Prayer from a Nagafen player. (Dear God, please fix PvP.)

[Bryony]

Hi  some of you you probably know me as Bryony. Warning. Incoming Wall of Text. PvP (censored) and Fix it session. I'm sure some of this has been said before. I don't really post on the forums much so this is my version, here goes. Dear God... I'm going to say this in the nicest way possible. The total complete destruction of PvP in EQII makes me sick. I feel like after playing on PvP servers from the beginning, Blue before that, and EQI before that - I have put in my time and earned the right to say that. I grew up with you guys. Had my first crush on a boy here. Gained and lost friends here. Devoted countless hours and parts of my paychecks to this game. When you do that you aren't just playing a game, you are relying on a company. I've spent years of my life with you from personal level to paying customer. Other than a few lapses in my subscription for that annoying real life thing I am probably one of the people who played this video game way too much, and loved it.

Hoorah, moving on. Did I mention PvP, oh wait I mean the total lack of, complete death of PvP makes me sick? Oh right, I did. I'm not one of those people who complains a lot. I don't post on forums very often. Rather than post on flames, I decided this was a family issue. I mean, we all play for you, right? Your bottom line is product economics and our bottom line is having fun after whatever it is we do in our beautiful daily lives. Let me just put this out there. I love this game. I love this game in a screaming fangirl, signed poster in my room, fan faire dress up, hullabaloo kind of way. I believe that it is the best game of its class on the market. I love it. Always loved it. Have never been as disgruntled as I am right now, and as I became more and more passing somewhere in November 2007. (RoK.) Since then you have taken the PvP that I loved and mangled it into a Pavlov's dog repetitive sedate rock zerg mentality and system that I cannot stand. (I have other issues like our server's well earned name Lagafen, but I came here to address PvP. Which I would gladly do in any kind of lag, including the critical kind that affects game play that we have going on Naggy at the moment. Have had going for who knows how long now? Someone said it best the other night. Server performance is the newest 'fail condition' variable for raiding on Nagafen. I digress.) Dear God. Please fix PvP. I know you are there God. Even the Overlord wants you to fix PvP. Blue server people who talk about contested mobs might not want you to fix PvP, but then I laughed when they said it. You don't know what contested is until you've had to fight for it - in more than a crap, we showed up a minute after they did and have to wait in line kind of way. (No offense bluebies, I'm a roleplayer at heart, I just also happen to be a sociopathic insane person who likes to kill people. You wouldn't understand.) PvP is so bad right now, and on top of it server performance is so bad that people I never thought would quit PvP are talking about leaving for Blue Servers. Not to mention all the people who already left. I can't do it. For me, if there's no PvP anymore, and I can't raid for server issues there is no reason to play this game. I want to play this game. I'm still giving you my money. Please keep taking my money and consider the following .... I don't know how many of you guys have been around PvP for very long, but I know there's a lot of us who still play. Who remember what it was like when there were several PvP guilds on both servers and every single night you could go out solo, duo, trio, in a group and find other people doing the same thing. Out roaming all the zones, looking for a fight. And, fight they did. Groups that were tactically built, people who had learned how to play their classes and ENJOYED going up against other people and playing in a split second response environment based on what was coming at you. Nights where all sides came out to have a good time and duel. Epic raid battles between guilds who were PROUD that they not only raided well but kicked major (censored) in PvP. When was the last time there was anything like that? November 2007 and before. The last time you saw half the server turn out for a night of battles off the sands, or BB docks? Even before that. The last time you saw an actual PvP group, with an actual MA, fighting another actual PvP group over land? It faded and died in TSO. The worst thing that ever happened to this game for PvP (in my opinion) was writs. As soon as you created the zerg point, it was over. I stayed with you through that. Watching the decline and decay of competitive PvP. Still, there were a few people left, out doing it. Definitely still some solo and duo out in zones, and a few old school PvP groups who could not give up looking for a fight. RIP by the way, I miss you guys. The new title system chokes me. How you could not put in a solution for AFK OVERLORD before now escapes me. I cannot imagine why this doesn't hit everyone in the face like a huge /FACEPALM as the most ridiculous mechanic (among many). An example. You lost me at the beginning of TSO. I quit. I was disgusted with PvP, burned out on raiding all the time, and ready for a break. When I came back you'd changed the game to reflect said title mechanics. When I logged into Haven again there were all of these people standing around afk with huge titles. I had never seen so many Overseers. I thought wow a lot of people I never knew suddenly started to PvP... really well. Only to find out NO some genius (no offense genius) thought it would be a great idea to make a PVP TITLE unable to be lost in PVP, easily gained by zerging though, bonus. The only way you could lose your PVP title, an obvious and clear reflection of your skill in PvP, (not that they ever were but at least before you could lose the [Removed for Content] thing and they meant a little something) is by logging out!!! That's right!!! Your meaningless worthless PvP skill title will degrade when you log out to go to bed and the (censored) overlord staying logged in all night bogging down the server will keep his. Way to go genius.

