New November Server

Not really as DBG is making the mistake of starting in HoT, so everyone HAS TO RACE TO level 90. But even with this huge mistake of not starting one or two expacs earlier, I'm looking forward to this server.

It's not a huge mistake by any means. It doesn't really matter what expansion they start with, the point is that everybody will start within 5 levels of the level cap. That means that everybody can create a new toon and immediately group with anybody else. They don't have to grind out 45 levels first (to be able to enter planes, for instance), and they don't have to worry about level minimums for grouping with their friends.

EDIT: For those who are concerned about having groups and being social, this is a HUGE boon.

You know I really hate the, "Your definition of fun is not my definition of fun so quit telling me how to play" argument because it is very much the pot calling the kettle black.

Try to look at this from another perspective. If someone joins a game that was designed to be a social experience then advocates it be changed to accommodate a solo experience, your pretty much doing the same thing, forcing your definition of fun onto another player.

Once you remove the need for grouping to accomplish goals, your eliminating the need for there to be a social experience and that has a very dramatic impact on the enjoyment of those who decided to play because the game required grouping to accomplish goals. I mean think about how it would feel to be able to solo everything in the game for years but then because people are whining about about how the content is too eas, boom the next expansion comes out and suddenly solo becomes very hard and inefficient. Your probably not going to be very happy that your forced to group are you? Your also not going to be very happy when someone say, "No one is forcing you to group, you can still solo" and your especially not going to be happy when someone says, "Stop telling me how to have fun just because you like to solo".

The thing is you can like grouping or not like grouping and there can be all kinds of reasons for wanting the game to be one way or another but this argument is just as applicable to both sides of the fence, one has to give something up to suite the other. My point when I provided my example of how a total Closter Flock of a group can turn into an enjoyable experience was just that, an example of what you miss out on when your embroiled in the unpredictability of actually playing with other people. It can be good an heavens know it can be bad, really bad but it can't be replicated by a scripted AI, not yet anyway.

The game has NEVER required grouping to accomplish goals. From the very beginning, many, many goals could be accomplished solo. Boxing was also a thing almost from the beginning.

Truebox is a new innovation, that didn't exist prior to phinny launching ~3 years ago. But even that allows for players to box to be able to complete much of the content without having to rely on other players.

You are advocating for a game that never existed.

Im in on this one, I miss this content. Any guilds recruiting who plan on raiding this right through please hit me up

According to the latest producer's letter regarding this Miragul lv 85 TLP, there are no signs of Truebox rule-set. So Seems like they've opened up the box valves on this one.

I wouldn't read too much into that one way or another. A 2-3 sentence blurb about the server probably isn't intended to answer all our questions, even the really important ones like whether or not it is truebox. Unless they come out and say specifically that it's not, I think it's pretty likely it will be.

I think this is awesome. I dont have to grind early levels. Everybody starts at 85 so crazy grouping. Even those who rush to Max level they still can group with someone who just started giving a longer window for staying with the pack. House of Thule is one of my favorite expansions that I never got to fully enjoy. Those who WANT mercs can have them. Those who hate merc can never bring them out and those who want to molo to catch up a bit faster can get the J5. We finally get to start out with fleshed out complex classes. PoK open from the start so travel and trading is easier. It's a server I have the best chance of actually reaching Max level and finally be able to see that content.

I'm all in. Leggo.

They also didn't say it wasn't going to have FV loot!

This will be the most group-friendly server ever. Making this one non-truebox would be COMPLETELY missing the mark. If ever there were a server where it would actually benefit, it would be THIS one.

Well it is considered a TLP server and if it follows the pattern this will be true box. FV loot would be interesting but we will have to wait and see what Holly and team say.

I see you’ve spent a lot of time playing a cleric....

Game was designed around a trinity of tank/healer/cc with majority of content being for single groups and then moving to majority content being for multiple groups (raids). You can find entire expansions of almost only raid content but we are going to argue the game wasn’t designed around group play?

Playing multiple accounts per person to circumvent the requirement of group play, also admits the game was designed around group play.

In the very begining, you could only run full screen (effectively true box) and your computer could only handle 1 instance of the game at a time anyways (effectively true box).

What game are you playing or better yet, when do you start playing because back in 1999, I can assure you that the game ABSOLUTELY required grouping to accomplish goals. Even the most solo friendly class which back then was probably the Necro, could only do so much solo and it was almost always more efficient for them to group. Hell I played a DE Warrior back in the day and you could barely cross a zone solo because you had no sow, no invis, no snares, no fears, no roots, etc to protect you if you happened to accidently catch aggro and every mob could outrun you. further by the time you reached probably level 30 or so, light blues would easily beat a solo, untwicked to the nine hells, warrior.

