Dont like 2022 TLPs? What do you want in 2023?

If you want all classes at the start the server will need to open with GoD unlocked.

I agree 100% on all of your points. We can post on these forms till we are blue in the face, the devs will still do what they want in the end. And, sinced they rarely communicate, what they want is anyone's guess.

As strange as it sounds and from a player's perspective, I honestly don't feel they are part of the EQ community and as a result are detached from what we experience as players. The old saying: you can't understand someone until you've walked a mile in a man's shoes, applies here. I'm speculating here, but I think many of them do not play EQ for enjoyment. If they did, EQ would be a far better game.

Since today is the last day of 2022, I've been doing a lot of thinking. I've been playing EQ TLP servers now for over two years after a long hiatus and I have been reading the forum avidly and posting. I have come to the conclusion that the current devs in charge of EQ are oblivious and indifferent to the concerns of rank and file players. They rarely make substanive posts on these forums and we have no real idea of what they are thinking and where the franchise is going. I'm just not feeling the love. I'm getting a Department of Motor Vehicles vibe.

Today EQ is completely off the radar in the mind of the MMO gaming public. Expansions are released each year and with little fanfare. I didn't seen any videos of devs livestreaming themeselves playing the new expansion. I didn't see any evidence MMO press being inviited to San Diego to play the expansion and sit down to chat with EQ designers. The marketing and promitinon of new expansions at Darkpaw is underhwleming to say the least.

I suspect the devs are concerned mainly with creating content for raiding guilds on the live servers and that's pretty much it.

The notion of creating a living, breathing online fantasy vitual world has fallen by the wayside and been replaced with creating more predictable "content". After 23 years, the same NPCs are standing at their vendor stalls 24/7 and 365 days a year, buying all your junk, devoid of personality and life. Norrath is like a combination of a wax museum and the Groundhog Day film.

EQ has become far too predictable.

Gaming is a passion for millions of people world-wide. Consequently, you need to hire people who are passionate about gaming and making games to be in positions of leadership to make games. As an example, Blizzard's new president Mike Ybarra is always talking about his WoW characters on social media. His passion is infectious and is passed down through all the ranks of management down to the developers and ultimately felt by the players.

Imagine what an enthusiastic visionary mercurial leader could accomplisht at the helm of Darkpaw and Daybreak?

I think about the forums back then. Devs were pioneers. There weren't just going through the motions and working from 9 to 5. They were hungry and ambitious in those days and they were appreciate and grateful for their players and they actually read and replied to constructive posts. Pepperidge Farm remembers and so do I.

It was very obvious that those devs exuded just as much passion for EQ as the players. They were with us in the trenches and we all experienced the same blood, sweat and tears fumbling in the dark with this amazing new technology that united thousands of players throughout the world in a fantastical land with shared adversity.

Darkpaw could remove the forums tomorrow and I really believe it would have no effect on the quality of the play experience. These forums are a pressure valve. They are a quaint throwback to a golden age where the Internet was supposed to be a place of enlightented back and forth communication and platitudinal slogans like all voices matter were all the rage. So I post here, howling at the moon with zero expectation that anything will change.

EverQuest was a long shot, a miraculous,bases loaded home run that came out of left field. Sources, say that the EQ franchise has earned over a billion dollars over it's 23 year tenure. Most of us still here because of EQ's core design fundamentals, the class interpdendency, the social synergy they created over a period of 4 years. We owe a great deal to the people that gave EQ it's inimitable design DNA.

1) free Trade.

2) 1 month for classic, 2 Kunark, 2 velious. Then 3 months for the "longer" expansions (2.0, flagging, level bumps) and 2 months for a LoY/LDoN release at the same time.

3) All 2.0 drops are tagged as no drop.

4) MoTM doesn't exist for the first 3 expansions and then is only for the expansion prior to what is current. (Ex. MoTM on Luclin during PoP. Luclin goes away when GoD is released and it's now on PoP.)

5) I assume I will get hate for this. Only 3 accounts active at one time from 1 ISP. People that try to run a VPN or found to be running more then 3 get suspended for a week, then a month then the ban hammer.

6) unlock all classes from the start. Let races come out like normal (Vah'shir, Luclin, etc.) Also the same with epics. (No BST or Zerker 1.0 in epic they have to wait til their expansion, the weapons would just be to OP and some of the zones wouldn't even be open yet.)

