Oakwynd Longevity

This statement right here is actually undermining your argument. FV when it was brand new couldn't hold a candle, population wise, to the recent TLPs. New TLPs can hold 3-4 times the population that servers could back in the day. The fact that you think it feels the same as FV means it's far "less than" past TLPs. This is your first TLP, why wouldn't you consider the opinion of people who have played on a dozen TLPs? People who have seen how they play out over and over.

Folks who have played on the last dozen TLPs have developed a good feel for populations. It's just a thing you pick up. Anecdotal? yes, but that is all any of us have to go on. Every TLP has folks who swear they are sticking around for the long term this time. Reality is that they rarely do. TLPs that don't start out with strong populations tend to do worse long term. Populations only go down over time.

Strong catch up mechanics seems to be the biggest thing that slows down population decline, as it allows folks to come back after a break. This server lacks a strong catch up mechanic (exp is not the limiter in catching up, gear is.) I don't want this server to fail, I don't want any server to fail. I just think folks should go into it with open eyes. Long term, it's nothing special. It's likely going to be crushed by the 25th anniversary server.

In a year it will have some nice bonuses, and so much content will be instanced that the FTE garbage wont matter as much, but the server will be dead by then.

Wooooooosh.

Yup, absolutely nothing anyone says that is contra to what you are determined to believe has any value whatsoever. I conceded that, too.

Wooosh Blah Woooosh Blah Wooosh Blah!

75% high population still makes it one of the top servers in the game. Considering the 6 hour or so that it isn’t at medium are in the very early morning it is easy to miss that when checking the status.

Who is trying to compare it to the launch of FV which was decades ago and only allowed for 1 character slot per account on the server?

This statement is patently false. The exact opposite is true. Modern TLPs have a login cap of 4K simultaneous players. FV was launched in Oct 2001 when the live server login cap was 10K players. While the newest servers have upgraded hardware and more physical memory, they are also running a game with 10x as many zones, plus picks, AoCs and instanced content which didn't exist in the era being cited. These factors cut heavily into the threshold of how many players can actually do things on a TLP without significant lag (which we already see in certain high-use places). When any TLP hits 4K logins it will queue. FV never in its history had an issue with queueing.

It has never been stated by anyone at the company that the 25th anniversary server will be a TLP. It could just as easily be a new live server with a special ruleset. There isn't yet any guarantee there will be any new TLP launched at the time of the anniversary. If there is a new TLP next year, it could just as easily be an Oakwynd II with a GoD start. Everyone on these forums who says anything different is just making it up as they go along. There is >NO< official roadmap yet.

Two points:
(1) TLPs have a higher cap.

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...ation-count-for-the-first-month.275370/page-2

(2) The whole Queue system did not exist in the early or even late 2000s.
The queue was introduced after TLP servers, so no server before that in EQ could have had a queue.

https://www.reddit.com/r/everquest/comments/371coo/new_queue_system_is_live/

Agree with most of your well written points. This is not my first TLP, but I do agree TLP experience is quite fun, for expansions never player or nostalgia
Happy to see another actual player from Oakwynd sharing their inputs.

Good job quoting an old thread I posted in. Yes, the TLP server cap as of today (4K) is > the Live server cap of today (I think around 3200, I've heard multiple unofficial answers). The Live game has outgrown the server capacity they're willing to pay for, and raid lag in the most recent expansions is a big problem. But the comparison wasn't to today's Live servers, it was to 2001 Live servers, and the answer there is completely different, for the reasons I gave. In 2001 there were nearly 500K total players, and there would have to have been dozens more Live servers to support that population if the per-server cap was as low as in the modern era.

As long as there has been a login server, there has been a queue. Without any queue, the login server will repeatedly crash, and no one would be playing anything, since all SOE-published games have gone through the same login server process since the existence of SOE. (Games not originally SOE, e.g. LotRO and the MtG entities, are handled separately.) The "new system" being referenced simply tightened up some paranaters and made queue position visible to players, who had previously been blind to where they stood. Even today, if and when queueing happens on a particular server, players are still basically blind to their position, as the numbers being reported are ridiculously off. There have been threads on this topic at every single TLP launch since Phinny.

