New Progression Server confirmed

Side note on those wanting contested stuff to have something solid in place for - it's likely going to be a future poll option it sounds. Roshen just answered me earlier with:

We're talking about it. We know contested raid content is something that can be both awesome and awful. We're exploring what's possible internally first. We never want to do a poll if it's not possible to deliver on any of the topics we include in the poll.

I don't anticipate we'll have any option that requires a team of server GMs to manage players, guilds, and contested raid targets, spawns, and guild/raid rotations.

We've talked internally about what progression/timelock servers look like when you instance classic content. This reduces the chaos you mention, but I don't personally feel it captures the feeling of classic EverQuest.

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Yes, instancing is being considered. How heavily, I'm not sure and at least one vote against in the Dev side it sounds - but apparently even the "impossible option" as some claimed it was is being discussed internally. =p

It's a mixed bag. One could say it's awesome, but if they don't nerf say mage pets, you are going to see box mage crews taking out classic content, without any guild at all. That's dumb imo. I want to see guilds take out content, not randoms.

However, once instancing came around, like for Anguish, it didn't really make a difference. We still did the content, as often as we could, and still wiped to bosses, and still learned the fights, etc.

People want a limited progression server but it was pretty damn awesome when we just couldn't 1 shot every single boss within a couple hours of the new expansion opening.

I thought people were saying in here earlier that mage pets have already been nerfed back to normal? And there's a common AI flag that they use that makes a raid mob ignore pets and just go for the owner exclusively anyhow, it might be a simple thing to avoid even if it was a concern.

I went with option 4. Get up to LDON and stop for a long while.

Vaclav_sl said:

Side note on those wanting contested stuff to have something solid in place for - it's likely going to be a future poll option it sounds. Roshen just answered me earlier with:



Yes, instancing is being considered. How heavily, I'm not sure and at least one vote against in the Dev side it sounds - but apparently even the "impossible option" as some claimed it was is being discussed internally. =p

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No instancing. For the love of all that is sacred. Some of us, fucked up and masochistic as it may be, still remember fondly of being woken up by phone calls at 3AM being told you log on, because that fucker is up.

Salshun_sl said:

No instancing. For the love of all that is sacred. Some of us, fucked up and masochistic as it may be, still remember fondly of being woken up by phone calls at 3AM being told you log on, because that fucker is up.

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I completely agree that the competition should not be removed from the game. Having static versions of all the bosses is one of the best parts of the older expansions. I did however put forth an idea for instancing that could make both casuals and hardcore players happy. The idea is simply that guild leaders would be approved/flagged by a gm and given the ability to spawn an instanced version of a raid once a week (or some other amount of time). The contested open world version would still spawn and be highly contested because it spawns more often and comes with bragging rights for server first ect. The only thing the instancing would do is give casual guilds a chance to play the current content. They would not get anywhere close to the loot that the hardcore guilds got, but could still enjoy the game.

Salshun_sl said:

No instancing. For the love of all that is sacred. Some of us, fucked up and masochistic as it may be, still remember fondly of being woken up by phone calls at 3AM being told you log on, because that fucker is up.

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I raided hardcore for almost a decade (up through OoW) and I can count the number of times as a 1st to 3rd place guild (depending on when) things were contested on two hands - and even those were relatively lowkey affairs of just rushing spawns and once one guild was mobilized first the others respected it. (And poopsocking never occurred outside of stuff like Ragefire)

But on Combine and Vulak is was a daily affair that there was someone sitting on a spawn, or training another guild that beat them there, or petitioning on another guild that beat them there, etc. I'm pretty sure I went past both hands within the first week of either of my guilds beginning to raid, it was simply ridiculously commonplace for something that really wasn't that common back in the day.

fresh_sl said:

Vaclav were you Aszuth on Stromm?

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Indeed. And my common name pretty much in every case since (and on Tholuxe previous I think? I used it somewhere before Stromm as well) Although more often Aszuth as an SK now rather than a cleric. [Did bump into a Wizard Aszuth at some point that wasn't me though]

I see you... Progression server 1.0

Hrm does that mean we start with crappy unoriginal graphics? nooooeeeoow

Anyone who wants instancing should be drawn and quartered.

Instancing ruins the game. How do you even explain it in a rational sense of a unified world?

"oh, here ya go, lets make an alternate dimension for you with Nagafen so you can be spoon fed."

It'd be cool, IMO, if they release each expansion after 1 year. Give everyone plenty of time to enjoy the content before moving on. Those that dont want to wait that long can come back after the next expansion is released. P99 seems to work just fine this way after many more years of each expansion.

Then, stop at PoP or LDoN, do not go further.

I never played much EQ (besides early levels, off and on test server). Would joining a server like this at this point be fun for someone like me? Or would it be way too much for someone starting "new"?

Noodlemod_sl said:

I never played much EQ (besides early levels, off and on test server). Would joining a server like this at this point be fun for someone like me? Or would it be way too much for someone starting "new"?

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I'd probably say no. Early EQ is poopsock as fuck. We're talking sitting in mistmoore at level 22 for a week to get to 35.

The environment is so harsh that people NEED to make friends to make it work. Except in particularly specific cases (like necros/mages)

I find it a lot of fun, plus your name means something on a server like this. People you barely know send you tells as soon as you log in if you're good at your role. Etc.

But the leveling speed is nothing like you've seen before in other games. We're talking sitting at orc hill for 5-6 hours with bros pulling various spawns of shitty mobs that you can't really solo by yourself unless your a certain class.

In short: This is the game where your wife walks by and you're beating on a spider for a whole minute with a rusty hammer and she just looks at you like you're crazy as fuck. It's also the game where you make real friends that last longer than a week.

Vitality in on this too?! omg!! The Twitch streams on Orc Hill will be EPIC!

(and I completely agree with what he says, but you are a true forumbro, and I think could make it work)

I'm doing p99 red pretty hard right now, 22 gnome cleric baby. Cracked staff king bonechips in the sling.

Well I did play grindy MMOs before (Final Fantasy XI for like 6 years) where your name mattered as well. But I assume this is not minivan friendly.

Noodlemod_sl said:

Well I did play grindy MMOs before (Final Fantasy XI for like 6 years) where your name mattered as well. But I assume this is not minivan friendly.

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It'd be minivan friendly if you gamed with the RR bros, people go afk in my groups for like 20 minutes just to sex their chick...

This game is entirely dependent on who you play it with as far as fun goes. Very comparible to FFXI

Vitality_sl said:

It's also the game where you make real friends that last longer than a week.

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This is so true, and one of the best reasons to go back and play these servers. Even met some people in real life during my time on Prog 2.0.