Any news on new TLP?

If there is a FV ruleset, there should be a distinction between instanced and open world raid drops. Let the open world content adhere to FV rules while instanced content follows the standard no-drop rules.

I'm sure there would be lots of toxicity going on in open world, but it would prevent too much gear inflation and it would make open world more worthwhile and rewarding to race.

Wouldn't this require them to make separate item IDs for every raid drop in the game? Why bother? And why create additional toxicity for no reason?

Phinigel has been so successful because its been shown the vast majority of people do not want to do open world or to race. We want to raid on our own time, our way. And if I don't have time to raid for a few weeks, I don't mind buying a few krono to purchase that raid item from somebody else. Or spend my time farming other items to earn krono to buy the raid item I want.

A ruleset as I described it would be the same concept as Phinigel, except opening up more doors to those of us who have less time to play. FV is still probably the highest populated live server, so the concept has proven to be successful (yes they have instances there).

I firmly believe (with supporting evidence) that a Phinigel clone (truebox) server with a FV ruleset would produce the highest population with the largest longevity of any TLP ever created.

Why not a RESET button. The same way everyone does their 'voting' to unlock expansion - have a vote to reset the server back to a certain era, and with that - roll back the characters.

So you keep playing on all the other servers and let them start another Phinigel server from the beginning. it doesnt hurt you and some of the people that missed the first runs and/or are just bored can start again and enjoy the game until Luclin.

Not a chance I'd play on that server. In a game that is 100% about character development, having your character "undevelop" would be the worst thing imaginable. Think about how much people flip out when there is even an hour or two of rollback.

Thing is, there shortly will be an opportunity to relive the GoD-PoR era. It's coming around the same time to Phippy as this new server. And DON will be about five months after that. And then, there will be a second chance through these on Ragefire and Lockjaw a year or so later. So opening a new server at these eras doesn't make any sense, at least right now.

Uh, isn't that what starting on a new server is? I don't see a difference, because when people complain enough to get a new server - they are starting over.

If it were me personally, I would program it that if the reset button was hit based on a vote; the character would be locked/unplayable based on the era its in unless you click a rollback button (with confirmation) - so you're not really losing a character, its just unplayable until that era is open. This would prevent loss of character + abuse of out-of-era toons running about.

@beefeater
I am not against instancing at all, but the instanced raids make it so there is a ton of high end gear around. That is a fact that can't be argued with. With all that gear becoming tradeable, there would be a huge disparity between "haves" and "have-nots", a complete P2Win model, player retention problems, and guild drama (loot RMTing or members selling items they were supposed to wear).

It creates a snowballing effect. For example, take class only items that may have rotted due to the raid not needing them anymore. One guild has some extra now and the guildbank decides to sell. Some member of another raiding guild that hasn't seen that drop in their instance buys it and now their guild already doesn't need it as well, so any forthcoming drops enter the market. Now one of the best weapons is floating around everywhere. Meanwhile, everyone who is still leveling find themselves camping the SSoY in Lguk but no one cares to buy it anymore because there are better drops now. Multiply this going on for a few months times a large number of guilds clearing instances. If these items aren't attuneable and forever remain in the market, then we see more gear floating around than we do players.

Making items no drop on equip could help a lot. This would also help curb a lot of guild drama created through the resale of items that were meant for the player to equip. Hell, if they could be attuneable with an expiration date (item disappears if not equipped) that would be even better but I doubt the ability to do that exists.

However... can you imagine how amazing that would be to witness from the outside looking in?

To observe hundreds of people freak out over their characters being reset by a voting contest?

I can almost picture it right now... you'd have a faction of players form their own guild of like minded people that want to bring about destruction. They'd call themselves <Harbingers of Thule> or something because they seek to bring about fear and destruction on the server through forcing an intentional reset.

No, it's not, because all my old characters on old servers are still there and I can log them in and play them whenever I want.

It would be pretty epic in terms of the rage, I'm sure. Which is exactly why it is a terrible idea.

Rage never dies w/ TLP. People are always seemingly angry about how a server is configured, the progression is too fast, too slow, there are instances, no instances, etc etc.

My idea actually would streamline how TLPs operate if implemented properly. No longer would you have abandoned / ghost-town servers because people lost interest in that era. I reiterate that TLP got 3 boxes in ONE YEAR, while Live players essentially suffered with extremely buggy current content.

The reset option is not as apocalyptic as it sounds. It would restart back with classic era content, lock toons who are progressed to a certain point - w/ the option to roll said toon back. So you're not losing anything.

