2017 Summer New Progression Server Ruleset?

Well as I said before we have lots of different options for servers with boxing. I still feel that a player that wants to play with actual people more so then a person+his alts should be something that has interest to create a rule set for. There are already 3-4 progression servers with true boxing code and full boxing go for broke rule set. This could be for those who want no boxing which is A LOT more prevalent then then power leveling, selling loot etc..etc.. I just think it should be an option for those who don't want a server with allowed boxing. But I agree with you that they need to get their act together on actual cheating before they dive into another server.

But when they do open the new server I hope they will make it 1 played toon per person the way original EQ was meant to be imo.

This is pretty much impossible to do. You can't limit it per household because if you have a husband/wife, father/son, roomates, or any other random combo it would prevent them. Assuming they would even put the time in to try to implement something like this, which they wont. Phinny while not perfect has done a great job of limiting boxing. Sure some people do box and some cheat with 3rd party programs but it's nothing compared to the way RF/LJ was.

Also original EQ wasn't meant to be 1 toon per person, in fact they never really had a stance on that at all. The only limitation there was at the time was either money, connection, or pc ability, which meant many people only played one character at at time(although there where some that boxed). I'd say you might as well accept the fact that people are going to be boxing to some extent regardless of the type of server they come out with. Even if they come out with some new code which again is doubtful people will find a way around it.

EQ was never marketed as a single account game. Back in the day, boxing was rare, because of pc and internet limitations. I was lucky to even get the game to run on my computer and even then, I crashed quite frequently. No boxing, whatsoever, is a rule set that the Project 1999 people came up with.

I have several problems with people wanting a no box server. My main one is that it would make it hard for family/friends to play together. My spouse and kids all play the game.

The other, to be blunt, is that I think the no box crowd is very small to begin with. From a business perspective, I think it would be very risky to make such a huge investment. And from what I have seen, the no box people tend to quit early once the expansion reaches a certain point or because of Kronos/not having corpse runs/the game feels too easy. The no box people want a community experience, but for it to be a complete community experience, not just something that gives them a slice of community. In addition to no boxing, they want the game to be slower paced, people to be social during downtime, no maps, corpse runs, and porting so people can interact and be dependent on each other, etc.

I believe the most successful server would be a clone of Phinigel with FV ruleset. The FV ruleset has already proven to be wildly successful, and so has the Phinigel ruleset. Combine the two and you will have an extremely successful server.

I guarantee you the developers of Everquest was originally not brainstorming around people playing the entire group of 6 at once. They had drawn heavily from DND and was wanting to create a niche market around said culture of people. I am also of the mind that MMO's should not cater to the mass appeal but that will never happen and have the game be successful.

Well from the sounds of the newsletter and some common sense, it will not start in one of the late expansions like others have suggested. The newsletter, I am paraphrasing cause I am lazy, says for those that missed the start of the last three tlp, also by the time this server launches the current progressions would be further into expansions, will get to experience this new server. At the latest I think that the server will launch with Kunark. I and numerous colleagues, mind you only constitute, maybe 11 individuals would play on classic release. If it was Kunark, I am sure they would still play.

Back to the point, no reason for them to launch a late expansion server when #1 current TLP will be close to what is being suggested here as recommended starting expansions and #2 it is geared for those that missed the current tlp's release.

By the way, this so called "well" can be tapped until it is determined by numbers, not the vocal minority, that it is truly tapped.

Like EVERYONE, this is just my opinion.
Hope to see a lot of you in the new TLP.

The only real way I think to draw people into -another- TLP server is to make a significant enough change to the content of the game. Phinny won over LJ/RF players because it significantly changed the "gameplay", but not the content.

At this point, I think Phinny has confirmed that people want instanced raids. Whether people like it better than RF or LJ because of the instanced raids or the truebox code is up for debate, but it doesn't matter.

I think the only real option in their bag of tricks is to release a version of classic with modified gameplay in addition to the instanced raids (and maybe truebox). I would probably be in favor of putting the EXP rate at or near RF due to the increased difficulty (see below).

Modifications to the gameplay I could get behind are:
- Re-tuned classes. Outliers like monk fist damage and mage pet power can be reworked...maybe re-visit damage mitigation and avoidance for tank classes. Essentially re-tune the classes relative to each other to keep them relevant, but overall in a downward manner.
- Revert back to old damage tables. Melee & Spell damage is out of control high.
- Revert back to old tradeskill recipes (definitely keep the auto-combine all function!). This way you can't just scream to max_skill with some oo-era recipe.
- Probably need to keep the bard AoE songs the way they are (i.e. still not allow swarm kiting). With the player knowledge these days, this would get out of control.
- Add-in / retain quality-of-life improvements from the start (i.e. bandolier, click-from-bag, no corpse runs, bazaar, potion belt, extended target window)
- Add in some surprise / bonus quests? If there's time.