At least before there were only the handful of (censored mules) that farmed their fame and I assure you everyone else on the server humiliated them for it. Respect was earned in PvP. It was its own control mechanism. You (censored) that one up. That killed me. I would like to see one of two things. The old semi-broken title system re-instated. Or, the option to hide the current completely worthless pvp title you make me wear every night. Everyone will agree, the system had flaws before, but it was a lot more right than what we have now. Olihin told me months ago there would be changes to it, and we don't have enough resources, and it takes coding, and other issues, and whatever. I can believe it with the launch of the current expansion and a lot of the internal staff changes. We're not asking you for miracles here. Just some attention and not the kind of attention you've been giving us. What we need here is a revival man. The final frontier in competitive PvP was the errant raid battle over an Avatar. (Can't help but slip this in - all but Insurrection who left for the then vacated Venekor to farm them without competition. Which also totally boggled my mind because some of those guys are old school PvP.) Anyway, back to the raiders who actually had balls to fight it out and enjoyed contested content in its true blessed form. Hard as (censored) to kill. A real achievement to down one. And oh the fights trying to do it. All gone. You officially killed ALL of the competitive group and raid PvP. Sure, you see remnants of old groups, and dogged oldies out killing the zerg, and running bgs, but is that PvP ...? I bet they don't think so. Now the only thing we've got is token farming, zone lagging, worthless title having, Pavlov's dogs on a rock zerg fest crap. Sure, if you want to let people use their twinked raid toons to farm tokens for all of their other toons, why not! I mean, if it's not easy, people don't want it right? (Can't imagine why we all loved this game before when it was harder ...)

God, if you're still listening to me this far in, wtb real PvP. Open a server with the old ruleset and title system on it and see how many people transfer or roll there. Yeah Right, when pigs fly, but I'd go, in a heartbeat. I actually like Battlegrounds but could we could use a 6 v 6 deathmatch where he with the most kills, points, damage, i don't even know you work it out - wins. I mean I would give anything for a good group v group throw down right now. A raid v raid one like that wouldn't hurt either. A one on one duel type setting would also make me excited in a good way.Lag zone pile of people free for alls can be fun. It just can't be all there is. To sum up!! 1. Dear God fix the titles or give me the option not to show the stupid things.2. Oh Lord please burn writs and writ givers in a fire and never ever ever ever do anything like that again.3. Please come up with new contested content people care about to inspire raid PvP once again.4. Group v Group battle style BGs, raid and 1 v 1 duel options too, hey! The one credit I will give is the bringing back of level locking. That at least got some banging going on again in lower tiers. Us end game PvP folks are thirsty though, boss. We don't know what to do with ourselves and we're waiting on you to fix it.

