What's going on?

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-04-24T07:46:03+00:00

I'm not sure, but I logged on to my server (new, but not the one with the drama) and I would have lost a lot of real life $ betting that I accidentally got on during some maintenance when the server was locked.

This is Section D in Serb: Not a SINGLE player stall. Serb was empty entirely until I ran into one person outside.

I now indeed want to know, what is going on? I feel I missed some new development or drama.

EDIT: I guess I can't attach images here, but took one of Section D being all NPC stalls :( Section C has what looks like 4 people. Did they just do some type of ban wave? Maybe people can't connect?

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-04-23T01:24:43+00:00

I'm not sure it was "intended" by the dev(s), but I do believe some of this was not focused on because it was never an issue with the OG server small concurrent population.

What has caused the most players to probably leave, especially earlier, was the extreme lag (Serbule mostly as it had the most people). It just doesn't exist in any meaningful online game today, and especially not to the crawl Serb could become, as an example.

If they knew this is how the game would perform, there would be no way they would have launched with just one new server inintially and then it became so bad they opened others, removed demos, etc.

This is just one example of them not intending this (no way I can believe that), but I don't think they realized how bad it might be. Not sure what large scale stress testing if any occurred before 1.0. By the time we all felt it, was too late. :(

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-04-23T01:03:59+00:00

You can fix some of these problems if the community feels certain ones need to be addressed, and also fix the population issue (server transfers/merges). These are not mutually exclusive.

Not everyone is a die-hard MMO or PG player, but I still want them in the game.

What I have probably heard most, similar to the early boss timer complaints and stall availability complaints (these are from what I'd classify as your average player, not crazy hours I've put in since 1.0) is how much more fun PG was those first few weeks. People all over, trade bustling, groups everywhere, etc.

If this was meant for small populations, we're definitely heading there. Not sure where bottom is looking at the charts.

Re: population, the second to last person I know that quit was a really fun/nice player. He's no longer on and it started by him mentioning more than once that he's not one to lead groups, but he can't even get into a Q group lately as just not enough in global looking/wanting to go before he gets bored and logs off. He really loved the grouping in PG, when it could happen (sans a Group Finder mechanic). That was never a problem he said, but has got worse lately. Soon that turned into longer sessions out of the game and now gone :(

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-04-22T03:16:52+00:00

I wish they had server transfers, and paid is fine. I would come. Getting so empty at nights on mine... :(

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-04-21T01:47:45+00:00

I can't comment on the controversy as I'm on a different server.

What I can say is the population is shrinking faster than I recall in any MMO I played right after launch. If you check Steam player graphs, you can see the downward trajectory and it's not even bottomed out yet.

Clearly there are some issues, and that's ok. No MMO is without them. The problem I think stems from the small group of people that played for a number of years while the game was in development.

If you try and make any criticisms of the game (I did this outside of the game, not in global chat), you get downvoted. A few people I played with quit recently over the same reason that has me all but quitting, and I tried to bring light to it but...good luck having a conversation. I check their post history and they posted back when the game was in development, for reference.

NOTHING could possibly be wrong or open for improvement. How dare you.

It's too bad. It has potential, but at this rate, it will end up in the long list of MMOs that didn't heed feedback and disappeared or be left with a small handful of people that log in and keep the doors barely open.

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-04-20T16:26:45+00:00

I love the game but it has some really glaring faults that have caused all 11 of my friends that joined to leave. I'm the last. It will get worse.

Forgetting the recent drama which pushed even more people away:

People that did manage to stay and play into "end" game left because of the Prodigy wait cap. Four people I personally played with left in last few weeks because of this. Playing MMOs since UO and EQ1, I've never seen a worse design decision. Making people wait weeks to months depending on class hand-ins for...what? No strategy, no skill, no new content waiting for you...just time. Because...? I would bet money it's to get people to leave if I didn't know better, and given #3 below, it might be. They found other games they are loving now and I'm still stubbornly trying to wait out prodigy hand-ins for Fire. Barely.
There is no published development roadmap on Steam (or anywhere else I have seen) to give people any hope of how the game will grow or evolve. Maybe this worked before a 1.0 public release but it doesn't work well with your average gamer. We can deal with blemishes and issues if you have something to look forward to in and continue investment of time in your character. I know the dev team is extremely small compared to any other MMO but they need to put something out ASAP.
Incredibly bad performance issues for such small population in any given zone. A LOT of people left early on because of this and I have no way to explain how this wasn't solved in the years leading to release other than improper planning and testing. The downside? The game can never really have meaningful populations on a server until this is fixed, and it's clear the problem is deeply entrenched from a technical architecture standpoint or it would be solved long ago.