Essentially, keep a lot of the niceties that the TLPs offer, just make the game more challenging (and not just raid bosses).

Not sure if any of this is even possible / plausible, but it would certainly be cool!

This would be a ton of work, considering it's not a one-and-done thing. They'd have to retune with each new expansion opened up. I wouldn't hold my breath for this one.

Darn, that was the one I was most hopeful for honestly. I mean, maybe if they just change the monk fist damage tables from being crazy overpowered, that would be enough.

Considering most monks were already using weapons other than their fists by the end of classic, I don't think this would really make as big a difference as you think. Removing the innate damage aa's would probably be more effective, but then you'd have to rebalance melees vs casters.

Sleeper\combine unlocks
Phinny instances
No true box
Fv loot rules maybe

Will be an exact clone of Phinigel. Remember they said they were making it for those who missed the start. My opinion to this is they don't want it to pull players from existing servers, but rather bring people back who left, or who missed the start so it will be the same rules.

Here's my dream server.

Give me true box, FV trivial loot code, instanced raids, and RF/LJ experience rates.

Additionally, I'd like to see server-committed Krono. That is, you can buy Krono for cash and trade it in the new server (and add it to your pool to take off-server if you want), but you can't trade Krono on the server that's part of your general pool (i.e., that came from other servers). This would probably require a little back-end and UI work, but I think it meets the dual purposes of letting DBG cash-in on Kronos while also limiting the exposure of the server population to outside wealth.

[As an aside, I've encountered far too many people on Phinny who have access to staggering amounts of wealth--we're talking multiple hundreds of thousands of plat worth of wealth--because they're good at manipulating the Krono market across multiple servers. Limiting people's ability to move money while still incentivizing purchases of Krono for trade, combined with the trivial loot code, could do wonders to widen the middle class, so to speak.]

Let Beastlords and Berserkers be available at launch.

Start the server and run through the familiar TLP expansions quickly. Either start the server in Kunark and sacrifice Vox and Naggy on the altar of expedience (or better yet specifically address their issues), or run classic and Kunark for six weeks each; in any event, six weeks after Kunark, Velious opens; six weeks later we get Luclin for twelve. Planes gets six weeks, Legacy of Ykesha gets six, and then LDoN gets twelve. These numbers are arbitrary, but I'm choosing them to illustrate the point that I don't think we need another long drag in classic, but I do think we need longer stretches at logical break points. Honestly I wouldn't even mind launching with the first three expansions available, doing them for 18 or 24 weeks, and then moving to Luclin for a stretch, then doing PoP/LoY/LDoN in another chunk.

One philosophy that I would embrace is that it's okay to expect players to still be leveling up when you open a new expansion as long as the expansion isn't moving the goal posts out of reach. Nobody who's doing Guk today abandons it because Kunark opens tomorrow. He abandons it because he's sick and tired of killing frogs and needs a change of scenery. So having more scenery available isn't itself a bad idea.

I also think it would be reasonable to implement voting at certain break points without having it all the way. Let people vote to stay in certain eras (especially for GoD launch), but not indefinitely.


Now for some editorializing:
I share some concerns that I think a lot of people have: One, we've been doing TLPs for a little while now, and my love for the game will only motivate me to run the 1-50 classic circuit so many times before I burn out. It's harder and harder with each iteration to force myself to go camp for gear again, especially when it feels like not so long ago I was already past this point. Additionally, I love PoP era for nostalgia reasons, yet there's still a lot of EQ that I never experienced and would like to. Live doesn't really solve that problem for me, because I don't really want everything in my lap at once, but I also realize that GoD is a pretty notorious landmark for TLP end-of-life. So I think it's worth figuring out what it is about GoD and the subsequent material that makes people quit so goddamn always.

As someone else mentioned, the prospect of running TLP's over and over again every year or two isn't sustainable without some kind of innovation, and innovation is a two-edged sword. If we're really looking for a seasonal model a la ARPGs, I think we're going to need to see a server structure that embraces that along with a willingness in the player base to temper our nostalgia for "classic" in favor of accepting changes that keep the game fresh. If TLP is going to be a branch of the game's revenue stream, it should be a branch worthy of development resources also, even if that means accepting long overdue non-classic changes that cater to the TLP leveling spreads (e.g., the new 39 and 49 shaman and druid heals, design choices notwithstanding).

