TLP Server "Dynamic Ruleset Evolution" over their life-cycle.

You've got a good point there. My goal certainly wouldn't be to have an "easy mode" button that can be pushed repeatedly and abused, and the specifics of this are certainly open for debate. The approach you're talking about would be ideal for a system that is "always in effect". Meaning someone could return for any expansion. They come back a few levels back, and play catch up. That's much more open ended and flexible.

However, I do think having a spot or two in the expansion cycle (which are known and published), where you can get a boost to the level cap would lead to a consistent return of former players on a TLP. I could certainly see DBG publishing that and making it an event. "Return to Mangler with your former character for SoD with a level boost!"

To be honest, I'm a little surprised this idea is getting any traction at all. I fully figured I'd be pood on when I posted it.

I like the way Skuz talks. Where is the upvote button on these forums?

I think most players are this way even if they don't realize it, and in fact I've seen this tendancy with players that are powereleveled to max level to join a raiding guild. They tend to not be attached and tend to not stick around. Whereas someone who has put in work to level themselves, even with some help here and there, is invested and more likely to stick.

It's definitely something that should be discussed, because there is basically this scale from detachment to burnout, and if you can stay in between them then you'll probably keep playing. I've experienced a few variations of these things, so I'll try to lay that out here. What I mean is that I've abandoned characters, and the game, multiple times, and come back, multiple times. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not, sometimes with Heroic boosts, and sometimes not.

The first example would be a Rogue that I've played since classic, he was my second character and highest level when I quit around the GoD/OoW eras. He was 59, and anytime I would come back I was not interested in the slog of trying to get a group for a Rogue. That is until I came back some time after TSS, and reconnected with some people from my original server (pre-merges). Having the opportunity to group with some mid 80's in Ashengate, I leveled the Rogue to 83, got to see some HoT content, and generally had fun. This led to high attachment, but also some burnout when things slowed down as I caught up to the levels I was grouping with. In the end though, it was really the limitations of the Rogue class that led to burnout. Needing a group for anything was too much, and I ended up shelving him to putz around with my SK and Bard which were lower level. In general this method of catch up is good, but requires friends in high places, and a class without core issues.

The next example was my first Heroic character. It was one I had played some before, a 34 Cleric. Another class that wasn't good without a group, and why I used my first free Heroic upgrade to take him to 85. Today he is 86, not very exciting. I've tried to play him, but with mercs and boxing, he's just not as necessary is he used to be. I've never had much attachment to the character, and the Heroic boost didn't really change that in either direction. It did increase my excitement for the character, and with a real group of appropriate levels he is fun to play. I just don't come by that opportunity very often these days.

My only other Heroic boost was a 51 Monk that I had played on and off over the years. I believe this was the second free Heroic boost that was given out, so I used it on him to get to 85. This time things were different, my attachment started high and got higher. With strong solo-ability the burnout didn't occur. I had grouping opportunities with guildmates who were much higher, but when they weren't around I could still make progress. This character eventually made it to 105, and then 108 when RoS came out. If I wasn't playing on Agnarr right now, this is the character I'd be playing.

The only other relevant character I could mention is a 92 Shaman on a second account that I leveled up to play with the Monk. Not wanting to pay for a Heroic boost, I brought him up solo with some help. That help being a J1 merc and some buffs/healing from a Druid until 50. Attachment was moderate in this case, this was an alt after all. Playing him from level 1 increased the attachment a bit, but not as much as would be expected. Burnout though, that didn't start until around level 90. Eventually it was just too much to expect to go 1 to 105 in one stretch, and truly solo from 75 on. At that point I grouped with the Monk, but was too low to really make it any better than soloing the Monk. I will be going back to work on the Shaman eventually, but mostly to make the Monk's life better in the long run.

What I would say is that attachment is more complicated than just "level it yourself" or "Heroic boost." Attachment comes from enjoyment of the class, and the logistics of playing that class. You can develop attachment for a boosted character by just enjoying the first few hours of playing it, and then only build from there. Or you could curse the ground that character walks on before you even gain a level, regardless of what it was boosted to.