I'm an old-timer too.

I noted it felt like the early days of FV with activity in the higher level zones and less in the newbie zones, which is the only 'new server' experience I have with EQ.

However, there were new characters being started on FV all the time in those early years (and even now), even with 1 character per account on the server. Some were additional accounts, some were brand new players. AND, on all servers now, it is entirely normal that there is a cluster of players nearer the max levels no matter if there are players or characters starting on the server all the time. Using the activity (via /pick) of the low level zones to gauge server population past the first couple weeks is utterly inane but has been in this thread as proof Oakwynd is "DoA".

100%

And there are those who will absolutely have a total meltdown tantrum if there isn't a new server, the new server isn't a TLP, and the server doesn't cater to their exact determination of the "perfect server".

For all anyone other than the top brass at Daybreak know, they might be planning a 25th year something that will be aimed at the entire player population of EQ and not just focused on one facet of it.

In this case we or at least some of us and I am making an assumption here are talking about the future of Oakwynd.

I'm not sure I could run EQ better, probably not because I would want to make the changes I want for my reasons and that may not mesh with the rest of the playerbase, and I would assume some decisions are made way up the ladder and no amount of team input will sway those decisions.

I admit I was and still am skeptical of FTE but it works a lot better than initially due to Meeko's tweaking it with others help finding the problems. Still needs some work imo.
I think personally, I would have brought some of the bonuses in on launch and put them in quicker overall to try and help the server stay at a healthy pop for as long as possible.

I do not think contrary to what some posters may assume that FTE is the only or even major reason Oakwynd -seems- to not have a bigger pop.

I think that has a ton of reasons
TLP fatigue likely being the biggest.
Possibly people waiting on the 25th anniversary server as well.
As far as the server being dead. I don't think it is dead nor was it DOA.
It could be what I would consider "dead" eventually though.

Me personally?

I worry about the future for the players putting in hours and hours now and then later in the future. Who want to be able to progress now and then later on through the expansions.

Why worry about them "putting in hours and hours now and then later in the future" when, to some according to their posts, the point of TLPs is recycling and repeating the same thing over and over every year or two? Why then is there so much "worry" about Oakwynd's longevity if that's been the trend for most of the others? Why is that so much worse for Oakwynd if that's exactly what the recyclers have done on so many other servers that continued on with some population until they were merged into Live servers? Why would it that mean "Oakwynd is a failure" (maybe not your words but posted by others)?

The population that chooses to stay on Oakwynd will get the bonuses, those that leave were likely to do so anyway with TLP fatigue, recycling to a new TLP, gaming fatigue, etc.

Recyclers going to Recyclers

My concern would be for those staying long term and planning/hoping to make it all the way to live, and having enough numbers to do so less problematically than say Coirnav had at the end of it's cycle.
I think some people have a -possibly- valid concern that Oakwynd may end up worse off than other servers that ended their TLP run.

Though maybe it won't, maybe it will do better once bonuses kick in.
I hope it does, I want people to have fun playing on the server they chose

I would not say Oakwynd is a failure. (atm)
I plan on playing there eventually myself.
Just can't make myself do classic/kunark again maybe even velious.
Heck may wait for PoP
Though jumping in and leveling up while the Extralife Bonuses are going is starting to appeal to me.

I would say the major worry is the server/status pop versus what other TLP' were at this point in the expansion cycle.

I would love actual data, but I don't know who would actually have that other than maybe whoever runs Eqresource if they even keep the server status data that long. or of course Darkpaw themselves.
Maybe whoever leaked those numbers last time will leak them again.

For recyclers Oakwynd is not a failure and likely won't be a failure.

I am sure there are many many differing definitions on what 'failure" and "dead" are for a server
I can only give my personal opinion on it.

