Why not just open up Esianti to no flagging? It's a t1 zone anyway that is accessed by a T1 zone. No change needed to anything else.
All TBL except maybe mearatas should have been opened. But don't hold your breath. Terrible progression path, idea, and development.
I would love static Plane of Smoke open after completing 1 trial. I swear 40-50% of players who own TBL have not completed at least Ashes Trial. It's *that* bad.
Just one guy, but wanted to say that when I came to the game after a year away, and I read about the flagging and locked zones of the TBL ex-pack, I passed altogether and never bought it for my four paid accounts. I love EQ, and I don't mind the idea of progression (I did TDS prog and enjoyed it but not for ALL of my characters...it was just too much). Everything I read about TBL turned me off. The team knows what expansion types work for the player base overall, but as a casual boxer/grouper, I have zero interest in overly scripted events and onerous progression (example, if you lock all 5 zones in a 6 zone expansion, I am not buying that expansion anymore (I have in the past)).
Completing TBL progression for zone access is quite satisfying but only if you have the right classes. There are a few tasks/missions that require competent crowd control and tankage. If I didn't have a 110 enchanter and a EM25 beast pet, I probably would not have made it to Mearatas. I would wait until ToV is released to see if the gear, spells, and AA gives players more of an edge. I just hope 'Relic Raider', 'Delivery', 'Strange Magic', and 'Remodeling' missions do not scale with level 115. I always have trouble with the 'Dooming Fire' spell from Guardian of Doomfire - perhaps you need a real healer/tank for the final leg.
This was asked for when it launched and never happened. A T1 zone should never have been locked behind progression in 2 T2 zones.
I think Daybreak would earn a lot of goodwill with players if they just admitted that TBL was a disaster as far as progression and opened up all the zones (except Mearatas). They could just write it off as a lesson learned and move on. There were so few zones in the expansion that locking most of it off was idiotic (like refusing to unlock the TDS zones after all this time).
The right design for TBL should be the following: T1: Stratos, Esianti open for all T1 Locked: Static Plane of Smoke opens after 1 trial T2: Empyr open for all T2 Locked: Aalishai opens after 1 or 2 missions. Mearatas* opens at current progression. *Mearatas should have been a T3 and not T2 zone. I only issue I see is that no matter the schedule, most T2 named are on the very difficult end for casual players.
