Agnarr at the center of a long term TLP and population maintenance strategy.

It seems that there are two major types of TLP players:

1) Those who enjoy the early expansions, Classic though PoP/LDoN. And hop to every new progression server over and over again.

2) Those who would like to eventually catch up to live. (There are many variations to this one but for our purpose, maintaining EQ subscriber numbers, it doesn't matter.)

So every X number of years we alternate two types of TLP servers (not precluding other types of TLP servers.)

Server type A) Is an Agnarr-rules server that starts in classic, and when PoP drops it gets merged into Agnarr.

Server type B) Is, as Quill has suggested many times, a new GoD or OoW starting server, to which all the Agnarr (and thus server A) characters get copied (not moved).

This way there is always a classic-progression server for people to come back to and there is always a TLP heading toward live without having to redo classic for those who want that. Agnarr acts as a sort of hub server between them and stays healthy with a constant stream of new faces coming and going.

And the release cycle can allow for plenty of rules variants, event, or other servers in between them, as well as trying various ruleset schemes with the type B servers.

I'd say one year between the type A "feeder" servers, so there's always a new early-days server for people to come back to, and at least two years between type B servers, which gives the PoP era people plenty of time to get farmed up and increase to viable population levels before the type B server open.

Also I suggest we name the first type B server "Quillmane" in honor of Quill who champions the idea against constant naysaying and insults.

I think i have a solid alternative. Leave Agnarr alone, it is PoP locked and everyone there signed up for that and i honestly don't get why anyone thinks that it needs to change. I don't however, see a problem with having a new start that merges into Agnarr every couple years. Not a great anniversary idea though.

Quill, for a krono, I will also post in favor of your dumb let me continue off agar ideas. Hit me up.

“The introduction of this expansion in early 2004 was beset by numerous serious quality issues. John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has described the release of this expansion as "SOE's worst mistake in five years"”

I never thought I would see the day that people wanted to start at GoD.

Feel like TSS is the expansion you should start at if you really want a “modern” TLP.

I understand your position. And I love that Agnarr is locked I plan on staying there forever. Only now is my first toon arguably 100% best in slot, but even still there's a years worth of sidegrades and rare niceties I'd like him to have.

The feeder servers are more important to me than the Quill server, but I think both would be incredibly powerful for maintaining subscriber numbers, especially in conjunction with one-another and the long term financial viability of EQ should be paramount to all of us.

I know bashing him is so hot right now but I think he's been right all along, but only in conjunction with a feeder server. And for the record I don't know him and have never spoken to him.

I agree that TSS is a great place to start a server but if you look at the player base, PoP is really the biggest dividing line between what people consider their home era, pre-pop or post pop. PoP was the culmination of classic EQ and the major tonal shift from GoD onward was a very different game in, I'd venture to say, most people's eyes.

I would argue PoP is more of a tonal shift from classic than GoD ever was. Especially given Agnarr stopped at LDON not PoP.

Fast travel hub, extreme focus on 72 man raiding, maps, instanced dungeons, etc.

What GoD brought instanced raids and that’s when things changed from classic (ignoring LDON raids, I guess)? Nah, PoP/LoY/LDON IS when the game started to shift, not a wrap up.

There should only ever be one locked Agnarr-rules server... Agnarr itself. That server then acts as the fork point for spawning future servers to continue its Progression, and saving the data of previous servers.

Example: If you have a TLP Server like Coirnav, it should just continue on, not be locked, but its character data gets saved to Agnarr just before it unlocks GoD, so that character data can be re-used on either future server starts, or future forks. It becomes quite literally the equivalent of a Save Point in a video game so you do not have to start from scratch every time a TLP comes around.

Another Example that doesn't involve Agnarr: Imagine that you have a SoF-locked server called Faydwer. Just before Phinny opened SoD, it should have saved its character data to Faydwer. Now, you can come back to Faydwer and play those characters through to SoF-endgame. If another server reaches SoD, it should receive Faydwer's character data just before that opens. Now you can choose to either continue playing Faydwer, or progress your character through the expansions SoD or later.

I agree on this. You certainly want Classic-Start Servers, but not Every. Single. Year. Or as some people want, two this year #yikes.

You need to be providing different options or you're just going to burn people out, not just on Classic Servers but Progression itself. Its simply unrealistic to expect people to go 1-25, but if you can break the expansions up into eras, and provide mechanisms for starting or jumping to servers in the different eras, then someone can play the era they want on a much shorter timeframe than trying to just go from Classic to Live.

Correct, but as stated, i'd have a locked server at the end of each of the four major eras. Agnarr was just the first. The point is to be able to play the game somewhat non-linear and jump into the era you wish to play. And you don't really need the full progression treatment, as you can just pick up characters as other servers get to that point.

Even if the characters are not played on say Faydwer, that's irrelevant to the fact that they can be used to continue progression on either later server starts, or if another server gets to that point.

Right... whatever forked server you come up with can have its own distinct ruleset. It would also provide far more options for Event Servers.

