If there is one thing I have learned about TLPs is that people love to progress. Every year people like restarting EQ from the beginning and grind out all those levels and gear. Why not launch an event server just for that? Server Details - Characters start off at level 1 - All content through GoD (Tutorial disabled) unlocked at launch and everything else after 2 weeks - Hyper Accelerated xp gains (150-200%) - No lockouts on raids - Server closes after 4 months - 200% Rare spawn bonus - Special rewards for reaching max level and clearing the final current expansion Thoughts behind this design is that EQ has an abundance of unused content and this is a way that makes it more meaningful. Players can forge new and interesting paths through EQ expansions at their own pace and in interesting ways. The reason for the content to be unlocked as stated is mainly to keep everyone from piling into the tutorial and Crescent Reach at launch. Some players may form large guilds and look to tackle raid after raid. Other may form small bands and progress through group dungeons. There is many different playstyles and the replay ability of a server like this I believe would be unmatched and could be launch twice a year.
I don't think you really understand just how much content is out there if you think a 200% xp gain would enable you to get current live expansion dead within 4 months of starting. As I recall, 4 months is about what it took on Mayong, when SoD was the current live expansion. XP wasn't the issue. Gearing up to be able to handle the raids was the issue. 200% Rare Spawn Bonus isn't going to fix that. Neither is no raid lockouts. You still have to do the content. Probably one of the guys that played through on Phinigel could give a more accurate estimate, but I'd guesstimate you'd need at least 6 months, more likely 8, with a whole guild of people playing close to 24/7 for those 6-8 months, to get this done. Keep in mind you've got 40,000+ aa's to earn to be up to date with the last ~4 expansions after autogrant kicks in.
Shak just come back to Agnarr lulz. If the server closes at 4 months I doubt very many people (maybe 1 guild worth) will make it. That's way too fast for many casual players. Plus, most people don't care to experience the game past POP.
Event servers like this aren't for casual players. The question is, can the super hardcore make it to live final expansion boss in 4 months?
Unlocking expansions mostly at 4x the speed they appeared for live servers meant Phinigel still took 5 years to hit CoV, doubling the XP would only speed that up a bit so 4 months is way too short or the XP is far too low to achieve a 0-115 rush in 4 months even unlocking everything after 2 weeks. Many players even if they started on this server would be burned out way too fast to still be there after 4 months - even Selo's unlock pace of 1 expansion a month was too fast for most of the players who went there and that had 1.5x xp & halved lockout timers. This idea is unrealistic and your numbers are all wrong to facilitate it at a basic level. This wouldn't make a lot of content more meaningful either, just the opposite in fact as everyone would be bum-rushing their way only through the most optimal xp path they possibly can find because the "window of opportunity" is so small. This would be really a toxic server too I think as everyone is pushing to level as fast as possible, take a day off and you are behind already. Very little raiding would be done, it would be sidelined by levelling, so you'd maybe have the max level players at 115 wearing group gear tackling ToV for raid gears before hitting CoV but no raiding before that would be remotely worth it, they wont be hitting TBL because ToV group gear is almost as good as TBL raid gear.
I think you have the wrong perspective. The point is not to finish the game the point in the journey and to see how far you can make it. Its a server in essence where there is no ceiling on the progression. At the end you could see where you got to and then have the fun of starting over and doing it all again.
This is not a healthy goal to seek. What if some crazy fool dies from playing it so much it kills them? Do you think that would be a good thing?
Someone likes the server so much that they play until they die? From a game designer perspective that sounds like the ultimate goal.
If you can skip all but the last expansion or 2 it would definitely be doable. It would be much more interesting if raid requesting and your level was locked behind beating the previous expansion but you'd need to get rid of all flagging besides beat tier x to unlock tier x+1.
if the raids have no lockouts then all you do is find the quickest tank and spank and farm the hell out of it and that sounds boring as hell