I understand the argument that if people wanted to play like that they'd be forming those groups and going out to PvP (and we should be [Removed for Content] it!) but people respond to the game that you create for them. You create mechanics that reward and enforce a certain play style and right now that's token zerging one zone pile up. You created lazy players who responded to your bell. Now that bell is all there is. War is fun - I like war. I'm just dying for a restoration of PvP on PvP servers. Call me crazy. To that end I exiled the Ranger this week. I was going to make her an assassin but then I got out there. I did a BG, I ran out to CL picking people off at War. I had a blast for the first time in a long time. No writ ding. Wearing (censored) broker gear because I lost my PvP set when I hit Haven. Hell, I hadn't even done her mythical conversion yet. (Sad side effect of changing mains to raid and not planning your current course of insanity ahead of time.) I don't care. I'm keeping her out there. I'll BG to get the gear and gear isn't everything. I've been doing fine. I'd rather have everyone as a target, be able to actually PvP, and pick off every single AFK Overlord and Pavlovs zerger out there. Sounds fun to me. I don't plan to stop raiding or playing or pvping on my city main - but I do plan on some after hours exiled mayhem at the expense of anyone I can find to kill. I was hoping some other crazy, sick of no PvP, old school bad [Removed for Content] would join me. Just sayin.  New school murder friendly bad [Removed for Content] would also be acceptable.  Must love PvP and making people rage. PS Please don't hate me because I'm beautiful. Obviously I'm being funny but I'm desperate here. I sure hope you are listening God. I don't pray much. I love you God, and I love this game. Amen. I will pray for a new server next week.

[Wytie]

BEST POST EVER

[Aldhissla]

I really feel you and I think every true PvPer is longing for a proper PvP system that's rewarding in itself and not because you get better gear by participating.

[BlueEternal]

Paill@Nagafen wrote:

BEST POST EVER

Q F E. THIS is the post that Olihin and the rest of the development team needs to read. Bring back the excitement of t7. Stop feeding the pvp community easy handouts. Give us a sense of accomplishment, a sense of pride in what we've done and the history we've had on Nagafen.

[Cantor]

Amen

[Taamerlane]

AMEN!

This brought tears to my eyes.  For real.  Best post i have read in a long time.  So i had to speak up.

PLEASE FIX PVP IN THE GAME WE ALL LOVE.

Taamerlane - PvPing since PvP was introduced

[Neskonlith]

Want open-pvp?  The server cannot handle open-pvp! 

We have lag-pvp.  It is so laggy, I wrote this comment 10 minutes ago and it took this long to render.  Heck, I was playing perfectly fine with 3-4s delay in Freeport TG when we liberated the writ room - yet Warfails for me are painfully slow slideshows with no writ updates, no Tokens and no happy endings.

So I packed it in with the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, and we wrote it all off.  We're heading to farm some zone nick-named Bolivia, and now we don't worry about trying to get pvp gear anymore.  I hear there is a Warfield Tower at the San Vincente zone, but I'm likely going to pass on that one and let Butch and Sundance scout it out...

[Darman81]

 When I first read the title I thought, here we go somebody else complaining about overpowered classes!

Wow was I ever wrong! By far the best and most constructive post I have seen in a LONG time! Thanks for taking the time to write it!

[Bryony]

Neskonlith wrote:

Want open-pvp?  The server cannot handle open-pvp! 

We have lag-pvp.  It is so laggy, I wrote this comment 10 minutes ago and it took this long to render.  Heck, I was playing perfectly fine with 3-4s delay in Freeport TG when we liberated the writ room - yet Warfails for me are painfully slow slideshows with no writ updates, no Tokens and no happy endings.

So I packed it in with the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, and we wrote it all off.  We're heading to farm some zone nick-named Bolivia, and now we don't worry about trying to get pvp gear anymore.  I hear there is a Warfield Tower at the San Vincente zone, but I'm likely going to pass on that one and let Butch and Sundance scout it out...

What makes me laugh about that is that we all used to complain about the lag when there was real PvP (though I don't remember it being laggy while raiding PvE content) and now the lag is just like .... really? It's brutal on Nagafen. PvE and PvP content. 

BUT no getting off subject. Lag and server performance are next weeks sermon, er prayer, er .... yeah. I would PvP in any kind of lag if they'd give it to me. Any day, any time, thank you Jesus, praise the lord, Amen.

It's all stuff I've wanted to say for a long time but I don't talk a lot. I know we're all thinking it - and if you aren't something is wrong with you. (Censored) it man, I'm just tired of it. I had to question myself for posting something like that, to be so passionate about a video game but the fact is I AM and I've devoted tons of time, years of my life, to this game - and invested a lot. Sometimes you just have to say - hey man, this is messed up. And, if no one listens. Say it louder.

[Arieneth]

Very well said.

