Aradune & Rizlona Launch Date! - May 27

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by dreamweaver, Apr 28, 2020.

  1. Lachnar Elder

    Sweet, I'm super excited and I think more of the silent majority are than you guys think. As barebones as DPG has gotten, I think they're probably better at knowing what the bulk of their customers want than rando players.
    MattThePhat, Dragon Jockey and Fugly like this.
  2. Bard2019 Elder

    As you've no doubt read the overwhelming negative feedback by the very people that intend to play on these servers (aka those that would be your active paying customers), locking at Planes of Power(LDoN) isn't ideal. Consider potentially locking PoP for X amount of months... take even 6 if you need. But promise to give us the chance to vote to continue to unlock further. Preferably with a final lock at Prophecy of Ro, which makes the most sense to a lot of us.

    Aside from that one critically bad decision, I like the rest. GM Support + limiting us to 2 boxes while also offering a second server without those things, is going to keep the majority of the cesspool of krono farmers over on Rizlona and away from Aradune. Which instantly makes it far more appealing for a LOT of us. It creates the potential of it becoming a more tight-knit community where reputations might actually matter again to some degree. Couple that with locking the server in the Planes of Power(or please Prophecy of Ro instead!) era and you've just doubled-down on the potential of tight-knit + reputation driven, making the server massively appealing. It's a win-win for many of us that have loved the TLPs while simultaneously hating what EQ has turned into. It's very possible Aradune will be more popular of a server than even Mangler was. I'm very excited.

    However, the one thing that you'll see a lot of people mentioning is that 3 months of classic is long. It's grueling and with the current state of EQ, it hurts the in-game economy. People that are interested in playing are going to have all of their character slots full of level 50's going into Kunark. Not because it was fun to level, but because they had nothing else to do. 2 months is just about right but with 3 month unlocks, you end up with the majority of your server taking a break around the 2 month mark and tired of waiting. You run into the same problem again in Kunark. Velious is a little better and 3 months can work there as long as some jag doesn't wake the Sleeper. Please consider a compromise, instead of 3 months, make it 2 and half at most for Kunark and Velious unlocks, then go to 3.

    And speaking of The Sleeper, before the server launches and the inevitable drama filled situation happens, can we please fix that so that even if some guild wakes it in open world, as long as we(as a guild) haven't woken it in our AoC, that it remains asleep? Please? That one thing, absolutely gutted the population on Mangler and a lot of good people either bailed or stopped playing for the rest of Velious. It was an absolute bummer of a situation that could be patched before it's ever a problem this time around.
    MattThePhat and Fugly like this.
  3. Mr Dali New Member

    Well, I really don't see us getting it any better. They could easilly put together up to 10 different ruleset TLP's wich would benefit the healthiness of the game, but problem is, that if they did the most obvious things get a healthioer community and game experience, their revenue would faulter. They want these TLP's because they generate an insanely ammount of Krono revenue on top of the monthly payment
  4. chiller2005 New Member

    Damn, was really hoping it would be 2 on 1 machine, would make it perfect, a little edge but not too much..
  5. Sokanist Journeyman

    I was considering coming back and play on Aradune... but than i notested the PoP lock thing... nevermind.
  6. Whoops Augur

    You weren't addressing me specifically, but I'll answer you anyway. (Edit: At length, since that's apparently what I do without enough sleep. Read it anyway if you actually want an answer, skip it if you don't, heh.)

    1) You assume that everyone waiting to hear the complete rulesets for these two servers are playing on Mangler. We're not.
    2) You seem to think there is only one new server launching in May, since you keep saying "the new server." Perhaps you think there is only one of any consequence. Either way, it clearly demonstrates your opinion that people should play on Mangler, which is fine, but could be presented less offensively if you're looking for a reasonable response.
    3) To your series of questions: Yes, there is something wrong with Mangler. Yes, if one of the two new servers were to continue past PoP I would play on it. I'm not thrilled that they both start in classic again, or at least not thrilled that it's three month unlocks starting in classic, but I could live with it.

    You want to know what kind of sense that makes:

    TLPs prior to Phinny are gone/getting merged, and since I'd never rolled on Ragefire/Lockjaw, it seems pointless to do so now.

    Phinny (barring a future expansion release date pushing this forward slightly) will catch up to live in February of 2021. I have characters there, but they're way too far behind to make catching up for a 9 month run through the last expansions seem worthwhile to me. I liked Phinny well enough (though the XP rate was a bit painful), but IRL stuff left me with a few lengthy interruptions, and after the second, I didn't go back.

