TLP Server "Dynamic Ruleset Evolution" over their life-cycle.

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Skuz, Feb 4, 2021.

  1. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    While the discussion on removing Truebox from Selo is dead now & removing it from Phinigel this late is pointless that does not mean that the deeper conversation on Truebox on TLP and also the broader related topic of server ruleset evolution over time should be considered concluded or closed.

    Existing TLP Servers:

    In the immediate future:
    Miragul - This server should never have had Truebox in the first place given how late in the EQ expansion timeline it began and Truebox should be removed from that server asap in my opinion, even though I don't play there.


    In the forseeable future:
    Mangler & Aradune - servers which started with Truebox should drop Truebox with the unlocking of Depths of Darkhollow.
    The main reason is because it will reduce player attrition there as the Pick-Up-Grouping scene dies off, or even has already died off by that point. As an example Phinigel as probably the most successful TLP to date had almost zero PUG scene on EU hours by Omens of War & on US hours not long after that.

    While it is easy to ignore the Truebox restrictions when there is ample grouping activity going on early in most TLP life-cycle it becomes increasingly more difficult for players to find groups as the player populations are lost through attrition over time.

    TLP & Dynamic Ruleset Evolution

    Background:
    The precedents for changing the ruleset during a TLP Server life-cycle have two clear examples from the history of Live Servers;
    First one, at some point around the release of Depths of Darkhollow on the Live Servers the one client per machine restriction was removed1.
    Second one, in 2012 during the Veil of Alaris expansion's era the EverQuest franchise went Free to Play2.

    1. While players had been able to box on one machine before with some workarounds involving multiple installations & 3rd party software this change was the single key moment that everyone regardless of technical proficiency playing EQ was then able to box more than one account from one machine on a Live Server & it has had a profound effect being a key ingredient of player engagement & retention on live servers of the existent player population, attrition noticeably slowed even if it didn't stop.

    2. Free to Play was trialled on TLP briefly.


    Recommendations:
    So here's my "recipe" of sorts for standard TLP released 2021 onwards.
    These are based on what I have learned from 10 years of live & 5 years of playing on Ragefire & Phinigel TLP servers.
    This recipe allows for future TLP to more closely mirror the evolution that the live server rules had seen.
    .............................................................
    Progression XP3
    Classic to OoW/DoN - Truebox on
    Depths of Darkhollow to live - Truebox off4
    AoC on - even for TLP servers that begin with any later expansions unlocked
    Once Veil of Alaris unlocks enable F2P
    .............................................................

    3. The only players who enjoy slow XP are the kind of hardcore-mode EQ fanatics who lobby for gear to stay on corpses when you die and for mobs to have double damage, double run-speed & double spawn rates etc.

    If a "Hard-Core-Mode" TLP is created for example then this set of guidelines would be expected to be discarded, I'm not interested in hamstringing creativity for esoteric rulesets just in setting the baseline for the 'standard' TLP server.

    4. I didn't join the Phinigel server for Truebox, I joined it for AoC, ''no more poop-socking ever again, huzzah!'' AoC & Truebox were new on Phinigel & I don't think anyone starting there at the beginning or shortly after knew whether they would be staying for the long-haul or not, they knew even less about how a Truebox server would feel & affect them personally in the later expansions as many had not even played on live after DoDH.

    I had seen Live myself having left EQ originally only in 2008 so I was familiar with boxing on one PC but did not expect to need to box on Phinigel using multiple PC's given the large population there at the time. That view inexorably altered as we moved through the EQ timeline of expansion unlocks, by Seeds of Destruction I had already long been feeling like keeping Truebox had been a mistake, many guilds had long since folded by then.

    Ragefire or ''Magefire'' as it become nicknamed by players which did not have Truebox and was the server I returned to after my hiatus from EQ did have some serious issues with large "armies" of boxed magicians that were problematic for groups & the open world raids of the early expansions so Truebox up to & including PoP is completely fine by me, almost every TLP has had healthy populations, enough for a PuG scene at least as long as that.

    Rationale of evolving rules vs static ones.

    I would advise the dev team that rulesets set in stone for the entire life-cycle of any TLP should be open to review because server populations and what they want from the game changes over time and what may begin as a working ruleset on launch day can become a veritable albatross around the necks of players as that population advances through the game.

