IF the game is dying & being sold off for parts, what's the harm in doing a solid for some of the most loyal players?
beyond that... It's long past time to take this into our own hands, HC Classic style.
That is: Wargames & Scheduled World Events - coordinated through discord or in-game Groups.
Could have dungeon races: Solo or Groups of 3 ro something.
Duel tourneys : In Nagrand, in person. Unlimited or Class Specific, No gear fights, etc.
VS. Tourney's " All DK's v ALl Priest Wargame ( for Instance ) All Hunter Wargame ( sounds fair?!)
Can't think of anything else off the top of my head... Why don't you all type some cool twink activity ideas!
Maybe everyone rolls new 20's on some backwater RPPvP realm & just make our own de-facto 20's server?
Point is : Stop asking them to do things for us that we are not willing to do for ourselves.
... now, back to lurking
Story time:
Back when i started playing DCUO, there was a very prolific pvp youtuber and forum goer called Spider Sting. He kicked off this very interesting experiment called FNL, or your standard Friday Night Lights. You see, DCUO was a very P2W game ( still is ) and the pvp crowd wanted it contained for it was killing their enjoyment of the game. So, this player-started effort was a way for them to have their fun: It would be every friday night, a very good time for gaming, players would only use T1 gear which was bought with money, which allowed even F2Players to join, as the gear was lower than the 1.5k credit limit per piece so you just had to do missions for one night, and players would use the last tier leveling soda, bought with credits too instead of the p2w one ( it's a healing pot on a cd ) and only the pvp EMFH-like trinket, no utility belt usage ( UB allowed players to have more trinkets equipped ).
SS actually filmed some of the fights and they looked incredible at the first night. I remember watching the VOD with massive awe, it looked amazingly fun.
It lasted very few weeks. So like 4 weeks of healthy bracket or 8 mediocre nights tops. As teams and groups formed, players were more and more resilient against breaking those teams, even when some teams had massive experience against others. Losing players would start equipping a T2 equipment here and there, just to "get that edge". Winning players would do the same to ensure stomping. Some players would be caught having buff trinket effects and then breaking up when CC'ed, which means they were using utility belts, some players healed a lot more, and as the games "evolved", people realized that those more ego-driven of them had already given up focusing on the health of those matches because they wanted to win, no matter what. And that pretty much nailed the coffin of that experiment, as the people who needed that competition fix, were the same people that killed the only avenue they would get that fix.
It died because the limitations of the number of players involved didn't allow for a big enough player pool so you can punish them with exclusion time. Because the limitations that players have with player-made events is that they're based on trust, and most pvpers are ego-driven maniacs who can't lose a goddamn videogame match before reeeing themselves into the monitor even at the cost of their own match quality. Because there's a limit to how much health you can pour into a neglected game mode that the devs themselves gave up.
I'm not saying to give up your efforts. But i agree with Chops. A lot of the magical times of F2P were there by sheer circumstances, and we were the passengers on a very fun train. That very populated train allowed us to make friends and events, but do not forget for one minute that we did NOT guide that train. We were inside the ride, we weren't the pilot. There's a limit to how much you can bet on the goodwill of people, specially in competitive modes such as pvp, even twink pvp. And that's sadly the truth of it. I wish people were more match-to-match-minded and just had fun with it, but let's be honest, the e-peen pvp is sometimes the true pvp happening in our midst. If the devs themselves neglect the nature of the bracket, then there's very little we can do to contain the issues when they arise, and personally, i never looked forward to trying to convince twinks and 29s of all people to leave their ego at the door.
Hell, i'm fully convinced some of these personas are just 90% ego and 10% concentrated power of will.
