A radical idea

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Batman, Jun 20, 2021.

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  1. Triconix Augur

    Click on my signature, genius.
    Stymie and Accipiter like this.
  2. Atomos Augur

    God, I click on the Veteran's Lounge and the first 2 posts are people begging for server merges for their ghost town servers and another complaining about the lack of content in the current expansion, and how the previous expansion was terrible and made them not even want to play the current one.

    Yeah man, lifeblood of EQ right there.

    I have signatures off. So, where's your CoV gear? For hating TLP so much you are doing a better job of hanging out on the TLP forum than you are enjoying and progressing through the current Live content which launched 6.5 months ago. Why is that?

    Or maybe you're right where you want to be. :)
  3. ZoeEQ New Member

    This Radical idea of yours became a reality; Everquest 2
    Yinla likes this.
  4. sadre Augur

    you lost me. what? why?
  5. Machen New Member


    While I agree with your overall sentiment, it's worth noting that there are now TLPers that have also been going strong continuously for a decade+. Although I missed Combine/Sleeper, the launch of Fippy was over ten years ago now. Since that point, I've played continuously and exclusively on the TLP's (excepting only about a three month break with the GoD bundling fiasco when I unsubbed on principle.) There are others who can claim the same.
    code-zero likes this.
  6. Atomos Augur

    1. Uhhh, aren't we all using aliases here...? What exactly do you want me to show you? Nice abusive dialogue though. Especially considering I wasn't "talking smack."

    2. You're right about that, according to the thread people were done with the new expansion in 1-2 weeks. Plenty of time to do other things like not play Live and play TLP instead I guess. Good on you for prioritizing your time properly.
  7. code-zero Augur

    As it happens, those sorts of threads have been been a recurring thing since the very first mergers back in '05 and in fact within months of the '10 merges there were people calling for more merges. For the most part they come from people who apparently no one wants to play with once they get to know them. There are a few big guilds that see merges as great recruiting opportunities but that's not a great recommendation either
  8. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    EG7 plan to revamp all the current live games Daybreak has under its banner, or make new version of them.
    They've pointed to this in their investor presentations, I think they see the games they have taken ownership of as long term cash generators which need to be brought up to modern standards to make them more able to capitalise on their potential and to service their players better for the long term.

    H1Z1 hasn't had a single developer on it for ages but EG7 want to see what they can do with it and keep it as a going concern so that's a clue they are serious I think, if they were your average vulture capitalist they'd be more likely to cut their losses rather than invest in rebuilding anything.

    As for when - well nobody knows, these are going to be year long or more projects that are neither easy or cheap to do so I suspect we will only know they are happening after they are already most of the way complete on their internal servers and being prepped to be pushed to their respective public test servers.

    Do most TLP players buy an expansion every year like most Live players do?
    Yes TLP servers are absolutely pumping in money, buying bags, mounts, krono but live servers do that too even if to a lesser degree.

    But let's not be silly this should not be a Live vs TLP pissing contest about who spends the most money, both sets of servers are generating income for the game and both are cash cows if we are honest.
    Stymie, Ssdar, Niskin and 1 other person like this.
  9. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    I would imagine that bag-sales are smaller among live players, as there are plenty of options for earning big bags through normal gameplay.
    On the other hand, I would imagine Heroic Character upgrades is a popular item on live...
  10. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

  11. Atomos Augur


    You have no reason to be against server merges. How would they affect you?

    And what does people complaining about how bad the expansions are and how bored everyone is 1-2 weeks after launch have to do with server merges?
  12. code-zero Augur

    Because there is a vocal handful of players, possibly even non-players, who will start complaining about new expansions before anyone has completed the first Partisan task and will demand that the servers need to be merged or the game will diiiieeeee......
  13. Atomos Augur

    Prove it.
  14. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    I disagree with you now and having been exclusively a TLP player for the past 5 years I would have disagreed with you in every one of those prior years too.

    You don't think that depriving the Live players of an annual expansion is a bad idea, I strongly disagree with you here, you take that away you will lose their subs, maybe not right away, but eventually they will go elsewhere, a slow drift at the start then eventually as server activity drops the decline will speed up.
    And even if you decided to change tact after seeing those losses you may not get them all back.
    It's a bad idea.
    I called it selfish because it is, blatantly so, not seeing the bigger picture to focus on what you want as an individual is not going to benefit the game as a whole.
    It would be like me saying well, only Berserkers should get new AA in this year's expansion and in order to do it properly the devs should not make any AA for any other class.

