If there is to be another TLE after Varsoon..

[LateralusXO]

If there is to be another TLE after Varsoon reaches end of life, and I mean non-Origins TLE, may I please suggest starting it at a later expansion instead of vanilla?

Thoroughly enjoying the heck out of Altar of Malice, and very excited to experience Thalumbra again in December. It brought me back as a customer. I think it brought a lot of others back too. But I would not want to wait another 3 years potentially to experience it again if there is going to be another server.

Vanilla through EoF is very overplayed now, it would be nice if the new server could start a few expansions later. Perhaps Ruins of Kunark at least, or The Shadow Odyssey. I recall another poster said a while back, start it after whatever Origins' perceived end of life expansion is. I think that would be a welcomed decision by many.

Thanks

 

[Kurei Hitaka]

RoK or TSO sound like really bad starting points, considering RoK in particular is where TLPs start to see a lot of fall off. And that definitely cannot be attributed to the expansions "unlocking too late". If anything having them unlocked early means hitting the Live slog even faster, assuming the 2 month cadence is kept, and we'd probably see an even bigger drop off in DoV.

 

[LateralusXO]

RoK or TSO sound like really bad starting points, considering RoK in particular is where TLPs start to see a lot of fall off. And that definitely cannot be attributed to the expansions "unlocking too late". If anything having them unlocked early means hitting the Live slog even faster, assuming the 2 month cadence is kept, and we'd probably see an even bigger drop off in DoV.

I'm not sure I believe RoK was a fall off point, at least for Varsoon. It felt just as active. Guild halls became a thing in RoK, not as many wandering around cities, moving between travel points (as much). So I could see the illusion of fall off. It Definitely began to drop off after Sentinel's Fate.

But my point is, these "new" expansions brought to a TLE introduced a revival. I and I imagine others don't want to replay the same overused content for the first year of it. It would be nice if these later expansions could be worked into the life cycle of the new server (if there was one). And "Live slog" doesn't really begin until after Thalumbra, depending on your definition. Tears of Veeshan and Altar of Malice are golden ages of an expansion.

I'll use this as a metric, while I'm aware it's just the raiding scene, there's more to the game than just raiding blah blah, it still represents a significant part of the population, including those casual attached to those guilds.

There were 56 guilds that killed 1 or more raid mobs/zones in Vanilla
39 in DoF
37 in KoS
38 in EoF
33 in RoK
24 in TSO
18 in SF
7 in DoV
(I don't see Skyshrine for whatever reason)

There is always natural, gradual drop off with these kind of servers, but I don't agree RoK was a significant event.

 

[Jonsu]

EoF I think would be a good start point much better then Vanilla. A TLE that goes to from 70 to 120 would be a unique TLE I imagine it would have a very different type of player base than past TLE's. More solo and small group focused than your normal TLE. If it starts with the promise of having later expansions it will likely attract more players from day one, the new one announced the later expansions late it is life.

 

[Evilary]

Let's say for arguments sake RoK is the fall off point. The reason people might start leaving at this point could be burnout from doing Base Game, DoF, KoS, and EoF before it starts. Starting at RoK would mean these players come in and start fresh instead of burnt out.

Another reason is they may not like RoK's raids and other end game content. If they keep the 2 or 3 month cycle of releases, then they can take their time leveling and gearing up waiting on the next expansion to start.

If a lot of players really just don't like the later expansions, well, we do have a lore and legend server, IoR server, and a Live PvP server running less than 100 people most of the time. I'm sure more would want to run the later expansions than 100 so if they keep those less than 100 servers going, I don't see a reason they cannot give the players this type of server.

 

[Kurei Hitaka]

But my point is, these "new" expansions brought to a TLE introduced a revival. I and I imagine others don't want to replay the same overused content for the first year of it. It would be nice if these later expansions could be worked into the life cycle of the new server (if there was one). And "Live slog" doesn't really begin until after Thalumbra, depending on your definition. Tears of Veeshan and Altar of Malice are golden ages of an expansion.

