A radical idea

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

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  1. Waring_McMarrin Augur



    Everquest 2 has yearly expansions and monthly updates.
    Eve appears to have new content released at least once a year if not multiple times a year.
    Lineage 2 appears to have multiple content release dates each year

    It seems that there are several items on your list that get frequent updates
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  2. Triconix Augur

    There was literally a thread of a person complaining that origin replaced certain potions. You want evidence? There you go
    Ssdar, Yinla, Skuz and 2 others like this.
  3. Niskin Clockwork Arguer

    You've been around here for like a week, spend some time on these forums and you will see posts about people hating the improvements. There are people that love and people that hate every single aspect of this game. If you watch the forums long enough you will see all of it.

    I was making the counter point to your point. There are games in similar situations to EQ that died, and games in different situations that lived. Each game has it's own story. None are exactly like EQ. We know how EQ makes it's money now, so we are defending those revenue streams.

    As others pointed out, many of those get updates. EVE Online? Are you kidding me, they release multiple expansions a year and shake up the game. I played it for years, you have no clue what you are talking about. LoTRO and DDO are Daybreak titles now, I don't know if they get updates, but I would think so. EQ2 definitely does.

    No, we are acting like nobody knows what is on the other side of that door. It's never been opened. Will raiders take a year off and come back? Some will, but will enough of them? Guilds could fall apart. Sometimes people are just waiting for the right moment to walk away. Best not to give them a huge flashing sign that says it's time.

    I don't think you understand how Live players look forward to expansions. If they announce it a few weeks late the forums light up.

    It is, but it's also reality. I'm not part of that, I straddle the fence and defend both. Still, if you stick around the forums a while, you will see it.


    FF titles have a pretty loyal fanbase, and little competition that can override that brand loyalty. Could EQ pull off something similar? Maybe. Is it a huge risk to try, yeah.
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  4. Atomos Augur

    A patch with some bug fixes is not an update.
    An "expansion" with a few zones and mostly reused content is not an expansion.

    Updates add content. Expansions add new ideas, concepts, systems. New models. New foes. New creatures. New equipment models.

    Adding Hunter Achievements to 15 year old content is not an update.

    Rehashing expansions and their enemies with little else is not an expansion.

    I also very specifically said barely any updates or no updates.


    Oh no, a person. A single person made a complaint out of the thousands playing.

    Yeah man. So many people hate all the QoL on TLP!
  5. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Vet players have been asking for delays for the expansions for years, to get bugs ironed out before release, but EQ want an expansion out every year for the sales. ToV and TBL were good expansions with evolving items and long Tradeskill quests which made the expansion last a lot longer than normal, but with COVID and people leaving they dropped the ball once again in CoV. Personally I don't think Velious was a good choice for 2 expansions back to back as RoF had already revamped some of the zones they reused once again.

    The biggest problem with delaying expansions for any length of time is people find other things to do. We hit the end of ToV last year and everyone had alts fully raid geared and the loot was just rotting, Leaving little point in raiding that content at all but knowing the next expansion is due people just kept going finished up achievments for everyone, etc. Add a year to that or only a couple of months and people stop playing some will come back others won't. We lost a fair few when EQ was down for a month, people just found other things to occupy their time. I'm sure the EQ baby boom was a thing 9 months later. :D

    Not sure if you are aware on how expansions work on live, expansions get released in December,
    December - group content is released
    January - T1 raids are released
    February - T2 raids are rleased
    March - T3 raids are released

    We then have 7 - 8 months of killing those raids, farming gear and completing quests, missions, hunters etc.

    October/November beta starts for the next expansion. Many stop playing on live and concentrate souly on beta. Then the cycle restarts in December.

    Compare that to how things are on TLP servers where we get the next expansion drop every 2 - 3 months, people quit TLP servers because they think 3 months is too long to wait for the next (these expansions were a lot bigger) and you think players will wait a year for a new expansion and ways to improve their chars.

    I'd love to see EQ go back to 6 monthly expansions but that is never going to happen.

    I guess they could add a monster mission to the next expansion, where levels don't matter available on all servers, but limit the reward on TLPs to something that isn't over powered, maybe a cool familiar with no stats. I know many don't like monster missions though, but some of the story lines are cool, my fav is the 3 Kunark ones and the zombies in Rivervale. :) MMs don't need to scale so would be reasonably easy to add.
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  6. Nolrog Augur


    DDO also seems to have had an expansion in November 2020 called Fables of the Feywild and there is a mini-expansion coming this summer: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh.
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  7. Nolrog Augur


    Just admit you were wrong and move on.
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  8. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    I liked the rest of your post, but I hope they never go back to 6 month expansions myself.

    A 6 month "mid-year content patch" with some new dungeons or a revamped zone added I could see happening eventually if the team is grown further.

    I also can't stand monster missions, and while they certainly have a few fans most people are not interested in them for their theme or story only for what they offer in character progression or gear improvements, if they offer no real advantage worth getting most players would completely ignore them altogether, only enduring them if they had a nice trinket available through them - AKA they need a big carrot to justify most players even thinking about giving them the time of day.

