Longer release time on Phinigel?

I don't think "reply in a random forum thread" constitutes "public announcement", heh.

I mean, it's not like they haven't changed stuff before for Phinny - but when they did, it was actually to make expansions *shorter*.

Clearly at that time they weren't thinking ahead a year plus to these expansions, though. The absolute least they should probably do is reverse the 3 => 2 month shortening for expansions not completeable in that time period.

(Although obviously fixing the arbitrary roadblocks would be better.)

It wasn't really a random forum thread, it was a thread started by Roshen specifically to ask what questions we wanted to have answered about the server.

At any rate, yes they have changed stuff, but the point I was making is that no one should cry foul if they decide to lengthen the expansion timer for underfoot+ on account of "It isn't what we signed up for." Yes, it is actually.

Clearly they were. They acknowledged the potential issue and said they would address it when we reached that point. How is that not thinking ahead?

That thread with questions didnt coincide with the change from 3 to 2 months. Honestly, I don't even know why they went to 2 months to begin with.

My best theory is they wanted to feel like they were meeting halfway on GoD instead of giving up entirely.

In any case, They certainly didnt say 'We're going to 2 months for non-level-increase expansions but we'll think about it again for underfoot.' They just said it's 2 months going forward.

Like I said before, I found the extended period of time with only PoP and LDoN Raids to be horrible, and the thought of 4+ months of a single expansion to be no less dread inducing, maybe more so, at least with PoP, We had LDoN and LoY as well. Honestly I'm surprised that there are people arguing for getting the same content slower rather than DBG make keying faster so the expansions can be beat in the time frame we have.

Y'all remember how bad the eternity of PoP + LDoN was? Or how bad even just 2 months of PoR was? Keep things how they're planned, increasing keys for some expacs is likely the optimal answer.

It's kind of ridiculous to still claim that a post in a thread is the same as "you knew what you signed up for" lol. It's not on any of the information about the server on any of their front-facing pages or descriptions.

Hell, many of us weren't even there at the start of the server. I joined late Kunark (along with my guild from P99). Sure, people like me and you read the forums regularly, but still, it's not like it was listed on the front page (https://www.everquest.com/news/true-box-progression-server-faq-phinigel) nor it's linked thread.

I don't see why this even has to be explained lol.

It's a bit like reading the fine print. Just because you didn't read it doesn't mean the company failed to give you the information.

Sure, not everyone reads the forums, but the information was there to be had for anyone who looked. So it isn't exactly a bait and switch. If anything, I'd be far more outraged over the drop to two months on some expansions, which wasn't even hinted at, although a lot of us advocated for it or something similar prior to Phinigel even being announced.

That analogy doesn't work, fine print is on the contract/thing you're signing. This would be the equivalent of it being written on the wall of a public bathroom, having nearly been entirely covered by the insane scribblings.

For me it really comes down to the amount of raid content available, and I'm not familiar enough with those expansions to know how it pans out. It's not that I'm doing content for 2 - 3 months vs 4 - 5 months (or whatever else gets proposed) its that if the current expansion (to date, through TSS, any expansion) is not enough content to provide a week's worth of raiding (and we only raid 3 nights/week) so there is always raiding older content to fill in the gaps (TSS has actually done a good job improving this though).

It's one of the reasons I'll never do Kunark again. Because you don't do "just Kunark." With the exception of VP, which isn't much, you go snipe a couple dragons and VS, and then you go to Hate/Fear/Sky again for the next three months like you just did for the past three months.

So as it stands I'm already doing most raid zones for 4-5 months. By the end of it I'm usually ready to stop logging in. I think most of us play EQ because we enjoy some of the rote aspects to it, but for me there are limits.

I definitely advocate removal of the time-gating from upcoming expansions (which we have sorta seen before with the VP quest) over extending their duration. I'm hesitant to say extending the unlocks would cause me to quite playing. But I would certainly consider it. The current speed is manageable. Slowing it down would be very difficult for me, personally. I'm here for a nice tour of EQ's history at a modest clip, not to slog through it slowly reliving every single excruciating moment of time.

You know what happened the last time the community decided unlocks needed to be longer? Ragefire got stuck with 6 months of Kunark and most people quit.

You want phinny to die? Force everyone to spend 4+ months in an expansion like Underfoot.

Underfoot has a TON of content available, both raid and group, and it would be a shame if you only experienced some of the raids 1-2x. If you are touring EQ, and there is ONE expansion you would want to spend more than 3 months in, I would pick Underfoot. No contest. To this day less than 10 guilds have beaten it in era, and hopefully it will still prove at least slightly challenging this time around. The current TLP's will certainly have a much easier time, with how weak the content has become, but even so... If they leave Underfoot at 2 months, and adjust the drop rate so you can beat it in 2 months, that will be almost as great a crime as lumping GoD in with OoW would have been in my opinion.

On the other hand, VoA, I could certainly stand to not do each encounter 5x. Same with CoTF/ ROF. House of Thule, some of them were cool, and I wouldn't mind doing several times, but I wouldn't feel as bad if they compacted it as with Underfoot.

So I am somewhat mixed.

I think the only really bad decision would be to do nothing, and have no one complete any of these expansions in era on Phinny.

I disagree. Nothing will be worse than forcing everyone to move on with only two months in one of the most iconic expansions in EQ history, when most guilds will only just be hitting tier 2.

....hahahahaha. Best analogy for public forums I've seen in a while.

Can we PLEASE get some sort of indication of DBGs stance on this? This is a really important issue and it is not going to magically get better by ignoring it. Basically nobody wants the status quo of going into Underfoot and being unable to finish it in era.

I think to most more key's dropping is the more preferred solution to this problem over slower releases.

And to be fair precedent was set in Kunark with Trak Teeth

Yes, but Pre-OoW content has a semi-broken mindset of design compared to the modern raid game. More keys makes sense when the playerbase is fully capable to taking the targets but the old design has sadistic time sink nothing to do with difficulty of the challenge as the barrier to progress it should be adjusted. So to me Kunark isn't "fixed" yet on progression but is in a window of content that needs different remedy than what comes OoW and later.

Underfoot stands as deep content that was hard in era. It probably deserves enough time under the current conditions of Phinny to have a reasonable chance of a top few guilds beating it. Not everyone, or even more than a few should beat it though --don't tune it lame. Maybe this means 14 weeks or 16 weeks. I think this is the only expansion this argument holds for, but would conceded to the math (if someone wanted to spell that all out again with tiers of content factored to lockouts and process).

Sure they do.

I know our guild has always farmed the previous expansion's end zone for applicant / raiding alt gear. I also know many other guilds do the same on Phinigel.

If anything I want faster unlocks.