Does EQ2 have a Time Lock Progression Server?

Does EQ2 have a time lock progression server like EQ1s Phinigel server?

Everquest2 has TLE server called stormhold. Like EQ1 you will need a sub to play on this server. Experience is also reduced. Currently it is 1 month votes to see if the population wants to move onto the next expansion. After 3 failed votes I believe then it turns into 3 month votes. Server is currently in RoK and will probably be going into TSO very soon. Population is not the best unfortunately due to many changes in stats in the game. Stats are not where they should be imo (most would agree) and a lot of gear is not updated. They have had to buff many raid mobs due to the fact that challenge is non existent. Many stuff does not get fixed. Prime example is atm you can earn void shards and get some of the access quests done I believe (not playing anymore just going off what I see in posts) before TSO is released.

Overall yes there is one but its not very popular as EQ1 Phinigel. If you want to play at a slow pace and enjoy some of the nostalgia then its not bad but don't expect to find a lot of groups until you get a higher level. This is the first TLE server so imo its a testing phase for Daybreak. Will there be another? maybe. When the server first went live it was very popular but due to some of the issues mentioned above many left 2-3 expansions in. So now its up to Daybreak to see if they will fix many of the problems and make it fun.

30 days seems like a very fast unlock period. The voting on the other timelock progression server never worked out very well. I think that is one of the winning points of Phinigel, its just time locked, 90 per expansion. I think it would be a good idea to start a new EQ2 TLP server right after Phinigel hits OoW/GoD release. I see a mass exodus from the EQ1 TPL server phinigel when God\OoW hits and even after PoP is complete.

30 days is very fast but the shatterdlands/DoF content is very small and not to mention the challenge aspects are no longer there. I was soloing/duoing a good portion of DoF. Also the lockout timers are only 90mins now so gearing is really fast. The hardcore players and semi hardcore players were at max level within 2-3 weeks of Shatter Lands release and cleared most raid content in 1-2 weeks. So you can see why people got bored really fast. Not to mention since you only had to get 10 levels for DoF and not 50 content got cleared even quicker. The casual player base was slightly bigger than the hardcore base and thus made everyone wait and a lot quit. Again if the difficulty was raised to make it more challenging in the sense of updating mobs or updating the gear then it would be better but since everything that happens on TLE affects the live servers they have to be carful not to break stuff on the live servers. Maybe bringing back or adjusting zone timers would make it better so you cant gear out in 1 or 2 days.

That's been a fundamental issue with TLE. They tried ratcheting up mob difficulty, but there was no real progression in gear. A year ago when KoS was unlocked, what we were left with for months were "Russian roulette" raids. There was little strategy beyond spam heals, throw up death prevents, and pray to the RNG that your tank wasn't one-shot by an auto-attack (or just give up and use pets to tank, before they were beaten vigorously with the nerfbat). Was raid content cleared? Yeah. Was it cleared in a fashion that in any way, shape or form resembled how the game was back in 2006-2007? Not even close.

Things are much improved now, and we're actually starting to get some logical progression in gear (although some of the VP set gear is still borked, it'll largely be a moot issue as long as they don't repeat the same problem with the TSO sets). And TSO raids are a lot more involved than just "tank stands in the corner and gets beaten on while the rest of the raid mashes buttons". There's a lot of "individual responsiblity" in the fights, and TSO was when we got battleweary, so you can't just heal a mob to death. Notably that also means they need to be careful with how they handle mob mitigation and health; just dialing that up can effectively leave us with unkillable bosses (ala AoG during the EoF period).

In terms of zones, I don't really see a need to adjust zone timers. There will be 18-20 new heroic instances added with TSO, and there's only so many hours in a day. In terms of farming shards, it's largely irrelevant. All the shortened timers will do is allow people to farm specific zones for specific items more readily, and I don't think that's a bad thing. What they do need to do though is remove the Moors vendor that sells rare items for void shards. It made sense after TSO had been out a while and people could just spend 150 shards to get what the RNG had denied them; but it shouldn't be in place when TSO unlocks on Stormhold.

One problem is the fact that the gear so stupidly strong, they have a no margin to properly itemize 6 raids sets (T3/T4 for TSO & T1-T4 for SF) without entering DoV territory which starts at 123/128 (main stats) for x4 raid gear. My bet is that we are most likely to see substantial gains on blue-stats and possibly the introduction of crit bonus...

Another concern is that we had Critical Mitigation on Live when TSO was introduced and it "forced" everyone into the new gear. Since Critical Mitigation is now irrevelant and if the TSO gear revamp due for TLE is poorly done, I don't see much motivation for anyone to swap to newer equipement.

Regards.

Yea they really screwed themselves over the years with all these stat changes. Easy way was to adjust mob HP and dmg and cross your fingers and hoped it made a difference. Sadly if they really wanted to fix alot of the issues they would need to go back and fix alot of gear expansion by expansion for it to be fun again (imo) or if another TLE server was to see the light of day. Unfortunately TLE support from Daybreak is there but feels like you have a total of 2 people working on it and everything that changes effects live so its hard. And looking at every single item to change would be very time consuming in addition to testing.

