Sense Heading - Progression Server Changes

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Roshen, Apr 29, 2016.

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  1. Roshen Brand Manager

    Hey all,

    We’re grateful for the continued support for progression servers like Ragefire, Lockjaw, and Phinigel. We’re always working to improve and update EverQuest for all of our players, and we’ve got some updates that we’re rolling out for progression servers this year. Since things will be different than what some players on Ragefire, Lockjaw, and Phinigel are expecting, we wanted to get this conversation started early and explain why the team has decided to make these changes.

    Our goal is to improve the overall player experience. In order to do so, we're going to change up how some expansions unlock on progression servers, compared to how we’ve handled this on TLP servers in the past. We’re also adding additional time between unlocks for some content on Phinigel to give us more time to build instancing for Planes of Power content.

    Phinigel Server Unlock Updates

    As many of you are aware, The Scars of Velious is scheduled to unlock on the Phinigel progression server on Wednesday, May 25, 2016.

    Normally, content unlocks every twelve weeks on Phinigel. However, it’s important for us to do Planes of Power instancing the RIGHT way on this server and build it correctly, not just for Phinigel, but for any future server that will use the same systems. Unfortunately, after scoping this out with the team, it’s become clear to us that doing this on our current schedule would negatively impact our timeline for our 2016 expansion and other updates the EverQuest team is working on this year.

    To give the team more time to build proper Planes of Power instancing, we’ll be adding time to the unlock schedule for The Shadows of Luclin and Planes of Power/Legacy of Ykesha. The period of time for each of these unlocks will be six weeks longer.

    With these changes, the updated schedule of content unlocks on Phinigel after Velious now looks like:
    • Shadows of Luclin is scheduled to unlock on Wednesday, September 28, 2016.
    • Planes of Power & Legacy of Ykesha are scheduled to unlock on Wednesday, February 1, 2017.
    Planes of Power, Legacy of Ykesha, and Lost Dungeons of Norrath Unlocks

    Once it’s time for Planes of Power to unlock on your server, Legacy of Ykesha content will unlock with it at the same time.

    On Ragefire and Lockjaw, three months after Planes of Power & Legacy of Ykesha unlocks, we’ll open up Lost Dungeons of Norrath automatically (no voting required).

    On Phinigel, twelve weeks after Planes of Power & Legacy of Ykesha unlocks, Lost Dungeons of Norrath will open to players. Gates of Discord and Omens of War will be twelve weeks after Lost Dungeons of Norrath.

    Gates of Discord and Omens of War Unlocks

    Gates of Discord is, charitably, a difficult expansion at level 65. To make this launch smoother, we’re mitigating the difficulty jump by opening Omens of War at the same time Gates of Discord unlocks on your server. By both increasing the level cap and opening more areas for players to spread out, our goal is to provide a better player experience in that era of content.

    Expansions after Omens of War

    We've been having discussions internally regarding the length of time players spend at various level caps. For example, if Dragons of Norrath, Depths of Darkhollow, and Prophecy of Ro unlock on their current schedule, players would spend a considerable period of time without a level cap increase. At the same time, we don’t want to confuse players by making too many changes to unlock dates for expansion content.

    While there’s no information to share with players at this time about unlock dates for expansions after Omens, we want to set expectations for the future of progression servers as clearly as possible. We’ll be looking at what players do in game and evaluating feedback before making additional changes to content for progression servers after Omens of War, and we’re leaning towards solutions that would result in shorter periods of time on progression servers without a level cap increase.

    We appreciate the continued support of our players for progression servers, and our team continues to work towards making these servers an awesome place to experience different eras of EverQuest’s history.
    Stash McWhalen likes this.
  2. taliefer Augur


    i understand and actually like the longer timeframes needed to make sure things work right.

    but please, no. do NOT do GoD and omens at the same time. you utterly and completly trivialize GoD by doing that.

    GoD content was already tuned down in the past, and is further tuned down by the increase of player power that still lingers even at level 65. this is NOT needed.

    GoD is a great expansion, you completely gut it by releasing omens at the same time
  3. Gilamas New Member


    This message got my full support. Do not debunk something that was already tuned and proved to work JUST right on Fippy Darkpaw...

    /Bonlgon
    Ketzerei84, Stehlik, Skipper and 8 others like this.
  4. Livie New Member


    No, just NO !
    Terrible decision. It's taking away any challenge for GoD and any pleasure in it !
  5. nightork New Member

    I utterly 100% agree with Taliefer's statement, as a member of my guild said when this was announced.

    'Can we have 8 raid days to clear this then'

    I can only guess what impact this will have on Zerkers.

