In-Game Progression Server poll (Feb 2015)

I still grin at the mindset of slowing exp down so folks get more time to enjoy ... listen if you couldn't keep up with the already slow exp what makes you think slowing it down wont put you even further behind the Curve?
slowing down exp only hurts casuals as hard cores will always adapt and out level you.
instead of focusing on slowing exp down make it more like it was originally not 8 hrs for level one driving 50 % of the interest away from the game.

Slowing down xp makes your character(s) more valuable. You've put more time into it and hopefully more effort.
If your characters are more valuable to you then there is less incentive to risk losing your account due to doing stupid stuff that violates EULA.
If your "gameplay" consists of solely doing things that violate EULA then it will take you longer to reroll and get back to whatever it was that got you banned/suspended the first time.
Slowing down xp also creates the needed split in the community between the hardcore 24/7 players and the casual part timers. This will help with the overcrowding problems in end game content which will lead to less "conflict" and make things easier for whatever in-game support we will have. I'm still of the opinion that instancing the raids is a better way to alleviate those customer support issues though and believe that it will make for a much healthier and longer lasting community.
It may hurt the raiding scene in regards to top guilds having a smaller pool to recruit from but as Sinzz stated the hardcore players always find a way to adapt.
Slower xp will also give the hardcores a bigger market to sell their gear to. A level 30 with plat to spare is better for the community than a level 30 that can't afford his/her spells because they level too fast.

They can slow down the XP all they want.. All I'm hoping for is a good population cause I'm not going to be one of those crazy hardcore guys that got to rush through everything but I ain't going to take my time either... and nothing worse is being stuck in the void between the casuals and hardcores if there isn't a healthy pop =\

Content in the original game is spread out pretty evenly. The problem with leveling too fast is that you progress past content too quickly. If your only desire is to reach level 50, then it's not an issue. However, I remember going to Upper Guk for a few hours and realizing I had just out leveled Najena, Castle Mistmoore, and several other zones I enjoy grouping in. I went from level one to level fifty in about six days. I suppose I could create different character and try different paths, but then I'd have to convince my friends to do the same.

There was also an issue with exp gain in groups of six. You would gain more exp in the group than killing the same npc solo. With the kill rate of a group, experience gain was over the top. This may have something to do with the group bonuses that were added to the game later on in EQs history. Altering this could fix the exp gain rate overall.

My only hope is that they make it a special rules server as well. In order to keep content available to all those that play, they need to adjust all Old world raid bosses to spawn times that are less than 6 hours. Doing so would allow small guilds to be able to compete with the larger guilds that we saw took over the spawns and locked people out of progression. SO many people quit the progression servers because of the wall they hit when trying to compete against the larger guilds. Also, it used to be an amazing thing to have pick up dragon raids etc back before the mobs were farmed by a single person boxing. If you remove the lengthy spawn time you will give players the ability to take turns, as taking turns when the spawn is 3 days is so much harder than if the spawn is couple hours. I would also love to see exp gains be brought closer in line to what they use to be... bringing back Heck levels...

They will probably do instanced raiding. For many reasons, including allowing other smaller guilds access to the raids, but mostly I think because it will alleviate GM interaction for player disputes over spawns. There aren't as many GM's any more (or like.. almost any) so instanced raiding will free up their time that was spent on rotation in fippy to actual GM work and fixes.

So, here's my take on the possibility of a progression locked server after taking many days thinking about the possibilities, reading people's opinions, and gathering some data on what seems to be the primary things people are bringing up as concerns and/or most common ideas.

TLR - If it comes down to progression locked server I'd like to see it locked at the Dragons of Norrath expansion because of the level of progression it gives to the server from EPIC 2.0s available and always relevant and worth getting, to groupable content not surpassing PoTime raid gear (which allows PoP crowd to be able to get their PoTime raid fixes by having PoTime be a good stepping stone in progression) which means that the available gear progression on the server doesn't pigeon hole the server into the top couple expansions. DoN crystal bought group gear (instanced which cripples much of the crowd planning to grief the server by locking down spawns) --> PoTime --> GoD (Tacvi) --> OOW (CoA) --> DoN (Vishimtar).


Long winded version:

From what I've gathered so far from the opinions I've been reading about a locked progression server (locking at a specific expansion) is that there are 3 major groups. 1 is the hardcore MUST BE VELIOUS!, 2 is the hardcore MUST BE Planes of Power!, and 3 seems to be sort of more of an open end it should be level 70 cap, but it seems people are undecided if it should be OOW, or one of the other level 70 expansions.

