They have been getting new features for a long time now and even without that so much has changed they no longer match the original game. As TLP stands for time locked progression it doesn't matter that things are not always the same as they used to be since it is just describing how things unlock.
I doubt encounter locking would come to live and its much more likely the other stuff they mentioned would come to Live. Its been so long since I have had to deal with KSing or camp stealing that I can't remember the last time. I did get an issue I had to deal with where someone in my guild complained but it turned out there was an explanation and they were completely wrong. Seems to me its folks that come from TLP that are the jumpiest about camps. No knocks on them I just guess they deal with more there and sort of expect it.
Live is a little more mature when it comes to camps etc. I have only had 1 group try to dps race my duo on a named. After I looted the corpse, I told them thanks for the assistance. They should have been embarrassed enough to never try it again.
Don't you think that if FTE wan't going to Live servers, they would have come out IMMEDIATELY when the uproar started and said "Hang on, this is a TLP only solution for TLP only problems and won't be going to Live"? I'm telling you...they made up their minds a long time ago to put this on the Live servers. The only question they have now is "Can we make it work?". And that's why they're going to make people pay to beta test it on a TLP server. The only way to prevent it coming to Live at this point is to pound away at them with how stupid this would be to bring it to the Live servers. That's the only kind of message they listen to these days.
Considering they haven't put any more information out about the new system or server the server in general I don't think that is an accurate assumption. As others have said this feels more like a tool to fix issues on the early era on new TLP servers.
They absolutely intend or intended FTE to be implemented on live servers. They already been on recorded stating that they don't want multiple versions of EQ with any significant differences.
Are you sure? FTE legitimizes ganking spawns from someone's camp. I know this already occurs on TLP on a regular basis, but at least you had a chance to DPS it back, but good luck with FTE.
That would be correct, but those changes aren't significant, complex and time consuming as FTE. It makes no sense over the long term to implement those changes potentially only one server. If this is something they plan to continue it will be added to live.
This is a key point. If tickets do go down then they'll most likely look at it as a success. So, once you start running into issues with people abusing FTE, I think it would be smart to petition right away. Don't bother trying to combat these things yourselves anymore.
I've been playing since 2002. On live I see no need for FTE. In all the years I've played only 1 time someone tried to out DPS me. That was few months ago the skelly camp. They failed miserably. Sure BOT PL crews are annoying, but they're not game ruining. They may mess up a named camp, but if you're patient, you'll get your named sooner or latter. Pickzones are your friend in the case. If this is such a big issue that FTE is inevitable, I would rather see all named locked behind an HA then deal with this. Griefers using cheat programs will have a field day.
And that doesn't mean that they can have features enabled on some servers but not others and there are features that are TLP only (or used to be TLP only). This is another feature that can be turned on and off as they desire to only enable it on the servers that they want and this is shown by only having it on a single server now. What they are recorded as saying is that they don't want to maintain different code bases and different patchers to support multiple versions of the game. They have no problem with having features that are only enabled on some servers. Sure the code will be on all servers but it will only be enabled on some.
It would have huge effects on Live. It would change how the game itself works. It would be a completely different game. If they want to have a server that has those rules all the time, fine, then that server can be the only one with it. If people want to have those rules they can move to that server. The FTE system can only be a huge drain on resources. It adds a check for every single instance of an attack. The issue is not that it is not necessary on Live servers, it is that it make impossible the intended kind of gamplay that has existed on Live Servers since the day EQ launched. At no point should this leave this server and go to any Live server. The FTE is going to worse the toxicity of the TLP servers. The proposed changes in no way solve any of the issues with TLP. It only provides more ways for the people who are causing problems on the TLP servers to do it more efficiently. This whole thing would drastically change how the game is played at all levels of the game. Add to that the fact that, we still have not been told enough about how this is going to work to be sure that the worst possible scenario won't be possible.
I think the solution will come sooner than that. If people dont like the new rule they wont roll on that server. If otoh the server is popular then thats their answer.
