Feeling burned out. Playing on Rizlona.

So, I am an old school player, from back in the day, played originally from 2001-2004 or so, then came back for Ragefire back in 2015. I played HEAVILY on ragefire, phinigel, agnarr, coirnav, and mangler, near the end of Mangler I started getting very burned out, and here on Rizlona I'm having trouble reigniting that old passion. Anyone have any suggestions? Maybe I'm just getting too old to play? I dunno, I just don't enjoy seeing all these huge box crews running around here.

It seems like the majority of people are just trying to make money? It doesn't make sense to play when I'm not having fun and the krono price goes up above 8k, I just don't see why I should even bother.

Outside of leveling up in classic there isn't a ton to do outside of getting gear, which you can get through raids. You don't have to play every day and that's the nice part of it. Having done it before you know that Kunark and Velious are both going to be the same to get through. Take certain days of the week off to do other things, play other games, check out live if you're really committed to EQ.

Sounds like you're in a groundhog day loop, 2001-2004 puts you somewhere in the GoD - OoW era. Then if you played on ALL the TLPs it seems likely that you're bouncing yearly right around the PoP-GoD era again. Try going back to one of the older servers, GoD/OoW was fun, DoDH is a great expac. TSS has a ton to do. Way less people trying to farm GEBs and FBSSs for krono also.

Go back to ragefire imo, I believe they have mercs now

Don't let the door hit your butt on the way out.

I guess it depends what you want out of your gaming in EQ.

If you are not interested in raiding I think the early game is terrible, it only really gets a proper structure once it reaches SoD & the mercenary/partisan/heroic achievement driven group progression makes an appearance.

If you enjoy raiding the later raids are way more fun than the early stuff though there are expansions along the way that are somewhat lacklustre.

Ragefire now could be an ideal option if you like multi-boxing or raiding & while there are still some players there with big box-teams it's still a smaller population server so they are easily avoided.

So many players never leave their "comfort zone" of the expansions they are familiar with & recycle throug just the ones they know that it puzzles me how they don;t grow tired of that recurring nostalgia trip and why they even came back if they never explore beyond that.
Some of that is driven purely by Krono farmage though, the early expansions are great for that, the later ones are perceived not to be, from RoF onwards with the introduction of collectables there is definitely scope to farm krono by selling those however.

Based on your comments about the box crews it really sounds like you should have just joined Aradune (2 box max). Despite early queue and lag issues Aradune is running fantastically now and, while not perfect, the active GM's have been aggressive about banning blatant botters (of course the meta here is now 2 necro's but you're always going to have people farming/camping loot). Rizlona is a wild west old school box as many, do whatever you want server. It's the first time people that want to play that way have been able to on a TLP with AoC's which is great for them but a very different EQ than I grew up playing in 1999 and the early 2000's.

It sounds like you're trying to manufacture a reason to keep playing. What's motivating you to do another one? Does your motivation outweigh the burnout you described? It's silly to do something for entertainment if you aren't enjoying it.

Rizlona is a different kind of beast. I'm going to guess you rolled here due to the launch of Aradune and not the fact that you wanted to be able to multibox without using multiple computers.

I wanted to roll on Aradune myself, but the launch sent me to Rizlona. Personally I've embraced it and am having a heck of a lot of fun running my characters and being able to do things myself. One thing I love is that I can just go out and get my own gear, I don't have to worry about all the good camps being taken 24/7 in every pick and get to jump in them myself. This means I don't care what the krono prices are - that being said, I don't generally buy or sell krono in or out of game. I like not having to farm plat just to get my gear like every other TLP prior. I like being able to get my stuff on my own. I generally only sell extra unused drops I get just to fund my tradeskilling. I don't camp stuff just to flip it, anything I sell is a byproduct of gearing my toons.

If you're only playing one character I can imagine it's a completely different and likely frustrating experience for you. You have a few choices if you're not just truly burned out, some of which were already suggested in this thread.

Try older servers (older TLPs or live) and play the catch up game (a heroic char would close a huge gap for you if offered on the server you go with), chalk it up as a lesson and reroll on Aradune, it's not too late and with Kunark on the horizon the grouping game will pick up again. People are likely leveling alts there too which may help. Aradune comes with its own problems, but can still be an enjoyable experience if you don't care about those specific camps. Otherwise you could also sub a couple more accounts and run your own trio on Rizlona - there are plenty of solo players as well as 2-3 boxers on the server.

You could also just take a break, do something else and check things out again when Kunark launches?

If you're just trying to play and have fun why does the krono price matter at all? If you play to get krono then you'll probably burn out fairly quickly unless you have an endgame goal for your krono. Most folks are farming to pay for their box crews as classic is by far the best expansion to get krono. Most boxers can get enough krono in classic to pay for their accounts through pop if they farm a lot.

Classic has no worthwhile long term items and with AC changes you really don't need gear to do anything. Classic is by far the worst expansion, closely followed by Kunark. Once you get over the nostalgia factor then you're really left looking for things to do and there aren't many in either of these expansions. The majority of classic large time-sink quests are worthless come Kunark or novelty items. The game doesn't open up until Velious / Luclin, until then you're grasping at straws for things to do besides farming krono to pay for later expansion content.

The only important things to get in classic are silks / hides / pelts for tailoring and smithing while they're around in mass quantities and cheap. If you don't tradeskill then you have nothing worthwhile to do in terms of anything with long term gain besides krono.

As a non boxer your biggest mistake was trying rizlona first. Chances are you're just burnt out on MMO's in general but Aradune would have been your best bet.

Though keep in mind people have classic down to the point of it being a speed run. This causes early breaks to ensure kunark is fresh.

I feel your pain man - I lost the EQ itch myself. I played from '99-'02 or so - came back for Ragefire and had an absolute blast. My interest waned as I proceeded to play more and more TLPs and Aradune was the nail in my proverbial coffin.

Honestly - what I think killed my interest were:

1. The sense of adventure is gone - what was a vast Norrath filled with unknown adventures has been relived by me at least 5 times and is documented to the nth degree. The lack of anything "new" other than random rule changes really got to me.
2. Rampant cheating - maybe I was too naive to believe that cheating was happening back in '99 or on Ragefire, but what I saw between Phinny, Agnarr, and especially Mangler was just ridiculous. I hopped onto live for a hot minute and, oh boy, they cheat even harder!
3. The invention of the krono - It gave all players an easy way to convert virtual money to real money (via subscriptions). The game isn't self contained. I understand that <Insert owner of EQ at the time> wanted their share of the RMT profits, but it definitely takes away from the game some.

In any case, I'm not sure there's a way to re-light the spark. I've tried playing different classes and doing obscure quests - but after a (short) period of time, you realize that trying to masochistically play a rogue and complete the burning rapier quest just for laughs, isn't very fun.
I do still enjoy popping on the forums from time to time though...hoping to get that itch back.

Sounds like you are just burnt out. Quit and come back in a couple months.

Maybe after playing five TLPs you should do something different with your life.

Make new threads daily demanding a new server be launched, extra points if you insist it be FV or PVP rules. Around November buy the last expansion bag pack while it’s on sale and prepare to buy the newest expansion bag pack. Then around March-May 2021 spend another $200 on bags/potions and rush to 50 in under 24hr. For the next day clear all raid bosses, then start making daily post about how classic is over and really a new server needs to launch.

Pretty sure that is the correct way to avoid burnout.

Game Over. Move on. Thank me later.

I'm still having fun on Rizlona personally, finally got all 18 of my crew to 50 and am working on whatever epic stuff I can get to before Kunark. This was my first time ever doing classic (other than back in 1999 when I was a wee lad). I'm glad I did it, but I can absolutely see why someone would be burned out by this. Classic EQ is not good. There isn't much to do, and the raid content outside Plane of Hate is astonishingly bad.

I'm here for the long haul, since I don't lose interest in EQ until Prophecy of Ro, but I can understand getting burnt out by classic. Personally, if they release another boxing server in the future, I will not be joining until Kunark or possibly even Luclin. Classic is just obnoxious to me.

A high krono price does not matter if you aren't treating EQ as a source of income. In fact if you have any old krono, you can totally gear out with one, or raise up tradeskills for all the plat it sells for. For me this is a positive since I have a day job, your mileage may vary.

Agree that there is not much to do in classic, and posky is miserable. I leveled up, but plan to raid on selos till it hits live, and return to riz when it has more interesting content.

Somehow every year we all manage to forget the one terrible truth about TLPs each time when a new one opens up: Classic just sucks. Seriously. It's compounded by the fact that almost every TLP player has also gone through it like six times minimum now too. I wouldn't say Kunark all that much more involving, but yeah. I really think TLPs should burn through the early expansions a bit faster. Everyone I came with to play on Aradune has burned out too with the "maybe we should try Kunark when it launches." News flash, this is the same thing we've told eachother for the last like four TLPs we tried to play. Nobody comes back for Kunark. And then Velious hits and everyone feels too far behind and/or just wants to wait for the next server, so we can play two weeks of classic again before repeating the cycle.

Started 2000, left in '05. Try out P99, or Project 2002 (Wayfarer's) servers, OP. I thought I walked back in time in p2002. P99 has lots of peeps, the latter a few hundred very friendly old schoolers and a max of 3 boxes with no software allowed. A real economy in both no kronos.