With so many players that have asked for a TLP which has Beastlords & Berserkers in at the start and another bunch that have asked for a level-locked TLP combining the two at least to begin with seems to be an interesting TLP concept. So here's the pitch: AoC Level-locked Start All expansions up to GoD open at launch. Truebox - removed when SoD unlocks Free-to-Play accounts allowed on server when VoA unlocks Expansion Unlock schedule as below: Level 10 - Week 01 *Classic XP* Level 20 - Week 02 Level 30 - Week 03 Level 40 - Week 04 Level 50 - Week 05 *Progression XP* Level 50 - Week 06 Level 50 - Week 07 Level 50 - Week 08 Level 60 - 12 Weeks Level 65 - 12 Weeks *GoD XP* OoW - 08 Weeks DoN - 04 Weeks DoDH - 08 Weeks PoR - 04 Weeks TSS - 12 Weeks *Live XP* SoF - 12 Weeks SoD - 10 Weeks UF - 10 Weeks HoT - 10 Weeks VoA - 12 Weeks RoF - 12 Weeks CoTF - 08 Weeks TDS - 12 Weeks TBM - 08 Weeks EoK - 12 Weeks RoS - 12 Weeks TBL - 12 Weeks ToV - 12 Weeks The level & expansion unlock schedule is based off my own experience from Ragefire & Phinigel TLP servers. Please give constructive feedback.
I don't know about all the rest, but the idea of leveling locking to 10 for the first week is pretty interesting, just because people will form raids or strong groups to farm gear and I'm curious about how it'd go.
I don't see any interest in playing on a TLP server with the content past PoP enabled. So you will have to clarify what you mean by GoD enabled at launch. Level locking will not keep the overpowered items from dropping or being bought. I also don't see any interest in level locking like that. People could do 60 levels in the first week and many that play EQ enjoy that type of hard core leveling, why would you turn off those people by catering to an extremely casual small population? You can get to level 10 in 2 or 3 hours easily.
Then this server idea is not for you? Exactly what it means, Gates of Discord & all prior expansion content, classes, races, zones, AA will be open, but a level lock will be in place to provide a progression unlock system. This is at least one way that the devs could provide the often asked for Beastlord & Berserker at a server start which IS requested quite often without having to do any funky coding malarkey to move trainers, unlock classes from expansions etc. They would though need to figure out the level locking system so that IS a coding change I should think. It is not the intention of THIS server to do that in the first place, however the weekly incremental level increases will mean that a large portion of the player-base will be on an even footing by the time they hit the level 50 plateau so there will be a reduction in "racing ahead" by players who understand how to exploit effectively at least to begin with. This intentionally diverts from that old paradigm in the desire to create a novel experience for players.
Or.... You could just play on Mangler, which is releasing GoD in 9 days. Why does everyone always want a New TLP? There are more than enough right now, stop splitting the population.
You can raid in the very first week. What content you can raid as 72 level 10's might be very different to what you would raid as 72 level 50's though - but wouldn't it be interesting to find out what that would be like? Novel experience is the idea of the way this server starts.
Could you play a Beastlord or Berserker on DAY ONE of Mangler? That's one part of why this server would be different. And if the overriding concern was "splitting the population" we wouldn't have had ANY TLP to begin with and EverQuest would be in a lot worse shape than it is now. When you say this, it is out of the fear for the decline of the server that you play on, every TLP has people saying this. Fact is even if there were no more TLP they will all decline anyway.
People just love that sense of progression that early EQ offers, and the community progression with it. Those early and mid-level dungeons and a few outdoor zones are some of the best in the game. PoP for the most part feels like a sense of finality to character progression, where do you go after challenging the gods of the game? The developers from back in the day mention that it was one of the contributing factors to the population dropoff.
I'd want to see it, but probably only once. I'm guessing that it'd look like mages spamming pets against a mob that can one-shot them. And would it be all that fun for an army of level 10s to raid Upper Guk for a handful of items that will be trivial to get in a week or two? I dunno.
Even if you only did it once, it would be a unique experience. And if you hated it well only a few weeks to go until level 50 unlocks. It's a different approach that hasn't been tried before, only real way to know if it will work is to try it.
The reality is that Classic thru Luclin creates an economy that can be manipulated for real money transactions. Plenty of people would stick around past PoP if they didn't release a brand new TLP every year so people could restart their RMT machines WoW came out around PoP/GoD timeframe during original EQ, which was a huge part of the drop off, not the storyline being beaten or killing gods RMT is the issue and it will never go away, because now DPG has a model they can use every year for a huge influx of revenue via bags, XP pots, krono, etc
All i'm seeing is 4 weeks to go up 15 levels grind out close to 500 AAs and get through PoP progression, and ldon charm/explorer achiev. No one will be able to do hardly anything in Omens when Omens unlock.
The rest of your post is all subjective, but everyone agrees and the dev team at the time knew that they were in trouble. I'm just referencing interviews and posts, where they look at a combination of factors WoW's polish and appeal, EQ's age, and the story direction. It's pretty asinine to suggest that TLPs only do so well, because of RMTs.
In my schedule getting from 50-65 has 24 weeks - so how are you only seeing 4? Also, you can start doing LDoN once you are in the 3rd week of this server.
