Thank you for Mischief

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Wisp, Jun 8, 2021.

  1. Wisp Lorekeeper

    I didn't post earlier because it was hard to pull out of the game long enough.

    I love the mischief server. This is an essay on why.

    For the first time in years, I enjoyed the leveling process. It wasn't a waste of time like it usually is. It wasn't, "go here and get levels where leveling is fastest and then go camp useful things where the experience is nonexistent," it was: a rush of excitement for every single rare spawn.

    What will it drop? What CAN it drop? How will the loot work?

    That feeling is something I've been chasing forever. And this brought it back. Just like the very first time I ever camped in lower guk, so to this time was just as much fun. It's not going away either. I killed rare spawns in a level 10 zone the other day. Just to see what they'd drop. And I saw items I've NEVER seen before. Things that aren't even in allah or posted elsewhere. They aren't good items, but I DON'T CARE! It's FUN! This is FUN!

    I've also enjoyed easily finding groups at weird out of the way camps that nobody ever wanted to do before. It's easy to get healers to go places, and tanks, and dps, everyone is willing to go everywhere because every camp is rewarding to everyone equally. That bodes really well for later expansions. For right now, even my alts can find groups and level, and I'm able to explore different paths, everyone isn't all jammed into the same zone (though a few of you might consider that unrest is actually not fun and try someplace else).

    I've VERY much enjoyed everyone getting on board with need roll everything. Need before greed was only ever for the greedy ("NBG guys, yes this camp only drops stuff that only my class can use, and I never camp anywhere except camps like that, but don't YOU be greedy!").

    The droppable loot is amazing. I generally go play until my bags are full, and then run around the karanas or crushbone or commonlands looking for low level players that look like they'd enjoy having some BiS raid gear at level 5. That sort of fun times has also been lacking for decades. There are a LOT of people playing on these servers coming straight from P99 or out of EQtirement that haven't played since their initial hiatus back in '04-'05. It's been a blast hanging out with them. I still remember someone handing my level 9 paladin a sword in butcherblock, and my roommate going nuts, because it was some velious drop and velious had just come out. "It's dangerous to go alone...take this." Haven't had that feeling in feels like forever.

    The raiding is awesome, and I appreciate that people have different opinions, but having a dragon drop 18 items was like....oh man....this server will rock. I've always been of the opinion that the game is more fun when your toon is very well equipped, and raid mobs in EQ were always far stingier than necessary, resulting in highly static raid forces and guilds that mandated 100% attendance etc. There's a lot of problems that go away if tons of gear is dropping. It might not have worked to start back in 1999, but as a one-off event server, it is a very nice change of pace and I hope they keep it up. It would be great to see a flood of raid gear at every tier, so folks that maybe can't play enough to keep up with a raid schedule can still get something off the raid, or buy decent stuff in the tunnel/bazaar for not too much time invested in farming platinums. (I've always been a 100% raider and it's not made the game better for me getting a PUG of group geared people. Nobody benefits from the typical abysmal group-gear situation).

    I know for folks that like the typical progression TLP that this server is annoying. I get that you want to go sit at the one camp and farm the one thing and that is what you like about EQ. I am sorry that this server might not be what you want, but I have no doubt a standard TLP is probably going to happen next year. Please let us have this and continue to play on aradune/mangler/whatever until then.

    The only thing wrong with Mischief is truebox. I'm not willing to do the environmental damage boxing on truebox servers requires and at a certain point EQ is BYOG. If there was a real boxing allowed version of this server planned for some point in the future that would be amazing. Until then, I'm having fun in the era of EQ where you can play one character and still get stuff done.

    I know with more time to develop the idea the development team would've had a better solution for plane of sky. Plane of Sky is a tough problem, because people have very strong feelings about it and it was already a zone where "normal rules do not apply." Plane of sky made /say dangerous and buffs got stripped and certain pets don't work and keys are needed and corpse recovery is absurdly difficult/expensive. It makes sense, within the overall "lore" of the server, that Plane of Sky wouldn't follow the mischief changes either. A future patch could put the various sky quest rewards already completed on the boss loot tables, and really make sky vastly more popular (not to mention easier to manage from a guild raid loot award perspective).

    All that said, I enjoyed both of the plane of sky raids I've gone to so far, and will continue to enjoy them even if nothing changes.

    I'm not sure what Mit of the Mighty is accomplishing on a true box server. It might be worth the experiment of dropping it for a bit, it makes it alot harder for the more...casual/recently returned EQ player to kill some of the raid mobs, without significantly impacting the gameplay of any of the ...more ridiculous players such as myself. Maybe just nerf it so it still serves the purpose of restricting mobs from spawning in picks? I don't know. Just a suggestion.

    The server is awesome and you all did a really good job. I think even if you hadn't fixed the "bugs" it still would have been fine. AoN's and Inny loot for everyone! Yay!

    I would love to see out of era loot drop. For instance, the random loot table of the "boss" could include drops from tier 1 of the next era. That would be neat and a fun incentive to participate in that highest tier of raiding (maybe make eye of veeshan worthwhile past classic). Likewise, I'd like to see the "boss" group rares have a random chance to drop raid loot. Imagine getting an Aten Ha Ra loot off some group trash named in Umbral Planes. With a low enough chance (.1% or so) to drop it'd just be a nice rando thing, similar to back when you could get a card game pack right? Some people would use it, some people would sell it, it was amazing for everyone.

    I like the outside the box thinking and I encourage you to go down that road. Please ignore the folks that somehow don't get that this is an event server not a classic to current progression server, maybe change the name from TLP entirely in the branding.

    I'm having a great time, I cannot stress enough how much more fun this has been than anything since my first time playing. I think roll this code out for a couple weeks a year on live servers as an annual event, it's amazing. Just truly delightful. Here comes a rare! What will it drop!?
  2. Belit Lorekeeper

    Was nice to read. I second this.
    Yinla likes this.
  3. Twizle Journeyman

    This was a great post, and i would like to share my appreciation aswell!!!



    This is a fantastic server where i have been able to relive my most fond EQ memories, When it was the original content, i raided to enjoy the group game. Most of my fondest memories are from the group game. This server enables people who are older and cant raid due to RL stay relevant within the ecosystem of the server and thats fantastic, i will give you some examples.

    Farming SolB this week has enabled me to,
    provide melee in our guild with fbss
    sell herbs for 1kr per stack to the raiding guilds to then buy planar gear
    help monks get the book for there epic
    provide loads of gear to the people still leveling at a fraction of the normal cost
    Kill king tranix whilst leveling in an low level non optimal group. Wouldnt normally be possible without a better group or our current gear.

    All of these interactions created oppertunities to creste new friends and new memories!

    I can see this server being my home for many years to come!
    Fallfyres and Yinla like this.
  4. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    I'm really enjoying this one. I can find a decent camp to level after the mad rush to 50. In the past I've tried leveling in MM and given updue to all the high levels there, but on Mischief a lot more zones are feasible. :)

    Thumbs up to Fippy Darkpaw for this one. :)
  5. Firesyde424 Journeyman

    This has been my favorite TLP server in recent memory. I am enjoying the game outside of just normal nostalgia.
    Fallfyres and Yinla like this.