What would your preferred expansion set-up be?

This is my dream pairing of expansions on a new TLP.. Keep in mind my perspective is from a raider perspective so it will naturally clash with a more casual player.

Classic + Kunark launches at the start: This would give a fun change of pace for me. I've always seen the amount of time that classic and Kunark drags on as a detriment to TLPs. The population drops too sharply towards the end of Kunark. This pairing also makes the timeline more feasible. I still think the ToV shards need to be easier to achieve. This is one of the most toxic exercises in a TLP at this stage. Removing the toxicity of these things would be tantamount to players enjoying the content. I'd be fine with 8 or 12 weeks in this instance.

Velious: This expansion is a great expansion. Truly one of the best. I would be fine with it being only 8 weeks given there is no level increase. It's just a gear farm and there is enough time to do that in 8 weeks.

Luclin: 8 weeks. Most people get the AA they need in this time period. This would however require a drop rate increase of the VT key pieces. I have never met anyone who thinks this is an experience they enjoy. Like ToV shards, completely toxic.

LoY + PoP + LDoN: These are a must to pair. The gear out of LDoNs is at best elemental quality. The real loot is in Plane of TIme. Pairing these also makes LDoN relevent. Players can use the LDoN missions to level from 60 to 65 and to grind AA's. This actually makes LDoNs worth doing during this time frame. I don't see pairing LDoN with PoP as making PoP any easier to beat. Guilds are already defeating the expansion in a week or less without the player base achieving level 65 across the board. However, as mentioned, pairing these two makes LDoN relevent and not just another 8 weeks of PoP. Pairing them could be done with 12 weeks.

Side note: At this stage, you're through LDoN in less than a year, which is again a nice change of pace. That hasn't been an option on a TLP to date. So this would be a new idea.

Gates of Discord: This could be a standalone expansion, remaining at 8 weeks. The gear farm, BiC quest, etc makes it worth doing on its own. The difficulty isn't detrimental any longer either.

Oow + DoN - No reason not to pair these. Yes the gear is better in DoN, but it's not game breakingly better, and the raid content in DoN is beatable in less than a full raid night once it's on farm status. The raids pair well, and it could be a full 12 weeks and still feel worth while.

DoD + PoR - These need to be grouped together as well. PoR is far and away one of the worst expansions in EQ history. It kills TLPs. The expansion raids are not enough to keep people active. 8 weeks here.

SoF + SoD - 12 weeks again, you have the level increase. As is the habit though, you need to have more to do to keep people engaged in the raiding scene with these expansions. Just my opinion.

At this stage, you just kind of follow the same pattern as needed. The biggest thing is your raid guilds tend to fall apart around the 2 year mark. This kind of schedule helps keep them engaged, it's something that hasn't really been done on a TLP, and shakes it up making the groupable content in the expansions after a level increase more relevant. It also keeps raid schedules full, but does so in a meaningful way.

This would be my dream set-up for the next TLP from an expansion grouping stand point. Of course there is more to my wishlist, but that's not what this particular thread is meant to be. What's your thoughts on the matter fellow players?

SoF + SoD grouping makes zero sense. They are different level eras. You basically remove any point of SOF.

Classic + Kunark - 12 weeks
Velious - 8 weeks
Luclin - 8 weeks
LoY + PoP + LDoN - 12 weeks
GoD - 8 weeks
OoW + DoN - 8 weeks
DoDH + PoR - 8 weeks
TSS + TBS - 12 weeks

That's as far as I've gotten on Aradune to comment on how I would have liked the releases to be combined / timed out. Also I wouldn't mind more quality of life being pushed earlier. Pushing Fellowships/Guild Banner to GoD for instance. Also wouldn't mind double loot and an increased / eased rate of keying a tad for some of the more annoying ones.

Edit:
I also wouldn't mind a bump up on auto-grants. I wouldn't be offended if auto-grant caught you up to only 1 or 2 expansions behind. I would love to tell people who have left that they can come back get funneled a bit of gear and only be behind 1 or 2 expansions in AA's.

At the end of the day I want people who have taken a break or had RL stuff come up to be able to come back and play on the server instead of re-starting on a new one.

SoF + SoD is a bad combo. It takes time to get into Crystallos in SoF, which most people would skip right over and go to SoD raids. Not to mention, this pairing requires a 10 level increase from 75 to 85. A better pairing, if you wanted to do that, would be SoD + UF. Even then, I think there is enough content in each of these to warrant 12 weeks of SoD and 8 weeks of UF like has been the case on previous TLPs.

The main goal in pairing xpacs, IMO is to reduce stagnation. PoP era gets stagnate when you are farming PoTime for 5 months. Level 70 era gets stagnate when you are farming Anguish for 5 months. The idea of combining PoP + LoY + LDoN and making it 12 weeks is a great idea.

I like this list. The only thing I would change is I would make Classic+Kunark 8 weeks. The classic era of the game has been regurgitated to death at this point and there is nearly no end game content worth doing in those eras. You could easily get by with 8 weeks for classic and kunark combined. With Velious and Luclin both at 8 weeks, it gives you 24 total weeks, or almost 6 months at server launch before a level increase. Plently of time for late comers to join the server before having a level increase launch.

