PvE Time-Locked Expansion Server Feedback

Hi again folks, as many of you have noticed, we have wiped while we brought up our most recent set of changes. Below you will see a list, in no particular order, of what has been addressed so far, what will be addressed in the future, or things that we will not be changing.

First however, a quick note: The goal for the Time-Locked Expansion server is to bring us back to launch as near as feasible. That doesn't mean we won't be making any changes, however that does mean we won't be making them without careful consideration. Limiting the knee-jerk reaction fixes as it were.

If you are looking for this to be a new server with essentially the current live game, it won't be. If you are looking for progression to be as easy/quick as it is on live, it won't be.

1. Starting Gear/Bags - New players will now start with a single bag, primary weapon, and ranged weapon.
2. Separate Stats - Not going to happen, the time investment on this would be simply staggering.
3. Starting Ares - These are set folks.
4. Add weight back - Not gonna happen sorry, its too deeply rooted in code which would break a ton of stuff if we tried to put it back in. Sorry!
5. Add new quests - We aren't creating new quests for this sorry.
6. Frostfang Sea characters have their Bind Point in Qeynos - Fixed.
7. World Bell in Qeynos Harbor doesn't work - Fixed
8. No Hamlets - Sorry, not as easy to get back as people think. Not impossible but it would take so long that we would be old and grey by the time it was done and working again. Sorry
9. Remove/Change boats - Adding/removing boats is a major pain. Especially since we would just be adding them back in later.
10. Prestige housing portal - This should already be removed... we will double check it.
11. Receive message from Qho about the Gathering Obsession with the potion for gathering (Cannot enter the Isle to my knowledge) - If we turn this off it will not resend when that expansion becomes active. Sorry.
12. Secondary Tradeskill daily quests - These NPC's should be removed now.
13. Trade Skill Apprentices are here - These should be removed now.
14. Check Mount merchants for Disks and other RoK released mounts - Other than appearances being newer than original game there is no reason to do this.
15. Change Mailbox texture back to former glory - Again something to change just to have to change it back manually later. not a good option.
16. Armor and Weapon upgrades merchant is still here selling 70-90 armor and weapons for millions of status - Yes there are but you can't use them
17. Why is the Gnome Tinkering "thing" still in North Qeynos - Because we aren't putting the hoods/slums back in and those quests were part of those zones as well as the major city progression. We are not revamping those zones... again.
18. There is still a Kelethin Ambassador here in Qeynos. - Part of the zone not easy to remove and have it show up with a certain expansion.
19. Why are there non game release races? - We will not be restricting races from what is available on live.
20. Still Avatar Statues that cost 37 Million SP, really? - Yes, really.
21. Arena of the Gods person still tells you about the Arena and the Gods, why not remove the entire thing. - Because we would just have to add it back later. You still need to be a certain level to activate any of that stuff anyway.
22. My Skills character window still shows Transmuting as an option, and i still have the spell in my knowledge window. - If we remove the skill on the window it will remove on normal live servers as well. We can hide a tab but not a stat/skill.
23. Disable Mercenaries for hire door and the other Mercenary door inside. - No point to do this.
24. Shadow Creatures are still here causing a mess. - Will be removed.
25. Map Fog - We removed map fog as it was a significant character data size issue, we won't be adding that back in for the TLE servers.
26. Items are dropping that do not have a use yet. - Most of these have value. Otherwise, they can be destroyed.
27. Move NPC x to where I remember them being. - No.
28. My UI or map references some things that aren't available - Much of this is not something that can be changed without throwing a lot of time into it. Time that could be better spent making functional changes.
29. X is still present, but not functional - There are going to be things that are present but have been disabled from use.
30. Mitigation - Mitigation went through a (well, several really) revamp, not to mention a gear revamp, that made it practically impossible for low level players to be hurt. We are implementing a mitigation reduction that...mitigates this issue.
31. Experience Rates - These have been adjusted to make progression a bit closer to what it was like at launch, though they are still substantially higher than they were then. You may well need to lay the smack down on some mobs to advance between quests, or go find other quests to do in other avaliable zones.
32. Quest Markers - TLE servers will not be throwing up big glowing trails or giant blue dots indicating where your quest target is.
33. Mount speed - Has been hard capped.
34. Mount types - Flying, leaping and gliding will not be available until a respective expansion.
35. Blue stat restriction - Many blue stats have been restricted, as they were not in the base game. This will impact some currently available focus effects, or racial traits. These stats will be activated as expansions unlock.
36. Restore gear to launch values - No chance of this happening. We are making adjustments to some pieces as we come across them when we feel they are not in line with crafted and master crafted equipment.
37. Removing all the things that point to something you cannot access yet - This isn't going to happen. Not only would it take an immense amount of time to remove, but then it would take almost as much to put it back. Time that is better served elsewhere.
38. Travel Bells/Druid Rings/Wizard Spires - These have been restricted on both TLE servers, City travel systems have been restricted to allied players only. Druid rings and Wizard Spires clickies have been removed entirely, they now only work as destinations.
39. Queue times - Queue times, when they are enabled, are based off of the limits we need to place on Beta, because Beta is run on less hardware than a live server. They do not indicate the levels they will be set for on live.
40. Qeynos Faction - We have fixed the bug that prevented Qeynosians from having their factions set correctly, they will once again be KoS to Freeport guards.
41. Harvesting - We're working on reducing the amount of harvests you receive on TLE servers, however this is a pretty large task, so it's going to take some time before you see it.
42. Mobs that you want to see heroic - If we missed some that players feel should be heroic, be specific when you report them. There is zero chance that will be able to go through every mob in game one by one and verify if it used to be heroic.
43. Server Mounts - Many server mounts were disabled in a recent update. If you see one in specific you think needs to go, let us know what zone and where.
44. Spell Auto attack items - These aren't going anywhere folks, it would be a massive investment of time to remove them, and disabling them would break things on live servers.
45. Marketplace Items - Every item you see on the marketplace was voted on in the poll. We're discussing whether or not XP and Vitality potions will be available immediately on the PvP server, or if we want to seed them in a few weeks after launch.
46. Tinkering, Transmuting, Adorning - The daily quest giver that was granting adorning and tinkering skills should be gone now. Transmuting cannot be removed without breaking things on live, disabling it on the TLE servers serves the same purpose.
47. Level 50 Tradeskill recipes require raws from the next tier - Not going to change.
48. Guild Banks - Were not available at launch.
49. Grandmaster Recipes still drop - These will continue to drop but you won't be able to use them until the appropriate expansion opens. For now they will just be vendor fodder.
50. Receive message from Qho about the Gathering Obsession with the potion for gathering (Cannot enter the Isle to my knowledge) - If we turn this off it will not resend when that expansion becomes active.
51. Adorning and Tinkering and Transmuting Daily Tasks guy is till here (Fine for Beta test not release) - These should be removed now, will double check.
52. Abilities that were removed from auto-grating - Abilities such as taunts that were removed from being auto-granted at low level will be added back in.
53. EXP And Vitality Potions on the Marketplace - We will be removing these from the marketplace for the first few weeks.