    Please please please do NOT follow through with this update, and please folks if you feel the same please let your voice be heard
    Stehlik and Xanadas like this.
  6. Bashiok Crownguard Augur

    all these new members making comments has me suspicious.
    Iila and Prathun like this.
  7. -wycca Augur

    This is a horrid decision.

    PoP is a horrible expansion to keep people in for 6 months. People are nostalgic for it, but it's absolutely horrid unless you're in a raiding guild, at which point it boils down to 1) hit time asap, 2) farm time for up to 6 months, 3) alts.

    Likewise releasing OoW and GoD together is a horrid decision. GoD is probably your best expansion that people haven't gotten to experience, and you're going to throw it under the bus. If anything, release GoD and PoP at the same time.

    I won't be re-purchasing year-long subs on my accounts for sure now. This is a pretty negative experience change on a server that was supposta be a smooth 12 week release. If you couldn't keep that schedule, then why did you promise it? It's not like the dates and new expansion workloads weren't know well in advance...
  8. taliefer Augur


    well im not a new member. GoD is an expansion that has a bad reputation for being overly challenging. that was true on initial release, but it is no longer so. it has a ton of good group and raid content, and a great end expansion raid zone. it is still challenging, but not as brutal as it once was.
    Stehlik and Stazie like this.
  9. Banecrow Elder

    WHY!!! Do not push back Luclin please!!. I am just plodding along waiting till I can play a Beastlord again I do not care if you give us an extra 12 weeks in Luclin instead of just 6 weeks but do not push Luclin back please!
    Sendori and Fungal like this.
  10. Suramafisto New Member

    Will the undead bard bottleneck on Phinigel be loosened by the time OoW comes out?
  11. Thorn01 Journeyman

    The game is already stupid slow with expansion release at 3 months......
  12. Genetics New Member

    Please DO NOT push back Luclin. If you need more time for POP - okay. Many of us are absolutely burned out on kunark and velious after just having done this on Ragefire / Lockjaw prior to rolling on Phinny. We want AA's. Don't delay them.
    Sendori likes this.
  13. TowerDefense Augur

    GoD is literally the ONLY reason i play progression servers.

    It is by far the best expansion for raiding in the entire game. As taliefer said, the content has already been retuned. It has been beaten by multiple guilds in era on previous progression servers.

    The other changes im ok with, but please don't ruin GoD. Especially after 6 months of PoP when most raiders will be in full time gear by then.
    Ravengloome, 1337bwr and Your_Ad_Here like this.
  14. bodes Augur

    Your guild can stay out of OOW and just do GoD for whatever length of time you choose and get your fill of challenging content. With a little self control you can have whatever length of GoD you want.
  15. Nolrog Augur

    I agree. GoD was hard, but it makes beating it really an accomplishment. Please reconsider.
    Punchu and Xanadas like this.
  16. TL_KRONOLORD Augur

    The majority of the PoP expansion raids start to go unused after the first week or two of flagging and the signature raid which everyone will want to do is already instanced for everyone. Also, why in the world do we need to treat LDON as its own expansion when it is already very small and ran alongside PoP on past TLP servers just fine? You're really going to arbitrarily add months to the timeline so that you can instance bosses like Grummus that go nearly unused after flagging. You could literally just rachet up the spawn times of everything up to the elemental planes and avoid having to instance anything. EP god loot itself is like on par with phase 3 of time at best. This can't be serious.
  17. Redik2 Augur

    Even though GoD isn't anywhere near as hard as it used to be, if you still feel the need to make it "easier" - why not release it alongside LDoN? Keep the cap at 65 so it's still relevant and a challenge, but provide people another solution to gearing up for some of the more difficult/lesser known encounters within the GoD expansion.
    Stazie and Jenarie like this.
  18. Branntick Augur

    GoD was originally an awful expansion, but after it was tuned/balanced/fixed, it actually turned out to be a relatively incredible expansion. By releasing OoW at the same time, which has piss easy content with a very high gear standard, you would essentially be gutting everything that made GoD good post-tuning.

    Please reconsider releasing these two expansions at the same time. Otherwise GoD might as well not even exist honestly.
    Xanadas and Your_Ad_Here like this.
  19. Aurmoon Augur

    Any chance you'd be willing to decrease the wait period by a month after we beat Call of The Forsaken on Fippy? It is a non-level increase expansion with limited content compared to the earlier expansions. I'm looking forward and thinking that 3 months may be a long time to wait after all the dead time we had in VoA and will have after RoF.
  20. TowerDefense Augur

    Or, they can just release the expansions at different times. Seems like a much easier way to handle things.
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