
He figured out what I was doing and quickly was after me again.
I finally got out of that abuse by calling for help on general chat.
A good guild invited me and he had about 10 players on his tail, lol boy he was gone in no time.
I never ran into a bully like that , EVER on EQ2.
In that game you can still challenge another guild to an open world war, what ever guild has the most kills anywhere on the server with in an hour wins. ( even that the PvP server is years gone now )
We also have Castle war , that is a battle between 2 guilds in a special zone and the goal is to take the other guilds power crystals
I found out that the PvP part to a game can give rise to nasty bullies and has the make for great comradery.
In EQ2 there are some things that make it harder to do what that guy did, like a period of time after death that you are immune and the level difference. Only bullies that think it's fun to kill little ones will kill you if they don't get any loot or points.
The most important thing for me was always that within the guilds I was in on PvP servers since the first Negafen ( not the second one, that only lasted for a view months) your a lot more likely to get help, because on a server like that you have to be able to rely on your friends, and what better way than to make them stronger.
I am not good at PvP, but that is why I kept on coming back for more.
I complained about this level 50 something killing me as level 8, he went ahead and killed me over and over again.
I tried to get away from him by changing into other copies of the same zone( something you could do even when dead)
He figured out what I was doing and quickly was after me again.
I finally got out of that abuse by calling for help on general chat.
A good guild invited me and he had about 10 players on his tail, lol boy he was gone in no time.
I never ran into a bully like that , EVER on EQ2.
In that game you can still challenge another guild to an open world war, what ever guild has the most kills anywhere on the server with in an hour wins. ( even that the PvP server is years gone now )
We also have Castle war , that is a battle between 2 guilds in a special zone and the goal is to take the other guilds power crystals
I found out that the PvP part to a game can give rise to nasty bullies and has the make for great comradery.
In EQ2 there are some things that make it harder to do what that guy did, like a period of time after death that you are immune and the level difference. Only bullies that think it's fun to kill little ones will kill you if they don't get any loot or points.
The most important thing for me was always that within the guilds I was in on PvP servers since the first Negafen ( not the second one, that only lasted for a view months) your a lot more likely to get help, because on a server like that you have to be able to rely on your friends, and what better way than to make them stronger.
I am not good at PvP, but that is why I kept on coming back for more.
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Flightrisk
New member
I watched nagafen pvp server open and watched all the 'fixes' as the developers tried to close all the programing loopholes being exploited by bullies.
Whatever other things and 'reasons' that get blamed for why pvp servers fail, it is ultimately bullying as the reason.
In a paid for experience there is no way to keep a victim from leaving, this is not school where 'helpful ' parents will compel your victim to return daily.
So, when the customer comes to the epiphany that they will Never Be the Bully and that they will Always lose ... they leave. the server dies.
you can dress that up in any number of words you want to pile together, but the freedom to simply walk away from the bullies will always be why a pvp server fails.
Whatever other things and 'reasons' that get blamed for why pvp servers fail, it is ultimately bullying as the reason.
In a paid for experience there is no way to keep a victim from leaving, this is not school where 'helpful ' parents will compel your victim to return daily.
So, when the customer comes to the epiphany that they will Never Be the Bully and that they will Always lose ... they leave. the server dies.
you can dress that up in any number of words you want to pile together, but the freedom to simply walk away from the bullies will always be why a pvp server fails.
Then why did nagafen exist for over a decade, and why do other pvp games like league of legends have millions of players? bullies exist in every game and eq2 is far from the most toxic, it cannot all be chalked up to one reason. Besides, if bullies are the problem then why do people keep coming back when they are well aware that these people will always exist?
To add, if the developers spent ages trying to fix the bully problem and nothing worked and yet pvp servers still die, there's clearly a more deep rooted issue. There's many people that stay behind after the bullies have had their meal, and the people getting bullied leave, and yet the servers pop goes down to zero eventually. Not every single person is a victim or an aggressor like you and many others seem to believe.
Yes it sucks, yes it will definitely chunk the population, but it will never be the reason it hits zero, most people who join a pvp server are well aware that they will die, and they will die a lot. Some will get frustrated, some will leave sooner than others, but there's also many who rise to the challenge and can get to a point where they can "be the bully" if they wanted to. Besides, you cant tell me someone who gets to level ten and gets killed by a level fourteen wont ever possibly think "hey maybe i can be that strong at 14 too" and try it. it doesnt take long to get to a point where even a low level can be the bully if they wanted to.
Zarrakon had the fastest dying population of any server to date and the biggest changes made were no city pvp and no level locking or you lose all pvp rewards. Perhaps restricting playstyles has a significantly bigger impact than these bullies do?