7) All quest that were taken out of the game should be released when they came out and then taken out of the game after a certian time (breeze boots frigid gnasher for example.) They run them just like pre-nerf items that come out, then disappear.

8) some kind of GM presence to deal with the trash rather then "waiting for enough tickets to verify someone was being scummy" and maybe 2 months later they will get a 3 day suspension.

I don't think their should be PvP, that would be dead on arrival. And people that don't want a Mischief type clone, are from Mischief and don't want to see thier population tank. But Mischief has already become like any live server with everyone Boxing or in set groups that log in or off together, LFG is basically dead as the players that actively grouped have left.

How did free trade with raid loot/epic pieces pan out on mischief? I was always ok with the idea of free trade, but the server having tons of tradeable raid gear seemed cheesy to me.

Oddly the Spoon which is tradeable on all servers ended up being the most contentious piece of Epic loot on Mischief. Lord Begurgle's Crown being tradeable probably encouraged more people to camp it for profit, rather than the more annoying selling loot rights, right now in PoR there are 4 for sale, the cheapest being about 1/6 of a Krono. Random loot was an issue for a few items but they are now flagged as quest items so they drop off the intended mob if a future server uses Random loot. Most Epic items are No Trade and it's selling loot rights or first tell depending on who kills the mob.

Since every single ruleset has been played to death:

1. Individual account wide progression with all expansions unlocked.


You must be present at time of kill to get the flag to unlock expansions.

Targets to unlock Kunark:
Lord Nagafen
Lady Vox
Cazic Thule
Innoruuk
Eye of Veeshan

Targets to unlock Velious:
Venril Sathir
Talendor
Severilous
Gorenaire
Trakanon
Phara Dar (door remains locked until all dragons are dead)

Targets to unlock Luclin:
Yelinak
Zlandicar
Klandicar
Sontalak
Avatar of War
All 4 warders
Vulak

Targets to unlock Planes of Power:
Khati Sha
Shei Vinitras
Grieg Veneficus
Thought horror overfiend
Emperor Ssra
VT Aten Blobs
Aten Ha Ra

I don't know any content past Pop so community suggestions?

2. All gear has a chance to roll as 1.5*/2* stats with 25% of those stats rolling as heroics.1.5* to resists as to not cap them early. 1.5* mod 2s like regen etc.This allows individual players to become super powerful to be able to small man raids in Era.

Free trade loot except for 2.0* items roll attune able to prevent re-use and twinking after use.

AA enabled at 50 and most available AA from later expansions reduced by the previous level cap.

Luclin AA at 50
Pop at 60
OoW at 65

Etc.

I don't know, some unique thought. It's probably dumb.

Generally some basic stuff that has been asked for repeatedly:
1. The luclin race/class combos should be available at launch
2. Monks should be able to be frogs with LOY
3. Ber/Bst available at launch
4. At the minimum Classic and Kunark open together for 8 weeks only
5. Focus effects need to be re-enabled for server start if it is pre - luclin - seriously buff timers need it (this was originaly a "hard" server thing for mangler and somehow it never was reverted)

Pace:
1. Preference to open with Luclin for a 16 week run just to get the bazaar. Even better if they could open nexus/bazaar at launch and just leave it at classic/kunark. They could nuke the vendors outside of the satchel vendor and disable all other zones (no this doesn't cripple your port income - it makes it easier to get ports from nexus)
2. 8 weeks of POP/LOY with another 4 weeks for LDON (defacto 12 week POP run)
3. After that point all expansions on 8 week unlocks - it might be nice to get to GoD within 1 year
4. Increased exp rates for 1-50 levels (1.5x faster then the regular default would still encourage potion sales) Can normalize exp for 51-60 and all subsequent level increases
5. Increased raid loot drops/rare spawns to account for 8 week unlocks instead of the standard 12

A requirement that is a deal breaker if it isn't included:
Relaxed truebox at launch. Seriously not sure I can ever play just one toon again and running 3 rigs is just well blah.

