How to jump-start Venekor, or possibly all of the PvP servers and increase server population.

[Sightless]

<p>They need to do more than ONE thing here. It's useless to offer transfers from Venekor to Naggy. If you offer transfers from Venekor to Naggy, you might as well merge the servers because it will fix nothing, only make the problem worse. <b>So if they're not going to merge servers the only solution is</b>...</p><ul><li>Offer free transfers from Naggy to Venekor. </li><li>Enable double experience for one month on Venekor. </li><li>Send emails to all canceled accounts offering a free one month or two month subscription. </li><li>Make a new boxed set, call it "GOLD EDITION" and offer three free months with purchase, and one free horse with at least 24% or greater speed.</li></ul><p>There needs to be a combined package to jump start all servers. Vox suffers just as much as Venekor so they need to do something that MIGHT remedy the problem for everyone. I do not believe Naggy has the population to support both Venekor and Naggy, so an increase in PvP population is needed.</p>

[Piccolo]

<p><b><i>Or SOE could Advertise EverQuest 2. You would be surprised how well commercials do for a mmo....</i></b></p><p><b><i>i think it works well for WoW.</i></b></p>

[Brimestar]

Blizzard does well with its marketing approach that I will agree with...

[Dh]

<cite>Brimestar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Blizzard does well with its marketing approach that I will agree with...</blockquote>I highly doubt Sony could afford to hire a celeb to go on TV and say "I'm so-and-so and I play a MAGE!"  We all know what happens to mages on pvp servers. Celebs would never ruin their good name saying something crazy like playing a mage in eq2 pvp. Maybe they could hire Britney to do it....

[Bozidar]

<cite>Sightless wrote:</cite><blockquote><ul><li>Offer free transfers from Naggy to Venekor. </li></ul></blockquote><p>They had this.  A bunch of people stayed on Venekor because they thought it would be better.  Then many of them paid to come to naggy anyway.</p><p>shut down venekor, merge the servers, and MARKET the product.</p>

[Eriis]

<cite>Roach@Venekor wrote:</cite><blockquote><p><b><i>Or SOE could Advertise EverQuest 2. You would be surprised how well commercials do for a mmo....</i></b></p><p><b><i>i think it works well for WoW.</i></b></p></blockquote>/Agreethat's all Everquest Needs tbh..

[skidmark]

Definitely don't want double xp, levelling is too easy in this game as it is.

[Sightless]

<cite>Bozidar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Sightless wrote:</cite><blockquote><ul><li>Offer free transfers from Naggy to Venekor. </li></ul></blockquote><p>They had this.  A bunch of people stayed on Venekor because they thought it would be better.  Then many of them paid to come to naggy anyway.</p><p>shut down venekor, merge the servers, and MARKET the product.</p></blockquote>When they had this from Venekor to Naggy many stayed because they thought the euro's would fill the void. And if Naggy has tons of lag enough for them to complain on the forums for a few months, I don't think a complete merge is the right thing to do.

[Sightless]

<cite>skidmark wrote:</cite><blockquote>Definitely don't want double xp, levelling is too easy in this game as it is.</blockquote><p>Leveling is insanely painful for people who already have 80s, several of them. And if you have people who want to come from a PvE server to a PvP server but not spend a tremendous amount of time leveling a new character, chances are they will not. Give them a reason to come here, reward them for already having done it to begin with, and make it easier, and they'll come.</p><p>Next patch you can turn in grey quests for achievement experience. So there is no problem with leveling faster, IF YOU WANT TO.</p>

[Dreyco]

Nagafen is one of the most populated servers the game has.  Venekor? The opposite.I'd rather they put their money back into the game than for a night of 30 second television commercials.

[Sightless]

It wouldn't hurt to have advertisement, but we do not know if it alone will solve the problems. So instead of banking on ONE thing, why not do a series of things to improve on the problems?

[Phineus]

 Nagafen population is down a bit. People got their pvp gear from the token zerg on the docks and have pretty much quit pvping and the some are trying out new things. Im not seeing much if any lag while raiding now. Im not complaining. I suspect that the 200-300 active t8 players still left on venekor wouldnt fudge things up for us much at all. Come on over.

