You are still able to enjoy a TLP at your own pace and there is nothing stopping you from taking it slow and not being at the latest expansion.
So, you want people to have to answer questions about their playtime prior to being allowed to make a character on the server? Because on literally every server there will be people who level faster than you and you will feel like you are being left behind. Slow exp will only compound that problem. There is plenty of time on 3 month unlocks for even casual people to make it to max level. If it is about the journey you should enjoy spending the whole 3 months journeying to max level. You would be better off forming a casual guild of like minded people on Agnarr and supporting each other in the leveling process. Start a nice advertising campaign and I would bet you could pull in a decent number of folks, especially if the new TLP doesn't cater to casuals, enough that you wouldn't have much trouble organizing exp groups that fit into people's schedules.
No no, don't you know? They delete all content from previous expansions after the new one is launched! Yep, confirmed, I just ran to Great divide and fell into the abyss
I approve of this. Maybe something in the middle. 6-7 month unlock per expansion. I generally get left in the dust somewhere between Kunark and Luclin and would love extra time to enjoy playing casually.
So what is stopping you from enjoying playing casually? Everyone is still gonna rush ahead on a 6-7month unlock and you would still be grouping with the casuals that are playing at the same pace as you. The people will still go the same speed even at 6 month unlock. I really think all these long unlock TLP guys just need to get together and start a guild on a live server or new TLP and go at their own pace.
No matter what unlock cadence you have, you will always have the "meh, I got left behind" guys complaining the server unlocked too fast for them. Problem is that you will just be like ships passing in the night on a long unlock server because there are simply too few of you & the few of you that exist all play at different time of the day, week, month, year even. Pick a live server to gather on, form a guild & try running a casual guild together, you'll see just how much hard work it is trying to organise a bunch of casuals who all want to play at their own pace, it will be an absolute nightmare & you will need a lot bigger number of players than a regular guild if you want to do any raiding at all. Fact is a guild of casuals will struggle to organise any kind of scheduled events, and a server full of them will find it even harder. Best of luck with the idea but I rate your chances of success as being frankly terrible.
There is nothing wrong with a casual raiding guild who can only raid twice a week. I dont think you need a slower unlock server for that, however. If you are a casual player than why do you have to keep up with the hardcore guilds or even be caught up when the next expansion unlocks. If you are in a casual raid guild just go at your pace and have fun. That being said, for those who are asking for fast unlocks, Im not a fan. I personally like a Mischief cadence, which is not quite a fast unlock but faster than a normal 3 month unlock TLP. I am also hoping for a good rule twist, and not a copy paste of anything that has already been done before. I also hope that we can get at least a Classic/Kunark 1-60 release at start though a Classic/kunark/velious wouldnt hurt my feelings either. Than I wouldn't mind a slow unlock initially, but than follow Mischief candance after the next unlock be it Velious or SoL depending where we started. Also, I would love to see Agnaar become the only free to play tlp. This would be a ideal place for casuals and new people waiting the next tlp. It would also be lives version of p99 but with a store.
By gods, you're right, they should stop making TLPs at all. Let the current ones catch up and that's it. But in all seriousness, The difference between people who want unlocks to be a year, and people who want either the standard 3/2 unlocks or 3/2 with a few expansions combined to help with content droughts, is We're not demanding you wait for us. People who demand long unlocks, or object to having interminable waits between level expansions reduced, are demanding that everyone else bow to their whims. It's very much like the crab bucket analogy, those at the bottom yanking the ones climbing out back down. I'd just like to point out, that a casual raid guild that does only raid twice a week, and generally takes one or two weeks off of raiding for level expansions can easily finish content well within era.