1st

I think it makes absolutely zero sense that I have to pay to play on the server and then you have to pay extra to get faster experience also? If xp pots/vitality pots are available on server then the veteran rewards ones should be also.

Good stuff here... thanks for the change list. Particularly the EXP comment says you have to grind between quests (as it should be).

One issue with Warriors (zerk/guard, not sure if this applies to all fighters). We are not getting our taunts natively (when we level). I've had to either create the journeyman version or get an adept drop every time I've started them up again. Can this be fixed (grouping will happen earlier on TLE so its good to have our skills).

It is a pity you did not even reveal anything about "options" for starting areas, that was mentioned in the initial TLE FAQ.
Kander was saying we might be dropped right in Q/F as starting areas that could be acceptable for the majority of us who sincerely asked you to remove these crappy FFS/DLW starter zones

This is definitely sounding like the right direction. And for those anachronistic items... like AoG, Qho's email, etc... I can overlook those. I can't wait to roll on the server tonight and check it out.

1. Qeynos Faction - We have fixed the bug that prevented Qeynosians from having their factions set correctly, they will once again be KoS to Freeport guards.

ahahahhaa
I was leveling with my hubby and thought the FP guys were being awfully nice to me

Raffiks quest look to have been removed but the T2 crafting quest series in Halas is still active. This means good aligned can do T1 and T2 craft quests but evil aligned only get access to T1

I have less and less faith in this project. I'm not seeing, with some minor tweaks thrown in, why a person can't just play "time-lock" on a normal live server? To many excuses like "we'd just have to put it in later" or "it would take to long". Why start this project only to half *** it? Time would have been better spent with the cross server dungeon functionality, and more importantly, merging this dead servers (i.e all of them but AB).

Yea. I should be able to use my veterans potions for this. And, why aren't you asking the beta servers these pole questions?
Enable vet rewards, or disable XP pots on the servers please.

Go to the live servers and play there then. Enjoy the large arbitrary stats and billions of DPS. Live, in it's current state, is a ******* disgusting mess. My hungover borther's beer ***** the next morning look better than EQ2 Live. Go play those servers if TLE seems to slow or to rough for you.

And **** all that Live server maintenance you're talking about. What is going to bring DBG new paying customers? You're correct, TLP. not live, but TLP. Live aint bringing in anyone new because of the points I made above.

Either they want to surprise us by adding IoR for launch (notice Caith's notes said no old racial starting towns, but said nothing about the entirely separate Isle of Refuge), or maybe it won't even be ready by launch but after that, OR they aren't doing it. But it could easily be any one of the three, especially one of the first two because Kander did mention about exploring other...options.

And even the bluebies want IoR! It would solve the DLW/FFS dilemma; most peeps could pile directly into Q/F after IoR, and the die-hard anti-crafters could get their gear from DLW/FFS (joke's on them, even crafted non-MC is better than that anyway).

Thanks for the heads up Caith. As I mentioned before, there really isn't much difference between this and an expansion locked progression guild on live. And before people attack me, please be aware that this is my opinion. You are enjoying the way the TLE servers are headed, and that's great for you. Caith, your hands are tied and you cannot implement much with the TLE servers. My hands are tied so that I cannot give Daybreak Games any money once this goes live. Best of luck.

Except for the zillion things that are totally different, and the fact it is hardly anything like a level locked guild on live.

Keep up the good work Dev Team, and don't listen to these chumps.

I want to test out the raids, so if you could just give me a few level 50 baubles and handcrafted armor merchant, thanks.

I saw no mention of summoner pets getting looked into or changed(currently baf). Is this still be addressed??

Abilities that were removed from auto-grating - Abilities such as taunts that were removed from being auto-granted at low level will be added back in.

I really feel raids need to be tested/tweaked before launch. Can we get /betabuff or something so this can happen?

Summoner pets had a few tweaks last night, but nothing major. Summoner swarm pets however got kicked in the jimmy.

Oh, and no buff baubles. Sorry folks, but the first priority here is the path, not the finish line.