New Progression Server FAQ and Upcoming Poll Details

I don't mean to say I want it rushed. But 18 months is insane. Who wants to farm the same content for 18 months.

I am so stoked for this and looking forward to the open beta opportunity.

The work being put into this is more than I expected and I am happier for it. Most issues of the past progression servers have been discussed, worked down to a suitable choice structure, and voted on by the player base.

I do agree with some here that early content raids can be a bit of an issue. Even on Fippy when we had "worked things out", like the days of old, things did not always work so well. We still had issues with guilds not honoring the list for taking turns and even worse on certain encounters. It really depended on what each individual guild/guild leader wanted to do. While some guilds do want to work with others, there seems to always be at least one guild that just doesn't care and will attempt to wipe your raid or run past you to kill the target you're after, even though you're on the list for the kill.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the races and competition. I have participated on such events from the first time I played pre-Luclin launch. But it tends to get out of hand and always has, even back on Innoruuk. The issue starts mostly in Velious and gets increasingly larger as the expansions come, up until things start being instanced. The lists that the players worked out via guilds and loosely moderated by GMs, is only as strong as the integrity of those making the agreements. It only takes one person in charge of a guild to disrupt the whole thing. If the GMs don't have the power to clobber the offending guilds there is no viable solution. So it's either deal with it, be more cutthroat than the other guilds, or not raid until the next expansion is released.

That being said, there is no rule or non-rule that will prevent me from playing on this new progression server.


I am curious about the timing for release of the revamped zones. When the Veeshan's Peak revamp was released originally there was a 2 month gap before OoW was released. On Fippy it was opened with OoW which made most of the quests contained within rather pointless and lackluster. Are you considering proper timing gaps for zone revamps as well as expansions or are they going to remain attached to expansions even if they were not a part of an expansion when first released? Another example of this would be Chardok "B", which was released 2 months prior to LDoN.

Gear gets better with new expansions? You don't say.

If a mage pet is tanking no other player character can be in melee range of the NPC. If this happens the NPC will instantly shift aggro to the PC in range. The DPS was also not overpowered. At level 60, all DPS classes are out DPSing the pet. The max hit is 81, but it does not hit for max often. Also, it's tanking ability is far less superior to a tank. It may have slightly more HP, but it takes far more damage. Putting a 35 point damage shield on a warrior and having a cleric heal the warrior is far less of a mana drain on the cleric than having the cleric heal the pet. And having a tank on the NPC allows all your DPS to actually step into melee range. Again, the power of pets was the ability to chain them one after another. Raids never sent in pet and had their clerics heal them. When mages chained pets the magicians couldn't nuke and the clerics couldn't heal. If they did, they would be instantly summoned and killed once the pets started dieing. The 50 point DS is a huge boon, but it only works if the pet is the tank and I explained the issue with that above.

Kunark has to be active for the epic to be completable and the max level in Kunark is level 60. If a magician collects all the items and finishes the epic prior to level 60 then the pet is going to be a huge boon in leveling and going through lower level content - just like a level 60 going back to lower level content to farm stuff.

In a solo or molo situation the pet was powerful. Mages were always a powerful solo class, but not as powerful as a necros or shaman in the early game. During Original and Kunark, all casters have an advantage over melee when it comes to soloing.

Also, as for the Quillmane cloak. On fippy, it was a constant free for all. You couldn't just shout out you were camping Quillmane and everyone in the zone said "Ok, it's all yours." Fippy had groups of people hunting Quillmane constantly. It may have been different on Vulak with it's lower population. Also, if you had enough PP or $$ you could buy anything - even an earth staff . . . but that's not really the point is it. That's not what the game is really about.

I get that - do you think the smoothing would make sense to push for?

If we can't vote on a progression PVP server or a Seasonal PVP server this whole poll and voting system isn't looking at the entire EQ community. Way to keep catering to the carebear bluebies and ignoring us.

Do you really want to see a losing poll that badly? Everyone knows how a PVP/PVE poll would turn out.

for sure smoothing it would be chill I really think starting with Kunark would > Classic (gives you more to do in the time.. farm your epics, more exp zones, etc) but sitting at kunark for a year would be beyond meh.

I do wish we could start with zerk/bst though. Sucks those will not be avail for several years.

"Accelerated:Kunark opens 2 months after Classic raid targets are defeated, Velious, Luclin, and PoP each open 8 months after raid targets are defeated, all later expansions take 3 months to open after raid targets are defeated.

