Hello there,
I’m Fedath, from Hades server, and I’m here to explain how it feels to play on a very low pop server. Sorry for my english.
Context and history of server:
Historically, this server was one the big bois with a very active community. Good competitives companies were fighting here for months (Redemption, Fury, Code B, Demise) I was part of the “Code Demise” merge company.
When the lastest round of transfert token were given Hades population was down to 300 people at peak time, mainly level 60 character.
Thanks to a very clever merge strategy, Diana’s Groves server merged into us, which brought around +100 more players at peak time. Great merge (<= this is sarcasm)
Both Fury and Redemption transfered to another server because they couldn’t win EF/WW to Code Demise (mainly because of defenders advantage in wars, but thats another topic).
The lastest compagny able to bring 50 people to the table had to move too because they had no more opponent on the server. Code Demise decided to officially stop as a company and people splits on differents servers, mainly between Barri, Vega and Dry Tree.
Current situation:
Today, the server is down to ~50 players, with 80 at peak on good days.
But in this population, most of it is new players still leveling, people that came after the token were given (thats important). You have less than 15 level 60 characters playing daily or close to that.
So what do we do on Hades? And more important, what content can’t we do:
-
Wars:
There has been 3 wars in the last 3 weeks. All of the opposed the 10 last 60 marauders of the server against 1 or 2 curious leveling player. Very entertaining. -
Invasions:
Same issue as wars, EF invasion today had 12 people in it. -
Chest run:
Forget the zerg train, if you are very lucky there will be a chest run ONCE a day with 5 people (imagine how long it takes). -
Dungeons:
You can find brave people trying to build group for Gen/Laz sometimes, too bad for them there is only 2 tanks of on server (counting me).
If I decide to join a group, I know its gonna take an hour (a real hour) to clear the dungeon because I’ll have a group full of people who finished leveling and have 480 GS, have no idea of mechanics (so they need explainations) and sadly for me, they arent fast learner/good players for most of them.
Mutations? Not sure we have 5 people with more than 600 GS here. -
OPR & PVP:
OPR doesn’t proc since 2 months. In this whole time, I have seen 2 people with PVP on, poor them. -
Farming & Crafting:
You could imagine a ghost server is the perfect place to make money, gather mats and work on your tradeskills/gear with crafting. You are wrong.
You can indeed farm raw material all day. Some raw mats are very cheap, I’m thinking about motes, low level wood/ores mainly.
You can’t process them because there is very few refining mats in TP with crazy prices (No chest run, remember?). I’m talking about 15g/ea Obsidian Flux.
Anyway, whats the point of making higher tiers mats? We can’t win invasions, and it takes almost a week to complete a townboard project.
If you are lucky, you will be able to make your daily refining CD in 5 different cities. If invasion hit the wrong station, you will not be able to make your CD for a long time.
Now you also understand that you can forget about crafting 600 gear. Chance for you to have both a station up + the buff is very low and even if thats happen, you will have to rely on your own mats because TP is empty.
Also there is no point into crafting because nobody will buy it.
Why would anyone want to play here:
Spoiler, nobody does.
- Fresh 60/Leveling players: stuck here because token were given before their character was created. They still play the game and try to get better level/GS, which astonish me because I don’t dare imagine grinding expertise in this conditions.
- 60 : Some of them are stuck here because they came here before the mass exodus, some of them lost interest in the game and just log in to see if they can do their CD today or just stop play the game. And some of them wait for locked servers to open so they could join their friends.
Me? I’m in the last category. I’m waiting for 45 days now for Barri to open, I couldn’t join the wave of people transfering before the server was locked because AGS decided thats smart to put a 500k goldcap on characters. There is no queue on Barri for a month now and peak time is around 1500 players, but still locked. No idea why.
So what do I do?
I have over 2000 hours recorded on Steam. All my tradeskills are maxed with trophies/gear, I have 500k gold + 1,5M worth in mats, my banks are full and was crazy enough to grind 300/300 at Windsward.
My gear is very good, I wont find any upgrade on the server because I could only be interested in perfect crafting. BUT, I was a slacker on mutations when it cames out.
The only thing I can do to improve my character is trying to get some gypsum and slowly work toward max GS (No OPR/Mutations, remember?). It takes me around 1h daily, or 4 painful hours if I decided to get dungeons gypsum.
Beside this daily hour, the only thing I could do is achievement and spending time helping leveling players (probably the only positive note in this post)
And trust me, I do way more Amrine/Depth/Dynasty than Genesis/Lazarus nowadays.
Achievements? Even when I consider it boring, I’m doing it because thats the only “progression” I have. Done most of it except the very stupids one like 500 hunting mission per zone and the one I can’t do here.
I truly enjoyed the game because despite the catastrophic start and dupe exploits I think the game has a very good base for getting better in the futur. I loved wars with my friends and OPR but being stuck here waiting makes me lose interest in the game a little more everyday.
Thats the same feeling for every people I talk to on Hades.
Conclusion:
I’m talking about Hades, but there is around 15 servers in EU Central that are in the same disastrous, more or less, situation.
The playerbase suffered great loss over the months, I don’t think AGS would want to loose any more player. Please take into consideration the people stuck on theses servers because for most of them, they don’t stay on their low pop servers by choice.
What I’d like to see happen:
1 - Please, open locked servers. There is no point keeping it locked once the exodus waves have stop and the population has stabilized. Why would I want to play on a new server when I could play with 50+ people I knew and fought with/against for 5 months. Why would I want to break those bonds/friendships?
2 - Be more transparent about servers transfert token giveaway (thats the most reccurent question from non 60 character on my serv) “When is next token please?”
I don’t know, you could make it like faction change, just put 2 months CD on it.
3 - The housing issue being resolved, why don’t you merge low pop server faster?
I make this topic hoping the situation will evolve positively. Feel free to share your experiences on your deadserv 
Thanks for reading.