Why is Coirnav getting merged before hitting Live?

tldr; Merge Coirnav in December with the new expansion release and let us actually hit "live"

Dear Devs,

I just read the 2023 roadmap and I am a bit confused and disappointed to read that the plan is to merge Coirnav into Vox in July. Coirnav is not due to release Terror of Luclin until July 27th and then Night of Shadow on October 19. Following the well established expansion release cadence of 8/12 weeks and NoS being a non level increase expansion that lined up almost perfectly with the expected release of this year's expansion in December to complete the entire journey all the way to Live.

This journey has not been without its trials and tribulations, we launched all the way back on March 16, 2018 and throughout the last 5 years there have been multiple opportunities to jump ship to a different server. Coirnav was the last yearly TLP to release by itself; Mangler and Selo released exactly on our 1 year anniversary providing a better opportunity for alot of people, Mangler had better exp rate and Selo attracted alot of the more hardcore people. Then Aradune and Rizlona launched the following year catering both to the boxers and the anti boxers. Mischief and Thornblade provided a much needed boost to EQ's TLP scene with random loot and free trade. Miragul, Yelinak and Vaniki were al also tossed into the mix. With each subsequent round of new servers Coirnav's population took a hit, but still we carried on.

Over the years there was also a number of suggestions to help the server out. Merging with Ragefire was suggested when they were in the same era. Remove truebox was requested multiple times. When Relaxed Truebox ruleset was announced we begged to have that applied to our server as well to no avail. The rules were the rules and "you knew what you signed up for" was the resounding response from the resident peanut gallery.

But still Coirnav persisted.

Tomorrow we open The Burning Lands, arguably Everquest's hardest and most locked down expansion, at least in recent memory. 5 years on we are still having to sit characters in raids due to have > 54. Are we Mischief levels of population? No, not by a long shot. But we still deserve to complete the journey all the way to the end the way it was designed.

Please push our merger from July to December so we can complete the last 2 expansions as a TLP before we get dumped into a new server.

-Kiff from Coirnav

In recent history they've done all of the TLP server merges (Selo, Phinny, Miragul) in the middle of the year so I imagine if you can convince them to push it back it would probably be pushed back by a year to June/July of 2024. That may still be preferable to losing out on the opportunity to complete the expansions in era though as long as the server/guild population stays healthy enough to make it that long.

I would guess that they wouldn't want to do a server merge in December alongside pushing out the new expansion both because of potential issues that may happen as well as the fact that they normally bring the servers down for 24 hours when they do server merges. Maybe they could be convinced to do the merge in the first few months of 2024 instead though.

That being said I'm all for servers having the opportunity to experience all of the expansions in era.

Kiff summarized it well with his post on how the news is felt on the server. We've worked hard for the 5 years we have been on the server and we are still having fun with clearing each expansion as per the TLP ruleset. Taking away the last couple expansions to follow that ruleset is not ideal and I'm all for postponing the merge so we can finish up the server properly to hit live.

Please do consider postponing the merge.

Well, there went my motivation

I'm probably very wrong here, but maybe Coirnav is getting merged early because the final expansions need to be purchased. Daybreak wants the TLP servers to be subscription only. Correct me if I'm totally wrong.

TLPs are subscription only.

I know TLP's are subscription only. What I'm suggesting is that in order for players to play the final expansions on Coirnav, they would have to purchase the expansions, correct? Wouldn't Coirnav lose even more players if a bunch of players can't afford to buy it? So, Daybreak is maybe merging the Coirnav to live before that issue arises.

Ah okay. I see where you going.

If I had to guess, Coirnav probably has less than 500 subs. There are only 385ish characters that have logged on in the last year in our guild and who knows how many of them are on the same account. I still wish occasionally that they would bring back server population numbers.

Since 01/22: 385
Since 07/22: 329
Since 10/22: 284

Me ogre monk. Me agree wit dis message.

Must buy or quit bof ways. But join live wearing weak dragon hide make us sissy. Need to wear owlbear feather to be strong like live ogre.

The Burning Lands is set to unlock today on Coirnav, and that was the first expansion released after Coirnav launched. They will have had 2 more expansions unlock before the merge date in the road map. I find it highly unlikely the players who are still playing on Coirnav aren't aware they would need to purchase the more recent expansions to play that content. Additionally Phinny, Selo, and Miragul were able to play through to current content, before merging with an existing server.

Yeah this is quite weird announcement for the Coirnav's people, because we're going to miss few older xpac, and getting dump into live server before having a breath and as Kiff said, we asked for merge with Ragefire back then when we were at the same xpac, but it didn't happened.

We could instead use longer xpac release until we hit next year, because the last few xpacs, are quite tough, and not properly adapted to TLPs.
People might even quit when we hit live server.

Keep in mind, we are the most successful oceanic time-zone guild, up to this date.

I play on Thornblade and have plans to play this server til it hits live and that is a bit discouraging that there going to pull the finish line away when so close.

That is the case for all TLP servers as they hit the current live expansion, or in fact any of the later expansions that not everyone may have purchased. If anything I would guess they decided the low population meant the server couldn't sustain itself anymore and it had nothing to do with purchasing the expansion.

It's incredibly discouraging after this many years of progression. You at least have the option to transfer to Mischief if the time comes for Thornblade, Coirnav has comparable server =(

While we can sympathize with your frustration, Coirnav does not have a healthy population and has fallen below the population threshold for server merging. At this time, we still plan on merging Corinav in the July merge.

And while we have stuck with the server rules, as a goodbye to the server, we are willing to take a player suggestion and bend on the unlock schedule. We propose making the following changes in the February patch.

Torment of Velious Unlocks 2/23/2023
Claws of Veeshan Unlocks 4/6/2023
Terror of Luclin Unlocks 5/4/2023
Nights of Shadows Unlocks 6/15/2023

This is a proposal, and we are willing to hear feedback on other schedules. We must have all changes in by February 6th, so any debate must be complete by February 3rd.

We will also open up free transfers to live servers in the May monthly update.

Ogre tink dis is hard schedule. TLP already very fast, many forgies to kill, many nike to steal. Need to be more like Selo. Cannot kill Dragon in yesterday yeezys.

Is removing true box or going relaxed true box an option? It would allow for better efficiency on raids with our high box count.

This live player wants Coirnav players to have a fighting chance to reach NoS before the July merge.

Kill truebox. Release ToV on 3/2, CoV on 4/13, and ToL on 5/25. That would put a potential NoS unlock right around the time of the merge.

Outside of truebox that is similar to what Ngreth suggested but with the unlocks happening sooner to allow for more time in NoS before the merge.