So right now the server list population wise is rather lopsided in WAR.

I believe there is a reason for this.  The low population servers will stay low for a long time.  80% of the content of WAR is based on having a healthy population.   Both PvE and PvP.  The conesquences of a low population are the following:

1) Can't do Public Quest, which have the best PvE gear

2) RvR zones are empty, may not even be able to take an objective even without opposition.

3) Scenario Queues are endless

4) Factional imbalance has no control.  Control is enacted when it is at cap.  The low pop server are the most out numbered.

Now consider that last one.  On some of the Low pop servers Order is out numbered 3 to 1 or more.  Guess what that means?  No keeps for you, no T2 renown gear.  Now renown gear in T2 is not the be all end all.  In fact at lvl 18/19 I am reaplacing my gear with PvE stuff that i consider slightly better.

But there is a major problem here.  It has harder to level in PvE due to public quest stuff.  It is much much more inconvient for people to exclusibely PvP.  I do both PvE and PvP.  But the pure PvPers are getting forced to PvE for lavels and gear on order side.  And the destro side they are force to PvE to level.

Why would anyone stay on a low pop server?  Only for emotional reasons.  Further whichever faction has a significant edge will drive away the other faction making balance even more unlikely.

Mythic should have locked T2 keeps so that only 3/4 of the keep could be owned at one time until roguhly about 1 or 2 months or until the server reaches full on both sides at least once.

And they really need to figure out some way to manage their network flow for population among servers.

WAR is not like other games.  You must have a critical mass or the game is simply not much fun.  There is simply no point in wasting time on a low pop server even waiting in a queue will be better.

If this were WoW or some other game like WoW it wouldn't matter much.  The servers will most likely not fill up nicely and regularly.  People will avoid the low population ones.  In fact quese will probably get worse even with dozens of low pop servers.

The only thing i could think of is to give people free play time for rolling on a low pop server.  It is a sticky problem.  But due to reinforcing gameplay factors it is much more significant than it may intitially seem.

When your choice is wait in line or have no action you are messing with the growth of the game.

i see ur point

if theres a low population then a major guild will form so everyone can complete endgame content

thats my small theory

THere are defently alot of issues coming up with the current basic idea of PQs.  Hopefully Mythic will do abit more coding to make it work for less amount of players and make the rewards better for taking part. 

About sever population.  Yes - that is a huge problem atm.  Obviously something went horribly wrong when making the Order classes intresting enough.   Maybe the look and the animations are enough to push ppl to the dark side.  Cause lets face it - all the bad guys look alot better than order does.

Originally posted by gestalt11

Why would anyone stay on a low pop server?  Only for emotional reasons.  Further whichever faction has a significant edge will drive away the other faction making balance even more unlikely.

While the rest of your post is great, this part is complete rubbish.

A lot of players like me actively seek out the underdog for the simple reason that we like a challenge, not for some imagined emotional reason. Playing Order is most definitely a challenge, and this is just what I like :)

I'm hardly on Sylvania for emotional reasons. That's just crazy talk. lol

The faster you level on the lower pop servers the less PvP you get.  Who cares if you take all the T4 keeps if everyone is 80% of the population is in t2?

On a full server this is ok because that 20% is 100s of people.  On a low pop server its 10 people.  Evne if you reach "endgame" as an uber guild it won't be endgame.

WAR is fundamentally communal.  The population gets spread out naturally by various things.  When the population is low it is spread out so thing that nothing works except solo questing and influence grinding.

The best you can do is form a guild and organize some people.  But even then that is a band aid.  Who cares if my guild organizes enough people to take a keep?  There are not enough Order people on to defend it regularly it will almost certain just be lost when we are asleep. 

You an be as Uber as you want or whatever.  But you need Uber guilds on the othe side to have fun.  You need the rest of the faction on that server to back you up.

WAR right now is possibly popular enough to make all current low pop servers eventually hit the magic "medium" which seems to be enough to get decent action.  Although I know the attrition rate on low pop servers is quite large, because I have talked to people about it.  It will take a low pop server twice as long to grow as it normally should.

I am pretty sure that if the server I am on does not see significant growth in the next two weeks it will lose at least half its population.  Making the problem even worse.

Even people who want to stay will roll alts on other server so that they can actually play scenarios if nothing else.  They do not want to wait 2 hours for a t1 secnario.  They can wait in a queue for an hour and once they get in play a t1 secanrio over and and over rather than 2 in 3 hours.

And what happens when they need to release new servers?  They will suck unless multiple guilds move there whole hog.

Originally posted by darwa

Originally posted by gestalt11

Why would anyone stay on a low pop server?  Only for emotional reasons.  Further whichever faction has a significant edge will drive away the other faction making balance even more unlikely.

 

While the rest of your post is great, this part is complete rubbish.

A lot of players like me actively seek out the underdog for the simple reason that we like a challenge, not for some imagined emotional reason. Playing Order is most definitely a challenge, and this is just what I like :)

I'm hardly on Sylvania for emotional reasons. That's just crazy talk. lol

That is emotional.  Wanting a challenge is fundamentally emotional. 

I didn't say they wanted to be their because they are a bunch of panty waste over sensitive and needy cry babies.

There is no advantage to the low pop servers.  Even for challenge you won't get much because just finding any action at all can be hard.

I have personally run around on a low server in T1 for over an hour and never found a single destro.  And i this server is at least 2 to 1 out numbered maybe eve 3 to 1.

When you do actually find some action and if you wait long enough for the 2 people who found you to spread the word then yes you might get your emiontal need for a challenge sated.

Not very well though.  Probably should check out a medium high server if that is what you want.

Originally posted by gestalt11

 

That is emotional.  Wanting a challenge is fundamentally emotional. 

I guess we disagree on the definition of emotional.

And sorry, but the rest of that post wasn't worth quoting. You make assumptions and cite them as fact.

There's not a lot of point in me having a discussion with someone that does that.

Enjoy your game; I know I shall :)

Originally posted by Alan0n

THere are defently alot of issues coming up with the current basic idea of PQs.  Hopefully Mythic will do abit more coding to make it work for less amount of players and make the rewards better for taking part. 

About sever population.  Yes - that is a huge problem atm.  Obviously something went horribly wrong when making the Order classes intresting enough.   Maybe the look and the animations are enough to push ppl to the dark side.  Cause lets face it - all the bad guys look alot better than order does.

I do not really care too much about say 1:1.2 imbalance or whatever.

But the way mythic is enforcing this is to have caps when you hit full.

Welll factional imbalance is one of the major contributing factors to a server NOT hitting full.  So the problem works against the implented solution actually being enacted.

Combined with the other problems of a low population server.  This is simply not enough.

I think PQ work fine on a medium or higher servers.  But below that there are major major aspects of the game that simply do not work at all.

Add it all up and basically opening empty servers is pointless.  You need to somehow figure out a way to open up servers with at least a medium low population.

Because frankly WAR is a bad game on a low Pop server.  Its a great game on a Medium or higher server.

Even worse everyone on a low server knows they could be playing a great version instead.

Originally posted by darwa

Originally posted by gestalt11

 

That is emotional.  Wanting a challenge is fundamentally emotional. 

 

I guess we disagree on the definition of emotional.

And sorry, but the rest of that post wasn't worth quoting. You make assumptions and cite them as fact.

There's not a lot of point in me having a discussion with someone that does that.

Enjoy your game; I know I shall :)

Right back at you. 

Also stating my own experience,  um that is a fact.  You are not making yourself look good here.

Can you really argue that not finding anyone to fight at all is a challenge?  I play on a low pop server.  I am stating facts as well as also making arguments.  Currently there is almost no challenge in T2 on my server.  I ran around today and took points in t2 for 2.5 hours.  We ran into 3 destro guys for 3 minutes and never again.  And Destro has all our keeps.  Its not like we out number them or something.

That is a fact, bub.  A fact.  The only way its not one is if I am lying.  You want to argue it has some other consequences that is fine do so.  But do not try to act like you have it right or are more reasonable.

You are not and have shown yourself not to be so.

If you can't see that then you have a real problem.

I can argue with you. If you have a stand alone complex - then that's just you.

If you can't even find 5 more peoples to complete a PQ - that's just you again.

Who said that you will able to complete a PQ alone? or take a keep?

Full 6 ppl party is ENOUGH to complete ANY PQ in game. Sometimes we managed to complete it in 5 ppl.

Taking a keep... well you need at least 6-10 peoples to kill the Keep Lord depends of your skill. 2 Full parties should not have any problem doing it. But yes - ventrilo and yes - skilled players. That's 12 peoples... 6-12 peoples more to wipe or at least hold the opposite faction. 

Holding/defending the keep will be the problem for you always, but what a deal to take a keep then buy your gear and forget it till you need to get the gear again? 

So in the end of this... you need only one guild with 24 active players to have 4 parties for PQ's and dungeons and a warband for Keeps.

I don't see any problems with low populated servers and i don't see any Mythic's mistakes. But i see your fault in inventing non-existent "mistakes". That's just you and your un-social activities (you can't get 6 peoples to complete a PQ).

