A radical idea

nope I think it is a solid idea and hope they do something with the Classic zone with the next set of TLP server, like they did with the free trade random loot server. A lot of people play the TLP progression servers because EQ after PoP sort of sucks. If they added more content in Classic, Kunark, Velious, Luclin and PoP, it might retain TLP players longer. Subscriptions pay the bills and if you could stretch out the new content on the classic expacs over a longer period of time I would keep paying. Problem with the last few TLP servers is they have to come up with new novelty ideas to attract old player. If they spent time revamping classic and adding content that would add value to ANY new TLP server. If they added new raids and a few new dungeon, to Kunark, Velious, Luclin and PoP this would also add value to ALL new TLP servers. If the release schedule also was increased to 3 to 6 months with all races and classed playable at release in classic this would also increase value of ALL/ANY new TLP servers. Profits over course of the new content added to anything before PoP would help the bottom line for all new TLP servers. Even a bit after PoP say tweaking and adding content to GoD and OoW. Maybe Branch off and start making new expacs that follow the original flavor of classic that Brad started.

you sure?

LOL, why would you ask that? Either you A) don't believe me or B) have some proof to the contrary. It can't be B because there is no such proof. I guess that makes it A.

Why don't you pop over to the Veteran's Lounge forum and ask them how many are on F2P status?

Look up the differences. Most live players are paying customers. Guess what? Any TLP player that pays for expansions falls under the revenue for Live servers bucket because those purchases wouldn't even be made if new expansions weren't happening.

Your replies are comically naïve and borderline delusional. The ideas of not releasing a new expansion would immediately alienate every single live player, especially raiders. It would cause an immediate exodus of over half the game's population.

Better than that, I wish some of these people would post their "radical ideas" on the Veteran's Lounge forum and then read the reactions.

I honestly can't remember last time I had a F2P player in any of my groups on live. F2P is mostly regarded as a trial for low-levels.

Yeah FTP is massively restricted, no way people playing in the new expac are primarily ftp, maybe some of their boxes buy I'd wager all 115 mains are paid subs also.

Tlps come out every year because they are profitable.
New expacs come out ever year because the are profitable.

Refusing to believe a dev source because you don't want to believe it doesn't make you right, it makes you unwilling to accept reality.

TLP players buy expacs too

And that's considered "Live" revenue. If new expansions aren't being released, TLP players don't get to buy any expansions that provide Live benefits to their TLP experience. Funny how that works, right?

There's a better chance of an EQ reboot on a new engine than adding onto old, lower level content for TLP. I won't say its a zero chance of a reboot, but its darn close.

I would recommend actually trying out the game on a Live server before you make snap judgements about how terrible it is. Plus, if you're playing on a TLP, that means you're subscribed, so you wouldn't be a FTP player on a Live server. Run through the tutorial and then the Crescent Reach (new player) segment of the Hero's Journey questline, and then come back and tell us if you think the experience is so bad the game needs yet another level 1 starting zone.

If I'm a subscriber, how are you recommending I play on Live to judge how terrible F2P is?

I've already tried Live, and Hero's Journey is an enormous waste of time, please stop suggesting it. I also have not recommended that the game needs another level 1 starting zone???

The "radical idea" in the OP of this thread is asking for a new starting zone. Why are you posting here if that's not your interest?

Why do you want a new level 1 starting zone?

I don't. I've argued against it.

Within a thread there is more being discussed than simply the title subject of the thread. One of those subjects was revenue divided between Live and TLP as well as the EG7 PDF. I have commented 0 times on the level 1 starting zone.

You also didn't answer my question about you telling me to try F2P before I judge how terrible it is.

lol.

You cant' even play in the two most recent expansions as f2p.

Sort of sucks how?

I'm interested in the "Why?" you think EQ sucks after PoP.

More content in those eras isn't needed, each expansion is fairly self-contained story & lore wise, they have enough zones to level in and enough raid content to allow you to be fully regeared for the next expansion.
What do you want from more content in those eras that the existing content does not provide you?

Not really, every "standard TLP" has had queues of players wanting to join it, what the team try to do is to address some of the suggestions for making the next TLP more interesting to play through

For example Ragefire had issues around boxers making huge armies of magicians & steamrolling group camps and even raid targets in open world - many guilds became fractious with one another about open world raid targets & the devs tried to intervene to "help" with a voluntary rotation system and that became something of a farce when several guilds refused to respect the rotation agreement.
Hence why we have AoC & Truebox on most TLP servers now.