    Agnarr didn't appeal to me from the beginning. I made characters there anyway to poke at it with a few friends. Two of those characters got to level 7, as I discovered recently. Woo.

    I skipped Coirnav because Phinny still exists, why start over? Oddly, era-wise, it's perhaps poised to be more interesting without being too far ahead, since it's about to reach TSS. As far as I know, though, it has barely any population to speak of.

    Selo did mostly appeal to me when it launched, but it was a little too fast for me, and more-than-a-little too fast for the people I was going to play with. I think I would have preferred SoW speed. I have some wee baby character(s) there, but Selo is actually going to reach live a bit ahead of Phinny. Again, I'm way too far behind for the catch-up to seem worth it.

    Miragul didn't really spark my interest because it's still largely the same ruleset as the rest (except for Selo) but jumping in perhaps too far past where I'd like to start. I have nothing against it, but it didn't really draw me in, either.

    That leaves us with "what's wrong with Mangler?" I have a pile of alts on Mangler, one of which made it to, I think, level 47 before my interest waned. It *was* the same classic blah blah thing, again, and I was tired of it then. Sure, I could play catch up on there, and play in GoD in July. It's about to stop being the same classic blah blah. Maybe I will. I feel no enthusiasm for it, though. It's missing the same thing most of this list is missing, even though it had the problems that lack was intended to prevent. Mangler is slowly working its way forward to the time when boxing is less "plague" and more "solution for getting things done with slightly fewer people" but it still requires you use different machines to do so. If I could two-box or three-box on the same machine on Mangler, I'd be far more inclined to play on it. I have no interest in fielding a mage army in classic launch #32984. I'd just really like to be able to play with one or two people, yet filling a group, without reaching across my bloody desk. (Not that five other humans is somehow terrible. Time and life and server population have a lot of influence on that idea's viability.) I have no idea if Rizlona would turn out to be a horror show or not. I have no idea if most of its population would be 24-boxing instead of 2-6 boxing. Frankly, I'm not sure I even care overly much. Toxic people will be toxic if they're playing one character or 36 characters. If the server has a population that isn't largely out to ruin other people's day, and if some of them want to play with others sometimes, that'd be great, as far as I'm concerned.

    So what am I doing now, since it's not playing on Mangler? I'm playing on two different live servers, one of which is new to me, just for the heck of it. I also made more alts on Agnarr, of all things, because the friend I'm occasionally playing with there had a decent reason for it: those characters will never be "out of date" and need to catch up to anything. So for a server to poke at when we feel like playing older content once in a while, but without the server itself being way past where those characters are, it seems fine. It's not a permanent home. It was a short term, when the mood strikes, temporary answer. I'm trueboxing two characters there, it's less comfy than two-boxing on one computer, and they're level 11. If that sounds like I'm not exactly invested in it, you're right. If they didn't lock Rizlona at PoP, would I leave my not-Mangler server to play on it? Yup. That was the plan, for two of us at least. Friends we've played with before may or may not, but yeah. (They're not on Mangler, either.) Even though it starts in classic. Again. Even though it's three month unlocks for the classic-PoP eras, again. Not that it's a bad time in EQ's history, or that the time frame for the unlocks is inherently bad. I'm just really tired of that era, and that's quite a lot of it.
  7. Mr Dali New Member



    If they were to do something new. This would be the way to go.
    Make these servers AOC, 2box, 2 truebox (2 PC's of 2 boxes per ip-adress) .. yes i know that can be cheated, but if they investigate you they will find the fake vm mac adresses.

    Open up these servers with 2 months delay for lvl up expansions and 1 month for non lvl expansions, and let people choose themself when they are want to switch to the next expansion server.

    When you change server you can have a maximum of 4 chars equipped + money and proper ammount of bags, but no bagged Items that arent "no drop" will be moved.
    Or something along that line.

    The game economy is already screwed with Krono's so I see no big idea in keep people from farming "expensive items" in outdated expansions, wich is easier done in later expansions servers.

    On another note, with todays hardware and software it really shouldn't make a big impact on their servers wether they have 25-30 servers more or less with people spread out on them, as it is perfectly possible to have a dynamic load ballancing between VM's.