The problem with low pop servers is we simply can't compete against sheer numbers every time we've tryed to take a keep within 10-15 min were out numbered at least 2-1 or sometimes 3-1 theres just no way you can beat that kind of advantage.

Originally posted by Erindal

Taking a keep... well you need at least 6-10 peoples to kill the Keep Lord depends of your skill. 2 Full parties should not have any problem doing it. But yes - ventrilo and yes - skilled players. That's 12 peoples... 6-12 peoples more to wipe or at least hold the opposite faction. 

Is it really this easy to take a keep, that 12 players can actually capture one?  That would have been almost impossible in DAOC, even if the keep was at its lowest setting. (keeps don't have levels in WAR, do they?)

Hmm.. .disappointing to say the least, I knew WAR was easier, but didn't realize it was that easy.

As for population, the solution is simple, (although painful), cap the populations on all servers to be no more than a 60/40 ratio, and put the rest of the players into a queue.  They'll either switch sides or quit, but either way, balance will be acheived.

In a way, i think Mythic is taking a benign approach, they figure if they let the imbalance go long enough, Destro players will reroll on the order side in frustration  thereby solving the problem naturally.  Time will tell whether their plan will work however.

Originally posted by darwa

Originally posted by gestalt11

 

That is emotional.  Wanting a challenge is fundamentally emotional. 

 

I guess we disagree on the definition of emotional.

And sorry, but the rest of that post wasn't worth quoting. You make assumptions and cite them as fact.

There's not a lot of point in me having a discussion with someone that does that.

Enjoy your game; I know I shall :)

i'd love to enjoy the game.  i and a couple of friends have already left a couple of servers because we bought a pvp game and have little interest in spending most of our time pve'ing because of lack of enemies in the rvr areas and scenarios taking for ever to start.

since some assclown decided to not have official forums, it's rather a pain in the ass to try to see who all is where and how many guilds are on what faction in which server.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Erindal

Taking a keep... well you need at least 6-10 peoples to kill the Keep Lord depends of your skill. 2 Full parties should not have any problem doing it. But yes - ventrilo and yes - skilled players. That's 12 peoples... 6-12 peoples more to wipe or at least hold the opposite faction. 

 

Is it really this easy to take a keep, that 12 players can actually capture one?  That would have been almost impossible in DAOC, even if the keep was at its lowest setting. (keeps don't have levels in WAR, do they?)

Hmm.. .disappointing to say the least, I knew WAR was easier, but didn't realize it was that easy.

As for population, the solution is simple, (although painful), cap the populations on all servers to be no more than a 60/40 ratio, and put the rest of the players into a queue.  They'll either switch sides or quit, but either way, balance will be acheived.

In a way, i think Mythic is taking a benign approach, they figure if they let the imbalance go long enough, Destro players will reroll on the order side in frustration  thereby solving the problem naturally.  Time will tell whether their plan will work however.

 

 

All is not that hard that OP thinks really. My guildies were managed to take a T3 keep in 8 ppl 23-25 lvl (boosted to 28 i think and Lord / guards are 30 lvl). So i guess 6 ppl ~30-31 lvl can make it just fine.

The hard part there is defending side... If there are many and many destructions then yes... It's a problem... But heck... there are 6 T2 keeps (2 for each pairing). It's just impossible to defend all keeps in all tiers for them.

P.S.: It's not really easy from the other side :)

There will be many massive fights like 200 vs 200... or even not so balanced :) And it will be a pain for each side defend / take the keep/castle. It will be "many hours" battles :D

P.P.S: It's easy now (killing a hero mob in 6 ppl) but all may change. I remember a closed beta phase... when we needed like 24-36 people to kill a PQ stage 3 boss... It was HEvsDE phase i think. And a full party or more for a champion mob. After tons of feedback they made it easy again.

I think we all need to give this time. Given that queues are side specific and that the game has only been out a few days there will be inbalances and low populated servers. Over the coming weeks this will be rectified unless the game fails in selling boxes (which there is no sign of).

If you add a component of hard-core gaming on top of this - someone who bought the CE and has played like crazy - you will be quite alone. Just like in any other just released MMO product.

As a side note I am Rank20 and on one of the CE realms. There are short queues for both sides (so balanced number of players) and in T2 there is plenty of action and no problem whatsoever in finding players to play with. In T3 it is still a bit low but will be plenty by next week. If you move ahead of the general leveling curve of YOUR realm (depending on when the server was added) you will be lonely.

I saw the same problem as the OP first-hand, but I will add this:  Based on my experience, if I understand WAR's system correctly, you are penalized for not playing in prime time.