The Free-Trade loot was an idea that multiple posters had been asking for for a number of years.
Plenty of other posters, myself included, wanted a way to counter what has become a serious issue of spawn-camping & item monopoloization where a box crew sit on a particular PH spot & farm that name repeatedly locking out anyone else from the item that it drops in order to corner the market on that item, drive up the price it will sell for - AKA the basis for "krono-lording".
Random loot system really undermines the monopolization methods that Krono-lords were using, hence why the prices on items are much lower than they were on prior TLP, the free-trade loot rule goes hand in glove with random loot to make for a much more active economy that favours trading items rather than selling loot rights.

Had they not done the Mischief/ Thornblade ruleset and put out a standard "Mangler" TLP though, it would have absolutely been populated, probably enough for queues.

You aren't wrong here, but it boils down to allocation of resources, there is each year money generated by the creation of a new expansion for the live servers, the dev & coding team is not big like it was back in the Kunark era with 50-75 people working on the game it's 20 or so and they are also split across EQ & EQ2 in some cases like the Art & Animation people.
They only just have the resources to pump out a single live expansion each year, to add on a TLP expansion or even a new zone - like Veksar was done post-Kunark for example, is not something they have the people & time to do right now.

And would this really bring back more players to EQ anyway? This is a conjecture that is extremely hard to quanify.
I'd say that a revamp of the game, the ui, the zone graphics, the character models etc has a much better chance of boosting the game from gaining a new audience as well as re-igniting interest in lapsed players or the kids of those has a far better chance of bring players back to EQ than some totally new low level pre-PoP content.

Extremely unlikely, in fact so many of the TLP players I have been playing with were bored after 2 months, the TLP servers attract raiders and they are not really attratctive to casual players, even extending the expansions to 6 months would not be enough to attract a large enough contingent of casuals to support a TLP server and you would absolutely lose the raider players for 4 of those 6 months or completely very quickly.
TLP servers do not grow at all, they get a large number of players at the start & then they decline in numbers steadily - some faster than others - the non-Truebox servers seem to hold onto players a little better & decline more slowly than Truebox servers from what I have seen so far.
A 6 month or voted schedule might work out okay on boxing servers but for TLP with Truebox they need that faster pace to keep players interested.
Selo was maybe a bit too fast-paced but a TLP with 6-8 Week unlocks as opposed to 12/8 would do far better than anything over 3 months for unlocks.
If you want longer than 12 weeks between expansions you really should just play Live TLP are definitely for players with a lot of time to play which makes them inhospitable to seasonal or very casual players - who will just fall behind anyway.

This has been asked for a lot, yet the devs have made changes to make classes MORE tied to their expansions so I think they are ideologically opposed to un-hitching classes/races & combinations from their expansions.
The only way I think we will ever see all class/race/cominations in from the strat on a TLP server is with either a "Level-Locked Progression" TLP. For a BEastlord/Berserker in at the start it will be with a "GoD-Mode" TLP where every expansion up until GoD is unlocked on day 1 on the server.

Pure daydreaming speculation, and it would absolutely not bring in enough to justify the monetary losses from not putting out a Live Expansion and the cancellation of subs not releasing a Live Expansion would likely cause.
This would be EQ shooting itelf in the foot big-time to take a risky gamble on TLP players buying expansions - when they actually do not have any need to do so in order to level up & progress - and so I think it is an absolutely suicidal business idea to do that, it won't happen the company is not stupid enough.

Again, you're daydreaming, nice to do but totally lacking in pragmatism, your best option for new content is to play beyond PoP, to get through the somewhat lacklustre in places level 70 content and into the later expansions which to me are some of EverQuests best made content overall.

There is a chance for some "new" low level content for pre-PoP expansions once the game grows the playerbase & the dev team is scaled up but really what "need" would that new low level content be filling?
Except for giving those people who want to continue to play in the style of the simple and less challenging eras of the game with a smaller-"toolbox" of abilities & spells and dumb tank & spank raids with zero raid mechanics a larger set of places to bore themselves stupid in?

This idea of a new low-level content expansion was tried before with LoY after all - they didn't repeat it for a bunch of reasons. At best you might get a new zone, like Veksar & GMM were, one day.

Yes, TLP recyclers likely are bored of the same 1-65 content, but they do it to themselves out of a refusal to play beyond that self imposed restriction of where they think the expansions "start to suck", you know, eventually their favourite expansions will start to suck too - but only from familiarity with them breeding contempt for them.
Self inflicted boredom is something players need to learn to fix for themselves, pandering to it is not good for the game as a whole.