    This is also why there is absolutely no "technically" argument to shut down or merge low pop. servers, cause they leave fairly low resource footprints if they are low populated. Its only when the server gets to a point that people might just have played on a "private server" cause there is hardly any to play with.
    Only problem is if they have to have multiple versions of zone servers to acomodate different era content, but I don't think that is a big problem either today with instancing
    Dexxeaa00 likes this.
  8. Zipe The Healer

    Hello,

    I don't understand all that disappointment. Why so much complains? If you want to play past PoP you have other servers to do so. People at mangler will be really happy that they are not going to get a two servers that will decimate them.
    You cry about PoP locked yet you have Mangler there about to enter the 70 era...Why don't you just stay at Mangler instead of starting again for the 7th time?

    That's fun: Agnarr launched when Phinigel was on LDoN. And now you get PoP-Locked again, 3 years latter, when Mangler is in LDoN.

    I can understand the urge to have Phinigel 5.0 with the new Dedicated rules and box policies... but wel... do not worry... you will get them next year.
    MattThePhat and Dragon Jockey like this.
  9. Vanleiz New Member

    Is there a server that prevent Boting and Boxing even 2 characters ?
  10. Ecko Elder


    Because there isn't a non true box server with AoC's. Remove the PoP lock from Rizlona and you've got the server a lot of people have been asking for for years.

    When they announced Rizlona would basically be a Mangler clone without true box, there was much rejoicing and hype. Then the PoP locked thing was announced, which has come totally out of left field for pretty much everyone, so obviously people are going to be feeling let down and dismayed that the server they wanted for quite some time was almost on them, but now with a huge caveat that it can't progress into the 20-odd expansions after PoP.

    I think the backlash is 100% justified, if there was some hint that both of these would be PoP locked, maybe not. But to say this was an unwanted surprise for a *lot* of players would be an understatement.
    Vicus, Skuz and Whoops like this.
  11. Mr Dali New Member

    But we can all agree that exp. locked servers have a finite lifespan. I am on mangler and wont move atm.
    The special rulesets people really want is those that enforce some kind of max box ammount to keep bots running all up to small raid ammount of chars out of the game, wich DPG seems to have listened just a little to. problem is, they can't just enforce it onto existing servers, then people will complain too :p I am not complaining either, cause DPG will still be putting these locked servers out for the next decade to come no matter how much I complain, if they exist that long, cause at least atm its what is generating the most revenue, but eventually even those that love classic-velius will loose interest at some point to start out new once a year.
    On P99 you can't really expect anything cause its all free, but the community is soo toxic there, and the ui enforcement on the new green server is kinda a let down. I like classic EQ, but most of us want a more modern ui, and all the talk about "new" content after Velius has never shown, and I fear the same will happen here if DPG don't show some more interest in developing the game instead of just focusing on milking the cash cow. Really many of these TLP's have alot of the same toxity among some of the players as P99.
    Kaneras likes this.
  12. Whoops Augur

    Attempt at shorter answer: because the other servers don't have AoC, don't have much of a lower level population to play earlier content with, have trueboxing, or some combination thereof.

    Not everyone is playing on Mangler, nor do they particularly want to play there.

    Conversely, if people are excited for Agnarr 2.0, why don't you play on Agnarr? (Yes, I can come up with valid reasons that have nothing to do with Agnarr's ruleset, but just as I can understand others not suddenly playing on Agnarr, it'd be nice if people could understand others wishing for a different server to play on for equally valid reasons.)

    If "don't worry, you'll get them next year" is intended to be helpful (because it's certainly not guaranteed "we'll get them next year"), why doesn't "don't worry, Agnarr 2.0 might come out next" work?
  13. Whoops Augur

    Right? It could have been advertised as "sharing Agnarr's ruleset with some differences" and we wouldn't be shocked. (Now, anyway, heh. We'd have had this discussion earlier, instead.)
    Vicus likes this.
  14. Zipe The Healer

    Hello,
    Well, there was a Hint! I posted it.
    So you mean all the complains are because people want to start on classic, without true box and with AoCs'?
    I am surprised so much people wants so badly to play classic yet again, even on an Dedicated and non-truebox server.

