Agnarr at the center of a long term TLP and population maintenance strategy.

They aren't going to put mercs in on early era TLP's. You can keep making posts pretending this fantasy will become reality, but it never will. If they did, it would be the single most disastrous mistake they ever made. No one will keep playing the game when "playing" consists of sitting around while your merc does everything for you.

And even if they did, mercs would only power you through the first 2-3 expansions of raid content. You can't progress through raid content past Luclin using mercs.

Preface: I had never played on the Agnarr server until over the holidays. Late December. I had kind of grown tired of Coirnav for various reasons, so I started on both Phinigel and Agnarr. My Phinigel character is still progressing, he's in his 70s and I enjoy my play time there. My Agnarr character is just making it into the 50s, and I also enjoy time spent there.

I came from many years spent on P99 [like 2010-2018, I know.. I know] so the idea of a locked server isn't frightening to me, but I do see the downfalls with such a server. I would love to see some attention paid to the fact that the Agnarr server is kinda an excellent place to come back to for those who have been away for a long while. This doesn't mean the devs have to make major overhauls and accommodations. As of right now, they aren't even comfortable with their ability to merge two servers, correct? But if the idea gains enough traction, future lock servers might find a place within the TLP community. I am not sure there is enough support, but I've thought many times about forming an Agnarr guild that is in a position to consistently take in new blood. Even player based effort to keep Agnarr as a legitimate option for new players is something that might gain the attention of DBG. A handful of people might be all it takes to keep Agnarr in a state that is welcoming of new players for the coming months [and perhaps years.] As it stands, a lot of the people I grouped with on the way up aren't even sure they'll have the means to get their PoP flags. But the server does tend to get a lot of people who don't mind taking the slow ride, at this point. The only question will be if there are enough people at the top for people to continue.

TLDR; The idea of a rotating schedule of merging servers seems outside of their abilities and/or current desires. The player community might be the ones to initiate and highlight the need for such progression servers.

PS: I am in no way stuck on a fantasy that Agnarr is or will be anything more than a dying PoP-Locked Server. I will play the new TLPs, absolutely. But the Agnarr player base is one that might deserve some future attention in order to maintain.

They really aren't imo. There were certainly a lot of QoL improvements including the travel system(highly controversial) and Raid Window... but nothing about it was out-of-era.

Planes Raiding? Had done that before. Multiple times. Before Planes, players had taken down what... 4 gods?

Everything still wasn't instanced.

Most of it was still largely tank and spank. Only Gods this time.

PoP was the big blow-out at the end of Act. LDoN and LOY provided filler material with more QoL to the first act.

The tonal change came with GoD, and was swift and abrupt. It in no way resembled the expansions that came before it, and was alien in more ways than one while the story took a hard left turn. The first act involved the introduction of the game world leading to getting powerful enough to take on and take down the Gods, basically becoming one.

The second act involved an outside threat that you had to test your new level of power against, which started with GoD.

In EQ? Oh yes, it was. For expansions to come. LDoN was the test run and the Adventure Window was never used again. GoD was where we got full instanced raiding with expeditions and lockouts. Even then, you're looking at this from gameplay... we got an entirely different story starting with GoD.

For grouping within the game? Sure. But that's a minor part of the game itself and when you talk about an era within the game, you should be looking at the story itself.

Raiding had been a major focus since Kunark and more importantly.. Velious. Just because they finally put in a raid window doesn't mean it fundamentally changed the story.

Agnarr is doing nicely. People will play in eras they want. There dont need to be a TLP for every expansion- I'm not familiar enough with post ldon expansions to know what 'eras' make sense.

I'd say Velious/Ldon(Agnarr)/OOW make sense from what I know but I'd imagine there are maybe 3 other 'eras'.

Why? They specifically asked for a server that would just sit there forever, with no future maintenance.

There are other servers they can play on, if they decide they want something different. No need to do anything about Agnarr.

I do also agree that PoP [throw LoY and LDoN in there as well] was the end of the first era. GoD began the next, IMO.

Machentoo, I do agree. I wasn't around when it began, but when I started there I knew it'd come to an early end. It seems like EQ has reached a period where its almost exhausted bringing in new or former players, and might adjust priorities to maintaining present subscribers. I just figure since the pot has been stirred with all this 'here is what they need to do' , might as well throw in all the ingredients [within reason, My God...]

I simply added some commentary, I am not on a crusade. I'll see you on the next TLPs and we can then come discuss what the next should look like, I suppose.

I'd like to see HoT as the starting point. No need to rush through UF if its already opened, and you immediately get a lvl bump to 90 when VoA opens up. I just think its more interesting and everyone still gets to do the CR/heroic journey thing. And theres still plenty of expansions to go before TBL.

