Ewww... Just writing off progressions servers at an arbitrary population level though? No thanks. If it's still getting cleared, it is doing its purpose.. being a progression server. Part of the TLP experience (for some) is actually trying to do things as they were meant to be done. Yes, one could play on a live server and "experience" older content.. much of which would be rolled through by levels and available gear. If they even wanted to go this route, I'd rather see something more like: a level 85, 90, 95, 100, 105, 110, 115 server set. As is, we may be down to 2 guilds remaining on Ragefire, but all content through CoTF has been cleared.. except maybe the PoWar raid. I don't foresee any real issues arising until TBL (Ragefire must still clear all events to unlock the next release) at level 110. At that point, a merge to live wouldn't be too bad, But that is a year off, probably level 125 on live, and we'd be getting sniped left and right. Progression servers have always had a "large" base that runs about a year, then starts up again on the next flavor. Selo's really kinda broke the mold first.. being the fast pace it was.. but Mischief brought a lot of allure and has held onto a large population post GoD. Vaniki has a lot of flavor, but it was trashed non-stop here by Mischief clone and vanilla seekers. For the most wild experience on a progression server... that's the one. Only thing better would have been maybe if it was free trade. Unfortunately, my comment above would never see fruition.. as the cost of maintaining a server wouldn't align with maintaining so many steps. Even the current progression server formula will eventually become unmanageable. Vaniki is unique and will hit "live" status faster than most. With ~5 years between launch to live, and 2 servers/year, They'll have 10 underpopulated servers per year (not counting Agnarr). Every year, a new expansion pushed that back 3 months. While it will take 4 years to add a single year (thus 2 more servers) it is ultimately not sustainable. I foresee several expansion "merges" to lessen this (OoW + DoN, DoDH + PoR, ToV + CoV, etc..) I'd be very disappointed if they came in and said we were merging to live. I wouldn't' be opposed to a RF/Mangler merge when they caught up to us (around TBM), but not with their Truebox rules. (Their unlock dates, our rule set). Or wait until Rizlona catches up around TBL era. I'd probably stop all together if they just merged RF (especially now). We are just hitting the era that was live when RF launched. I'd rather not be playing on a server that is six expansions ahead with level 100 Heroics instantly being on-par with where we're at.
I really liked the Ragefire/Lockjaw "original-ish" ruleset, it's too bad that was heavily overshowed by 18-24 mage bot armies running over things before actual players could clear it, in the Classic era. I started with a druid and made a lot of money on teleports, hill giants, and so on. But mana was a problem at the higher level and I couldn't solo much later in the game. So I made a single mage to box with the druid, and that worked extremely well. Healing, snares, DPS, pet tanking, it was all covered perfectly for the content I wanted to tackle. And then with all the money I had made, I made a monk, filled with tinkerer bags, and got into a raiding guild and had fun there as well. I only made it to the mid 40s on Phinigel and Yelinak. Just kinda lost its luster for me.
I can't take anyone seriously when they complain about developers (or anything else for that matter) while they have a half a page long signature.
Heh. The formatting of signatures suck on these forums. One quote was literally taken from this very thread, the other from a developer last beta.
How many raid guilds are there on Vaniki? That TLP server is less than 4 months old and it is already struggling. How can you call that a success? Thorneblade wants a server merge with Mischief and just about every TLP server is calling for at least relaxed truebox as there is a lack of players to group with. Care to explain this huge success of yours when so many servers are struggling? TLP servers want EQ classic NOT new content, why else would they repeat the same few expansions year after year after year after year.....
I'm a casual player and I have mostly low level characters (under 100). I would totally purchase an expansion if there was anything I cared about. Aren't there more players like me than there are of raid players? Some of the numbers posted (guessed at) above suggest there are. Why can't there be one expansion I can be excited about? ...I guess we don't know the specifics of this new expansion. Maybe there is something for the low level casual. We'll see.
If you are going by the numbers that Strawberry posted those numbers are made up to support their arguments and issues with them have been pointed out in other threads.