I find it actually funny that people would freak out considering they have no issue starting a new toon on a new server, but the idea of starting on a new toon on the same server or rolling back a toon that got reset is just blasphemous because that toon would be unplayable until the era opens up. Its totally psychological, because the amount of time you spend with a new toon on a new TLP server to "build" him/her up would be no different than the time you spend with a toon you created that you opted to roll back to replay; or you can sit there and stare at the character screen where the toon remains unplayable until you opt to roll back, that way - you don't lose anything.

Rather than suggest its a bad idea because its a game about character development, and you are essentially undeveloping, - why not give more reasons why this would be a bad idea, because as I explained before - what most of you TLP folks do already is no different than a reset button.

I predict that you are the only one who'd support that idea.

If you restart on a TLP, you do so by choice. If you have a forced roll back, deleveling your char, stripping it of gear - who would really want that? Particularly if it was in the hands of other people.

There doesn't need to be any further reason than this. This alone makes it a terrible idea. I don't have any other reasons to add.

So are you suggesting the votes to unlock eras are forced? By that logic you are. Your statement suggests no faith in the TLP voting system, perhaps voter fraud or manipulation of data? Moreover, read my thread carefully - you can leave your toon era locked if you want to save the toon from being rolled back; you just can't play it unless you opt in for the roll back. So, by that definition - that is called a choice, just like it would be a choice for people to cast a NO vote on a server reset.

The premise of my idea was to in fact give everyone what they wanted, so in the event a large group of people develop the hemorrhoid of boredom and want to go back to classic era - a viable option, in the hands of the players is available - without having to create a new server every time.

The ultimate moral of the story is a majority (not all) of the TLP-die hards are rarely satisfied. When I created a toon on Lockjaw, the incessant howling, moaning, groaning, whining and complaining was a turn off.

If you really want to play classic EQ, get yourself a desktop with a 56k modem, or 28.8-36.6k baud rate with a CRT monitor, Sound Blaster 16, A Pentium-Pentium 2 era chip (or a Cyrix 686 if you are really feeling frisky), and go to town with it. I don't even have a dog in this race, but I did find the thread amusing at least. Cheers!

But, just in case, I'll go ahead and give additional reasons.

First, it would do away with all leveling progression. Presuming that if you are at level 65 in PoP, and the server votes to roll back to Luclin, that would set you back to level 60. You'd still have all the luclin aa's already. No need to redo them.

Second, it would do away with flagging progression. If you roll back to Luclin in the above example, well, my character already has his VT key.

Third, it would do away with gear progression. Again, if you roll back to Luclin, I just go get my Luclin era gear out of the bank. If you roll back to classic, I just go get my classic gear out of the bank. And so on.

What would be the point?

Voting has proven on the TLP's to give no one what they want. There are good reasons they got rid of it and no one wants it back.

It's been said (including in this thread), 5 currently running progression servers in various states of health... if left running for the next 2 years will cover most expac eras post-PoP. That is a huge range of re-entry points, if one really wants a later progression experience.

The people least likely to want a classic-Luclin replay are already playing somewhere (or I'd estimate 95% are) and aren't going to do the summer progression server no matter the ruleset.

What none of the current 5 servers are capturing is the people that come out in droves for the classic launch of a new progression server, and tail off in big chunks by Kunark, Velious, etc. unlocks.

Phinny has done the best job so far keeping that population subbed and playing. Longer unlocks (4 months... 4.5 months, doesn't have to go 6 but probably could) keep this population on the hook longer. Better XP than Phinny probably does too --keep in mind much of this large potential player base doesn't do 5+ hours a night XPing, so Rage/Lock type XP would also keep them on the hook longer. The rest of the Phinny rules keep this population happy (truebox, instancing of raids to allow family guild raiding, etc.). There are numerous other ruleset variations and niche playstyles but I have yet to hear a pitch that sounds like as much $ for Daybreak. The above requires basically nothing new or special to do... that's probably a factor too.

People quit by the time servers get to those eras; I don't think there's any argument there. I believe they quit in sufficient numbers to prevent proper enjoyment of those eras, and where it's difficult to objectively qualify, is trying determine the reason, at least without large scale polling. A lot of it is due to the poor tuning of GoD, but I think part of it is also burnout on having to sit through early expansions.

Or is it actually possible that prior TLP actually did have enough people hang out til GoD and beyond? I guess "enough" is subjective, too.

I've been trying out Brekt, and, yeah...there's a guild trying to stick to OoW through PoR. They're doing OK, but yea...you need the server to be capped at that era to really be able to get people to focus.