I do agree Agnarr can server some purpose as a feeder server or some other cause, but it would never be able to replace the epicness that is a brandy new fresh server in classic.

Everyone is concerned of continuing to split the player base between too many servers. The diminishing returns of a new TLP being released every year has been brought up since Phinny was announced. Coirnav was nothing short of a lazy idea and it had a boomin population. I don't believe DBG is all that concerned which server people play on, as long as the number of players playing is the same or growing. Clearly that number is at least flat since they keep rolling out new TLPs. I imagine 2 servers with different rules is an attempt to grow customers since Phinny isn't in the 90's yet, coirnav is lame, agnarr is locked, and RF/LJ are just now hitting the 70's expansions which are pretty underwhelming.

It happened a very long time ago, and many of us love it now... but to not see Luclin as a radical shift in the game's lore and approach seems odd to me.

PoP was an inelegant solution to the faults and bloat(!) in the game at the time. Hard to fault it now with 15+ expacs after it... except that it took them a very long time to recognize that managing the gap between the elite raiders and everyone else is a big part of keeping the carrot tasty looking.

They'll never take out looting corpses... they did.
They'll never put in a travel system that trivializes the ability of Wizards and Druids to port... they did.
They'll never have an xpac that provides you lower level loot that completely trivializes that content... they did.

They'll never..

They'll never..
They'll never..

I'll wait and see what they actually do.

The important part here is not that the merc 'trivializes a player'. That only means something to you.

The important aspect is in what you can get done. If you're rolling the first 65 levels, nobody gives two about just how fast you do it or with what, so long as you're effective at doing so in a timely manner. And you will not be effective at doing so in most cases, going perma-LFG. You're simply wasting time. Being the #1 player on the LFG window for hours played impresses no one.

Who said anything about allowing them on Raids and in Raid Instances? Its expected that you get a guild and raid stuff with real people, if that's your goal. In that aspect, they wouldn't work any differently to how they work now. The only aspect to them that means anything is they lower your downtime in Group Play to 0(unless you need a rezz and then they'll point and giggle), while allowing you to lower the number of actual players(not characters) needed to 1.

People get over someone 3 boxing... they'd lose their *&^% over someone steamrolling their camp with boxes AND mercs Lol.

In general, an era, in terms of the game is a set of expansions that tend to comprise an overall sub-story and tone(like an Act in a play). The acts are linear

(feel free to debate these landmarks):

First Era(1-6): Classic to LDoN.
Second Era(7-10): Gates of Discord to Depths of Darkhollow.
Third Era(11-15): Prophecy of Ro to Seeds of Destruction.
Fourth Era(16-20): Underfoot to Call of the Forsaken.
Fifth Era(21-25): The Darkened Sea to The Burning Lands.

If we break at these points, you'll notice we get a new era approximately every 5 expansions and largely correspond to natural tonal shifts of the game throughout its history and the end points have landed on expansions divisible by 5. So after TBL, i'd expect them to either kick off in a completely different direction with 26-30, or stop development. Which direction they go probably depends on money.

With every 5 expansions, you're talking right around a calendar year for a 'play-through' of the era.

If they take my suggestion, you can be playing different eras on the same character on different servers. It would be wild. You could raid say SoD and OOW on the same day with the same character at different points in its progression. We already have this to some extent with those that play say Phinny, Agnarr, and Coirnav… but it would codify the practice into an understandable method that saves your Progression at the various Save Points, allowing the character to be forked.

Luclin was the first shift and then PoP finished fundamentally changing how the game was played from classic.

It might be a wrap up of some story line crap. But if anyone thinks the gameplay of EQ with Luclin and PoP is anything like the trilogy, I suspect they have only played on TLPs for these era’s.

For for some reason the second version of raid instancing is supposedly what changed everything.

Started Late-Luclin. The gameplay of PoP was pretty much like the trilogy, with QoL additions. You didn't have to get so many ports when you died in Crystal Caverns and were bound in Shadow Haven #oops.

Gameplay-wise, absolutely. If you don't believe that, then I suspect you never played these expansions in-era. The ability to fully instance a raid and not be c-blocked quite literally changed everything with the raid game. Fewer 4am wakeup calls from the guild leader that Emp was up. It even led to Time being instanced.

No more days of logging in to find out everything of note on server was dead.
No more umpteen hour patch days where you kept killing anything of note that moved.
No more patch days for the patch days where you did it all again.
No more having two or three guild fights over AoW, only to train it out towards zone and accidentally run over a GM.
No more having *the BBC* put a report on the problems with the game with 3 guilds camping one dragon(Ragefire for Cleric Epic). That alone is what led to the pearls and trigger being introduced.

