Agnarr 2.0 proposal -> Dranik TLP

Hey folks!

This thread is intended for players that would like to experience a new era-locked server.

Despite some people calling it a prison server (which it is not), it's actually a great place to be in for many. Sick of the endless grind and item devaluation roughly every 3 months when a new era unlocks on your TLP? Well, on an era locked server this will eventually stop. No more unlocks. Stay in your favourite era. No point in going any further. Might as well play live ;-)

What I like about an era locked server is that at one point, after experiencing all those unlocks over the years, you will remain in your favourite era and max out on stats and BiS equipment if you keep raiding. That can be quite satisfying. You stay powerful. It feels like actually having achieved something. And there will be no new expansion unlocks that will water down the quality of the gear you accumulated once your arrived in the last era.


So my actual suggestion is to bring an OoW (Omens of War) era locked server.
Why OoW?


- Level cap is 70

- Many new AA for all classes

- Berserker class

- Shadow Haven casino

- New epic weapons to follow the Kunark Era's "1.0" epics
(Epic 2.0 that actually stays relevant.)

- New task system for solo and group quests at all levels

- Enhanced tribute system

- Custom titles upon completion of specific tasks

- Veshan's Peak 2.0 (Elemental Planes level gear)

- Stats on equipment not going crazy as in later expansions -- instead staying in the +2 digits range (except +HP/MANA/END)


Also, in comparison to PoP-locked (Agnarr), GoD+OoW add tons of raiding content that players can chew on for years.

Copy Agnarr ruleset (XP rate, AoC, etc) but consider starting in Kunark as long as that wouldn't have a negative impact on obtaining prenerf Circlets of Shadow, Guises of the Deceiver, prenerf Fungus Staves, etc.

Unlock new expansions in a 3 month cycle until PoP, and then unlock in 6 months cycles.

Well, that's just my take on it. Everybody has their own favourite expansion of course. And I know there will be people jumping this thread telling us all that era locked is bad. I think it's the best!

So, any takers? ;-)

Be safe,
Corydon

Firstly: No. If you're stopping at 70, go to PoR.

But more helpfully clarifying your information for you: XP rates are bumped in GoD. Guise/CoS/etc drops aren't nerfed with unlocks, they're nerfed x number of days after server launch.

And oh god, I'd rather retexture my urethra with a rusted nail than do 6 month unlocks. 3 months unlocks are already mindmeltingly slow. A year and a half of PoP/LoY/LDoN would make everyone eat a bullet breakfast.

Yes, except just do a regular unlock schedule. An oow lock server is something I'd drop big $ on.

I'm in for 70 level lock, stops at PoR with a normal unlock schedule starting with classic.

The task system is introduced with DoN, not OoW. All of the instance dungeons in GoD and OoW use expeditions.
VP 2.0 is wasted with OoW release.

I feel like people asking to be locked in PoR forever must surely be trolling.

Locking in the first expansion of a level bracket is terrible, regardless of your opinions about PoR. Agnarr leaves people with a limited, repetitive end game. Anguish and nothing comparable ad nauseum would do the same. With a PoR lock (or a DoDH lock if you really wanna do that instead) you have way more viable "end" content. I would expect demi to be raided just as much as dk, and vish + anguish to probably be repeated anyway. With an OOW lock you'd have trials, txevu, and tacvi being raided and most of it being hot garbage compared to actual anguish loot, unlike the level 70 parity.

After selo I refuse to accept the pop/oow/etc calls for anything other than blind nostalgia. Starting in the LAST of the 60 block was amazing and no level grind on any tlp was as good. I'd love a tlp that unlocked all the expacs of a given level bracket at once each time!

I mean... a big majority of people playing TLP are playing because of blind nostalgia. It's not about having continual engaging content. oow lock for the specific reason of having epic 2.0 as an 'end game.' I don't think anyone who wants an oow lock server cares about the 'lvl 70 content' that would come with PoR; I know I don't. Also, you forget that Agnarr has a relatively strong population for what it is, and server pop has doubled in the past few months, and its literally just people who have been raiding potime for 3 years straight, so don't discount the fact that people would not mind running OOW content forever and ever (myself included)

Yea, I actually like the idea of Agnaar, but its population is a little low, but the reason is there is always a Tlp in a earlier era than Agnaar. The obvious on is that capped servers are not very popular. Doing a capped server at any era may not be feasible, so I propose the opposite. Instead of having a tlp go all the way to live, well beyond the server having a healthy pop, just choose and expansion where the population dwindles and than merge it with live at that point before running another fresh tlp. That way we don't have 5 servers with 1 or 2 raid guilds on each. This splitting the population on several servers.

Era-locked beyond PoP TLP server will have a very small audience, I think that you do not have enough interested players.

There are a large number of players who for whatever reason see EQ beyond PoP as some horrifically distorted version of the game they loved and won't touch it with a 10 foot barge pole.

