Ever since RoK was released, Antonia Bayle has experienced huge traffic. In my eyes, it’s a blessing. Especially since I transfered here from a fairly dead server a year ago. I love the server, I really do. Understandably, there are issues due to the high traffic. One of them revolve around the amount of items listed on our broker (since they now allow all alts to sell) and the data base handling it. As such, our broker transactions are removed for portions of each day during “peak” play time. For the past four days between 6pm EST and 10pm EST the server is pretty much un-playable. Zone times move from 30 seconds to 20-35 minutes. Log in queues are long, they’re “throttling” the people logging in, which means for some the server says it’s up, and for others it says it’s down as they try to pace it all.
I’ve kept pretty quiet about the whole ordeal. I’ve played EQ1/EQ2/WoW/VG for years now, and this isn’t exactly a surprise to me. What has been a surprise though, is people’s reaction to it. I’ve never been more sad to glance through the Antonia Bayle forums and disappointed at a core player base as I have been over the past little while.
With threads like this, and this and this I can’t help but shake my head sadly. Since when did the server develop this whole ‘us vs. them’ mentality? Since when is it ok to say “we need to get rid of all non-rp’ers because this is a rp-preferred server” – and have people agree with it? Honestly. I’ve never seen so much hostility between players. It’s not anyones fault that Antonia Bayle is a populated server. Take it from someone who knows what a barren server is like, you don’t want it. It’s not fun. I understand that troublemakers most often have the loudest voice, and they’re sure to make it heard, but how on earth can anyone hold that opinion and actually mean it? Role Play means different things to different people. No one player gets to decide what it means for anyone else. There’s all sorts of reasons why we choose this server. Be it a friend, a guild, population, an older crowd (though I use that term loosely after reading the past few posts on the forums) we’re all here to play together. Just because someone doesn’t actively participate in what one person coins as ‘role play’ doesn’t mean they’re any less deserving to be on this particular server then anyone else. After all, we all pay our monthly fees. I don’t walk around spouting thou and thee every which way, but I consider myself a moderate role player. Hard core? No, I’m not, I do attend events though when I’m in the mood to, and I do write my role play stories. Do I think anyone should be removed from the server because we have such a high population? No, of course not. That would be silly, not to mention just rude.
I do think people need to calm down though. It is always being fixed and worked on, and yes, it’s annoying and frustrating I agree. It’s also going to leave a bad taste in all new players mouths. There probably are some temporary solutions out there to appease the crowds that should be looked at before the angry throng of rp’ers and non-rp’ers alike plan a road trip to the SoE building. I miss reading the pages of recruitment posts, the planning of events, and all of the activities that make this a fantastic server to be on. We (as a server, a community) want to WELCOME people to Antonia Bayle, not shun them and scare them away with over bearing rants about how much so-and-so needs to be removed because they don’t conform to our idea of role play.
The whole situation in general has been handled badly on so many fronts. I honestly hope that it clears up in the next few days weeks, and the server can enjoy its high population without the horrible animosity that’s been brought about lately.
The official forums have been really sad for me the last couple of days. People I liked and respected have been so nasty. I’ve turned off a lot of the level channels as the sheer meaness was highly unnecessary. I’m hoping a couple of days of normal play will get AB back to the helpful and kind server I’ve been accustomed to over the last year.
there will always be a minority that yells loudly trying to stir up trouble. Most people would rather be silent if they are not attacking them directly. Even if you are not the target, you have to make your voice be heard even if you are not the target if you know it is wrong. AB is a good place with good people and it sadens me that a few are making it look like a big issue on the server. There are so few that want to cause the hostility to get their way, while the lag is there so they can gather a mob behind them, but they have a very loud voice if no one stands up to them.
A new server, if released, would be so fantastic, I’d jump on over. Maybe they would make it to where you wouldn’t be able to xfer chars over there. I’d like that even more. Not sure how some of you would like that or not. I’ve heard of your issues on AB and I feel sorry for you guys. I am in hopes they resolve your issues soon!
Whatever the situation or rules, a new server would be an announcement that the game was growing again. You’re right, of course — this burst is short-term while people level to 80 — but I so want the game to be growing.
Would be nice – as long as they allowed no character transfers to the server for some time. Other wise the market would be out of wack right away, and people would be going there for the wrong reasons. I actually like the way WoW #1. Locks a server from new characters after it’s become over populated (those who already have characters there are fine) and #2. Starts up new servers frequently (allowing people to transfer there at a later date, 4-5 months after the server has been up). On the down side, aside from this short sporadic jump in population that’s been brought on by the expansion, I’m not sure that long-term there’s any reason for it. Give it 2-3 months, and the populations will decline again.
Maybe they’ll make a new server?
That would be so nice….!
Nope, I transfered from Lucan D’Lere. I did spend 1 day on Kithicor, choosing where to go next, but Kithicor was exceptionally rude the one day I was there, if 60-69 was any indication. So I decided a role play server was far more suited to what I was looking for (and I haven’t looked back since).
didn’t you transfer form my server (kithicor). i don’t think kitchior dead. every day this week we’ve had about 7kp up, and 2-4 fens up. that about 800-1200 level 70’s playing close to peak time…
That’s something I’ve never really been exposed to on the pvp server. We welcome more fodder!
As for AB: Yeah. I had a character there. But due to the reasons you list I deleted it and played my characters on Crushbone instead. The whole thing makes me very annoyed. We “just” had server mergers for crying out loud!
It is indeed sad and disheartening when the uglier side of MMO life rears its head. This perticular argument has been raging since the first RP server in the first MMO came online; and won’t be dealt with to everyone’s satisfaction any time soon. Too many opinions and too many people who think they’re right that constantly clash. I hate to say ignore it… But, sometimes you have to do just that. Let them be and give them space to get it out of their systems. As with every time in the past that this has come up, it will die down, life will go on, and most people will hold hands and sing around the camp fire again. For a time. Then we’ll start again. In the end, I can only hope that this cycle results in more good times then bad. And when I look back at my time in EQ2, I will choose to see those happy memories, not immature children bickering about trivial issues. It won’t be long until the server is back to normal. =)
At least the server being down, or somewhat down, or down-only-for-me gives me time to catch up on the thousand over unread stuff in my RSS Reader which I completely ignored since RoK came out.