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

Getting flashbacks of being stuck in PoP/LoY on Fippy... Ugh...

People saying "Phiny server will reach Live server without problem" make me lol.
I really urge you to read again Machentoo's post in this thread.
I have beaten on Live server all expansions from end of UF to RoS. It's not a joke when he tells you the second half of EQ expansions is very much harder.
Also, the farthest Fippy Darkpaw server went was TDS, that killed the last guild there. From there, each expansion that came after this was harder than the previous one.
The problem will not be how many flags you can get to progress, this is why I lol also at people thinking they will plow through content and flags will lack them to finish expansion in time. The problem will be to beat some of these raids themselves.

This may come as a shock but hold on tight.

Many of us have completed all of the content from now up to and including RoS.

The fact is no TLP has ever had such a strong population stick around this long. There isn't another server out there with even close to the number of guilds completing all content in era as Phinigel.

Phinigel truly is a great place to be if EQ is your thing and it will out last most if not all other TLPs.

If you look at the current tlp servers and want to get to live then phinny is the winner to me because its true box and coirnav is just killing itself with the toxic drama. Unrestricted grief fests and krono farmers just dont attract quality players very long.

Agnarr will always be a nice place for casuals to visit. Over the past 2 weeks ive had 3 friends from past expansions return... and they are already raiding again.

thats still 4x as many guilds as coirvav

like most people, i agree on phinny being the one that will last indefinately, agnarr a close 2nd

All TLP servers are toxic, RMT drama fests for the first 2 or 3 expacs, then people spread out a bit, and eventually some new TLP comes along that attracts all the krono farmers like faeces attracts flies.

All the other TLPs went through it and survived, Coirnav is currently going through it and will survive.

Chicken Littles are gonna do what they do though.

Why should I be surprised that a few live server players, once they have beaten the live raids expansions on their server, come play on TLP server until next live expansion ? In this case, TLP is not your "main" server. If your live server guild would take 6 months to beat live raid expansion content for example, you miss 6 months of TLP.
Most of TLP raiding guild players, who are used to beat raids in 1-2 attempts, won't want to wipe over and over on some of the harder raids of these expansions.
Add to this that there has been yet a decline of the population per Machentoo's information, not a strong one, but still it started to reduce.
According to lavanet,125 guilds had beaten TSS. A few expansions later, 94 had beaten SoD. That's a loss of 25 %. Then comes the first brutal expansion, UF. 52 guilds had beaten UF. That's nearly half of the guilds that collapsed (45 % loss).
Have a look at the server raiding population guilds a few month into Underfoot and I doubt you will say "Phinigel has a strong raiding population". If we apply these ratios on actual number of guilds on Phinigel, that will make at best 6 guilds that finish Underfoot. And UF was not even a "hard" expansion compared to some of them that will come after.

please put down the pipe....Phinny hasn't been "high" population in a year.

Fyi phinny was hitting high pop for periods of time during TSS launch week and also stayed at medium pop and above for roughly ~2 weeks of TSS until the raiders ran out of things to do.

As far as Lankie's post, I believe he's talking in the long term - aka he means in a year from now which servers will still have a solid amount of players completing content.

Phinny is slowly decaying in numbers, but it has a massive population of raiders (even more raiders than Coirnav has right now) that will jump to different guilds as membership slowly decays. It'll follow the standard TLP formula of 15 guilds becomes 14, becomes 13 etc. as guilds snipe leftover players from each other.

There's a lot of longevity in Phinny due to the large amount of raiders to fill the ranks. It's not until the top guilds starts running out of players to fill the decay that a server ever hits fully dead.

As far as other servers go, I think most people aren't putting Coirnav too high on their longevity list because it's already started with a way lower population than any other TLP in their era - meaning your decay and guilds collapsing will happen way earlier and faster than other TLPs due to lack of other guilds to merge/fill members.

That and the fact that every new TLP sees an exodus of the farming/boxing population the moment a newer TLP comes out (aka all the krono farmers/boxers go to the new server where easy to camp items sell for massive amounts of kronos). All of that kind of makes Coirnavs long term future not look that great.

I'm sure Coirnav will do fine for the medium term, but it's going to see some population issues way earlier than other servers.

Just found these comments interesting, because it implies that some thought Corinav had a healthy population of raiders comparatively?

Phinny has 13 guilds that have already cleared TSS, with a 14th working on it.

Corinav has 8 guilds working on Kunark. In the same era, Phinny had 23.

