Vaniki and Yelinak Fail

Anyone who has been around for a few TLP launches can tell you Yelinak will be packed. Coirnav was packed after it launched. It's the defacto option for the large casual crowd that will only touch this game on a fresh early era server for 1-6 months until they lose interest. It's also the defacto choice for the large crowd of regulars who know exactly how little work it takes to make krono off the first crowd. It's like a tourist trap during the busy season. People will show up to get their kicks or get paid, then move on until the next server launch.

Coirnav was slow exp... Def a pass.

Yeah, I don't think Yelinak will have a problem. Will it be the most popular TLP ever? No, but I think Coirnav level at launch is guaranteed--and Coirnav had like 15 guilds raiding and clearing through PoP, which is over a year in--that is basically success for a TLP. TLPs always frontload most of their population and also most of their revenue (which I suspect DPG knows), so what happens after that first year or so is basically irrelevant.

Mischief/Thornblade were a great idea, but there is not a good reason to do them every year. It would just cannibalize the existing special ruleset TLPs. Do I think they should do another server like them some day? Yes, but not this year.

I bring it up because of that. It still had a busy first year with that going against it. Fresh classic starts just sell themselves.

Give me a server where I have to steady grind for an hour for 1% XP! Not really, I would be bored after 20 minutes. But I would try it.

Absolutely agree. Their success was also bolstered by the first-time experience with this ruleset. There will be diminishing returns with doing the same thing over and over again, and Darkpaw has enough experience with this through the years that they have to be aware of that. So they'll use this server type sparingly, with enough time between iterations that it hopefully never feels completely stale.

My take, the Mischief rules set worked great. But making every TLP after that a clone would be a mistake, and take away from Mischief.

Maybe next time do a standard Mangler clone, start it at TSS, and wait six months for the next unlock. Standard pacing after that. Might be fun, might suck, who really knows til it's played.

A vast majority of the players who wanted FT servers went to M/TB. It was also a brand new, one of a kind concept that generated more than normal publicity and excitement. If you open another one, all you would be doing is cannibalizing the population of those servers while watering down the uniqueness of the concept.

If you want FT, play on the current servers which have that ruleset. There is no point requesting a rule change for an upcoming server which would only serve as a detriment to the current servers.

Kunark start/focus items. But I don't think Daybreak will actually change anything. Its not like that one TLP I forget which but it had such a backlash they changed it to fit whoever complained the most.

Just add increased drop rates and switch no drop to heirloom so we can gear Alts. It’s that simple.

Yup. Have asked for this a bunch. Everything no-trade being heirloom would be amazing. Also make keying account wide.

I do love the random loot and free trade aspect of Mischief. Without a doubt it has been the funnest server I've ever played on. I love not knowing exactly what loot I am going to get. The anticipation alone is what keeps me entertained, it's almost like a new mmo in a sense. I do however agree that they should wait atleast a year and Mischief mature a little more before deciding make another similar TLP. But Random Loot Free Trade with extra loot drops should most definitely be done again at some point.

Actually, there was a series of events that lead to the Coirnav server getting a decent number of people when it started.

1. Ragefire was a bot army paradise which caused a lot of people to quit
2. They created Phinigel in an effort to get those people back, and it worked. Phinigel was super popular
3. Agnar was created next and was intended to please the P99 fans by having a server that locked at Planes of Power when it got there. This server basically got all of the people that had quit Ragefire due to the bot armies BUT had missed the Phinigel server start
4. When Coirnav came around, it was the first Phinigel clone, and most of the people on Agnar were actually not there for the PoP lock, but rather for the Phinigel server style, so they moved to the Coirnav server which left the Agnar server very low population

That's why Coirnav had a decent population at start.

As for the following servers...

1. Mangler - A ton of people left Coirnav for the Mangler start because they were tired of the really slow experience rate of Coirnav, but they still preferred the Phinigel-clone style server
2. Selos - The Selos server picked up a lot of hardcore raiders because of the super fast unlock. It was seen as a race server for raiders to compete on. Unfortunately, the fast unlocks lead to some serious raider burn out. There just was too much to do to keep up eventually
3. Miragul - The Miragul server was a 100% fail at launch. The thing is that there is a MASSIVE difference between old EverQuest and Modern EverQuest. It simply is just too different, has too much stat/ability/spell bloat for the averate old school EverQuest gamer to pick up on in a short period of time. Sadly, this server was literally dead on arrival
4. Aradune - The Aradune server came along at the perfect time. Phinigel, Coirnav, Mangler, and Selos players were all ready for a new Phinigel clone server, and Aradune filled that need perfectly
5. Rizlona - The Rizlona server picked up all of the TLP players that wanted to experience the Phinigel clone while also being allowed to box on one computer. It was the first non-true box server with instanced old school raid zones (ala Phinigel clone)
6. Mischief/Thornblade - The Mischief/Thornblade servers added Free Trade and Random Loot to the Phinigel clone. This alone is the reason why this particular TLP season was so successful. With out the pull of Free Trade + Random Loot, the TLP burn out would have probably left these servers with low populations at the start. Free Trade + Random Loot pulled people back to the game that had completely retired along with those on the other TLP servers looking for a fresh start

That brings us to this year's TLP season, and I still stand with my belief that it will be a failure, but again, it will not be a failure because of Darkpaw, but rather, it will be a failure in spite of Darkpaw simply because after Ragefire, Phinigel, Agnar, Coirnav, Aradune, Rizlona, Mischief/Thornblade, people are just plain burned out on the TLP experience. Most have completed their bucket list of things to achieve in EverQuest multiple times over at this point.

There has to be something truly amazing to even begin to bring people back to another EverQuest TLP season. Yalinak definitely does not have it.

Vaniki is very different, but in a very odd way. I think the only true population on Vaniki will be a couple hardcore raid guilds competing, and I honestly believe that one of them will fizzle out pretty quickly. I wont say which one obviously. But, beyond that, I don't foresee a big population on Vaniki.

Anyway.... just my two coppers.

Good post.

Disagree a bit on Miragul, Truebox killed it imho, without Truebox I think it would have been a much more popular destination.

I think Yelinak will do okay and Vaniki might be a surprise once the players who are actually playing there start providing feedback on it.

I think we should all bear in mind that the Covid-19 Pandemic and associated lock-downs around the globe played a big part in the success of Mischief & Thornblade.
The return to something closer to normality along with many 1st world nations feeling the impacts of a cost-of-living crisis /inflation / supply-chain hangover from Covid is going to put a dampener on things.

I personally am glad they didn't make another Mischief ruleset server. It guarantees Mischief remains high population for at least another year, and I'll get to see expansions I've never seen before because a TLP finally stayed healthy beyond PoP.

GoD has been a blast, great time to hop onto Mischief and join the rest us if you enjoy fun loot, no bottlenecks and ease of finding groups.

Mischief loot was fun, but I'm ready to actually play EverQuest again.

PS. PvP TLP Plz... we don't care that everyone will declare it a failure, or how dumb you guys make the rules, it will be fun for as long as it's fun.

If you love random loot stay there.

Its good they are trying new things and there will always be people that don't enjoy the rulesets. I thought Mischief was a far cry from the Everquest that I enjoy, with raid mobs spitting out 30 items a kill, but it was very popular. Vaniki has no appeal to me as the whole idea seems silly. Basically no info released and all feedback/changes that could make the raid scene playable will likely happen far after launch, so no thanks.

I pray to my lord and savior Brad for a PVP TLP every morning and night. Keep trying new things DPG... but maybe try something that I enjoy at some point

Dont act like you and your family wont be playing on Yelinak as soon as the doors open even with the current ruleset instead of waiting another year for a possible new server with a ruleset you just may have to wait another year after that because you dont like it.

Can't like this post enough.

"just give me tons of free loot Darkpaw. What's the problem? 8)"