I'm never going to play past gates of discord

I think you make a fair point. I'm just not sure that the right path is trying to force interest when it isn't there. Some people just won't be interested and there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

Oh boy. You do know there are 2 servers this year right? and 1 does indeed start in classic? So the "vocal minority" getting their way doesn't even effect you as the people who would roll on Vaniki are likely not even close to the same crowd that would roll on Yelinak or the other Phinny clones before it.
Servers becomes ghost towns because people leave or take breaks for a multitude of reasons and then when they get that itch back they find it is easier to come back for a fresh start than to try and catchup. If EQ had better catchup mechanics mid-late expansion TLPs would be less of a ghost town. The issue is (almost) no one wants to solo level up to max level or pay for a PL (if thats even available on the server) just to get caught back up to the population.

I would rather encourage than force, nobody enjoys anything that is forced anyway & this is still a game.
But when people are making a point of using illogical arguments to justify them staying in their comfort zone or trying to argue the rest of the game they do not want to play is just crap I feel obliged to point out just how bogus those arguments are.

Preferences are one thing, rational arguments are something else, by all means players can feel free to express a preference, I just want them to stop using fallacies to back up these choices, nobody even needs a reason for a preference after all.

I like killing Halflings more than anything else, I don't need an excuse.

Your reading comprehension needs some work. I said "THINK" should get there way, not gets there way.

And where does anyone in this supposed minority group believe they should always get their way? So far all I see across these boards is personal opinions of what the server "needs" and none of them were "Servers need to start past X era." It's always been garbage like needing FT, random loot, 1000 month long classic era, etc. If anything, your majority is very vocal on what is needed for these servers. If anything, the so-called vocal minority as you put it only wants to be heard once in awhile and a one-time server seems like a pretty good compromise considering that side-by-side with it is another more vanilla TLP format for your non-vocal majority.

Also, I THINK you need spell check. It's their, not there. Their is a possessive pronoun while there is an adjective.

Generally a company should do what the majority wants to make the most money so you shouldnt really be surprised at a classic start...

And I am going to go out on a limb and assume he is complaining that the vocal minority have cried loud enough to have shorted the pre-pop cadence from 48 weeks to 28 weeks, making lots of people who only want to play pre-pop wait longer for the next server

lol at more people playing past pop than pre pop... yea, you are correct. the number of people currently play is greater than 0... thanks for that quick math lesson

also you are making a lot of assumptions in your pps... many guilds started recruiting for the first time in late luclin-pop to be able to keep splitting/raiding as they had no need to do so in kunark and velious which would prove the opposite of what you said. high threshold alone does not prove your point and guild recruiting alone doesnt prove mine. also mischief has tons of different rulesets that may be keeping people around longer, helping people catch up, none of which are relevant to the "phinny clone" (which this isnt) argument

I couldn't imagine living life expecting people to do what I want at every turn instead of finding what I want and switching to that.....I guess that is why people are so miserable all the time because they get into situations where they expect people/things to change to suit them rather than to find something that suits them.

Prime example from my point of view. I played WoW day 1 and up until mid WoTLK. As someone that played Warcraft 1, 2 and 3 at release while dominating 2 and 3 online it was a no brainer to play WoW as I played UO, EQ, DAoC and a few other MMO's prior as well. When WoW classic was announced I saw that it was not going to be anything like November 2004 so I didn't play and I played other games.

When the last TLPs launched, there were more people playing post-POP than classic. When these servers launch, there will be more people in post-POP content than pre-POP. When 2023's TLPs launch, can you guess what will happen? That's right! More people will be in post-POP than pre-POP. And this trend will continue and continue.

Do you get it now?

Yep.. so I started early on the server when it launched, but wasn't able to play over the summer, really. Barely out of the gate anyway - came back during Late velious, but I had to level up.. So Luclin pretty much passed me by. I did manage to get somewhat caught up during PoP a bit and have done a bunch of GoD flagging since it's released. Just one more raid to go now.


It's actually not the leveling, solo or otherwise.. it's all the other requirements for flagging. My wife plays too and it's the same issue for her.

During PoP and GoD and probably later - if you fall behind at all.. you are almost dead in the water. Or trying to play catch-up all the time. I wasn't flagged for Elementals and am still not, although I can get into Time since I did that. Playing EQ in 'catch up' mode all the time, really isn't fun to be honest. Not day to day and week after week. I like to raid and don't mind the flagging, but I like some downtime sprinkled in there also.

The pace is just too fast for guilds to want to back-flag much and I get that. I think my guild is basically doing a single GoD flagging run through more or less. Not much time for anything past that, really. OoW isn't far off - so what's the point?

I think THIS Is why many ask for a 'slower' TLP with more space between the unlocks. It's not that many want to spend 24 weeks in PoP or anything specifically, but when your play time can be limited.. missing raids for flagging is like a death-knell of progression for people with limited play time. So I have to take a couple weeks away from EQ for house work, job, classes - whatever.. you come back and the game left you behind.

Somehow these TLPs post-PoP have ended up with a situation where you either stay on the train the whole time and don't miss a beat or get way behind.