The definition of a casual player also varies from player to player. I considered myself to be a casual player on Mischief, but I went hardcore the first weekend to reach 40+. Once I was close to fifty, I slowed down considerably, made some buddies in the hole, dinged 50, found a guild, and raided a few times a week. Even though I never made it through an entire sky clear, I still entered Kunark with all of my preferred items except for the FD Sky item. When Kunark launched, I followed the same strategy until I started my Cudgel quest. Curse the first three skulls in the sewer and the skulls in KT. I was an efficient player, so I even got to experience VP with quest help from guild members obviously. I think that a lot of casuals are also very casual with their approach to all aspects of the game. As soon as I logged into the game, I would message groups from different zones to see if they had room for me. I find the social aspect of EQ to be really fun and frustrating. I rarely waited more than thirty minutes to group because I was on so many waiting lists. When I couldn't find a group, or there wasn't a quest to continue, I felt pretty defeated because I had wasted so much time doing nothing. Not every player wants to treat EQ like it is an interview, where you must confidently showcase your skills. Casual Players don't just suffer from low playtime, but they also struggle to group enough to form solid connections with other players. If you have a solid group, and the casual tank player has to leave an hour into the group every time, then those players will remember his or her name and not invite them in the future. Hardcore players always seem to have that core group, who will happily ditch another group for you. I always made sure to message good replacements before I left I personally feel like a TLP should always be able to reach GoD or OOW by the end of the first year. Thanks for listening to my rambling.
At least you admit you want to hold back a large section of people who like to play on TLPs Again, not a single thing is forcing people to move on to new expansions when a new one opens on a TLP. The content doesn't simply disappear. You can do whatever you wish, or not do whatever you don't want to do. A TLP progressing to a new expansion is at worst neutral for everyone, because again you don't have to do the new stuff. You can meander through as slowly as you wish. Demanding that everyone goes as slow as you do is incredibly arrogant and selfish.
every main TLP of the past 6 years has had 3 month or faster unlocks so idk maybe that's a hint that daybreak thinks it's a cadence that works. The only significant population riding out TLPs long term (2+ years) are people regularly raiding with their guild and it makes perfect sense to tune unlocks for this population. Daybreak's solution for casual players who quit and want to come back is play on the new server and buy new bags/xp potions. The expansion unlocks are part of that strategy. It's a strategy that makes sense because the first couple months of a server are the time there's significant pick up grouping happening and zero catch required up at max level. It's the most casual friendly experience TLPs can ever offer. If a casual player asked me if they should join Mischief (which has extremely casual friendly rules) in Omens where they can be full GoD bis for 2 krono or the next Phinny clone in classic where they have to save copper to buy a wrist pouch to hold snake eggs I would recommend the new server. So to summarize: enjoy the new servers because they are made for you, and remember to buy bags.
Does anyone consider the term 'hardcore' for a gamer as an actual term of endearment? Do you consider this into your 30s 40s 50s? Lol Especially only when you are perceived hardcore anyway and 99% of this game is just casuals. What a farce the usage of this terminology is.
literally no one is using it as a term of endearment in this thread. It's either used descriptively or used to disparage the people who like faster unlocks. Pretty sure everyone who has played on TLPs will tell you 95% of raiding that happens on them is casual raiding. It's 1-3 times a week raid logging with low raid attendance requirements to maintain active status.
I always considered hardcore to be almost an insult, and never something that's been particularly applicable to Everquest players. addicted at times, yes. Hardcore? never. But I also think casual is being misused as well fairly often in this thread.
There's a group of people that thrive with faster unlocks, and there's a group of people that thrive with slower unlocks. "Hardcore" and "casual" are not perfect words to use as labels for these two groups, but they're pretty good. I don't think any kind of raiding is casual. All raiding requires more commitment and organization than group or solo play.
I think it's unlikely they deviate much from past iterations in terms of cadence. Just hoping to see some sort of interesting twist.
A server with 6 month - 1 year unlocks would die before it hits kunark. There is absolutely no way the base population would stick around that long in classic. Moderate to Hardcore players who were stupid enough to roll on this server would bounce by month 3-4. The 28 people clamoring for this server would log into a world devoid of the players who actually make the game playable for their monthly 2hr session.
Agnarr as FTP would not be profitable for DPG, and I don't think people who suggest it understand how FTP works. FTP exists to entice people to subscribe. You can't play current live content on a FTP account. The Agnarr equivalent would be that you could play in classic-velious but if you want to access luclin or pop or gain aa's or level past 60, you have to subscribe. IF they did something like this, for all practical purposes Agnarr wouldn't change much. If they didn't, they wouldn't make any money on the server. DPG isn't a charity or a non-profit. They aren't going to give away their game for free. The Free To Play model is designed to get people to spend MORE money ultimately, not less. That's not what people asking for FTP on Agnarr are after.
Its quite simple, if such server would be created , then don't play it. When the Hardcore fast /Softcore slow duo servers were created Selo's+Mangler, guess which one died first? the FAST ONE.
