If Trammel is the destination, just how far along the path are we?

I think the problem is actually that some of us play way too much.

Unfortunately besides that being true people will still think we all make 500k an hour out of absolute ignorance.

Easily macro'd or not, it's still a fair sum in reg costs. 10k maybe (guessing)? Which is what I don't understand. People consider this not a stiff enough penalty, meanwhile it costs a bard 400g to replace their tambourine and that's apparently just peachy.

Let's just be honest. Dexers are the only template that faces any real risk. Tamers, bards, and mages have it easy street.

^^ THIS ^^

Just look at the fortunes I've amassed (and given away) multiple times over.

I play so much that no matter how much you lowered the amount of gold dropped (or whatever to restrict gold) RELATIVELY i'd still be stupid rich compared to people that don't play as much... every time.

Regarding instances -

I can't comment on CTF since I haven't really done them in about a year, but I find the "instances are taking people out of the game world" argument to be invalid for the PvM instances.

• At any given time, maybe one of these instances is active. That's a whopping one or two players that is inside an instance instead of out in the non-instanced game world. And who can even say that person would be out farming a PvM hotspot where you'd see them at? If that one person in an instance is me, there is a 0% chance you would see me farming ogre lords instead.
• To gain access to these events, they require someone being out in the world, likely doing something they would not normally be doing for quite a long time. Almost no one would fish if there weren't AMIBs. No one would be scouring the wilds looking for rare animals without the zookeeper quest. Far, far fewer people would be running T-Maps without level 7 maps. If anything, I think they get more people out in the world than if there weren't instances. It might not get people down to arctic ogre lords where they can be curbstomped by reds, but they're out there. (and whether you personally buy entry to these events or not is irrelevant, someone put in the Felucca man-hours to get them)
• I think the instances help sell the shard and show that we have unique, fun, end-game content. As much as I love this place, if AMIBs did not launch back in late 2013, I would not still be here. So you wouldn't have one less person out in the game world, you'd have one less player logged into the shard, period.

Not just NPCs, right? ;-)

Resist is certainly the least important 2.5% of skill points I'm concerned with getting back, but it's also by far the hardest. My general point was that stat loss actually does matter, significantly. I suspect I'm in the top, let's say 10 percentile, of macroers on this shard, and I couldn't really figure out a great way to do this one. So the idea that people just press a button overnight and all their dragons are 7xGM the next day is something I don't think reflects reality.

The reason I stopped by was to argue with the non-tamer who said pet skill loss was no big deal, and we've kind of gotten sidetracked down alleys of personal attacks in which I've now been called an idiot, disingenuous, {sloppy OR lazy OR apathetic}, and a backhanded compliment about being good at killing NPCs. We may be 10-50% down the Trammel path, but even more alarming to me is how far off the Hype Train tracks the shard has gone lately.

Taking away events and instances would only be bad for the server and bad for its current and future growth. We all want certain things we may never get here. The key to a successful server is balance and a balance that attracts the most players. Not just a niche crowd. This is never going to be a siege shard and if it were we would have 20 dedicated players with certainly little to no growth and 20 players would be a huge success IMO. This is never going to be a trammel shard. Regardless what people spam on here instances are not trammel. Sure there are things such as bonded pets, blessed runebooks etc. That all goes into the balance however.

If all you want to do is whine cry and shit on the shard then go elsewhere. It is that simple. No one is owed anything here regardless of how long they have been on the server and how many messages they have posted on forums. I would say due to our current growth that the things implemented have done nothing but help the server out and make it more attractive.

If you care about the server itself and its sustained growth you would think further than personal desires for a niche preferred playstyle and certainly wouldn't spam time and time again the same complaints over and over only yielding the possibility of someone being turned away because they are reading the ignorant spam so much of which isn't even based on facts but opinions and assumptions.

This "defense of Felucca" is unfounded.

I like to think that posts like this, really bring the server together. Look at all the interaction!

For what it's worth, I swore I'd never play a free server. But here I am and I enjoy the shit out of it. I'm surprised more people don't put the same effort into promoting the server and it's growth, as they do discussing everything "wrong" with it (aka, their opinions and complaints)

But I'm new, so what do I know? Lol

I recruited @Basoosh !!!!

On one hand: I feel stupid not providing anything additional to this thread.

On the other: Basoosh's post is worth reading again.

Promoting growth / trying to build the player base is MUCHHHHH more difficult.

The complaints are all just sitting on the tips of our tongues.

The problem is that content that has been developed in the past year (or more) falls into one of two categories:
- instanced content
- occlo content

The only end game content we've seen hit is instanced stuff, or nerfs to the champ spawn system.