Anyway, upon buying the game, I rolled on a North American RP server, Ostermark.  But I quickly realized that playing at 4 AM Eastern isn't exactly the best time to encounter a high population.

So I rerolled two days later on an Oceanic server, Darklands.  Within 20 seconds of logging on Darklands for the first time, I was already at level 2 for renown, because Order had just achieved victory.  Now, I'm nearly at 4 renown on Darklands after 5 hours played, while I'm still at 2.5 renown on Ostermark for more than double that time period.

So what's the incentive for me to play on a North American server when I'm at a disadvantage when playing there?  (Besides, I'm not sure I'll stick to this game for very long, based on what I have seen so far.)

agreed... even playing on high pop servers its far from feeling you used to have in others mmo.. etc wow lotro aoc..

while some rvr happen within a guild playing without one is not an option in this game. .best guild is mass guild.. i could never said  that before.. i even flamed one mass guild.. before game launched

doing pqs.. is same as forming instance group.. apart that back in wow you used to have healthy population.. now you have 2-10 players per zone.. if you lucky .. maybe cuz im one of higher lvl.. tho thats not rly case.. 23 lvl here.. considering some dinged 40.. last friday i feel lowbie..

warhammer is good.. but could been twice better with working servers.. from this centure..

while i enjoy playing warhammer.. and probably will play for next few months.. i cannot recommend game to anyone who considering starting game maybe next week.. its already low .. after 2 weeks of game.. low zones gona go desert..

Originally posted by damian7

Originally posted by darwa

Originally posted by gestalt11

 

That is emotional.  Wanting a challenge is fundamentally emotional. 

 

I guess we disagree on the definition of emotional.

And sorry, but the rest of that post wasn't worth quoting. You make assumptions and cite them as fact.

There's not a lot of point in me having a discussion with someone that does that.

Enjoy your game; I know I shall :)

 

 

ince some assclown decided to not have official forums, it's rather a pain in the ass to try to see who all is where and how many guilds are on what faction in which server.

 

Warhammer Alliance has server forums along with many other forums.

For those people who think RvR is a bit slow and unorganized now, it is. People are leveling, looking for guilds and just doing other random crap along the way. Once a majority of the server is running around in Tier 3 zones you'll get a better idea of what is actually going to take place.

The Tier 3 Keeps will require more than just a random PuG to take assuming that keep has defenders. They're pretty darn huge with multiple Keep gates and a ton of ranged weapon placements.

Originally posted by Erindal

I can argue with you. If you have a stand alone complex - then that's just you.

If you can't even find 5 more peoples to complete a PQ - that's just you again.

Who said that you will able to complete a PQ alone? or take a keep?

Full 6 ppl party is ENOUGH to complete ANY PQ in game. Sometimes we managed to complete it in 5 ppl.

Taking a keep... well you need at least 6-10 peoples to kill the Keep Lord depends of your skill. 2 Full parties should not have any problem doing it. But yes - ventrilo and yes - skilled players. That's 12 peoples... 6-12 peoples more to wipe or at least hold the opposite faction. 

Holding/defending the keep will be the problem for you always, but what a deal to take a keep then buy your gear and forget it till you need to get the gear again? 

So in the end of this... you need only one guild with 24 active players to have 4 parties for PQ's and dungeons and a warband for Keeps.

I don't see any problems with low populated servers and i don't see any Mythic's mistakes. But i see your fault in inventing non-existent "mistakes". That's just you and your un-social activities (you can't get 6 peoples to complete a PQ).

No I can and have.  I am a founder of the largest Order guild on my server.  But I also know that 80% of the people are not.  And that they are considering leaving because of it.

Do you know how I know?  Because I talk to them.  Because I have actually put together a Warband to take a keep and there were only 5 healers in all of t2 and only 3 would help.  This will probably change as more people transfer into T2 from T1.  Those of us in higher T2 are ahead of the curve.

Because i have talked to these people therefore know a large number people do not want to do what you are saying and the it is impractical to demand it of them.

I never said it was impossible.   I said it was hard and this drives people away.  I think you have already ceded the point that all the various thing i listed above are significantly harder.

There are two major problems if we simplfy it down:

1) most everything in PvE is harder to actually do.  At off-peek hours it is actually impossible.  Doing a "diffcult" PQ when there are no healers is impossible.  Sorry that is just plain true.

2) lack of action.  This is mostly a PvP thing.  But you can literally take every point in every zone and not get any PvP.  You can log off and then destro has them all.  And they may have done so with out any opposition.  Since everyone needs sleep organizing one guild to keep things is not sufficient.  Since the population is small it is so vastly impractical to expect one guild to keep everything that it is preposterous.

