hi all

im saying all because this actually does affect everyone reading these forums and playing this server.
i was thinking alot about our server population and was wondering about people still not joining in, even though we got so far on the rankings and are being one out of a few servers with these rates at the top.
however, fact of the matter is: people dont join/like to join a dead server thats been up for how long? 10 years? i just checked how many people were on: 23.. i counted 17 merchants, you do the rest.
people dont want to come in when they have like no one to talk to, have no one to ask about something (customs e.g.), and have themselfs then being ripped in woe by those 5 sad figures running around trying to get fun by doing a 2 vs 1 vs 1 vs 1 or something like that. not talking about our pvp "action".
i guess im one of the people for who this solution would be the toughest, who are loosing the most since ive been here for about 8 years. no one whos still active played longer than me.
im talking of a total server wipe/server reopening. i think it pretty sucks that we got to the point where its actually necessary, but if i werent thinking of its absolute importance i wouldnt be posting this for sure. id like to make our game masters seriously think this well over, just like everyone else.
you might think i should join another server then? i did. i did join alot other servers, none of them were able to satisfy me like td though. one of them got hacked by a single guy, what made the gms delete the whole server. such a thing never happened to td. there were sometimes maybe kind of.. bad vibrations (^_^) between me and the leading persons of this "constitution", i never totally lost the fun at this though. i also didnt find any other server with such balanced customs, before and after the nerf.
however, i dont know if sam and jeff got the time to do this since you got alot stuff to do (man how can one study chemistry, id get my ass raped =\), but if there is a way to fullfill this in the next time somewhen, id be thankful if everyone, players and gms, would make their minds open for this idea.
for the possibility of a positive reaction to this, id already have some suggestions for the new server/the time until its being reopened (suggestions, not claims):
- abolishment of the td-specific nerfs (except the customs ofc, i changed my mind about those and find it senseful) like dopple card, sonic blow and cart termination (?)
- announcing it greatly so people have a chance to see it; i guess also everyone should do their work and try to get people somehow here
- add new gms

thank you

P.S.: im also gonna post this on Suggestions because i think it actually fits in there.

bah .. we've been there before.

We opened a new server, which went south pretty quickly. That pretty much ruined all that was left that point.

As for a reopening. Where would the people come from ? Back in 2005 when we opened it (you hardly played 8 years on TD btw), we had a crew of about 10 people who started playing alltogether. Those won't be here this time. TD won't ever build up back to it's old strength either way. A wipe wouldn't be an option either, cause it's our policy. Only possibility that anyone would even consider, would be opening a new server, similar to TD. Then again, I don't know if Hyu would play along ...

I just started from scratch again! (more or less) ... lol i dont wana do it again

I'm like you tho..in the 3 years since i quit, i played wow for a year...then got bored of that, and started messing around on other RO servers....not gona lie, they all sucked lol...so I thought id come back here, the one that was always best, even though i didnt think id get a warm welcome (which i surprisingly did.....from everyone). and well, its still awesome, everyone is nice, has the best quests, its balanced (although a noob like me would get rocked hard in woe ofc), and has a freaking gj vendor...yes dont take the GJ vendor for granted...

so yeah...like Zyn said, i dont know how many problems a wipe would fix...one of the servers i played on in the time i mentioned above thought they would try a wipe to see if it would fix some problems...and then the server straight up died completely...

just my two cents tho

You know what, previously I thought that if someone spoke about wipe I might actually agree. But, and you know you're awesome Ziv but still, fuck you! Honestly. My old server had a bloody zeny wipe and corrupt gms led to a sever wipe which concluded in it's death. And holy shit, I -just- got 120. That happened on my old server, I took 3 months to get a wizard and in that week they announced the wipe. Now I hate wiz class all 'cause of that....
And can I tell you a secret? We've been working our bloody asses off to get update v233 out there and I'll be damned if I let someone be ignorant about all the fucking work that takes. If you want 3rd classes, visit essence and see how much they suck. If you want the new maps, get us at least 5 more capable scripters as good as Hyu and not busy and we can make it happen.. I can tell you right now, even opening a new server won't do it because we tried that and people are way too happy with the chars they have to stop playing them just for a handful of noobs. And plus, the guilds that did come wanted changes that (and I mean the close td community) no one wanted.
You can't guarantee a wipe or new sever will result in new players. Therefore both are a waste of time. This has happened plenty of times, and I'm sorry but both of you guyses and/or your guilds left resulting in massive dropouts of numbers. You guys were not there to see it so you act like this is new or something. It's happened like 4 times or something since I started. Once a year for each time I've played. Always over something stupid. And now the table has turned and we're all trying to get players. So let's not ruin a good thing with something that should only be reserved for GM's who can't deal with players or corruptness of a sever.
P.S: I know this probably sounds like a flame, but if you had any notion of how much fucking shit we're trying to do then you'd understand my anger. I do not mean for it to sound like a flame and like I said, you know you're awesome.

uhm. i was def on (and still am on) the "wipe is a bad idea"-side of the fence lol

perhaps i can script ...? i dont know what language they use, but i can learn...especially once school is dead, then ill have lotsa free time!

first off i'll start by saying that i'll be staying neutral in this entire debate, but from what i see is that ziv was not talking about wiping and starting with new things(in fact i did not see one mentioning of 3rd classes at all in this) but instead starting a wipe and bring it back to how things were back in the old days, that got people hooked back in the day. Like he said, un nerfing all the things, sonic, cart term, and uh i'm not 100% about the dopple idea but you get the point. I'm just guessing in this but i'm pretty sure he means that this wipe can be a chance for the current players to go through what got them hooked at the beginning again, and this time around there'll be more people joining and we'll be a step up from where we are now.

that in mind the whole restart is a bit of a coin flip and does depend on our community if they're willing to restart and stick with it long enough, and not include our own selfish reasons, to just do it again. It does seem to be an annoying thought, and does defy what Sam and Jeff's main promise to the server was but hey, it shouldn't be thrown out but it shouldn't be rushed.
Also a wipe wouldn't really effect the contributors effort on quests, i mean the quests will still be there, and so long as they stick with TD there shouldn't be any problems from what i see.

