How to get TLPs to survive past PoP with a solid population

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Ambee, May 21, 2020.

  1. Balderdash Lorekeeper

    Classic, Kunark and Velious were great for the casual gamer mindset. You could accomplish everything you wanted while only having to raid once a week if that. Epics were nice but not necessary, there was no group content that required raid gear to complete and you didn’t get judged by how many aa’s you had but by how you played your character. tier 1 raid gear was easy to attain with a small raid in Velious and the components were easy to farm. No tradeskills items were locked behind raid zone barriers and the tradeskills path was available to raider and non raider alike.

    All this changes starting with Luclin. The game almost intentionally alienates non raiders and culminates in PoP with 90% of the content locked behind flagged zones that required raiding. The content opens up quite a bit again starting with Omens but it is a long slog through Luclin, PoP and GoD and for the non raider. LDoN has been the only legit gearing path for the non raider through PoP and GoD and should just simply be released with PoP.

    Non raiders tend to become raiders starting in Omens because full instancing allows them to join guilds that raid on schedules that they can manage in their lives. Even raiding 1 day a week can get them a few pieces of gear that make the overtuned group content possible. AoC’s Don’t change the ridiculous backflagging requirements of POP and GoD but they do make it so backflagging can be done on a schedule which definately attributed to the success on Phinny of retaining players through PoP and GoD.

    The rule sets for both Aradune and Rizlona, combined with AoC’s should be able to get players over the PoP/GoD hump but people are going to drop off because expansions are too short and they will fall behind and people will drop off because the expansions are too long and they are bored.
  2. Delphwind Augur

    "How to get TLPs to survive past PoP with a solid population"

    Maybe don't open a new cash cow ... I mean server ... every year right around the time GoD and OoW launch?
  3. Delphwind Augur


    I agree with this 100%, but have been heavily flamed for this opinion.

    Once the game reaches GoD and OoW it becomes much harder for people who box to successfully run all toons without botting. Then you have your social-casual people who just want to sit and chat while pressing 1-2 bottons now and then. This type of playstyle is FINE if that is what you want to do, however it becomes very clear that you are not pulling your own weight in a group/raid once the game starts to get really hard. That's when these people quit and go back to a classic/new release server.
    Skuz and Vicus like this.
  4. Vicus Augur

    I know that some people will like the idea of playing a Beastlord/Zerker from the start but that ship has sailed. After a LARGE majority of old and new EQ players are going to play on Aradune/Rizlona, I believe for many of them this will be their last big push for a TLP. For many people these servers are everything that has been asked for (minus the classes/combos/pvp/FV loot systems). So while playing a Beastlord and berkserker would be nice, if the next server does this, how many people would be willing to play the same content for a 5th+ time? You also can't have guilds full of Beastlords and Berkserkers so the amount of other classes that would be willing to do it again would be drastically lower for that server. Also as that TLP server reaches Luclin and GoD what would be the drive to push on past that? Would be nothing new about that experience once you hit the expansions they were already out at.

    Going off the "focus group" conversation and just general marketing/plans that DPG's have stuck too, I am going to assume the next few TLP's will be either ERA locked or Event servers that reset. If they release a "new" full TLP it would just kill off other servers like Corinav and lower the population for Aradune/Rizlona.
  5. Xhartor Augur

    Keep the current unlock schedule, but go with a Luclin start. The content is more well rounded and engaging.
    Vicus likes this.
  6. breezycheeks New Member

    People love doing Classic -> Velious. This will happen every year. Asking a business to throw away hordes of cash so your dying server will have slightly more population is selfish, pathetic and absurd.

    If you are pitching Daybreak to stop releasing TLP each year just look at the forums one month ago. It was filled with players begging for the new TLPs to be released. This was during an event allowing anyone to reactivate on the dying TLPs for free. It was not good enough.

    The only people who want to play on old dying TLPs are already there, low population, on the verge of a server merger. If TLP servers were not launched each year, the hordes of Classic -> Velious players aren't going to play on your awful server. They will not play at all.

