To be fair, 3-boxing is honestly very reasonable for this server; there's just enough active players with it to make TAKP feel somewhat lively and not abandoned. What really rubs me wrong in regards to boxing is servers that take it to the extreme. I used to play on PEQ Grand Creation, life was much easier playing solo there because of the daily AA's for power grinding, but the server had few remaining dedicated players, and most of them boxed not only their entire party or dungeon, but even their entire raid. I literally witnessed one person box 24 different toons to take down Venril Sathir. That's going way too far.
To circle back a bit. I strongly believe the dip in overall server population is due to the difficultly and the grind of PoTime / Pop raiding in general. Everquest is game, and games are supposed to be fun. PoTime and a lot of other pop raids are not very fun. They feel more like work. There is also the ongoing requirement for black-flagging which drains the raid force even more. The server was stuck in Luclin for quite a while, and during that time I don't think the server population really suffered. In Luclin era we had 6 "Healthy" guilds (for the purpose of this post I'm defining "healthy guilds" as guilds that were maintaining or growing in numbers and were regularly clearing all raid content). Now we are down to 2-3. When we have a greater quantity of "healthy" guilds, we have a higher server population. This is fixable, I believe PoTime is somewhat custom on this server, not necessarily Akkurate, and could be changed, we could do some kind of 85/15 thing for flagging/entering zones. It depends on what the devs want. Do they want the museum to be viewed and enjoyed by many? Do they want it to be enjoyed by a select few? Or do they not really care and just want to build the museum how they set out to build it.
When it starts to feel like work it's probably time to take a break and do something else, IMO. I think it's natural for people to assume everybody else feels that way, but it's just part of your player journey. People are at different stages of it, they progress through the stages at different speeds, and every few years they start over.
You might be right solar, but the thing is I don't think its just part of my player journey. It seems to be affecting many people on server (hence the decline in server population). Is it coincidence that all these people are hitting the burnout stage in the player journey at the same time? or is the end game content causing and accelerating that burnout?
The game is at its end, final boss slain, so there's only so much people can do I suppose. If you guys are struggling with plane of time I think you should find a way to not box multiple characters, just play one, and get 50-60 actual people into the raid. There are enough players for this across the struggling guilds, IMO. I don't know how you do that, maybe make a new guild for it and see who wants to do it? You guys remember Vintage on AK? It's probably doable but I guess people have to want to do it and maybe the motivation isn't there with the game being at the end.
i'd imagine burnout is from raiding plane of time over and over, i can usually farm a raid zone for about 6-8 months before i'm completely burned out
Yes, play one toon to overcome boredom. If you think I'm bored now? Wait till I am only playing 1 and need an APM of .5 to be 90% of the mean effectiveness.
I was thinking to overcome the work/struggling part not the boredom, but I have no idea what Kovah was actually referring to.
During Luclin, people would stop logging in after a couple of years and the outbound trickle continued. That's just boredom and it not being enjoyable anymore. A lot of those people came back (at least for NAG) when PoP was released. Now there is the issue that there will never be more content here to get people to log in again after they get bored with PoP. So really, there are two discussions going on here. How do you keep people logging in and how do you attract new blood and hold onto them. Timed events like the Anniversary events will cause some people to log in that haven't in a while since there is a small window to do them. QoL things like those mentioned earlier might be a way to get new people to not give up after testing the waters for an hour before going to the next shiny world on the login server. There could also be random GM events to get that "fresh" feeling again on some content. Not saying devs need to do this, but you could appoint GM's to randomly do things like this. I feel like many are just saying "well that was a fun ride and accepting whatever happens" when there are things that can be done that aren't crazy to help.
Fixing broken quests (ex. necro skullcap), implementing gear and items that don't drop but should (ex. Ossien), adding missing mobs, and stuff like that would help give people a reason to log back in, make a new toon, etc.
I actually noticed I play worse when I one-box because the game is so slow and boring I get distracted by literally anything else and I'm just browsing Twitter and making food and forget I was even playing. EverQuest may as well be considered a turn-based game when 1-boxing` Love the ability to mix things up here and trio, or team up and 1group various things. Keeps the game much more interesting and opens up a lot more possibilities for content and adventures.
Especially because adding someone into your 3-box is an experience benefit. I haven't run across any instances of having boxers turn me away from grouping: or even not wanting to group. I read their post the opposite way? Saying that they don't find people boxing makes it any harder for them to get groups?
I think the answers to those two questions are fairly simple: 1. You don't. Accept that content-complete Everquest has a limited lifespan. Some people can keep playing it forever, but many more won't. 2. The draw is the time capsule of AK. That is what this was made for, and I think deviation (beyond some things already done to make it more playable) would be best served in a new server that has that focus.
Pals, we've killed all the things and now the source is open for anyone who wants to spin off a new server. I think the only way TAKP community numbers go up from here is if the devs launch their own spin-off server, officially affiliated with TAKP and these forums. Could be TLP, two-box, one-box, PvP, GoD, custom zones, or whatever - the point is that players follow new content (or new views of familiar, well-loved content). As for the raid scene on TAKP proper, it's true that Time is a numbers check. Guilds whose numbers drop below a critical threshold for progression will eventually disband or merge raid forces with other guilds. We've already seen this with BG. They won't be the last.
Instanced time would likely make the raid guilds more active, but that's not happening. Raiding anything outside of PoTime at this point is a waste of time. The loot isn't worth it when our alts are walking around in P5 gear. Given the state of the rotation we log in once every two weeks, hard to justify logging in to kill things otherwise at this point unless it's some silly 1 box six man adventure to hole or something. I personally found /w all zone useful since I don't like boxing, I would at least log on some nights to kill an hour or two being someone's fourth. At this point I don't bother because who wants to run around to every zone to see if there is a trio to join, I certainly don't. But it's a free server and this is not a democracy. Devs gonna do what they gonna do, either you accept it and play, or you don't and leave. Also wru shakerpage akuracy
Plane of War would be a really cool zone to populate. Maybe it could just be during an anniversary event. Or maybe keep it year round and just not put any new loot there (just like ornate and various rare drops from other PoP zones). It wouldn't keep the population going forever, but I bet a bunch of old-timers would log in for a while to try to figure out all the secrets.
Pithy, you think the best way to get our TAKP population up would be to create more alternative servers to play on? I"m pretty sure that would do the opposite and decrease TAKP population. I guess my main gripe is that it does not need to be this way. PoTime is somewhat custom content on this server, not necessarily akkurate, it could be changed. Less guilds on the server means less overall population, and is just bad for overall server health.
Give me LoY so I have LDoN's to run, Dulak's Harbor to farm, and my beloved Froglok Paladin to slay with.
@Kovah, I doubt anything will really get numbers up on TAKP proper from here out. Opening the source opened the floodgates for spin-off servers that will inexorably siphon off TAKP's population. Fiddly fixes like adjusting /who syntax are just rearranging desk chairs on the Titanic. But that doesn't mean the TAKP community has to die. An official TAKP spin-off server -- could just be our version of P99 Green, or could be something cooler and more creative with custom content -- would give folks new reasons to hang out in Norrath with old friends.
LDoN's were in LDoN. LoY has armor dyes and Drogmors though to get rid of the horse head. And yeah wouldn't mind a froglok for their casting flip, but a different client would be needed, most likely. Secrets mentioned adapting the Evolution client at some point, but that's a stretch goal if it ever happens.
If only we could transfer characters between the "official" TAKP servers if they pop up. That would be a massive benefit and actually be a big draw for new people too. Obviously there would have to be limitations of some kind, like specific items to that server gained through a different ruleset would be deleted or stay behind, etc.
I guess I could agree with that statement for those guilds who have had quarm on farm mode for sometime now...but for the ones who only just started killing or are still yet to kill there is a long road ahead still. Getting to end game fast has its perks, but the drawbacks are that people leave or burnout which is possibly what is happening here. Maybe this means some of the high end guilds will be absorbed eventually who knows but yea I don't see how creating spin off servers will help the server population. Sure but some people like killing targets just for fun and maybe the loot is secondary. Also there are generally new players to help along the way and killing some of those targets are major upgrades for the new folks...but sure if the only reason to log in is based on the quality of loot then you are more restricted.
it's very obvious that the 3 box limit is the reason for TAKPs numbers after seeing Quarm (well timing and a polished server too). the majority of people dont like to box. it's also a lot harder to box on this client. i was a big advocate for 3 box back in alpha, still am. but lets not try to say the hacked up mouse scroll dll is the reason why quarm's numbers are better than takp... its 100% the single box factor... too late to turn back now obviously, imo the next logical step is unlimited boxing
I discovered that we had Epoch Conviction implemented incorrectly - it's supposed to speed up casting and it also takes 2 casts of RGC to cure, that's how it's supposed to work but it wasn't fixed until recently. I know it wasn't you specifically Kovah, but people made a big deal out of not changing Quarm, bugged as he was at the beginning, to keep him the same so that people could all experience it that same way instead of "pre nerf" or whatever thing people would say to diminish others' accomplishments. I specifically hacked it so Epoch Conviction continues to work desynced the way it has been, to preserve it so people who haven't yet finished with him can experience it too.
i meet more TLP people than p99 on quarm anecdotally. it's also evident that boxing is a population killer (in early eq) by looking at Rizlona stats during classic-pop. however, coincidently Rizlona has had the best population GoD+ (but yea thats obviously characters vs people).
The majority of P99 audience wants single box, yes. But the majority of EverQuest players including live is in favor of boxing. As for the population yea I don’t see it ever returning to the peak of what 600-700 characters online? But I wouldn’t be too shocked if a Vintage style guild pops up here at some point. Some guild that progresses through some older zones on new/level locked characters for a bit. Playing it back on the best Emulated server that’s been created could be fun for some of the population here. Coming in 2024 or 2025 <Timerity>’s first Nagafen and Eye of Veeshan kills and their first Trakanon wipe.
i think you meant to say the majority of people who are good at EQ (aka deeply knowledgeable or have a lot of time to spare) favor boxing; which is no where near the amount of people who play on a TLP, who do in fact not favor boxing as evident by the "true box" policies (which i know is not single boxing, but still)
