So for some reason, when reading over a lot of these pages, all I can see is people suggesting a rule set server for this and that. So I must contest this.
I don't understand why we would need 100 different rule set servers. Let's take this auction house post for instance. I understand not everyone is going to agree on things. Such as making an auction house, or no action house at all you gotta hawk your own crap, and then the people who want the bazaar like EQ1 had when luclin came out.
So let's break all of this down into the sweet brass tax. Each system has a flaw, it's our job to meet in the middle. So let's say our starting population is 10,000 players, i know, it's a rather small number, but i am doing this to simply show the numbers.
We start off with 10k people, 1/3 want an auction house, 1/3 want the EQ1 system, and 1/3 want no auction house and to hawk their own crap on their own. This is what the different ruleset server will do.
You go from 10k, on down to 3.3k for each server, and you thought 10k was a small number, but wait, it's not going to end there. Because we all got what we wanted with the AH business, we all now want to get what we want with everything else, so now, the next issue I saw was a Hardcore server with higher difficulty, and a non hardcore server with lower difficulty, so let's break this down EVEN MORE.
Now we got 10k players to start.
3.3k that want an AH
3.3k that want EQ1 system
3.3k that want no AHor EQ1 system.
Now half of that wants to be on it's own difficulty server.
so now we are at roughly:
1.6k Harcore with AH
1.6k Non hardcore with AH
1.6k Hardcore EQ1 system
1.6k Non hardcore EQ1 system
1.6k Hardcore hawk your own crap
1.6k non hardcore hawk your own crap
And it's only going to get smaller and smaller because everyone is trying to call for these different ruleset servers.
This is my simple suggestion. Let's become a community. Let's work together on these problems that you actually think are problems. Don't seperate us all because someone wants an AH on a Hardcore server, in order to be a community we must work together.
So before anyone else thinks, let's just have a ruleset server for what I want, and seperate the community, instead let's work together, believe it or not we can meet in middle ground and chances are if 10k people are in agreeance with one thing the devs won't have a choice but to look at it, and tweak it of course to match the system they want. But I highly doubt they are going to take 6 different things from 10k different people and try to implement it.
TL/DR: No more of these rule set server reccomendations. Let's keep the rule sets at PvP, PvE and RP. And instead let's work together as a community to help them design the system they want, because they will be more willing to listen to a whole community, and not a broken one. We have to pull together, we may have to sacrifice something that we like just to get something we REALLY want. And I promise they will pay attention if we work together.
Thank you for reading, and I hope this changes some people's minds on these alternate ruleset server suggestions. Love you all, and I love the Pantheon team for finally bringing us the most promising MMO of the last decade! Let's keep up the good work, and stick together.
I do believe there should be a COUPLE different rulesets, the 3 I believe you cant really do without would be a pvp, a regular lovy dovy everybody can group and get along, and one where you have to stick to your faction/class role, aka roleplaying (hate to say it but wow-ish)
I agree the idea of making a whole server based on something like an auction house is rediculous, agree with one or the other. As far as a hardcore server, the pvp server was pretty much hardcore in eq, they could even loot your belongings lol, I think thats plenty hardcore.
Obviously at least one "normal" server. I'm not sure if they have committed to doing more than considering others depending on the level of interest as we get into alpha and beta. If they do roleplaying seems likely for a game with this kind of emphasis and quite likely pvp.
Beyond that I think the two main driving forces, that we probably don't understand yet are (1) the statements that their servers will be "in the cloud" and can be rolled on and off very quickly and easily and (2) that they say they will be working very actively to have server population at or near what they consider ideal for the content and community. Opening new servers as needed if population looks like it is getting too high.
Quite likely this has no real implication for rulesets - if they want 5,000 players (a number made up totally at random) and look as if they are getting 10,000 they will open a second server with the same ruleset. But there is the intriguing possibility that where ruleset variations require essentially no programming they could open overflow servers with slightly different rulesets. I don't expect this but it isn't inconceivable e.g. one "normal" server and one "tough" server where xp is a bit lower or drops a bit less generous. Or one server where they test the use of instances a bit to allow limited amounts of content to be available to all without possibility of being permacamped.
I don't think, deep down, many people actually want different rule sets. Instead what I think we see more than a little of is folks who have been, in their minds, building a game with classic mmorpg aspects, like this one, for a long time. Folks who were part of some older more challenging games, who, after the collapse of said games (or after their ruination) moved on and tried some of these more modern, easier, more convenient, dumbed down, simpli... you get the idea. They've played these more modern games and felt the lack of connection to the game, lack of connection to the charecter, lack of any sense of real accomplishment. After (or while) playing those games they've thought, "Man, having this feature really makes this part too easy, it would be great if you had some game that......" And designed what features they'd want to include, and what features they wouldn't.
So now that someone has come along and said that they're going to build a return to that classic feel, we're all holding tight to the ideas and thoughts we've had for all these many years. We don't actually want to be spread across 437 different ruleset servers, we just have trouble letting go of those ideas, and bending to accomodate some of the other folks who have been pining away just as long and hard as we have. We just all need to remember that we're here for something we love, and maybe we all love it slightly differently, and have some different opinions how how to make mmos great again (heh... sorry, sorry), but in the end we're all just here because we're passionate for the game.
We already have several threads on this, please continue using them instead of creating new threads as starting duplicate thread sis against forum guidelines.
Type "Server" into the search function and it will reveal 5 pages of threads, some of which directly relate to this discussion, so for that reason, I will go ahead and close this down. We have also been very clear on our stance for rule-sets and breaking the community up, which is not something we want to do unless necessary.