I was curious about the progression servers so i created a character this past weekend. Got to lvl 20 then couldn't find a group for the life of me. Unfortunately this is the downfall of these servers. Nobody wants to pug group anymore. Everyone is anonymous, 6 boxing or in their guild clique. It's sad to see it, but it's the truth.
That's no different from the regular servers. Did you really think there would be a bunch of low level players at this stage of the progression?
If you're a legitimate new player it certainly is no fun to play by yourself. Kind of tough for the server to constantly grow. Some of these special rules for different kinds of servers people are thinking up start to make sense.
Ya it's just not that kind of game anymore with that kind of population. The only pug at that level you are going to find is at the opening of a relatively new server. Otherwise you gotta get pretty lucky.
I want to start a rogue on one of the progression servers I just have no ideal how I would catch up to play with anyone.
I just levelled up a character on Fippy from 1-70 untwinked and without any assitance from anyone I knew. I found pickup grounds about 2/3 of the time. Yeah, you aren't going to get one every time you look, and you may need to be persistent, but there are a lot of pugs out there still at all levels.
It's also hard to make up groups when the chat server is constantly going down, and when it comes back up it often doesn't reconnect the channels for you. Makes people not bother with it after a while.
Doing a /who all (level range) to find other players close to your level and sending them tells about groups is also a good way to get some groups going. It never hurts to ask someone and you'd be surprised how often someone is willing to group up if you ask.
Since multiple people have at different times in the last few months created and promoted threads about how awesome it is to play at low levels on this server, why wouldn't he think that?
A 14 year old mmorpg that is uniquely group-focused benefits from running more than one character. That's fascinating.
I'm just writing to verify what the OP said. I saw Fippy killed today at the north Qeynos gate by some guards ( I forget their names). It was heart wrenching to watch and I thought certainly the server would crash when Fippy was killed but it didn't crash it just kept going. There was no one in the zone but me to witness this murderous display of colonial trespass. There were lots of folks in the tutorial areas my age but for some reason its seems I'm one of the few who thinks the newbie armor quests are fun. Anyway if they made this server FTP I guarantee you even the Qeynos newbie yard would be the chosen starting point for more adventurous souls. Then we wouldn't have to read such frightening posts that claim Fippy is dead.
Come on now. If you're going to go classic, go all the way. The newbie zone quests are out of era and overpowered. There's a reason they weren't active at the progression servers' launch, just like the tutorial wasn't active at launch. If Sony made fippy/vulak FTP tomorrow, 99% of the new players would still go through the tutorial. The fun of eq is doing stuff that others are actually interested in doing also, and there just isn't much reason to be interested in those newbie zone armor quests at this point in the server's life. If you find them fun, great, have at them. Just don't expect a ton of people to join you for long slow grinds camping rare drops that are vastly overpowered by easily achievable tutorial gear or cheap bazaar gear. Free to play or otherwise.
Hey Machen, I don't think I said that most folks would do the old starting areas if the TLP's went FTP just that more would than do now. Your post brings up a good point though about why TLP's burn so bright in the beginning and then seem to fade out so quickly. This makes no sense to me. Why come to a TLP server if your whole goal is to be a min-maxer? Isn't the whole point of the TLP server to enjoy a casual stroll through the old content? If I wanted an easy time of it I would go to a regular server and so should those who think the newbie armor quests are a waste of time. I started on Fippy when it first came out and people were actually rushing through content and then whining because there was nothing else to do. Mind you these folks were blowing through 12 year old content that had already been done by thousands of others. I don't know if they took RL pride in it or what but it was so stupid it was sort of funny( I think the server wide announcements about named mobs being defeated should be eliminated btw). There were so many normal servers to choose from where that content was available but they wanted it on the poor old TLP server and they wanted it now! People whined about the exp. limit! People whined about almost everything that was the very essence of a TLP server! They couldn't just go to a normal server they had to turn the TLP server into a normal server!? That is why TLP servers will always be so few and far between. No one really wants them, they just THINK they do. That is except for a few folks like me who still get a kick out of watching poor old Fippy make his run towards South Qeynos. The day they finally close the doors on EQ I think they ought to let old Fippy make it the South Qeynos docks and then have him swim towards the horizon. It seems fitting.
Arakash, TLP will always be the most popular when it is about racing---I don't know where you get this quiet stroll through the park thing from. I don't know why exactly, and it doesn't really matter exactly why folks "enjoy" the punishment of classic EQ so much...they just do, and so do I.
Therein lies the issue. There are three different audiences for "progression" and it's a case of the porridge is not "just right." 1. You got the group that really doesn't want progression at all...they want "classic" and can't even define what that means...anything from only the original game with the original graphics to Vellious an no AA to all the way to POK. 2. You got the group of min-max "beat the game" and "progress" hardcore types, which I dare say seems to be the majority, or at least were during the first few expansions, many left during the GoD fails because of boredom... they were held back from progressing. And I'll put myself in # 3. Those who want to do every single quest, tradeskill, and old zone even if it's crap xp because they really do want to experience it all again. Fippy was okay for group #3 for awhile, but it all just went a bit too fast and the tutorial coming out and those PoK spell vendors ruined it for a lot of them too. So what are you left with, a lot of people at the top end and new players can get groups, sure, but I bet they go something like - Tutorial, PC, BW, AC or bust lol. Burn through the levels and then buy some gear in the Bazaar, anything else is considered a waste of time. I'm not knocking the style, its just where the server is at. You're not going to fine a lot of folks doing the Coldain Shawl quests just now. So I hope next time we get two servers again, but this time slow and fast speed. Free transfer from slow server to fast if you end up getting bored. Naysayers say...but wait, it will take 20 years to catch up blah blah blah...I get it, no one cares, taking three years to get from old world to say LDON would be fine for the slow group. Others suggest the permanent classic server, and there are other threads on that so I won't rehash. Myself, I don't want permanent, just a slow timeline and maybe even a bit of a twist on the old stuff, but not stuck forever.
I guess you can put me in group #3... except that I never experienced it the first time around. I liked single-player games at the time, and where I got into MMO in '04, it was SWG not EQ. (Then I got burned so badly by NGE that it was years before I was willing to take a chance on any SOE game.) I came to Fippy looking for a classic experience: EQ in the early days and moving forward. The breakneck rush and endless whining of the content locusts was an unpleasant surprise. By the time the corpse run vote failed, it was clear that I was in the minority. Equally clear was the fact that the voting qualifications would ensure that the racers would remain in the driver's seat. That needs to be fixed if there is to be any chance of a "slow progress" server.
You can put me in #3 as well. I really couldnt care less if these servers ever caught up to live. I'd like a slow progression server. Fippy was loads of fun I have to admit, but I'd like a server that progresses half as fast as that one.
Yes exactly. Progression servers have been used twice in the last seven years as a 'gimmick' which brings lots of players back. But the faster content is unlocked, the faster players are alienated. SOE should setup a permanent progressive server structure, so you can at any time start a character on the 1-50 server; and progress at your own pace.