I mean the repetition of Missions > Currency > Buy Gear > Do Zone for more Gear > Repeat

Which yeah, that really doesn't hit it's worst until PoP and later, but it started as early as TSO.

On a quester level, it also means your best leveling path being pretty much the Golden Path due to sheer volume of quests available and gear rewards. Deviating will only be as necessary as any EXP nerf makes it, and if we're starting at EOF we'll be at Live EXP rates.

I do think it's an idea worth trying for what it's worth. Just seem likely that it won't pan out as well as expected because a decent portion of the early TLP adopters are nostalgic for Classic thru to KoS.

 

[Liberal]

I feel like the issue is less with the expansion it starts in, and more so the end game experience. The last three TLE's really have had a lackluster end game experience. The more expansions you go through players will kind of just say, why am I still playing this.

You can't expect someone to want to continue playing through EOF, when all the raid content is cleared in one day. You go to play ROK and there are common drop gloves from sebilis that are best in slot until TSO. You go to play DOF and your charms are best in slot from a zone that a necromancer can solo. You go to play KOS, and all the heroic gear has three blue stats per piece, making essentially zero chase items for all heroic content.

You can extrapolate this experience really across any expansion and get a similar result. By the time the player base burns out from being ignored and the experience, you reach ROK-SF, and at that point the team can't justify any changes based on the population, which means those expansions are extra broken in terms of itemization and mechanics.

Assuming some fixes are made in terms of itemization and class balance, I could see players sticking it out longer from KOS-SF.

As for the later expansions, I personally quit and didn't play through COE-TOV because of how broken the itemization was. The community racked up a bug post that garnered a ton of likes, much more than any post from live or Origins - and it was told it was feedback because the team didn't deem it worthwhile to actually fix. If this obvious bug isn't going to be fixed, why would we want to start later?

https://forums.everquest2.com/index.php?threads/itemization-for-several-zones-incorrect-for-tier.6364/

 

[LateralusXO]

I mean the repetition of Missions > Currency > Buy Gear > Do Zone for more Gear > Repeat

I'm with you on that, at first I thought you meant pay to win aspects. Leveling Familiar, Mount, Merc as a requirement, pay to win buffs, etc. I do not want that at all and will not participate in it.

I think it will be interesting to see how Thalumbra and Kunark Ascending pan out with the absence of infusing and reforging (I miss reforging, do not miss infusing), and maybe familiars. I don't know if stats on familiars will be enabled when the time comes.

To each their own, I personally don't mind it as it lays out a clearer path to progression. With Varsoon being free trade, many boring aspects of this are turned into good things if you choose to delve into it. Many things in the systems as of late are tradeable, so there's a little economic opportunity sprinkled into it. Buying/Selling/Trading the currency and sub-currency, selling the gear on broker.

 

[Sunlei]

If there is to be another TLE after Varsoon reaches end of life, and I mean non-Origins TLE, may I please suggest starting it at a later expansion instead of vanilla?

Thoroughly enjoying the heck out of Altar of Malice, and very excited to experience Thalumbra again in December. It brought me back as a customer. I think it brought a lot of others back too. But I would not want to wait another 3 years potentially to experience it again if there is going to be another server.

Vanilla through EoF is very overplayed now, it would be nice if the new server could start a few expansions later. Perhaps Ruins of Kunark at least, or The Shadow Odyssey. I recall another poster said a while back, start it after whatever Origins' perceived end of life expansion is. I think that would be a welcomed decision by many.

Thanks

To me the core part of TLE servers is the competition.

The start of several guilds, the race to be first guild.

Along with a thriving community of crafters, players taking the slow road, power levelers, players learning to raid low lvl content.

On a server that starts at lvl 70 a very large part of the community is excluded and missing.

 

[Jonsu]

To me the core part of TLE servers is the competition.

The start of several guilds, the race to be first guild.

Along with a thriving community of crafters, players taking the slow road, power levelers, players learning to raid low lvl content.