Seriously, if you know the history of this game you should know that EQ is the game which crowned the term "Holy Trinity" comprised of a Healer, Tank and DPS which was the required minimum for grouping.

So correct you, EQ was absolutely originally designed as a social game that required grouping to accomplish most goals. Over time, once WoW got popular and developers realized there was a bigger market to ta as long as they catered to casual players, EQ was slowly dumbed down and made more solo friendly until at some point, someone in charge decided everyone should be able to solo and Mercs were introduced.

As far as boxing, honestly, your right that there was never anything to prevent it at least in terms of game design however, in 1999, computers were still kind of rare with many households not even owning one, much less two. Then there were technical limitations to consider because a single instance of EQ running on your typical computer took up most of the resources leaving little to no headroom for an to be running that would let you control two accounts from the same computer. My point is, boxing in any form or fashion was a rare exception so wasn't even worth discussing until computers became so common and and powerful enough to run 6+ instances of EQ on a single computer. Truebox was introduced to attempt to bring EQ back into its original state of one computer and one account per player.

I played a druid in 1999 and solo'd my way to level 50 by quad kiting giants, kaladim docks guards, and Ak'anon guards. The only time I grouped was to do the efreeti and from time to time Stone Spider / LDCs. The game was a lot of fun and I accomplished nearly all of my goals solo, with the rare exception grouping for select "uber gear."

I re-rolled as a necro on Lanys T'Vyl before Kunark came out. Leveled up by snare + fear kiting mostly. My most fun ever was soloing in Plane of Fear utilizing snare + fear kiting for gear that was upgrades. I announced the non-necro drops and gave them away to the guild in the zone who was also clearing. Only grouped up (pick up raid) to do Old Seb, particularly Juggs for high level spells.

Finally, during Kunark / Velious I rolled a monk. I spent much of my time leveling in Karnor's Castle camping the Tranquil Staff by weaving through the castle killing skeletal warlords and their PHs. All solo. I did ultimately join a guild to do ToV + Sleeper's Tomb.

So to respond to your comment: Class EQ for me was nearly entirely a solo game, as evidenced by the above. I recognize this was not the case for you, but you're flat out wrong with your statements that grouping was required to accomplish goals. It was required to accomplish your goals, not mine.

You didn't ask this of me, but I do have an applicable anecdote...


I soloed quite well on Day 1 of EQ and had a lot of fun doing it. I was able to accomplish many goals in the process. The first true goal was to work up smithing to be able to make my own banded armor. Exciting! I could not do everything in the game of course. It is not required to be able to do everything to have fun. It is not even required to be efficient to have fun.

As expansions started being released, the solo potential simply exploded.

I've soloed many characters over the years. The highest I've soloed is up to level 90 as an SK on FV a few years back when I pursued the Hero's Journey quest line. My latest was soloing a shaman on Coirnav up to level 50 a year ago now. That's when a pair of friends finally convinced me to give boxing a try. I still play that shaman now in a 3-box shaman/mage/SK on Coirnav and I'm having fun with that.

For posterity, I've also grouped over the years and even raided a smidge (with the illustrious Fading and Force of Valor on Tunare a decade ago as my namesake Dahaman).

Even to this day, occasionally people still say I play the game wrong. I am wrong to play solo. I am wrong to box. I am wrong to only XP an hour per day and should go play another game.

It boggles the mind and tickles the funny bone... cheers!

I played from a month or two after the game launched in 1999. Spent quite a bit of time soloing in 1999 as there was a lot I could get done without help as a monk. Camping Targin the rock for epic took me over 60 hours, and the other one was over 40, was I going to drag people along for that? Not a chance when I could camp it solo.

In 2000 I hit level 60 duoing with my boxed monk/cleric. I spent a fair amount of time in my 50's grouped with guildies or in pickup groups, but I gained at least as much xp duoing by myself.

No group needed to advance my character in meaningful ways, even in 1999. Sorry.

Eqwindows allowed you to box two characters on one computer by the end of 1999 or early 2000.

This new server is interesting but only its not truebox I wont play it otherwise.

You can stand on a football field fully decked out in pads and a helmet throwing a ball to yourself all day. You may even get a lot of enjoyment out of it! But your still not playing football as the multiplayer game is designed to be played. Sure you CAN solo and have fun, but you WILL miss out on majority of content (content was also designed to be played in era, not what you can solo many expansions later). It’s perfectly fine to enjoy that, but that doesn’t mean the game was made as a single player RPG, it wasn’t.

Even WoW, the granddaddy of all solo friendly modern MMOs, majority of content is for small group forces and multi group raids. (Yes they have tools to make groups for you that some argue take away from “social aspects”...but your still playing with other people).

And everyone’s argument of “I duoed”, “I boxed”....yeah because it’s a multiplayer game, hence why your playing multiple accounts to accomplish things.