Not like we wouldn't stick with td's but it'd affected our work and we'd have to change a lot to make it... Ueber noob friendly and not unbalanced to the noobness? In fact, we'd have to rewrite and readd pretty much every custom and quest with a total wipe. And I really doubt Hyu has that kinda time and I know that Hyu doesn't have that kinda help. (Because I know Machi and Sun will agree with me when we say we're noob scripters and David is really busy) And sorry about the last post, uni+three hours sleep=dyslexic moments. But what unnerves me, and I really don't mean that you guys do this but it is true, is the fact that td has always had it's complainers that just don't do anything but complain. And I admit, I was one of those peoples but Rpg and me suggested contributors to Hyu and hell Machi, Sun, David and I wanted more quests so we made them. I mean, (again not directed to you guys personally) but if you want something implanted or something, either stop complaining and help, or give us a story line or how to implant it.
And I'm sorry to say that, despite that I'd stay on td no matter what, I will reject the idea of a wipe or staring over even on a td like server. 1. Because wipe's are against the morality that the gms stand by. 2. A restart would be hell on Sam and Hyu and could fail (like we all saw already). 3. Td's population is what they call an aging population. When it started we were all between 15-20 ish. Now people are getting older, getting into last years of school or uni and finding full time jobs or are married with children or so. And like myself, I honestly don't see anyone having the time to concentrate enough on restarting. And by enough I mean the amount odds effort it'd take to make the server a growing population and not an aging one... Also, the fact the effort might be wasted.
Look, someone once told me that nothing is dead or in fact can end, until the creator is done with it. Many times this has happened, and if the gms were to give up... Well, that's just out of the question atm because so many people are fighting for the server to live. Which we've kind of never really had before. And the point that comes with all of this is my favourite saying 'always account for variable change' meaning even if you really, really think this'd work, there is a chance it won't. You have to think, which is the most likely variable?

well getting back to the population, you also need to think about what we're actually loosing... we have 11,578 registered accounts here and 21,554 characters. that means we would loose 11,500 inactive acocunts and 21500 inactive characters. is that really that much of a loss? think about how important this topic is to the server and how many people replied on one day: 4, not including me. i know you just got 120, i guess thats also one point for you becoming angry. but think about the not SO low possibility of success.. think about how many people joined the low rate when it opened. well yeah it died, but that was because woe pretty much died. theres alot people looking for a new server to join, i saw myself rushing through the server lists to find a good one many times. a great announcement months before the opening should do its thing.
i also did refer to all the work thatd be to do again with a wipe/reopening and said that i dont want to get people to do stuff they got no time for or they think is unnecessary.
and yeah thanks, i know im awesome , but i still got no clue how to quest, you need the complainers though. their job is not actually to complain but to suggest, which should be a help for the server. well yeah, theres always fags, but i guess we can forget them for a moment.
and lmao blake, i thought youd be the one being all against this.

As I already stated before, a wipe of TD is out of question. It's always been a part of our policy, and I won't ever go against my word. Those people who put so much work into training their chars and getting their items together would be very disappointed to see it all gone, so scratch that idea.

The other thing you don't seem to understand is that you can't just build up a new server like that. What most people want is the new stuff, which eAthena can't provide right now. If you start a new server that's like a year behind at the beginning, no one's even gonna bother joining it. They don't know that TD qualifies with it's stability, quests or nice population, ...

I should point out, that RO in general is dying. Its not exactly drawing a huge crowd of new players. While there are a few servers with decent populations (tho they are nothing compared to a few years ago), most servers dry up quick. I am surprised TD has kept the population it has left as long as it has. At this point the problems there are, aren't even the problem. Its the game.

@sam: yeah well as i already said, from those people who still play im one of those whod be loosing the most...
@joe: i guess that might also be a reason. its a pretty old game compared to others and especially those people who like games with hawt effects n stuff more also quit it for stuff like, iunno, rappelz, wow or something. i pretty like this oldschool style though =\
i guess we needa try to get more ppl by voting and inviting then, thanks for all your attention.

Soooo..... lol@nat for thinking TD is better than essense...and actuallly leveling to 120! so like....I have a great idea... lets make an advertisement for TD somethign along the lines of:

"come join twilight destiny! the best server to make friends on! (for use as a chat program)(optional pvp and woe)<---dont do it though you'll get raped by people with 100000 mvps cards...so yehhh chat program ftw

and joe your a genius =D people get bored of RO lol...

Just announce a "Now reopening" campaign with the next update, without actually wiping the whole server.
"Of two equivalent theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one is to be preferred."
Seriously.

what? lol

LOL I think Rene is telling us to cheat the voters by saying we're reopening, despite not actually reopening.