Sense Heading - Progression Server Changes

The Luclin raid instances have been completed for awhile. They are available for testing on the Test server. Please give them a look when you can and let us know if you find any issues. The reason why we are holding off on the opening of Luclin and Planes of Power on Phinigel is to give the team enough time to instance contested events in Planes of Power. The time we expected we'd need to do this was split evenly between the openings of Luclin and Planes of Power.

Hi Roshen,

Thank you very much for acknowledging the discussion. I think one of the things that is fundamentally disturbing everyone about the bundling is this: the very reason we are here, on this server, is to progress. It's a slippery slope to bundle expansions - will you then bundle DoN and DoD to further "spread out" the player base? After all, they both begin with the letter D. Seems as good a reason as any.

The only reason to bundle expansions, in my opinion, is because they are overwhelmingly complementary in some fashion. Incidentally, LDoN and GoD are highly complementary...

Secondly, we have gathered on this server not only to experience content in era, but to do so with other like-minded players. The community aspect, especially of Phinny, is fantastic. I personally don't understand why anyone would want to "spread out" the player base beyond what is absolutely necessary - especially when the expansion in question (GoD) has significant amounts of instancing already built into it.

Gates of Discord was one of my favorite expansions, because it was so hard. I actually didn't get into GoD until OoW, back in 2004, and I highly respected any player or guild that was able to do that content in era. I want my shot at redemption. Many of us aren't here because we're looking for freebies - we're here because we're looking for a challenge. Taking away what is probably the most notoriously challenging expansion is like taking the tigers out of the coliseum and replacing them with house cats.

No self-respecting gladiator wants to fight house cats.

Demoncrusher

We understand the thought process of splitting the time between the opening of Luclin and PoP but Luclin brings AA's and requires a lot of farming. I think most people would rather have longer in luclin than sitting in Velious farming the same content when we could be AAing in Luclin. Make Luclin an extra 12 weeks and release Luclin on time IMO.

Especially if yall are not planning to increase EXP gains as the current EXP rate with AA's is just short of fear inspiring with how ungodly slow it will be.

if luclin AoCs are working, I think most people would prefer more time in luclin as opposed to splitting it evenly between velious and luclin

I assume you mean Luclin and Velious instead of Planes of Power?

I think most people are in agreement that they'd rather see more time in Luclin than Velious. While I could see extending Velious a bit, there's actually very little to do so splitting them equally effectively gives you less time to do the stuff you'd want to do in Luclin in favor of dead time at the end of Velious with no additional advancement aside from the same raids you'd been doing the previous 2-3 months. At least Luclin give another race/class and AA's and unlike PoP in relation to Luclin (or OoW in relation to GoD, for that matter), does not invalidate the loot/UX from Velious; there's still a point in doing end game Velious raids even while Luclin is out if you want to.

I understand the thought process behind it but if we had to be stuck somewhere while you guys sort out PoP (which, for the record, really doesn't need *everything* instanced - RZTW tier and above with sped up spawn timers would be plenty sufficient...), Luclin, where there is actually quite a few things to do (specifically AA's, which is going to be quite a time sink here), would be a FAR preferable place to be capped out at.

I would argue PoP needs to be fully instanced more than any other expansion released out of all 24 expansions. PoP is the ONE expansion where it is actually possible for 1 guild to 100% shut all other guilds out of content and with possibly 15!!!! guilds wanting to raid in era, well, I can only imagine the flagging nightmare.

On Vulak I was Raid leading Syrian Drauka doing PoP in late PoP through GoD and we STILL had problems flagging due to people killing the PoP bosses when they popped...and that was with 3! total guilds not 15!

PoP MUST be instanced completely for this server to fulfill its penultimate goal of allowing everyone a shot at raiding.

I would support more time in Luclin over Velious. The other alternative I would support would be to release some AAs in Velious. Just the basic general AAs, etc. I don't think anyone can make a compelling argument that having innate run speed or metabolism would unbalance Velious content, but it would go a LONG way towards having something to do in Velious...

Demoncrusher

I totally agree with this!! If we are being forced and extra 12 weeks of stupidity then I'd rather see it in Luclin were people can farm AAs.

is it possible to just extend Luclin? This way level 60's have aa's they can grind out to keep them entertained. I understand that you want to get things done correctly later down the road, but having a bunch of bored people waiting will kill sub's more than GoD ever did.

If DB decided to delay release of Luclin and Pop as suggested in this post and the original post, is it at all possible to get beastlords and zerkers released early.

More time in Velious just means an extra 1.5 dead months. No Beastlords, No AA's, no Level Cap Increase.

Sure Velious has a fair amount of raid content, but its not nearly enough for that long when every raiding guild will be 60 and set with Kunark gear when velious hits.

If Luclin is ready, it would make more sense to extend luclin than Velious

Well, if I read correctly the 17 pages of this thread, the huge majority of voiced opinions here are against the bundle GoD/OoW, and if I may add, I am too. So why being afraid of asking for a vote ? In my opinion, it seems difficult, on the one hand, to appeal to DBG to listen to their player basis before taking a game breaking decision, and on the other hand, to be reluctant to use the natural channel of people's expression, asking every player to participate to the decision by voting against the bundle.

If you'd prefer the issue to be solved now, rather than in the late PoP era, which I can understand as people need to plan ahead (do I stay on TLP servers, etc.), let's ask for a poll now. Personnally, having experienced the rigid leadership and lack of communication towards the players in the early Verant time, I appreciate these voting mechanisms where the game designers ask the players for their opinion and give them the opportunity to be a part of the decision process. Don't you ?

More time in Luclin > More time in Velious. Let us work on AA's, etc.

Because DBG "votes" are basically like a "free election" in Russia. They don't release the numbers, they simply say "hey this is what the result was!" and there's no paper trail or audit that can be done on them. The outcome can be whatever DBG wants them to be.

Now that's not to say they have the obligation to release that info at all, but without it, it's a pointless endeavor. Also, given past precedence, there's a pretty high likelihood they'll manage to word the poll poorly enough that people don't realize what they're voting for ala Ragefire's unlock timer vote.

I'm really surprised people are supporting more time in Luclin vs more time in Velious, but I'm on board too.

Aside from just being wrong in general, please don't clutter up constructive threads like this one with irrelevant posts about other issues that would be better discussed in their own threads.

Eh, the one nice thing about Luclin is that aside from giving you a lot to do (in the form of AA's if nothing else), it doesn't totally invalidate high end Velious stuff. If the 4 extra Vulak kills from the stated time line are going to help your guild that much, you could easily do those in addition to the Luclin stuff without it being made pointless in the way releasing two expansions that span level gaps would.

Edit: but I agree, it's nice to see nostalgia isn't clouding people's common sense. Now if only we could get that same thread of common sense across all the announcements

Completely agree with having a longer time period in Luclin (with AAs, where we need it, not in Velious). Many people are waiting to start beastlords as well, so give them some extra time to level/gear up.

This is a valid point, indeed. Then we should ask for more transparency of the voting process to ensure the result is legit. Nothing beats transparency in this kind of situations. I'd prefer a honest poll/vote, with a formulation of the question everyone agrees with, rather than a forum battle and behind the scene lobbying, which always raise suspicions and aggravates the tensions between the player base and the people running the game.

I wouldn't hold my breath. Maybe Holly/DBG will feel differently than SoE did, but I'll be shocked if so. We asked and asked for more transparency on the previous TLP/voting servers, and never received any. The final failed Gates vote was a great example -- the expansion didn't launch at the end of the vote, and the results were screwy in the voting window, with different people seeing different options as the top voted selection. No one knew what was up, and finally after several days SOE announced that the vote had ended in a tie. With upwards of a thousand players still playing on the server at that point, the likelihood of an exactly even split was astronomically low--everyone questioned it. But SoE never felt the need to give any kind of transparency, or even release so much as the vote %'s for each option. I still personally chalk it up to a bug in the system that they were too embarrassed to acknowledge.

Well, if Luclin is open, you can still do Velious content if you want to, but if Luclin isn't open, you have no choice.

If Luclin opens in the original time frame, you have Beastlords, and AAs giving you some reason to group again, whether you do so in Luclin or Velious. I think this would be beneficial, grouping fosters community. That's one thing Ragefire is lacking after 6 months in Kunark with a top heavy population, most of which hit 60 shortly into Kunark with nothing much extra to do, in terms of grouping.