Request: Official word on whether or not PoR will auto-grant PoP AAs on Mischief

The Prophecy of Ro expansion goes live on the Mischief server on December 8th(?), a little over a week from now. Depending on who you ask, PoP AAs get auto-granted when TSS (The Serpent's Spine) expansion releases. No, wait... PoP AAs get auto-granted when Prophecy of Ro is released.

So, which is it? Is there not some official timeline that gives these details via an everquest.com address? Allakhazam says PoP auto-grants with PoR, but I'm under the impression Allakhazam isn't an official authority on such things. Apparently some TLPs have had PoP auto-grant at TSS, but others (namely Aradune and Mangler) have supposedly gotten PoP auto-granted upon PoR's release.

Edit: PoP AAs were granted on Mischief upon Prophecy of Ro's release (today, 12/08/2022)

Auto-grant only activates on AA expansions I thought. PoR isn't an AA expansion so nothing should get auto-granted during it.

I was max AA on Aradune on the war, but I'm fairly positive the druid didn't get POP auto-grant until TSS launched.

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:Progression_Servers

Pretty sure it was PoR on Coirnav also

You provided something that literally has conflicting information. The notes section state

and then goes on to list PoR as unlocking POP. PoR is an expansion that didn't release with AA's so it shouldn't be an autogranting expansion.

I'm almost positive that my druid's POP aa's were given to me during TSS because that's the 4th expansion from POP with AAs (GoD, OOW, DoDh, TSS). I can probably check the AA achievement and correspond the date of one of the achievements to the launch of TSS which would verify it.

Please do.

por autogrants pop

Druid doesn't have AA achievement that would correspond to anything. An alt sham has a 1250 AA achievement on TSS launch day.

I just don't see how it makes sense getting an auto-grant in POR. If that were the case Aradune should have GoD AAs autogranted during TBS, which they won't until next week with SoF. GoD is already 4 AA expansions ago in TBS (GOD, OOW, DoDH, TSS). Either the devs don't know how to do maths or their auto-granted system is just completely inconsistent at first.

autogrant is linear, every expac release adds 1 to the autogrant

dodh - luclin
por - pop
tss - loy (none)
tbs - ldon (none)
sof - gates

its literally 2 parallel lines 7 expacs apart, thats it thats the formula

Oh, I thought you were planning to provide more accurate information than the above link. Thanks for the input…

PoP AA's were autogranted on Mangler upon PoR launch. Confirmed with a log search with a bunch of alts/boxes getting AA achievements at or near the launch time on 3/10/2021.

The formula they are using is based on calendar years of game time. The auto-grants are awarded in whatever expansion is/was current four years after the AAs were added. In the modern game, where expansions are all one year apart, that means the auto-grants are always four expansions later. In the earlier era, when expansions were, on average, six months apart, you will have to wait out a few more expansions to get the AAs you're looking for auto-granted to you. The intent was to make it just a little bit easier for long-absent players to catch up in the modern game on Live servers. It doesn't matter as much early on when there are so few AAs to begin with.

The list given in the Zam link above is correct.

That formula doesn't work for later expansions...at all. ToV releasing TBM AAs is 4 expansions apart. Your "formula" stops working the second HoT provides TSS AAs. What Captain Video says makes a little more sense, but the Zam post is still misleading and contradictory to both explanations.

But the Zam post is correct to the question in this thread. Why is that so hard to grasp? Honest question.

Quote from the allahkazam section about auto-grant:

"I'll need help setting these right but I'm going mainly off patch history which doesn't match what is actually released on the progression servers sometimes".

That doesn't sound very definitive to me. The issue is that there's no official post (by Daybreak) about this, and I don't understand why that is.

There is, but it was several years ago now, and I'm not going back to search for it. Prathun determined the formula, and he posted about it, more than once if memory serves.

There have been various snafus with how or when things unlock on TLPs over the years, everything from the expansions themselves to quest and vendor NPCs and etc. Devs go in and fix things, and usually but not always those fixes are in the patch notes. From what I have seen, the AA auto-grant unlock schedule referenced above should be stable.

The Zam post is both correct and incorrect at the same time. Why is that so hard to grasp?

The zam post may provide the correct expansions they are autogranted, but their notes section literally right above states AAs are autogranted 4 expansions back that released with AAs. If that statement was correct, as I said, Aradune and Rizlona would already have GOD AAs autogranted. I now understand it that the coding is 4 calendar years. 4 years =/= 4 expansions until SOF-SOD.

The Planes of Power release date: October 29, 2002

Prophecy of Ro release date: February 21, 2006

The Serpent's Spine release date: September 19, 2006

So... TSS is actually closer to four full years than PoR is. PoR isn't even quite 3.5 years after PoP release.

Wouldn't TSS be closer to the 4 calendar-year schedule you mention?

I would say ask the guy who came up with this system, but he is no longer with the company. Nor would I complain about any discrepancies in the system which work in players' favor. As I have said in other similar threads, the AA auto-grant started out as a benefit to returning players on Live servers (where the four-year rule came from) and then as an afterthought was added to TLPs for the much older content. They could just as easily have drawn a line at TSS and said no AAs before that expansion will be auto-granted, period. Very few players would have noticed the difference. Nobody was being auto-granted anything when this content was in-era.

PoP AAs were autogranted with PoR on Aradune earlier this year