He was referring to guilds raiding "current content," which, prior to Secrets of Faydwer*, was usually only 1-2 guilds on a server. There were a lot more guilds over all, but they were stratified into generally 4 tiers: the 1-2 top guilds raided new, current content. Followed by 1-2 guilds raiding the previous content, followed by 2-3 guilds raiding the content before that, followed by 2-4 guilds raiding the content before that. E.g. during TBS it looked something like this on most servers: 1-2 guilds were raiding Solteris 1-2 guilds were raiding Ashengate/Frostcrypt 2-3 guilds were raiding Deathknell/Demi-plane 3-4 guilds were raiding Anguish/Nest (roughly on par with TBS group gear) SoF everyone moved up a level with the new top being Crystallos, but the group gear was roughly equivalent to AG/FC level which cut out the new bottom tier (DK/Nest), leaving a 3 tier spread. SoD the group gear was roughly equivalent to Crystallos cutting out the new bottom tier (Solteris) and leaving 2 tiers. On top of that, the expansion did not have a required progression like previous expansions and was the easiest expansion in EQ history. This further collapsed things and pushed almost all raiding guilds into current content for the first time. UF was tuned more or less like previous expansions before SoD (not counting the broken parts that made some events harder until they were fixed). Many guilds hit a brick wall in UF because they simply weren't capable of beating content of that difficulty. They either adapted or died, but from UF+ every guild is a current content guild aside from a small number of casual guilds / alliances that do older content. Of course, at this point more of the game has been under the new system than the old. If SoD if the dividing line: Classic->SoD was 9 years, and SoD was 14 years ago. *Technically this all started in TBS, but the impact wasn't really felt until SoF and then solidified by SoD. The old Rule of Three applies: (Once is an anomaly. Twice is a coincidence. Three is a trend).
So is the complaint here that we were given a status update and information on the new expansion? I'm a bit lost here.
It's so rude to be so dismissive. I'm looking forward to the next expansion. People have pointed out the other nonsense, but the game hasn't had guilds raiding hours "every day" for years. Luclin-Stromm even has a raiding alliance that raids once a week. They used to be years behind but kept pushing along. Now they raid current content.
What are you doing in a lvl 110 zone ? This is not current content, current content is lvl 120 zones atm in ToL. There are a lot of players on live servers that are doing group content only, and are group geared and max lvl, and playing in family non raiding guilds. Here is your problem, ton of characters under lvl 100. Choose the character you like the most, join a family guild on your live server, and progress it to max level grouping with others. If bringing a character to the max level is something you don't like / want to do, then Live server is probably not for you.
Holy crap who is raiding for 4 hours 7 days a week? Even with all 3 tiers out, most guilds rain 3ish hours for 3 days a week max. Upper end guilds 2 days 3-3.5 hours, and this time of year it's 1 day 3ish hours and done for the week. If I want to raid more than that I need to breakout an alt.
At this point, I don't think either can survive without the other. We know history. EQ before TLP was fading pretty fast. It has bottomed out on it's population. TLP was a resurgence to it's population and revenue. To deny that is to deny history. EQ devs weren't creating successful or popular content without TLP, why do you think they would now suddenly? EQ revenue is nearly split 50/50 between live and TLP. You take 50% of the game's revenue away and you're left with even more of a shell of itself and true maintenance mode. Finally, TLPs don't take nearly as much dev time as expansions do. You're seriously overstating the amount of dev time required for TLPs.
Agreed, extremely underwhelming producers letter yet. Worst in Jchan’s history as studio head. However, I do appreciate that they make them. But yeah, this one mentioned nothing of many of the most pressing issues. Leading me to believe that those isssues have once again fallen by the wayside to be neglected for another series of years.
You think the 110+ group game is most beneficial to high end raiders? What? Lol. If you are having a hard time in modern zones that is 100% your own fault and poor play. Group content for the past 3 years has never been easier, with catering to the casual players at the forefront of design. If you spent half the time you spend on these boards posting conspiracy theory and false “facts”, you might be able to partake in the easiest group content in years. You always seem to want to blame someone else. Get off yer soapbox and go play the game dude.
The numbers Strawberry’s gave were complete fabrication and not even close to the true numbers. By his calculations, Bristlebane would house 1/6th the entire raiding population of the game. Which is absolutely absurd. The same as his notion that guilds raid 4 hours a night every night. That isn’t a thing. That poster has a long history of making things up in an attempt to bolster his personal interests, fuel arguments, and stroke his oddly misplaced ego.
if your characters are under level 100, there's a whole progression of expansions for you to be excited about, they were made 8-10 years ago & some/many thousands of us beta tested them for you over the past decade
