An Experimental Year in TLPs

Good points. For me as a casual, Planes of Power is the end of the road. Having to attend 4 hour Time raids is a deal breaker and an onerous barrier to entry. Then add in all the silly flags as well.

EverQuest starts off a group and partial solo game but morphs into the raiding experience that demands far too much of your time. I can guarantee you there is not one living dev that worked on PoP that has the time to spend 4 hours grinding in time in 2023.

EQ was never designed to be a raiding game but due to starstruck devs chasing the raiding guild dragon, that's how it ended up and that's why it utlimately never gained mass appeal like WoW.

It still isn't.

It has always had both group AND raid content, the only thing is lacks that most other MMOs have is a true solo-path through the game's levels.

This is contentious drivel.
The EQ devs invented raiding. they never chased any "raiding guild dragon" they provided guilds that enjoyed raiding with content on a yearly or faster basis.

EQ never gained mass-appeal in the way WoW did because EQ didn't have a baked in audience built up from a back-catalog of massive-selling single player games set in the same world, namely Warcraft 1, 2, 3 and it was not being made by a studio with pre-existing global sales of multi-million selling fantasy / sci-fi games like Diablo & Starcraft.
And WoW had the benefit of developers who had played EQ a LOT, they had been hired for exactly that reason in fact. Then WoW changed the MMO paradigm by having a much more solo-friendly game that bridged the gap between its 100% solo-game pre-existing audience & the community audience EQ & other early MMO appealed to, and then they added that famous Blizzard "polish".

Blizzard as a studio was practically a household name among PC gamers while 989 Aside from Twisted Metal mostly made sports franchise games and most of those for consoles.
989 housed the EQ dev team for the early development and Verant Interactive which was spun off from SoE out of 989 Studios to make EQ and later brought back under SoE was a completely unknown developer prior to EQ.

Oh and WoW, it had raiding content too right from the start.

TL;DR

"WC" on a door is TL;DR for you.

They’re going to make it achievement based TLP.

With rewards / currency to purchase claimable items on the account as you complete achievements.

This way it’ll keep the live population and other TLP coming back over for things they want to boost the population as new achievements get released.

“Defeat all named in Guk at level 40 to get X claimable or Y currency to buy things from a claimable shop. Bonus reward “hard mode” if you do it without a cleric.”

They’ll probably also add an achievement NPC to offer daily solo, group and raid achievements so they can push things out as they please and “control” the inventory or claimable / currency entering the game.

I'm from America, what's WC?

I keep thinking to myself that the new ruleset will revolve around achievements or challenges to some degree. I don't think they felt successful with Vaniki and still want to continue exploring and/or refining the concept.

I'd love to everything no drop all gear earned nothing bought.

Me too. I think there’s more to explore here with respect to achievements and useful rewards, daily rewards or “reward seasons” that rotate around.

It leverages existing populations to draw more live/TLP players into the fold - assuming the rewards / claims are worthwhile to pursue. Some on Vaniki are, some aren’t. But it allows minimal investment to create new challenges / adventures as needed.

There is a long list of things that are also possible including achievements that can be claimed for new characters as well. “Conqueror of Vaniki” as an example could be an AA or an item that can be claimed for all characters on an account that gives something “useful”, crosses class abilities or provides access to out of era skills. There can even be an epic achievement for completing epic 1.0 at 46 that could make the item claimable versus having to re-do it each time to create that class on the account; or allow 2.0 to be claimed out of era once you finish it in-era under certain criteria.

The list is endless, can be customized and leverages a lot of existing development that just needs to be organized in a way that players find it worthwhile to pursue.

I think Vaniki is the start of this process and the “experimental” TLP will be a refinement / expansion of the concept to support new TLP launches going forward.

They are going to go more Mischief more harder - Diablo style loot.

Maybe its a Unreal 5 engine remaster?

So after much soul searching and determining what could be the easiest and most effective TLP thirst trap for DPG... I have concluded...

Leaderboards. Either Titles or Mounts as rewards.
First guild to clear expansion
First of class to max level
First to complete epic
Ect

It's easy. It's not a lot of work for DPG, all they do is track the serverwide announcements or log files and populate a leaderboard. Titles cost nothing for development...Mounts... I mean if Quarm taught us anything it's that people will lose their job focusing on a mount farm.

They would probably have to throw a bone to the 95% of the server that wouldn't get these rewards... but is a lazy thirst trap that could be piloted on TLPs and moved to live.

Do I think it would be cool? Honestly yeah...but i'd like a little casual fan service... free trade? *beg*

Very well could be the case, although the rewards and the ruleset themselves would play a large role in it's likelihood of success. Players have tracked leaderboards outside the game on TLP's before - that is nothing new, the rewards and potential visibility in game would be the new feature.

I can't help but wonder how many people would roll on a generic Yelinak clone just for the leaderboards? I'm not sure I would unless the rewards were worthwhile and somewhat accessible. With my playtime being impacted by a full-time job, it's highly unlikely I'd land anywhere close to 1st in anything. Exciting for the hardcores, maybe not so much for everyone else.

Hopefully it's more than just that. Fun to brainstorm at least.

Yeah, they would need to put in some sort of achievement like reward for the majority of the server who wouldn't be the server firsts. I still think Free trade or Mischief style loot would be a pull, but maybe just... Start in Kunark.

They had a Leader Board for the Combine/Sleeper servers, and maybe for a short while for Fippy/Vulak servers (can't really remember if they did though). The biggest issue I see if they do tie decent rewards to server firsts it is going to turn into PetitionQuest and become a CS nightmare.

There's plenty enough drama without any rewards, I don't even want to imagine the kind of toxicity that would bring.

They did that on the 51/50 server Mayong was it? Titles for first kills ect.

All classes and races start in Grobb but cannot lvl till they reach their home city this year.

Escape from Troll Island? Nah we should start in Gunthak with nothing but a broken bottle if you're going to go that far.

I'd wager they make more money from the "recyclers" coming in for TLPs each year in just bag sales alone than they do from live players in a year.