I don't understand some TLP players, help me

i don't understand why people like something that i don't like. everyone should like the same things.

This is sad.

How many of us enjoy Plane of Sky?
How many of us enjoy keying for VP/VT?
We still do it.

I don't and I avoid it. It's like eating a brownie, I just cut out the middle part and leave the edges for someone else.

One of the main issues with sky is the keying. The other main issue is the mobs are too high level for casters to be useful. Other than that sky is a pretty interesting zone. But yes due to those two main issues it is my least favorite raid in Classic.

There are those who cry they are bored yet continue to re-roll. Seems they don't like it either so why are they doing the same thing over expecting a different result? Seems like insanity to me.

Half the threads on these forums would be non-existent if people just stopped acting like broken records each year.

To me there's little difference in boredom between raiding Time for the umpteenth Time on a locked TLP, vs. repeatedly working my way up to raiding Time on new TLPs. I'd rather stay in one place and use my BIS toons to raise new toons, rather than undergoing a yearly battle to make just one toon BIS.

Speaking as a primarily Live player who has only dabbled on the TLP side...

IMHO there are quite a few myths about the nature of the TLP population. There aren't as many human players re-rolling on every new TLP as some will suggest. Hundreds of accounts exist in the hands of bot farmers and people selling automated PL services; their sole purpose is to make a profit from the game, and they will do that on every server at the beginning. There are a smaller number of human players who think they can get in on the for-profit action, and make a stab at it every year, but generally fail, since the bot programming is at least semi-professionally done. The number of human players who make enough Krono to pay for a box set on their Live server is greatly exaggerated.

A sub-group sees each TLP as a nostalgia experience, they won't play past the PoP/LDoN era because they never did originally. This category is seeing the arrival of boredom and burnout, as evidenced by increasing demands on the forum for a complete re-design of the early game, solely for the sake of making it something different. You might well ask why this group won't play onward and experience some of the modern game as we know it today, and I have no answer for that. Part of this sub-group is racing, they're part of certain guilds who appear on every server and compete for server firsts.

Another sub-group on each server does intend to play onward and does not re-roll the next year. New blood arrives on the scene, or at least newly returning older players, to fill those spots on the next server.

Finally, there are players like me who each have one primary TLP we play on, but still roll on other servers just to social network among players and get a feel for what is happening elsewhere in the game. Some of us won't consider playing earnestly on any TLP until it hits GoD or later. So... I don't think there is, or ever will be, a definitive answer to the question you posed.

TLP server toxicity is almost exclusively tied to RMT competition, and dies out when the bot teams go away, which has generally been in the PoP era. Aradune is special case, and I won't go into that here. Guild-related toxicity can occur in small amounts, but I don't personally see that as different from what you must be used to seeing on any Live server.

The problem with this argument is that the Diablo style loot is all random, rolls and the like are all different. EQ loot is the same, and everything you do is the same thing. The Fiery Avenger is the same Fiery Avenger that you got 10 years ago, the Cloak of Flames is the same Cloak of Flames you got 20 years ago.

This whole bot farmer narrative on the forums is really weird. I have played on 4 or 5 tlps now since i came back from a long time away from the game and an actual automated group has never once affected my gameplay. Ive been in the most casual guild up to the OW guild and Ive not had any real issues at all. Guild griefing and toxicity is a thing, usually around keying for raid zones, but thats not ever been a big issue either imo. And I know the bots are there, selling GEBS and fungi staffs. but so what really? They are just driving the prices down for great items.

People on the forums talk about yelinak like its a ghost town full of botters and plers and nothing else, and that its been like that since launch, yet you look in the discord and people rattled off the names of 17 different guilds that are currently killing pop raid mobs. Most of which have been around since classic, with some folding and forming new and such.

I dont know... its weird to me. Ive played games where botting is a real problem, and this just isnt one. Yet the forums make it seem like tlps are all awful places to be because of it. I dont know. Ive enjoyed my time on each tlp I've been on.

@crabman ~ the toxicity is driven by players whose gameplay revolves around accusing people of botting.

lots of people play the game for fun. in the guild i am in lots of us have been playing together for over a decade we have a good time raiding and grouping you might have 30 to 40 real players and the rest are raid boxes,mostly cleric,shammies.mages also most people dont post on the eq forums.

Very insightful post!

Over the years, the developers focused far too much on high end raiders and orphaned casual players. Sure they introduced mercenaries along the way, but that didn't address the crux of the problem.

I loved the old tank and spank raids. There were more inclusive of all player types and not as complex as the ones that came later. Again, the developers were exclusively appealing to the vocal minority of high end guilds lead by outspoken people like Furor, Tigole, and the rest of them. It was those uber guilds that demanded that raids become more complex, not casual players. And as a result, the starstruck devs were only too happy to do their bidding. Then Blizzard released casual friendly WoW and the MMO genre was forever changed.

As you mentioned, Planes of Power is a nightmare for casual players. You have to have to get in a guild to get your flags and keys done, or you may as well forget about progressing.

EverQuest and the first 2 expansions were magic in a bottle. That's why players keep coming back. EQ in it's curent form on the live servers have mutated into something entirely different and alien.

I think this person is more saying "it doesn't feel like EQ to me" or "... to people like us." Right?

If the content before OoW is 20% of the game and the content from OoW to today is 80% of the game, what you're saying makes perfect sense. But if you're talking about the playerbase -- most players left well before OoW, right? So to them (to us), a lot of newer content doesn't feel like EQ. It feels like EQ2, or something else. Or maybe just alien.

And I think in some ways this is why TLPs tend to lose most of their population within the first year. Everybody who played before OoW has some expansion that was their last, and they don't really feel at home proceeding beyond that. But people who played a good bit post-OoW don't feel the same way.

