Is 5 years to complete a TLP really reasonable?

I love the idea of progressing through the entire EQ Game since I quit after OOW back in the day and missed so much, but the idea that you'd need to play til 2028 to "beat" a server like say, Oakwynd is just insane to me.

This really means the concept of running through a TLP server from start to finish is impossible for a lot of people. There's no way I or most others can dedicate a whopping 5 full years to one game. Life always happens. 5 stable years just doesn't exist. Plus a lot of expansions are just boring after a few weeks.

Not to mention everything happening in game. Boring expansions that burn guilds out. Guild drama. People quitting for the yearly new TLP.

Mischief has proven that people will stick around after the usual OOW/DN 5 month killshot. It also kinda proves that releasing a new TLP with better rules is what kills the old ones, since the rulesets on the 2024 servers were boring enough that a lot just stuck to mischief.

Has there ever been any consideration for a character focused progression server? Where guilds and their members decide their own progression rate? Sort of like a game-wide PoP flagging (without all the dumb NPC checklists that tend to break PoP flags). Killing Vox, Naggy, Phinny, and Cazic unlocks Kunark, VP unlocks Velious, etc.

Hell, the race alone would be fun to see. Which guild can clear the game fastest? I feel like enough marketing around that would drag a lot of people back with how much people love watching FFXIV and WoW guilds race to world 1st.

Combine/Sleeper was a race, the website around it was a solid concept at least...but most who played felt it unlocked WAY TOO FAST...it was cool to have competing servers....only because the work behind the scenes allowing us to watch the race on a website.

Are there enough players willing to reroll on a TLP for even 2 servers in 2024? Particularly considering we have /pick and AOC's?

I rather enjoyed having 20-30 instances of Grieg's End....lol

It made finding groups a LOT easier.

I've been saying since Selos was 6 months in, instead of 1 month it shoulda been 2/1 unlock. 2 unlock for level increase, 1 for no increase and they should release the filler expacs like DoN/DoDH/PoR in groups.

Start the game in PoP/LoY - GoD/OoW/DoN release 2 months later - DoDH/PoR/TSS 2 months later. TBS+SoF 2 months later, SoD 2 months, Underfoot 2 months etc...

The slug paced expac release from DoN to Underfoot is WAY too long. 3 months for each expac to release like TSS/TBS/SoF/SoD is almost a whole year of hell =/

Give me that server + at least a 100% exp boost at all times + Mischief loot ruleset and I'd almost consider leaving Mischief for it.

That is now and always has been a horrible way to decide unlock time. Just because an expansion increases level doesn't mean it has double the amount of content and just because there's no increase doesn't mean there isn't a ton of stuff to do.

They need to get some players that actually play the game together and come up with some number for each expansion based on the amount of content it has and use that number to give some X number of weeks for that expansion.

That's a good idea. Big batches at a time, but require clearing content to unlock the next one/next levels for your character. Classic->Luclin for 2 months, PoP->DoN for 2 months, etc. These expansions take almost no time at all to clear.

They really need to smush the game a bit either way. Dedicating half a decade to do a full TLP just isn't realistic at all. Especially when next years TLP drop and obliterate the currently running ones.

Fuse in that Oakwynd alt XP bonus so there is leveling going on across the spectrum with some account wide rewards for leveling a certain number of characters and they'd have a super healthy TLP server.

It's only 5 years because there are so many expansions. You could cut a month off an expansion here or there but it wouldn't save much time overall. Cut the time down too much and there won't be very many guilds capable of clearing them in era.

Feels like the op should maybe find a few friends, and try live. Ignore the "live" stuff, and just progress through the content as they like.

Not five years, six-seven. Five years is only to complete the content that was available at launch, but then you have 6 more 2-3 month expansions while it’s happening and a decision about when exactly it mergers to live. It’s a bit ridiculous at this point.

Vaniki’s expansion releases and unlock cadence is much more reasonable for people looking for a non-classic trilogy reroll experience. You need bonus loot and exp for that type of server.

This is an absolutely terrible idea.

Anyone who isn't a hardcore raider would just quit as they're constantly more and more expacs behind. And people who take a small break would never rejoin.

