Why aren't TLP Servers Free to Play like Live Servers?

In the official What is a Progression Server FAQ, it says that in order to play on TLP servers, you must subscribe to the All Access Pass:

Q: What purchases are required to play on Progression Servers?
Players must have All Access Membership to access Progression Servers.

If you read the FAQ, it never provides a justification for this premium that TLP players must pay. Is it possible to get an official response from Darkpaw as to the rationale for this?

By definition, TLP are premium severs because players must pay a premium to play on them. What exactly are we getting for this premium beyond the existence of the server(s)?

Are we getting more GM Admins on TLP servers?

Are we getting dedicated Darkpaw developers assigned only to work on TLP servers?

Are we getting special live quests and events for TLP servers?

Other than the monthly premium we are paying for TLP servers, what is "premium" about them?

Asking for a friend.

I’m just some guy. But I can render a guess.

There are no “premium” servers.

To get the most out of any server you play on (max AA, BIS gear) you gotta be all access.

TLPs don’t have prestige items or AA restrictions. Nor are characters gated behind expansions that they haven’t purchased. Therefore all characters have the capacity to progress their characters to the maximum of their capabilities in-era.

I mean in a sense the TLPs are premium servers, they have special rulesets every year, often require special dev/community management time to manage expansion launches, and whatever else

TLP servers are widely known for having large crews of robots, such as the infamous Siren's Grotto situation.

While obviously premium access is not a perfect deterrent to those people, I shudder to think at how bad it would be if they were free to play.

Requiring All Access is because there would be no reason for Daybreak to launch the servers without it. Tanks arguably 'need' Premium for AC augs about a year into the server, Silver non-tanks would be really effective for the first 2 years on most TLPs.

Thanks for the explanation. I played modern EQ live for about a year about 3 years ago and made it to level 80 before I quit, so my knowledge is limited. So basically, you need All Access Membership to really get the most out of playing on a live server. It seems the free to play feature is a way of on-boarding new players and letting them try EQ without committing to the monthly membership.

Using the same logic for live servers, I am wondering why Daybreak doesn't make TLP servers free to play as well? They could easily create similar incentives to make players players go for the whole enchilada and pay the monthly fee.

Blizzard's WoW will let people play for free until level 20, then they have to subscribe if they want to progress further. I believe this policy applies to their classic servers.

A "try before you buy" campaign to bring new players to Norrath might be worth considering when EQ gets a new user interface in 2023.

A better question would be why aren't live servers pay to play like TLP?

If you read the FAQ, it never provides a justification for this premium that Live paying players may pay as compared to FTP. Is it possible to get an official response from Darkpaw as to the rationale for this?

By definition, live are freemium severs because players may pay a premium to play on them but don't have to. Why do we get so little for this premium? We buy the overpriced expansion bundles to get access to current content, gear and AA so that's not it.

Are we getting more GM Admins on live servers if we pay?

Are we getting dedicated Darkpaw developers assigned only to work on live servers?

Are we getting special live quests and events for paying customers on live servers?

Other than the monthly premium we are paying for live servers, what is "premium" about them?

Asking for myself, because I'm subsidizing FTP and TLP and I'm honestly not sure why that's a good deal for me.

They dont need to? Every TLP is popular at launch and slowly losses population the longer it goes.

You may counter and say f2p would help a server like coirnav, but I would argue that all it would do would have people that raidlog go f2p. No fresh new player to EQ is gonna hop on a coirnav or mangler vs a live server. And the people that will go to mangler or the like, are people that would have subbed regardless. There is nearly nothing to gain for DBG.

If you want to play end game on live servers you need to have all access and have purchased the latest expansion, you cannot wear the best gear on live if you are free to play.

On TLP servers end game is which ever the last expansion was that unlocked. Until you get close to where live is, you do not need to purchase expansions.

Devs are constantly working on improving the TLP experience, for example changing the loot for Mischief/Thornblade, challenges for Vaniki, removing bottle necks from epics, improving keying etc.

You make a valid point. It takes a lot of resource time to make changes for the new servers to launch. Which I believe takes months by looking at their output from patches. Once they launch they also need time to fix bugs they ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ didn't find when testing the new server. Some reasons that it takes so long is that EQ still uses a lot of old software (and maybe hardware). The other issue is that the programing/code writing team have not been to school in probably at least a decade. So it may take them long to write code than someone fresh out of university.
The other thing that you may want to consider is that a fresh new player may have a better starting experience on live where ̶̶̶i̶l̶l̶e̶g̶a̶l̶ ̶b̶o̶t̶s̶ legal mercenaries are allowed. Also TLP players may be considered a captive audience in the sense they will easily pay for access where new players wouldn't understand the appeal of a new server or the differences between the various server types.

You get 500 coins for the marketplace!!

My biggest thing about paying is the lack of getting rid of "cheaters." When they do the suspension/ban waves, it's the small fish (which I am ok with) but the same big offenders are still playing. They don't want to lose those 6-15 paid accounts for each person. When a game is F2P, I expect little to no quality control over the player base, but when you pay a monthly sub then I expect the standard to be higher. not, every couple of months we give a 7-day suspension to some small-time player. That's fine and dandy but again, what about the ones that are doing it with automated box armies that aren't getting touched ruining the game for people?

This defense of them I dislike. And here is why... because almost everything you mentioned is a problem that was caused by them to begin with. The epic bottlenecks are a great example. I don't know about Thornblade but on Mischief we all knew there were going to be a massive issue well in advance. and most of them didn't get fixed until it was nearly the end of the expansion.

EQ lets you play for free up to whatever the current free to play expansion is which will let you see most of the game. You just can't play for free on the TLP servers because they are special.

I agree that EQ TLP servers are special but we are paying for that specialness. One might reasonably wonder if that specialness justifies the premium we are paying?

In the past EQ had other special servers like Firiona Vie and PVP servers but no surcharge was imposed on the players.

Blizzard has assigned a great number of people and resources to the WoW classic team which included ex-Daybreak Executive Producer Holly Longdale who is leading WoW classic.

Does anyone know if Daybreak has a special team of devs assigned to the EQ TLP servers?

There is no point to comparing Daybreak to Blizzard when you think about the difference in the size of the dev teams, the subscriber base and the revenue the make. When you compare free to play options EQ is a better deal as it lets you play for longer and experience more of the game. Just because they require a subscription to play doesn't mean that they have to have anything extra from the other servers. There is no need to be allowed to be free to play on every server as there are plenty that you can play for free on to experience the game.

To restate my point just because you are paying the basic subscription fee doesn't mean that you are paying any premium. In fact you can pay for your subscription with krono that you purchase with items you farm in game meaning the only thing you pay is your time.

TLP players don't buy expansions, so you gotta pay some other way. No free lunch

They do pay, they buy krono and various potions from the cash shop.

Not to be a stickler here, but YOU have inserted the word "premium." By doing this, you've artificially created a problem where none exists.

In Daybreak's own language, they say that TLP servers require an "all access" pass. There's nothing premium about it, it's literally you paying to have access to everything.

Either way, TLP servers actually get a fair amount of attention from the dev team, and if you really pay attention the amount of updates and improvements to TLP servers has increased a lot over the past few years.

They also buy expansions, I dunno what Zapsos is on about, maybe they don't ALL buy the newest, but alot do for the pack-in goodies.

Fixed it for ya.
I've played for 3 years on different TLP's, and never bought/sold a krono.
I have bought potions, using the 500 coins that are automatically awarded monthly. But that's the extent of my potion-buying.

Some do and some don't and it is very possible to be playing on the latest TLP by either paying a sub or consuming a krono.