On a server that starts at lvl 70 a very large part of the community is excluded and missing.

Don't forget you still start at level 1 you still get to do all of that. Its not the initial end vanilla game true, but its all there.

 

[LateralusXO]

To me the core part of TLE servers is the competition.

The start of several guilds, the race to be first guild.

Along with a thriving community of crafters, players taking the slow road, power levelers, players learning to raid low lvl content.

On a server that starts at lvl 70 a very large part of the community is excluded and missing.

I can understand that perspective. That is why I included Origins in my initial post. Origins is made for that lower level content. I had suggested using the next non-Origins TLE as a gap between Origins and retail/Live. All content in its niches would still be available.

 

[Bustin]

I'm not sure I believe RoK was a fall off point, at least for Varsoon. It felt just as active. Guild halls became a thing in RoK, not as many wandering around cities, moving between travel points (as much). So I could see the illusion of fall off. It Definitely began to drop off after Sentinel's Fate.

But my point is, these "new" expansions brought to a TLE introduced a revival. I and I imagine others don't want to replay the same overused content for the first year of it. It would be nice if these later expansions could be worked into the life cycle of the new server (if there was one). And "Live slog" doesn't really begin until after Thalumbra, depending on your definition. Tears of Veeshan and Altar of Malice are golden ages of an expansion.

I'll use this as a metric, while I'm aware it's just the raiding scene, there's more to the game than just raiding blah blah, it still represents a significant part of the population, including those casual attached to those guilds.

There were 56 guilds that killed 1 or more raid mobs/zones in Vanilla
39 in DoF
37 in KoS
38 in EoF
33 in RoK
24 in TSO
18 in SF
7 in DoV
(I don't see Skyshrine for whatever reason)

There is always natural, gradual drop off with these kind of servers, but I don't agree RoK was a significant event.

Crazy how there were 120+ guilds on Stormhold compared to 56.

Great numbers these days. Definitely haven't driven off over half of the population. Nice.

 

[Liberal]

Crazy how there were 120+ guilds on Stormhold compared to 56.

Great numbers these days. Definitely haven't driven off over half of the population. Nice.

You can never catch the "lightning in a bottle" that Stormhold T5 was, maybe Origins T5 - but you can never recover from the first iteration even if everything was perfect. If you check any other classic like EQ1 and WOW you also have less players each iteration.

This isn't to say that they couldn't easily go 150+ guilds if they were to properly communicate, market, and build a cohesive T5 experience in both TLE and Origins fashion. The top complaint I see in both is... lack of end game experience. Origins players scream it needs to be 2006, regardless of the fact that the 2004-2006 experience is why the game is as dead as it today. Why does my level 20 gear take hours - days to accomplish, and it's worse than mastercrafted? Why do T5 raid mob drop rares and no gear i'd actually equip?

Origins was marketed as a 2006 experience, which is what origins is (The team did a good job); however it's unfortunately not a 2025 remaster which is what Origins should've been - and why Origins is more dead than a typical TLE. Hopefully next "TLE" which is currently marketed as "Origins" (feigned attempts to call it not a TLE), does a proper job at fixing the game to a modern audience. The original experience is basically asking your game to be dead. The Origins experience was a good opportunity to fix the issues of the past, instead the answer is to copy/paste the mistakes and create a server that's designed around failure.

 

[Bustin]

You can never catch the "lightning in a bottle" that Stormhold T5 was, maybe Origins T5 - but you can never recover from the first iteration even if everything was perfect. If you check any other classic like EQ1 and WOW you also have less players each iteration.

This isn't to say that they couldn't easily go 150+ guilds if they were to properly communicate, market, and build a cohesive T5 experience in both TLE and Origins fashion. The top complaint I see in both is... lack of end game experience. Origins players scream it needs to be 2006, regardless of the fact that the 2004-2006 experience is why the game is as dead as it today. Why does my level 20 gear take hours - days to accomplish, and it's worse than mastercrafted? Why do T5 raid mob drop rares and no gear i'd actually equip?