    I won't tell anyone to go to play in Ragefire, because I know what you'll answer me: It have no AoC's and it doesn't have a dedicated GM... but looks like that's where you'll have to go play until next year. Unless you want to play classic again, of course.
    And please, don't go out with the Aid-grimiel-farm-old-stuff-AoC arguments because we all know them: Only relevant thing is that AoCs are not really needed past PoP (notice PoP is when Rizlona and Arduane locks), and that doing Aid-grimiel out of era means you didn't play during era so... totally isn't a solid argument unless you want to do Artisans Prize on alts or you are Mainchanger.
    MattThePhat likes this.
  15. Whoops Augur

    I invite you to play on Live for a while, and especially to complete achievements on Live. It's likely to change your opinion.
  16. Zipe The Healer

    What achievements? PoP Hunters? I can't think of any other relevant Achievements that need PoP and behind instanced content and are Necessary for live (or last expansions) content.
  17. Sevelinia New Member

    When both servers reach the 3 months of PoP let them vote to see if the server goes forward or stays at PoP.
    Vicus likes this.
  18. Ecko Elder


    I don't particularly want to start in classic again, no. But i do want to box and i do want AoC's as I want to be able to do old raid content on my terms, not when OW mobs are up or having to fight others that are perma camping them.

    I only started playing EQ in 2004 and I mained a cleric back then and did PoP progression on said Cleric, i had a SK alt at the same time on a separate account that got some flags, but I didn't bother to get all PoP flagging done on him at the time. I main changed to the SK around when we were raiding GoD/DoDH so he's pretty well flagged from there, just missing the PoP ones. I also moved the SK to FV once I stopped raiding, so finding any old world mobs up is a pain. Granted I have put myself in this position by server moving. But I was trying to do Aid Grimel and after a month+ of never finding the mobs i needed for flags up, even with trying to organise with others to do so, it frustrated me to the point I stopped playing.

    I have played on Ragefire also, was fun, but again, I like taking out old raid content as well as doing current stuff. I've not played on Ragefire for a while though, so I'm not sure on the current situation for finding OW mobs up (wasn't great when I played) but it's still not as convenient as having AoC's.

    When I say hint about PoP lock, i mean from DPG themselves. They haven't posted anything about this, or given any hints I've seen. If I saw a player claiming they were going to be PoP locked, i'd have thought they were trolling.

    I don't care either way about dedicated GM's. I don't think they should be exclusive to these 2 new TLP's, i think they should enforce the same rules across all servers, but understand why this isn't possible across all servers.

    It is what it is at the end of the day. Either they'll change Rizlona to remove the PoP lock and people would be happy, or they'll keep it as is, and different people will be happy. I personally will be having a change of circumstance around June which means I could dedicate a fair bit of my time to EQ, which is what I was looking forward to since they announced Rizlona was non true box and I personally prefer expansions after PoP. So if Rizlona does stay the same, I'll probably not bother with it. I don't want to play with true box so that rules out most of the other TLP's, which mostly leaves Ragefire or a live server.

    I did start a new team on Brekt a while back which I was going to go back to, but after the announcement Brekt is getting rolled into FV, that wouldn't be a good idea for me right now.

    As it stands, I was quite excited to come back to EQ, there is nothing quite like the start of a new server tbh, but if nothing changes I'll probably stay away rather than starting over on Live. Not that it will affect anything really what I do, but I don't think it's fair to invalidate how I, and other people, are feeling after this announcement.
    Whoops likes this.
  19. Whoops Augur

    Sorry, I was trying to be brief out of embarrassment for my earlier text wall. Basically, people don't want to go play on Ragefire/Lockjaw because it lacks AoCs *and* because it has a weird era-unlocking method. The other TLPs all have truebox, and with the exception of Mangler are also either too far ahead for a fresh character to sound appealing, or are also too low-population to sound appealing. The alternative to all of those is to self-police your own progression on a live server. Then you're met with a different block: you don't have to truebox, but because there aren't AoCs, what isn't out of era to you is also very likely perma-camped. Hunter achievements just help illustrate that, not only if your goal is to get the achievements, but also if your goal was to go through past expansions on a server without truebox, because your targets would be dead all the time. (In fairness, though, Phinigel was alive earlier! So not literally everything is dead constantly!)

    Also, for whatever it's worth, not everyone was excited for 3-month unlocks starting in classic for the billionth time, either. Lots of people were hoping that some part of that equation would be different, beyond the not-truebox vs limited-truebox.
  20. planiar New Member

    What a super letdown! Super disappointing. For the first time I plan to play on a TLP server to experience past PoP and BOTH of the new servers stop in PoP.

    Please rethink this nonsense.
    Barton and Vicus like this.