Ragefire, Lockjaw & Phinigal.

Add hardware? Why do they have to do that? The server will eventually be in expansions with instances so I'd think they would already have the proper hardware.

If I am not understanding how things work please explain.

He is just throwing out BS that makes no sense. They would not have to copy anything to additional hardware to add instancing. However, they will not add instancing now, because that was one of the big selling points of Phinigel.

It makes me sad, because I don't have the time, nor the will, to level up in Phinigel...yet the introduction of instancing there, and withholding of it on Lockjaw, caused the majority of my friends to move to it.

I'd welcome instancing on LJ. But rerolling and especially dealing with mroe Classic and Kunark AND leveling back up with worse exp is crap. Also not being able to box I don't like, so all in all, not for me.

But hey should have just released instancing for one of the current TLP's rather than making a new one. But hey, it's their game. I'm sure either or both LJ and RF will see instancing at some point.

I doubt any of this is hardware related. EQ is what 17 years old now? Any sane infrastructure person would have moved away from dedicated hardware by now. I'd be willing to bet the hundreds of servers of old are now a cluster of a dozen servers running hundreds of virtual machines. Hell the smart thing would be to have everything run in the cloud.
But that doesn't make it any easier to do. It could very well be a nightmare to change the sever side application configuration to support instancing on a production server. I'm sure they thought/are thinking about it and mostly decided against it.

I seriously doubt daybreak runs their own servers now, it would be way cheaper for them to just rent server space in one of the mega server farms.. and if they need more hardware, just rent a few more servers.

There seems to be a lot of ignorance in this thread on the true state of Lockjaw server and while Darth, Gremin, Zublak and Fieryo helped dispell some of these falsehoods I think it's important to also add the view from Peace of Formosa EX.

Our guild, Peace of Formosa EX, is a primarily Taiwanese and Australian guild and mostly does raids during Asian prime times. We kill pretty much anything that is left up "over night" or spawns during our prime time and do raids nightly. The main targets we are killing are Severilous, Talendor, Gorenaire, Faydedar, Cazic-Thule, Innoruuk and Plane of Sky Efreeti. We have also killed Venril Sathir a couple of times but rarely see him during our prime time.

Our guild has also attempted Trakanon 3 times when it spawned in our prime time but came up short against Faceless Insanity. However, due to the lack of Randomeness on Trakanon's (and Venril Sathir's) spawn timer; we never see him up during our prime time and he seems to die more or less the same time every day which makes him spawn more or less the same time again the next day which actually makes it difficult for us to contest Trakanon (and Venril Sathir) at a time when we could get the force to do so.

So it actually seems to be more of a game design flaw, rather than Faceless Insanity's dominance, that is really preventing us from contesting Trakanon and Veeshan's Peak. I also suspect Darkwind also uses this fact to help reduce the number of times Trakanon spawns outside of their prime time as well. Since we're unlikely to get actual instancing it would be nice if Daybreak made some adjustments to either the randomness or frequency of these mobs so that they aren't always spawning in a fairly narrow space of time so that guilds that raid at different times would have more opportunities to try them.

In addition to Faceless Insanity and Peace of Formosa EX that fills the role of being Lockjaw's main two raiding guilds there are also several other smaller guilds that are more casual minded and only raid a couple of days a week. These guilds are The Dead Halfling Society, Midnight Phyre, Unworthy and Valor and Honor have all made attempts, and many time succeeded, at killing Kunark raid mobs. Of those guilds, The Dead Halfling Society is without a doubt the most successful of them and has killed everything outside of Trakanon and Veeshan's Peak.

But yeah Lockjaw server currently has a healthy population and a number of different guilds that are actively raiding. We don't have near as much drama as Ragefire and unlike Phinigel we also have faster exp, slower unlocks and the ability to box on a single computer which makes the server an ideal place to play for the more casual minded gamers and a server I highly recommend for anyone that is interested in starting out on the progression servers.