I'd go with a GoD Start, so zerkers & beastlords can be in from the start with level-locking up to 65.
Increase to max 16 character slots per account for All-Access (to facilitate 1 of each class being possible on one account) 1 from marketplace 1 from loyalty.
Random loot for groups - 3 loot pools Open world / Dungeon / Instances per expansion
Group loot is free-trade for every expansion.
Raid loot is Random loot per tier but all raid items (after Velious) are at worst attunable, preferably heirloom no-trade. (no free trade raid items after Velious).
LDoN points are doubled.
DoN Crystals are doubled.
Type 5 currencies are doubled.

Week 1-4 - Level 50 Lock - Gates XP - Truebox Relaxed at 2 per PC
Week 5-12 - Level 60 Lock
Week 13-24 - Level 65 lock
Week 25-36 - OoW & DoN - Truebox Relaxed at 3 per PC
Week 37-44 - DoDH & PoR - DoDH XP
.........
12 weeks for level-raise & 8 weeks for no raise expansions
..........
Week 45-56 TSS - Live XP - Truebox removed

TSS launch, that is all. *with no truebox*

Classic/Kunark at 12 Weeks
Velious: 8 Weeks
Luclin: 8 weeks
PoP/LoY/LDON: PoP launches with LOY then LDON 4 weeks later: 12 weeks total
GoD: 8 Weeks
OOW/DON: OOW for 4 Weeks then DoN for 8 weeks: 12 weeks total
DoDH/PoR: DoDH for 6 Weeks then PoR for 4 Weeks: 10 Weeks total

This would be my prefered grouping, Although 12 weeks in Classic/Kunark maybe too long.

SOF - 4 to 6 weeks, SoD - 6 to 8 weeks (total of 12 weeks)

I'd be curious to see a Blitz server. Every expansion opens the hour after the previous is defeated. So start classic, once Naggy, Vox, Phinny are all dead Kunark opens on the next hour. Phara Dar's death opens Velious. Vulak opens Luclin. Aten opens PoP. Etc... Add an 8 week timer just in case no raid guild survives to drive the server.

Want to prove your guild is the best? Go tackle ever harder content without the weeks inbetween to farm gear.

Seems to me that would just prove who had the most flexibility to change their schedules to match the servers unlock schedule.

One thing i'd be curious to see would be a TSS only server. At least for X weeks initially. ONLY TSS is available. Disallow any backwards travelling to any old zones. Let people do the 1-75 experience locked to TSS only. Could be interesting.

I think it'd make an interesting concept for a race special server. First X number of people to clear Lethar + Beltron get XYZ ornament, then the server deletes or just rolls into a live one or something.

The other problem with this is SoD is a noticeable loot volume drop off compared to SoF and other 12 week expansions. So pairing them together just sets guild further back going into Underfoot.

Pretty sure they already tried this. The first progression servers were "Combine" and "Sleeper" and were only locked to progression. As far as I know as soon as the previous expansion was beaten, the next would unlock. There were a few other stipulations (such as all epic 1.0 quests had to be completed before Velious would unlock, and during Velious all Faction armor sets had to be completed (Thurg, Kael and Skyshrine) to unlock Luclin.

There was a 1 month lock as well, each expansion was at least 4 weeks.

The problem with that server is the same problem Selo's had in that when the unlock schedule is so fast you are forced to raid almost constantly. To be able to keep up with the expansions and get gear and meaningfully progress your character, you had to play virtually all the time. I was the best geared Wizard (Classic/Kunark) on that server and that was ONLY because I had just graduated college and was doing absolutely nothing in my life but playing EQ.

That kind of server only appeals to a very small niche population that do not have families, jobs, and play EQ the majority of the day. Are there those people? Of course, they are on every server and usually comprise the "We're the Premier raiding guild on XXX server" guild. The thing is, those are a very small minority of the actual playerbase and because of that the server ends up at least somewhat dead (Selo's being the most recent example).

Sleeper/Combine did well because it was the ONLY server we had. It was not a mistake that when they started talking about Fippy/Vulak they changed the lockouts, because those of us that were here then knew that the pace of Sleeper/Combine would ultimately lead to the end of TLP's as most people would just be phased out of them.

No expansion should be more than 6 weeks. Even as a medium core guild we were done with every expansion so far in 4 weeks. 5 weeks into velious which we all love and quite a few of us are turning towards Luclin.

We are going strong but only because we got a good core and we're staying entertained. I understand people want to stay in small guilds but the best enjoyment is to form large guilds where there is always something to keep you entertained and you're taking down the content.

Six weeks per expansion and double/triple loot drop with quest npc's spawning every couple of hours or staying up.

Yeah, and a lot has changed since then in terms of knowledge, skill, and even the QoL changes. I think it would be interesting to see how it goes now. Release it along with a more standard version for people that don't want the super break-neck pace.

Yet so often we hear that they need to increase the drop rate or reduce the lockouts so that people can gear up before the next expansion with longer unlocks.

Hence, the double and triple loot. There are probably 300 people on Yelinak clearing all the content regularly and i mean mains not including their alts/boxes. I'm not too sure of the health of the other two big guilds. We we're always running into each other before velious but it's been weeks since we ran into a full force.

Intriguing suggestion.

And that isn't a good solution, just making it drop more loot so you can rush through it faster makes me question why you repeat the same content over and over again. If you really want to rush through it maybe it isn't worth repeating all the time.