If there was another time/era locked top, what would be the best place to stop?

DoD is also fine if you're going to do OoW, as DPoB is a fun endgame raid zone. PoR is just awful, on the other hand. I would not include it. Honestly, if you're going to go that far you might as well throw in TSS/TBS, and by that point it's looking too much like live to really bother locking the server.

I don't think the approach makes a lot of sense, as people push the endgame so fast these days, and a small minority of players are logging in to smell the roses. Until/unless there's a workable mechanic for server merges in place, the solutions available will always be second-best, as the sensible thing to do has always been to keep unlocking content until the population dwindles, at which point the TLP should be merged into Live, bolstering the population of at least one live server (how RoI got to Druzzil/Xegony, etc.)

I would do it all over again if there was a OOW/DON locked server. My dream would be a 54 max raid, no open world(no zerg guilds), FV loot rules with agnarr XP rates.

Live!

Took me a few seconds, lol.

It was (and still is) a big hit. It pulled in a lot of P99 players as well as some of the old EQ players that longed for the PoP days. I don't think you can ring that particular cash register more than once, though.

In my mind, there's no question. The best place to stop would be after Prophecy of Ro.
1. It gives all four level 70 expansions as relevant content, and two of those (Omens and DoDH) are among the best expansions to any video game ever
2. It gives people time to work on and complete their epic 2.0s in an era where they will continue to be useful
3. Everything in Anguish aside from OMM are straight-forward enough that a pick-up raid could do them, which would help with the server community, and Tacvi/Qvic/potime would help the more casual players gear up
4. The clicky resist mask quest arcs in DoDH are long and involved enough to be interesting
5. Last Blood based cultural gear would still be relevant, giving tradeskills an actual purpose for everyone
6. Everyone would have access to their initial set of Auras in PoR.

No other era in EQ really makes sense. There isn't another point in the list of expansions where so much content is still active and relevant. The level 70 era was the absolute height of EQ

Beta. You 1999ers had it easy.

PoR could be the single worst expansion ever to be the terminus for a server. Ayonae Ro as the final server boss for all the BIS gear? Forever? The single most boring, lackluster event in the history of EQ raiding? Even if the server made it to that point with a little population left, it would plummet almost immediately to zero.

Total agreement. I can't imagine anyone who has actually done all the PoR content ever advocating for it to feature as the main attraction of the raid game. Absolutely, guild-destroyingly awful stuff.

IMO Agnarr is the best thing that happened here and still is. I don't enjoy the game much past planes, enough said. Maybe one more server locked in an era around there would be cool. Or maybe leave this genre where it is, so that if you want to be locked in old content, play Agnarr.

I don't think there is another good point.

P99 set the stage... but frankly once you get much past pop you're playing modern eq and you might as well remove the barriers of locks.

Pop lock is good in that it fills a large niche while still having some resemblance of old norrath.

I just wish Agnarr WAS pop locked.. its a LDoN lock server. The only thing that might tempt me to start on another tlp server is if they do one where bst and ber are available in classic. Epic's be damned those will come in time. Maybe actually lock this one at pop too. IDC about that part tho.

I always thought it would be neat to have level 60, 65, 70, and 75 Locked servers.

Level 60 has Kunark, Velious, Luclin.
Level 65 has PoP, LoY, LDoN, GoD.
Level 70 has OoW, DoN, DoDH, PoR.
Level 75 has TSS, TBS.

Sell some marketplace TLP server transfer token that allows you to transfer up one server, and put it on sale every 6 months or so to encourage some microstransactions to fund the servers.

If people aren’t interested they can just hang around on their server of choice. I’m sure after a year or so it would become clear which of these servers was a bad idea.

Agnarr is all they need for a locked server. As to why they didn't stop at GoD is a mystery to me though. A much better stopping point for lvl 65 content.

I've always been open to OoW, only because the epic 2.0's do help some classes immensely. *cough* necro *cough*

<3 Agnarr

A lot of people said PoP and we got Agnarr I think a Velious locked server with a truly epicly bad xp rate and 6 month unlocks would appeal to the P99'ers in ways Agnarr never could. Luclin was just a lot of mudflation, so I don't think Luclin is a good spot. Velious is pretty awesome.

Really though, a locked server says "we think modern EQ sucks", and maybe they should figure out why so many people think "modern EQ sucks" and focus on that.

Some thoughts on ^, not necessarily connected to each other:

Misconception.

Incremental bloat that isn't obvious if you haven't been away... take a few years off and login and it's ridiculous. Just look at the stats-sheet, let alone all the effect names and AAs, etc.

Modern game is more twitchy combat... progression isn't what it was (for tactical combat) but the flavor of the classes is more distinct and somewhat purposeful (though you have to make un-ideal groups and do harder content to see it).

1-85 is a ghost town. 85-100 is nearly as empty but not as forgiving as level 5 deaths... and 90% of the world no one is using.

Lock me a server where epic 2.0's are bis. That'd be neat

Launch it as OoW era, and stop it on SoF imo. 3 month unlocks.

Last pre-merc expansion. I believe it's the first expansion where stuff is more tuned for our current defensive and offensive capabilities. Has a pair of "endzones" and tons and tons of group content.