The major flaws with the velious and PoP locked servers have been discussed so much I don't think I need to go into much detail about what the concerns are here. Just to recap though, the inherent problem with a Velious/PoP locked server is mainly going to be the childish selfish behavior of children who don't have a parent (GMs) to babysit every contested non-instanced spawn. This is going to be the killer of any type of Velious/PoP server especially with Daybreak's newest lack of in-game GM support, and if DB decides that it's just not feasible to make old raid zones instanced I honestly agree with most of the others in thinking that those servers are going to end up just being a cesspool of drama over targets (even group targets) which will ultimately ruin the experience for even the most saint like patience. Don't get me wrong. In the past I've been one of the biggest supporters of wanting a progression locked server at Velious-LDoN range (to me it doesn't matter which expansion between velious-LDoN), but based on what I experienced on Fippy, even when not concentrating on raid targets it was still a lot of childish bickering over the most minor of camps, and that's just not the experience I want.
Now with all of that being said, I want to focus on what I feel would be a REALLY good place to have the level 70 progression locked server and why I think a the Dragons of Norrath expansion would be the perfect expansion to lock at that would even I hope convince some of the PoP locked server supporters to this idea.
From what I've seen on a lot of the PoP locked server supporters is that they want PoP because they felt that PoP had some of the best content, and best end-game raid content (PoTime) available. I have to agree that PoTime is easily some of the most fun raid content I've experienced on EQ (Although CoA is also up there for me personally).

So here's why I think that DoN might be the right expansion to lock at. If you look at the groupable gear progression in EQ up to DoN you'll notice that even the "end-game" groupable gear for DoN did not surpass "Elemental" quality of stats. What this means is that if we had a server that was progression locked at DoN is that any guild looking to get into raid progression would start with elemental and/or PoTime raids as their starting point toward progression because with just DoN groupable gear it would be rather difficult to just jump immediately into MPG Trials/CoA, or even GoD raid progression. So this would fulfill much of the need/want from the PoP locked server crowd because they would still be able to get their raiding PoP as relevant content. Even if their primary guild was way past PoTime and other PoP raids there will almost always be other newer guilds that are just beginning their raid progression on the server and they can have an alt join that guild to re-experience that PoP raiding again.

What this also means is that the server has a VERY strong and healthy progression system in place to keep guilds busy relatively long-term (I personally feel even more-so than current live EQ). Why I say this is one of the inherent problems with the current generation of EQ and even other MMORPGs is that the games effectively "reset" the economy and inflation of gear and stats every single expansion. So the newbie gear of said new expansion starts at almost the level of the end-game gear of the previous expansion. What this does is it pigeon holes everyone on the server at the end game level range into only that one expansion for ALL of their relevant content for their gear level. I don't agree with this because it shrinks the playable and relevant content of the server SO MUCH to where you end up running into the same problems with giving people no reason at all to do previous content, and you end up with completely dead zones with noone in them at all. One of the biggest reasons we want a LOCKED progression server is because then we have a server that will be filled with like-minded players all "forced" in a sense into the same level cap with the same content available instead of being fragmented into a bunch of "progression" guilds throughout test, trakanon, etc, etc.

Here's a good example of what I mean when I say DoN is the right expansion to stop. Take a look at the following end-game single group content versions of gear between DoN crystal bought vs a DoDH hard group mission.

DoN: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=35883

DoDH: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=45722

If you look at the DoDH chest piece, with that piece you have just made both PoP end game, and GoD end game raid gear pretty much irrelevant, but with the DoN chest piece you can see that the stats still don't quite match even Elemental PoP raid gear, and is "around" the stat range of what you'd expect from Vex Thal Luclin end-game raid gear.

Again, this is all assuming that Daybreak would decide against making end-game raid zones in pre-PoP instanced and decides it would not be feasible to have an army of GM babysitters.

Summarized Pros for a level 70 progression locked server at the DoN Expansion:

1. DoN group gear does not surpass Elemental Raid gear in PoP which allows for end game PoP, GoD, OOW, and DoN all being very relevant content for guild progression.

2. The group content available to guilds to prepare for the raid progression of the server is going to have a solid mixture of both instanced and non instanced content available to them so that if the group of children want to lock down static non instanced spawns to grief then we still have another path to get prepared for the raid progression (DoN Radiant and Ebon Crystal farming).

3. It helps fulfill I HOPE some of the need/want for the PoP locked server supporters in that it still keeps PoP content viable and a relevant stepping stone.

4. EPICS! You don't need to worry about separating out the Velious and PoP crowd as much because there will be relevant Epics available to strive for instead of how Epic 1.0s for the most part were made irrelevant in PoP.
The Epic 2.0s will forever be ultimately useful for pretty much every class on this type of locked server.