The game fundamentally changed with Gates of Discord, and its been *a lot* better for it. If you think Raiding in PoP was even in the same zipcode or universe as Raiding in GoD and beyond, you didn't play it in-era. Period.

LDoN was by and large a test run for instancing in the same way that the pots in TD were a test run for PoK. GoD was the full implementation that exists to this day.

And then there’s the other 75%+ of the server that didn’t raid that already had their game fundamentally changed. But yeah, raiders are the only ones who played.

But you already admitted you didn’t start until Luclin era, so not arguing this with you. I know you love to argue.

You're all over the place now. 75+%… With the introduction of GoD, or the introduction of PoP?

We weren't even talking about say Kunark or Classic.

At the PoP level, its introduction sure as heck didn't have the group game(beyond travel) fundamentally changed. What was good is you actually had solid places to XP again.

LDoN? That was pretty fundamental on a group game level.. but we weren't talking about that.

And we weren't talking about Kunark or Classic.

Don't beat around the bush... whats your main gripe that you're steaming over and which transition in your group-level corn flakes? Travel with PoP?

I mean there is the part where I did say LDON changed the game more GoD. And that I am literally talking about how PoP/LoY/LDON fundamentally changed the game from classic more than GoD, but you now say that’s not what I’m talking about.

And because someone on Reddit posted this when people bring up GoD being different because of the story:

“why does NO ONE say this about luclin! YOU GO TO THE MOON! YOU FIGHT LITERAL ALIENS! THERE ARE SPACE CATS AND SPACE SNAKES AND YOU FIGHT MOBS LIKE XI XAUI AND ATEN HA RA”

The problem with advanced start servers that no advocate seems to want to talk about is that MOST people don't want to even play in those eras. It is not a coincidence that when TLPS pass PoP they see a massive drop of people and again after OOW and then again with POR and then from there the servers circle the drain with one or two guilds keeping a dying server alive to TRY to finish expansions which are not even being completed - just look at Phinny, sure there are giulds there still going, but its a shadow of its former self...why? Cause MOST people dont care about the expansions they are going through.

That is the main problem, MOST people don't want to play later eras. The biggest drop in Subs is after classic and that's not a coincidence either. People want to play Classic. Sorry Quill and all your second accounts but that's just the truth - MOST people don't want to play later expansions and your server would never be popular just as its not popular with almost everyone on these forums as post after post is telling you that you're wrong.

I am both. I like the classic, but I am also bored of classic after doing 2 TLP's to PoP because of the slow-slow XP. The slow progression and XP is also the reason I didn't bother making alts. Pick up the pace of the game so it feels like something can be accomplished in short playtimes and some people will rejoice, and be happy.

I do talk about it... you just don't seem to want to listen.

The issue isn't the advanced start. Its the advanced start on a server that doesn't support it.

Lets imagine for the moment we have a server:

GoD opener, Phinny-rules unlock, True Box, everyone starts from Level 1.

Who is going to play that? I wouldn't. The True Box puts both hands behind your back and forces you to have to get groups while needing to make 65 levels. Giving 51 levels of those doesn't do it either, as you still need groups for everything.

GoD opener, Phinny-rules unlock, Regular Box, everyone starts from Level 1, Mercs available.

Just those changes turn the entire thing around. I create two toons, I grab two mercs, and go to town. I PLAY THE FREAKING GAME. I don't have to go LFG. I don't have downtime. I just pick a spot and go. If others are there, I add them to group as needed.

Its called attrition. It happens on all servers, but even more so on TLP because you're expected to raid for 5-6 YEARS of your life. Just LOLOLOLOLOL. Circumstances change.. people change. And any new people are expected to True Box and get groups from Level 1, GFL. The only one that has even put forth a solution to the problem of attrition on TLP is me.

By then, I wouldn't either. This is why I've been suggesting era progression. Where you can start an era, and be done with that era in roughly a year, not five. And your progression at the end of the process is saved, so you can do other things and come back later to a new server that kicks off with a lot of other people at your level of progression.

Ya... whatever. Some of the best content in this game is SoF to Veil and the modern expansions have actually been decent. But its easy not to like something you've never really played and a lot of people didn't play those in-era.

Well no .. Kunark suuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

And we have a HC Server just for them.

I think you'd be shocked how popular it would be to allow people to play the game at will with everything LDoN and earlier. The single biggest roadblock in this game is having to go LFG. The devs know it and have fixed that issue on Live. Time to fix it on TLP and give a truly ultra-casual server that you can just play.

Even if people don't raid the later expansions, just the ability to curbstomp the old ones would be well-worth it and there won't be a time that someone new can't login with a two-box and easily get max level. That, in turn, negates attrition, as it will constantly be attracting new people.