Thornblade population is worrisome

I will be re-rolling to Mischief server before it's too late. Very disappointing but no choice i'm feeling.

It was always meant to be an overflow server. So people like you wouldn’t come to the forums complaining about a queue. Why even come and complain just make a character on the server your gonna play on. Once things calm down a bit they should be combining the servers together.

I'm enjoying the lower population on Thornblade. But my motivation for playing on these new servers are not long-term - or current raiding.

We are probably a good bunch of people that rolled on Thornblade with the solo purpose of being able to do what we want with the people we like - and don't care much about what else is going on.

All the low level zones I was in yesterday were still highly populated. The average life expectancy of a croc in SRo could be measured in seconds.

I don't think it's all that bad...

Yeah, I wonder what levels the people are that are complaining about this. Things are still hopping at the lower levels. But really, if we measured the population of Thornblade, solely by the number of people complaining about the population of Thornblade, I think we could say it's pretty populated. There is no question that Mischief has more, only whether Thornblade has enough.

I also wondered if the bonus exp weekend got so many people to 50 that they jumped right to leveling alts. But I did group with somebody over the weekend around level 8 who said they hadn't played in 10 years and didn't know how Advanced Loot worked, which is pretty good evidence they weren't an alt.

I did the same.. and am glad for it.

The TLP dip down fast... and even more so as new ones are released as they bring in less and less fresh people. Most are TLP vets now. The wave is a thing that is known now.

It is not a big deal for people who solo. But players like myself who enjoy LFG and finding pugs to level with, low population basically kill the game. I'm not into Power leveling. I just want to find some buds in game and chill for a few hours and grind. That is my favorite part where as most just want to PL past that stage and get to the raids.

Raid are ok for me but gear and raids is not what drives me to play TLP's at all so I am very susceptible to the population.

My goals are to hit 50.. then start an alt asap in hopes of catching another way of people leveling before there are no more waves to catch and only a few LFG. Then in kunark I do the same. 50-60... then try to catch the second and hopefully third waves.


Anyway, I've been making posts about this since day 2 I think, once I took some hard surveys and confirmed what I felt on day 1. An in each post TB players rush in to defend their server pick and troll the posts.

They don't want people to know. They know they will re-roll and it will drive people away from the server. I do not fault them for not wanting people to know and leave but their motives are not true. They are not trying to help someone make a correct choice for themselves.

A lot of "grass is greener" was always going to happen once both servers got out of the "big Queue" phase of the new TLP.

So as soon as one server has a bigger population everyone not on that server starts looking at it with envy.
No point fretting about it though, either re-roll or wait for the merge, still a week of classic left & kunark will see a bunch of alts I am sure so groups will be around even if not in the vast numbers there were to start with.

Shortly after Kunark release they will likely need to merge them. As long as they do then there's nothing to worry about yet, but if they don't you can get your pitchforks.

You really think it'll be that quick? I can see a merge down the road, but Kunark is in just a couple weeks

All depends on the total population across both servers imho - if there is enough between the two that they would be significantly over 4k online at peak hours it would lag the server to hell or end up with queues.

Once the combined total is cruising below that 4k figure then merging them makes sense.

I joined Thornblade with the idea that I would once again give Truebox a chance. It was fun for the first week or so and then groups got tougher and tougher to find or put together. I'm not gonna sit there with multiple computers running in my room to satisfy the truebox ruleset so I'm probably working my way back to Rizlona. If they merged Thornblade into Mischief and then converted the old Thornblade to non-truebox then that would be the best place for me.

We have no problem fielding raiders for multiple splits on two different popular time zones on the Thornblade Server, and we require no raid attendance to bid on loot.

You might find if you try playing with other people you'll have more fun. We are basically open invite right now, reach out to an officer today in our discord.

https://Discord.gg/everquest

The EC tunnel on Thornblade was extremely busy yesterday. I haven't seen any sign of a population issue. If you just joined and missed the 50% xp rush to 50 then yes you may see a drop off, same as would occur on Mischief. People get burnt out after leveling that much and take a break. Come Kunark there will be a lot of people back leveling their lizards (those that are too cheap to race change).

Also here's a tip - join a guild. Most people in a guild don't group out of guild unless absolutely necessary as guilds have their own discords and voice chat. It sucks to communicate in chat via typing in this day and age.

FYI DPG has stated the following:

1. There is no guarantee that the servers will merge at any point.

2. If they merge, it will happen during their yearly “server merge” window due to resources etc. which is sometime between May-July each year iirc? So the merge option will be evaluated on a year-by-year basis, and the earliest the servers could merge is spring/summer 2022.

You hear this advice on every single thread where people post about having trouble finding groups. I don't think I have ever been on a TLP server which I didn't belong to a guild from at least level 10 onward. Some of them casual and family guilds, but most time I join one of the top end raiding guilds.

From my experience if you are not IRL or very close online friends with individuals you will still have a lot of trouble wiggling your way into guild groups unless you have to be one of the "premier" classes. And before anyone posts 'get gud', I can assure you that I am a perfectly capable player with 21 years of EQ experience.

Aside from being in the same chat channel (guild channel) there is little else that is different from the LFG tool. You still need to match up classes, levels and playtimes. You can still spend a good amount of time trying to find groups in the guild channel and having limited play time makes this difficult. And just because a player is in your guild doesn't make them a good player. In fact often times you feel "obligated" to have a guildie along even though they may just stink - and you have to deal with it. In pickup groups people aren't really afraid to tell you that you stink.

With races to top level and end game content in a shortened amount of time, falling even a few levels below the TLP server crowd can doom you to long waits to find groups. And this is often the cause of casuals getting excited about a new TLP server each year - finally getting to start over with a chance to group with other players of similar levels again.

Play with a guild? Sure. Absolutely. But lets not pretend this is any panacea for trying to find decent xp groups, especially with limited play time. This is just where EQ is these days. The answer is, really, you need to play a different game, play a solo class, or play on non-truebox if you can't find groups during your playtime.

Another sad thread in what will become the sad server of Thornblade. As the sad saga continues there will continue to be sad threads about how the population has reached new lows. This will continue until the inevitable sad end of it post PoP.

Sad story for a sad server.

Wow. The population isn't that low and they will most likely merge the servers at some point. One reason I could see moving to Mischief would be a chance to sell group items at a higher price. With the population on Mischief bring higher there will be more items selling and undercutting each other in the tunnel, sounds terrible. Maybe Krono farming, selling raid loot for more, or more buyers but same issue, lots of people selling the same stuff. Maybe to get groups for leveling up? Well with more people that will be easier to get groups but finding a camp will take longer, more groups looking for them. Personally I would and have stayed on Thornblade because of the less people. Join a guild and pitchin raiding and you will get groups with guildies.
Thornblade seems like it is a better deal then over crowded Mischief.

When I moved over to Mischief from TB - the opposite was true. I sold everything of high value on my characters and rebought on Mischief and made a profit of about HALF of what I'd gotten liquidating a fraction of my TB loot.

Even looking at key items on the auction scraping site for both, Mischief seems cheaper by up to 30-40% on most major items.

Supply is way, way higher.

And that's AWESOME. It's reasonable to gear an alt, and entirely possible to gear your main fully.

All these people here stating this and that is not what drives me to play on these TLPs.

Let me break it down for the newcomers
90% of the people playing TLPs, play with intention of making krono.
10% of the people do it for nostagia, raiding, high population, social interaction, and just about everything else.