SoD Purple Server?

Vitali

Dalayan Master
With the success of P99 Green/Teal, WoW Classic, and the various EQ progression servers I can't help but think there would be some cool potential for a fresh Shards of Dalaya server too.

I know it's been tossed around in the past, discussions about just wiping the server and starting fresh, making changes if it ever were to happen, etc etc. The biggest reluctance to do that was the loss of progress.

Is there a way we could just start a second server? Take the existing code, remove player data, and send it out.
I don't really have anything to add aside from that. Add a cool color to the name. Shards of Dalaya Purple server.

I have been playing P99 Green since it launched and almost the entire time I play I think to myself "Man, look at all these people. I wish SoD had a fresh start to play from. I bet a lot of people would come back to play. New people would be less intimidated by the mountain of content too if they had the same footing as anyone else."
 
Wow. What a great idea. I so glad i found this post with no coercion what so ever.

Real talk tho, a fresh start Sod server would be great, there is so much early content that was added late in the server life that never really got to shine, could revitalize the server population. People love starting things over for that nostalgia high!
 
this would be cool, i'd like to see what the bare min required for getting content dead would be. Would definitely require some tweaks to certain quests, xp, time sinks.

Fun idea SoD but streamlined limited time thing, drop rates on everything doubled or tippled(raid mobs 6man opus tomes cash money, named/respawn rate increased same as above, xp boosted to match, remove a few bottlenecks to key quests, first time thaz 4 dies starts a clock to end the server after x amount of time.

The above will never happen but boy would it be fun.
 
As a new-ish player I would love to play on a fresh server. Been thinking about trying P99 green/teal but from the little bit of P99 I played years ago I really prefer SoD. Also I just want to knock you all down to my level for a little while.
 
I'd say its worth a try to see if folks enjoy it.

For what it's worth tho getting into the starting raid game on existing SoD is smoother now with Hate.

(edit) okay i thought about this and i think there are a few things that could help smooth over new server starting. I made a new character in july and i noticed that there's definitely a few things that are super obnoxious to "catch up on" that should/could be smoothed out with quests and make new player or restarting easier. I may make a post about that later outside this thread since it isn't the main subject.
 
Last edited:
As a new-ish player I would love to play on a fresh server. Been thinking about trying P99 green/teal but from the little bit of P99 I played years ago I really prefer SoD. Also I just want to knock you all down to my level for a little while.

Yeah playing P99 green has been fun, but I just like SoD as a game more than vanilla EQ. Would be nice to have a population like P99 honestly.
 
I've never made it above level 40 on this server but love it. I get burnt out every time b/c i can never find anyone to group with. If you guys dropped a fresh server, I'd play and attempt to bring over my guildies and friends from p2002.
 
It's been discussed before, but the main argument against it (and a valid one) is that with the population already so low, it might have the opposite effect of splitting that minimal population in two without bringing in anyone new, and thus killing off the server for good. I don't think it's worth taking the risk, especially since a second server would be a lot of effort to upkeep and moderate. I am all for a server wipe personally (to give newer players a chance to properly experience the game from scratch), but I would make a pretty confident guess that not everyone else is on-board with losing all of the characters they put years and years of effort into.
 
I think the OP was suggesting that the current server would be wiped and closed down. Under that premise there wouldn't be a split of the population. You would have to consider how many of your retired playerbase may be interested in coming back if everything got a fresh start. Vitali also mentioned a marketing push, which could have a significant effect in attracting new players who are (A) burnt out on p99 for endgame or culture reasons or (B) progressed past endgame on their current emu (p2002, etc.)
Please don't get the impression that I think i know what's best for you all (I don't). I'm new here. But it's pretty clear that this wonderful server will atrophy and die unless somebody does something big to pump some life back into it.
In my opinion, SOD is amazing. It's unlike any EMU I've ever played. The quests and stories somehow make me feel like a badass even at < level 10! I've honestly never had fun with the "journey" of everquest until I tried this server out.
 
Last edited:
I've honestly never had fun with the "journey" of everquest until I tried this server out.

I feel like this is how 90% of new players feel and underscores the satisfaction a lot of old timers have on this server and yet retention is bad. When the devs/GMs figure out how to improve on the latter (more carrots and less sticks imo) the population baseline should rise again. This game is just flat out a better experience than p99, those players should be playing here. It's more than nostalgia dollars; why aren't they?
 
You have a 20 year old game that never had a huge following. People play P99 due to their experience in 1998-2004 being some of their best memories, aka Nostalgia.

SoD is not quite that. It is a unique game at this point. A lot of features are intimidating for new players. The intro experience on SoD was never the best, though I did see them making updates recently. Then there is an issue where the top players who have 4+ years of played experience are a majority of the playerbase.

There are just too many things going against SoD. It is possible a progression server could stir up some new players, but that would be way too much work. A fresh wipe will quickly turn into the same divide between top end players and non-top end players. A model that could work is a fresh server that eventually merges into the main server with extra rewards... but that is also a lot of work.

If someone REALLY wanted to stir up new players, it would be making the intro experience better, advertising, then if you really wanted to give it a fresh feel start a 'ladder' server for new people. Pretty sure none of that will happen :)
 
Last edited:
If a new server becomes the new "Vision" I wouldn't mind seeing a way to either prestige or ascend your characters, starts your character all over with blank inventory for a minor bump in stats or abilities. That mechanic in games usually keeps me around longer once I hit a wall.
 
I like the idea of a new SoD server, but there are some systemic problems that left unaddressed would just make the whole exercise a more rapid repeat of the last 12 years. Probably too much work and too many people opposed to change for that to happen.

What about shrouding? That seems like a reasonable way to instantly make the low end game more appealing. The shrouding system could even have a currency/vendor attached to it that gives a solution/alternative to whatever the endgame players base is most jaded about in 2020. Though there would have to be some kind of mechanic to prevent people from playing with themselves just boxing alts to farm shroud points (or whatever). Lots of playing with themselves here. It's a real problem- all the playing with yourself.
 
Well, would come back if there was a decent player base and enough people playing on Euro time. One thing that Final Fantasy has is a system where people can play in a group to do levelling dungeons and the range of the group can be between 15 and 80 (max lvl atm). These dungeons are instanced and if say it is a lvl 25 dungeon then anyone can play in the range 25-80 and their stats are adjusted to lvl 25 and they get xp in the dungeon relative to their unadjusted level. For people at max level they get currency redeemable for the best non-raid/non-extreme gear. This means that noobs can play with veterans and the vets still get something out of it.
 
Back
Top Bottom