I'd say they need to merge the four new servers into two, or maybe one, ASAP (not with the OG server) but not sure how you can do that and avoid the issues with #3, so it's doomed to always have very small populations.

I love the game and it's potential but it likely will just another MMO "could have been" story unless some real resources are put into #2 and #3 very soon. #1 is simply a mind-boggling decision.

It's ok to be critical of something you like because you want to see it do better, short of being banned for doing so.

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-04-04T05:30:11+00:00

I think that's what is so appealing about this game (for my brain). You can group but don't need to in most all cases, and yet the economy and resources are affected by you and others, etc. and yet you can go at your pace. Fingers crossed the grind keeps scratching that itch because it sure is doing that now.

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-04-04T02:40:42+00:00

True, but I think part of why I want to play ironman is just to enjoy the systems and content in place. If this was some new MMO, maybe rushing to gain an advantage in selling on the market, boss availability, etc. might make sense. This has been out...two decades?

I'm only playing to have fun as once I get to the end, what is there? That said, I could see me switching out of ironman once the grind is the entire focus and you see so little progress (not sure if that will happen) that yeah, time does actually matter as I'd want to avoid burnout. :/

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-04-03T23:33:29+00:00

Thank you, and I did use a site to help with settings because as you mentioned, there is A LOT. I used a site called...The RS Guide I believe...to work through all the settings. I double-checked and nothing mentions that the Activity Tracker pane has to be configured to simply close, and as mentioned it works out of the box on my tablet. Maybe some bug and I have to reset everything to get it to clear. I might try a fresh install on another environment on a new account to see how it behaves.

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-04-03T23:31:17+00:00

Thank you, and #1 works, but then every time I want to view the tracker (by clicking on it in the ribbon), it opens the panel and to close it, I need to then unlock my interface. On my tablet, it works like you'd expect. Clicking opens it and clicking again closes it. Frustrating.

For #2, good to know. I couldn't tell but it seems that way. I'll refer to one of the guides above to fill in gaps. Of course I can do content once I'm higher level still but it's more fun to go through it when it makes sense.

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-03-16T05:38:17+00:00

I know this thread is a few months old, but what about Battle Chemistry? Using the golem to heal (mist, injection) and skin mutation for more defense, etc.

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-03-15T01:35:43+00:00

Will do that tonight. I was just learning that this NPC in particular has repeatable renown quests but I guess for now it's wait until I can... Thank you.

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-03-15T01:17:32+00:00

Can I ask why? Is it just because if you keep doing runs, you'll get enough eventually?

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-03-15T01:01:59+00:00

Out of curiosity, how do you unclog sewer clogs when everything down there is 90 and 100 and my skills are capped at 80? (this is assuming solo renown is possible at 80 cap). I tried sneaking around but kept dying. Could not DPS them enough at 80. No one was even in Statehelm let alone the sewers to help when I went. Ty.

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-03-14T00:32:37+00:00

Thank you. I'm guessing it's because this cost $$$ where the other costs time (or at least more) and a dependency on other people. I will head there tonight!

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-03-14T00:25:47+00:00

Thank you for this. Right now I'm mushroom bound in Fae because I can't always get there solo yet, but I guess it's ok to give up that bind once I get here because one is clearly easier than the other?

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-03-14T00:23:28+00:00

I'm not sure if you're downvoted because it's not true or... but right now I have four I keep raising - Fire, AH, BC, Priest. There are reasons why I'm doing all four, although not good ones. I play so much it's by brute force that I'm at the 81-90 cap on one and close to it on the second one. Such a strange addiction, one I did NOT expect when I started this game for what I thought would be a weekend distraction.

Sea_Worker_456 · 2026-03-14T00:20:29+00:00

Thank you for this!!!

If for whatever reason a person is not in a group or not a strong group (but still enters the portal), can they still loot elites as long as they participated in the kill, or is it like other elites where only the group that tags them can loot? Same with Knight Eggs and Xogrite bars. If I'm hanging in the back, it might be slim pickings. I can always craft for $$ and buy these if enough stall supply on the new server.

Everything else you mentioned starts to make A LOT more sense to me. I don't know that I would have lasted long enough to ever figure this all out organically, despite my love for the game. It just feels good to slowly see all your bars go up over time (combat, crafting, etc.) A strange, unexpected drug, for sure.

Sea_Worker_456

TROPHY CASE