A radical idea

Every year Everquest live gets a new expansion, stop that.
Put them reasources into a new server that has a new continent for everyone to start new in, kinda like a renvisioned Antonica but on a smaller scale. Most of them zones are overly big and can be shrunk down and combinded.
New gear new quests, more grass more trees more particles, same mechanics.

I think this will get the same player draw as new TLPs but everyone is paying $60 because its an xpac, plus sub fee.
This might be a tall order for an old game but they manage to release a yearly xpac still.
Im too old to learn a new game, plus i like EQ mechanics, been playing almost all new TLPs, would love to see new xpac graphics with a 1000 players starting what is basicly a new game.

Been suggested a thousand times, still a terrible idea every time it gets dusted off & brought back out of the coffin.

So this is still an expansion but you want it for lower levels?

Robbing Peter to feed Paul, one of the draws of TLP is the sub-only model, buying expansions on top might be an attractive idea to a few but that's a huge risk to sacrifice a pretty much known guaranteed income from a Live expansion in order to offer an expansion for low level players on TLP who are mainly there for the nostalgia of the existing content.
If you want to see new content that you have not yet played through there are currently 27 expansions, you just need to play beyond your usual TLP window & you will see them.

It's a big risk actually, and the track record of TLP's is that they decline after launch at a relatively steady pace, by the time they reach live status there are only a few guilds left - if they get that far.
There is no guaranteed of a RoI on a "TLP expansion" to make it worth losing the expected RoI for a Live Expansion. You're idea, suggested dozens of times before is simply a bad business decision.

If the game does continue to grow then "maybe" it will at a point in the future have also grown the dev team enough to have the resources to start making some content for TLP servers that is additional to what has already been made as well as the Live expansions, such as how Veksar was added long after Kunark, but we aren't there yet.

Never too old to learn, it's just much harder work & takes longer to do.
And actually learning challenging new things as you age is a proven way to keep your brain active & stave off mental degradation.

That is exactly what a new live expansion is now. Zones condensed, new gear, new quests, more grass.

A radical idea would be something like this:

Make a TLP with limited time classes. A Shadowknight with Spirit of Wolf from Shar Val. A duel-wielding Berserker from Rivervale. That kind of thing would be radical.

No. Half the game's revenue still comes from live. That disappears the year they don't do a new expansion. This would effectively end EQ.

Are we sure this is still true? I'd have believed this a long time ago, but I haven't seen anyone say anything positive about an EQ expansion in a long time. Is there some dialogue you have taken that from or were you just assuming?

The EG7 presentation.

https://www.enadglobal7.com/wp-cont...entation-Dec-2020-Acquires-Daybreak-Games.pdf

TBL had a lot of positive feedback.

CoV - not so much, but most players gave the company a pass on this one seeing as how production was badly impacted by Covid-19 and losing 3 experienced devs, Prathun, who had been on the team some 18 years at that point, along with Narlee & Froo certainly did not help.

I think 2021's expansion needs to be a lot better than what we have had lately though.

As long as they don't pull a EQ2 with Blood of Luclin, they'll do fine with new expansions for EQ1.

There's a lot to go through there, can you be more specific or give me a page number or particular word?

A particular word? Everything.

That novelty would last about 5 levels.

This seems like a good way to alienate players on live servers and players who come to TLP servers for the nostalgia.

Exactly. This gives nothing to anyone.

The live players want to continue to develop their characters, move them beyond 115 with more AAs, better spells, harder things to explore. So nothing for them.

TLP players want to go back and enjoy the old content, Kunark and Velious and so on when it was the current expansion and not when it's 30 or more levels old. So nothing for them either.

All you did was successfully kill EQ, which is no small feat.

I skimmed through it and didn't see any breakdown of revenue between expansions/Live/TLP/etc.

The interview that Fading did with Holly Longdale contains other tidbits that people use to illustrate that TLPs aren't the only money making part of EQ these days.

Transcript, with video: https://everquestshow.com/2019/10/16/episode-7/

A radical idea

To kill EQ.

I support this completely. Spend a year revamping all the old classic zone, like they did with Free Port and some of the newbie zones. I would pay for that in a heart beat. Spend sometime and allow all classes and races to be played. Give the races that were added later, some NEW classic starting cities in some of the classic starting areas. Perhaps convert those new starting cities to dungeons when the actual starting cities release for those races. I would love to see a much bigger and expanded Crush Bone. While you are at it can we have ORCs as a playable race?

I don't believe you! No way it's half? Aren't the live servers free to play with you just paying for expacs? Looks like the average cost of an expac is $34.99 up to $249.99 for friends and family for two people, between the 4 different expac options they average about $96.75. A yearly sub is $119.88 billed every 12 months if you get the good deal. So it looks like the average TLP server player is paying more then the free to play players on average and if the live player just buys the standard at $34.99, then the TLP player is paying way more. Not to mention, i think every one buys pots and bags on the TLP servers which probably makes its 5 to 6 times more revenue per TLP server player over a standard expac live player. So it would seem that the TLP servers are profitable or they wouldn't release new ones every single year an put more effort/resources into them. Yup need some financial data on that that free servers or live servers are half the revenue, maybe you meant half the player base?

No. F2P has restrictions on gear, inventory space, AAs, and more. No raiding player is on F2P. They pay the same monthly fee you do.