[ntommyb]

They really need Mr. T for an EQ2 commerical like WoW, maybe they could have Mr. T's "Night Elf Mohawk" get his butt whooped by Doogie Howser's Gnome Brigand or something like that

[skidmark]

<cite>Sightless wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>skidmark wrote:</cite><blockquote>Definitely don't want double xp, leveling is too easy in this game as it is.</blockquote><p>Leveling is insanely painful for people who already have 80s, several of them. And if you have people who want to come from a PvE server to a PvP server but not spend a tremendous amount of time leveling a new character, chances are they will not. Give them a reason to come here, reward them for already having done it to begin with, and make it easier, and they'll come.</p><p>Next patch you can turn in grey quests for achievement experience. So there is no problem with leveling faster, IF YOU WANT TO.</p></blockquote>This game is power-leveling defined. The fact that people turn off combat xp is a testament to this. Someone coming from outside the PvP environment needs to "struggle" through the levels to learn PvP anyways. Now if they doubled crafting XP, all for that <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Sightless]

<cite>skidmark wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Sightless wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>skidmark wrote:</cite><blockquote>Definitely don't want double xp, leveling is too easy in this game as it is.</blockquote><p>Leveling is insanely painful for people who already have 80s, several of them. And if you have people who want to come from a PvE server to a PvP server but not spend a tremendous amount of time leveling a new character, chances are they will not. Give them a reason to come here, reward them for already having done it to begin with, and make it easier, and they'll come.</p><p>Next patch you can turn in grey quests for achievement experience. So there is no problem with leveling faster, IF YOU WANT TO.</p></blockquote>This game is power-leveling defined. The fact that people turn off combat xp is a testament to this. Someone coming from outside the PvP environment needs to "struggle" through the levels to learn PvP anyways. Now if they doubled crafting XP, all for that <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" />" width="15" height="15"></blockquote><p>I think they should do both, double combat and crafting experience.</p><p>Before I locked so I could get enough AAs, but with the new patch you can turn grey quests in for Acheivment experience so I have no need to lock my experience. Others lock because they use their high levels to support their low levels twinking them out. They can still do this, and only PvP. No one is forcing them to earn NPC experience.</p><p>This might get people from a PvE server who has leveled 2-4 characters to level 80 the drive to do it again. I don't know about you, but I've seen the low end content far to much.. I get sick when I go into Deathfist Citadel. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Vilesummon]

1. Get rid of current marketing department. HIRE VILESUMMON at some sick pay level, he can't do worse.2. Communicate actions with customers instead of assuming you have the best answer within yourselves.3. Consider re-marketing the entire game, including pricing structure at re-release.4. Given the hoopla of some of the newer games because of PVP systems, actually make it feel like the pvp wasn't     such an afterthought.5. Don't just communicate with customers...LISTEN to them. The /feedback black hole has no sense of being taken    seriously. The lack of a cancellation survey implies you really don't care why people don't want to deal with you     anymore. Maybe you should find out why people are leaving.6. Select players to be "mystery shoppers" so you can get input from the players about what is really going on by    having a heartbeat on what is really going on in the game. This prevents the actual conflict of developers or    whoever tipping off players to certain strategies and such.7. Marketing revamp is SERIOUSLY needed. Beautiful game to be so limited in subscriptions...and now even    laptops on retails stores can sometimes handle the spec requirements, with desktops it is almost a given.8. Allow free transfers to determine who is held hostage by your bad policy of charging for transfers.9. After one month of free transfers, evaluate if Venekor should still exist.10. Be grateful you have customers that actually care about that game...and TREAT THEM THAT WAY.

[Nimbrithil]

Actually as mucha s I hate to say it, Venekor as it stands serves a purpose that should be encouraged by SOE. It is where the new bllod should ALWAYS start. You should not even be ABLE to make a new toon on Naggy unless you have leveled one up on venekor. I can't even begin to imagine how frustrating it would be to start brand new to the game or to PVP in EQ2 on Naggy.

[convict]

I saw the title of this thread and thought I was back in the swg forums.. That should say something..

[Sightless]

Hire myself and Vilesummon, actually listen to what we have to say, and I promise the low populated PvP servers would double in population within six months.

[Norrsken]

<cite>Sightless wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hire myself and Vilesummon, actually listen to what we have to say, and I promise the low populated PvP servers would double in population within six months.</blockquote>hire me as a dev and I'll do it myself!