Personally I would not say Oakwynd is a failure/unsuccessful/dead
Unless it gets to a point where there is no raid progression possible.
Others might not deem it a failure as long as someone is logging in doing group stuff.

Good to see another old timer. Remember in 99 and 2000 server select showed actual number of players? I don't remember it crossing 3000 or so though, and those days in grad school in Dallas, Tx, I played prime time and off peak hours (EQ addiction was real heh).

Even the EQ trilogy manual has screenshot of server selection screen.

Login server then had no queue though or atleast didn't say anything about a queue? You would just get the message about not being able to connect and to check connection etc. I was referring more to the server queue (introduced few years ago) which didn't exist in the past? I don't have screenshota readily unfortunately.

Sometime around DAoC release in late 2001 they shopped showing numbers, could have been a bit later.

Because the Oakwynd opposition need something (any straw) to undermined its success.

Clearly the population argument hasn't worked and now it seems they found a new term: longevity. Yet with the vast majority of TLPs we have clear evidence of positive attrition with every consecutive expansion unlock regardless of the server in question.

Of the 10 live servers, on average, 1 has a high pop, 6 medium, 3 low.
Of the 5 'special ruleset servers' (which are mostly live servers), 1 has a high pop, 0 medium, 4 low.
Of the 9 TLP servers, 2 have a high pop, 0 medium, 7 low.

In other words, regular live servers are doing ok overall and special servers have 1 doing well (FV) and the rest are dead. TLPs have two doing well, where one is the latest released server and the other is roughly midway through expansions.

Let's revisit after another TLP releases.

If there's anything I have learned the hard way, it's that I don't have the time to devote to this game like I used to long ago. I just don't. What looks like just 3 days a week (due to raiding schedule) actually ends up being 3 days raiding and 4 days grinding experience, camping quest spawns, making plat to afford everything you need for raiding, etc. It's not just 3 nights a week. It's a second job.

That being said, I look at the bonuses of the Oakwynd server, and I consider it beneficial to me seeing as I don't WANT a second job lol.

The experience bonuses, spawn bonuses, etc will make the server much more non-second job friendly.

The fact that most items are heirloom now rather than no-drop means that you can use your main character to get stuff for your alts including getting quest items for your alt to turn in which will make their progression that much faster. Also, you can pass your raid gear down to your alts as long as they wear the same type of gear and there is no race/class restriction that makes it not usable by them.

The first handful of expansions still make raiding tedious, and there is no getting past that because it's just how the game was designed. For that reason (among others), I have decided that I will not be raiding anymore on Oakwynd until it gets much further on in expansions. But... I will be playing off and on casually because the bonuses that the server gives make it worthwhile.

I am excited about the Shadows of Luclin expansion with the bonus AA experience. The fact that you get bonus experience for every max level character you have and they are adding bonus experience to AAs on top of that starting in Shadows of Luclin, is going to make the AA grind much less annoying.

I am also excited for the Omens of War expansion as the truebox will be relaxed to allow 3 characters to be played on a single computer. Omens of War is probably when I will be playing more simply due to that alone.

Will Oakwynd make it all the way to Live? I don't know. Usually every new TLP kills the previous TLP. The major exception there being Mischief that will likely make it to Live with a full population.

What I do know is that Oakwynd has enough interesting rules that there will be some people that will ride it out to the end.

The bigger problem (with all TLP servers) is that the game itself shifts design along the path as the expansions open. There will be a time when those who LOVE the game right now, will get to certain expansions that they HATE. It won't be because the expansions suck, but rather it will be because the design team behind those expansions took Everquest in a different direction. This happens a number of times along the history of EQ. It's hard to get all EQ players to actually like all phases of EQ history. That's the real killer of TLPs, and one of the main reasons why PoP kills the population.

This was also my unfortunate discovery. I had fun levelling and then when I hit 57 I realized that with the raiding schedule and epic farming and then playing in between, it was easily over 20h a week. Kind of puts you in a separate world, even if you're sitting right next to someone else.