An idea. (how to get me to play again, please)

I'm all for progression servers, love all the old stuff...the graphics, the feel , the community etc. That's all great and all but not really enough to get me out of retirement....besides, I really can't afford it time and money wise.

However.....

With eqn being a bust for me(not looking for a debate) it got me to thinking. What would get me to play again? I love the current game now and dreadfully miss my guild and all the colorful personalities and teamwork..../wave D'Pikey. But server population and the state of the game doesn't really lend itself to community any more.

Here's what I was thinking. Have a classic progression server up until SoL or PoP...most who are into classic eq agree this is the cutoff points where things went south. Now once the last xpac is beaten and farmed for a bit....why not release a "classic" expansion that view a different route than SoL or PoP did? No pok, bizaar etc etc that turns off the classic crowd. Same graphics just new content with more levels or maybe even aas...take a poll or something. But talk about an alternate universe....something I wrongfully bought eqn was going to be. Imagine the possibilities. I would move heaven and earth to arrange for myself to be able to play.

Would anyone else be interested in that? Maybe if enough supported something like this, they would notice.

Greetings and salutations. I do understand where you are coming from on a number of points you made. Might I suggest giving the Test Server a try. Return to Glory is currently in SoL raiding. We are a progression guild that has our own set guidelines, but still make the game enjoyable. The Test server is free and you are just like a gold account holder. If this is something you might be interested in, please look us up http://returntoglory.guildlaunch.com. If you have any questions please find me in game or post something on here. Hope to see you in game!

Ghirardelli 60th Level Cleric

Not it's not where most who are into classic agree the cutoff is.

Reading over various threads here seemed to indicate to me that these two expansions were the consensus. If you or others had a different take that's understandable. Personally I have a bittersweet feeling towards PoP as I loved most of the content but this is also where I saw most guildees leaving...and never cared for pok. There's never going to be complete agreement on the matter. Most important is the idea or possibility of them releasing content for progression servers. Could they, would they.

It's an interesting idea, but who would actually make this expansion? Certainly not the current EQ devs. I doubt they would be able to make the mental gymnastics necessary to set aside their current vision for Everquest and readopt the Vision from 12 years ago. (Not that I fault them for that, I doubt any serious game developer could mentally roll back 12 years of mmo development history.)

Parker, have you looked into Al'Kabor. It is the Macintosh server that is actually time locked in planes of power. My guild raids plane of time there as well as all the kunark, velious, and luclin mobs you could want! I spend a lot of time there, its a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, it's down now. There was a patch yesterday, and it's been crashing ever since.

Same here. Since EQN is far off and is not like EQ, I hope SOE revisits servers that cater to the millions of us who want to replay EQ or continue where they left off. The game is so different now. Progression servers are for a bulk of the population a short term gimmick; albeit a fun one. I wish EQ would invest a little time in a permanent progressive server structure so players can continue on the same ruleset they left off on. Current EQ is like watching half a move, then returning to watch the rest only to learn everything about the movie has changed. No one would be interested in that.

Ya I'd like to check out the mac server, but think the PC client is no longer working? Never tried it but for many years wanted to play on that server.

I have not. How is the low level grouping population as of right now? That's what I miss most I think. All these years looking back on my playtime, eq never felt more alive than when I was level, 2001, and lfg...100s in zones...ec full of life...always being able to get a group. That's what I want to get back in on, from the start if nothing else.

Are pcs able to get the client?

Unfortunately, that would require a time machine. But yes, it was a lot of fun back then!

If and when they launch a new TLP server, it will be similar to this for several months. Lots of groups to be had, stuff to camp, etc.. Was a blast for a year or so.

Unfortunately, I imagine it will take them a couple years before they do another TLP server. The last one was so crazy they actually had to launch a second one just to handle the traffic! Newbie zones all got to the max population of 300 lol.

We'll wait years before they do another TLP server.

"Cutting off your nose to spite your face." I guess we'll see soon enough whether cutting off PC players has dropped Al'Kabor below viability level. For quite a while now, that was the only SOE property I spent any significant time in; it may be time to reduce my monthly expenses.

Wow a classic server. Now why hasn't anyone ever thought of that before?

Lol God knows I wish there are "millions" of us (So does SOE I bet). Alas, not even close.
Sad truth is, the "millions" are the younger generation whose parents are buying them the new game console and looking for alot of action with little to no room for their own imagination to fill in the holes.

population on the progression servers can't be more than 2000-3000 subscriptions total, seems like a waste of time to cater to such a small player-base with something new. Keep wishing though

I was a late comer to Progression 2012 but SOE said at launch of progression 2006 that 80,000 characters had been created in the first week. That was with no advertising whatsoever. If the vast majority of potentially interested persons knew nothing about progression 2006, and yet still 80,000 characters were created; that suggests a large untapped market.

2006 is a long time ago, with the amount of games that are available now i doubt you see #'s anywhere near 80,000. on fippy there weren't 800 people in each zone, guk was rarely over 50-60, solb no more than 30-40 outside a boss spawn camp with 3 guilds auto-harmtouching. Even in pop 6 people in tactics outside raids, not many in nightmare, storms, justice or any of those zones was super easy to find a camp in BoT as well, fire was normally open too. There isn't some super large portion of the player base looking to play these zones for more than a bit of fun or nostalgia As time goes on its less and less, the server eventually dwindles, 77 people in the bazaar on fippy total including traders that's not exactly a robust population.

Agree with Oisjafoij, there will be less and less players that are interested in doing this again each time they run progression servers. Especially as they fail to get the 'little" details correct (I'm talking about you soft AC caps!)

Althought I think he missed the mark on the actual #'s on Fippy, there were about 25% more in both solb and lguk during prime time. But the gist of his post is accurate. There were a few thousand combined on Fippy/Vulak, not millions.

You mean no advertising other than word of mouth. There were posts about it on countless gaming sites and didn't they send out emails? I really can't remember.