I don't understand some TLP players, help me

There is a TLP player that, once a year, starts at level 1 on the newest TLP that comes out. This player will play for 12 months until they hit an expansion that came out 15-ish years ago, and then restart at level 1. My question is...

Why?

As someone who hates sitting in one spot pulling the same 4-6 PH, hoping for that named to finally spawn.... someone who gets bored doing a current expansion mission for the 15th time, grinding away at type 5 currency.... someone who is bored with raids in May and yearns for new content.... I cannot personally fathom replaying the same content, year after year, starting over from scratch.

So I am genuinely curious to those that do this sort of thing, what is the appeal? What are some reasons why you do this? The only thing I can think of is a player who 2-6 boxes on Live, and they start up a TLP to amass 24-72 kronos to pay for a year subscription for each of their accounts. But I don't belelieve every Day 1 starter on every new TLP fits that category.

I thank you all for your responses. Again, just curious as to why someone would do this year after year.

Universal reset.

Why do people play diablo 3 season after season after season? Why do people play Path of Exile for the same reason. World of Warcraft even with classic servers and classic plus being considered.

The reason is EVERYONE restarts with nothing. Its the battle arena game mindset. Everyone starts with nothing, get to the end, see who is the best, game over and reset.

I like doing the things you don't, why?, who knows.

The percentage of people who play a new tlp for a full 12 months is small and the chunk of that group that restart on the new tlp every year even smaller. A large portion of people don't make it past classic much less the original trilogy.

It sort of sounds like you either play solo or use a box group because sitting in one area pulling the same 4-6 PH is a social experience that allows the group to chat and otherwise interact in a game environment. This is basically the only game I know of where that is possible and that is why I play MMORPGs.

In early EQ, there's just a lot more players running around doing things at a level where you can group with them.

That is to say, the level disparity is much smaller and more people tend to make a new character once one has hit level cap.

Until PoP, there's also very little zone obstruction (flagging/progression locked). There's also less gear/spell dependency in earlier EQ. The gap between raiders and non raiders, while statistically similar to later expansions, has less impact on the group game. Really, this "gap" begins with VT/Emp/Seru, so OG + Kunark most players are on a fairly even footing.

Also, because the gear is as it is, there is less "funneling" aside from a handful of BiS group items and those wishing to fast-track to level cap.

So PoP introduces the first real segregation in the EQ player base. You have the raiders who quickly get access to the better zones, and non-raiders or casual raiders who lag behind, don't have access, don't have the same gear quality etc..

If you look at the complaints on live about NoS.. Imagine that much of those are getting posted by players who've been farming TOL raids all last year. If it takes too long (mob HP too high) for raiders to kill things, it is significantly worse for a non raider.

Weapon ratio, shield & plate AC values, spell foci, etc.. all play into it. The last time I fully invested into beta testing, I charted it all out. While consistent in the % disparity between top raid gear in an expansion and top group gear in an expansion, there are loads of other factors involved.. such as mob HP/DMG, strike through, mitigation, etc.. because of all of this and the insane way that group content is balanced around raiders (the primary testers), there is just something more "fun" about the earlier EQ experience.

The new TLP's are often flooded by new (low level) players, this makes meeting new people and PUG much more common. It rekindles a very small reminiscing of the original EQ experience. Because this refreshes every year, it is easier to restart yearly to get a taste of that, where TLP's tend to be more clique/guild-centric as the expansions progress.


So basically you get:
More sense of original EQ nostolgia/feel
More players at a given level range to group with
More areas to choose to group in
Simplistic raid experience that doesn't require audio triggers
Simplistic raid experience that isn't heavily gear dependent
Raider and casual alike both perform adequately in groups
Fresh set of people who may have been on the last TLP but you've never met.
More relaxing and less focused on being ready for the next xpac launch

That's what I see as I watch someone play on our progression server, but rolls up on each new progression server to play outside of raiding/progression needs on our primary one.

Because anything around omens and later isn't EQ. It is basically EQ2. The game changed completely. Quite frankly if I want more modern style gaming there are other games better then EQ at it.

That being said, we don't start blindly on every new TLP when they don't create a good TLP. Most of us take time away from the game and come back when they put out something good.

So is a large portion merely krono farmers who bail after classic? Or do they thoroughly enjoy 1-50 that they repeat ad nauseum?

As far as modern TLPs, I've only played on Yelinak, last year in 2022. Prior to that, I hadn't played on EQ Live since a TLP in 2007-2008 (so, Combine Server IIRC). My experience on Yelinak, and what I heard from other people on the Discord server, is that the bot armies start to taper off a bit by the time you hit Kunark, and much more so by Velious.

At that point, all the prized Classic weapons and equipment were farmed to death and sold for krono and then, post-Velious, when the TLP server starts to drop off -- these krono farmers go back to Live.

At that point, the population steadily declines through the coming months. The next year comes around, rinse, repeat.

Because those characters with prenerf drops and keys for every locked zone eventually reach live and can be transferred with those rare items and flags.

Backflagging... Solteris, DoN AAs, VT etc on live sucks. It is way more fun to do it in era with... OMG <people>.

and also, Krono for a set of banded never hurt anyone's live server playtime either. Like some people play TLPs AND on live servers simultaneously, some by Kronoing up on TLP to support live server play.

Can you expand on this? What changes completely? New stuff is added incrementally in each expansion and while I will concede that NoS is not really the same game as Classic I don't recall a massive hard pivot in or around OoW.

krono farmers.

I think after TSS it becomes more like EQ2 .

GoD to TSS is the best part of the game to me.

It's really no more complicated that it being a chat room with kitschy graphics.

Except I'm bringing my 512 kronos I made on Mischief?

It isn't EQ? Omens of War came out over 18 years ago and content before that only makes up 20% of the time the game has been live. It isn't that the content isn't EQ just that some players don't like it. Not sure how you can call 23 of a games 30 expansions not that game.

Then you should probably consider playing on a TLP, Vaniki was massively different from anything you've previously done in EQ. But instead you chose boredom.

I choose to make my main the absolute it best it can be. Part of that is going through things I don't like- aug camps, mission currency, raid currency, etc. But I also know at the end of 10-12 months I am done and never have to go back and redo that content. I would find restarting at level 1 and doing content I have already done decades ago on several toons boredom, as you describe.

And I have heard way way way too many stories in game and on these boards about the embarrassingly toxic nature of TLP servers on release that I prefer to stay away from that sort of toxicity.

Ah, you're a casual player and it takes you 10-12 months to get all the upgrades from an expansion, stay away from Vaniki.

...because they chose the wrong class. Depending on which class a person chooses to play, the experience from classic to GoD + is entirely different. I only have time to max out 1-2 characters. If I choose the wrong class, I am not going to level up, farm AA's, backflag, etc another class again.

I'm trying out a ranger right now on a live server. I hate the class. I would be so upset if I leveled this ranger from classic to GoD. I can shoot Naggy and Vox in the face soon, so I'll get this ranger up to 100.