It doesn't take too much work to keep Trakanon from spawning in an 8hr period. He can move a bit, but if the other guild isn't super on-the-ball, then it's also fairly easy to get him back to a certain window.

TLR - FI is manipulating the spawn window so that they aren't having to defend him in off-hours.

His window probably needs to be more like 8+30 or some such than what it is now. Or, you could always move to Phinnie and you'd just have instancing.

Exactly. Phinny made absolutely no sense. Implementing instancing on LJ / RF (or at least one of them) was the right decision. DBG went with the cash grab.

When they were modifying the spawn timers, I suggested the solution to this. Completely random spawns, starting an hour after a boss dies, and weighted so it still averages out to a reasonable time. Would have killed socking, and made manipulation impossible.

Yea, that woulda been fun I think. I don't mind things being a mobilization race - socking is horrid. At least with mobilization you can have some options for being creative.

There is one big problem with this attitude, all 3 servers suck for one reason or another.

1. Like instancing? Phin, except the exp rate is dreadful, and you can't box. Not being able to easily box + low population of alts = good luck trying to play on this server unless you hit the initial wave of expansion leveling. Go roll a rogue on Phin, let us know when you hit 50.

2. LJ + RF, both the same problem, both the same ruleset.

It's pretty clear a lot of people want instanced content, at a decent exp rate. Being that LJ and RF are more or less the same at this point, one of them should be made instanced and keep the exp rate. Problem solved.

The choice to "not play if you don't like what's going on" = unsub, as they all suck for one reason or another. That's really bad for a game that relies on grouping to get anywhere, this x 1000000000 on phin.

I'm a perfect example of a customer that wants to play the game, but has a choice between bad and just as bad in a different way. I'd love a no boxing, instanced server. I enjoy grouping, I don't like to box, but I will do it if I can't find a group...but that exp. I'm coming back to EQ for nostalgia, and I *want* to play a lot of different classes. The entire point of playing this game again is to do and see things I didn't do before, that includes doing content with different classes than I may have done at release. I'm way past the point of needing to prove to anyone, including myself, that I'm an internet tough guy because I can sit on my for 14 hours a day killing mobs to get a level.

The majority of the EQ TLP player base, are returning players that have been there and done that, I'm one of them. The barriers to entry, especially when they are intentionally put in place, are just silly, and bad business.

/shrug. Mark my words, Phin will be a ghost town in very short order.

We'll see - precedent has been bleeding from the top end of the population - not the bottom end.

Usually late additions to the TLP servers have been substantial early on, but then slow to a trickle.

So it's really almost flipped on it's head for how Phin is gaining and losing people. How the math works out in the longrun is to be seen though.

Another psychic prophet. Have you got next weeks lottery numbers?

Lockjaw has something for everyone right now - and thus in a very good place (in my opinion).

We have three (maybe 4) legit raiding guilds who all on good terms with each other. We have casual guilds (at least 3) that tackle some content. We have a guild of boxers that stress non-disruptive behavior. There are people in unrest still leveling. I have wondered into lots of new players fresh to TLPs in several different leveling zones. My guild has picked up about two dozen new recruits in the last several weeks (some new to the server, others from former guilds). I have also seen refugees from the exp rates on Phinny.

For disclosure, I am in DHS. We raid on a set schedule, a schedule set months in advance. We find targets up all the time. READ: ALL THE TIME. I can only think of one night back in, maybe November?, that we spent the night just farming Hate for mini's and armor droppers. In the last 3 DHS raid nights we have killed Sev x2; Talendor x1; Faydedar x2; VS x1, the entirety of Sky including the Efreeti's - in addition to Golems x4, Draco, and host of epic fights accomplished for veteran and new members alike.

I have to wonder about all those that talk about Lockjaw as a dead/dying server. They couldnt be more wrong (and, my opinion) log on it and talk with anyone from the guilds there, or heck even the unguilded, I am sure you will likely hear a much different tune from 9 outta 10 of them. There is always that guy.. always.