Slower unlocks would allow for more people to experience the content - at the risk of boring others, of course. It's obvious the 'fast' servers get some attention for a while, but a slower server has yet to be tried just yet. Conversely; I have zero interest on playing on the 'fast' servers, just as much as some would never want to play on a 'slower' server. But people do exist on both sides!! I may not play as often as some - but I'll keep paying the sub month to month either way.

You can go grind whatever levels on Mischief now, no problem. But good luck trying to find a PoJ trial or Grummus raid. You might on occasion, but mostly - you are just as well to head straight to GoD and jump into Tipt trials. Of course many guilds are probably well past that already... So perhaps just get ready for OoW? You could do LDoN in the meantime, well.. probably not many LF LDoN groups now either.

Back in "the day" I recall more casual guilds still working on ToV, Vex'Thal, PoP stuff while GoD was current. But those casual guilds that lag behind don't really seem to exist now.

I think the issue the TLP servers have is that they are 'progressive' for 'progression' - but they forget about those that just enjoy the journey of EQ. I know some would love a slower paced TLP maybe half pace of what TLPs are now. I would definitely play on there personally.

Not because I *Can't* keep up, it's because I like to balance life and EQ, rather than just focus on one of the two. I tend to play EQ like a fiend through the winter months because I'm trying to catch up, then it falls to the wayside when I don't keep up with GoD and later flagging and it's better to just start up on a new TLP again. Sure PoP zones and others open up later with levels - but by then, what's the point?

And so.. even though I have an enchanter/cleric on Mischief with a buncha gear and AAs - I might well re-start on the casual TLP coming up... mostly because I know I'm going to fall behind the various flagging requirements while I do stuff around the house, yard, etc.. and really - just here to have fun... and playing catch-up on back-flagging is a lot less fun than grinding with pick-up groups and guildies.

And who's playing more isn't important - classic vs. current.. the fact is there are significant numbers on both sides.

What's your point?
There are currently zero servers that are offering pre-pop content and 25 servers that are offering PoP and beyond. When the new servers launch, there will be 1 server, for a very short time, that offers pre-pop content.

Are you trying to argue that the majority want post-PoP because thats where the majority of player are? If so, surely you see how this reasoning is faulty because there are literally zero servers currently offering classic.

Historically, new servers are incredibly busy during classic and Kunark, but steadily start draining people off. A new classic TLP is a boost to the community and playerbase.

I wouldn't be playing EQ *at all* if not for TLP servers. So they wouldn't be getting my cash.

The point is pretty simple. The assumption that more people prefer early era content isn't actually true seeing how there are more people dispersed on a bunch of TLPs that are past the perceived "death of a TLP."

Sure, you are correct that releasing yearly TLPs boosts the playerbase. However, that playerbase isn't the majority of players as claimed on this thread. In reality, they are a minority.

It may be beneficial for DPG to continuously start releasing sister servers - one at the classic starting point and one somewhere past that point - to maximize profits.

Lol, okay. This is what happens when you use fallacious reasoning - you come to erroneous conclusions. I'd advise you to search "survivorship bias" to understand what you are experiencing and describing.

He used facts, what you are using is...something else.

Not sure if you can consider this a fact. Is this actually confirmed anywhere? I don't believe they post actual numbers. Not taking sides - but I would be curious about actual numbers of people on Live vs. Aging TLPs vs. New TLPs.

Just out of curiosity.

Those aren't facts. He's using a logical error in reasoning that is leading to a poor conclusion. I tried to provide him some self-study material to understand instead of just spelling it out.

In essence, when you discount all of the players that aren't currently playing because what they want isn't being offered, you are biasing the conclusions. You start to draw conclusions about what players want by ONLY using people that are currently playing. If that is your marketing plan, your company isn't going to be very successful at capturing additional players. No offense to you, but you are already subscribed and seem to be getting what you want - your opinion matters to retain business, but you aren't likely to generate additional revenue that they weren't going to get anyways - maybe a couple exp pots?

Instead - we have lots of real experiential data and DPG has actual subscription numbers that can be used to see how to capture additional players that seem (anecdotally) to come back every time a new TLP in classic/kunark gets rolled out. Everyone seems to understand that folks swarm to a new TLP, then steadily fade away.

I think that expansion locked servers could potentially trick players into sticking around longer.

If you want players to try out PoP, but they always quit at Luclin, you create an Agnarr type server. These players love Luclin, yet PoP is only one expansion away without anything further past it. They might as well try it.

We can apply this same logic to GoD. OP will always quit around PoP, so Daybreak creates a GoD locked server. PoP is the greatest expansion ever to OP, but GoD is the furthest that this server will take them. They might as well try it out. Maybe GoD becomes their favorite expansion because it has become familiar to them.

If we fast forward to the year 2200, players will be posting stuff like, "I'm not playing past Terrors of Luclin. I've tried the fifty other expansions, and I just don't like them."

Using that argument you can claim basically anything you want, nope not buying into that logical fallacy.

That wasn't actually an argument and, as such, saying it's a "logical fallacy" is just silly. It was simply explaining how survivorship bias works and can negatively impact people's reasoning.

I've not actually made an argument, I simply am challenging this idea that "most people want GoD+ because all existing servers are currently in GoD+". There is literally no alternative to play actual EQ right now on any other server - so you are quite biased in using that to decide what people want. It's like Henry Ford decided nobody wants an automobile because most people were riding horses / trains.