Smash The Timeline: New TLP Idea

Some of us were discussing an idea to change things up a bit with TLPs. I know a lot of people are tired of the same old treadmill over and over with restarts in classic. But what if we could change the order of the expansions? Some of the expansions in EQ are less than well received (LoY and LDoN specifically) but I believe that is due to the expansion order they are locked to. From a TLP perspective when LoY unlocks with Planes of Power, the content is practically useless for the server because it's aimed at people level 45-60. But why is it locked to that era? It introduces charms, but none of them are especially powerful, and some are quite unique. What if Legacy of Ykesha were to come out with Luclin instead? Or maybe even before Luclin? It would allow people more areas to XP in besides the same spots we've all done. Not to mention allowing frogloks a bit earlier in the server's era.

But beyond that, everyone seems to hate LDoN. When it comes out the level cap is 65 and nobody really cares about anything LDoN adds except a couple raid augs / storebought augs to put in time gear or grinding wins for your charm augment. You can work really hard and get some pretty awesome gear, but the gear in plane of time still eclipses it, which makes it feel like a waste of an expansion. You grind your wins for the aug and you move on to GoD or people leave the server like usual. There aren't even any AA points tied to LDoN, so it's inclusion after Planes of Power just makes it feel even worse. The gear you can purchase for points is tier based, so if there was a concern about having overpowered gear they could lock out the last tier until the planes of power expansion launched. I personally think if someone put in the effort for the best gear that wouldn't be a bad thing. Maybe more elemental molds to go around for everyone else.

I think this would add new life to some woefully underutilized expansions and might help stem the die off that happens after planes of power for 6 months (or 5 for mangler). It might also get people excited for something a little different and bring in some people who have been skipping the yearly TLP cycle.

I don't know how that would work with the dev team etc, but I will say the idea makes a lot of sense on the side of players. Give us options that make sense before they are obsolete on TLPs. These expansions made sense when they were released as the game unfurled the first time around because they were bridge content. On TLPs they just don't make sense per say as they are currently implemented. You can add DoN to the mix there and maybe PoR.

Furthermore, I would like to add the discussion on how added zones such as Veksar, and revamped zones like CT fit into the equation. The way they are released on TLPs doesn't make sense as the drops from these zones are nearly worthless once they are released compared to how useful they would be if they were released in a different era. I.E. CT revamped in Luclin makes sense would be a useful zone people would go to and exp/camp items. Once PoP hits no one really goes there.

Tired of starting over on the treadmill? Got some great ideas? Here's one: Don't get off your current treadmill, your run has barely begun, sweat it out.

Reality is the majority of TLP players just don't want post PoP, which means they aren't tired of starting over on the treadmill at all. Putting in effort to re-order things (just LoY and LDoN...) would have the same end result to the same crowd.

It's evident everyone is tired of staring over - just look at how dead new classic TLP servers are when they launch. The last classic TLP launch, DBG even had to create fake login queues and server crashes to make it seem like everyone wanted in.

You really have this subtle sarcasm thing down.

Here is a picture of LDoN




Poisonous expansion. No one likes it. I'm not being hyperbolic either. As part of my community outreach for the new PvP server, I've been trying to get the pulse on the community, doing polls, and round-tables with veterans. I've never heard such vitriol for a single expansion in any game. It is unanimously rejected. I'm sure we will get some people in this thread arguing how great it is, but from my experience - this one was the worst.

But anyway, I think you may be onto something, I'd love to see custom content releases. Maybe release bits of certain expansions, but not the whole thing. Or release some of their content out of order.

LoY adds armor dying, which is pretty cool. I think most people enjoy that. That could be in the game from day 1. But it also changes Grobb and adds the worst MMO race (other than Pandas) ever created. (Sorry frog-fans)

Lots of things Daybreak could experiment with, or ask their fans what they would like to see.

So some like it?

Not yet.

Do you like it?

I did not say that everyone is tired of starting over, just that people are hoping to improve on the current formula. My idea was to take expansions that people did not use or even hated and make them relevant or maybe even fun on the TLP servers. If the idea worked out it could even be incorporated into future TLP server launches. If LDoN rolled out much earlier groups could level there and not feel locked into the same handful of zones like they are now. There is nothing wrong with trying to keep things fresh and interesting.

Imagine not hating LDoN! Not feeling like you have to run endless dungeons to max your charm right away before everyone stops doing the content and it feels irrelevant. 5 months of PoP becomes 3 and then people won't burn out so quickly.

The raids alone would be so far out of era it wouldn't work. 85 AC chest? Nope.

LoY on the other hand kinda stops being useful in the late 50s. The items therein really are not great at all. The raids are designed for 50s-60s.

So releasing that early isn't terrible.

I think one of the most interesting timeline changes they could make is making LoY and LDoN a part of the base game and unlocking in Classic.

One of Classic’s core issues is a lack of level 45-50 EXP locations and the best in slot gear being limited to a few camps easily held by a small number of characters.

