Classic (Not Progression) Server Rule Set; For the Fans!

Corpse Retrieval was voted on for the last set of progression servers and it lost fairly badly (Someone correct me but wasn't it something like 80% of the population voted NO on corpse retrievals).

So while a few people like corpse retrieval the VAST majority of the Progression server player base voted against them.

I am on the fence about corpse retrieval. It wouldn't stop me from playing either way. I see the merits of it and everything, but I was late teens early 20's the last time I dealt with EQ corpse retrieval. I am 30 now and have a full time job and a family - I just cannot see the "aging" EQ population being able to deal with extensive corpse runs.

^ I am pretty sure I voted against Corpse retrieval for Fippy/Vulak...

I think I posted something like this earlier, but corpse runs would be a deal breaker for me. I can't devote time to corpse runs when I'm also devoting time to work and family.

I'm all for bringing back the social aspect of the game, but not this way.

You must mean luclin models? You are able to revert those models back to their original using the graphics settings in options before you login.

Was it Luclin? It's been so long . Good to know they are optional, thanks!

Holy crap!

If they would add a classic rule set server with hopefully the new current graphics which are in my opinion great looking and a maximum of expansions to just before Luclin, then I'd easily throw my $14.99 at this game again, in a heartbeat. I'll gladly restart!

There are no new MMOs on the horizon that interest me until another 2 year or so. (EQN) Of course then also a year later (Pantheon, Rise of the fallen) but, until then this server would be my home.

Will it happen? I doubt it, but one can only hope!

I know that it's not truly classic, but perhaps instancing all of the raid content while going back to the classic mechanics would actually create a best of both worlds experience.

I absolutely loved the competition in zones for exp and group level gear; the fear of getting trained even accidently and having to deal with CR while leveling up and grinding was what really appealed to myself (and I would guess to a vast majority of the rest). It was only when it got to raid content that the true evils of this style of game really hit most players.

Sure, there was always the rush of beating another guild to a raid mob - but as those of us who were there on the progressions servers sitting through the poop-socks and the political garbage that encouraged all manner of terrible behavior for the sake of end-game competition, there has to be a better way.

I enjoyed fighting over camps in Guk. One of the most fond memories I have as a player was when the small group of friends I had made leveling up in Neriak, Lavastorm, Runny-Eye (omg factioning so much there as a dark elf that the hobbits loved me), then Guk: finally taking over the Ghoul Lord camp and holding it for days as we made more and more friends and created a new guild and began the process of getting everyone SSoY's and FBSS (and eventually getting my very own SMR!). Running into a nasty Necro named Kegadin who repeatedly trained some of my more foolish guild mates who tried to take his camp and eventually becoming a "friend" of his.

I want that again, without the 3 day poop socks in Fear.

For me personally, instancing any old open world content pre-pop would be a deal breaker. Socking can be(and was!) real horrible, but other solutions can be explored much more thoroughly then taking the easy (and boring IMO) way out.

I only mentioned instancing because it's the only proven way out there to share raid content, albeit with it's own issues.

You had my curiosity, now you have my attention: go on.

Reduced spawn times, more targets (more than one expansion released at a time), fixed out of era mechanics that make certain encounters trivial or if not possible scale important mob targets to align more difficult to the current mechanics.
Nothing that really hasn't been suggested before. But way more preferable than taking away a huge enjoyment factor of going thru old content in the first place.

Instancing would be a deal breaker for me as well. Then again when it comes to EQ I like all the original rules, graphics and I don't care for the current state. There are dozens of MMO's working on the newer principles - I miss classic EQ. This is what I want to see. There is evidence out there to support a need for this which can't be mentioned on this forums for fear of moderation. I don't see why Sony has not after all this time created such a server. There is already progression servers for those who are looking for that bit of nostalgia without the old rule set.

I don't presume there to be an end all fix to what you describe. That is perhaps the price to pay for such a server ran by a company that stretches itself very thin and has all but removed itself from the first 4 or 5 expansions that made its cornerstone franchise legendary.

And don't get me wrong...ALOT of our very own eq gaming community is deserving of blame. The politics were never squeaky clean, but those ideas above are a consolation fix to today's gaming culture paired with our beloved development team (what's left of them?).
I'll take what I can get. But there's some things my nostalgia bias can't compromise on.

Problem with perm locking is it looks like they are undermining the last ten years of content and investing resources they don't want to invest. I believe devs hope that any and all players that could thrive on such an old school server can be brought back into the fold of their current regurgitated content cycles.

