The progression server guide on the site is dated from earlier this year. I'm looking to come back to somewhere in between GoD-Underfoot, but closer to GoD the better. Don't mind lowish pop as long as it's active enough to level up with duos/trios and then find actual groups near current content. Any servers match this description?
Your best bet is to play on Mangler or wait until next TLP if your just starting out. Currently only in luclin but has the highest population of any TLP by a good margin.
TSS opens on Selo today. Super easy to level and catch up if you play fairly regularly but expansions drop fast. Pop is down over last couple of months due to the level 70 blues but still half dozen or so active raiding guilds at various stages. (maybe more doing older content and spending more time along the way?)
Coirnav is in OoW (1 expac past GoD) and about to open Dragons of Norrath. Xp rate is slow and grouping below lvl 70 is going to be tough. There is 5 or 6 guilds left spanning a wide range of times (primetime, euro, late night) so you'd have an option or two but even at max level the grouping outside guild is fairly non existant.
I don't know that any servers really have much low level grouping past GoD outside of maybe right at the beginning of TSS. Selo MIGHT be your best bet but I would temper expectations of finding too many groups unless you start playing literally this afternoon.
It's a fact of TLPs that the pickup group game goes away after the first few expansions. After the content gets more difficult, no one wants to mess around with randos. If pickup grouping is truly important to you then Mangler (Luclin) is your only option, but pickup grouping will be largely dead by the time it reaches your preferred era. If you're open to joining a guild ASAP and making friends to play with, instead of relying on pickup, then any TLP except for Fippy will work just fine. You can just choose your favorite ruleset and era. Coirnav is the currently the closest to GoD, followed by Selo and Lockjaw (TSS) followed by Ragefire (TBS) Selo has the highest population and the fastest XP of any of these, and would almost certainly be the easiest to catch up.
Does Corinav still have the brutal xp gains? I would personally choose Selo's over any of them minus Mangler due to the increased xp and shorter unlocks.
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/eq:Progression_Servers Zam keeps this list fairly current. They all have advantages and disadvantages. I am playing on Lockjaw currently and love it. The population is low, but the XP rate is high and Defiant armor exists. I play solo here mainly when RL makes grouping hard. I also play on Ragefire, the population there is higher than Lockjaw and is 1 expansion ahead of Lockjaw. Both Lockjaw and Ragefire are not True Box and have the same ruleset fyi. I play on Mangler to, and it is fun, and very high population. It is True Box though, so boxing is a Pita unless you want to cheat. I don't cheat. Coirnav and Phinigel I have not played on except a bit at start. XP rate there should still be slow if it is at Omens of War. The XP rate increases at The Serpents Spine Expansion I think. they are both true Box servers (1 account can login per PC).
Wonderful information guys, really helped me decide, thank you. I did Ragefire and Phinigel into Velious. And also P99 blue and more recently green. Kinda overexposed right now with everything before Luclin. So I have decided to try Mangler, since it's coming up on all my favorite stuff. Gives me time to level up. I'm stuck at character creation now trying to decide what to play, nostalgia already!
If ya pick Necro no ones gonna notice you’re there unless your pet isn’t on hold or they need MGB DMF for lev. Great for taking in content with minimal responsibility.
I suspect Mangler will go the way of most TLP's in March 2020 when yet another TLP comes out. It also hosts the highest % of bot armies, krono lords and general asshats of all the TLP servers, and will remain that way until the new server lands and they move en-masse to exploit classic once again. Selos, has a lesser population, but i think alot of that is because it's much further on, and the RMT'rs are all on Mangler. My personal advice would be to pick one of the older TLP's as the population, while low, is unlikely to change when a new server lands. Additionally the guilds are usually well established, structured and more than happy for new recruits to join them. Often they will help you get up to speed quite quickly as it's in their interest that you stick around .
While it is true Mangler will suffer a population hit if new server comes out this is just par for the course. I think a lot of us are done with classic starting TLPs or TLP in general so if they rehash the same idea it will probably be sorely received. There will always be some desire though for classic launches.
Selo was my second choice but I worried about trying to level solo and catch up through so much content.
I couldn't get a group to save my behind on selo and that was when it was only in GoD. I struck better luck on Miragul and if I feel like activating a second account i hear ragefire is active
Mangler will suffer population hits also when they get further into the 4 expansion no level increase.
