Watching a good movie too many times will make you never want to watch it again.

Or it is just the first Act he is weary, not the entire movie.
Have to admit things are very different in Classic than the xpaks, it didn't make enough of an impression on me to stick around the first time I played but two expansions down the road hooked me and good.
That is not an uncommon position and just putting one's own opinion out there does not invalidate anyone else's unless some overwhelming logical argument is put forth which has not happened.

My kids watched Star Wars so much I get literally ill at the thought of watching again or ever for that matter. Great the first six times, not at all the next 60. Pretending humans do not work that way is pretty foolish.

The most false thing in Strawberry's statement is the assumption "If I wait to start my character until Kunark or Velious I will be too far behind to level".

To be fair I completely agree with OP's conclusion, at least the premise of it. Once I'm done with Phinny (which hopefully won't be for a long time) I'd love to see a Trilogy launch.

But the bulk of his arguments are illogical.

I just started playing EQ again a month and a half ago, I made a new character on phinny and am now working through pop progression. I had 0 problems finding groups any time of day. Yes, there are more people at the top, but there are also plenty of people leveling.

But lots of people feel that way. Every so often there's a post here, "is it too late to start on X server"?

Well, it isn't, but it's not as easy. I think the best time to level on a TLP is not right at the very start, where there's a mad rush of people, but a little time after that, when the initial rush has died down but there are still plenty of people levelling.

At the moment on Phinigel, Ragefire, and I assume, Lockjaw, there aren't so many people levelling now, so it's harder to get good groups going under, say, 55. Once you get to a certain point, most people who're levelling seem to be alts and boxes that are being PLed through content and who don't always want to group up.

Those servers are 15 and 22 months old at this point. 3-6 months after launch on all of those servers there were a ton of people leveling up and it was easy to get groups. Particularly at Kunark launch because of all the new zones and iksars. Agnarr will have a ton of low level people around this fall/winter.

You guys all need 12-step. Say the serenity prayer once in a while. That part about things you cannot change? Applies to progression server rulesets. The only exception is how you vote with your wallet: If a progression server tanks, they won't repeat it. If it generates subs, they'll try to build on it next time.

And yet so much that's been discussed on these forums has been implemented into the current progression servers. Go and look back at the mass debates over instancing raid content leading up to Ragefire/Lockjaw release. Go and look back at all the players that said "You can't change what DBG will do, and they are never going to instance raids. The only thing that can bring about change is how you vote with your wallet." Ragefire and Lockjaw didn't tank, in fact just the opposite. And yet, here we are today with raid instances on Phinigel...

This stuff is more in the category of a bug report. You said things weren't working as intended because of the way players were interacting, and a solution was implemented. As for the server ruleset on launch, that's not the result of forum chatter, no matter how much you'd like to take credit for it. That's the result of an extremely long period of building interest in this stuff, that goes way, way beyond DBG monitoring these forums.

Yeah, that was my point - people always ask if it's too late, but the answer is it isn't. I'd say even now, on Phinigel, it's possible to get groups at any level, I can't speak for RF or LJ.

I disagree with your change statement.

DBG wants us to have fun, but they are also owned by an investment company and need to bring in the money. (Unfortunately, krono are here to stay.)

The reason why progression servers have instancing implemented is because if you only launch 1 server with such little diversity in play-style, you will have severe content blocking. Especially when folks use vacation days to play 24/7 with this very intent. These people aren't playing to get server firsts, that's an obvious front to the monetary ideals behind the scenes. That said, we all know EverQuest (Classic - LDoNish) wasn't designed to play host to so many people on a single server and DBG wants to retain (and pull in) customers while keeping operating costs low, not drive them away.

Instancing just made sense.

That's just one example. Here's another -- several of us have been advocating for years that they should shorten the length of expansions that don't have new aa's or level increases (eg the level 70 stretch.) Low and behold, now on Phinny, we have 2 months instead of 3 for those expansions.

Another example, the decision to unbundle Gates and OoW. Clearly that was one that they were set on until the massive outcry on the forums. There's little question there that the players expressing themselves on the forums influenced that change of decision.

There have been many, many times DBG has ignored their player base. But occasionally they do listen and change things as a result.

Oh absolutely, and my 'just made sense' statement applies to yours as well... The decision to shorten the length of a horizontal expansion during the unlock cycle just makes sense - they wouldn't have considered it without our feedback though.

I have played on every progression server, classic never gets old to me and is the best part of the progression server. I would be happy for a classic lock , though that would never happen. Dont get me wrong I like all the expansions up to LDON, but Classic is where fine steel weapons are being sold in the WC Tunnel, banded armor is the bomb, and where orc hill rocks for levels 3-9, CB after that, Unrest after that and so on and so on. Classic is Nostalgia for me and it never last as long as I would like.
To each his own though, there are a lot of people like you, that would rather skip classic, but there is a lot of people like me, that doesn't want to skip the classic experience.

Ugg Classic... heck I still wonder what happened to that boat between FP and QY that was supposed to go in 17 years ago.
I think the "Classic is great" faction has had everything go their way so far, how about some love for those that have had a fill of it. Just something to keep in mind

There's 21 servers waiting for you if you want something other than classic EQ.

I quite phinigel during velious, was waiting for luclin to play a bst, but then forgot about it and now we're in pop lol. Probably going to start up again only because I don't want to wait until June for agnarr. I'm also a bit curious for stuff after GoD. I only played some current content when mercs came out.

Oh, and the comment about a lot of people starting level 1s during OOW. I looked up info about that expansion and couldn't find the reason why people would start a fresh character then. Could someone elaborate please?

There're also 21 other servers on which classic is still active, if you want to play classic.

REALLY?!
I did not know that... what marvelous insight and intellect on display.
Hey everyone did you know there are servers that have xpaks past Classic?
WOW

OK genuine question - do you believe the environment you are describing would exist indefinitely on a Classic-locked server? Orc hill might still rock from 3 - 9 but at some point there is going to be so much gear floating around the server that you'll be able to buy a full set of droppable BIS gear for less than the cost of fine steel or banded. It's really just supply and demand economics over enough iterations (which instancing compounds). All servers become top-heavy over time, unless there was some sort of XP/level decay it's impossible for it not to happen.

Agnarr will have multiple expansions unlocked over time which will help with this but Classic has a remarkable lack of content. Once you max your XP bar, get all your planar gear, and max all your skills, there's really nothing else to do but make alts; rinse and repeat. It's not bad, it's just not much.