It is a very sad state of affairs when the measure of success on a pvp server is solely determined on how well you raid. There hasn't been a lasting pvp oriented guild in years because of the deterioration of competitive pvp. our pvp dev is incompetent and has no idea how to fix anything and just causes more problems. pvp servers were much better off when we had a pve dev running our server...making us largely ignored.

Everything was so much better when people pvp'd for the sake of killing people and rubbing their faces in it. no rewards...just the thrill of the hunt and glory of the kill.

despite the flaws of T7 with cliff diving and fleeing dishonorably (who remembers that one?)...T7 was exciting. never a dull moment. at any moment there were loads of groups seeking out other groups to battle for superiority. i remember flying cloud to cloud in Barren Sky just to land on a group. or chasing people cloud to cloud to punish them for running. and the semi-rare occurence of all groups converging on Whisperwind for epic battle royale awesomeness.

even EoF was able to keep the pvp flame burning. but the decline was already upon us. and so came an endless string of failures. tokens, writs, rewards for zerging, pvp gear, ruining exile, battlegrounds, etc. it's like SOE and our pvp dev are hell bent on killing this server.

i would give anything to have a new pvp server. i'd give every piece of raid gear and pvp gear to go back to when the measure of a player was determined by their skill as a player and not the gear they wore. give us T7 Classic. level 70 cap, lvl 70 zones, old rules, old gear and leave it the hell alone.

[Bryony]

Arieneth@Nagafen wrote:

Very well said.

It is a very sad state of affairs when the measure of success on a pvp server is solely determined on how well you raid. There hasn't been a lasting pvp oriented guild in years because of the deterioration of competitive pvp. our pvp dev is incompetent and has no idea how to fix anything and just causes more problems. pvp servers were much better off when we had a pve dev running our server...making us largely ignored.

Everything was so much better when people pvp'd for the sake of killing people and rubbing their faces in it. no rewards...just the thrill of the hunt and glory of the kill.

despite the flaws of T7 with cliff diving and fleeing dishonorably (who remembers that one?)...T7 was exciting. never a dull moment. at any moment there were loads of groups seeking out other groups to battle for superiority. i remember flying cloud to cloud in Barren Sky just to land on a group. or chasing people cloud to cloud to punish them for running. and the semi-rare occurence of all groups converging on Whisperwind for epic battle royale awesomeness.

even EoF was able to keep the pvp flame burning. but the decline was already upon us. and so came an endless string of failures. tokens, writs, rewards for zerging, pvp gear, ruining exile, battlegrounds, etc. it's like SOE and our pvp dev are hell bent on killing this server.

i would give anything to have a new pvp server. i'd give every piece of raid gear and pvp gear to go back to when the measure of a player was determined by their skill as a player and not the gear they wore. give us T7 Classic. level 70 cap, lvl 70 zones, old rules, old gear and leave it the hell alone.

Amen, Arie.

[Heleptra]

Man 10+ to you for writing all that down. i feel you Im also from pve/ and beginning of nagafen played-

Im not gonna say now what i miss and know. But im also an hardcore pvper.

SOE LISTEN TO THIS GUY FFFS!

-Reduce immunity spots in norrath. Especially all the docks.

-Put the old fame system back.

-Reduce the 200 ward from lvl 10 pvp gear.

-Make the tokems body drop.

-Make nameds,mobs harder compared to the new gear.

We dont want this game to get easier.Those who fell in love with this game years ago, Fell in love because it was hard and it needed brains and team work to conqure Norrath.

Your loyal player Hartsia.

[Heleptra]

Aah forgot 1 thiny.

Let us for god sake talk with the other faction.

[Neskonlith]

I'd actually pull my assassin out of retirement for the return of gank+evac!  KoS Everscout was fun like "Assassin's Creed".

Remember when "Decapitate" was actually a CA that inspired fear in clothies?

[Heleptra]

yeah i remember lol

[Heleptra]

Thats why this game is getting bored beause its too easy and no penaltys any where.

U CANT LOVE SOMETHING IF U CANT HATE.

U REALISE U MISS SOMETHING WHEN U LOST IT    "_"

[Cantor]

Neskonlith wrote:

I'd actually pull my assassin out of retirement for the return of gank+evac!  KoS Everscout was fun like "Assassin's Creed".

