DBG Make an Expansion of Original EQ

Live servers are dead. If they want my money they better start thinking about new content for the era's I'm interested in playing. More lvl 50-60 dungeons, yes please.

I think you have to look at the "unifinished bits" like that zoneline off Lake Rathe, dead end hallways in Najena and so on.

You make the new zone in the style of the era it is being added onto. You make it level-useful in the era you are adding it to (so the "Mages Dormitory" off of Najena would be a level 45-50 zone as that is what classic could use more of, whereas the "Great Lunar Rift" would be a level 60 Luclin zone). And you also flag a revamp of the new zone somewhere in the 85+ game of live, as that is basically the "new tutorial" leveling path of EQ. So the Mages Dormitory could revamp to 85-90 circa TBM while "Rathe Beach" could be 90-95 circa TBM.

By the time you infill to Luclin you will have made at least a dozen new zones that benefit live and progression. You do this is catch-up/mid-cycle work outside of the new live expac.


Along these lines, the new live expacs should continue to obsolete older versions of zones. Nostalgia for what is gone hold power. Example: revamp all of Taelosia with a Norrathian crusade against Discord. Reuse the zone geometry but it's a clean slate to redo... just provide logical alternatives for things (like epic quests) that get caught in the wash.

You can prove that live servers are dead exactly how? Your request reveals the flaw in your logic, you admit that TLP will always wither away just by asking that they create an expansion that's new but really not new. Now in a way you have a point because EoK zones were full and still are full on live but you need to be 105 to play in them. Some people on live servers complain about the recycled zones in fact and here we have people like you begging.

It would be pretty cool to have them go through each expansion and release it in a "complete" form. Adding quests, content and zones that were skipped due to time, development or financial constraints originally. If this were approached as an "expansion" cycle and given the time and resources as such they could also do things like prescript all the old GM events to fire off on certain intervals. Undead in Qeynos Hills, Werewolves in CL, Plague in the Karanas, Cazic Thule in Lake of Ill Omen etc.

They recently updated some kunark quests

I could see them finish up unfinished and abandoned quest-lines, but I doubt they want to "fork" EQ in 2 different directions, the reason why TLP's are cost effective is because they already have finished expansions ready.

I think the live game is in good shape, but it plays differently than what many of those frequenting progression servers and forums are going to think they want.

The live game does not need more continents or temporary hubs. The Dev team is not huge, so recycling content is going to happen. I say embrace that then.

Ironically, you take an expac like GoD (reviled at launch, generally skipped by many despite being well-tuned for raid guilds on the last few progression servers...) in which repopulating the zones (even renaming them... if Emperor Crush takes over the continent with a united clan of Norrathian Orcs) most players would barely realize you were repurposing the content. Especially if the route to the "new" GoD was via ships from old-school ports.

Live server needs more of the game to be 85-cap and much less 85 and under. You can make the argument that TSS should be the only 1-75 leveling path on the live game and the rest should be redone (some for the 75-85, the rest above that) to provide the bigger, useful sandbox back to live.

This wouldn't hurt progression at all, in my view it actually helps differentiate the two. If you want to level a wood elf in GFay, Crushbone, etc. you'd play on progression and have population to do it with. The key being live is getting all sorts of useful new stuff to live. I've played enough on live to see that most under 75 content is a ghost town most of the time... it's a waste of one of the game's great strengths.

and as said earlier in the thread, this doesn't preclude "restoring" more quests, adding intended zones (even if just extrapolated from an unfinished zoneline and making an era-appropriate version --which gives lives players a completely new zone too [which I would launch on live revamped to 100+ level].

If live servers were dead there would not be any TLP servers. Remember who has kept the game running for 18 + years to even allow such a thing as a TLP server to be created. The live population is just spread out over a significantly larger selection of servers which makes it appear to be less populated.

I think Kylo Classic plays a troll in game.

No

I do think it'd be neat to add Unkempt Woods as a multi-stage zone that goes classic to PoP with more of the zone unlocking with time and quests completed. Could use a bunch of dead quest items in there like the Superb hides.

And just to be a . Have the zone-in be a random tree in the Karanas/Rathe that changes every in-game day.