    The only solutions *must* include a fresh set of TLP each year. Feeder servers or fast unlocks during the exodus expansions are perfectly fine ideas. Anyone who doesn't want TLPs launched every year is a minority that frankly no one cares about.

    LDoN is an awful expansion that deserves no time. Anyone who has survived from Classic through PoP does not want to farm 20+ augments in boring content. As much as people say it should be combined into PoP (which would be an improvement) I would take it a step further and remove it from the game entirely. The community wants raid content, not solo grinds. LDoN does not provide any and makes it extremely taxing to raid PoP for 6 months consecutively while grinding both AA and augments.
  7. Gnothappening Augur

    True but why? Why would they choose to not make money? This is a business, always was. Businesses either make money or go under. I would rather a new TLP every year around this time and allow us to choose to go to it or not, instead of the doors closing and all we have is mediocre free stuff.
  8. Balderdash Lorekeeper

    You write entirely from a raider perspective. Between the Combine, Fippy and Ragefire I have maxed out 2 augs and nearly maxed out another. I have literally done over a thousand LDoN missions and have never been near the top of the LDoN leaderboards so there are many who do far more than me. I have only ever done 2 LDoN raids. I never farmed augments, I farmed the missions for gear and tradeskills items to survive the brutal PoP/GoD periods. There are many others who do the same. Fully geared up LDoN is enough to survive inOmens till decent instanced raiding starts. I have always been able to get Anquish flagged in that gear.

    The people who restart every year are not raiders, they are either non raiders, krono farmers or grievers. This thread was how to keep people from restarting and staying past PoP. I would argue that keeping LDoN and completely eliminating GoD would be a much better way of keeping the restarters engaged through Omens and beyond.
  9. Nennius Curmudgeon

    To summarize. When a new TLP opens some of the population tends to flow to it thus reducing the population on the older TLP server(s). That would seem to indicate the number of folks interested in a TLP server is somewhat static. I could easily be wrong and maybe each new TLP server brings in a distinct population, but it would seem that the older servers will tend to depopulate to near extinction over time.

    Since making money is the usual primary occupation of a business, the need for a continued flow of new TLP servers would seem essential in the long run. Perhaps just set a sunset date for all TLP servers where they will be merged or abandoned.

    Or...actually publicize the game and perhaps gain new users.
  10. Kobra Augur

    I was primarily a live player and I dabbled on TLP and the #1 reason I always quit on TLPs is never due to the content, its due to the really badly run guilds with really asinine policies.

    When the content was live there was an excuse for not doing things in the most optimal manner, but in 2020 there is no reason to do things in a bad way when the knowledge is out there.

    Probably not why most people leave, but that is what causes me to quit on TLPs.
  11. Delphwind Augur


    I have seen this argument over and over again. At some point the devs need to decide to either promote a healthy community and still make some money, or split their population again to make more money.

    Maybe instead of making the same type of server over and over again, they can continue to try different rule sets, like Rizlona.
  12. Xondor Lorekeeper

    Or just make it FV loot rules so if someone wanted to start up they could just gear up with 1kr.
  13. WaitingforMoreEQ WaitingforTBC

    [IMG]
  14. Accipiter Old Timer


    Bard ruin everything.
  15. Kittany Augur

    This is going to be a widely unpopular opinion, but the way I see how things are; Encourage people to not box and instead look to friends to create groups, raids and socializing etc.

    Now, as I have stated multiple times, I'm not against boxing. It has it's uses. But there comes a point in the game that the lower the population drops, the more anti social the remaining people become and so, boxing becomes mandatory to participate in content/and or advance.

    And so forth lies the dilemma. The chicken or the egg syndrome. I don't know what the answer would be, but what I do know is that the EQ community is set in it's ways, jaded and are happily eager to continue the blissful social decline by driving away new/and or returning players.
  16. Gnothappening Augur

    I think that is a failing business model. Encourage someone to not have 6 accounts, so that you can hope they will bring in 2 or 3 new people, who will also only have a single account. You lose at least 2 paid accounts that way.

