haven't been able to catch ya on ICQ lately, so here goes.
The fundamental problem with increasing accounts on your pvp servers is this:
Mom and dad put the kids to bed and say i want to try this game out. They make a character on Venekor or Nagafen, go to the island and have a blast. Then it happens, they hit level 10. For the past hour Dreadnaught Joe Gankeriffic has been sneaking around them, waiting for their birthday. He does the level lock smackdown on poor ole Mr. and Mrs. Hubbard. His legendary, mastercrafted, and fabled easily smash then newbs to a pulp, they look at each other and go, "That was sorta unfair". They respawn and say, what the heck, let's get some levels and we can kill that guy. However, Joe is just out of their site range, and eagerly awaiting an immunity timer countdown. They die five more times before giving up. They go to bed, and generally feel like they wasted their time. I give them three days tops before they cancel their subscription (if they in fact bought eq2 so they could PVP).
Joe however is 25, in college, and could really give a dang what the poor ole hubbards think. He just loves feeling like a god casting lightning bolts from the heavens. He goes to the leaderboards, and counts his kills, pats his back, and makes a video to post on the forums. Hooray, I killed a bunch of guys who had empty item slots! I'm l33T.
I for one am sick and tired of SOE giving these guys God mode cheats. In eight hours of actual gameplay I can get a character to ANY level 1-35, fully mastercraft them and buy EVERY legenedary and fabled item on the broker (Qeynos AND Freeport). And I know after playing on this server since day FOUR im competant enough to beat the snot out of these newbs, equal level and all, but they don't want to fight me. They want poor defenseless players to kill over and over. They want blue and green players, it's like candy to them. Cowards i say, and using an exploit SOE put in place not realizing the reprecussions.
Allowing characters to level lock on a pvp server allows them to gain such a massive upperhand that it becomes unbareable for new players, thus you lose accounts. Making this game attractive to all levels of gamer i would assume is a high priority, therefore you are currently shooting yourself in the foot. And the hardcore blue server guys get off their raid, and come on our pvp server with their level locked (i put hardly any work into this) toon and I CAN'T KILL THESE JERKS.
Option 1: Go the world of warcraft route. Disable kill ranges. I personally will spend the next week making sure all these guys want to level, when my level 70 and friends convince them they should level.
Option 2: Disable locking adventure xp on pvp servers only. This way, eventually everyone will end up at 70.
The whole idea being that if our current userbase is spread accross 70 levels, and the level 10-25 twinks (twinks are massive geared level lockers) are discouraging new players from continuing their stay here. If everyone on the server was within ten levels of each other you would NEVER see a complaint of lack of pvp on any server.
In addition, allowing people to transfer from venekor to naggy was a bad decision. We do have considerably more pvp than before, but the T7 community has dwindled. In effect, leveling to 70 is a bad thing on Venekor, because you may end up standing on whisperwind isle for an hour waiting on a plat farmer to kill.
PPS. I dare any SOE developer to make a new character on Venekor. Before you reach level ten you will receive at least twenty tells from squiggly named individuals attempting to power level you or sell you plat. Most just buy the plat because it's the only way they will ever combat the twinked level locking jerks. But then again, you made it this way SOE.
Mr. Hartsman, hit me up on ICQ or email soon, this needs to change soon.