I anticipate problems as always.

The “LFG” problem is only the emergent problem of a bigger one called “mudflation”. One of my favourite topics recently. If you follow that forum thread to its second page you’ll read about its true nature.

This thread, instead, is about the visible tip of the iceberg:

The server population issue really needs to be addressed or I may never make it to DoF. For the last few weeks I’ve been randomly sampling who’s LFG, especially around primetime (8-10pm). The results are pretty sad, last night in my level range (mid to high 30’s) there was a whopping three people looking for a group, one tank, and two scouts. Now I’m sure we would have had a jolly old time grouped up and getting our asses handed to us, but I’d rather watch TV than get fubar’d. And yeah I know about all the wonderful “solo instanced” zones, gimme a break you can only do that stuff for so long until it gets tedious.

But that’s just one example, yeah there were three people in my level range LFG last night, but I was lucky! There were only 9 people total on the whole server (Unrest) looking for a group! how in the hell can a US server only have 9 people looking for a group at any hour much less 9pm, Sony are you kidding me? Is this some demented way to make sure leveling takes a long time and you’ll get more of our subscription dollars? I really hope not, but if so it’ll never work, at least not with me. And no this wasn’t just one days worth of sampling, I’ve been looking at this closely for over two weeks, it’s kind of hard not to when you’re… LFG.

Look I know it’s embarrassing to have such light server loads with a game you had pegged to be your MMORPG cash cow for years to come, especially when the game is only what 9 or 10 months old? But this isn’t my fault, hey I could be off playing WoW or just biding my time until Vanguard comes out, but I actually like eq2 and really want to play it. However with a handful of people to group with at any given time, it just isn’t very feasible.

Like I said I know this must be embarrassing, but surely you guys can come up with some clever way of getting the people that are playing, playing together instead of staring at an almost empty LFG window. How about making some of the zones that cater to those most in need of similarly leveled players, cross server instanced? i.e if you do a sample and find that lvls 34-40 are consistently having a hard time finding groups, pick a few zones that would benefit those level ranges and cross server enable them, that way you don’t take it on the chin from everyone saying “see I told you it was no good, they’re shutting down servers” but at the same time you actually help your subscribers, you do want to help your subscribers right?

I don’t know if that would even work, some would say it might mess up the economy if those players traded items, you could disallow coin trade between players from different servers to keep the precious economy balanced, but do something or you’ll lose yet another player to “something else”.

/rant off

Wait I thought of another way to say it. Why run a game that requires grouping for many of the encounters (you designed), only to deny your subscriber base adequate numbers of other payers to group with?

Ok now really /rant off

(From Corpnews)

Matrix Online is already at that point. If you want, come to F13 to discuss about fancy lifecycles.