If I owned a business where there was a large following out there that prefers my ex-employees product (that I own the rights to) over the product I'm currently sinking money into to develop, I'm going to want to being them into the fold. Not necessarily out of spite, but it seems it takes a substantial amount of resource investment to execute. So how much money are they willing to spend to make a classic experience versus how much they "Need" to spend to keep pumping out current stuff.

That all maybe conjecture but that's my take on the refusal for anything "locked".
There maybe rumors of them giving in on that issue.

Been asking for this for since before Progression 1.0 (2006). I could spend the rest of my EQ life in the old world. Kunark and Velious would simply be a bonus. As someone who, for a year, spent 60 hours a week playing eq (plus working 40 hours a week), I am here to say that the content in classic is more than enough to keep a casual player busy indefinitely.

And since casual players historically make up 95% of EQ's customer base, it boggles the mind why SOE hasn't taken the chance on this. Or at least made the PC client available to hit the Mac Server (which is really a far more desirable outcome).

I seem to recall many years ago, a poll was taken to ask whether players want a 51/50 server or a classic server. The 51/50 barely won that vote; which is staggering when you consider 90% of potentially interested customers could not vote because they weren't subscribing to EQ at the time!

Your background is obviously not in finance or accounting. Firstly, let's remember all versions of EQ are owned by SOE.

Secondly, if you can sell something at a profit that does not eat into the profits (to a greater extent) of other products, and you choose not to do so, you are simply thrownig money and employment opportunities away; and as a result hurting the economy.

I played a lot in Progression 1.0; and for a few months on Progression 2.0.

As the average player becomes irrelevant, population drops. Pretty simple. This effect is unavoidable on a server with content that is constantly changing.

Firstly, you are correct. I hire others to do my accounting.
And yes, I realize eq is owned by SOE. My point is that staff has changed since 10-14 years ago. And their vision and focus for the game is vastly different then some of those who have moved on.

That's the big IF here isn't it?

We're all going on hypothesis here but I am going to disagree strongly on that point. You know why the server in question (I'm not naming it even though you have - it'll get moderated) has only a decent population and not massive? It's private, it's corrupt and rampant with favoritism and within weeks of joining you will quickly realize the end game is closed to you.

Have Sony put out this server and it'll thrive as well any progression server which also requires that fee.

No matter how much you claim that an era locked server will be the best thing ever to happen and will never have population problems shortly after end game for that era is beat is simply being either ignorant or naive. All mmo's have the same major problem, if you don't keep putting out new interesting content to captivate the player base they become bored and it gets harder and harder to keep them paying that monthly fee. When it's free players will naturally be more tolerant and willing to continue playing but when they have to keep shelling out that monthly subscription stagnation just isn't going to cut it and that is exactly what an era locked server will become rather quickly. You might have a small handful that are happy with it but keeping a decent population for any extended amount of time just isn't gonna happen.

Let's take a look at all the people on these TLP threads, a lot of posts about how the big guilds on flippy/vulak killed the tlp experience by locking down open world targets and not sharing so people quit. The same thing will happen on an era locked server no matter how fast they make the respawns, they want to be the best and when there is no more content those players will either quit (further dropping the population along with the ones that quit because they can't do the content that others have locked) or continue to lock down those targets because there is nothing else to do and so they remain the tippy top dog and it will be the same problems you claim the other server has. They can speed up respawns or instance that stuff then people will start crying because "it's not the way it was originally"....don't tell me they wont because they will.

Era locked server will be a flash in the pan, pretty at first but then become the ugly sister that SOE will wish they never created, look at how people are acting towards the current progression servers, so much i'll come back if they do this or they do that, if they merge flippy/vulak or start a new one and me and my 900 friends will come back and pay our monthly subs to play there. Now that you can transfer off vulak how many of those people and all the friends have come back and resubscribed, i'm guessing not many because merging the servers wouldn't cost them anything, with xfers they will have to pay....it's really amazing what will happen when things are FREE.

Any server made will have to appeal to the masses not just a small niche of that. It's the masses that keep servers/games going and if you don't appease them then whatever they do will not be sustainable. I'm looking at this reasonably, I really don't care if you spend 3 years never leaving Lower Guk but you have to think about the overall success of whatever new sever they make and i would rather see them make 2 new TLP servers (one for the hardcore players and one for the casuals) and not waste resources on an era locked server. With that set up, what they could do is simply recycle them when they reach their end and why not offer discounts to players with multiple accounts on progression servers. All this is pretty much a moot point anyways until flippy/vulak catch up to live and until Next is released and the newness wears off. I seriously doubt they would want to make any distractions from their new project they have dropped a lot of cash into.

Just make the progression a yearly reboot. It's the leveling up process before you have access to twinks and higher powered characters. When everyone is starting fresh, the game is a blank slate.