    Why spend so much time building your main with its arsenal of abilities, spells, clickies and AA to then go and play a gimped creature where the tuning of Monster Missions has historically been considered bad?
    Most of those Monster Missions weren't even fun the first time.
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  9. Triconix Augur

    Mischief/Thornblade have been out a single month and there are posts of people concerned about the lack of raiding guilds on Mischief, the lack of population on Thornblade, requests asking for new servers, claims that Aradune grouping is dead, etc. And this individual thinks it would be fine going 2 years of live having 1 expansion while he's surrounded by hundreds of people who clamor about faster exp and unlocks on TLPs because players get bored with 12/8 unlocks schedules (yet also redo that same content they get bored with every single year). But yes, live players will be fine doing the same 8-10 raids for 24 months. Deranged may be too polite a word to describe it. :rolleyes:

    The dude is so desperate that he's now judging what an "expansion" is.
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  10. Nolrog Augur


    I would love to see that. I would have said right around the Anniversary but that may be a bit too close to the expansion release. But something like GMM in the off-time would be great. That was an excellent addition and a lot of fun.
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  11. Nolrog Augur


    I was looking at the Mischief and Thornblade progress sites and there are far fewer guilds listed there. I realize that's not scientific, but there were 5 or 6 for Thornblade and Mischief and something like 30 on Aradune that were listed in classic.

    Looking at the server status on EQ Resource, it's clear that Mischief has a larger population than Thornblade. Mischief has been listed as high population pretty consistently (High: 79.5%, Medium 18.4%, Low 0.1%) While Thornblade seems to bounce around (High: 40.3%, Medium 34%, Low 23.7%). Though I am not sure I would say it's unhealthy.
  12. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Wouldn't surprise me to see Mischief & Thornblade actually pick up a bit of population now Kunark has launched, usually there are players who rather wait until that opens to start playing.
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  13. Atomos Augur

    Wasn't wrong about anything. Maybe some day people will branch out of their comfort zones and experience other games, and witness what a real expansion and real updates look like. Like I said before, I prefer to be cultured rather than sheltered.

    If anyone should admit anything, it is people that are content with very small updates and content additions. Which there is absolutely nothing wrong with.
  14. Accipiter Old Timer


    You can add me to that list. I hate them, personally. It's a gimmick.
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  15. Jumbur Improved Familiar


    It is correct that the newest expansions takes place in previously visited geographical areas. But those new zones were remade from scratch, and is not just "recycling" content. At worst you could call it a "graphical revamp".
    There is very little "reuse" in the last expansions, the story just happens to take place in a familiar continent.

    I think you are being unfair by calling it "not an expansion".

    Serious question: Have you played any of the new expansions?
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  16. Triconix Augur

    I think we all know the answer to that. I would be shocked if he played any content post TSS and would request physical evidence of it.
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  17. Machen New Member


    Even if they had the staffing for it, the six month expansions were generally terrible. LoY through SoF, generally the fall expansions were pretty good but the February ones were tiny with very little content, or really just not fun content. February expansions included such gems as GOD (great now but terrible as released), DoN, PoR, TBS. Pretty clearly during the 6 month cycle they were still putting most of their eggs in the basket of one big yearly expansion. OoW, DoDH, TSS, SOF for the fall expansions. Huge difference in quality and usually size between the two.

    Personally I think the golden era of EQ is right after they went to yearly expansions, while the dev team was still large enough to crank out fairly big expansions. SoF, SOD, Underfoot, House of Thule... Would rather see them go back to that model than six month expansions.
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  18. Atomos Augur


    Nope. But it's 2021, you don't need to play a game to see every inch of it thanks to YouTube, Twitch, and Wikis/resource sites, you can find out everything you need to know, and thanks to Forums, Reddit, and Discord, you can find out what people think about it too.

    There is also the fact that people don't really stream Live except for raiding, while there is plenty of streams to pick from for TLPs doing 22 year old content. If there were things to do on Live, people would stream it. But apparently they are just raid logging.
  19. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    While you can certainly get a feel for an expansion doing those things they just aren't the same as playing through them yourself on your own character with your own gear and your own friends/group or guild mates.

    Not to completely dismiss you here but they are very different levels of understanding.

    There are certainly not as many streaming their group doing group content but that's not down to a lack of players doing it, more a lack of people who stream EQ in general and those that do tend to be very invested into the game.
    Making the assumption that a lack of live group content streamers means there is nothing worth streaming is being rather too harsh.
    The casual players on live play that content a lot more than raiders do but that's not the demographic that are interested in streaming themselves play and streaming is largely a recruitment tool, even subconsciously, advertising how good your guild is, or how funny it is to play there.
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  20. Niskin Clockwork Arguer

    We should all quit EQ and play Fortnite guys, look how many streams they got, the game must be awesome! :rolleyes:

    I use Twitch plenty, I watch what I want to watch. I don't base what I play on what I watch. Similarly, I can watch a documentary about firemen without wanting to become a fireman.

    I've had people describe content in this game to me, then I've done the content myself. It's not the same experience. I can tell you that late-game EQ is button mashy, but until you play it you don't know if that's good or bad for you. I generally hate overwhelming options and constant mashing, but I don't hate late-game EQ. In WoW it was different, I had to click everything and know every icon. In EQ I have reasonably labeled AA hotkeys and socials I can name myself.

    It would be easy to write both off as overcomplicated, but that's not the whole story.
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