Remember when "Decapitate" was actually a CA that inspired fear in clothies?

Even that was better than this.

[Heleptra]

Yeah, because if u get really mad when u die. U will get really happy when u win

[Neskonlith]

Cantor@Nagafen wrote:

Neskonlith wrote:

 I'd actually pull my assassin out of retirement for the return of gank+evac!  KoS Everscout was fun like "Assassin's Creed".

Remember when "Decapitate" was actually a CA that inspired fear in clothies? 

Even that was better than this.

KoS was responsible for about ~25k of the 35801 "nerf scouts" threads. 

Back then, you had a valid reason to run totems!

Didn't matter if you were hiding in a group, it was always the gnome that got you: decap+evac ftw!

[Arieneth]

stuff like Assassinate was good in some ways. it allowed assassins to play like assassins...sneaking up and owning you. if you wanted to solo, you had this constant fear of not knowing who was watching you...hiding in the shadows waiting to pounce...then...BAM, lights out.

that unknown element was exciting. never knowing if you were seconds from death or who was waiting for you when landed on a cloud/griffin platform. there was no such thing as an overpowered class...just overpowered players.

there has been so much carebearing in the last 3 years that no mortal can comprehend it. immunity points around every corner. i want zone control back. like going into Sanctum of Scaleborn and killing everyone inside, forcing them to leave or get backup. or finding out a guilds raid schedule and blocking them from ever getting there. where has that aspect of the game gone?

now we have serverwide call/teleport, guild flags, endless evacs...anything and everything possible to keep people out of zones and in an instance.

[Arieneth]

Neskonlith wrote:

Didn't matter if you were hiding in a group, it was always the gnome that got you: decap+evac ftw!

lol...it really didn't. i remember a couple times standing on Whisperwind and a scout would jump off the rocks and own the clothie in my group. we laughed...got yelled at...and moved on.

sure Everscout had it's issues...but it encouraged group pvp. who can honestly say the scout problems of old were worse than the endless crap pile of problems we have today?

[MalicorDraven]

I support everything the OP has said.  With one condition, consequences. There must be consequences to pvp to balance rewards.  I would suggest you (devs) draw ideas from the one game that has successful pvp albit with its own issues, EvE Online.  That game, while a completely different genre, has successful pvp why?  Because there are consequences and rewards which escalate with the risk.

Here is a suggestion, armor decay, not the same as damage, a subset, after a certain number of repairs, the armor breaks completely.  Throw in corpse armor/wep/jewelry looting beyond just treasured, and all the "basically free" pvp gear that has shown up becomes useable by the victors, at least til it breaks.  Allow crafters to break down the completely broken gear, to throw them a bone, and now you have a reason to pvp (maybe).  Fine tune this thought a bit, and maybe pvp would be worth while.

[Putyo]

Pvp would take months to fix at this point, lag issues would take years....

There are no easy fixes and if you have played on Nagafen for more then a month you will know we never get fixes that take longer then 10minutes to code, with exception to warfields but hrm...those really turned out fantastic?

The writ mentalitiy is encoded deep into 95% of this servers brain, keep pressing revive until you win no matter how stupid it makes you look, there is barely any respect any more and enough revive points to make zone control impossible, not to mention how you can evac and just stand in immunity until you decide that its safe to come out.

Toning down some of the toughness would be a good start but so far oilthin hasnt addressed any concerns other then how to zerg in warfields. GL trying to change the server but this developer shouldnt of labled himself a pvp dev because he has zero idea about the inner workings of pvp mechanics and has so far made this game EXTRAORDINARILY worse then when we had no pvp dev, dont even ask me how he managed to do that.

We are 1 red server in the middle of 13 other highly populated blue servers, sorry, they just dont care enough, unless it has to do with Battlegrounds. Thanks Oilthin, I hope I never get the displeasure of meeting you again.

[Pinino-Lfg]

Wow [Removed for Content] sinc, totally in love with you right now truer wo

rds have never been spoken, what is so horrible is before they can fix pvp they have to fix the lag on nagafen wish they would set up a donation bucket or somthing to start pooling for a top notch server lol id throw in every single paycheck.

