Truebox Code Removal for Past TLPs

The real question is when will DBD/DPG invest money/ressources into their infrastructure (hello Mangler and Aradune) and hire more people to give EQ as a game inserted into a market a new life instead of hopping from new TLP server to new TLP server in the hope of selling -to the same customers once more- bags and xp potions. Oh, and the mounts (Luclin+).

This is really not on topic, but the answer is something you really already know even if you don't realise it.

They will invest money when they feel confident that it will make them more money than they invest to do it. Not just more but "enough more".

Customer demand drives investment not the other way around. It's a basic economic principle & one why I get infuriated when so-called business leaders are referenced as "job creators", because the only real job creators are the consumers who drive job growth through demand. If you want to create more demand, you have to appeal to a larger consumer base, hence where marketing finds its role.

As long as the current infrastructure copes "well enough" with the demand then it doesn't require a big investment, if it were the case that Aradune was massively over-subscribed & they saw a huge increase in the volume of players signing up for all-access they would have to consider increasing capacity to manage it, that's how it worked in the past & it's how it works now & will work in the future.

Ragefire had queues after a week so did Phinigel, people just have short memories is all, see some of Sikkun's posts that draw attention to these largely forgotten facts.

Mangler's problems I know aren't the same as what Aradune's have been, Antonius Bayle had issues for years. Sometimes specific servers just have unique problems that it can be very difficult to get to the root of & solve, EverQuest isn't unique in that respect, it has happened in other online games too.

On TLPs Truebox should be removed in SoD, once mercenaries are in.

Also F2P accounts should be enabled once RoF launches with the same silver limitations on AAs and ranked spells and prestige items.

By the time TLPs get into late eras like SoD or RoF these TLPs are attempting to emulate a very different era and experience of EverQuest than those trying to emulate classic and kunark. It doesn’t make sense to try to have the same ruleset persist across all of these eras.

It’s true that seeing boxer in classic/kunark wasn’t common. I support the attempt to limit boxing for those eras to emulate the classic experience of mostly full groups of players. But by 2009 when SoD was out it was extremely common to see people boxing one or two characters, and there should no longer be a Truebox limitation enforced on TLP servers.

Likewise by the time RoF was out on live players were able to stay in touch in game even if they had let their subscription expire and new players could try to join the server before fully committing to a subscription.

right...so how does the TCs idea help with that....?

Wow.

I am very aware that "ghost town" is a matter of perspective. It's a combination of things for me though. Mangler always had a massive buff pile near the big bank in PoK, and it used to make you lag to get near it. Now it's about 1/5 the size it was before Aradune and Rizlona launched (even smaller than when I made my original post) and there's zero lag. Then, from my personal perspective, as someone who raided, but not the cutting edge content... My guild went from having 40-50 people online at any given time, to now having 6-12. There's no one online on my friends list of ~30 people, and the server just *feels* empty now. Sure, if I was in an end game guild, I'd probably have felt no difference. But I have to imagine there's more people in my boat than in theirs.

I would expect that some of the Mangler players are on Aradune at least short-term, some will come back some won't, some players from other TLP are doubtlessly also checking out Aradune or Rizlona too, but for them also they will see some of those players drift back.

It's likely not as straightforward as a dump the old TLP & start up on the new for all of them.
Also consider that the infamous "summer lull" hits around now too so many seasonal players won;t even be in game for a while.

Those are fair points. But from the perspective of a non-bleeding edge raider, it is hard to not feel like your EQ world has collapsed when everyone seems to disappear over night. The logical answer is to actively seek out another group of people to play with, but the emotional ties to the group you already belonged to sort of take away the will do so. From a TLP perspective, everything feels like it takes forever. It feels like I've been in my guild for years because we've accomplished so much in that time, but in reality, Mangler is barely over a year old. I guess because I haven't been invested in a TLP like this before, I wasn't properly conditioned for the launch of the new ones, and the effect it would have on the current one. But I'm not delusional, I do realize these are *me* problems.

Even end game guilds feel it, thats why they will absorb the 6-12 your small guild has to replenish their roster. Eventually you end up with only a few end game raiding guilds and no small guilds. Then they start to die also. Phinny seems to have weathered this as well as can be expected going by the progress tracker but Coirnav and Agnarr have not and I suspect Mangler won't either.

I agree with all this also, but again, even a bleeding edge raider is going to feel it, their friends and guildmates are also quitting. Its kind of heartbreaking how DBG just releases Ia new TLP or two every year. I get why they do it, but it really hurts the other ones and like you said, it may have only been a year or two but you got to experience multiple years worth of content and grow to like alot of the people you play with.