When TLPs are "true up" with live servers: AoC?

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Protagonist, Mar 4, 2021.

  1. Protagonist Tank

    Will the AoC be removed when the pay-to-play requirement is removed from Selo et al?
  2. Xyroff-cazic. Director of Sarcasm

  3. dreamweaver Community Manager

    That screenshot of me is correct.
  4. Rondor Augur

    Here is a searchable version of the screenshot's text. The screenshot appears to be of the "Discord" chat program or website.

    Kiff - Today at 8:25 PM
    What does "true up" mean? AoC despawn and truebox is removed? (edited)

    Dreamweaver - Today at 8:26 PM
    Yeah, parity with live server rules.
    (:+1: Thumbs up reaction x 1)

    ===
  5. MAggius New Member

    Meh part of the fun of a TLP is AOC's on old content for fun.
    Removing AOC's makes em worse, kinda lame imo. No reason to remove them surely ?
    Greebo, Gyurika Godofwar and Xanathol like this.
  6. Tweakfour17 Augur

    Sounds like they are converting them to full on live servers which don't have AoC (although they should) which is why they are being removed since they are no longer TLPs.
  7. Zanarnar Augur

    Gotta remember, that for whatever reason they won't maintain two code bases. So EVERY server can be live, every server can be every tlp, just depends on which rule set is turned on. So if they turn up AOC for one "tlp server gone live" they have to do it for all of them.

    I would like to see them do so, as the AoC's would be a nice QOL addition to live servers without impacting balance in any way. All the AoC content is so old and out of date as to not be in any way relevant outside the hunter achievements. (well, and progression servers in and around these era's)
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  8. a_librarian Augur

    I think the reality is their implementation of AoC instancing only barely works and taxes the server too much so they are afraid to enable it for live servers. It sucks that the dedicated players who completed the whole TLP journey end up losing that feature.
  9. Febb Augur


    This. I am curious if this will help free up resources that help with server performance not only for those servers but globally for all servers.
  10. Iyacc Augur

    In theory it should free up resources but of course it'll be for the next shiny new TLP. ;)
  11. Rainlover Augur

    Honestly I think AoC would be a great anniversary gift from this first batch of TLP's to live servers, (even if they have different lockouts then they do say on a TLP)

    I for one am going to miss having them, grown use to them on Phinny, but I also would love to have them to get things like Planer progression done, (and other items from other raids) on charicters I occasionally play back on Cazic. I would support any iteration of keeping AoC, they could even require the group members to be all access.
    Greebo, Gyurika Godofwar and SunDrake like this.
  12. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    Yea I think AoCs should be back added to live servers. Currently the taxing state of the AoCs on live is still theoretical. Why not introduce it on a test-basis for 1 month and see how the servers handle them being available for a month on all live servers?
    Greebo likes this.
  13. Foaming I Drank Bleach IRL Once

    Darkpaw can pay me a small royalty fee but how about just tying AoC use to premium account status. This way the increased load they would create on live servers is balanced by increased revenue. It would be a welcome addition to live players to access this content for achievement hunters and such.
    Greebo and SunDrake like this.
  14. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    I dispute the idea that the AoC are too resource-intensive for a live roll-out, if they can function on a TLP with a massively higher population than any live server has they can run on lower pop Live servers without issue, the overall bandwidth that the servers use will be no different all that changes is the amount of processing per server being done, and even then its not as big a difference as some claim, same number of players will be making the same number of swings per minute as right now.
    And hey if it increases the active players isn't that a good thing for revenue? If it increases all-access subscription rates isn't that good?

    Fact is the dev team have already said that AoC are more efficient than zone picks as their servers can recover the ram used for AoC even faster than they can recover the RAM for zone-picks, knowing that a few more players in AoC instances & less in picks could offset some of the overheads.

    There is an argument that the AoC are NOT a QoL feature, I disagree since they may well have started as a bottle-neck reduction tool designed to allow TLP guilds to not be blocked on progression by other guilds that contested OW content - fact is that once the TLP move beyond the AoC era those TLP remain for a long time with a QoL feature in the AoC - and it does get used a lot beyond those expansions, particularly for PoP progression within the context of the AP quest pre-requisites.

    The other strong argument is that many TLP players will have grown accustomed to the AoC being a key part of their gaming experience with EQ and they will be losing that when they reach live status, transfer or merge with a live server.

    Putting AoC onto live servers is a win-win for the players, the live servers finally gain a tactile benefit they can actually use gained from the TLP servers existing - beyond the security of the game's future and the TLP players moving to live retain some small part of that TLP feel.

    I can tell you from personal experience getting an Abashi on my live zerker took me 3 years of fighting for the kill and that was 2005-2008, long before the Heroic character upgrade existed, long before Free to Play existed trying to get any Open World targets on live after Heroics & F2P is close to impossible now and giving all-access players a fighting chance at those old targets via AoC for all-access would be a fantastic anniversary gift to the players paying for the continued success of EQ.
    Greebo, Foaming and SunDrake like this.
  15. Xyroff-cazic. Director of Sarcasm

    I think this probably hints at the real reason they are not allowing AoC's on non-TLP servers. Free to play accounts spinning up infinite instances, particularly AoC based instances that we know are more taxing on server resources than regular instances, is a potentially problematic situation for a number of reasons. If it were a simple fix to only allow them for paid accounts that would probably be a decent idea, but we have no idea how simple such a change would be.
  16. Machen New Member


    I'm betting JChan could figure it out tomorrow if she wanted. It really can't be that hard to add a single additional condition to triggering an AoC instance. "If FTP Account, F*** off." It's should really be that simple. And since all TLP's are sub required, adding this conditional would not impact a single existing aoc instance.

    Edit to add, my wild guess is that even if they did this, the impact would be significant on live, which is why they won't do it. It would be cool for live players to have access to aoc's, but let's be realistic. There's not a single thing in any aoc instance that will have a dramatic impact on any live player's experience. Even a small amount of additional server lag would be an unacceptable tradeoff.
  17. brickz Augur

    well it would help get planar progression done which is required to craft the signet ring which is required for the artisan's prize.
    Skuz likes this.
  18. Triconix Augur

    Lol nice phantom edit after seeing how wrong you were.

    1. You need progression ( I believe) for one of the 4 evolving items in TBL which is still pretty much a BIS item
    2. You need progression for the Artisan's Prize.
    3. Popping a DZ and checking for any nameds that spawned would substantially help with doing POP hunter which is required for another evolving item from TBL.

    Edit: First may be wrong. Can't remember the 4 requirements. Slayer, Traveler, EOK/ROS progression, and something else. Possibly collects from EOK/ROS
  19. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Chase loot achieves:
    Boots - all traveller achieves up to & including RoS
    Ring - champion of EoK/RoS
    Shoulders - all collects from CoTF to RoS
    Gloves - PoP, EoK & RoS all Hunter (3 expansions)

    AoC definitely helps a ton with AP progress, dubious how helpful on PoP hunter AoC would be but maybe some help.
    It's more for things like Seru/Emperor Horses for boxes, illusion clickies from VT etc. that live players would enjoy getting a better chance to go after & obtain.
  20. Waring_McMarrin Augur


    Well it isn't trivial to code, patch, test and maintain two different code bases especially as the code base diverges overtime for rule set specific changes. With a small team like they have it is best to keep it with a single code base and work with flags like it appears they are so they can toggle things on and off.