    As for where does the money go?

    Have the patches exclusively addressed Live issues & ignored TLP servers for the past 5 years?
    The answer of course is no.
    Back-end system changes to reduce Queues on TLP.
    Server hardware updated - TLP servers run on hardware with a larger cap on players than the live servers have.
    The Live expansion content that is released is also TLP content, eventually.
    The patch fixes for the game are for both sets of players
    How about all the keying, flagging changes i.e. VP key (there were a lot), RoF "crystal build" & raid currency changes that have been made that really only benefit TLP servers.
    I think you are seriously under-playing how much work has actually been done by the team on TLP servers, on Ragefire, Phinigel, Selo the communities there have helped radically change what the TLP offer to players - like Pick Zones & AoC that get taken for granted now.

    Even the Necromancer DoT consolidation & revamp is also a TLP change since that's for 71+ spells and most TLP still have a sizeable population during that era.

    This is wrong.
    Live existed without an annual TLP launch for a long time, 2005 to 2014 the game had been in a long running decline, I'd guess at the lowest points it was sometimes below 25k active subscribers.
    It still made a profit, still made expansions, but it was struggling and had seen size of the team cut down to maintain a profitable operation.
    It had already seen a few progression servers but they had not tried an annual cadence for them and they certainly had not spurred a lot of growth like the 2015 onwards TLP cadence has.
    TLP servers did allow EQ to grow the playerbase & to grow the dev team, but the Live game is the backbone of EverQuest that everything else like TLP is built from.

    That's great because it already has been and will continue to be the case.

    On this point I agree with you.

    Side-kicking - allowing lowbies to be temporarily boosted and gain XP with their high level friends in current content rather than resorting to powerlevelling.
    (nobody really shrouds down to help lower level mates in any appreciable numbers)

    More "Heroic Upgrade" options - like adding a L51/50aa option on the marketplace once Luclin or PoP unlocks for example, a L70+aa once SoF unlocks, the Heroic 85 once VoA unlocks, rather than waiting until CoTF.

    They were doing it long before Mischief, we didn't get all the changes we asked for and some could not be done in time to benefit the earlier TLP but will be brought in for younger ones.
    And I am glad that you acknowledged the Epic 1.0 bottle-neck changes that went in.
    Ssdar likes this.
  15. Atomos Augur


    Sorry but I'm not seeing how (quote from VL) "people were done with new expansion in 1-2 weeks" is the "backbone of EQ."

    Live doesn't bring in new blood. TLP does. I meet people all the time that either have never played EQ before or haven't played it in so many years that it is like playing for the first time all over again. I tend to share TLP launches on social media and help many people get into the game. I also usually keep all of the general channels on and talk to those who are new/returning and answer their questions. People see services for MMOs like TLP/Classic era servers as an opportunity to get involved with a game that they never got to or always wanted to but were playing something else. Even if someone were to look at EQ and consider playing Live, they'll probably figure out that it's best to just start out on TLP since that could potentially turn into a Live experience for them at some point. Although it doesn't look like a whole lot of people are making it to Live regardless.

    Unfortunately what people are finding out is that current and recent Live content isn't very well liked, even by the Live population. It's not just the content either. Most older MMOs were never very spammy with their gameplay combat, but the modern versions of those older MMOs are totally different in that regard. They used to be slow paced games that you could chat on even during raids. You can't do that anymore because you're just spamming buttons. It's not that the content is harder, or that spamming buttons is harder, because neither of those are true. When people think of those older games, spammy button mashing is not what comes to mind and its not what everyone wants in their gameplay either. That's why there is always going to be a major divide in the Live vs. TLP communities, the experiences are too different.