If however in classic you could level 20-50 exclusively in LDoN instances that would be incredible. Plus it would offer new gearing avenues and LDoN augments would actually have value for characters, even the mid-low tier ones.

It would also make the group game at max level in Classic-Velious much more interesting. Once you’re 50 or 60 in those expansions you absolutely steam roll content but if you’re doing hard 50/60 LDoNs there may actually be some challenge presented especially before you get a bunch of currency and can start buying gear.

LDoN is a great expansion because it introduces group instances and allows groups to get away from toxic open world environments. It also happens to offer the ability to slowly build your way to gear through earning points. I recall it was a big deal for pet classes to do the North Ro adventures up to 760 points for the pet focus augment, warriors earning their first weapon Proc augments, etc. I’d love to see a server like this happen.

Adjusting some of the unlock timings is a great idea. Veksar unlocks with LDoN, but by that point everyone is level 65 and the content is useless except for leveling alts. It would be great it it were available some time between Luclin and PoP.

LDoN and to a lesser extent DoN are very much catchup expansions, but by the time you're done with 12 weeks of PoP/Omens you're pretty maxed on gear and the majority of the content is useless. It's painful having to wait through 8 weeks of not much new to do.

lots of players like myself love that rush to lvl 50 ldon opening up with classic if well balanced would be a new way to rush to 50

I don't see how readjusting the release timing of two of the worst eq expansions is going to significantly alter the treadmill experience. Both expansions would be effectively a sideshow no matter when they are released.

LDON being available during Classic and Kunark would most certainly increase people’s use of it. It offers a solid EXP alternative for the last few levels of each of those time periods and it offers some incentive to grind missions even after maxing your level because the currency unlocks valuable gear.

The only reason LDoN and LoY are considered bad expansions is due to TLP view points coming from 3+ months of farming PoP going into 2 expansions of limited raid content none of which directly upgrades POTime gear.

The expansions themselves added incredible things among them instancing, augments, guild window, shared bank, Tradeskill interface, short duration buff window, raid window upgrade (manually moving characters, groups 11/12), currency vendors, etc. Unfortunately many of these features are now part of the base game. I think they should just go ahead and add the entire expansions to the base game and let people do Adventures or level in Nadox if they want.

We can only hope that the reason the next TLP is delayed is due to them implementing these ideas. A man can dream.

LDoN when it was first introduced was innovative & in many ways revolutionary, nothing like it had been done before, that said it did grate after a while & it's technology didn't age too well as much better systems were brought in.

I know there was a simply staggering amount of work that went into this by the dev team, but for it's day it was amazing, it just doesn't hold up very well today I do still run my alts through it for enough points for the 8% dodge augment though and it is a good source of some tradeskill mats so it isn't entirely useless even fairly late into the game.

Heroic Adventures I see as a big revisitation to LDoN style gameplay & bringing it up to date a lot, but without LDoN HA wouldn't be what they are.

The raids in LDoN were another story I recall them being horribly buggy at first & the rewards were not well liked outside of a few choice augments & fun toys that people still go farm them for.

As far as altering the timeline of the expansions? I don't think that is a workable idea at all, the amount that would need to be changed would be so much you may as well save the effort to write an entire new game. Too much work for a very small niche server idea for sure that would be very very unlikely to recoup the costs involved.

Personally I feel once PoP comes out that 3 months is not long enough between expansions. My idea is have the TLP start with Velious and go 4-6 months between expansions, 10 weeks for the short ones. Same exp level as Mangler. Change the AoC lock outs to 1 day less. It's hard to rotate raids around to different days of the week how they are now. Some people can not make it to raids on certain days of the week to flagging them for the raids that are always scheduled on that day is tough. By changing the lock outs by 1 day the most popular raids will have no choice but to rotate quick enough to get everyone if there done as they open up. Even just shortening the raids that are required for flags be shorter, Ssra emp, all of PoP besides Time.

Having played Live, Ragefire (6 month voted) & Phinigel (12 week/8 week) I think Phinigel is pretty close to ideal, Ragefire far too long for a TLP and Selo was a bit too fast, the system could be refined more IF the game had the tools to report on player activity & progress through content per server & adjust expansion unlocks automatically but a game this old doesn't have the kind of reactive tech that would require available to it as far as I am aware, the devs do a pretty good job given the tools they do have though, but I would still urge for some movement on raid currency rates to increase them for faster unlock servers at least semi-proportionally.

Some expansions have the content &/or difficulty to keep players busy for 3 months some for only 2 & there are many which deviate from that a little & at least one which to me would make sense to unlock together beyond LoY/LDoN being paired already - PoR I would unlock alongside DoDH to shorten that overly long Level 70 stretch.

I used to love playing new toons in Crescent Reach and Blightfire Moors and the rest. By the time they open, it's pointless. We should make "Free The Serpent's Spine" T-shirts.

If there were a way the devs could do this, I'd absolutely be in.

Side note: I'm going to be "absolutely in" on any classic TLP server too, as are most of my friends, so I don't really see why they'll spend the time trying to make this (admittedly awesome) idea happen if it's only going to be a net 10% population gain over a new classic TLP.