New Progression Server FAQ and Upcoming Poll Details

Low levels have access to and can use the AA window now, you know.

I'm aware, the window says L50 - and I didn't see the HP show up until I dinged L50
(Had to edit, 50 apparently...)

Got an SS if you want me to have to bother making an imgur account...

This is way better news than I expected. I really like that there is going to be voting on the number of expansions release. The only thing I don't understand is the continued refusal to address the endgame. It would be nice if this was added to the poll. I'm not expecting anything but I think DBG has their head in the sand on this subject.

I am not a fan of non instanced raid content TBH. It's not what EQ had originally, but that doesn't mean not having it is going to work for your current paying player base. This is 2015 not 1999. The reality is there will be 1 or 2 small groups of people with everything on permanent camp status and the majority of people will never see raid content in the old world or as the server progresses in all it's grandeur. I know, because I played from beta and I still haven't seen 1/5 of raid content. All you're doing now is making a server for maybe 100 people to raid on. The concept of making instanced raid content means more programming, but it also means a lot more fun for your players, and more subscriptions, less complaints about campers (which has been one of the biggest issues since launch) causing people to leave.

I came into the whole transition to DBG thing with a positive attitude, but from this and many other similar issues - like the utter lack of tech support on weekends leaving chat servers down for almost 2 days to name a recent incident - I'm starting to think they "cut the fat" that made everyone content. Heck, I even offered to work for you guys for free. Attitudes towards the customers have started to sound a lot like another mmo I will not name, and you don't have the player base to support that attitude. What's the harm in replacing someone's character, missing items, platinum that was stolen, etc.? What exactly as a business does this kind of thing cost you? People are still going to petition about these things, and automated or scripted responses are just going to piss people off. Make your customers happy = get more subscriptions, micro transactions and referrals.

Please, don't mistake my criticism for cynicism, I still love you guys. I've logged more hours in Norrath than anywhere else and my concern is you don't run it into the ground. There's still a lot to be done with the game. You really have to think about the majority more, not the minority of hardcore gamers who never log off and have no life except to log in and check on spawns.

Could not agree more. Every mage during Kunark was waiting on this one item and players without mages were farming it just due tot he obscene abnormal rarity of getting it so they could turn around and sell it for almost 200k plat. No reason for one class to be blocked from finishing their epic for a drop that is typically so easy to get in Hate 2.0.

Id be against mage earth staff being changed to drop off the mage trash. People will be massing mages for classic ish era. Mages become more balanced in kunark/velious/luclin if they dont have epic because of mob resists. No reason to make all the mages more overpowered with crazy epics.

You are correct. I ment 1.0.

You can't camp Magi P`Tasa in Hate 2.0. You can't do that until Hate 3.0.

In Hate 2.0, any mini can pop in any of the mini spawn locations once every 3.5 days. When Magi P`Tasa spawns, he mostly has the wand of swords and not the staff. On Fippy we lived in PoHate for 2 months before we got the earth staff - it was one of the first to drop on the server. I won the roll against 5 other magicians.

As you are probably unaware, the dev. team is making changes to the epic drops. The first change took place in Plane of Fear. You can now spawn the NPC you need when you are at that point in the quest. It was also stated that Phinigel is being changed in a similar way. Camping in hate for 2 months for a 1 in 5 shot at a drop is not fun. My suggestion of placing the staff as a rare drop on the male forsaken revenants is in line with the enchanter epic drop, which can drop from Coercer T`Vala and the female revenants.

You mean 3.0 =) Hate 2.0 is the version that goes live with the TLPs. And yes, the earth staff is easy to get in 3.0. Magi P`Tasa is on a 20 minute respawn timer with PH , and it also can drop from any male forsaken revenant.

Making it drop as rarely from the male forsaken revenants, as the Essence of a Vampire does from the female revenants would not be out of line. Making it a 100% drop from Magi P`Tasa would also reduce the problem.

100% agree. Hopefully these and other issues will become apparent once the beta starts.

The earth staff is the rare drop from a mob on a 3.5 day respawn. The base trash in the zone has about a 12 to 16 hour repop and there arn't really that many male forsaken revenants that spawn - maybe 15? total. Exactly how many magicians do you think will be running around with an epic after the release of Kunark? The epic 1.0s are actively being changed. You can now spawn PoFear npcs as you need them with a 100% drop. Phinigel is currently being changed to do the same. If you are going to make epics easy for some classes, but keep crazy drops for others . . . you get my point. As I said before, it took 2 months of living in PoHate for our magician to get his earth staff. He also rolled against 4 other magicians. We leveled fast - about 8 days - to 50 and spent the rest of our time in PoHate for the armor. About 16 hours a day ever single day. 2 months before we saw a Magi P`Tasa with a staff.

I'm so happy daybreak listen to the community. No ooc regen til TSS that would be my favorite.I'm gonna be on beta to see hows gonna be the xp penalty and i hope its hard to get to 50.I'm gonna be voting for classic+ kunark but at the same time the 6 months each version so no velious til year down the road.

I'm still wondering about op classes at classic is it still gonna be like fippy or do mage and monks gonna be nerf. The latter would be my preferences.

Those changes you mentioned are not being included on TLP. I think it was explicitly mentioned that TLP would not have the epic convenience factor included.

Staff isnt that rare. It was around 1 in 2 to 1 in 3ish. Magi Ptasa is always up on server up also. Id say 4+ earth staffs a month. 3 Ptasas spawned in a wave before. Theres no reason to make the most overpowered class even more powerful with easier epics which are huge power increase. People want mages nerfed/balanced and you are asking for them to be upgraded. I dont expect the 1.0 fear npc to be on the new progression servers. Im pretty sure that was just for live. If your there with 5 mages everyone wont get one.

Everything sounds good.

Except the instancing. This ruins it for me. How on earth is that remotely going to be a classical experience? There was no such thing as Qeynos Hills 1, 2, 3. That's garbage.

You think people are going to log on, find themselves with nothing to do because everything is camped to the gills and they're just going to be cool paying $15/mo for that when they can spend less and actually do something in a similar MMO?

Sensibly they probably should do multiple servers to accomplish the same and be "more Classic" - but more servers = more money and more eventual drama over when to merge and other logistics.

I would hope though that they at least tie the chat channels between each instance so that a /ooc in QH1 is heard in QH2 as well for example. That's the only truly "Classic" feel that would be lost in the transition otherwise. [Thinking especially of Commonlands here]

thats true but you had alot more than one server to play on in classic as well. i like the zone balancing just wish they would let raid targets be instanced as well.

I've got a strange feeling they're going to keep an eye on how things are and extend the zones it covers out if they see the need. Although raid variants of the system might be a little more complicated. (since you're coordinating people in, but you don't want it abused, timers, etc)

the real sad part is that i dont even raid and i can see the charm in having raid targets in instances.

i can see it now... me and my wife in some zone with a raid mob up and there we are minding our own business but getting caught up in the middle of some guild war for a stupid friggin raid mob.

one guild trying to permacamp raid targets isnt classic... DBG doesnt think instancing raid targets is classic but we arent a bunch of noobs like back in 1999 anymore... people do know where to go these days so instancing the raids from launch allows more people the opportunity to see the raid game early on

anyway... rant off

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO