Abydos wrote:That doesn't begin to address the question of why NA is such difference to EU.

I think part of the answer is that you need a critical number of players to have RvR beeing sustained by itself.
NA droped below that already which leads to kind of a snowball effect of ppl not logging in anymore due to lack of action. EU prime isnt there yet, but if it hits that lower limit we will see sth similar imo.
Another aspect is boiling down to having individuals like Romu on alb side at EU prime time, triggering a lot of casual players to participate in RvR. Not sure if NA has some persons like that.

I hope the staff will not introduce instant ports. It will have a huge impact on grand scale rvr.

Leading a zerg is a very tactical task. If defenders are inside a keep they have a huge advantage, you wont attack a defended keep sucessfully if you do not outnumber the defenders. So you position your zerg somewhere near you think the enemy will attack. If you are right, you can attack them at a keep from behind and wipe them, even with less numbers. If you manage to wipe them, thats the point where it opens a tactical window for you. You can back the support keep, cut off their ram support and have a much better position to clear up your frontier.

With the decreased port timers that window went very small. With 15 minute ports you could get beno back if you wipe the enemy zerg at renaris. Today you have to wipe them at eras or surs to get a small window. With instant port the deffers will be back if you wipe them at beno.

It also had an huge impact that you can see kill messages everywhere. DAoC was always about doing things before the enemy recognize them. If the enemy detects your relic zerg too early he can organize defence. Today you cant move a zerg secretly, everyone sees every kill everywhere. That killed most of the tactical movement. That is the main reason why grand scale rvr concentrates on keeps today. You cant hide anymore, so it is better to have a wall in your back.

If you eleminate all tactical options, you will loose many casual players. With instant ports the bigger zerg wins, the smaller zerg will log off after 2 or 3 wipes because they have no chance to win a fight.

I don't know why NA players don't play as much. It might be cultural. Not sure.

Are you for real...

I think the only way it can be cultural is if culture is wanting changes done to specific instead of generic audience, so that they would feel motivated to play and stay.

I totally get the idea of being strict, the oposite or [The competitive server] where they listened to players too much imho.

But most of the people I play 8v8 against or with are "cultural¹" in the sense that they have stopped. And the few of us who have not stopped actually have faith that something will be changed and hope that people won't just play to wait for [the competitive server]. It, in many ways, blows, that people are waiting for it.

We're not politicians, we just want to play and enjoy the game efficiently and not play a 3D chat and/or Waiting-On-Pad-Simulator.

¹ - see above for possible alternative meaning.

Too much discussion/debate/feels.

Let's look at uthgard like an ex
You loved uthgard.
Uthgard loved you too.
Things got stale, less fun, more problems.
Uthgard stopped loving you.
Is it healthy to argue plead or force uthgard to love you back?
If uthgard doesn't care about you why do you try so hard?
I know, I loved uthgard too. But uthgard doesn't care anymore so you and I must move on. Stop chasing uthgard. You could be missing something else that'll make you happy!

Romps keeping it realz

The next woman might be riddled with bugs though..

i can only speak from what i notice so far. NA time was bad on uthg1 too.. even with instant port and other changes like more rps and stuff like this. So its not only a Problem which can be solved by Uthgard in my eyes

Romps wrote:Too much discussion/debate/feels.

Let's look at uthgard like an ex
You loved uthgard.
Uthgard loved you too.
Things got stale, less fun, more problems.
Uthgard stopped loving you.
Is it healthy to argue plead or force uthgard to love you back?
If uthgard doesn't care about you why do you try so hard?
I know, I loved uthgard too. But uthgard doesn't care anymore so you and I must move on. Stop chasing uthgard. You could be missing something else that'll make you happy!

This makes more sense than 99% of the posts on this forum. /clap

Abydos: the group won't run with 7 ppl in the meantime, especially if it's a key class that is missing.

100g for an instant port sounds like a recipe for more drama between players, putting pressure on the dude who caught his horse late, ld'ed or forgot his neck to spend gold for not making the rest of the group wait. Let people punish slacking by their own mean, not through a game mechanic.

Moreover, introducing more fixed cost elements into the battlefield brings the question: should that instant port be 300g for albs? As if there wasn't enough imbalance with doors repairs and tradeskills leveling costs between realms, because of a single broken class. One man-hour is not worth the same on every realm.

Also as Romu highlighted it very well, the port mechanism is part of the core fundamentals of keep warfare the way it's been initially designed. Making it instant would kill a lot of the tactical aspect of battlefronts, already diminished by the location appearing with every killspam.

