How to get TLPs to survive past PoP with a solid population

I'm not disagreeing with the assessment. And I agree wholeheartedly with a lot of the key points. On a personal note, I find it frustrating when a server no longer can support a full individual grouping experience and the extra individuals are replaced by zombie (automated or non-automated) boxes.

The lack of sociability and the boxing mindset makes it very difficult for any returning player (Or new player) to join an already in progress server without having to resort to boxing themselves. Which, in my opinion is as much as the server communities (As well as EQ's global community) fault in this acceptance.

That's just me complaining though, but to make a point to Gnothappening, in other MMO's, you can very easily solo your way to max level, but to do end game content, you absolutely need other people who more or less pay close attention to the gameplay to complete end game content. Sure, the content may be more difficult (In comparison to EQ), but at no point are you, as a player required to input anymore financial responsibility beyond the (possible purchase of the game and a) monthly subscription (If the game has one that is). Anything else the player chooses to spend on the game is simply fluff for the most part.

You want them to live past PoP? Based on my experience with TLPs the answer is somewhat simple.

PoP LoY LDoN launch together
OoW DoN Launch together
DoDh PoR Launch together
TSS and TBS Launch together
Remove group progressions for SoD and HoT (keep raid progressions)
Make an FV rule server ( I know a lot of people not going to new TLP's because why bother for the same exact thing as Mangler )
Once you hit the "Year Long Expansions" reduce lockouts, it is pretty dumb to have a guild beat basically 12 months of gear farming in Underfoot in 3 months with 5 day lockouts, should be down to 2 days that way if you are running even a 3 day per week raid schedule, every raid day has every option available.
Remove MoTM (no one enjoys this mechanic especially pet classes who end up getting all the pet agro on themselves, not to mention druids who can rip agro off any warrior by just casting all 3 resist debuffs in PoTime)

Agree up to that point

Disagree with that, both SoD & HoT progression is easy.

I don't object to FV rules TLP, but the devs already said they won't do it.

Reducing lockouts doesn;t really help the majority, only the super hardcore types, doubling loot is better & they already did that for Underfoot on TLP - as for beyond that it hasn't been an issue to not have double loot in HoT/VoA/RoF/TDS & with teh currency changes TLP should be fine - my only concern for Phinny is when we unlock EoK which I think should be moved from 8 weeks to 12 weeks or have the loot doubled on the visible slots or a template added so that we don't have to constantly go back to EoK for gear once we are in RoS/TBL for returning members.

No one enjoys it yet it was necessary to prevent the pet walling mechanics that become endemic, if there is a fix that prevents that BS cheesing then fine, but that will also mean a nerf is required to melee dmg in the early expansions to accompany the removal of the focus effects for casters.

Here's a reason.

A majority don't give a s-h-!-t about EQ past POP.
There are better games to play.

Case closed.

Keep listening to the 1% raiders that worked well in 1999 - 2003 and onwards.

I haven't found that to be the case. Harder? Maybe. I'm 5 boxing on Phinny with no outside assistance. It ain't that hard.

Ya, I agree. I have been 6 boxing on Ragefire since Kunark and we ar in SoF now and I haven’t encountered a group encounter that I can’t do and I have never botted. Alt tab and EQ in game hotkeys only.

Yes that is why Maelin held 3 top tier raid guilds with no boxes from TSS to SoD and there were many more servers with 1 to 2 guilds completing that content. That is why the dev's said the population was 50% live and 50% TLP. Hard to imagine 50% of the EQ population being the 1%.

The simple answer is level locked content versus expansion locked content.

Folks won’t quit in PoP if some of its zones are unlocked at level 60; with Elementals and Time opening when 65 drops that also unlocks Zerkers and Upper tier GoD raid zones all at once.

BS

At least on Phinigel, I can't give numbers for other servers though it's a fact a majority don't stop at PoP at all.

PoP - 22 guilds actively raided & completed expansion

GoD - 18 guilds actively raided & completed expansion

4 out of 22 guilds did not go past PoP on Phinigel - that is most assuredly NOT a majority.
...........

When had a majority of guilds left after PoP?