But the same people are not interested in an Omens-locked server so it won't interest them, and it won't interest anyone who wants an era-locked in some other expansion, or those who do not want an era-locked server and while the 70 era started well with Omens it ended badly after an overly long stretch with Prophecy of Ro so it consequently is one of the least well liked eras in EQ history.
I've seen OoW-Locked, DoN-locked, DoDH-locked & even one time a PoR-locked suggested but these are all one or two posters even if you collected them all together & convinced them a level 70 locked server was a good option you would still only have a tiny niche of players to support this era-lock, collectively you would not even be enough players to form a single small raid guild let alone the 100's of players you would need to justify a profitable TLP server.

PoP-locked had a decent-sized population of players asking for it, hundreds of posters & the closure of the Al-Kabor server which had an established community probably also helped its case. None of those things are true for any other era.

If epic is the focus on your TLP why not go for DoDH then, still a lvl 70 expac and you take epics all the way to their end with the 2.5s. Then at that point it'd be silly to not include PoR as an extra (like how Agnarr is PoP locked but also has LDoN).

I find that highly unlikely.

its actually true. the population on Angarr has kinda exploded since the new year. two new guilds got started.

i really think a level 70 locked server is coming next. I also think you have to to POR. stopping at oow for a level 70 lock, seems like a terrible idea. No one is not going to not play on it because it stops at oow versus por. on a locked server the more content you can get the better. So i don't think there is any downsides and only upsides to stopping at Por vs OOW.

PoR locked is definitely better than OoW locked. DoN/DoDH/PoR add a bunch of depth to classes with various new spells/discs/AAs. Stopping before these within the same level range I think is very unwise.

Just because you have access to Deathknell doesn't mean you stop raiding Demiplane / Vishimtar / Anguish. A level 70 locked server would have all of those pieces of content available and useful, even Tacvi is useful at level 70. A best in slot armor set in PoR includes drops from all of these expansions and raids. Giving value to going back to them.

Locking to OoW however limits the useful content to basically Anguish + Tacvi only. Maybe with some PoTime runs for those TAs.

Welp, it's actually more than likely, it's true. Do you know how I know this? I play on Agnarr. 1 year ago, Agnarr gen chat population was topping out at 100 during guild raid times. In May of last year when they introduced the 'free TLP' month, we saw gen chat reach 150s, then it dwindled to 120's, and back up to 150's near the end of 2020. Now, we're seeing 200+ people in gen chat at peak times, 150s on off peak times. As I and others have mentioned, there's literally an entire new guild that came up that's a raiding guild, consisting almost entirely of players new to Agnarr. There's 1-2 other smaller non raid guilds that have surfaced. Additionally, 2/3 of the raiding guilds are still pretty easily fielding full raids.

While general chat numbers aren't 100% indicative of the actual server pop, it's at least a minimum bar. The real numbers are likely higher as some people don't join gen chat. Point is: Agnarr pop has actually gone up over time. I don't think there is a TLP who can say that three+ years into its existence, population has gone up.

I know for sure that I and many people in the main 3 raiding guilds on the server would move from Agnarr to an OOW locked server. I think era locked servers are absolutely ideal. The TLP will get the rush of players who enjoy the classic -> velious/POP run, and then those players will shift to a new TLP, and the people who want to play a specific era will stay. Most of those players will continue to roll new TLP's, I've played all the subsequent TLP's through classic/kunark, but I always end up back on Agnarr.

Interesting. I stand corrected.

Ladder servers should be tested. Classic, PoP, etc. Free transfers up the ladder. Agnarr exists so just need a classic server and 2 after Agnarr. Role a new character and level at your pace and then jump server when you are ready. The first server should be non-premium encouraging new players to start there and then free transfers for players with an active subscription.

I am as shocked as anyone that there are more people here, lol. Trust me. I was not expecting to be fielding full raids at this point in time. We had 72 people on offnight backflagging raids the past several weeks, I didn't even have room to do open invites.

GOD+ is when everquest begins to really demand group level balance and stability to progress. Your tank needs gear and can't be replaced with a pet or bazaar scrub. Your healer has to heal. Your cc has to cc. The constant classic-pop every recycled tlp and no GoD+ crowd are the same who hate mass boxing and whine about lfg issues. There's a reason their gameplay experience dies after agnarr's locked state. This is the stage of the game when /lfg really crumbles and people without friends or boxes suffer.

The game changes very little functionally between OOW and TBS. The content in OOW is also not made obsolete prior to TSS. This means that DoN, DoDH, and then PoR each add viable content without taking away from what people would settle into in an OOW locked server anyway. Even GoD content is still likely to be poked at from time to time for BiC if nothing else. These expansions also do not change the gameplay style or class balancing; these are basically constant through the 70s (and 75s except for nec). You get more group dungeons and more camps but they're all similar to what you had in an OOW lock.

I liked to stop at OoW to keep Epic 2.0 relevant which is kinda cool imho and to not inflate stat and damage numbers too much. I always find that annoying. At this point I refuse to play on any server that is not era locked at some point in time because as said, I personally am tired of chasing the carrot every couple months. I'd rather have an era to arrive at and stay in. I did (and still am doing) it on Agnarr and I think it's the best If only 2 more xpacs would unlock I'd be set for many more years

I would try a TBS or RoF locked server too if there is no OoW locked one, but OoW definately is my personal favourite for the reasons given. Thanks for all your input folks.