Daybreak, will you be updating the Phinny FAQ to reflect the PoR change?

https://www.everquest.com/news/true-box-progression-server-faq-phinigel

I'd like to add some emphasis to that last line:

I've had trouble finding a response from a Daybreak employee regarding this change (I'm sure it's out there and I've just missed it, maybe someone can post a link that I can edit in later), but in full disclosure I think you should at least in good faith add an addendum to the FAQ warning that this clause does not apply to Prophecy of Ro.

Is Phinigel the first TLP that reached PoR and still had enough population for it to matter?

Phinny is the first progression server with the selling point of instanced raiding.

Yes, but PoR is substantially instanced already in accordance with GoD and beyond as originally happened; it's just that it's an anomaly with it requiring so much more flagging raiding on non-instanced targets. Or did this happen with GoD through DoDH and/or could it have happened except that they took action to prevent it, except they didn't for PoR?

That is correct. They instanced Uqua and Txevu, which were originally open world.

They instanced nothing in Omens, as everything was already instanced and the open world mobs were triggerable for flagging. Everything raid oriented was already instanced.

DoDH they instanced Vule, so that he was not a road block. Keleborn was still open world, due to the quick respawn and spawning on pick-up.

Planes of Power was instanced start to finish except for the competition pieces in PoStorms. While they were a mess, they were spawnable across picks as well. No one complains about competition, at least - not to a large degree... but when you can potentially be locked out of content for multiple weeks due to one lynch-pin mob, it definitely makes it frustrating.

Would be great to get a response, but in the past iirc they argued that "Big raid targets" does not mean "ALL Big raid targets" so I bet they aren't interested in changing it.

I think you have Uqua mixed up with Qvic. Pretty much all of the GoD zones that had a target, progression or not, were mostly instanced indeed. Even the goats would occasionally spawn inside the instance.

Correct, my bad, it was Qvic. Even Yxtta was instanced.

Even Riwwi was given an AoC.

Combine and Fippy both reached PoR with plenty of people still playing. However, neither of those servers had raid instancing.

I'm tempted to skip PoR entirely if it's not fixed. The loot isn't a huge upgrade. The only problem I can see is that enough skip PoR and forget to come back, I won't have a guild to come back to.

RIP Phinny.

They decided it wasn't Riwwi important to fully instance PoR, i guess.

So far, besides a 1-liner, two weeks ago from Prathun it's been radio silence on this topic which is Riwwi disappointing.

Prathun replied to the thread Test Update 03/06/18 - Patch Notes and Discussions.

I dig the pun.

Here's what really bugs me about the response and the radio silence. The earliest Relic I can find on a quick look through about a PoR reminder was from October (it was your comment actually!): https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...nigel-dodh-question-vule.244526/#post-3593294

And then, the day the last test patch notes were going to be released they locked the PoR AoC request thread, which was still pretty civil: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...ckjaw-por-instancing-request-reminder.246936/

Locking the thread + Prathun's "potentially" leads me to think we're not getting it at all. Which would mean Devastation for Phinny, and turn it into a Stronghold of Rage until TSS opens. I suppose there's some hope that it may "potentially" show up in the April update (2-3 weeks into PoR). I don't think this will be a Deathknell for Phinny, but it sure won't help.

I didn't go into the full detail of Devastation and Sverag and Relic in that thread though. And they did instance ToB (which i did mention). Is this whole thing my fault?

Definitely not, but if i had a time machine...maybe i would have been a little more specific

PoR hit at a bad time when development was focused on anniversary content. Live server content trumps progression content when it comes to priority.

If you guys pay attention to their development cycle and past progression servers, you'll see this same pattern.

I don't know about Combine, but on FIppy, it depends what you mean by plenty of people... There was still a population, but it was a fraction of what we had in OoW or even DoDH. 10ish active guilds killing in era content at the start of DODH, down to really about 5 at the end of PoR and 2 of those were seriously struggling and imploded by the end of tss.

Still a problem, still something they should be addressing. They sold us this server as instanced... they knew all of the content they would have to work on to instance from day 1... its not like any of these expansions are new or a surprise.

DBG is failing to hold up their end, and failing to offer the product advertised. I wonder why we should pay them during PoR since the product is not as advertised. (/ponders)

See ya

The problem is, they have two products. Live server content and progression servers. The development team isn't big enough to fully support both year round, however they have hired on more developers which is a good sign and hopefully things will improve this year. So they lay out their development schedule and figure out priorities based upon that.

Jan - March = New Anniversary Content mixed in with still fixing new expansion content.
July - December = Fully prioritize new expansion creation. Which they actually work on new expansion content all year long. They just push everything else out of the way usually at the end of July and focus directly on the new expansion.

At least that has been my experience with the company over the years. I'm not going to say that's 100% accurate but for the most part it's generally true. Now they do squeeze in progression server development in there but it's normally not something they prioritize.

If the TLP servers were Free to play on and supported by advertising or something similar... this would be less of an issue. However we are PAYING for this product.

It would be similar if say your cell phone carrier decided for 2 months you could only connect at 3G speeds. They're still billing you for 4G but you just aren't getting that service.

Its not like I've really been active lately so noone's gonna miss me.. but I have kept my sub active while I've been away. Probably time to do something about that...