Burnout is the trickier question, and can be more subjective based on the player. People going 1-50 in 24 hours probably have a good tolerance for burnout, but then they seem to be the ones who aren't interested in making up the 15 levels and hundreds of AA's to catch up later. To me the second task doesn't seem any harder than the first, so there must be something else to it. Boosting a character definitely reduces burnout, but does it have an affect on the potential for future burnout? That is probably the bigger question.

I think the server rules can help to some degree with burnout, some of it is down to picking what you can realistically achieve vs what you ideally would like to.

I think with now having the benefit of hindsight I won't play on any future TLP unless Truebox is going to be switched off by SoD at the absolute latest, and ideally during DoDH and I would need to know that going in at the start. I would not want to start on a Rizlona/Ragefire with no Truebox at all though, its preferable in those early eras where the much large player numbers make groups much easier to form & at least partly helps in reducing the mage-box armies.

Rizlona was actually quite nice to be on, all the drama were on that "box hating" server *cough cough* I didn't play there long due to Phinny raids and grind took all the time, but people were actually nice there and general chat was pretty chill most of the time. Was it problem free? I doubt it... But I would say there were 100x more issues over on Aradune which was supposed to be the friendly people but turned out to be the toxiest of the two servers...

Burnout Prevention:
Skuz makes quite a few good points as well as other posters in this tread. To help prevent burnout a new TLP best bet would be to release all race/class combo's at launch to assist in the prevention of rerolling to fill a spot or to a class they enjoy. It was obvious there could have been some plan to do this or was at the very least thought about when Hate and Fear was dropping BST and BSK loot.

I do understand there are some folks out there who can level someone from 1 to 60 AAs, epic, etc. in a matter of days. Well the majority of the population are not at this level and some only play a box or two. When you finally do get a class you actually want to play like myself a BST, you will need to either add an account, break from raiding to focus on leveling, etc. Than go quest for certain items again such as keys. Than comes even more leveling for AA's. The burnout starts to sit in pretty quick after awhile.

What can help prevent burnout? I can think of a few things that would assist in the prevention of burnout..

1. New TLPs release all class/race combo's
2. Increase XP/AAXP gains
3. Increase XP if you already had max level character's from previous expansion. For example you would receive an XP bonus on a new character on the account you have a max level character. So if you have a 50 in classic you receive XP bonus for Kunark new rerolls, If you have a 60 during Kunark new characters would have an XP bonus during Velious, and so on.
4. Keys account bound

I know they probably make a killing on XP pots but there will be those who still purchase the pots to make the experience even faster. I would also hope the emptiness of the leveling zones would begin to flourish again for the ease of creation of alts. This would not help multiboxers as much as it would help those with a single account. When you finally talk in a love one or friend into playing EQ, yet leave after that first month from lack of things to do, from a lack of population to play with. Also, I would just like to see random dropped items brought into each zone. That way people spread out and not all attempt to do the same zone.

I agree... We all want to be "in the fun from the start" but if someone wants to play a beastlord or berserker then they are just SoL... having to "waste time" building another char to be "useful" until they can actually MAKE what they want... and "waste time" while they grind up their new char, so it is "useful" to fill the spot they leave with their old char.

but kitties/drakkin etc. should NOT be in from the start (call it a boon for EQ... aka having to pay for race change) but as long as people can make the classes... with whichever races are already there then win win

They die because the game sucks as you get further in expansion wise.

If you want non-truebox go play on Rizlona pretty simple. Nice waste of time you spent on this though.

What an incredible post, a veritable tour de force of literary wit & substantive reasoning, you are clearly a god slumming it amongst us mere mortals & we should all bow down to your genius....

Actually I think a paralytic Gnat could formulate a better rebuttal but I felt a pang of remorse saying that so I attempted to boost your ego before breaking the bad news