PoP was the culmination of the initial portion of the game... where you met, fought, and defeated the Gods, essentially becoming one yourself. LoY and LDoN were filler expansions

They finally finished the travel system they had been working on since Kunark, the raids became their maximum level of difficulty along with getting structure, they finally implemented a map system, and provided a new way to group in instances. LDoN and LoY were more fill-in-the-blanks than their own start to major new multiple-xpac storylines. Ideally, they come before PoP, but we have what we have. Those two expansions were more rounding things out before moving on.

End of an Era.

GoD then took the storyline and went alien with it along with providing Instanced Raiding.

Start of an Era.

That would prob be fine too but I think you underestimate how many people want to do classic every year. And how vital a fresh "classic start" server is to bringing people back to the game who haven't played in a long time. My server type A idea solves that issue without fragmenting the population as much.

Also, allowing people to copy away from Agnarr without having constant feeder servers moving people to Agnarr, undermines the population of Agnarr, so it would have to be pretty frequent either way.

But ya, having "save point" servers in every era would be really good for the game. Though I feel that the other save point eras would be far less popular than the PoP era.

Go ahead and start a server at GOD, but everyone has the same starting point. They would NEVER, nor should they, start a new server that gives a handful of people a leg up. A server like that would be a ghost town that no one would play on.

I disagree. I think a lot of Agnarr players would copy (not move) there. And if we set up as I proposed in the initial post it would provide a clear path to catching up to live on servers with healthy populations for each level range.

Lots of people buy heroic characters also. So instead of select people being allowed to copy your players, just make everyone buy a new one. It’s stupid to start a new server that gives some people a better starting point. Start at GoD with something like the auto 51 server had. More logically to just auto grant everyone a character than just some people.

But a new server that just players of Agnar get rewarded? nope.

No to our annual new server being dedicated to people that are having regrets on a decision they knew what the outcome would be.

Continued the LDON story and raid instancing.

You look at the trilogy and then PoP and they are fundamentally different. The MMORPG world started to change in 2004, but GoD is not an expansion that fundamentally changed how things were played, better argument would be LDON was the expansion that changed everything. Even then PoP is the largest standout of when the pace of the game started to fundamentally change and raiding clearly became the major focus.

I have maintained that a series of servers that lock at various eras would be the best solution. This allows people who only want to play certain eras the ability to do that at their own pace without falling behind. Then, DBG can implement rules for how characters may transfer up servers to higher eras if they want, creating a new revenue opportunity.

For example, I have no intention of playing a server that'll progress all the way to live, so might not roll on the new servers if they will both progress that far. I know many other folks from my time on Agnarr who feel the same.

Right, because there won't be anyone actually progressing to fall behind.

This would effectively kill the TLP's as there will be no point where there will be sufficient population to move forward with progression. Everyone will be completely spread out across 25 expansions trying to do their own thing.

I think you misunderstand. I know Quill seems to have regrets but I have none. I'm super happy with nothing but Agnarr forever. I just think a system to stop fragmenting the population so drastically and push people together, while also giving a constant flow of "young" servers for returning players to come back to would be healthy for the long term profitability and survival of Everquest.

The fact that those "young" servers get merged into Agnarr, and later the GoD+ era servers get merged into their "save point" servers is just a way to keep the players together in their preferred eras.

I think there are a lot more 1) than 2). That's why the keep introducing progression servers.

Also, population doesn't have that much to do with how many servers there are. It's more about how interesting the content on a current server is. Many of us have characters and guilds on all or almost all the TLP servers along with many live servers as well. We play in the eras we enjoy and not so much in the ones we don't.

I played on Phinny, Agnarr and Ragefire over the last few weeks. I enjoy each for it's own dynamic. Don't force-merge!

Not true.

Mercs and regular boxing mean unless you suck at the game, you can do whatever progression you want, whenever you want, for as long as you want. You can actually play the game.

Incorrect. The locked servers would have the benefit of freezing progression at a specific point and in turn piling people up for a departure. That's what they fundamentally do. Any Other server that gets to that point is going to both dump a ton of players on said server to save their progression at that point, and pick up a ton of players whose progression was frozen at that point. You're basically building up characters at specific Progression points, that can provide an influx of players for servers that get there.

Think of it like a cruise ship going around the world. It stops at various spots and people can both get off and get on for the next leg of the journey. You don't necessarily have to start at the very start of the journey, and go until you reach the very end point of the journey.

Right now, with TLP, going 1-25 is pretty much the only way, and you'll bleed people the deeper you go and burn people out primarily seeing only the first leg of the trip.

And? Its TLP... If they're playing, they're paying. Its one of the reasons starting off with mercs(just up to J1) with GoD and regular boxing is ideal. At that point, there is no try. Pretty much anybody can torch the game with that scenario. I know that offends hardcore sensibilities, but its already the norm on Live and where the entire game has moved with a very concerted effort on the Devs part to make that happen. It wasn't some accident.

And if you can free people up from the constrictures of LFG and allow freedom of play throughout the game, you'll pull in a lot more people than just the early TLP crowd.

Simple fact, you simply can't depend on real PC's for groups unless its the early days of the server. This isn't the old days... and even then lets be frank, LFG and making groups suuuuuuucked. Like Loot on Corpse, its something that can and should finally be put to bed and never woken up.