In what order will the "current" era of TLPs (RF, LJ, Phinny, Agnarr, Coirnav) die. And why?

And are any of them dead already (I'm guessing Lockjaw?)

Contrary to popular opinion, Lockjaw still has 4 active raiding guilds all of them currently in CoA. The server is very comfortable, not too crowded. Most of the toxic players have moved on to the other servers so the only ones left are those who just enjoy the game. It's a good place to be. Multiboxing allowed on 1 computer, and decent xp rate. There are still a few large box teams but they don't really bother anybody. RMT is not a thing on LJ either. In all it's a good server to be on.

Your definition of a dead server may vary, but this is the order:

Agnarr
Coirnav
Lockjaw
Ragefire


Phinigel is not on the list because it will likely reach Live servers with high population.

I hope you are right. But, Phinny lost a quarter of its guilds over the last 3-4 expansions, and most of the guilds remaining are raiding with significantly lower #'s than they were a year ago. It wasn't as severe as I expected through the level 70 stretch, probably in part because they shortened expansions to two months. But, at some point as expansion difficulty increases and population decreases, guilds are going to start struggling with content and blowing up at a faster rate. Guilds that are raiding content with 40 toons now are going to struggle in SOF when it is 35 toons, or SoD when it is 30 toons, and for sure underfoot when they are down to 25. Frustration sets in and attrition increases.

We are only just now half way through the expansions, and we've done the easy half. A lot of players talk about wanting to go all the way, but most of them don't know what a slog the 2nd half is. Throw in another new server in six months or a year, maybe with a slightly more attractive ruleset than Coirnav, and it will start to look very appealing to players in guilds that struggle to have the numbers they need each night.

I feel like Phinny's been getting an influx of people who are either new to TLP or coming over/back from Agnarr/Coirnav lately too though (most of our recent apps fit one of those descriptions). Definitely unexpected, I thought it would be mostly guilds cannibalizing by this point.

Truebox will only work if the population is there to support it. Once the population starts to dwindle, truebox fails as a ruleset as a majority of people don't have extra computers to box another account on. I'm sure Daybreak is aware of this and will keep an eye on the population of the server.

We saw this on Fippy too. After about OOW there were new players showing up pretty regularly. Most didn't end up sticking it out. It will help, but long term probably not enough to make up for people moving off the server for whatever reason.

truebox is the only way to play this game, or any game for that matter

boxing with yourself is

You do understand you can box with yourself on truebox, right?

We don't know when a truebox server will "die" as it hasn't happened yet.

Prior progression it isn't a simple "everyone quits after expac X" situation because the variables keep changing (competing new servers, different unlock rules, etc.)

-We seem to lose people when Kunark launches that are behind, but then that is people that only want to play one expac and get frustrated when they are level 20 and much of the server is 50.
-By PoP the lowbie game is pretty sparse, but PoP is guild content for the most part anyways.
-Some cite GoD, but on modern progression it isn't a reason to quit.
-The 70s stretch of expacs after OoW is.

So two of those issues are solved by bundling and/or shorter time periods.

The others are probably solved by progression servers having fast XP from the start.

Phinny's ruleset is best-suited to weather past all this (no voting is huge, as in AoC instancing, etc.).

I think the case can easily be made for a Velious-launch vs. original again.

I think the case can easily be made to allow naked 51/50 creation as of OoW.

I think Phinny is pretty likely to make it to live with a serviceable population. The interest in the server will likely depend on how well (or not) they handle the upcoming flagging issues.

Coirnav is a bit trickier, given the initial interest was a bit lower than Phinny's. It may pick up a bit later though. Ultimately, it can never get stuck (due to auto unlocks), so it'll make it to live regardless. I think it'll probably make it there with a couple of active raiding guilds, but with significantly less population than Phinny and they may not actually be clearing content in era.

I don't think either Ragefire or Lockjaw will make it to live. They're entering the level 70 stretch that's going to last a looooooooooong time. Attrition is gonna be pretty high. Ultimately, because they need to clear everything to advance, and neither has an overwhelming population atm, it seems somewhat inevitable that they'll run into a wall as raids get increasingly difficult and recruiting new players more rare. And once you start to show even the slightest signs of being stuck on a progression server, it's pretty much all over. People leave, nobody new comes and that's it. I'd wager somewhere between UF and TDS, when raids start getting much more difficult, will kill them off.

I hope I'm wrong there (I'd like to see them make it), but iirc only The Combine ever made it through this ruleset all the way to live...and reaching live back then was like 9 expansions shorter than today (and that's only current expansions...by the time these two actually catch up, there will be even more yet to be released expansions). I just don't see it happening.

Agnarr won't die... it is in a place that casual people love...

Coirnav will likely be the first to die because when the TLP anniversary server comes out, the majority of this server will flock to it. There's is nothing new or innovative on Coirnav to keep people around. Agnarr I could see going strong for years because people love PoP and with its high XP rate will continue to draw people who want to relive PoP. Phinny is going to hit live no problem. Lockjaw/Ragefire, just the fact these two servers still have a population gives me reason to believe they aren't going anywhere. The current population on both is loyal.

They will all continue along in some capacity.

Phinny serves those that want to do the 75-live content.

Agnarr will be a revolving door of casuals wanting to do PoP/LDoN stuff before getting bored and moving onto something else..

Coirnav is early days still but will probably just be Phinny 2.0 after some new server gets launched some time next year.

Haven't been on LJ for years, except once a couple of weeks ago I logged on and had a look around, was pretty quiet though.

Played on Mayong, Played on Sleeper/combine, Played Fippy/Vulak, Played Phinny, Played Agnarr - the closer they get to live the more dead they come. Natural attrition, masses move from one TLP to the next. Coirnav is by far the most toxic i've seen it to date though, seems like the real 'hardcore' masses are pretty worn out/old - it's literally just RMT garbage everywhere and reminds me of fippy pre-true box, just no 'teleporting' available.

I think the TLP's have actually progressively gotten worse.

I have a feeling Lockjaw and Ragefire will be merged before too long.

Not only is Coirnav the most toxic but it seems to represent a point at which DBG stopped caring to enforce rules unless you're in a certain guild. The forums say to train players back, fight fire with fire etc. except when that happens suspensions and warnings are given out and not to the guild which started it.

When one group is given preferential treatment over the rest it's a surefire way for players to abandon the server that much more quickly. Literally no point in fighting back except to move on to better moderated games.

Or Pantheon releases finally and turns out to be good so all the TLPs die because of it.

I chuckled.

Lockjaw has 4 active raiding guilds. I would not call it dead.

It is low population and I could see if merging with Ragefire in the next year. The people on LJ rather enjoy the state of Lockjaw. Over the last month or so, we have actually been seeing more and more people come to the server from the younger servers.

*Edited a horrendously long run on sentence.