Secrets of Faydwer had 8 guilds complete the expansion & that was the first time since PoP a Majority of the PoP guilds actively completeing content from PoP era had gone.

..........

ergo please stop spreading fallacies, fake news & misinformation - thank you.

People say this to me all the time in this argument. If you are not having any issues, good for you! But the fact remains, there is a large percentage of the EQ TLP population that just want to hit a few buttons and feel like they are contributing. Maybe you don't see this very often because you 5 box?

There is a massive difference between player skill beyond PoP, when rotations and AA cooldowns become a much bigger factor.

You've got this backward imo. If DoDH and PoR launch together you are stuck doing PoR content for three months--people won't want to go back to dodh raids for lesser gear except when PoR is on lockout and there's nothing else to do. Likewise TSS and TBS, guilds would skip the TSS raids and just raid TBS for three months. You'd get through these expansions faster this way, but you'd skip the better content in favor of the really bad content.

TBS is a pretty decent expansion that can stand on its own just fine. 2 months instead of 3 as a non-level increase expansion works just fine here.

But for PoR, I'd rather see PoR and TSS launch together. People can go hit PoR now and then to give some variety to Ashengate/Frostcrypt. At 75 the non-timed events in PoR will go a little quicker. There will still be some motivation to do PoR for the circle clicks but you won't be stuck doing only PoR for three months, and you probably won't be doing it every time the lockouts are up since there'd be so much to do. 30 minutes of A-Ro clicks every five or seven days for three months is soul crushing.

The majority of the gear from PoR is very slight upgrades other than the circle of # items, and DoDH has 2.5's, but content wise I think guilds would raid both happily rather than only sticking to just PoR for 3 months, PoR (Theater of Blood + Deathknell) was getting done in a single day.

Those folks aren't boxing then, are they? I see this discussion going downhill...

This is completely wrong, DoDH and PoR are roughly the same tier of loot. DoDH has better visibles and better weapons, including 2.5s. PoR has better non-visibles including circles clickies. They both drop the same cultural last bloods. DoDH has easier progression and a better volume of loot in Demiplane then PoR as well. If DoDH and PoR are released at the same time guild will be doing both of them.

On the other hand TSS gear is a clear step up from PoR. If you release PoR and TSS at the same time the only reason to do PoR is for circle clickies and given how annoying PoR progression is, not to mention how annoying the content is, most guilds are gonna skip PoR entirely and just wait for TBS to get circle items from Solt.

TBS is a very low content expansion. There is a single raid zone. The progression for the entire expansion takes about 3 hours. There is no level cap increase and zero AAs. There are a couple of minor group things you can do (Urn/Spec illu/hand aug) outside of that there is nothing to do but log in once a week for Solteris. If you release TBS and TSS at the same time you are going to do TSS because even though most of the gear is worse there are a couple of pieces from TSS that are still BiS plus what else are you going to do outside of the 3-4 hours a week you are in Solt?

I think the next server with a good chance of having a decent population in later expansions is gonna come after Phinny and Selo hit live next year. Hopefully they do either a condensed unlock server, say 2 month unlock with PoP + LDoN, OoW + DoN, DoDH + PoR, TSS + TBS combined or they do a TSS start server. Preferably with double loot.

People are always going to drop out. Very few people play the same game for years and years. Let's say for example the average time spent on a TLP is a 1 year, then you have to come up with other options.

Grouping Kunark and Velious together would also probably help. One has good group content and bad raid content, the other is bad group content and overstuffed raid content. Also both expansion have rather large attrition as initial rush burnout sets in and the content isn't compelling as Luclin.

The reason I left the last TLP I played on that wasn't Agnarr was because I didn't like the later expansions much. Didn't like most of the level design, didn't think the expansions zones had a lot of personality, and didn't think they were very friendly to casual players for the most part.

I think that might be the case for a lot of people who play on them. Hard problem to fix.

Out of interest which expansions have you played through?

Over the years I came back to live several times. Seeds of Destruction was probably the last one I put some real time into.

Make the next EQ expansion take place after POP instead of for live.

not sure if this is even possible and yes I know no one from Live will be for this idea. don't hate, its just an idea.