An Experimental Year in TLPs

I don't know about that. People on live sit in the guild lobby/hall for weeks on end. It's really hard to compare actual active players. Mischief population continues to exceed all expectations and has an afk kick.

Yea but Mischief is in an expansion which we can consider modern EQ. Most recyclers quit well before TSS.

Most "casuals" quit between PoP & PoR, and a big portion of the raiders who enjoy the early expansions, but there's still decent populations raiding beyond that.
Mischief has been doing rather well so far in holding onto more casual players thanks to the success of Random Loot.

I'd argue its more so due to free trade. Casuals tend to be those who would take breaks from the game, due to real life or burn out or whatever the case may be. Having free trade as an instant catch up mechanic of being able to buy some current era raid gear to grind back some levels/aa's they are behind on is huge.

I guess you could call me a recycler. I think about it more like seasons of mastery in Classic WoW... except in my case I usually play until my guild implodes or until IRL slaps me in the face(WFH during Covid). Personally I think TSS was peak EQ. The new leveling path, engaging content and it being prior to the massive statflation that comes soon after.

The feeling I get from most Mischief players is that the last thing they want is a new TLP to be successful. Anything that would disrupt what is in all honesty a great sever run is considered a threat. This happens whenever there is a successful TLP. People felt the same way when Aradune died down, and Phinigel before that.

From the Dev Point of view they have to figure out if people will keep playing Mischief all the way to Veil of Alaris when the next TLP will be open in 2024. (We'll lose some population for a bit to Diablo 4 and the rumored WoW classic hardcore servers).

If they make a Mischief clone it will cut into Mischief population. Especially people without guilds, who aren't happy with their guilds, or just want a fresh start.

I can see where an "Experimental" gimmick server has it's appeal. If the server has a good hook you could pull some people over from the lower population TLPs and possibly have a third successful TLP. (Yelinak is low key still doing pretty well.). If the experiment is something designed to self destruct like Vaniki or Quarm however it seems a bit disrespectful of the player base to me.

Honestly, as much as I'd like a Mischief clone I also don't hope for one. I want to see something a bit different, even if it's just a less-speedy Selos server (The one that started on Luclin) for some early-stage gameplay and camping variety. Maybe make a Vah Shir Shaman instead of not playing a Shaman at all XD

Hopefully when they say Experimental, they don't just mean a TSS locked server or something. I might have joked about such a server being a good thing once but wouldn't actually wish it on anyone.

Wut?

You clearly don't play live. People just sit around weeks on end in guild lobby? That's why dozens of raids guilds lined up for each tier launch? Or why every live server minus Zek was hitting high population for the new expansion?

I personally am excited to see all the people who cry about DPG not changing up TLPs and getting creative then immediately whining about the 2023 ruleset without even trying it and questioning why they didn't do a Phiny or Mischief clone.

Buddy's and my biggest hope was for a mischief clone, because we loved that server so much but fell off the wagon due to life events. Hearing it's going to be an 'experimental year' has us both worried and... hopeful? Hopefully it is something new and wild and a lot of fun... otherwise maybe our live toons will hit max level for the first time in 16 years.

Pretty sure it's not going to have any class-balance stuff (thankfully IMO.. this is such a narrow slice of the game I feel like it's a bit overblown)... If you listen closely Jen says that they may look to bring the features to Live and not the features will impact Live. My guesses are: all races have access to all classes, something that positively impacts travel (an NPC in every home city that ports you to most/all zones?) or maybe something faction related (like everyone starts non-KoS in every city or you can donate plat to improve faction standings).

2016 was an experimental TLP year to see if players liked truebox and instanced raids on Phinny
You're 100% correct, every TLP has been experimental

sarnaks were an experiment, just saying

they're almost as bad as halflings and frogloks

But not as tasty

She didn't say it was going to impact the live servers! She said if the experiment goes well, they could implement it on the live servers. It very well could NEVER have any impact on the live servers. Therefore, whatever this is, has to be something that COULD be implemented, but doesn't necessarily HAVE to be. Admittedly tho, I have no idea what that could be.

Might be nice to see a new TLP that forced grouping starting post-tutorial. Not quite sure how they would go about doing that.

Some of my best memories of Everquest come from original launch, grouping in North Desert of Ro. Learning who can be trusted to split the loot. Complaining about some idiot high level wizard, at least +5 us, stealing our kills.

Oh crap, someone trained a sand giant. Run!

Soloing in North Ro led to one thing, and it was only just a matter of time, Disease. Good luck with that, without someone else's help.

This was kind of disappointing news. It felt like we would get some significant answers today, but really the clue was "something that might be added to live" and "more information in April".

Bleh.

No xp from yellow con or lower mobs would force grouping (for the most part).

After listening to the latest interview... I think it's going to be something like level scaling. Which would basically be like using the TLP community like a TEST server.

Level scaling like in EQ2 where you can level down to help low level players? I'd be all for that.

Thanks Fading for all you do! The EQ community does not deserve you.

EQ has shrouds already and she said never been done before, could be applied to live servers, etc