In regards to timers i see your point in TSO. Only thing i see if to grind shards to will be running the same 3 on timers over and over. But then again most of the content will probably be a pushover so wont matter. That comment was more geared toward if another TLE was to be created (sorry should have been clearer).

Been playing on Stormhold for a little while now after reading about it extensively, and what strikes me most at this juncture is the schizophrenia of the results. It's a jarring mix of pornographically statflated gear and "nostalgic" usability nerfs that often cross the line into "simply inconvenient."

Also apparent is how poor the source management has been over the years. EQ1 has had progression servers forever, and while I gather that EQ2 is a good bit more complicated and has had more nips and tucks to existing content, they've had plenty of time to prepare. There should've been swappable grids of items and quests and old zones early on, like filters in an air conditioner, but there apparently weren't, and now we're left with a rather disjointed TLE experience. I enjoy it, don't get me wrong, but it ain't what it could've been.

So when are they kicking off a NEW Progression Server. Seems like Stormhold has been a beta run and not they can release a clean one for the general public.

Part of the issue there is that EQ2 had gone through several re-itemizations and frankly, they weren't done particularly well. They made decisions to do things like ignore T5 raid gear and so on. What they've been doing now with gear actually makes sense in that they're smoothing out the stat progression curve.

Here's what it generally looked like before any of the changes that were made. You had relatively small increases in stats over the tiers, until you come to the more recent expansions. Graphed, it looks something like this:

What it looks like they're trying to do is make it so that it's more of a smooth curve, and less of a "hockey stick" in terms of stat progression:


We can argue about how well we think they're implementing it, but I think that's the general goal. As they smooth out item progression in the lower tiers on Stormhold, the standard servers get the same benefit for players who level up through that content there.

has DBGs posted any news on a new progression server?

I haven't even heard discussion about a new progression server, much less any actual news.

There've been rumours of a "Race to Anashti Sul" server.
No idea if it'll happen or not, but would probably get a spike in interest for the game, at least for a bit.

Played on Stormhold since the start. Took a few months break after they nerfed pets.

I'd say it all depends on what you want. I am happy to play there. It gives me a chance to revisit some older zones that I enjoyed, while there are others doing it as well. The population has gone down but I do see a lot of LFG at various levels. Joining a guild helps a lot. I am hoping with TSO we get a bit of an influx of people coming back. There has already been people returning from RTT (a special server that lasted, not sure, 6 months?).

No clue how things will end tho. My fingers are crossed that if they eventually do open a new progression server they will give people on Stormhold the opportunity to move their characters to live. If so, I would play on another TLE. If not I wouldnt bother with it.

We played on Stormhold for a few months and really enjoyed it, but with our fairly casual pace, we couldn't "keep up" with the unlocks.

Seems like the idea to revisit older, nostalgic zones was replaced by a a determined effort to "match" the current Xpac ASAP.

We just went back to Maj'dul, there didn't seem to be enough of a compelling reason to stay around - Stormhold will be on the current Xpac in a time frame that just seemed a little to fast for us. That said, we only just finished AoM..lol

If it continues to unlock at its current pace, and presuming they release a new expansion every year to the standard servers, then we're looking at "catching up" sometime in late 2019 or early 2020. That's presuming that there's no real "vote" for Age of Discovery (or if there is, it only lasts a month) because that wasn't really an expansion; it was just a bunch of features.

Of course, folks here may decide that once we've reached DoV that the current 4-5 months between expansions is too long and they just want to catch up and start voting in expansions every month or two. So let's say that we vote in SF around June, and DoV sometime in early October. In that case, we could potentially be hitting AoM by July or August, 2018.

Why are you trying to "keep up" with the unlocks? Just take your time and enjoy the nostalgia.

Basically the same reason Live has complaints...as soon as there is an unlock, everyone rockets into the next expansion area - which reduces grouping opportunities, equipment on broker and just, in general, changes the "feel" of the game.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the time on Stormhold, just figured if it was going to tap out in a 1 to 1.5 years then I may as well play on live.

Also, I think a common theme holds as well, the nostalgia is lower than expected without old cities, questlines, etc. I would recommend that anyone that played at launch, or at least early on, give it a try - it just may or may not be the experience you are looking for.

For me the big benefit has been less nostalgic than practical, namely the feeling of greater headroom with regard to leveling up and AA gain. It's more relaxed. I've turned off combat XP completely, quest XP sometimes, and it's fun! I actually have to seek out stuff to do if I want to advance, rather than be in constant mopping-up mode for things I've missed a bajillion levels ago.

There's some nostalgia, yes, but the gear and almost total lack of zone alterations—e.g. cities unreverted, NPC shoutouts refer to Kerafyrm and Luclin, NPCs from future expansions just stand around like wassup guys—disrupt it.

And I understand the point of re-itemization, but I still think it sits oddly with e.g. the fairly hardcore restrictions on transportation, for example.

I can't see SF unlocking as late as June. That would be a really long time to sit in TSO. There are a lot of zones in TSO but only so much to really do. Only so many shards you need, especially if you don't raid. Just my opinion tho!