Agnarr is the place for new/casual players currently, and probably for a while

These stupid threads of my server is better than yours are getting old.

fixed

Some people play on multiple servers. Some of those people even play radically different on their different servers (raid main on one server, box crew on another, etc.)

Bashing a server you don't like playing on, or the idea of playing on is kind of a silly waste of time. Just don't play there.

Saying what is great about a server and why you play there and encourage others to come join makes more sense.

PoP era is great to bounce around on with no fear of it going beyond after I take a break for a long time. If I get the urge to play beyond PoP I go to live to screw around in. Works for me.

These threads are 10000% the result of DBG releasing these servers on top of each other. It was stated after phinny came out by a LOT of people on these boards that they can't go to the well too often, or the servers lose their appeal.

They have devolved from being something we see every few years, where players feel like they can settle in and develop a toon to basically they are all event servers now until the next one comes out.

It was stated well before that, when Ragefire and Lockjaw came out, while Fippy was still running. But most of you didn't care then because you aren't playing on Fippy. Funny how things work out when the shoe is on the other foot.

Quit being reasonable!

the "Most of you" that you refer to had long bailed on Fippy when RF was announced.

There were 3? years between Fippy and RF/LJ? Phinny came out while RF was in Kunark Lol. And Agnarr/Coirnav consecutive years after that.

I get wanting the yearly cash bump from a business perspective, but it does make choosing a long term server a bit more complicated when every year there is another new shiny TLP. At the very least they should have varying rulesets to help drive server loyalty. /derail off

Agnarr should be an Intro server, level to 65 and bail to live or stay cause you love PoP /shrug. Great for noobs.

Yes, obviously. And yet, the same arguments apply now as then. If someone wants to play a brand new server, who are you for wanting them to not launch one so your current server pop stays intact? This was what I was told over and over when I argued for letting Fippy finish its journey to live before a new progression server was launched.

The fact is, undercurring current servers is part of the model now, is going to continue, and thinking about these servers being long term investments to journey with all the way to live is not realistic.

This isn't the argument, the argument is that Agnarr is a dead end server; which it is. When Coirnav gets to Potime, you'll still be raiding Potime, When Coirnav gets to GoD and OOW, you'll still be raiding PoTime.

If all you ever wanted to do was raid Plane of Time, Agnarr is the server for you, its active now because PoP just came out.

Classic and Kunark are awful raid expansions, and there are more raid guilds than you think who simply don't post their progress. This is the 3rd time in 3 years that people would have done Classic, Kunark, Velious, Luclin and PoP, but it will only be the 2nd time in 3 years to do LDON, GoD, OOW ect, if people want to play past PoP, Coirnav makes sense. If they want to do all of the previously mentioned expansions for the 4th time, the new server will be for them, if they want to raid middle of the road later expansions, phinny is for them, if they want to be stuck raiding PoTime for all eternity, Agnarr is for them. To each their own really, but despite the lower population on Coirnav it will be just fine, i've spoken to a great many people who've specifically told me that they want to raid post-pop and thats why their on Corinav instead of Agnarr.

It's pretty clear that Agnarr, Coirnav, and older TLPs are competing for players, which gives rise to propaganda like this.

Agnarr is far from dead, but sure, anyone considering playing on it should know that the road stops at LDoN. If this isn't your thing, Agnarr isn't for you. On the other hand, if you want to come back for a few months for the nostalgia, LoY just opened. You'll have no problem finding groups. SoL leveling takes place quickly through the mid-20s in Paludal Caverns. It may also be possible to get groups in classic dungeons such as Upper Guk or Unrest. PoK tomes trivialize travel between these sites.

Coirnav has an actively grouping and leveling population. The XP rate on this server is more classic (slow) than Agnarr. Even so, the high-end game is pretty close. If you want to play for more than a few months, or eventually experience content beyond LDoN (in a year and a half), this server is a good fit. Travel is done via teleport. Commonlands are still used to auction.

Phinigel had TSS open a while back. The server is very established. Maybe someone playing on it can speak to the relative ease of finding groups. If you want to level up from the TSS zones, try out Phinny.

Ragefire and Lockjaw are other TLP options. I know little about what these servers offer.

I just leveled an enchanter because i was sick of begging other people to make vials of mana, so I can speak to this.

Since TSS, exp is increased to live rates. Between that, hotzones, and defiant gear, its easy and fast to solo yourself into grouping range with 75s. At that point, join a guild and you can finish leveling in groups. Lower level groups do occasonally exist, but aren't really needed. It's also relatively common for someone PLing to invite you to join them if you happen to be in the area.

On the 76% bonus exp weekend, it took me not even 2 full days to solo my enchanter to level 60, so you will be grouping in no time even in the worst case scenario of not finding anything at low levels.

The real draw here, though, is the modern, much more interesting raid content (which will only keep getting more challenging and fun)

The whole idea of a server going to Live is unreal in and of itself. The notion that people play most games, let alone EQ, start to finish is absurd. I mean, what's the average lifespan of someone playing EverQuest? 10 years, 7 years? 5 years? Nah, it's probably closer to 1 year max.

Agnarr isn't losing droves of players to Coirnav. Coirnav isn't going to loser players to Lockjaw, or any sort of crap like that. Players leave these TLP's, largely, because they're leaving EverQuest.

I wouldn't say in droves, but we're seeing a rise on returning or even brand new players on Ragefire over the last couple months from Phini and Agnarr.

I can only speak for Phinigel because that's the server i'm on, but if you look at the numbers, it would be surprising if Phinigel *didn't* make it to live at this point. (besides the obvious fact that it isn't kill based to begin with so it *will* make it to live regardless. But i would consider that cheating.)

We know from last-gen progression servers, that the way a server dies is if it gets down to 1 raiding guild and that guild still loses enough players to be unable to field a raid force.

If you look at the number of active raiding guilds which peaked at 23 in Kunark and Velious, we only just now have reached 14 which show that the "half-life" of a guild on the server is at least 8 expansions.

If we assume there will be 2 more expansions released beyond what exists now and generously rounding up to 2 half-lives from 14/16ths, that means the server will expect to have 3-4 guilds make it to live.

I'll bet it's closer to 10 than it is to 1.

Wrong way to look at it.

Not all expansions are equal for attrition. Sure if you look at the entire stretch you might think the "half-life" is 8 expansions. If there is even such a thing.

Look at OoW to TSS (19 guilds down to 13) and there is a completely different picture. Attrition is higher now than it was pre-OoW, and it's only going to continue to accelerate. For most of the 13 remaining guilds, they are running at lower #'s now on raids than they were six months ago, and for many of them, the #'s they are running now will not be sufficient to beat content going forward. I expect even Solteris is going to prove difficult or impossible for guilds running ~35, and that's going to speed up the rate of guilds collapsing.

I agree. Most of the people I play with have been playing for 15+ years, one way or another.

Actually, that stretch is perfectly consistent with my way of looking at it.

Initial number of guilds = 19
Number of expansions = 4
Half Life = 8

Half Life Calculator

Result

quantity remains, Nt = 13.435028842544

Neato!

You can play around with it here: https://www.calculator.net/half-life-calculator.html

Also, people said that *this* is going to be the expansion where all the guilds are going to fail about so many expansions by now that I will believe it when i see it.

It's almost like most things in life follow simple mathematical patterns, generally. Particularly things which involve aggregating a whole bunch of people which smooths out variance.