Corinav is hardly dead right now - but Phinny still absolutely crushes it. It's not even a comparison lol. Phinny is way past peak popularity (which most consider to be PoP, where it had 22, which is less than Kunark heh), and it *still* has almost double Corinav's raid guilds.

If Phinny is any sort of guide, Corinav will be down to 4 guilds or so sometime in that 70 stretch.

I don't know if Phinny will reach Live server with multiple active guilds or not, but it definitely has the best chance of any current TLP, and personally I think it'll reach it with probably 3-5 guilds. I don't think WT/OGC will quit (might see more name changes, but same basic guilds), and I think there will be still be interest in a "slightly less hardcore" raiding guild on the server, then probably 1-2 super casual raid guilds still sticking around. It's possible that eventually WT/OGC end up losing members to one or the other enough so that there's just 1 "super hardcore stay up all night must beat expansion immediately" guilds, but right now I'm not feeling it.

...lol

Yeah the big question will be if Phinigel reaches a community that can push it into current live content when we eventually get there. We have AoCs which I don't think any Live server has at the moment? That could be a good argument to start on Phinigel as a live-server compared to the others, where most lv 110's have every OW mob on lockdown.

Most of my friends on Phinigel have no interest in starting over on a new TLP in any forseeable future. And we've come a long way now, so wherever there will be a good base to push some raiding for us Euro-players in live content, is probably where we end up playing. Currently on Phinigel, we are still looking good on the Euro-side, but we are thinner populated than the US part of the server, so we are a bit more vulnerable to attrition... Again, once we're in Underfoot is probably where a realistic picture of raiding on Phinigel-Live will start to materialize.

nerd rage... always comical

I can't speak for the other servers but I came back after 15 years specifically for Agnarr because it is PoP locked. I just want to play casually and complete the quests that I never got to finish and possibly get some epics for various toons. I know I am not alone. I don't even get why people would want to race through content that is years old, much less do it over and over each time a new progression server comes out.

I think Agnarr is an interesting case. It attracts the casual audience such as yourself and those who want to play at their own pace, so it will keep getting some amount of players over time.

The problem I see is that guilds still require a certain amount of hardcore players to keep things running and to carry the casual players through raids. You can't have an entire raid force of casual players who may or may not show up/perform on any given night - you still need a set amount of 'a team' players who can hold down the fort day in and day out.

Attrition will hit those hardcore players the most after 6 months of running PoTime/Ldon over and over. Eventually people need breaks and get tired of the same raids. How many guilds will be able to retain enough core members to keep everything running smoothly around the revolving door of casual players, especially as new players become more reliant on PLing from guildies vs. actual grouping to level.

No one really knows the answer to that. If I had to bet I'd probably say you'll see a ton of attrition among the hardcore player base and a decent dip in the overall population of Agnarr, but that you'll also see a few guilds who are able to keep enough core leadership interested and hanging around to keep Agnarr running indefinitely.

I don't know if would want to put money on whether Agnarr will die or continue on forever as a home for casuals, but I do think the most skilled and dedicated players will leave within 6 months of reaching the end. That will leave the "terminally casual" players and the relatively few people who enjoy pulling casual players through the same content ad infinitum, in a casual, "family" style guild setting.

Coirnav is an embarrassment that highlights the depths that DBG has fallen to in terms of lack of creativity, lack of resources, and general lack of concern for their player base. The sooner it dies the sooner we can move on to something original and fun, and not just an artificially re tar d ed gerbil wheel of death.

PS: I can't believe that I need to trick these forums into accepting a perfectly appropriate word. "delay or hold back in terms of progress, development, or accomplishment."

The entire point of Agnarr is that it's a pop-locked server and ostensibly that's why people decided to play on it. I highly doubt it's going to die before any of the aforementioned servers.

Pretty sad you all are using server population to measure your epeens....

Where do you think players will go once their guild on Agnarr, Coirnav, LJ and RF dies? Live servers? No.

Everyone that leaves a dying TLP will end up in the same place, Phinigel. With the Live XP rates, daily hotzones etc, catching up will be fast.

Each time a guild or server dies, Phinny will get an influx of people. I know a lot of players are levelling up already on Phinigel in preparation for the move.

Other servers are simply placeholders.

umm they will go the same place they went when they quit phinny... they stop playing or play on a new TLP.....Least that's what I do and from my experience many others as well...Most of the people I've played with aren't looking to catch up to live they like the old expansions best. Phinny may get a few new players but no great influx.