    I personally have a wildly unpopular opinion, at least it is unpopular on the forums. I say leave boxing alone. Stop the bots, but leave the boxers. Here is my reasoning and the part that many on the forums will disagree with. I don't think boxing drives players away like a lot of people say. I think that, at most, you will lose 1 regular account for every 10 accounts that are boxed. People may quit for other reasons, but I don't believe it is someone else was playing a group of 6 boxes.

    Really, the ones I see complaining about boxing all come across as people who are upset that they can't get other people to carry them in the game. They say, "I can't get groups because people are boxing." When it should really be is, "I can't get groups because people really just don't want to group with me." That can be for a lot of reasons, usually because you waste their time. Otherwise, work your own groups, work your own friends... start a guild that doesn't allow alts or boxes.

    Here is the reason I always play toons that can solo/duo/trio. I don't always have a lot of time to play. When I do play, I don't want it wasted by a crap group. What makes a crap group? People who ninja afk, people who afk a lot, people who don't know how to play their class, and people who join and then leave shortly afterward. I'm not a college student that goes to three hours of classes and has the rest of his day off anymore.
  17. Kittany Augur


    I mean no disrespect, but WoW (Or insert literally any other MMO) didn't become popular by becoming the boxing mecca of the MMO verse.
  18. Gnothappening Augur

    No, I agree with you fully on that. They didn't get to where they are by being a boxing mecca. That said, every class in WoW can level to max level without ever having to group if they don't want to. You only group up for quests or to clear instances. Also, and this is a huge part, you can see actual progress on a level in wow if you only have an hour or two. Best part is that you don't even have to get other people in involved. Heck, you get bonus exp if you camp out in an inn or town based on how long you are out of the game. Games like WoW cater to casual players.

    Everquest wasn't built with a foundation that caters to casual players. It is only faster now because we know everything about the game and exp is way better than it was originally. Even so, play a warrior, paladin, or rogue from level 1 to 50 and only play a max of 1-2 hours a day. Once you can't solo, you are going to have a hard time getting exp.

    I'm not saying EQ should encourage boxing. By all means keep the truebox code. Ban people botting. My overall point was that I don't think boxing is what drives people away. Not really. Some people will say that but those are few and far between. Everyone I have known that has quit did so because something came up IRL or they just got tired of the game. TBH, most of the ones I know are addicted to raids. Once the raids go on farm, they pretty much vanish until the next expac. That is why I think a Mangler 2.0 with 2 month unlocks for all expansions would probably be their best bet.
  19. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    What drives people away is lack of opportunity.

    If they want to group & grouping dries up - they leave
    If they want to raid & raiding dries up - they leave

    Being able to box enables self-reliance, get enough boxers & you have found a stable core for your guild to carry it a lot longer than any guild with a very low number of boxers so long as those boxers actually help the other members, which many boxers in fact do.

    Some people count on loyalty to hold players, this is a fatal mistake, guild leadership has to work at building the guild from the ground up with the right amount of independence & co-dependence, it needs to foster looking after each other to a reasonable degree.

    Guilds who count on loyalty litter the roadside while guilds who focus on team work & making things work smoothly & efficiently fare much better - though the "critical mass" of having "enough" players to make that work long term is hard to manage well, grass is greener syndrome & human's fickle confidence are notorious for causing exoduses in real life & in gaming it is no different.

    I'm not saying I have all the answers, but having the right attitude to leadership & having the right leaders is key to guilds surviving long term, and no one style of leadership is best it has to be tailored to the membership that you have & the goals your guild wants to accomplish.
    Fredescu likes this.
  20. Gnothappening Augur

    I think you and I agree for the most part. Boxing, at least in my opinion, helps keep a server stable far more than it costs in players. The nostalgia crew will always come back for a few expansions and leave. Most people play to raid. At the end of the day, boxing makes raiding more viable as it takes less human bodies to fill a raid force. Also, if five people are boxing extra dps and clerics, it makes filling slots 50-72 a lot easier, which makes the raid go easier. People get loot, people see progress, people stay in the guild.
    Skuz likes this.