Agnarr brought me back to "modern EQ"... how it can bolster revenues & community at no cost

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by HoodenShuklak, Jan 25, 2022.

  1. HoodenShuklak Augur

    Everyone knows p99 is a popular thing, and we all know it's free to play but pay to win. Agnarr is a premium server and it should stay that way, but.... if Agnarr had a free month where it's essentially free to log in like Live but all those weird restrictions then this would be good for EQ retirees, Agnarr as a whole, and EQ the business.

    The retirees (or people that just don't want to invest money without trying it) get a chance to try out what is essentially the game they love on steroids. The Agnarr community gets fresh new players and all that this brings with it, for no reasonable downside I can fathom. Finally, the EQ owners give away some bandwith, which probably costs next to nothing but they will certainly retain some of the new players and sell some daybreak store items as well. Agnarr is literally ripe for growing the EQ community, and they owe a large part of it to p99... so why not take advantage of this?

    I would say make the free month the same month of the EQ anniversary because it's really the most exciting time in EQ's year.
    Aenvar, Brontus, Herf and 1 other person like this.
  2. phattoni Augur

    there is no difference between free to play and agnarr, this is a dumb idea, and its not free since the company will lose a whole months worth of sub money.

    if people are going to try the game they can do so on live servers with free to play accounts.

    and the chances of people subbing are next to none, due to the fact that agnarr is locked in pop forever.

    this would literally give a bump to the server while the game is free, then it would disappear as soon as there is a sub required again.

    people play on p99 because its free, they arent interested in live everquest, nor are they interested in tlps. if they were they would be subbed already.

    and this isnt "free" nor does it cost no money. they lose a months worth of subs.

    i fail to see how this could boost revenue, nor how it would cost "no money"
  3. HoodenShuklak Augur

    What's the approximate percentage of the robust p99 community that is interested in Live EQ and never knew it existed?

    As far as losing a months worth of subs, you're talking about the loss of a small number for the gain of a big number. Not to mention, there are advantages to staying subbed such as prestige armor, character slots (it prevents you from using some I believe if you lose your sub) and stuff like that. So this particular downside is already small, and even then it is mitigated.

    Saying that players who are on p99 aren't interested in TLP is wild because you just need to randomly ask a few people on any fresh TLP if they've played on p99 and the answer is yes. There's huge overlap, with the big factor being $$$.
    Herf likes this.
  4. Chyron Lorekeeper

    I think there are two big factors. Definitely money. However, the bigger factor I would say is quality of life while balancing nostalgia. There are definitely big factions of players in P99 who play there because its the older client (not accurate client, they should play on TAKP for that), older rule sets, chances to obtain items that get nerfed, and they like the original nostalgic grind. P99 makes it easier to get that feeling by already having old models activated, ensuring old spells are being used, and even using old skeleton and wolf models. These things seem small, but the triggering of nostalgia is huge in them.

    Agnarr doesn't have the same following because it requires subscription, yes, but also because it doesn't trigger the same nostalgia for many. If there was a "classic switch" that allowed much of the above to be available, without deleting files or digging through ini's, it would be huge for Live EQ.

    What Agnarr does have, is the quality of life pieces that many find they want after spending some time as an adult or parent on P99. Instanced raiding, bazaar, a client that saves spell sets, origin, POK stones, etc. What Agnarr needs is better marketing about those things, and a better understanding from the community that Agnarr with 250-400 accounts, can feel just as full of life as a P99 server with 600-900 accounts active, because the world is smaller and more interactive with all of those quality of life features.

    To improve Agnarr on the nostalgic pieces, you'd need to prove a return on investment for future TLPs. The additions of easy to switch graphics/spells/old models could enhance a larger audience's experience on future TLP launches and create a bigger return. It's hard to prove that though given the limited amount of dev resources available.
    Herf likes this.
  5. Herf Augur

    Heck if they'd just put Agnarr back on the "Preferred" list of servers on the game login screen we'd probably get more people. It's extremely insidious that the Preferred server list really means "we'd prefer you log on to these servers because they're the newest ones and we need you to pay for them."

    They wouldn't need to try to fool people into the newer servers,if the newer servers were enjoyable.

    What seems to be going on with the newer servers is, there's a fixed population of players spread across the newer servers, and when an even newer one come out the existing Preferred servers are cannibalized by the new server, which is wasteful and raises business expenses because it leaves behind the cannibalized servers which still have to be supported. But the overall population is still the same, just spread across (now) even more servers.