5. Due to having enough available instanced content available for BOTH group and raid it effectively eviscerates "most" of the children's abilities to grief the server. Sure they will always find a way, but it's not going to be the slaughter house that a Velious or PoP locked server would have without instancing the old world raid content. (Another great part about DoN is the availability of spell focus augs, haste augs, proc augs purchased with crystals, so that once again people have another option if the children are locking down spawns on items that have a specific spell focus, haste, or proc that's considered to be "required" for a class to function. The only people they can grief at that point for the most part are the collectors that “MUST HAVE” a certain item from say AoW for example just to say they have it.

6. It's an easier route for Daybreak where they don't need to worry as much about hiring more GM staff, or instancing old world raid zones. (I hope they would still consider these options though for the potential of a velious, or PoP locked server if there's enough demand).

7. The world wouldn't be "over-instanced" to the point where the world would once again seem pretty empty because of the over-instancing that happened in DoDH.

8. Another possibility this opens up is that DB can then once this server would progress and lock to DoN could open up their concept of a “seasonal” server where they could have a server that opens and progresses for say a 2 year time-frame and they could open up the ability for people to transfer characters from the seasonal server to this locked server once the seasonal server would get to the end of the DoN expansion so there would be a good “middle point” where people could transfer to a locked progression server or continue on on the seasonal.

Holy crap this got long. Well if you're still reading up to this point I must have done a good job of explaining my case, you're bored and have nothing better to do, or you're looking for ways to tear apart my post and tell me how horrible my opinion is hehe

NvM, figured out how to edit my posts haha..

Only problem is GoD got such a stigma about it that people really don't like GoD and afterwards when they think of a progression server which sadly also means "classic" in the minds of a lot of people and GoD began the true death of EQ cause of how terrible that expansion was =\

Well, with GoD that could most likely be skipped even on a progression server that would be locked at DoN if they didn't want to do GoD because of how things have changed over the years with like AC Softcaps, base hp/mana levels, revamps to spell dmg/mana healing/mana ratios, etc, etc which I'm not sure are things they can really revert yet. Only time will tell I guess lol.

I also really hope they remove or reduce the exp gains. People want to experience the old game .. and I know many would love to go back to the original hard game instead of the fast exp, no need for corpse recovery game it became. With a locked progression the problem that can arrise from not changing the exp gain speed is that the players will hit the level cap way too fast. You need to make changes to the current game to bring back some kind of balance to adjust for players who know the games secrets. The only thing I think new they should do is make it special rules for Raid and Rare bosses as I mentioned before. I think what you would do is create a nostalgic server that would see a huge player base return.

Progression server starting with original EQ the way it was first played, now that would be fun. I know there have been too many mechanics changes for that to happen but sure would be nice.

Holly,

Thank you very much for considering a new progression server. I would love to come back and play if you get one up and running, and so would many of my friends and family. It would be great to hang out in Plane of Valor again.

I think that one thing you should consider, in addition to the server rulesets, is the criteria for progression. I believe the criteria as it stands encourages competition to the exclusion of collaboration. I would like to see a move towards criteria that equally rewards competition and collaboration.

For example, if you require not just the completion of an event once by a single guild, but instead require a certain percentage of the qualified raiding guilds to complete the event to meet the unlock criteria, that would not only encourage a single guild to complete it themselves, but also to support the other raiding guilds in their attempts to complete it. They could still race to be "first" (competitive), but in order to unlock they would need more guilds to beat it (collaborative). A similar framework could be applied to group/solo, quest, and tradeskill content.

Additionally, if you implement special criteria akin to the Ahn'Quraj war effort from WoW, where individual players contributed their own items (tradeskill, etc, lots and lots of them) to help unlock the content, then players could vote through their own actions (or inactions) rather than simply clicking a button. If you want to speed up the time to the next progression, you can donate all of your farmed items. If not, then donate nothing. You could probably even use the item's tribute values for this. Essentially have a "server tribute" value that would need to be met in order to complete the unlock.

These thoughts are by no means complete, and I understand that there are downsides to them. I merely offer them as possibilities to consider.

Demoncrusher Debonair
Retired Shadowknight of Quellious

GoD was an awesome expansion. I rather enjoyed the ' checks' in the raids that made sure eveyone pulled their weight.

Yes sir! Loved me some GoD / OoW.

Sounds like a more sane way to proceed. Large guilds tend to push limits in their drive to be successful, which sometimes leaves the rest of us...unable to proceed, such as hogging epic quest camps for months on end..(back in the day on Xegony)

Corpse being rescued from the lava..by a Guide. I remember those days. Walking around under the world was interesting too, how about being hit by the orc lift coming down on your head, in last phase testing before EQ's release. Hit me for 10,000 points of damage. Instant death. hehehe

Is it just me or is time just moving extra slow since they announced a new progression server? lol

Please, no instancing early raid content. Competition between guilds is what I most enjoy. And please, let the TLP progress without voting. Fippy almost died when GoD was voted down the first time.

When we are finished voting and when will be running server?