Everquest Mangler Server - DOING IT ALL AGAIN, AGAIN!

Zaide said:

Not sure if you played on Phinny but they had 22 raiding guilds during Luclin. 21 of them cleared VT in era.

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Phinigel was an awesome server. I would have been there for the long run if it wasn't for them screwing up the detection routines for truebox enforcement right after the Shadows of Luclin expansion opened. My brother and I loved that server and the people there.

The most frustrating part of the whole situation was DBG flat out lying and saying that it was just people cheating. My brother played on a computer in his room, and I played on mine in my room. TWO... SEPARATE... FUCKING... COMPUTERS. Yet if we were in the same zone, at the same time, casting on the same mob, it would instantly kick us out of the game. We could log right back in with NO MESSAGE of "you already have a character in game", so it was clearly not a normal means of being crashed out to desktop. This was their truebox code incorrectly identifying us as violating the truebox rule.

I even took video of it on my phone showing his computer in his room, and then walking to my room showing my computer, and then us disconnecting when we casted on a mob. It happened EVERYTIME. EVERY... FUCKING... TIME...

What did DBG do? Said it was our fault and ignored us. Thanks assholes. Way to tell your paying customers to go fuck themselves.

I truly wonder how many families they ran off from the game with that fucked up patch that broke truebox detection.

The fixed it at some point between Phinigel and the next TLP server because we were able to play again on the next one. But, we had literally said goodbye to EverQuest and not played for over a year after they fucked us on the Phinigel server. We probably would still not be playing EverQuest today if it wasn't for me just wanting to login and see if they still had the same issue one day and seeing it was gone.

They always talk about their intention of winning back lost customers from the past, but all they ever seem to do is push customers away, and the only way those customers ever come back is if one of their friends/family talks them in to coming back. SoE/DBG has the worst customer retention I have ever seen in a MMO company. It's truly like as if they just don't give a shit at all.

I will hold out judgement on Darkpaw Games for now (even though its the same fucking company with just another name) just because MAYBE... M A Y B E the duchebags that forced the company to be an immoral pile of shit for over a decade is under the Daybreak Games side of the umbrella and not the Darkpaw Games side. I am very reluctant to believe it until I see it though. Been bitten by this company for too many fucking years to blindly assume it's going to be better now all of a sudden.

....

I may have tangetted there.... hmmm.... oh well.

Zaide said:

Looking at the old websites, Phinny actually still maintained 22 active raiding guilds clearing PoTime even when Agnarr had launched and was fielding 17 of its own raiding guilds.

EQ Progression as a whole during 2016-2018 had an incredibly healthy population.

There was a moment in time where there were 45 TLP raiding guilds clearing content across 4 servers spread between Classic and Gates of Discord. Even while who knows how many players were farming Velious on Blue/Red 99.

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This is because EverQuest all and all is a damn good game. I'm not saying that the people that made it originally were geniuses. Rather, I think that they came from a generation that played pen and paper DnD, had no concept of instant gratification, and believed in fantasy games being more of a piece of a living world than being a game. Put all that together, and sprinkle a whole crap load of luck on it, and you get the miracle that was EverQuest.

Does it have flaws? Hell yes it does. But, for the most part, the design is actually very good.

Every time I see a game developer talking about making the next generation of MMORPGs and how they are going to "make it better" by changing xyz, I want to scream. Stop trying to make it better. Stop trying to change shit. It fucking works as it is.

If you want a successful follow up to EverQuest, then simply take all the rules, classes, etc from EverQuest, and put that in to a NEW server and game client. Don't try to recreate the fucking wheel. The fucking wheel rolls just fine already. Just write the server code in and the game client in today's technology, and move forward from there.

Want a non-EverQuest themed MMORPG? Same fucking thing. New server code, new game client. Keep the basic game rules design of EQ with a different theme on it.

Oh no. If I do that, it wont be "something different". How am I supposed to wave my epeen around the Internet and talk about how I am the new Jesus of game design if I do something that isn't "different"? Who's going to buy me Starbucks and suck my dick if I'm not the new messiah of MMORPG redesign?!?!!!! FUCK YOU. Put your ego away, and make a good game God damn it. The blue prints are right in fucking front of your face. Jesus... fuck.. idiots. TWENTY YEARS of the industry, and we've had all of ONE EverQuest clone, and it was made by someone who pissed all the money away and nearly didn't get it to even release. Billions have been spent on this genre, and literally only one time did someone look at EverQuest and think, "hmmmm... you know what... that game has lasted this long for a reason... I wonder why."

hasnt there been a new TLP every year it seems around march?

Penalty said:

hasnt there been a new TLP every year it seems around march?

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Sleeper/Combine were June, Fippy/Vulak were Feb, Ragefire/LJ were in May, Phinny was December, Agnar was May, Coirnav was March, Selo/Mangler were March, and Miragul was November.

I don't really expect a March release given that Mangler is still early in PoP but who knows. I hope Selo was enough of a success to encourage them to experiment with the rule set rather than crank out another Phinny or Coirnav and call it a day.

Arbitrary said:

Sleeper/Combine were June, Fippy/Vulak were Feb, Ragefire/LJ were in May, Phinny was December, Agnar was May, Coirnav was March, Selo/Mangler were March, and Miragul was November.

I don't really expect a March release given that Mangler is still early in PoP but who knows. I hope Selo was enough of a success to encourage them to experiment with the rule set rather than crank out another Phinny or Coirnav and call it a day.

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Selo ruleset, start in Kunark, with 6-8 week unlocks and the ability to have no more than 2 instances of EQ running (duo box, basically) would be my perfect server.

Ideal server stats:

Active GMs/CSR that know EQ just well enough to detect botting, warping, far taunting etc and then ban accounts associated with that activity.

Total pipe dream.

Xevy said:

1 Month unlocks, no keys/flagging, Starts in Kunark, Truebox, 1/2 lockouts.

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half lockouts are awful. do what they did with UF on phinny and just double loot

Sterling said:

half lockouts are awful. do what they did with UF on phinny and just double loot

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Boy, I have to admit that double loot sounds a whole lot better than speedy lockouts.

Arbitrary said:

Boy, I have to admit that double loot sounds a whole lot better than speedy lockouts.

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The fast lockouts early on if you're in the guild that does most of the OW stuff is a lot. then later when it's all instances it's just endless since usually you're doing multiple zones per cycle.

Fun times in plane of storms currently. Whole guilds are just sitting around waiting for the nameds to get the bits for BoT key.

It's not quite the substitute-for-a-life EverQuest it once was, but it sure smells like it sometimes.

Lambourne said:

Fun times in plane of storms currently. Whole guilds are just sitting around waiting for the nameds to get the bits for BoT key.

It's not quite the substitute-for-a-life EverQuest it once was, but it sure smells like it sometimes.

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They didn't spawn a bunch of picks like they did on Selo? that's awesome.

Sterling said:

They didn't spawn a bunch of picks like they did on Selo? that's awesome.

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Most I saw was six and they were frequently as little as three. My guild did it this weekend and we won every race I helped on except the first one (they got Manaburn 2 and had three SK harm/leech touches crit), so that was pretty satisfying. The worst part was when there was no DPS race (guilds we beat would leave after a loss or two) and we were just sitting around for hours with our thumbs up our ass. Not very riveting gameplay.

Sterling said:

They didn't spawn a bunch of picks like they did on Selo? that's awesome.

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There's picks but the threshold for spawning a new one seems very high considering one guild can kill all of the key mobs in minutes, and they don't respawn for 6 hours.

They should really just make the named spawn more often, it's just a pointless bottleneck at this point. It also rewards all the wrong kinds of gameplay (sitting around doing nothing for hours, pickhopping, warping, SEQ, killstealing).

The idea I would like for a server. Progression from Kunark, 2 month, 1 box only, double loot/ double XP and no flag requirements. Honestly tired of the tedium of flagging but I would like to enjoy the expansion for a bit before moving on. There are quests that would be nice to finish. Also lower the cost of items that require currency to buy. Then, just have fun. The game has been out for a long time. It does not need to encompass somebodies life just to enjoy getting all the items from an expansion.

Started up. Bought a krono and sold it.

Twinked out a monk for 28k and I'm level 15 atm.