Not saying this particular idea has any merit but there are a lot of good reasons for TLPs and Live to split. Best seems to be removing bleed over between them and the never ending compromise of making both work together.

Up until now all TLP's have a track of eventually catching up with current live content and effectively becoming live servers. Agnarr is specifically going to be stuck in the past as it's locked at PoP. I fail to see any argument at all that in any way calls for a split between TLP and Live unless you want TLP servers to all morph into EQ2 at some point...

Name some? I don't see it.

Live players and TLP-players are wildly different types of players. I think many TLP-players are playing for the nostalgia factor alone, and only plan to stick around for a few expansions anyway. I don't see many TLP-players looking forward to beating TDS for example, though a few might stay if they are in a healthy guild.
However TLP-servers are ultimately designed to be "forward-compatible" with live servers, which will make "branching-out" technically unfeasible, I could see it work with "locked" servers like agnarr though, P99 is such a server, and it works...

I could do without the "bleed" too, but I think DBG, wants to keep their game-management as simple as possible.

From DBG's point of view, I think they see TLP as a low hanging fruit, that doesn't require much new development(other than finetuning), and is their way of milking the "franchise-cow" so to speak. I doubt the success will last long though, in a few years TLP-servers will be low-population-servers. Once the nostalgia factor is gone, TLP-servers have nothing to offer that live servers don't have...

Making life easier is the prime reason to split the games. While experimental in nature the TLP concept has been proven and really should be treated separately. It cannot be easy to enact a change needed on Live and then have to deal with what occurs on TLPs, the two seem to conflict more as time goes on.

Well there is the bleed over and unintended consequences that is mentioned.
Ease of implementing changes for future TLPs.
Separating the administrative functions, can rebrand the TLP function EQ Progression giving them two entities with EQ Live and even should the day come sell them off individually with greater ease. Yeah we dont like to think that way but hey that is the way of things.
That line of reasoning, expand at your convenience.

Well like anything, the idea is cool, but practically speaking it's almost impossible at this point! It would takes a ton of hours, tens of thousands of dollars, and more patience on the EQ players end... doubtful!

As much as we talk junk about DBG, they have done 1 thing pretty well, MANAGE EXPECTATIONS! They don't have many expectations for this game, EQ players have been complaining about everything in EQ since 1998ish (Beta 3/4) and I highly doubt anyone would be happy with another "new" old expansion now! Without DBG there is no Phinny or Agnarr, and the live players wouldn't get to complain about the progression players so much!

I actually agree with you Rhodz! The problem is practicality in essence, DBG doesn't have the staff to manage our demands and the game as is, splitting the team up would be tougher on their end. Now if they could split the team as is and hire a few new faces for their direction, I think it's a great idea and can be pulled off. I'm not sure what kind of budget they are dealing with, but whoever is running the EQ division doesn't have final say on their hiring/staff budget I would assume, so they are kind of stuck in this area where they are trying to do the best with what they have!

Perfect World, OMG it would be awesome if every damn update didn't have a negative or positive effect one way or the other.

Funny, that server is called Phinny! But the cap is not 65... This is not Crapnarr server. We get Gates of Discord TLP 19th July ;-) So don't have to wait til 2018. We get Omens of War TLP 8 weeks later, no need to wait for 2019...

We also get monster shrouds, don't use them if you don't like them, and we also get mercenaries... don't use them if you don't like them

I think the biggest reason would be game play changes that have been implemented that makes sense for one but not the other. The biggest one that comes to mind is fixing illusion through locked doors. This makes perfect sense on TLP where picklock actually matters in "current" content but on live this ability has not been useful in year with exception to the new HH seb. So now basically if someone wants to go to an old zone and get through a locked door they either have to be able to pick locks or make an alt to do it because odds are you wont find someone to go out of their way to open a door for you. Also looking at the hunter achievements without any rewards attached to them. Why are there no rewards? Odds are because the standard rewards associated with hunter achievements don't fit on a tlp where they fit on live. It takes the incentive out of doing old hunter achievements unless someone is really bored and just trying to rack up achievement points. I understand why they don't separate the two though and it comes down to money. It provides no financial gain for them while probably costing them a ton of money which is not a very good investment.