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Flightrisk
New member
"did not and has not lasted like eq2" what does this even mean? A simple google check states on multiple sources that LOL has over 100 million active players where as EQ2 doesnt even have 100k active players. Either I am severely misunderstanding what you mean or you clearly have zero clue what you're talking about here and didn't research at all. Even if we say every average player plays on four different accounts all the time, which is a generous over estimation for the sake of argument that would still be more than 20 million active players. LoL was released in 2009 and is still going plenty strong in 2024, EQ2 was released in 2004 and its impossible to find a peak player count but the closest i can find is that back in 2007 there were 1.5 million characters across the board. That's every character on every server, back when the game was closer to its prime years and of course most people have alts so even 1.5 million isnt a representation of the realistic player count back then, thousands of people even had as many as six characters at the time. Even if we're generous EQ2 doesnt even come close to league (current population doesnt even come close to 100k active players), many people I've met in real life have never even heard of Everquest, and yet most have at least heard if not played themselves, league of legends. If you have any better data to prove me wrong, feel free to shoot.
I also never stated that you are incorrect, just like with everyone else on this forum saying the same thing, I will once again state - it's far from the only reason. If developers taking many shots at trying to fix an issue doesn't fix the issue, chances are there's problems worse than the issue itself. The devs make plenty of changes to pvp servers completely unwarranted without doing a poll or talking to their community (if i recall correctly deathtoll had a round table of community members specifically for the purpose of steering development decisions regarding pvp on the right course and they were mostly ignored) We cannot "mostly chalk it up to bullies" when constant solutions to bullying are implemented but they do more harm than good. I think its pretty simple personally to see how fast Zarrakon died with what anyone could think on the surface is the "best solution to bullying" ex. level locking prevention. For the thousandth time, yes its an issue, but if yall keep crying about the community while completely ignoring how the developers constantly fail us with terrible decision making, then we will never get an actually good pvp server. What we need is an OG pvp server with the old ruleset and watch it flourish just like Nagafen did, people on live servers talk about pvp time and time again and the sentiment is pretty constant that "pvp is good but Zarrakon sucks". Nagafen was good, until it wasnt. Deathtoll was good, until it wasnt. Zarrakon was trash immediately because there was no beta and unnecessary systems were implemented that ruined it for everyone. Bullies chunk the population absolutely but they are not the reason we need to be looking at if we really want pvp to survive. You're just giving the developers an easy cop-out by rallying the sentiment that there's one issue and it can't be fixed. EQ2 has it's fair share of bullies, but there's also always been people who help counter the bullies, because that's what a community is - a group of different types of people that share one thing in common. Even these people who help the victims left Zarrakon quickly. But hey, keep rallying behind a single point while not talking about other equally if not more important issues like pay to win (there's literally mounts you can purchase that give you straight stat boosts - nothing more pay to win than that), restricting playstyles, ridiculous level ranges, and more, I'm sure the developers really need to keep hearing about one issue they have tried several times to do something about, but can't seem to fix.
I also never stated that you are incorrect, just like with everyone else on this forum saying the same thing, I will once again state - it's far from the only reason. If developers taking many shots at trying to fix an issue doesn't fix the issue, chances are there's problems worse than the issue itself. The devs make plenty of changes to pvp servers completely unwarranted without doing a poll or talking to their community (if i recall correctly deathtoll had a round table of community members specifically for the purpose of steering development decisions regarding pvp on the right course and they were mostly ignored) We cannot "mostly chalk it up to bullies" when constant solutions to bullying are implemented but they do more harm than good. I think its pretty simple personally to see how fast Zarrakon died with what anyone could think on the surface is the "best solution to bullying" ex. level locking prevention. For the thousandth time, yes its an issue, but if yall keep crying about the community while completely ignoring how the developers constantly fail us with terrible decision making, then we will never get an actually good pvp server. What we need is an OG pvp server with the old ruleset and watch it flourish just like Nagafen did, people on live servers talk about pvp time and time again and the sentiment is pretty constant that "pvp is good but Zarrakon sucks". Nagafen was good, until it wasnt. Deathtoll was good, until it wasnt. Zarrakon was trash immediately because there was no beta and unnecessary systems were implemented that ruined it for everyone. Bullies chunk the population absolutely but they are not the reason we need to be looking at if we really want pvp to survive. You're just giving the developers an easy cop-out by rallying the sentiment that there's one issue and it can't be fixed. EQ2 has it's fair share of bullies, but there's also always been people who help counter the bullies, because that's what a community is - a group of different types of people that share one thing in common. Even these people who help the victims left Zarrakon quickly. But hey, keep rallying behind a single point while not talking about other equally if not more important issues like pay to win (there's literally mounts you can purchase that give you straight stat boosts - nothing more pay to win than that), restricting playstyles, ridiculous level ranges, and more, I'm sure the developers really need to keep hearing about one issue they have tried several times to do something about, but can't seem to fix.
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Schmetterling
Member
lol I remember some people in my guild on Deathtoll and on Zarrakon selling their gear and masters on the broker and joking about getting their money back from that guy who had killed them the other day.
Nobody I know was ever angry about selling an item to the enemy, it's far more important to sell it.
Nobody I know was ever angry about selling an item to the enemy, it's far more important to sell it.