• This option spends more time in Kunark and Velious in order to avoid an extended logjam with a lot of people in the more limited end-game in Classic EQ.
• Again, any expansions that are voted to be open add their time to unlock the next expansion. If Kunark were opened at launch with this option, it would be 10 months before Velious could unlock.
• Kunark: 2 months
• Velious: 8 months
• Luclin: 8 months
• Planes of Power: 8 months
  • Ykesha: 2 weeks after PoP
  • LDoN: 4 weeks after PoP
• Gates: 3 months (after PoP)
• Omens and later: 3 months"

My vote their , More time in Kunark and Velious , less conjested at launch.
2-3 months depending on how fast raid mobs are killed in Classic is perfect ,
That's almost 3 years to OOW (33 months)

No one is purposing ignoring any specific group. In case you didn't read the entire OP, let's look at this section again before I continue:

We know that there are lots of people that want the new progression server to be lots of things. We're receiving feedback in a lot of places.. most of it coming from forums and Reddit (but we're not ignoring all of the other places you're sending us information, even if we don't reply to EVERY PM/email/facebook message/tweet we get)

We aren't in a position right now where we can make this server EVERYTHING that EVERYONE wants it to be. We are working to make it something that can please the greatest population of players.

The epic pet is level 49. When you fight equal level mobs he will hit for higher damage. As you start fighting higher level mobs, the physical damage drops off. Same for tanking, if you are tanking higher level mobs, the pet takes more damage. It has massive HPs, but it's mitigation and avoidance is very low. Level 60 tanks are far superior tanks than the level 49 epic. The only advantage to the epic pet tanking is the large DS, but then nobody else can be in melee range, so it's kind of pointless unless you are soloing or Moloing. Epic spell that summons the orb can be memmed at 46, but you can't click on the epic orb to summon the pet until 50 or 51. The epic pet has about 800 more HP than the level 56 Earth and is slightly better than the 56 - 60 regular summoned pets. Which makes sense since it is the epic pet of the Kunark expansion. The level 61 mage pet is better.

Incorrect. Mage DPS (nukes + epic pet) was never top DPS on raids. Not counting DS though, as the epic pets were never tanking. That's kunark and above raids.

Edit: Ok - Magician nuke damage + epic pet DPS was rarely top DPS ; )

Just asking but why not do 2-3 servers with different rules and let people choose? Several times now there have been 2 progression servers doing the same thing. Why not have 2 with different progression? One with 6 month locks and one with 3 for example?

Different server rule sets take more dev time to set up. Having additional servers takes more server hardware.

If the new progression server is a success, it's much easier to make a case for getting more resources (time + money) to do things like different progression servers for players in the future.

Does prior success with progression servers not count towards that? Or is that something that has just now been talked about? IE "ok if THIS one is a success we pump more resources in"

Whos talking about raids? I dont think any era raids actually needed dps since most had way more then required numbers. Dont think all the mages will need epic pets for 30 sec or less raid mob kills. Mages that want epic mostly want it for solo/group setting (either farming loot or xping mostly farming loot IMO)

For guy that said melee cant hit the mob if a pet is tanking im sure it wouldnt be the first time he was in a mage/caster only group with possibly a puller not meleeing.

If people want their main epic pieces for kunark launch they dont really need to pick the most popular/overpowered class early.

The most intriguing part of this post is Aristo's comment on the server name.

What could this mean, I wonder.

HEYA ALL! If you care about this progression then please read this post and the link.

Please read my post on why this vote might be a problem. Why it might not reflect the majority of players who are actually to going to play on progression.

It's very simple. This comes down to a vote on live and only live. Many of the players on live will not be playing progression, and many players who will be on progression are not playing on Live.

I go into far more detail and explain why this is essential in my post.

https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/badgerlords-voting-polls.219621/#post-3201757

We can counteract this by spreading the word to live. To get people to think about it or read the forums and see the debates that we've all been having.


If something wins fair and square, so be it. I definitely have my opinions, as I have stated in other detailed posts. However, I would like people to make an informed vote rather than a quick and thoughtless one.

Is it just too much to run a normal server untampered by the SC store, Beta incentives, etc? Don't see why you wouldn't just run the server like a normal EQ server starting in classic that stops permanently prior to mercs? I don't know what told you running into merc territory was a good idea but they were obviously trolling you because the don't even play Fippy or Vulak anymore. gl, hf and if you weren't going to even try and offer a decent progression server why don't you just give us back Al`Kabor?

I can't even begin to convey just how excited I am about this new server!!! I could squeal!! /claps hands

I do want to let you devs know - I appreciate how much thought and effort you seem to be going thru to listen and include us players in the loop on this. I can't wait to see the new polls to get my own vote in on things.

On the beta:
1) where do I sign up?
2) Reward idea's:
- access to a special title?
- an illusion clicky?
- a shrink clicky?
- an aura clicky?
Just for the looks, of course. Not particularly game changing, nor overpowering for anyone, and every body loves having illusions, wicked aura's and/or shrink.
How bout clickies that summon milk & cookies? We don't see guides much any more to get our sugar fix. I do like your bonus bag idea - don't can that one!!!