Does the popularity of the TLP servers show that Everquest went down the wrong path?

TLP is like a search for a gold ring at the merry-go-round, but those who jump from TLP server to TLP server keep getting a brass ring. Trying to recapture that 'first tme playing EQ' experience isn't going to work.

It's nothing like that for me. I haven't played in 11 years, quit during the middle of PoP. I first because interested getting back into EQ again when I heard about Ragefire. What interested me in the progression servers was that I hoped to be able to play through content that was released after PoP that I've missed at a gradual pace with an entire server of appropriate levels like a progression server offers.

Playing on Phinegal right now and it's the most fun I've had with a MMO in years. With the unlock speed and the instancing, hopefully people will stick it out for a while.

Lumiens: yeah, that. I think there are a lot of us in the same boat. Hopefully they add instancing to RF before things get out of hand, but I don't want to derail the thread by talking about that too much.

It's no secret that the numbers start to plummet when nearly everything starts to rot by design. In the classic era nearly everything, including dragon loot, was tradable and this continued for some time. Oddly, by the time they introduced the bazaar, they had basically killed off all trade by making everything rot. Firiona Vie, the closest ruleset to classic era, has remained one of the more popular servers throughout its existence. People just tend to like having more options. When weak design makes everything rot, these options dried up.

Krono sales are pretty big on the TLP servers, but those sales and their popularity, of course, will dry up when everything starts to rot. I'm surprised that DBG hasn't had the sense to reverse the everything rot design and go back to the roots of having tradable loot. No one would quit for having more options and Krono sales would be a thing on every server. I guess they view more profit as a bad thing.

They went from Dragons and gods to space monsters secreting controlling everything. It went from epic to ridiculous in one expansion.

Great dungeons have nice experience. That's gone.

Oh come on. How could you miss the obvious? I mean it's right there in front of you!

TLP is the virtual manifestation of the metaphorical "chasing the dragon."

I guess I am just confused by Beimeith's post.

Are you trying to compare TLP to an addiction to Heroin?

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I think the TLP servers are just an expression of Nostalgia, people remember the times before they knew how to min/max games, and long for that era, only to find out eventually, it isn't the game that's different, it is them. They know about ZAM's, they know about EQTraders, and the sense of exploring and learning isn't really there, so they again get into the grind of just leveling and raiding.

Thinking back to when EQ was new for me, there were times when I would enter a zone and not even know what to expect - would it be a Sprint, Summer, Fall or Winter depiction? Who knew?

Bee-lining to a camp spot and going for the named, hoping a specific item would drop was not only NOT the purpose of going to the zone, most in the zone didn't even know WHAT dropped in that zone. The sense of discovery was great, the sense of wonder was there in proportion.

Now its all about people gaming the system to try and "race" to beat old content that already has been beaten many times. Further, except on TLP servers, no one gives a hoot if you can beat the content, because we all know the content on the live servers requires a larger amount of effort to down than anything else in old EQ. For those that played long enough to remember the Epic 1.0 quests, do you remember how the community pitched in to solve these quests that were pretty devoid of meaningful clues? Now, even in new content, you go to EQResource and look up the progression path, and unless you need loot from non-progression missions, you never even consider doing them...

There isn't a way for Daybreak to recapture that feel, because it is *us* that has changed, not the game.

I think some of you guys are looking a little too deep into this.

What I enjoy about progression servers is being in a full group in a high fantasy environment. That's the most fun part for me. If it was easier to find that on live, I would much prefer that because I like the mechanics better, but it's pretty tough to find a group full of six real people. I'm not "chasing the dragon" or any other nonsense like that, that's just what I enjoy.

I play live too and I like the gameplay a lot better, I just don't like most of the environments we've been in lately. Also, a lot of the bosses are....less than inspiring. It's hard to get excited to fight "Principal Vicarum Nomia". In Rain of Fear we got to fight dragons, gods, King Xorbb, we got to be gladiators, all kinds of cool stuff. That's the environment I think more people want to get back to...no one wants to fight latin monsters or EQ2 gods.

In a nutshell, yes. They definitely started to veer off the tracks. IMO, DODH was really the last good expansion because, after that, itemization became stale and mudflation took over. Some could argue even before DODH. Basically NewExpansionItemStats = PreviousExpansionItemStats * 1.15 - BAM, new expansion items complete!

In a nutshell, yes. They definitely started to veer off the tracks. IMO, DODH was really the last good expansion because, after that, itemization became stale and mudflation took over. Some could argue even before DODH. Basically NewExpansionItemStats = PreviousExpansionItemStats * 1.15 - BAM, new expansion items complete!

Chasing the dragon, chasing the gold ring. They aren't there. That 'first time playing the EQ MO' cannot be recaptured. And I've been gaming since 1979.

They have already done a lot of the work in terms of setting up a progression server and instancing the content. So that will just carry over. It will just be the ruleset they choose to implement that will take the time.

I came back to play on prog servers, it's the only reason I came back, and I'm still probably going to leave, simply because the game is too much of a grind for my taste. It's why I left the second time. I no longer have the patience to endure the tiny rewards for the time spent now that EQ isn't the only game on the block.