How many people on TLPs are able to clear all the content in DoDH onward in 1 month? Progression, flagging, raids, gear for all toons, etc. Can't do it? Stuck there forever until you can...then rinse/repeat for the next one.

And that isn't even taking into account you want people to clear MULTIPLE xpacs in 2 months before getting access to new xpac zones and gear.

I'd love to see a guild level, get AAs, do progression, do flagging, get geared appropriately for subsequent content in the xpac bundle and clear raids for this chunk of xpacs in 2 months lulz.

I'd like to see a max of 12 - 16 weeks at any 1 level.

This could be done by releasing multi expansions at the same time, or reducing some expansions to 2 - 4 weeks. We all know some expansion bring very little content but have the same length of time before the next unlock.

I'd still like to see a TSS start at some point. That would cut down the time to live by a lot without skipping classic for those who want it.

I think 6 weeks with double loot would be a good spot. A tad longer than Selo but less grinding through raids thanks to bonus loot instead of half lockouts.

Double loot > half lockouts

Those were the first prog servers yeah? Let's do the race again now that everyone has had a chance to re-experience everything "in-era". Plenty of other options out there for folks to go who prefer a slower pace.

Why not both?

"Why not both?" Because raiding 6 nights a week starts to suck real fast.

What game are you playing? The Classic->DoN era is basically guaranteed to have final boss kills in a day or 3 every expansion. It might take a bit longer on the gearing front, but that's why people are arguing for more loot/aa xp with this model. Even with just mischief level loot I doubt it would take more than a week per expansion. 2 months to clear Classic->DoN would be easy.

Hardcore guilds have no problem grinding out absurd amount of AA in PoP. Hell, I was casual during the PoP era on Selos, and everyone in my group was capped on AA before LDON even dropped. We were just doing BoT / PoTactics cause it was a casual guild that didn't even have access to the elemental planes at that point.

We aren't in the old days when Vex Thal was a week long event. People clear it in 1-2 hours now aoeing it all down.

This entire comment is hilarious.

Lol you think guilds outside of the most hardcore could down both dragons and clear all the classic planes, down all Kunark/Velious/Luclin raid targets, complete flagging and downing all bosses in PoP, completing all the GoD group and raid instances (if I remember right there's over 12 total), for OoW completing the 6 group trials plus clearing Anguish. Complete the faction tier grinding for DoN plus the raids...within 2 months?

Oh and lvl and AA.

I'd love to see a full clear of all progression of GoD and OoW in 2 weeks without being in an ultra hardcore raid guild based solely on the volume to get done in that time. Because that's what you'd need to keep on speed for full 2 months clear of all those xpacs.

So your casual guild on this new server would be blocked from new content for how long?

You didn't even finish clearing PoP within 4 weeks let alone all of Classic->DoN in 8 lulz.

I agree "Blocking" content until you finish raids is absolutely absurd but the long snails pace crawl from 65 to 85 is unreal, 2 years for that content is INSANELY slow.

The server could START with PoP to LDoN on go then 2 months after that GoD/OoW/DoN could release. There's literally no reason why GoD/OoW/DoN is 7 months of content, that is insane asylum worthy. PoR/TSS/TBS could be done in 3 months as a group also. Once you hit SoD it starts a 2 month unlock cycle for every expac from there on.

And as I've stated a few times on this forum: If fast paced isn't for you, don't play it ;-)

Or... Better yet: Play it at your own pace and stop competing. Comparison is the thief of joy, it's totally fine to be casual on EQ.There were plenty of guilds on Selos that never ended up top tier and I guaranteed you those people still thoroughly enjoyed their time spent on that server.

The issue would be, if you shorten the unlocks, guilds will have to keep raiding previous expansion targets well into the current expansion. This means more/longer raid nights, and likely more burnout and turnover.

If you shorten the timers, you need to increase the loot. Mischief had the right amount of loot dropping so that a casual guild could raid with decently sized raidforce and not have to split or be undergeared going into the next expansions.

Nobody cares about "how long" it takes to catch up to live. If you arent currently on mischief raiding for live, a reduced timer TLP isnt gonna get you there. Its just going to create a faster turnover when the next years TLP launches and maybe interests people.