To that end it's really not out of the question to ask for things like more balanced damage tables or smoother advancement curves for certain classes or level ranges, and I think any time we talk about a new ruleset we should be willing to also talk about breaking away from our conventional thinking about EQ: What if we gave people access to AAs at level 1 this time around? What if we did away with all reagents? PoK open on launch (but not the rest of POP)? LDoN and only LDoN at launch (and open everything else besides classic in sequence)? There are a lot of options available to mix things up, and if we're in love with the game, even a certain era, we ought to be willing to experiment.

That's enough for now.

One way to solve some of the issues with farming and zone hogging would be to lower head count to spawn a load balanced zone. Even allow a group to spawn a load balanced zone that has respawn and is not an instance. The current exp rates on Phinigel are perfect and i think that the expansion release needs to be about 4 months or even 3.5, Phinigel was originally set for less then 90 days. 4.5 months seems to be a bit long and 6 months is way to long.

To be realistic, you need to keep it simple. Damage tables will not be altered specifically for one server. Kronos will not be altered specifically for one server.

I don't agree with your suggestions. Phinny exp put off many people. I think players would like RF/LJ experience on the new server and four months would be too long for some players. I can't imagine spending four months in classic again.

Personally I think they should do:

Phinigel Instancing.
Ragefire XP rates lasting until OoW, then live server XP rates and AA autogrant enabled.
No expansions locked, just the minimum timers. So if the server wants to skip an expansion or the server is struggling, it will continue to release new expansions.

Classic+Kunark - 4 months minimum (112 days since it has to be on patch timers)
Velious+Luclin - 4 months minimum (112 days)
PoP+LDoN+LoY - 4 months minimum (112 days)
GoD - 2 months minimum (56 days) -- Just to give people the experience of raiding it at 60.
OoW - 4 months minimum (112 Days)

Then 2 months minimum (56 days) until it's caught up to Live, which would be about 5 years in total.

And if EQ is still alive in 2022, then everyone can count themselves lucky. Also giving everyone a couple of months to get ready for the brand new 2022 expansion: Rise of the Orcs. Journey into the newly discovered world built by the Orcs beneath Crushbone as Faydwer and its inhabitants face extinction.

Sorry you felt like my post was way too long. You didn't have to read it. As for realistic hopes, if you don't ask, you get nothing.

This is my personal opinion, or rather a checklist of items that I think would be important to me when it comes time to decide if I want to try this again on a brand new server. I honestly enjoyed Phinny and wish I had stuck with it. Now I feel I'm just too far behind with too many artificial roadblocks ahead of me to catch up to the level of gameplay I want to be at.

1...No Kronos. Or at least server locked Kronos. (neither of these will happen because $$$)

That was my biggest dislike of Phinny. Seeing something I wanted for sale, opening dialog only to find out they want 50 dollars worth or more in kronos. I could even deal with all the mage farm teams camping runnyeye and jboots because eventually competition drove the prices to a reasonable level. Plus there aren't many GOTTA HAVE IT items from vanilla anyway. Its when they want crazy amounts of krono because most of them just assume everyone brought a couple hundred over from live.

The FV ruleset would even be interesting if kronos were locked to a specific server. Might generate more sales, who knows. I'd never buy krono personally.

2...The exp rate was kinda offputting, especially the way we found out about it. AKA dry and raw.

I get it. It was that way to sell exp pots. Not the end of the world and I think the biggest stink was that with the server being so popular at launch, even with pickzones there was a lot of congestion. The suggestion of groups being able to request instances of zones ala LDoN style would interest me. I understand why people wouldn't go for this tho.

3...Get over boondoggles like the Plane of Storms medallion flagging system.

It's alright if your playerbase has fun on a nostalgia trip. You don't have to bust balls like when PoP was legit new content. Get over the old outdated hang-ups some of you (devs) have about ubers and casuals and who deserves content and who doesn't. That crap was an argument for discussion almost 20 years ago. Phinny is the perfect time to fix these outdated flagging issues. Do it and do it correctly instead of deploying emergency hotfixes. And if for whatever reason you don't want to budge on crap like this, at least stretch out the unlock time between expansions. PoP especially. It should be an expansion everyone gets to enjoy as much as possible.

4...True box is cool and good. Keep it going. Make it better.

5...Instanced raids are cool and good. Keep it going. Make it better.

The no krono thing I don't see happening. That's like saying don't make as much money to DBG. I get why people don't want them but it's kind a waste of time even mentioning it because it does help the company make money, which the more the better because maybe they can hire more of a dev team(wishful thinking I know). You can only remove so many revenue streams before they decide it's not worth going through with it.