    I think it's way more selfish to oppose improving the game for everyone by dissuading the upgrades and changes that have been discussed before (64 bit, improved catchup mechanics, server overhauls) just so someone can enjoy a new expansion for 1-2 weeks.
  16. Shiaman Labuff New Member

    Changing up low level zones seems bad. I like those zones, part of the fun for me is in learning and knowing them. I like the TLPs and I like the rulesets and other modernization changes like faster leveling. That's not out of boredom, it's because I'm not 12 anymore and can't play all day long. I tried live out briefly, the concept of boxing kind of ruins it for me. I don't like it in any mmo, particularly one inspired by d&d. I can't imagine sitting at a table with a guy who showed up with 5 character sheets and thinking I want to table top with this dude, or that I want to be that dude. It's someone else's bag and they have fun doing it, but I dont and playing with them would just make me feel like I had to. The other issue with live servers are all the buttons. If I wanted that experience, there are other mmos that do it better. Everquest was about simplicity and socialization. It was punishing difficult if you screwed up the simple task you'd set out to do (grouping and holding down the camp), but the actual task was fairly simple. Now, I check out what a character looks like on live and it's just not attractive. Once again, it's someone else's bag and not mine. If there was an overhaul of live systems that involved some pruning and an attempt to bring classes back in line (even if somewhat modernized) with the games roots, I'd think the result might be fantastic.

    In sum, different strokes for different folks. I love the game in tlp up to pop, and it never gets old and for me.. after that things turn off in a direction that I'm not into. Some people are into it, good for them and im glad this game provides environments for all of us to enjoy it in.
  17. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    I enjoyed reading this post, while you did still dip into the "numbers are too big" nonsense you framed the rest of your criticisms well.

    I agree to a degree with your dislike of the too-many-buttons "whack-a-mole" style combat that was favoured by EQ2 which has progressively crept into Live EQ.
    I think that it does need to be pared down some, by combining abilities on the same cooldown making a few more fit into common cooldowns so that the sheer volume of combat abilities are reduced - players in effect do this manual pruning themselves anyway through creating a bunch of macro combinations of similarly timed abilities.
    I also worry about the call for even more spell-gems, that is as big or maybe even a bigger problem as combat abilities with all of the AA spells also on hotkeys I think there is scope for spells to see further combinations & evolution to reduce the bloat & reducing that need for more spell slots rather than having even more spell-gems.
    Too many abilities that do similar things or spells simply erodes the sense of impactful play per keystroke eventually.
    EQ's combat risks becoming diluted to such a degree that it feels bland and unrewarding, there is a point at which a complex tool box of spells and abilities starts being too big to be fun, I think EQ is there or already past that point now.

    Boxing, well there are plenty of players on live servers who don't box or who only box until they get a group or are only boxing to farm tradeskill materials - point being lumping all boxers into the same box is intellectually lazy and you can still get groups but you can't just sit on your butt waiting for them to happen, first step is being in an active guild not in one a few mates created that is 79% dead, your first loyality is to the time you spend in game.

    That said I think it is a mistake for players who may not have played past "expansion X" to look at characters who are ten or more expansions further along & become dispondent by the numeric values they see while ignoring everything that took place in every expansion between with AA, Heroic AA as well as gear - what they are ignoring is the progression those characters see in each expansion & they also don't really undertsand the mathematics behind why that numerical inflation was needed and is perfectly justified.
    Expansion to expansion the % increase in HP/AC/Mana has actually decreased, over time but the starting point gets larger & larger, in the early expansions the % increase per item of gear was actually way larger than what you see going from TBL to ToV & from ToV to CoV gear because there are also a whole bunch of other things feeding into that end number you see on a player profile in later expansions that the early ones don't even get. This is why "the numbers are too big" is nonsense as a criticism of late game EQ, it is founded on a complete lack of understanding of why gear inflation happens.

    I think there is actually a lot that can be done to make Live current EQ recapture some of that earlier-era EQ "magic" but it requires a deep understanding of what has been lost over time and a desire to alter course.
    For example the big shift in ToV was away from mob-grinding for XP, I remain unconvinced that was the right direction for EQ to go in, I think that it should remain as viable for levelling as it has historically been, the jury is currently out on that change & TLP players likely won't really see what the problem with it is but I think it makes EQ feel much smaller, more limited, less a world & more a game.

    EQ is old, ancient even in game terms, but a lot of the aging problems are down to sheer bloat, it needs a tune-up, a ratification & a lot of streamlining to make its gameplay better.
    A bloated UI, a bloated toolbox, the player-stat bloat is in fact actually not the real problem but its the one people actually think is as its the most visible change they can point to easily.

