heh...
#2 is pointless busy work that stretches the devs time further. it's more offensive to that the first suggestion.
The issue you bring up that's important is the roughness of playing without donating. It's a solid point, and here's some real counter arguments to that point:
1. ) FWP is vital for t5/t6/Eon farming. It is. But if you think outside the box there are ways around it. People farm t5 for essences or kill credits all the time and have no issues inviting extras along. If you say 'i don't play this game to sit at zone in and have someone do the work for me', then kill some effing corals, you slacker!
Join a guild. Like joining a love commune with dudes with hot wives, there is always an alternative to being a viable financial sound member of society yourself. I've repopped a ton of anguish/abyss instances for guildies, joining a guild with ppl who have fwp's is the next best thing to having your own.
EONs can be bought, or if you've joined a guild, instances (even without repops) are essentially doubling or tripling your chances to get named eon mobs.
2. ) Fastest run speed. It's 5 credits, can buy that with like 3.5 mil plat. done.
3. ) Group Levitate. Air elemental disguises are free, just farm up a buncha illusion cards while farming v1 charms on ldon 6. done and done.
4. ) Group COH. Make a mage. That will help for most tiers. Some don't allow COH. Oh well. It's a beautiful convenience.. but just that, a convenience.
5. ) Mass Rez. Don't die. Or just hold a couple cheerleader toons back. You get full rez on gloves starting in t3 anyways for all classes. Never owned this one, never wished i had it.
6. ) Group Cure. There's these things called hero stones.. they drop in all tiers now. Thank Hate for that. They are useful, and plentiful. Help you not get hit by spells as badly. There's also these things called paladins. They cure groups by swinging a sword. It's really neat. Another reward item i've never owned.
7. ) 98% of the rest of reward items. Are cheaper bought from players, even using ez credits. My first purchases first time i donated were a fire V and Ninja V. ugh, don't remind me. The only other thing i've ever bought was final t5 kill credits. Hate finished a dungeon today that assure you are far less likely to actually need to do that.
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As for your worry we are having incredible difficulty attracting new players to a 15 year old elf-simulator, it's just par for the course. Other games out there being released every day, and people at the baskin robbins internet MMORPG store aren't generally keen to choose this particular flavor. And there's a rough learning curve just getting the client and getting it set up.
The most amusing part is a lot of us would not be here if it wasnt for p99. Whats more amusing than that is MOST of the ppl there would not have found out about p99 if it wasnt for eqclassic, a venture that gained steam being attached to eq nostalgia vids on youtube.
Sadly that project became vaporware the second Sony told Yeahlight 'wow, you did a whole lot of hard work backwards engineering a game designed to appeal to the consumer base that basically launched our online gaming empire.. But umm.. no, we'll do nothing to support it and refuse to give you our blessing to even bring the emulated game out in even a non-profit situation'..
So yeah, I fully trust in our staff to make us happy. I have zero faith in them to reinvent the wheel and make this 15 year old emulated game suddenly the hottest thing in gaming in regards to mass appeal. They spend the time they can tinkering and generating new content and fixing old issues, with minimal thanks and support from us. It's a miracle they do it at all.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for calling them out and warning them of the imminent mass migration to whack moss snakes on p99 because loot doesnt drop here daily like its welfare christmas. It's about time they f*cking knew that. /rolleyes.