    It's like opening a can of food, eating half then tossing it away half full and opening a new can, then wondering why your costs are so high.
  6. coltongrundy Augur

    calling LDoN/PoP locked server "modern eq"
    Appren, Roxas MM and Treage_Imminent like this.
  7. Barraind Grumpy Old Bastage


    Why would you ever market a server thats forever capped at seeing, at best, 25% of the games content as "preferred".


    If its more than 5 or 10 people to ever play p99 that doesnt know live (or test, or tlp's) exist, I would be astonished.
    Appren and code-zero like this.
  8. Herf Augur

    I don't know, DP was the company that marketed it as such, ask them :)

    Clearly "Preferred" in the context that DP uses it in the login server means, quite simply, "the ones we want you to log in to at this time." It means nothing more, nothing less. And it's a relatively modern change in the UI labels.
  9. WokeCat Augur

    Just wanted to point out that a significant portion of the P99 community play on TLPs, including the founder, Rogean. The two versions of the game are both enjoyable for different reasons.
  10. Machen New Member


    Zero. Everyone everywhere who is remotely interested in EQ is aware that Live EQ exists.
  11. coltongrundy Augur

    LOL i can't even imagine someone describing p99 as "enjoyable"
    Appren and Catalina like this.
  12. Imshii New Member

    I fully support an option to turn on old skeleton, spec, and wolf form models
  13. Panikker Elder

    Actually p99 has tlps now or at least that's the way they will do a green reset after a few years lol agnarr should be free to play they will loose nothing of revenue because there is literally no activity under 60 ..or make a new pop locked server with free trade lol that would keep it going .
  14. Xeris Augur

    I expect you don't play on Agnarr. I can tell you with 100% certainty that you are wrong. Over the past 2 years, Agnarr's population has doubled. Now you can say it still is a "low" pop server, and probably has less than 500 active players on it, but I'd bet money that it's the most popular TLP that is >5 years old. There are 150-200 people in gen chat during peak times.

    2.5 years ago, the server was capping at ~60-70 people, and only getting higher during raid times. The population increase on Agnarr coincided exactly with the 1 free month of EQ that Daybreak ran around May 2020.

    Only DBG will know for sure whether there's a direct link between the two, but anecdotally, as someone who has played on the server since 2017, I can say that our population increase and the free month of EQ happened at the same time.

    I think it's a very smart idea to provide some free access from time to time, to get people to experience something they otherwise wouldn't.
    Herf likes this.
  15. Xeris Augur

    Also wanted to add, to Op's post: Agnarr is also what brought me back. I had thought about returning to EQ for a long time, and in 2017 I graduated law school and somehow stumbled on the post about Agnarr launching. Since I originally quit EQ during ldon I thought it was perfect timing.

    Subbed immediately. Luckily, I have disposable income and an EQ sub is whatever, but not everyone is fortunate enough. If there were periods of free TLP every so often, I expect it'd bring in a fair number of folks to try out a server like Agnarr to play in the era they remember... And if even a handful of them stick around, the free period pays for itself. Not to mention they'd make some money from bag sales, potions, and the like. Once you start playing TLPs you invariably get sucked in and start spending money
  16. Spacemonkey555 Augur

    Come try the free trial accounts, stick around and enjoy consequence free griefing and 24-7 bot program enabled krono farming!
  17. Xeris Augur

    None of that happens on Agnarr :) I dunno what cesspool you're playing on but sounds like a you problem.
  18. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Any Euro guilds on Agnarr?
  19. Xeris Augur

    Yes there's a euro guild, the remedy. Raid Tues/Thurs at 11am PST, dunno what time CET that is. 8pm?
  20. Herf Augur

    Yes, we are The Remedy. Members from Sweden, Germany, Spain, the UK, the USA (daytime players), and elsewhere. We raid Tues/Thursday (Time, LDoNs, occasionally backflagging) and Sunday ("funday", random targets often including pre-Time targets, etc.) I'm a US member so for me raid time is 11am PST which translates I believe to 8pm GMT/UTC.

    We use Discord for raids (you must be able to listen but are not required to talk if you don't want to.)

    Between raids people are on during the similar time frame as raids, working on loot, epics, grinding xp for new alts or AAs, etc. Naturally we help each other out.

    Like most of Agnarr we are a fun loving, low drama group. Come check us out!