Abydos wrote:

The_L33T wrote:@Abydos,
Question to you, considering all what is happening, how do you and the Uthgard crew justifies/explains the population on the server going lower and lower and almost minimum during NA time.

Question to you: How do you explain it?

I don't know why NA players don't play as much. It might be cultural. Not sure. I can't explain why EU went from 4500 -> 1200 while US went from 2500 -> 350?

(For what its worth, a decent portion of those numbers are counted 2 or 3 times for people who were logging in multiple chars but got banned or quit. When a single person quit, multiple online counts went down)

Still, NA saw a larger % decline than EU.

It's the lack of action and the amount of time required to get anything going, for the little action there is. It's a spiral effect - less people online equates to fewer people wanting to login and play. The cycle repeats and gets worse over time. At least it's that way for myself, my guild, my friends and a lot of the various players I've chatted with.

I hopped on last night (US Pacific) and there were 247 online. That's roughly 83 players online (not counting anon obviously) per realm, not enough for a mmo in my opinion. My experience with the few groups I've played in NA time over the last month resulted in running around through open zones of each realm, not finding action. From there it devolved into PvEing doors in attempt to stir up very little action. It's unfortunately just not fun..

I know you guys put tons of effort into this server and I've had more fun playing here than the past 15 years of live. The first six months were an absolute blast. Would it be so problematic to listen to your community? Why not do some surveys, etc. to find out why people stopped playing, what would make them come back etc? A true 1.65 server won't be a server with no population to sustain it.

I find it hilarious that devs say they don't understand the population drop. People have been asking for the same stuff since beta, over, and over, and over again. Less wasted time. Quicker PvP action. And small QoL changes.


Everything on Uthgard is such a pain in the ass. Time wasters after time wasters just for the sake of 1.65. It's like the devs don't even ask if something makes sense or is fun. People quit until eventually you reach a critical mass and people stop trying to RvR (aka NA time zone). This will eventually happen to EU if nothing changes.

Ardri wrote:I find it hilarious that devs say they don't understand the population drop. People have been asking for the same stuff since beta, over, and over, and over again. Less wasted time. Quicker PvP action. And small QoL changes.


Everything on Uthgard is such a pain in the ass. Time wasters after time wasters just for the sake of 1.65. It's like the devs don't even ask if something makes sense or is fun. People quit until eventually you reach a critical mass and people stop trying to RvR (aka NA time zone). This will eventually happen to EU if nothing changes.

Don't worry. They will likely add instant porters and boost QoL, when it's already much too late xD Like the recent unannounced NA Emain rp bonus addition - yeah, cool, but people who would use it already left long ago. The last 1 person on Uthgard may even have stackable pots! It's like putting a band aid on a broken leg - nice gesture, but not really helping lol.

Pwncakes wrote:

Ardri wrote:I find it hilarious that devs say they don't understand the population drop. People have been asking for the same stuff since beta, over, and over, and over again. Less wasted time. Quicker PvP action. And small QoL changes.


Everything on Uthgard is such a pain in the ass. Time wasters after time wasters just for the sake of 1.65. It's like the devs don't even ask if something makes sense or is fun. People quit until eventually you reach a critical mass and people stop trying to RvR (aka NA time zone). This will eventually happen to EU if nothing changes.

Don't worry. They will likely add instant porters and boost QoL, when it's already much too late xD Like the recent unannounced NA Emain rp bonus addition - yeah, cool, but people who would use it already left long ago. The last 1 person on Uthgard may even have stackable pots! It's like putting a band aid on a broken leg - nice gesture, but not really helping lol.

Cool, give 25% rp bonus during NA prime time, but you ninja patch it in and don't announce anything? Umm what? Like half the other things on this server it doesn't make any sense at all.

What is a 25% RP bonus in Emain supposed to achieve?

Instant porters should be maybe to travel between city as well.

and I agree people left Uthgard because PvE is a ******'g pain - Xp loot will slightly improve the experience but that wont help server to growth and come back as it used to be.

I like 1.65 but I will like even more a 1.65 twister version to make our PvE Experiences more enjoyable.

but it's been said & resaid & that will be resaid again and again until that change or no more people to play.

But what we know, more level 50 we will have will help to drive more RvR & more fights & so more fun

People are right, the main issue is only hardcore player are able to play with diff toons, and regular have to play just with their main, try to reroll but surrender as the XP experience is way to painful.