Everquest announces New 51/50 server
May 13th 2009 03:28
MMORPG.com has an interview with Senior Game Designer Ryan Barker where they discuss the new 51/50 ruleset server. This new server will allow anyone who creates a character to instantly start at level 51 with 50 AAs.
The first thing that jumps to my mind is Dark Age of Camelot's /level command. In DAoC if you had a character on your account on any server you could create a new character and type /level and upon visiting your trainer instantly level up to 20. This was quite the reward for me, as I was constantly starting alts and burning out on the n00b content. I thought it was an excellent carrot on the stick encouraging me to level up to the end game.
Everquest's decision to create a whole server dedicated to this is fairly revolutionary. I remember the voting opportunity and I voted for it, but didn't think it would amount to anything. Apparently I was in the majority here.
I'm thinking a few things will happen here.
1) Gold sellers and powerlevelers will see a decrease in sales for their services dealing with levels 1-50.
2) Gold sellers will create new "products" aimed at getting those new level 51's quickly to 85, or better gear.
3) You'll see an overall decrease in server populations.
Without the need to grind out the early levels of the game, I think old n00b zones will become more deserted than they already are. However, I think there will be a few people who will visit them just to experience the content and lay the smack down on anything they come across. I know I'd do that for a few zones, but not likely to spend too much time doing it.
I think that the huge level grind, though tempered by the relatively quick leveling provided by Hot Zones, will create a mass surge for the 51/50 server. It has an interesting opportunity here for more people to start grouping as they won't be spread out over 51 levels. everyone will have a much smaller level spread, 51-85 instead of 1-85. The distribution of players will be less varied, and hopefully encourage more group play; an often lamented lack of by most posters on forums.
All said, I wouldn't mind the gold sellers losing business.
The first thing that jumps to my mind is Dark Age of Camelot's /level command. In DAoC if you had a character on your account on any server you could create a new character and type /level and upon visiting your trainer instantly level up to 20. This was quite the reward for me, as I was constantly starting alts and burning out on the n00b content. I thought it was an excellent carrot on the stick encouraging me to level up to the end game.
Everquest's decision to create a whole server dedicated to this is fairly revolutionary. I remember the voting opportunity and I voted for it, but didn't think it would amount to anything. Apparently I was in the majority here.
I'm thinking a few things will happen here.
1) Gold sellers and powerlevelers will see a decrease in sales for their services dealing with levels 1-50.
2) Gold sellers will create new "products" aimed at getting those new level 51's quickly to 85, or better gear.
3) You'll see an overall decrease in server populations.
Without the need to grind out the early levels of the game, I think old n00b zones will become more deserted than they already are. However, I think there will be a few people who will visit them just to experience the content and lay the smack down on anything they come across. I know I'd do that for a few zones, but not likely to spend too much time doing it.
I think that the huge level grind, though tempered by the relatively quick leveling provided by Hot Zones, will create a mass surge for the 51/50 server. It has an interesting opportunity here for more people to start grouping as they won't be spread out over 51 levels. everyone will have a much smaller level spread, 51-85 instead of 1-85. The distribution of players will be less varied, and hopefully encourage more group play; an often lamented lack of by most posters on forums.
All said, I wouldn't mind the gold sellers losing business.
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