PvP is not actually any harder.  Maybe a medium pop server is.  But a low pop, yo ucan easily avoid any conflict at all.  Sure if the word spreads you might be outnumber 3 to 6.  Only the PvE parts of RvR are any harder. 

This is not a matter of  "its possible if you are leet and organized and recruit like a mad man".  No gam made with that idea in mind ever succeed very well.  The whole point of WAR is to not be that way for the majority of the player base while still allowing the "leet" guilds to do there thing.

All of the mechanics meant to make the non-leets, who ware 80% of a server, have fun are heavily burdened.  And for the "leet" people they are screwed anyway.  Because many of the non-leets will eventually leave the server and they will have like one guild to fight.

You are making a very very bad assumption by the way.  You are assuming that finding 6 full people for activity is a matter of recruting.

You are wrong.  I have literally asked every single person on the server in T2 to help take a single RvR point in t2 and wound up with 4 people.

And besided when there are only 6 people on the entire server at anyone time willing to do RvR.  Do you really think that server is attractive?

This is not about what people can do.  It is about whether the majority of a server is having fun.

Like i said WAR is a very boring game on a low Pop server.  It is not an impossible game to play.  I already have a guy close  to T3 I know of 3 other people on the cusp of T3.

Guess what?  Every single one of them says the same thing.  This server is a snooze fest because of the low population.  They don't say "WAAAAAAH I can get anything done."  No people in my guild complain that getting PQs done is a pain the ass.  They don't complain they can't do them.  Most of the higher level people simply did an ass load quests anyway to level. 

Low pop is a pain in the ass with very little action.  That is it in a nutshell. 

Do you know how many T2 scenaior have popped on my server.  Zero.  There are none that I have ever heard of actually happening.  Does that sound like people are having fun?  That has nothing to do with being hard or anti-social.  I have pesonally been queued for Khaine's Embbrace for over 3 hours and never got in.  

80% of the draw of WAR is that its has action right from the get go and is easy to use with Open parties and Warbands and easu to access RvR.

Low pop undermines most of the entire draw of WAR.  Not only do I hear  anecdotal stuff from people to confirm their dissatisifaction and consideration of goign to a server that has queues in stead.  But the underlying design supports it as well.

Everything is in place to setup a rather bad negative feedback loop.  It simply does not matter how Leet a small set of people are.  The whol point is the majority of people will be driven away and therefore population will always be low. 

Low pop servers have a large portion of the fun designed into them taken out.  Therefore as many people will leave as come in.  So they will stay low unless there is so other incentive.

The people need to be skilled argument doesn't wash.  It is not practical.  Most people are not leet or skilled or organized nor do they really care to be.  The percentage of skilled players on any server or any size is always small.

If the argument is you need to be good and organized and a great rectuiter on a low pop server then you have doomed it to stay low pop.  Most people are not that and they do not need to be that to have fun on a medium or higher server.

I mean can anyone seriously claim that the majority of players will be doing that?  I do not have facts or evidence for it one way or the other.  But my experience say no.  I think most people would agree that it is not the case.

24 people being on the ball and doing stuff is simply not good enough to makea server fun.  It is good enough for you guys to take a keep or get some gear.  But that is not the point.

This problem was already stated... You're just a bit far away from the masses with your career level.

And that's true for the most MMOs out there that you are in trouble with progressing through party/warband content.

Seems like that there's no enough ppl in T2 yet. And that's all. If you have a "largest" Order guild on your server what's the problem then? Do you have 12-24 ppl in the same tier? Why don't these 12 T2 onliners make 2 parties and join the queue for scenario? If it's not going to start - no enough destruction. But i know and i'm pretty sure that it will start and you will play w/o any delay between scenarios because of many destructions in your case.

If your guildies don't want to make PQ's or 3 healers is not enough to take a Keep (heh..... it's enough really).

That's your problem.... you can't make people join the guild events and / or participate in a guild activity.

I feel sad for destruction in your case mostly.... because they have no real opposition... so they go mad and captured all that they can to gain some renown and waiting...... when the hell these Order babies are going to take the keep so we can retake it and gain 700 renown + kill some players if we're lucky.

And you just can't take a challenge :)

P.S.: you are not doomed of course - seems like that you just like to feel that you are doomed.

WAR players base is increasing by major numbers every day and it's a matter of time when some more guils will roll on your server - or destruction reroll as it was stated early.

Of course you won't see many peoples coming alone - it's just not good to play on a low pop server if you're playing solo all the way.

But you can expect guilds rolling on your server, because it's not an issue for a guild - it's an advantage - no queues - they can be the top guild and dominate in their realm.