Are TLP Servers Killing Everquest?

Boxing didn't kill anything on live servers, it's kept things going. If I didn't box I wouldn't still be playing after 20 years and I would in no way be tempted to come back for any sort of original start TLP because after having run repeated characters of every class and race through every original starting city I've been there and done that

Boxing an entire group on six computers was literally in the ad they put out for the first Truebox server. DBG doesn't think it's broke.

no no no, you've got it all wrong. The TLP servers are exactly what EQ needed. Let's think outside the box here...what is the most popular game genre over the last couple years? Battle Royale.

Think of TLPs as EQs BR solution. An MMO with a twist of BR in it. You drop fresh into a server and grind out and lvl up as fast as you can, look to beat the raids as fast as you can, gear out as much as you can, then when a new server drops look at whos on top of the current server. Go to new server, try to do better than the last server, rinse and repeat. It's the same mindset as BR games, just a longer game...cause ya know...it's an MMO

not to mention, DBGs said somewhere the increase of subs has risen since 2015 when the new era of TLPs launched

A true BR server would be interesting. 100x normal xp, each raid drops 10x loot and flags. You have one week to make it to live! I wish they would try more really out of the box short term event servers.

Some good points.

However

EQ is not a battle royale style game. BR games are pick up and drop which you play with your friends. There is no character development, and no real player interaction, other than maybe a voice chat with your existing friends. There is no community as such, and any involvement is only as long as a game.

Comparing the lifespan of a EQ server to a BR game just demonstrates the way the game is going as far as building communities and investing time in bettering your character. There's a hell of lot more to EQ than being 'king of the hill' of a 20 year old game.

The point I was trying to make is, Make a destination live server, with the TLP rules in place, that anyone not into the king of the hill, follow the herd, krono merchandising mentality can move their TLP characters to, to continue playing with like minded other people. This should allow the old TLP servers to die by natural attrition, so they can be sunsetted. It would also help to stabilise the playerbase and retain the people who just can't bear the thought of another 'fresh start'.

At the moment 8 TLP servers is probably 5 too many.

I enjoyed my time on Lockjaw but I needed a lengthy time off for personal reasons. I ended up playing live again for awhile which was enjoyable but I was so far behind in AA's and gear that I couldn't jump in and raid with the old guild which I had hoped. Even 3 months of 3 boxing with Mercs couldn't come close to making a dent in what I needed to catch up, so I just went to very casual play which wasn't as personally fun for me.

So, I waited for Cornaiv to come out and I started fresh again with the goal of joining a raiding guild and spending lots (relative term) of time playing. This gave me the first bitter taste of a "Truebox" server. I was excited about the idea of playing one account and finding others doing the same - hoping PuG's would again become fashionable instead of just guild groups - which were sometimes just as difficult to put together. I certainly didn't find it any easier to find groups on Cornaiv than I did on Lockjaw.

Nowhere was it explicit that one couldn't play many accounts as long as they were all on different PC's, but that seemed sort of counter-intuitive to the stated goal of the truebox that people join up and form groups with other players.

Most everyone in the (high-end raid) guild was boxing with multiple computers so it was very tough to get into solid groups - or even form them yourself when you only have 3 or 4 hour chunks of playtime available (Weekends were easier with 10+ hours a sitting - but weeknights were challenging at trying to squeeze in only a few hours). It started to get frustrating, trying to get into guild groups that by now were multi-boxing their alts to get them set up for their own epics. I did get into groups or made them myself but at least half the time was doing the administrative work of putting these groups together and not even half actually playing to advance your character. In-game politics, socializing and goofing around are all part of the game which makes it enjoyable, but that can also be done while grinding - if you get your group on the same page.

I didn't find there to be significantly less people boxing on Cornaiv than I did on Lockjaw - people were just going about it a different way. Instead of boxing 2 more accounts on one PC, they were just buying 2 more PC's and adjusting accordingly. As sometimes having to be a mobile player it was not feasible to haul around 3 laptops and the wife aggravation I got at home spending so much time on my computer would grow geometrically if I bought a couple more computers to play on. It was much easier to hide my addiction just playing on one computer rather than having them spread all around beating on them like a drum set.

With the difficulty finding/creating groups with only 3 or 4 hour playtime hours at a time, and the inability to just fire up 3 accounts on my one computer I was not finding much enjoyment in the game. I quit shortly after Kunark launched. When Mangler/Selo was announced, I thought I would try it again, and maybe I just had a weird anomalous experience on Cornaiv. No, it went very much the same on Mangler as it did on the other Truebox server. and multiboxing was everywhere.

Guild groups were still tough to get into because most people were running boxes or at least had family/friends or their own core playing groups to rely on. I would sometimes get into those groups, but it was very inconsistent and much of my 4 hours were spent LFG or just trying to put some kind of a group together which we only had maybe 2 hours of xping to do after it was formed/moved/adjusted, etc.

I think EQ must have passed me by because I have neither 10 hours a day (which I played during the 1999-2004 years) to play, nor IRL family or friends who play anymore. Maybe I am just tired of the game after all these years, or I don't have the time I once had. Maybe I just liked boxing some days on my one PC. As of now, I have given up on TLP's (as long as they are truebox). I installed P99 and may give that a whirl, or there are always other games. I have tons of Krono left, but I will probably let it rot before I play again on truebox.

For the competitive player who likes to try to stay on top of the xpacs and do some raiding, you are playing a different game than the boxers. The single account player is massively handicapped in that endeavor compared to the multi-boxers - for many different reasons you can find in various threads. I'm assuming DBG did a cost/benefit analysis to determine their maximum revenue streams with regards to truebox/non-truebox and found the former the better alternative. You can't blame them for that.

I think the TLP's are great for EQ and are scratching an itch that many players find enjoyable. For me, I would rather see a server where everything goes and boxing in all forms is allowed (with the exception of botting), and also a server where one account per household is enforced (no, not even family members in the same household can play together) to enforce the true one person - one player vision some people would like. Truebox is like letting racecars drive down the same street you let your kids ride their bikes on - but with no speed limit signs or traffic cops. Pick the kind of transportation you want on the road, or create two roads. Putting them together is just a mess.

Works for me.

Boxing is a reaction to both lower populations on TLP (once each TLP gets out of classic the populations nose-dive & you are going to find it much harder to get groups) and a higher degree of "clique" behaviour.
Back in the live era players of many different guilds would group up together in Pick up Groups but on TLP there's a much bigger disdain of that kind of PUG and people strongly prefer to group with only their guildies, this means players self-select to be less available to the wider server population reducing potential grouping a lot more.

Blaming boxing is the wrong tact, that's the symptom not the real problem, the real problem is the high degree of fragmentation of the player base, which is now smaller than it was at the games height anyway.

Boxing has been around a lot longer than TLPs. It is a reaction of the boredom of LFG.

I'm 5 boxing my own instances on WoW Classic and then just raiding on my main. I'm completely over Truebox servers.

I can't wait to 3 box in Pantheon, in 2025 when it launches

i think my post went over your head a bit, it's cool tho. keep keepin on!

You're right there are too many TLPs that's why some of us keep advocating for feeder servers that reset. We only ever need like 4 more TLPs total and every time the classic one reset daybreak would get there new TLP krono rush we suspect they rely on.