[Magius789]

<p>Having everybody say "hire me, hire me" is just going to make anyone who could actually do something about these problems ignore it because they think it is all being started for personal gain.  This is SOE we are talking about people...they aren't a small or stupid organization (despite what we feel based on how this game is handled).  I'm sure they've reviewed all of their options and feel that it would be just a time and money sink to try and "fix" things with EQ2's PvP servers.  Sure they should listen to their customers but think of how many /feedbacks they get that say something like "I know how to do this better so you should listen to me".  Nothing is going to change so you guys/gals need to base your playing decisions on that, in the long run that is what is going to make you the happiest.  Not to mention the fact that the people who "might" be reading these forums would be the person you are replacing if they actually did hire you.  Nobody is going to point out their own replacement, especially with the way the U.S. economy is right now, people want their jobs.</p>

[Raeyzej]

<p>You could be right, Magius, however there is still the problem that we all can agree on. SOE is not communicating with the customers of the PvP servers. Whether they're ignoring us or working on changes for the better, we don't know because they haven't bothered to let us know, leaving us to assume that we're being ignored and start looking into other games that have decent CS. </p><p>I've been an eq addict for 8 years and i've gotten to the point where I am just disgusted. I am so loyal to this game, but the people running the show are making it so nauseating(sp?) that it has me considering abandoning all those years of work for another game. </p>

[Magius789]

<p>Oh I agree with pretty much everything that people are saying, Raeyzej.  But we have to look at reality here, to think a company as large as SOE is going to listen to what a handful of people, no matter how great the ideas are, that posts on their forums and change how they do things is crazy.  They might very well be making these changes and I agree that any commucation would be great but look at what we have seen.  </p><p>1.  We have seen a few changes in game about topics brought up on the forums (many nerfs, always getting xp for pvp kills to help the low lvl "twink" problem, etc.) which is about the only thing might give anybody hope.  </p><p>2.  Many "nerfs" that aren't even listed in the updates notes such as the ranger focus aim removal (very shaddy in my opinion) </p><p>3. Little to no communication from people that actually have the ability to change the game.  </p><p>4.  The removal of the cancellation survey.  Which indicates there priorities are going away from EQ2 and what its customer base thinks.</p><p>There are more but all serious players know them already so why keep listing them.  I too have been playing EQ2 for a long time on PvE and the PvP server and all of these issues keep piling on.  That and the actions of a certain developer on other boards have just proven to me how little SOE really seems to care about this game, thats why my subscription ends on 5/18/08 and thats why I keep saying that people need to stop trying to change the game and either do the stuff they enjoy in it or quit and find another game that they enjoy and are happy with the customer service.</p><p>I can list you atleast two options that I've done research on, due to my graduate courses, that are very simple to implement and cost either nothing or very little that would improve SOE's image to not only this online game customers but all of their online game customers but why waste the time when I know no one will read it other than a few other customers who will probably appreciate the ideas but in reality nothing will come of them.</p>

[Sightless]

You would be suprised at how much a servers population would grow if you increased the experience awarded for playing on that server. Not to mention the other things I've listed, or the advertisment ideas others have mentioned.

[Sightless]

<p>Other incentives they could do, to bring more people to the PvP servers is offer a free mount. But that would just take from other servers, so in a way, I think they need to try and bring new customers as a driving force to their marketing, with other little incentives to get those new players on the PvP servers.</p>

[Kota]

free exp would only draw in the 'here today gone tomorrow' ppl anyway.  face it, most bluebies wouldn't hack it on a pvp server.  they play blue servers cuz they don't wanna get ganked, and ganking is what eq2 pvp is all about.  not to mention it would degrade the game.  it's easy to lvl.  so easy.  a million quests to do, and when you get your feelings hurt from pvp (oh noez i got pvp'd on a pvp server!) you can go hide in instances.  ppl are leaving eq2 pvp servers for 2 reasons:1) eq2 pvp sucks2) eq2 has been out for a while and they are rdy for change

[Zacarus]

<cite>Sullen@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>2) eq2 has been out for a while and they are rdy for change</blockquote>Yep.  Eq launched in '99 and eq2 in '04.  I don't know when eq2's population peaked, but I'm guessing that moment has passed.  Get ready for the long, slow decline.  They're still operating eq, presumably profitably, so they'll probably continue to operate eq2 if their business model supports it.

[Faenril]

<cite>Zacarus@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Sullen@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>2) eq2 has been out for a while and they are rdy for change</blockquote>Yep.  Eq launched in '99 and eq2 in '04.  I don't know when eq2's population peaked, but I'm guessing that moment has passed.  Get ready for the long, slow decline.  They're still operating eq, presumably profitably, so they'll probably continue to operate eq2 if their business model supports it.</blockquote>Well, if they hold on the 5 years release cycle, we know what to expect in 2009 <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />