Compiling Progression Server Ideas

Very True I keep thinking back when those things are introduced.

I like the idea of three months till unlock, by the three month mark people are "Usually ready for the newest expansion in line of order". 4 months I would think the majority of people would be going stir crazy.

I didn't read much of this thread to be honest because I've been reading these ideas for the past 3 years on these forums. Im going to put forward my idea for what I think the best model for a new round of progression would be based on the consensis I've formed for what people are trying to get out of progression, both for the current player base and to make EQ marketable to new players.

Daybrake needs to be able to market EQ on steam, when it comes to PC gaming that's how u get a game onto someones harddrive these days. How can they do this? Market starting the biggest MMO ever from the start. The hardest part about starting EQ is you're missing 95% of the game if you start on live. So much of the content is left untouched.. Advertising starting the game from the start will make it more attractive to play because you can learn everything from the start.. You have 21 expansions 16+ years of peoples hard work punching code into all hours of the night. Its time to use it to your advantage.

There is an obvious need for expansion locked servers its what a decent sized vocal miniority has expressed a want for over these past few years. Not to mention another place where the first 2 expansions are played by a number of people. Many people also still wish to have an Al kaboar style server locked up to PoP.

How can you do all of these things and still keep an avenue open for a new player base? Have an automated rotating progression server group. No votes. Utilize the automated server transfer system. With 8 servers. Progression at its deterimiend segregation points will be forever rotaiting, on an endless cycle.

Each segregation point will be a server group, of 2 servers each.. classic - velious as server group a, velious to PoP/GoD server group b, GoD to SoF server group c, SoF - Live server group d.

As the first launch of server A takes place only 1 server would be active, 2 weeks after all the requirements are met to beat classic kunark will open, and so forth the requirements for velious. 2 weeks after velious is beaten for the first time on server group A, server group B will open, giving players on server group a 2 options. They can transfer to server group b (this can possibly queued before hand so all characters that wish to be moved can arrive on the server at the same /uptime) or they can transfer to a locked version of server group a, that will never progress any further but they will always have the option to continue on to server group b if they wish.

At this point progression on server group a will restart and will not progress past classic until all content is beaten. Players starting on this server will be able to transfer to server group b or to the locked version of server group a when they reach max level or the server once again runs its course. No character creation will be allowed on the locked versions of the servers. Other then the first time the server groups are activated players will always be able to progress to the following server group after reaching max level.

Server group b will run the same as a did. 2 weeks following all content being beaten for each expansion the next will open. Players will be able to start characters directly on server group b at whatever stage in progression the server is, as well as people being able to transfer from server group a at anytime provided they meet the requirements to do so having reached max level or the server running its course. Once progression on server group b has gone threw its first cycle another locked version will open and people will have the same options they did prior for server group c.

Server rotation through server groups a to d will only be in sync the first time through so people progressing later cycles will have the option to remain on the locked version until a time that the next server group resets, or simply move on to the next server and progress at their own pace.

This will create a new progression server cycle opening every 2-3 months at some point in progression threw any given year. It can be completely automated with the need for little to no matainace once its running. It creates 3 servers locked at different points in progression with server group d having no locked server after reaching live just letting u chose what server you'd like to transfer too. Current progression servers require a subscription so I assume the new ones would as well. People will be able to jump on the wave where the majority of the population is in progression or they can chose to start where they want too. Daybrake could make packages on steam that let u experience specific phases of progression for a cost comparable to subscription time. 10$ to play threw classic - velious for instance. Its a new dawn its a new day so time for new marketing. The progression server is your avenue into marketing what everquest once was, not what its going to be. But what people remember and want to go back to.

This is my idea, its not perfect it has holes and spelling mistakes. please don't flame me.

is there really a population to support all these multiple server ideals? Didn't vulak pop die down a'lot after 6 months? i mean these ideals are great in all but might be 10 years to late? i dunno.

I've seen a couple people mention it, but i feel the need to restate it every time I see a suggestion of "set up this new server system that does ..." It's not going to happen, and it's not in the progression community's best interest for that to happen. Fippy couldn't even get solid support for getting bugs fixed. Look at the bugs and missing things thread. Let's make sure manual unlocks aren't required. If I were to choose what areas work was going toward, it would be in making sure these kind of things were working, and let them plan some crazy new concept further down the road. As it stands, the prog servers as they exist today aren't quite up to par, and complicating the existing systems would nearly guarantee a sub-par experience playing on them.

I think realistically we can expect two servers, and the most that we can hope for is that they allow different progression mechanisms for each of them.

Simplest idea I can come up with to please the majority of people.

Three servers.

Server 1
PoP locked. I'd include LoY and LDoN but that's just me. This is for the old school and beginners alike.

Server 2
SoF locked. After guilds have had their fill in server 1, transfer here for more content without mercs. From here transfer to live if you wish.

Server 3
Start at classic, progress based on content cleared. No timed unlocks. This is for the speed racers. When at the last expansion, merge with live and restart.

Open server 1 and 2 with PoP and SoF already unlocked. This will let people spread out and progress at their own pace. It gives instanced raids from the start and solves the contested mob problem for the most part. Let the racers go crazy on server 3. New content on demand when content is cleared and no need to wait for months for the slow pokes. I haven't thought the idea all the way through so feel free to tear it apart or make it better.

Would like to see corpse runs come back. I like the fear of making mistakes in those dangerous dungeons and zones

Another idea:

Time unlocked server (Time interval to be discussed)
Instance spawning NPC outside dungeons that will spawn an expedition with lockout timers
The monsters in the instance could have less loot or whatever that can be discussed as well

Hardcore guilds could race for the open world versions which would drop more loot as well as kill the instanced version for extra loot and practice. Casual guilds would not need to race and could have set raids times. I think that would be good for both groups.

You guys need to be realistic, they are looking to implement a progression server using the least amount of resources possible. Given their limited resources they would need to divide the team to not only push out the next expansion, but make changes for the next progression server. How much time and effort do you think they want to put into the next progression server?

In other words, they aren't going to make changes to raid mobs, instances or zones unless all it requires is a flip of the switch. You won't see them making servers where they are tiered lock, because that puts a choke hold on the upper tiered servers. Good luck limiting boxes, as thats not going to happen. You're crazy if you think they're going to make any significant changes to how expansions get unlocked - the one change they did make from the 1st to 2nd progression server was the speed of which it got unlocked, the new unlocking system they implemented never worked properly and a lot of the times zones had to be manually unlocked/locked.

What you're honestly looking at in terms of a new progression server is whether it should be the following:

1) PVE/PVP
2) Speed of expansion unlocks
3) Type of cosmetic stuff released through other expansions (Better UIs, more bag spaces, rested regen, race/classes, etc)
4) Rate of exp gain
5) No-drop or drop loot
6) How many servers should be opened (Likely 1, 2 at the very very most (unlikely))

Twice they've planned on opening one server, and ended up opening a second due to demand. It would be a mistake for them not to plan for this, and use it to their advantage to cater to the different groups with different ideas for how the server should be.

Nailed it abracadabra

I'm not willing to count the devs out. Let's see what they can and can't do before we just through ideas out. If they come out and limit the scope then fine. Obviously having multiple servers is much less likely and asking them to do coding work is less likely, that doesn't mean they can't or won't. They have new leadership and hopefully a renewed attitude. I'm hopeful for a good effort.

Yes, but they should only open the second server with the contingency that somewhere down the line when the server population decreases they will merge together for 1 server.

Just going to throw out all my ideas and we'll see where they land.

I would personally like to see 2 servers created.

1. Al'Kabor - Progression Server that stops at PoP
2. Vallon Zek - Team PvP Progression Server

Or

1. Classic - That Progression Server with very long expansion unlocks that either caps at Velious or PoP
2. Standard Progression - Every 3 months or when requirements are met.
In this scenario, if population becomes a problem you simply merge to the Standard or which ever is the most popular.

For me I have to be realistic. I'm not going to fly through this as I know many will. However, I'm assuming that a decent percentage of the target audience will be in my shoes. I am hoping there will be a server that will give me the opportunity to enjoy the time that is unlocked before the community progresses and moves on.

I hope that people enjoy this and don't grind it away. This is a great opportunity for the community and it's great timing in my opinion. I hate that Freeport and Commonlands have changed and would give anything for a more classic experience but I also understand the limitations... beggars can't be choosey.

Looking forward to more details!

I agree with Abra - Anyone who thinks that they are going to do some crazy server set with 4-5 servers is not thinking logically or rationally.

Honestly, at this point, I think the most we can hope for is a change of length of expansions (Longer expansions till PoP, then faster after GoD).

A locked server is such a bad idea for so many reasons that I just cannot fathom why anyone would want that. The reason Al'Kabor was a success was becuase A) there were not enough people there to complete the raids for years and B) The stuff was never nerfed making it almost unbeatable anyway.

People still played on Alkabor because they had never actually beaten PoP. Do you REALLY think those people would have stayed for that many years if they were clearing time once a week eveyr single week for years and years? People will get bored of clearing Time over and over and will quit.

There has to be a carrot in order to keep people moving and if you lock a server once they beat the content and know there will never be new content they will quit. Look at the current progression servers: Expansion launches, tons of new people play and beat the content, slowly people stop logging in and population dwindles, then new expansion launches and everyone comes back to play it and rinse and repeat.

Now imagine if all those people who quit didn't have a new expansion to come back for, yea you would have one dead server really really fast.

I'd love to see them drastically reduce the respawn on raid level targets. We're already on an accelerated schedule. Why not just have them pop up once every 24 or even 12 hours? Would solve a lot of problems with the fights breaking out (people could still get their bloodthirsty competition on in the first 2 weeks or so), and it would make the casuals feel like they're not "falling behind" as they'd probably get a crack at the raid mobs in the last few weeks before the next expansion opens up.

I want to see the raid targets pre-nerf....

1 server, what's the ruleset? All these schemes suggesting Sony implement 15 progression servers are crazy. There has NEVER been more than 10% of the total EQ player base playing on progression servers. You need to scale your expectations to 1, maybe 2 servers MAX.

And if it is 2 servers, they have the same ruleset so they can be merged down the line when the playerbase inevitably declines.

What I'd like to see personally if possible:

all classes available at launch
all races based on available zones at launch (yes, frogs)
all currently available class/race combos available at launch (frog monks, elf BLs, ect)
slow XP, though not sure at what rates
Old school death penalties. Corpse recovery, XP loss and back to your bind point naked
Timelocked. 6 months per era (or so)
Permalocked at GoD or PoR.
No defiant gear obviously
No double XP weekends or RaFs
No boxing or at minimum a limit of two characters per player.
No newbie armor quests
some predetermined method of dealing with contested spawns
Disciplinary action for asshatery

I know that may not be everyone's cup of tea but thought id throw in my two copper. Maybe parts of it will be considered at the least.

I hope they don't bring back time consuming corpse runs or have anti-boxing IP limits. Guilds fighting over raid mobs does far more harm to the community than boxing.