Would be nice fun features
A spinoff of Mischief - Randomized loot on "rare" group mobs
Randomized lower tiered raid bosses
The T1 raid bosses - not randomized
Free trade (this was way more successful and fun then I ever thought it would be)
Zones opening when they are relevant not the era they are tied to (like JPF, Veksar, SolC, et al)

It might be shorter to just say I won't play a silly server that was poorly thought out like Vaniki or a traditional TLP. It's like Vaniki tried to open the game up with different zones available at the start but the way they did it with level progression and zerg raid formatting was just not in touch with what the players want.

1) 1 month each classic, kunark, velious. 2 month unlock for LoY/LDoN at thr same time and 2 for DoN. 3 for everything else.

2) free Trade on everything, except epic 2.0 items. (1.0s weren't bad on Mischief but 2.0s Krono farmers would bottle neck stuff like crazy)

3) bring back old quests/items that are no longer in the game (Breezeboots Frigid Gnasher for example) for a few month period and then end them, just like pre nerf items have a period before they change over to the nerfed version.

4) Only 3 accounts open from one ISP. This would encourage grouping to a degree and get rid of the people that run box Armies.

My friends and I always really enjoyed the dungeon crawling aspect of the game but often felt that we wasted a lot of time going to zones only to find them overcrowded and completely camped, especially during classic era.

I think it would be really fun if they were able to implement an agent of change for more major dungeons such as Guk, Mistmoore, SolA/B, Sebilis, Hole, ect. with all named mobs spawned in the instance. This would offer you and some friends the opportunity to explore, enjoy, and experience these dungeons at your own pace and give everyone a fair shot at some of that ultra camped loot once or twice a week or so. The open world zones will still be available for all that good ol' EQ camping and grinding outside of your instance lockouts.

Thoughts?

I would like a Mischief clone with something to shake it up a bit. At the very least, make the new server free trade. Economy flourishes simply with some free trade in the mix.

- 4 to 6 weeks of classic, 8 weeks of kunark/velious, 12 weeks after that
- free trade except raid loot/epic pieces
- a little extra loot from raid targets
- berserker & beastlord in at launch
- rivervale is destroyed and halflings are enslaved by runnyeye goblins

Seems like a lot want BST and BSK at launch. This is a good thing, also can we get double if not tripple the amount of key drops.

For me, the most important factor when considering a new TLP is the progression schedule. I've played EQ nearly every year since its launch, and it's very clear that most TLP servers fail when players grow bored waiting for the next (or more interesting) content to be released. Why haven't a few devs sat down with community leaders and hammered out an expansion release schedule that pairs content with duration?

At least a few expansions need to be permanently bundled to adjacent content as LoY has been (LDON surely needs to be released an hour after LoY. DoN's final raid content amounts to less than two hours of raiding a week and should clearly be bundled.) For the rest, I'd suggest a 4, 6, or 8 week duration depending on the amount of content (levels, aa, raid progression) each new unlock provides (4 weeks for classic, kunark, and velious: minimal content. Six weeks for luclin with the introduction of AA and extended raid keying. 8 weeks for the PoP+LoY+Ldon block, etc)

The goal should be to find a duration that allows most progression guilds to experience all content and farm gear for the next expansion but doesn't drag the content into tedious farming with most gear going to the raid's alts. The amount of loot dropping should be increased to match the schedule, and ideally there would be a more thorough sweep of individual encounters and their loot quantity. There are cases of hour-long raid fights that only drop two augs and a quest item that really need to be re-tuned.

This. Also race/class combos unlocked would be nice but not needed. Also don't mind starting in Kunark but also not needed. Maybe find a way to unlock Iksar without unlocking all of kunark if you don't wanna do that? IDK. Also maybe unlock frogs somehow in classic. They start in Freeport? IDK. Also zerker unlocked in classic? Would be nice? Also rangers start with their bow stuff in classic so they arn't crap like they are until luclin? Also I don't care if it's truebox or not, but find a way to finally crack down on these bot's/krono farmers? I'm all for allowing someone to have a 4-6 box, i'm not for bots/ poopsock 24/7 krono farm sell loot rights idiots. Also......i'll add more on my next post.

Seeing some great ideas in here.