I had returned during the last expansion, and started really making a push, but camped ol Frodlin in a corner of a shissar temple where he'll probably forever sit, because I realized I'd spent 7 hours killing the same NPC over and over for 1/4 of a level of experience, and decided I valued my time more than the dev staff at EQ did. Rather than giving interesting stuff to do, they stuck with "kill the same NPC's over and over and over again but you can't do it on your own, so get an automated group and do it"

The AA system kept me from returning until now, because its simply daunting and has never been properly reset, and the population doesn't support healthy play of the kinds of hours to accrue the kind of AA that the end game requires, thus... forget it, EQ blew it by appealing to those who had already spent their time in game and made it clear it had no desire to deal with the power gap, so no problem, I'll play a solid solo class on prog servers until I decide that I don't like the rate of advancement (I'm already close again, after just a couple days back).

The popularity is gone, the magic is gone, and the magic of revisiting old times (without the crowds) does not scale with time. They should've upped the exp rate on progression servers by a factor of 5 at least, it wouldn't last as long, but would've been significantly more popular during it's duration.

The problem as I see it stemmed from trying to be all things to all people. I understand the need to try and maximise revenue streams and the like, but the main problem is that EQ tried to please all of the people all of the time. A noble but doomed to failure strategy. It had a good player base - who generally liked competitive content that was pretty challenging and nigh on impossible without a group or a raid, to pandering to bots and easy mode players "I only have 10 minutes in my day but want to have the holy hand grenade of Antioch by the time my 10 minutes are up."

I think that's fine - give folks a game where they can get their holy hand grenade in 10 minutes. Just don't make it this game. That Card game thingy? Great, release it for folks who want to play the card game, but don't make it intrusive into the game I've paid to play, thanks.

Underfoot was too hard. Ok - well spend some time levelling up your toons then. We were told hard expansions would be the death of EQ - so we've had tons of easy stuff to keep the casuals happy since and the player base has increased how? Well not at all - because they only had 10 minutes in the first place and now they're probably gone off to increase their intellectual capital watching the Real Elves of Felwithe County with it.

Clearly the EQ sprawl needs to stop. Because you can't satisfy all the playstyles that are out there. All the playstyles have a legitimate place and there should be a game for them. But EQ should focus on one or two and seek to be the very best at those rather than trying to pander to every whim.

I'd like Daybreak to articulate which ones they think they're addressing - and move in that direction. What???!!! give some potential revenue up? - Yes - give some revenue up. There might be some upside from a few returnees, and the resource could be focussed better, rather than trying to be all things to all people.

No, it just means people like the old game. I personally think the lore went to crap with the alien xpansion, but that's not what made me quit.

Playing a game 20 or 30 or 60 hours a week for years is what killed the game for most of us. It's called burnout. We would start nitpicking the slightest change as "ruining the game", when in reality that kind of play time is unsustainable for virtually everyone. The reason why TLPs are so popular is two fold. We get to play the game we loved, even if it isn't an exact replica, and we can accomplish what needs accomplished in about a 10th of the time. It took 2 days to drop nagy on Ragefire, and even quicker on LJ. I was reading an old post about a drop in disco, and the guy was bragging about making 3 blues in 12 hours. Now that was probably partly gear, partly crappy players, and partly the old xp. It took me grinding my butt off the first time to get to 65 in old eq. Now, I can take it easy and still get everything I want to accomplish done. I made it to level 65 the first go around. On Vulak I made it to 82. Playing on Ragefire, I miss a lot of the features of later EQ, like the instanced raiding, the guild hall and all that. Part of me actually wants to go back to "live". So no, I don't think the popularity of TLPs is indicative of the path EQ went down.

Here here cities should get new quests for the newest expansion...I said this year's ago! I think daybreak should give players chance to design quests too I'd write one for boomba the big

Í think eq needsa reboot change it a little like maybe add in subclasses like in nwn, but they'd be hidden should have to quest to become say a basher or whatever . But the reboots the important part.. Just don't go too far from the formula ! Now I'm sure some will say go play eqn which I will but its lore and gameplay are far too different. Eq has too much aas and spells let players write quests for old content let players vote for them to be canon

It's the social atmosphere. It's about starting fresh. People are everywhere. You can solo, you can group, you can grind, you can ninja-buff, whatever you want...there are a lot of choices. Newplayers chat channel is always active. The progression servers are alive, that's why people go there. It's mostly 1999 with no corpse runs. Live servers are completely boxed, the social aspect of the live servers died a long time ago.

I'm a casual player and I have no desire to get anything handed to me on a platinum platter. If I have to game 10 minutes a week, ober seversl years, to get something, then thats what I'll do. I don't want it in one game session.

I currently have 2 characters on another account I am slowly working them up to level 25. I spend just enough time to get one toon up one level. Then when I can get time to log in again, I try to get up one more level. In a month I've gone from lev 15 to 19, and the other went from 17 to 20. No big deal. I don't race through content.

It was PoP and a raid centric game that gutted the group game that caused people to quit. The most popular expansions. LDON and whatever brought about monster missions is a clear sign that people wanted to group. I think its hilarious when people try to knock instancing... to what purpose? What game doesn't have instancing? Its no fun for a mob to be camped by an entire server.

Just my opinion without a rundown. The first couple of expansions it was a world to explore. Right around Luclin it became a game. Once a game, was only a matter of time. For some quicker then others.