    I think it also needs to seriously introspect on what made EQ feel like a world & less like a game so it doesn't further lose that sense of being a place you spend time in I think the game has been moving in the wrong direction on that point and that sense of EQ being a world should be better protected and cultivated, I myself think the dev team have lost focus on that aspect of EQ gradually over the years and we are all losing out as a result, it needs to claw some of that back.
    Hopefully with the investments made into growing the team there is a strong chance of the right changes being made now.
    Stymie likes this.
  18. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    That's not a majority of live players, that's the sort of thing you see from TLP players who are playing content which already has full guides for. Live expansions at least on the raid side simply cannot be beaten in 1-2 weeks.
    If you are talking purely about group progression, yes that is possible, live players often have "set" groups for that which can be super organised & speed through it, it;s also what TLP players do.
    But on live there is a very large casual playerbase that that TLP just do not have, and that does not speed through it all in 2 weeks flat.

    It's not as simple as that, Live servers absolutely do see players return all the time, but they are spread across a far larger number of servers and arrive all through the year, at the same time players are taking breaks too.

    On TLP servers you have an annual "build up" of demand as players who missed the most recent TLP launch prepare to join the next one, and are joined by current TLP players deciding to jump off their TLP and await the next cycle after having finished playing in whatever their last nostalgia expansion was.
    Then you have all that demand pent up that jumps on the next TLP at launch so you see this sudden large return of players all in one hit - on live it's still happening there but it is a LOT harder to see it and notice it because it is spread over the whole year and all the live servers.

    Do TLP bring back more players to EQ than Live does?
    Well, yes I would agree to that probably being true but to say live does nothing to bring players back or bring in new ones is completely wrong.

    That word of mouth effort is good for the game, so keep doing that, as for whether TLP or Live is the best place for a returning player it really strongly depends upon how much time they have to play, I say this a lot in the Newbie forum to returning players and those looking to return, ask yourself how much time you really have to play, if its going to be 4+ hours a day 3-4 days a week then TLP could be your best option, but less and it almost certainly will not be.

    CoV was criticised for being too small & buggy, a large amount of that is very strongly tied to the pandemic but also to losing 3 experienced devlopers mid production.
    Expansions in general are definitely considered too small, but again the players by and large know the team was too small to address that fully, I think given the small team size that the later expansions packed in a fair amount of content, hopefully the direction of shrinking expansions is reversed with EG7 ownership & the team growing & the game seeing larger investment.
    Time will tell.

    I covered a lot of this already in my response to Shiaman Labuff, you, they & a lot of other players have voiced these concerns & I think they are valid.

    You will not find many stronger advocates of overhauls of the engine, UI, combat system, zone graphics, new player models than I have been, and most of that will happen we just dont know when.

    I say it is selfish to not make a new Live Expansion and make one for TLP because TLP players don't "need" a new expansion to progress their characters while live players actually do.

    Without a new expansion live players will not see their characters able to continue to advance.
    If TLP players continue to not see any "new content" added to the existing content their progress is not stopped, or blocked.
    It's no more technical than the fact live players are AT the cap having played through every existing expansion already while the vast majority on TLP simply aren't.
    And TLP players are still catered to as far as bug fixes & code changes to improve their experience.
    Ssdar and code-zero like this.
  19. Batman New Member

    Classic to PoP then darkpaw announces a new tlp, i accept this reality. It also makes it that no one needs to buy a new xpac.
    Like most i i want to be where the population is, so experiencing newer expansions dosent happen.
    New tlps draw massive people to play, maybe even rivaling live server pop.

    A less radical idea would be maybe tlp gets a piece of the yearly expansion. Maybe a new zone or 2 added to classic with new quests( that actually use quest window) and gear, or revamp a dungeon.

    Add some shortcuts, like maybe a volcano erupts in lavastorm cutting a path to everfrost making permafrost viable.

    Humans from freeport need more food so they make a path to south karana making splitpaw groups more common.

    A shortcut from DC to lfay making the trip from unrest to MM shorter. Put these additions as an option in the store and charge like $15, i bet the 1000s that turn out will buy just like they buy bags amd mounts and other stuff.

    If this proves profitable then next year you do kunark and so on. Dosent seem unreasonable to show these eras of the game some love seeing they are so popular.
  20. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    TLP servers gets 100+ zones you haven't played yet. Just because you don't like them, doesn't mean that they "don't count".
    Stymie, Ssdar, Raccoo and 1 other person like this.
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