[Arieneth]

MalicorDraven wrote:

I support everything the OP has said.  With one condition, consequences. There must be consequences to pvp to balance rewards.  I would suggest you (devs) draw ideas from the one game that has successful pvp albit with its own issues, EvE Online.  That game, while a completely different genre, has successful pvp why?  Because there are consequences and rewards which escalate with the risk.

Here is a suggestion, armor decay, not the same as damage, a subset, after a certain number of repairs, the armor breaks completely.  Throw in corpse armor/wep/jewelry looting beyond just treasured, and all the "basically free" pvp gear that has shown up becomes useable by the victors, at least til it breaks.  Allow crafters to break down the completely broken gear, to throw them a bone, and now you have a reason to pvp (maybe).  Fine tune this thought a bit, and maybe pvp would be worth while.

consequences such as armor decay were proposed before as a means to break up the zerg. but our pvp dev ignores good ideas so he can ruin this game further.

i still stand by my statement that pvp should be rewardless in terms of items. the best reward is winning. rewards move to the primary focus of pvp from killing...to getting gear.

Putyo@Nagafen wrote:

Pvp would take months to fix at this point, lag issues would take years....

There are no easy fixes and if you have played on Nagafen for more then a month you will know we never get fixes that take longer then 10minutes to code, with exception to warfields but hrm...those really turned out fantastic?

The writ mentalitiy is encoded deep into 95% of this servers brain, keep pressing revive until you win no matter how stupid it makes you look, there is barely any respect any more and enough revive points to make zone control impossible, not to mention how you can evac and just stand in immunity until you decide that its safe to come out.

Toning down some of the toughness would be a good start but so far oilthin hasnt addressed any concerns other then how to zerg in warfields. GL trying to change the server but this developer shouldnt of labled himself a pvp dev because he has zero idea about the inner workings of pvp mechanics and has so far made this game EXTRAORDINARILY worse then when we had no pvp dev, dont even ask me how he managed to do that.

We are 1 red server in the middle of 13 other highly populated blue servers, sorry, they just dont care enough, unless it has to do with Battlegrounds. Thanks Oilthin, I hope I never get the displeasure of meeting you again.

Nagafen is a lost cause. i can't believe Olihin has been able to keep his job. easily the worst thing to happen to the server we call home. rewards for zerging and handing out gear to lazy scrubs. just a couple highlights of his genius. but i can tell you how he screwed up so bad. he listened to the crybabies. too many people couldn't handle pvp back when it was hard so he made it easier and easier. and now look at it...

this is why i want an EQ2 Classic server...T7, the glory days. i won't believe for a minute they don't have backups of all the old code.

[Putyo]

Oilthin already posted that the old fame system would be very hard to bring back because they would have to recode everything.

That is pretty terrible but there you go, dont expect any major changes until expac.

LoL.

[Cantor]

Putyo@Nagafen wrote:

Oilthin already posted that the old fame system would be very hard to bring back because they would have to recode everything.

That is pretty terrible but there you go, dont expect any major changes until expac.

LoL.

Yea, thats a good story but, sorry, I can't believe it. He have other problems to fix and don't wanna add one more.

[MalicorDraven]

Arieneth@Nagafen wrote:

MalicorDraven wrote:

I support everything the OP has said.  With one condition, consequences. There must be consequences to pvp to balance rewards.  I would suggest you (devs) draw ideas from the one game that has successful pvp albit with its own issues, EvE Online.  That game, while a completely different genre, has successful pvp why?  Because there are consequences and rewards which escalate with the risk.

Here is a suggestion, armor decay, not the same as damage, a subset, after a certain number of repairs, the armor breaks completely.  Throw in corpse armor/wep/jewelry looting beyond just treasured, and all the "basically free" pvp gear that has shown up becomes useable by the victors, at least til it breaks.  Allow crafters to break down the completely broken gear, to throw them a bone, and now you have a reason to pvp (maybe).  Fine tune this thought a bit, and maybe pvp would be worth while.

consequences such as armor decay were proposed before as a means to break up the zerg. but our pvp dev ignores good ideas so he can ruin this game further.

i still stand by my statement that pvp should be rewardless in terms of items. the best reward is winning. rewards move to the primary focus of pvp from killing...to getting gear.