Anyway, that's something like what I'd guess they mean.

It doesn't make sense to ignore 80%+ of the game (as most leave before that point), complain about how it isn't EQ, and how bad it is if you have never played that far in the game.

You obviously have never played or from what it sounds like even seen EQ2.

So I'll bite.

I have been playing TLPS since the very first TLP servers (Combine/Sleeper). I have played almost all of them minus Coirnav (I couldn't take the slow EXP again) and the latest ones (Vaniki/Yelinak).

I have lead or raid lead a raiding guild on EVERY server I have been on.

I tend to quit servers around Mid PoP, though I am currently still on Mischief. I have only once before Mischief gone to Prophecy of Ro and that was on Vulak (stayed till PoR but on that server to raid you were forced to join EoE and frankly Damdor is one of the worst human beings I have ever met so Im very glad we no longer are forced to guild with ilk like him).

So, with that said here is my rationale:

1) I enjoy Classic the best. I know its controversial but I really enjoy Classic EQ. I like the classic zones, I like classic leveling, I could do Vox/Naggy a thousand times and be fine with it. Sky is ok, but I am not a fan of the loot system there, but meh, I dont usually bid on items from sky because I really could care less about loot. After leading 6? raiding guilds, I just don't care about loot much. So the main reason I restart is because I like the 1-50 grind where everyone is on the same page and I LIKE doing it in Classic.

2) I enjoy the more simple nature of Classic to PoP (or really OOW). So this being the first time ive stayed past PoP in over 10 years I have come to one conclusion. I don't really like EQ after PoP (to an extent really after OOW). Specifically as someone who leads raids and is a raid logger through and through, I find the philosophical change in raid encounters from "classes have a job and complete that job and you win" to "there are a bunch of mechanics that if you don't execute correctly you lose" to be something I do not enjoy.

I specifically disdain any fight that has a arbitrary time on it, such as Sisters, Performer, First fight in DK, Vertigo etc.... Any fight that is based on time and not on player agency is SUPER annoying to me. If I have a ton of DPS why is the game limiting what I do just to make things take longer than they should? Its very annoying and my current guild knows my disdain for raids like Demiplane (I seriously HATE this raid, literally my least favorite raid ever IMO). Thankfully Deathknell is annoying but its super super fast so your done in like an hour.

The problem is as EQ gets further in Expansions, more things like this happen from my understanding. Mechanics are more important than someone just playing their class correctly. Through PoP the game is based more on people just executing their classes strategies or gearing correctly and you win, mechanics change that and I do not enjoy it as much.

3) I find as the expansions go on the people who remain on TLP servers become the increasing more hardcore "try hard" players. This makes sense because they are the ones who stick it out longer, but I increasing dislike these people just on a fundamental level. Every guild I have ever lead is a direct antithesis to the TLP guilds we ran prior to Phinigel and the advent of instanced raiding. Prior to instanced raiding to be able to do the raids you either had to wait for expansions to finish or you had to join the top 1 or 2 raiding guilds on the server. This is how I ended up in guilds like RoI, EoE, and Faceless for many servers.

Unfortunately I just don't like the people who lead those guilds. Now I hear many of those people have changed over the years, but back then the yelling, screaming, cussing, and general hate from leadership in these guilds toward others was downright nasty. I wanted a guild that was inclusive, that didn't care about meters, or dps, or heal parses, or any of the stupid crap that all these try hards care about. Are the mobs dying? Yes, my guilds always complete the raids and always have, but I also don't sit people out because they are not as good as some people. I dont berate someone for low damage. I don't do all that toxic crap that was so prevalent in past guilds. Some people don't like that and EVERY guild I have lead has a had a handful of these elitist a-holes in it, it is an unavoidable consequence of playing a niche game like EQ. But I can limit it, I can set limits on them, and I can just be upfront about what kind of guild we are verse the others.

That long winded rant on past guild leadership was again, basically to say that I don't like those kind of people and I choose not to associate with them anymore. I have said it time and again: "The best part of instanced EQ is I no longer have to associate with the likes of people like Damdor"

The TLDR:

I have now played 2 servers to PoR and I can honestly say I will play another EQ TLP down the road. I will lead another guild and my guild will be successful, we always are. But I don't ever see myself going past OOW again, and truth be told probably not past PoP. This Mischief experiment to go as far as I can has so far not yielded the fun I was hoping it would be. I am committed to my current guild and will continue to make sure we succeed in raiding for as many expansions as this guild stays together as I do like my current guild, but future servers, will probably be different for me.

This is on point. I’m on Yelinak right now and I’m feeling the same pain all over again. POP ruined EQ for the casual player. Old saying goes the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I could only imagine if the game developed content for the majority instead of the top 5%.

I don't agree with this at all.

1. As a dps class, you can basically phantom afk in every raid from classic-POP, go unnoticed and still win. Basically the mind-numbing of most raids prior to OOW require semi awake healers and tanks and the rest of the people can barely have a pulse to win.

The mind-numbing 20 minute tank and spank events can have basically every melee dps class go afk the duration of the fight and return the second the mob flops over. There's basically 1-5 buttons max to push outside auto attack. You basically need zero knowledge of the class to do that "job."

2. You need to play your class even better the deeper into the game because the game becomes a faster pace. Gone are the days you can just click CH once every 12 seconds and phone it in. You need to be on your toes and spamming heals.

3. If you don't play your classes correctly, you won't win. Just because events have mechanics, it doesn't mean you don't have to focus on your classes role. It's not choose one or the other. It's you need to be aware of both.

100% agree with you on these two points. Mechanic heavy fights just feel like a chore. My work is the chore of my day. When I finally get to eq, let me relax, kill some things with friends and have a good time.