Loooots of people asking for a mischief clone with there own twist. Seems like the people I see who are against a "new mischief" are those who sound like they play on mischief which is hilarious. I would love love love to see free trade for the next server. If it is randomized like mischief thats cool, if not thats cool too. And if it is random, maybe don't keep the possibility of more than one loot table from each corpse. Seeing Inny drop 30ish items the first time we killed him was cool but... a bit overboard. (and please fix PoP tier tables... please)

People asking for faster unlocks... y'all must not be married or have kids or a job or something? I dont know but I need that last month of the expansion when I've done everything and can raid log for a few weeks in order to restore family/wife faction! I love grinding hard from the Thursday->Sunday of expac launch and then being able to relax a bit. With people asking for 4 week unlocks, man thats just too fast of a turn-around for me personally.

I see some people saying TSS start, and others asking for PoR locked, which is funny to me. Personally, the thought of 1-75 then grinding the 1200 or so aa's feels like an absolutely exhausting launch, but I am just one opinion there.

Bst/Ber at classic launch would be awesome. As I stated earlier, I am an 8 week min expac release kinda guy, but maybe not have Ldon be its own expac, 16 weeks of Time is plenty. And then as others have said, definitely merge some of the 70 stuff too. Either omens + don or don + dodh at a minimum feels like it could help the 70 stretch.

Hopefully they do 2 wildly different servers again, maybe one could be start in classic with free trade + a twist they choose(+ relaxed truebox?), and the second could be TSS + relaxed Truebox/no truebox limit + normal loot. Feels like it would hit the mark for quite a few people?

It would never happen, but a guild/team locked race server would be interesting to watch.
Too bad EQ doesnt have the online viewership WoW does. Some EQ broadcasted compititions would be fun to see.
Classic start
Each Guild/team entering gets a private server.
Objective is to race to beating current content.
Next expansion unlocks immediatly after the raids of current expansion are beaten.

For something really different...

How about a nice vanilla server with relaxed truebox ruleset... but an all new graphics engine.
By releasing this as a TLP, there's no need to redo every single zone in the game at once.

We've got a 64 bit client now. Lets do something with it

How about a guided tour server of all the xpacs?

XP rate + 1000%
Faction x 10
All AAs autogranted at xpac launch up to, but not including, that xpac (level requirements still in effect)
All zones open and require no flagging
Free trade (no random loot, still gotta kill specific mobs but any quest items drop for everyone in the raid/group)
3 weeks per xpac without a level increase
5 weeks with a level increase
Server vote to extend any xpac by 3 weeks, once per xpac (for those ones everyone loves)
All raid currency vendors set to 0 cost, event completion still applies


Pair this with a PVP server (since the other server would be DOA anyway) that will merge with Zek once the pop reaches a certain low point

Good points here on expansion-unlock pacing, however I think Ngreth once explained that the Unlocks are somewhat dependent on the calendar system and due to some issues with it they have to do unlocks a certain way so the flexibility is not as great as you might think - I could be mis-remembering that but I have not been able to track down the post he hinted at that (he didn't go into specifics).

The gist also seemed to be that the pace of unlocks was something they wanted to have consistency around - hence the 12/8 cadence of regular TLP & monthly of Selos as examples, having expansion unlocks based on actual real world typical clear & farm is a little tricky as you also have to factor in that each expansions flagging & keying systems can facilitate or hamper faster & slower progress in each one - consistent unlocks but inconsistent flagging speeds possible.


Before the team could look at having expansions only run their "consumption time" the normalisation of flagging / keying speeds would need to be more consisten to get a true picture of how quickly each expansion is beaten & farmed "enough" - and that might be a exercise they neither have an appetite or time for as a singular effort, rather I think continuing ad-hoc improvements to increasing keys/flags will be made as & when players highlight them as feeling like bottlenecks.

Daybreak releases new TLPS once each year- what is the value in having consistency in the unlock schedule? Further, if that 8/12 schedule is, as I believe, the reason that TLP populations tank during expansions with weaker content, isn't that a reason to restructure the schedule?

I believe that after 20+ years there's likely enough data and player experience to quickly plot which expansions have content that justifies a longer or shorter period. It's frustrating to invest a year of gaming into a TLP just to see its population tank before it reaches the interesting/challenging content. I don't think your suggestion of tweaking keying/flagging requirements will address the greater issue of population decline due to a lack of interest in farming available content for the 20th time.