Even if there are only one or two people at a time in the instances (this is often quite a bit more, the treasure things I've done so far had 5-7) that doesn't change the fact that the things that people want are in these instances, where they can get them safe and sound.
Imagine all of the player interaction that would occur if the things that people wanted weren't in protected instances.
Another issue I didn't touch on in my previous post - is while all of the new in game content is instanced - there have been serious nerfs and attempts made against the lives of what end game content isn't. Another thing people want is platinum, but champ spawns have been nerfed again and again, and even at this moment the harrower is disabled because Telamon has some vague problem with the way people farm it for plat that will likely mean less plat from harrowers. When he nerfed champ spawns the first time, people didn't spawn seriously for months.
It's very discouraging, as champ spawns are something that brings the server together and they do it in a way where it's very difficult for even groups of reds to break in and chase everyone off.

The game needs things that people want outside of instances to stay fresh. Over the past year (or more) things that people want have been moved out of the world itself and into instanced areas.

I'm not even saying that instances are a bad thing, but the current state of the game is something I'd describe as "heavily instanced". Even a large portion of the pvp is instanced. Most of the things that people want are in instances, while the profitability of things not in instances seems to only decrease over time. I see this as a problem, as it diminishes player interaction.

*edited cause Mindless is an idiot.

Concerning instances, I'd like to highlight this perspective that Chris and others have touched on:

The instances added to this server are gated behind activity in the open world.

Ironic as it may be, because of these instances and the rewards they offer, there are more opportunities to encounter people in the open world and say hello, have a chat, make a friend, or you can blow them up and take their stuff, or whatever your black heart desires.

There are people wandering the open world searching for zookeeper quest animals.

There are people out on the seas fishing for AMIBs.

There are people digging up treasure hoping for a level 7 map.

The time these players spend in the open world far outweighs the time they spend in the instances.

There is more Felucca style activity happening because of these expansions. There are more people out in the world. Go murder them and take their stuff if you want. I've done it. I've had to fight over a dark wolf and albino wyrms several times. I've Pkd a guy trying to dig up a treasure chest near my house. I've had a guy attack me over a grizzly bear spawn. A friend had to murder some people who tried to tame a raging grizzly that he spawned by killing the previous grizzly. There was an argument about the rights to a spawn and then there were was a fight. Awesome. I've been told other heartwarming stories from various people over the past year or so. I'm sure a lot of you could cite similar occurrences.

It might be worth considering that instances that take hours and hours in the open world to enter, and if you spend a fraction of that time actually in the instance, its worth it for the health of the shard. These expansions are generating activity in Felucca.

All this said, I think people's concerns are well founded and I look forward to hearing more. I just hope the conversation remains respectful and articulate to the best of our abilities; not doomsaying and exaggerations like the shard becoming full blown Trammel. The staff here loved what this game was before Trammel poisoned it just like most of us. I'd give them the benefit of the doubt that they still do.


Thanks for reading!

This what I don't get about the complaints surrounding instances. Besides the very infrequent holiday stuff, exactly 0% of the instances can be done without someone first spending time in the open world.

It's not that instances are inherently bad, it's that we've had more instances added in lieu of updating things or completing things that were slated to actually be here from the start. For example, the Zookeeper's Quest, that was added to shut tamers the hell up about getting their shit handed to them because they got killed a bunch and were tired of losing tames. I keep replaying conversations in my head with Telamon where he was going on about how only a single bond slot will keep the additional 3 control slots in balance with the rest of the server. Over and over again I see the words and I think to myself "What the fuck happened?".

Ultimately, I think we can blame @bart simpson for killing people's tames. That bastard has ruined the shard.

/me throws mic at bartimus

Damnit Bart why would you do this to the peoples tames?

I don't think the instanced content is too bad, as the point has been made people have to go out and do something in the open world first. I think the only problem for me is in the past year it seems everything has been instanced content, I'd like to see more changed in the open world over the next year maybe to help balance it out.

This is true to some extent, but really, who is going to hunt out on the ocean for hours just to steal some guy's shitty collection of fish? Or the chest full of durable ringmail sleeves that a normal treasure map gives you? At that point the only people who are interested in conflict are those that are killing for sport. Killing and fighting because something you want is on the line is a completely different experience.
When things that people really want are on the line (the stuff that is mostly currently in instances) is when things really get exciting.

Here's a nice example - public harrowers. They pull many more people in and there's much more conflict than people fishing on the ocean. I'm willing to bet that more people die at a single harrower than have died in all conflicts over fish out on the ocean combined. Public harrowers were a great draw for large groups of players and the conflict that comes with that.

I'm not even saying that instances are bad. Just that not everything needs to be instanced. This is where we are headed, especially with public harrowers are on the way out.

I'm a big napo fan today... weird.

Yes, I admit I go out of my way to kill tames. I'm simply looking out for my fellow PKs. Is it cool that a tamer says "all guard me" and insta kills a PK on screen with 2x fire breath, flame strike and dragon melee attack... Absolutely not. That's why I do my best to keep killing tames and get that magery bumped down a few points.. Considering they don't lose anything else...