    You only have to scan the TLP forums to see many requests for changes to core TLP server rules on the mature TLP server from the players that increase over time as those populations age, some key examples:

    Ragefire/Lockjaw - Voted expansion unlocks change to 90 day unlocks - granted
    Phinigel - Truebox removal - requested
    Agnarr - enable Free to Play - requested
    Coirnav - Truebox removal - requested
    Selo - Truebox removal - requested

    All the above servers populations have asked for major ruleset changes, alongside more progression & playstyle-related changes like zone keying/flagging quest changes, spells, disciplines, class balance, raid currency, raid key drops, raid loot quantities etc. etc.
    Many of those requests have become core parts of the TLP experience and have greatly improved the quality of the journey for the players who have & will play on TLP servers.

    Truebox is not a villain indeed it saved Phinigel from the "Magefire" problem in the early expansions, but its no hero either.
    Before GoD I think Truebox is genuinely a net positive but after that it gradually loses relevance, while nobody really minds not being able to easily box on one PC while there are lots & lots of other players to group with as the population decreases it gets harder & harder for most players to not mind and the realisation eventually dawns upon them they are now ball & chained to multiple machine boxing for a long time to come & GoD to Live is a vastly larger timespan than Classic to LDoN.

    TLP servers evolve over time just like Live servers have, the key difference was that live servers somewhat stabilised while the TLP servers with Truebox have not, Ragefire with no Truebox did stabilise in population & the attrition slowed, on every Truebox TLP the attrition has been pretty much the same gradient of downhill all the way down to nothing, with some variations depending on when the next "attractive" new TLP was launched.
    Combine/Sleeper had attrition too & while that was not due to Truebox it did have a similarity in how the server had restrictions unlike the live servers that made playing there progressively (literally & figuratively) more difficult as the population decreased.

    If servers do not evolve when they need to meet the changing needs of players they can die, Truebox servers that have not evolved pretty much died, Selo & Phinny might have 1-3 guilds when they reach live but could just has easily have died too if they had not started off so well. I strongly believe that had Truebox been removed even as late as SoD they would have got there with many more total players active. And had Miragul not had Truebox to start with I am convinced it would have had a far better reception, many forum posters had said prior to its launch that Truebox would be the key factor in its success or failure & I think they were correct in that appraisal, the results of Miragul largely what they foresaw.
    Elskidor, McJumps, Zinth and 5 others like this.
  2. Bobbybick Only Banned Twice

    These are good arguments and you actually referenced precedent, can't wait to see this never get acknowledged :)
    Tweakfour17, Ulrin, Discord and 3 others like this.
  3. WaitingforMoreEQ WaitingforTBC

    1. They aren't removing truebox they're removing Selo. This isn't precedent setting this is what is too be expected see Quarm.

    2. The same 10 people complain about truebox on ever server, even servers they don't play on. Using this as a justification to change the rules about truebox is silly, especially considering you're one of those people.

    This is just factually incorrect RF just merged with LJ and it's been losing guilds just as quick as Phinny did relative to expansions.
  4. HoodenShuklak Augur

    If every tlp is going to end up on a 20 year old live server where every old boss is perma afk farmed, then I think its really prudent to add aoc to Live for this old content.

    Thats the biggest hit to me it seems by being forced to join live. You'll never be able to see those old things. Even wildly VT is perma cleared when I dabbled on FV.
    Waring_McMarrin likes this.
  5. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    There's definitely a case to argue for AoC on live servers and I was thinking about creating a post specifically arguing for that in the Veteran's Forums while writing the topic post for this one but I only have energy for one monster-sized post a day.

    AoC were made for a specific problem, bottlenecked content on TLP servers in the early expansions.
    The devs are very likely not interested in adding it to live servers as a Quality of Life feature, even though this would be an extremely popular move were they to do it.

    I am definitely in favour though, it took me 3 years of constant trying to obtain an Abashi's Rod of Disempowerment on Antonius Bayle to get one back in the day (pre 2008) long before level 85 Heroic boxes were perma-camping old era open world raid targets so players on live now have even less opportunities than I had back then to defeat such targets.
  6. HoodenShuklak Augur

    The big problem i see is that any eq tlp player in late eq now essentially has to consider biting the bullet and just joining live since that is the inevitable end. These mature tlps just don't need more reasons to quit, as we know the communities just plummet after level 70... and after that good luck.

    In short, this change is going to lead to players being less invested in their character, which in an mmo like eq is a huge factor that keeps them logging in. Taking away things they signed up for is only going to hurt.
  7. Digler Elder

    This is a good post, with some good ideas.

    I have a question: What causes the drop in players in later expansions?
    Do people not like the content?
    Is it burnout?
    Are there one (or two) expansions/periods that a number of people don't like, so they quit?

    I'm sure its a number of factors.

    Would people potentially come back, if they were offered a boost up to some level + some amount of AA's? Would that help kickstart a population increase and help the servers?

    There are certainly expansions I don't like, and its one reason why I tend to drop out of TLP servers. I've contemplated coming back, but then there is the issue of leveling back up, and grinding AA, etc. I've tried that, and its worse than the expansions I wanted to skip.

    I'm not saying I'd want to turn things into a pay-to-win/play situation, but I'd seriously contemplate paying DBG games for a level+ AA boost to come back after I skip a few expansions. I'd pay even more to get my gear "semi-decent" for the current expansion so I could play effectively.

    Has that ever been discussed? I'd imagine it has, and people crapped all over it.
  8. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    I think the biggest factor is that EQ is 21 years old but a lot of it still looks fairly close to what it was like in 2002
    Many of the reasons people stop playing a game that has been around this long are to do with their real lives, responsibilities career changes, families etc.
    A few of the reasons might be the game itself is basically an annual gear treadmill at its core with some cool stories layered over that, the content is essentially all of the same type "Kill stuff & plunder it".



    Level 85 Heroic Upgrade was basically that, it is just in need of a roadmap & further versions of that being available, many have asked for a Level 100 Heroic upgrade, so long as you can stay within XP range of the current live game players are going to have a few levels to work through as they acclimate to the high end game.
    Tweakfour17 likes this.
  9. Tweakfour17 Augur

    Seems like the main reasons are OW content disappears, this causes the large zerg guilds and the krono farmers to want to re-roll on a fresh server, which then slowly lures in the more casuals who want to be where the people are. This also has the side effect that so many people only know Classic-PoP and are intimated by the unknown.

    Also factoring in is you can't just hit auto attack and go heat up some food on raids, mechanics while not overly difficult are way more involved than just casting a couple spells. No longer can you have a /melody bot in the corner giving you haste and contributing nothing else and still succeed no problem. Emotes happen and potentially reactions are required by anyone/everyone.

    Big numbers also scare people, they like seeing a 12AC upgrade or doing 350dmg. Doing 100k damage with a single AA or nuke makes them feel like the game has changed even though comparatively they both take roughly the % hp off the mob from their respective eras.

    AAs and Ability bloat is another thing that I'm sure is intimidating, if you play through a TLP you gain all the abilities organically and 1-2 at a time so you can learn how they work and interact. Jumping ahead multiple expansions or straight to live would likely be confusing and overwhelming.


    They have a couple things in place like this already, Heroic toons (though I imagine most TLPers never play long enough to see these and the ones that do are already superior) and AA auto grant so you can get up to speed a bit faster. There is also xp boosts along the way (GoD and TSS..think there might also be 1 in between there as well, DoDH maybe?)
  10. Machen New Member


    All of the above? I've talked to a lot of players, lead or served as an officer of a lot of guilds, on most of the TLP's since the very first round.

    Earlier on the TLP's almost exclusively attracted players that quit around Gates or Omens of War, if not earlier. They wanted to relive the glory days, and assumed everything past where they originally quit must be awful.

    Burnout is a constant factor on every TLP. You have a combined boom/bust cycle where players go hard for a week or a month on launch, then burn out and disappear for a month toward the end. Repeat enough times and some players stop coming bakc.

    And then you have some truly awful content in the middle of the longest stretch of expansioons. From level 65 to level 75, you get three level increases over ten total expansions. Half of them have no new AA's. Some of them feature literally the worst raid mechanics in the entire line of EQ history (hello Ayonae Ro, and the other Dethknell events aren't much better even if I'll give props for the trap event.) You are stuck with a year and a half of TLP progression with very little to actually do outside of logging in for raids 2x a week and pushing for 2-3 days on a new expansion launch.

    Then, you hit the level 80+ expansions where content is actually no longer an issue, and DPG is shoving them down your throat at only 2 months a time because they can't tell any qualitative or quantitative difference between DON and Underfoot.
    Skuz likes this.
  11. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Why do players quit?

    Some players are only interested in experiencing the expansions they are familiar with, perhaps that is a by-product of an older player-base, they never even planned on going any further than where they left off the last time they played.

    If they continue to repeat the TLP journey though they are going to bore themselves stupid, this is readily apparent - you'll see many posts on the forums already saying things like "make a new expansion that is for the classic era" - "make new expansions for the 1-65 levels" - "give us a new journey through the content we have repeated ad-nauseum because we don't like the harder content that comes later on" or words to that effect.

    What they want is more of the same easy, simple, uncomplicated Tank 'n Spank raiding that they enjoy and which does not demand any more of them as a player than the Classic to Velious expansions do, or maybe to PoP at most, they want that simple gameplay, but they want some new places to have it in, some new scenery, sounds, stories but still with that simplistic, easy, laid back & relaxed style that is more conducive to hot cocoa, slippers & chatting with their gaming friends.

    These players enjoy the more relaxed less laser-focused gameplay in those early eras even if its getting a bit boring now, as they see the same scenery time after time, but they don't want to broach the later expansions & raids because they either wouldn't be able to cut it in them anyway & they know it, or that's too demanding a playstyle than the one they seek out and they are just looking for relaxed and easy gaming with Netflix on a second screen while they chat in game with friends on cruise-mode.

    Gaining new knowledge in a knowledge-based game such as EQ can be something many players don't feel comfortable with as they age, I can recall even as a schoolboy there were a lot of students who really didn't enjoy the learning process, even in topics they liked, it is no surprise to me that there is a large segment of players for whom gaining new knowledge being a requirement in a game is problematic, it makes them feel anxious, stupid or even inadequate.

    That's why I think the simplicity of early EQ expansions makes them more popular than the later ones, particularly for raiding but that growing complexity as the game advances extends across every aspect of the game.

    It is what it is, all down to human nature maybe.
    Tweakfour17 likes this.
  12. a_librarian Augur

    People don't want the feeling of being left behind in their paid for entertainment. That's the experience of starting on a mature TLP. Doesn't matter how truly bad a lot of early era design is, fresh servers sell themselves because you don't feel behind and alone. Buy bags.
    Skuz likes this.
  13. Digler Elder


    Yes, those exist on Live servers. However, I'm specifically talking about a path to allow people to effectively skip an expansion (or several) on a TLP, and allow them to do so without for 5 days straight to "catch up" on levels and AA.

    Would doing that encourage people to return to a TLP, in numbers to make a difference on the population, and increase the "health" of the server?

    I have no idea how the mechanics would work, what it cost, etc.

    Assume for a moment someone launched on a TLP and played through to the first week or so of Velious, and then got burned out and quit. Would people like that come back to the server when its at OOW launch, if they could wave a magic wand and have that same toon be level capped with a respectable amount of AA's?

    My point is, I would likely do that. I'd be willing to pay for it as well. I don't think I'm alone.

    One of the biggest reasons I don't return to TLPs after a long hiatus is the grind to "catch back up". I have a desire to play and experience the content, but the grind to do that isn't the "fun" I'm after.
  14. Bobbybick Only Banned Twice

    See I'm torn. I like the original expansions because the stats on most content isn't so inflated that, as long as you have a priest class and 2-3 other players you can go out and do something. Leveling up a new character on Aradune recently a lot of my groups have been all over the place in terms of class makeup but as long as we had at least 1 healer we could keep grinding away.

    Comparing that to trying to bring a premade group of 6 coordinated players back to Selo last year (TSS era) we ran into big hurdles after level 65 as the damage of the mobs was drastically outpacing the gear available to our tank. Had we not gotten outside assistance from already geared raiders willing to basically carry us that final stretch those last 5-10 levels would have been a huge slog.

    The problem kind of goes away in SoD as the J1 merc is able to at least survive most trash mobs compared to what most group-geared tanks will have available at the lower levels. The gear quality available from easy to farm named starting in Field of Scale(SoD) really bridges the gap that I don't think any prior expansion comes even close to. Cultural armor is alright but not always an option and can sometimes not keep up depending on the era.

    I'd love to see a server start in TSS just because I'm interested to see how guilds go about their progression plans. Do you go back and try to clear anguish a few times then farm MPG trash to get tanks enough decent raid AC pieces to survive TSS content or do you go with real ghetto stuff like petwalling group TSS named and try to get the group-tier TSS armor that way? Maybe farm Theatre of Blood trash? We saw similar stuff on Selo's launch with Luclin era content and it was funny watching tanks get excited for what is normally garbage-tier Va'Dyn loot because it happened to have good AC values compared to the banded armor they leveled up in.
    IlllIllIllIlll likes this.
  15. Digler Elder


    Bobby, I may be wrong, but I think you're sort of proving my point. If you and 5 other coordinated players could have just gotten their toons level capped, as a service from DBG, would you have done that?

    Or was part of that experience "the grind" with your buddies? I assume you were leveling up, to take part in the current era content. Would it have been preferable to skip the leveling process?
  16. Bobbybick Only Banned Twice

    No, I've never found that I have any sort of attachment to a "boosted" character. I want to progress the character myself, but I want that progression to not feel like I have weights tied down to me.

    There's just an awkward gap in time in EQ (I would say DODH->SoF) where the content is tuned assuming that at least the tank in your group is in raid gear and if that isn't the case then you just get stonewalled on content you can do. That's really the fault of the item devs from that era making the Raid gear, on average, twice the HEM and AC of the same-tier group counterparts.
    Whoops, Skuz and Barton like this.
  17. Digler Elder


    Well, in this specific situation the "boosted" character would be one you've already played.

    More specifically, lets say I roll up a mage, Bickbobby at the TLP launch, and I play Bickbobby up through Kunark, and he's all Uber and l33t right before the Velious launch. Then I take 15 months off. I don't like those expansions, I can't come up with $15 a month, I get cancer...whatever. Regardless, I come back for what ever expansion that would be, and "boost" Bickbobby up to the current level (with some amount of AA's), and come right back for the launch of whatever expansion is about to drop on the TLP, so I'm ready to race that expansion with my buddies (assuming the guild is still around or I've found a new one).

    Would you still have that lack of attachment you mention?

    I know there are other questions...how many AA, what about gear?, etc, etc.

    Would that concept get people to come back to a TLP after leaving?
  18. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    I think there's room for the kind of thing you are talking about but with a "gap" existing between the boost level & the current level so you at least have to level up some and learn / relearn the class some.
    The thing is convincing the devs there is enough merit to it is hard as there's a fair amount of dev time involved.

    i.e. The game has the 85 Heroic, but it also has a template for 51/50 & probably several Beta-test templates that can be re-purposed, so the time spent on those is at least able to be cut down from past efforts.

    However when we start looking at post 85 heroics in order for the boost to remain within XP range of the current max level the dev concerns stretch from labour involved in character templates to the more complex "educate the player" conversation about the higher level characters involved, can they justify the cost of making a Tutorial for a 100 Heroic upgrade for example? And how in-depth would that need to be, can they even teach enough with an in game tutorial mode to give a new to EQ player a solid enough grounding?
  19. Digler Elder

    I see what you're saying, and that makes sense. A couple points I would debate:

    1. The "gap" you mention with the "boost". My goal with this would be that I would be able to skip some expansions, and come back for the day-one launch/opening of an expansion that I like. Thus, I would want to be level capped, and have some "base amount" of AA. So that I can be ready to roll and do the 24 hr XP grind to level cap again with everyone in the new expansion. Gear is another issue as well, and that would need to be taken into account.

    To state it again, the "boost" would be to a character I previously played and leveled in earlier expansions on the server.

    2. Learning/Relearning the class. While some people might be complete novices to these later expansions, I suspect most aren't. At a minimum, I would think the 24hr grind to get your new 5levels and AA (that everyone on the server is doing) would be the "crash course" that would get everyone to where they need. I don't think you would really need a "turtorial" in the sense of Glooming Deep. Keep in mind, the idea is to make returning as "painless" as possible. The guilds that pick these people up would know if they're good players. In all likelihood, they guilded/grouped with them in the past, which is why these players would be coming back.

    3. Dev time. Yeah, I agree that is an issue. Its easy for me to sit in my underwear, in my grandma's basement and say "Do this, Do that".

    At the end of the day, this idea is about trying to increase the population on TLPs as they age. I know there are people that come back after an expansion or two and get their friends to PL them or pay for the service. But that isn't as clean or as efficient as DBG doing it. It also opens a revenue source.
    Skuz likes this.
  20. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Yeah, I see where you are coming from, something to support that "easy return" to a server for a player that lapsed or decided to skip an expansion or so.

    The flip-side of that argument is at what point have you diverged from making it easy enough to return to making it too easy to take an extended break?
    And that's where I think a few Heroic Upgrade choices, that keep you within the XP range of the max level rather than always having a within 5 levels boost available is the better solution.