Classic mobs had a window that had enough variance that it was impossible to make a mob spawn at the same time everyday and are a better model of what i think most raid mob timers should look like.

But yeah I'm not at all interested in joining Phinigel. I played Vulak'Aerr where we only had 84 days of Kunark, 84 days of Velious and 84 days of Luclin and I always felt rushed to get everything I wanted done before the next expansion and Phinigel is using that same kind of time line so it doesn't appeal to me at all. Also I'm pretty indifferent about instancing and don't really think it would change too much on Lockjaw if it was implemented or not.

Only thing that really appeals to me on Phinigel is the slower exp rate which should lead to a more vibrant lower level community for a longer period of time. The exp rates on Lockjaw are very short sighted and forces everyone to 50+ in a matter of days which makes it a bit harder to find groups for new players or people leveling up alts.

Go back and read my threads on what was going to happen on the TLP before RF opened. It's not psychic, it's called logic.

I firmly believe this has been their master plan all along:

- Wait for RF/LJ to equalize so that bi-directional transfers are again possible
- In the meantime, open new TLP with instancing for the "cash grab" plus lots of players *really* like fixed, fast unlocks
- new TLP has very, very slow XP + fast unlocks = XP potion sales (mo'money!)
- Instancing is buggy, which also necessitates slow XP to hold back the wave at least 3-4 weeks while it is fixed (unfortunately it takes 6 weeks+)
- Once instancing is known working *and* RF <> LJ transfers are possible, ONE of RF or LJ will get instancing. My prediction: RF
- One week of free transfers RF <> LJ to compensate for the ruleset change, after that, you have to pay to jump. It will not be possible to transfer to Phiny.

That leaves you with 3 servers, 3 rulesets:

- fast XP / vote / anybox / instancing (Ragefire)
- fast XP / vote / anybox / competitive (Lockjaw)
- slow XP / fixed / truebox / instancing (Phinny)

If (when?) LJ population then plummets to the point where it isn't progressing, they can pull a Vulak. But something tells me at least one large guild will stick around and keep it progressing, like Fippy.

Would love to see this myself...

Except your logic worked before because the bleed at the top was never addressed (besides a poorly enforced rotation) I was doomsaying right with you.

Its easy to prognosticate when there's precedent. And Phinny is tweaked enough there isn't one.

I just don't see people returning to RF/LJ unless instancing is added. Period.

However, going back to a server makes no money for DBG. Think about it...

Opening a *fourth* TLP in mid-2016 (Phinny + 6 months) which is an amalgamation of Phinny + RF/LJ so that people can make money:

- faster xp (or progressive XP)
- raid instancing
- minimal alt-tab boxing (up to 3 toons, no more)
- unlock on content cleared + 16 weeks, no vote

IMO, that is a winning combination that would basically result in Phinny becoming what RF/LJ is now: low pop in first 3 eras.

I would jump to that server in a heartbeat, as Phinny is just a little *too* fast of unlocks for my casual playstyle, especially when coupled with the slower XP. Plus, I really like the option of being able to 2-box or 3-box when one or both of my kids can't play.

I'm quite confident that we're either going to see instancing added to RF or LJ (or both),OR, we will get a new server that has faster XP and instancing. The question is: which one will make more revenue for DBG? The answer should be obvious, which is why I've been here predicting a new TLP in Mid-2016 for over a month now...

Such a server won't have the XP Pot revenue or be the Krono gear machine that Phinny is (but it'll be close on the later), but, it will have many more sub kronos going in due to the alt-tab boxing. As I posted a while back, each server needs it's own unique path tor revenue; it's own "revenue hook" if you will.

I think it's a balance that would make it the most poplar TLP to date.

Then, if RF/LJ are ghost towns, open up free one-way transfers from the lower pop serer to the ther (ie the Full Vulak treatment).

Phinny will always have a dedicated hardcore following, because of the ~40% faster unlocks (12 weeks vs Cleared + 16 weeks).

Psychic prophecy...... logical prophecy...... it's still prophecy. Now, about those lottery numbers.....