Origins was marketed as a 2006 experience, which is what origins is (The team did a good job); however it's unfortunately not a 2025 remaster which is what Origins should've been - and why Origins is more dead than a typical TLE. Hopefully next "TLE" which is currently marketed as "Origins" (feigned attempts to call it not a TLE), does a proper job at fixing the game to a modern audience. The original experience is basically asking your game to be dead. The Origins experience was a good opportunity to fix the issues of the past, instead the answer is to copy/paste the mistakes and create a server that's designed around failure.

Sure you can, it's called at least remotely delivering on the product you promised and not leaving the entire playerbase screwed over time after time. Stormhold was marketed as a return to Classic EQ2; no inflated stats, no AAs until they actually came out originally in KoS, having to actually use carpets to travel in DoF, Keyed access quests for zones etc., not as much of they tried to sell on 2006 this go around, and... how have they delivered? Following the forums here, not very well. You're comparing the golden era of EQ2 when it actually had 20+ servers and was running full steam, to the lifeless shell that live is now and blaming the current dead playerbase of live on the golden era? LOL. Are you okay? Stormhold had more players than Origins and you think players don't want OG EQ2? They want LIVE EQ2? LOL. omGz guyz the next recycled expansion dropped, more FABLED zones!!!

There were 100+ guilds that met your criteria for the second TLE also, the numbers now, 56, less than half, reflect just how many of those players couldn't care less about ever giving Daybreak their money, ever again. Imagine pretending that any restaurant that has half as many customers now as it did a few years ago is doing just as well and isn't on its way to being on life support. The TLEs don't even get treated like they exist 99% of the time.

That's all a direct result of how they treat the TLEs and the players paying to play on them. They can market and say whatever they want to. The proof is in the pudding and it's already set, 56 means with all the talk of delivering on the "actual TLE" we were all sold in 2015 with Stormhold, 10 years later; they couldn't even get half of the players back.

Too many of us have been there and done that too many times to set our money on fire again.

 

[Mizgamer62]

Honestly, long past time to stick a fork in it...its more than done. This game as a whole has been circling the drain for a while now. I commend those people still finding a way to continue to play and/or pay, because for the life of me...I don't see how.

 

[Regina]

I would love to see a new TLE. I am not having a whole lot of fun on Origins be it due to me starting late, not having friends to level with, or a combo of both. My favorite parts of EQ2 outside of the housing are doing all the HQs, SQs, and the raid tier stuff like Primsatic and Peacock. Starting in say EoF or RoK it would not be easy to get someone to do the older content, though not impossible.

 

[Liberal]

I think KOS is a better start point, with an extended timeline until midcontent is released. If the idea is to release it at a later expansion, such as EOF/ROK, I think that would hurt the overall player experience and population off the bat.

These changes are my tops, these would transform TLE:
- Hunters reworked. Both raid tokens introduced, and the overall power of hunters is reduced.
- Barding slots removed - these negate any form of harvesting.
- Overseer's removed - these negate any form of harvesting and collections. Bot's who run 6-12 mans build up hundreds of collections across their toons and flood the market.
- Overall casting speed/reuse reduced on itemization - particularly in SF/DOV where casting speed/reuse doesn't follow the reuse/casting speed reductions introduced on Varsoon for earlier expansions.
- Nerf of adornments, such as casting speed adorns, and resists adorns.
- Rework of uncontested block caps, and mitigation caps - both physical and magical.
- Introduction of Focus Effects in EOF.
- Immunities by Shaman nerfed, 25% damage reduction to all magical is overpowered.
- Fixing permanent damage reduction bugs with stoneskin reaction. As of now, if you take any hit while having a stoneskin up such as tower of stone that doesn't trigger a stoneskin, you get the 100% damage reduction for one second.
- Upping the total amount of loot dropped by encounters, and keeping free-trade.
- Make timewarp mage only.
- Make all contested have an instanced version in addition to their contested version.

 

[cgra1516]

All Lv 50 (T5) and under content including Eof and reworked starting zones.