 If it worked, as it does in EvE, where loot drop is random, you could have players drop a chest much as mobs do now, higher famed "named" players increase the chance for better chest, better chance for better loot. But the purpose behind the suggestion is to remove incoming gear, and gear in general from the game, there by increasing the need for dare I say it, crafters, and strengthening the economy.  The benefit is not directly to pvp, but to the game.

[Neskonlith]

Arieneth@Nagafen wrote:

too many people couldn't handle pvp back when it was hard so he made it easier and easier. and now look at it...

Each time SOE listened to "nerf scouts", open-pvp lost unique danger and risk. 

With no more gank+evac to fear, there is no longer any need for groups to be vigilant anymore. Dirges lost mythical pvp proc, so healers no longer face that peril anymore. Swashies, brigands lost unique abilites that made them dangerous to encounter in open-pvp.

NERF SCOUTS! has helped to make the open-pvp game bland since the current OP classes are now good at everything, rather than just one thing.  If classes were food, scouts would be bacon - which would explain the longstanding class envy!

Dear SOE: please please please NERF LAG!

[zyllith]

Arieneth@Nagafen wrote:

Nagafen is a lost cause. i can't believe Olihin has been able to keep his job. easily the worst thing to happen to the server we call home. rewards for zerging and handing out gear to lazy scrubs. just a couple highlights of his genius. but i can tell you how he screwed up so bad. he listened to the crybabies. too many people couldn't handle pvp back when it was hard so he made it easier and easier. and now look at it...

this is why i want an EQ2 Classic server...T7, the glory days. i won't believe for a minute they don't have backups of all the old code.

... and other comments in a similar vein ...

Umm ... there are indeed a handful of people who passionately want to go back to the "old ways", where the lazy scrubs were slaughtered, when assassins lurked at rez points ready to oneshot an unwary traveler, where squads of FP's congregated at choke points again to slaughter the lazy scrubs, etc. etc.

Unfortunately, EQ2 costs money to run each and every day and SOE isn't making EQ2 as a public service, they are doing it to, well, make money.  Each quarter the dev's need to generate revenue and by "generate revenue" that means new people coming to the game.  Without new people coming to the game, and enjoying that game, then "revenue" doesn't come in and SOE decided to put it's money elsewhere.

Those "lazy scrubs", those "crybabies", those "people who couldn't handle pvp back when it was hard" most unfortunately make up a large portion of the "generate revenue" equation.  Look back at the subscriber counts over the last few years -- those "lazy bluebie servers" are going *up* in population, the PvP servers are going down.  If you don't have enough "new revenue" then SOE will make a simple business decision to first merge servers (oh yeah, they *did* do that) and then simply pack up the whole mess and put money into things that *do* generate revenue like the bluebie servers.

I can appreciate that some people enjoy the "good old days", and if only there were new players who appreciated the subtleties of being ganked hundreds of times until they "learned to play" and could start getting new gear, who were willing to put aside families, friends, school, work and all other aspects of life to put in the 5+ hrs each day for years in PvP rather than the "casual 2-4 hr per week" then I'm sure that Olihin and the devs would gladly make PvP just as hard core as it used to be, maybe more so.

Tragically, unfortunately, with much regret, that isn't happening.  Olihin and company are trying mightly to keep PvP in the game without alienating those "lazy scrubs" and "crybabies" who "only PvP 2-4hr every week" that "generate revenue" for the game that, ultimately, is a business for SOE.  I for one continue to appreciate the work that they are doing and hope that PvP will continue to become something to look forward to for the "lazy scrubs" and "crybabies" out there rather than just another gauntlet to run on the way to content -- and the BG's and WF's do just that.

I appreciate the lost years of your lives spent amassing tons of ultra-expensive PvP gear that can now be obtained by sitting AFK on the docks in a few evenings, and recognize the personal sacrifices each of the hard core people made to become one-shot overseers. 

It's a business.  Catering to the 95% of "lazy scrubs" and "crybabies" is what pays the bills, and what ultimately will determine what Olihin can and can't do, period. 

Sorry!