Some Thoughts and Questions about "Shard Culture"

[SentaiLavender]

So I’ve been playing on Excelsior for the past few years, but it’s getting to a point that I solo most of the time because fewer and fewer people on that shard seem to play the game the way I do. I’m considering moving my characters over to Everlasting, but I had some questions about the “vibe” over here.

 

Does the “unofficial RP server” have more creativity? My favorite part of this game is reading other people’s bios and looking at their costumes. Used to be, there would be at least two or three people on every team whose character concept was funny, clever, or otherwise interesting. Lately it seems every team I join has more people whose names are just blatant copyright infringements, chat handle names, all-caps misspellings, or random strings of numbers/letters, instead of actual character concepts.

 

Is this shard more open to “classic,” sub-50 story missions? I rarely team on Excelsior anymore because the farm-begging in LFG is incessant, TFs are usually speedy zerg-rushes unless stated otherwise, and the few “traditional” teams are usually Incarnate-level steamrolls. Nothing against the people who enjoy this content, but I don’t get how it’s fun to sit at a door, ghost everything, or get carried through a thousand PI Council radios in a row. I used to form my own teams to run the story arcs I like, but it seems like that’s getting harder and harder to do. This week I tried on three separate evenings to form a story mission team, got a grand total of zero bites on LFG each time, and eventually just gave up.

 

Is it different over here? I was getting the sense that the “culture” of the game has shifted, but I wonder if maybe the shard culture has just solidified — Excelsior for the powergamers, speedrunners, and farmers; Everlasting for the roleplayers, altoholics, and badgers — and I’m just hanging out in the wrong place for my particular playstyle.

 

[And yes, I know server transfers are abundant, so I can check out Everlasting for myself. I’m doing so right now on one of my alts! But I thought this might be an interesting topic for the forumgoers to discuss.]

[jkwak]

On 8/16/2022 at 12:07 AM, SentaiLavender said:

Does the “unofficial RP server” have more creativity?

Definetly, yes

 

On 8/16/2022 at 12:07 AM, SentaiLavender said:

Is this shard more open to “classic,” sub-50 story missions?

i would think so, yes there are a couple of SGs and individual players who do so and many are happy joining such teams, one of our resident catgirls is regulary seen in LFG holding up signs to recruite for sub lvl 50 story missions for exampel

but dont get me wrong many still Power lvl to 50 and do such lower lvl missions by joining others or by going thru Ouro, which means places like Praetoria are still almost empty

[Crystal Dragon]

On 8/15/2022 at 6:07 PM, SentaiLavender said:

 

Does the “unofficial RP server” have more creativity?

Yes, most certainly. While we do have some players that choose to violate naming rules of the server collective, and some persist on using names that have numbers in them, some of these players do have a good reason for their choice in naming. (Though I'm inclined to still help enforce the rules whenever possible by reporting name violators and trademark abusers. And no, I don't care if they know about it.) It's not just noticeable among the players but also in the bases built on the server. What settings we lack, are created by player bases by rather talented and dedicated base builders here. I encourage you to check the Everlasting yellow pages (Base listings) to view some of them. ^_^

On 8/15/2022 at 6:07 PM, SentaiLavender said:

 

Is this shard more open to “classic,” sub-50 story missions?

I can certainly say this is actually quite encouraged. It may be harder to find teams that don't resort to farming, but many of us have played the game through and through time and time again and some of the older content can be quite stale for us, so farming is in fact a good way to boost a character up that you want to play in end game content, if you are already familiar with the play style and function of the powers chosen. I can understand how frustrating the farming demands and requests on that shard can be, personally I don't mind the farmers of the server, or the players that join their teams as long as the players are aware of their power choices and AT's function. (Newer players might want to go through those lower level content areas and missions to get the experience and better understand their build and AT choice at least I recommend it for story and mission knowledge too.)

On 8/15/2022 at 6:07 PM, SentaiLavender said:

 

Is it different over here?

I believe so. I'd bopped around on the other shards and didn't find much sociable circles to engage with, and it felt like a stark reminder of my time on Virtue when I was without a group and friends to play with. A boring and rather frustrating experience with no one to really talk to or play with. On Everlasting folks are generally a lot more friendly, tend to be more willing to offer help and suggestions for your characters build sets, power choices for side pools and even guidance with using the player market and building bases. But that's just this dragons opinion, I quite favor roleplaying servers for the more relaxed atmosphere, and the social play available. Not many shards or servers have the shard community we host here, and I'm pretty proud of having contributed to that in some small manner.

[lemming]

As someone who started playing on Everlasting a few months ago.   There are definitely more RP people.  One of my friends is way more into it when he came back, so that's where he wanted to be.

 

For my purposes, Excelsior & Everlasting are interchangeable, I can find the "same" group dynamic on both.  From your post description though, Everlasting should do you better.

 

And, I just noted this was a post from August.   How are you finding it now that you've had a month to check it out more?

[Coyotedancer]

People on Ev are, in my experience at least, a lot chattier than people on Ex or Torch (The other two shards I've spent time on-). I couldn't believe at first just how quiet Excelsior teams were after I'd gotten used to Everlasting. 'Whole taskforces done without anyone saying a word to each other in the team chat... No mention of being on a shared Discord, either. That was a pretty big difference.  

[UltraAlt]

On 8/15/2022 at 6:07 PM, SentaiLavender said:

shard culture

 

Shard culture is real.

 

I play on all the servers.

Across the all servers it seems like it's heading on 50% of the people are playing 50's at any given time. We know how a good majority of how those 50's get there.

 

I think you are going to find players that run sub-50 content on every server.

The secret is always - if you want to run a certain level content with a team, the easiest way to get people to join you is to recruit for it yourself. I say this because people have astrophobia - a fear of (the) star(s), but a large number of people are looking for a team that won't say anything but will jump (alts even) to join one.

 

There does seem to be more bios on Everlasting than on Excelsior. There are a good number on Torchbearer and Reunion as well.

(I am honestly not sure if I ever managed to get on a team or a get a team going on Indomitable)

 

There is a migration to higher population servers. But I have seen those that have migrated and stop playing. Why? They want to find more people to play with but the grass isn't always greener and when you go to a more or most populated server,  you get what comes with that territory.

 

I have characters on Excelsior, but, honestly, for a good while now, I put more time in on Reunion and have a better time there than when on Excelsior. The people on Reunion really seem to enjoy being on a team with other people and don't have a problem expressing that.

 

I always think that goes around comes around.

If you spread the environment that you want, then you are more likely to run into it in return.

[MetalSiryn]

Or people just have their friends on certain servers....

But, everlasting does have a good RP community, and there are some that will do the sub-50 arcs.  Usually for badges.  And 'usually' if you approach someone to Roleplay, and they're not busy, they'll Roleplay.  There's also a great helper community in Everlasting (usually in Chaos United)

Hope to see you around.

[Magairlín]

On 9/24/2022 at 11:37 PM, Crystal Dragon said:

Yes, most certainly. While we do have some players that choose to violate naming rules of the server collective, and some persist on using names that have numbers in them, some of these players do have a good reason for their choice in naming. (Though I'm inclined to still help enforce the rules whenever possible by reporting name violators and trademark abusers. And no, I don't care if they know about it.) 

Just to clarify for any new players, there are no server-specific naming rules, and you're absolutely allowed to use numbers or anything not barred by the code of conduct.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Magairlín