I have looked into this. The current plane of war zone file is unfinished in numerous ways, even from a basic brick and mortar aspect. It would take an appreciable amount of work in blender or a similar kind of software to make it look like something more than a couple very wide open fields and a partially imagined fort.
Don't you need a full subscription for each account on TLP's? I'm sure that prevents people from doing it more than anything.
The people who are very advanced players familiar with boxing and automation get their subscription from Kronos. Since they're boxing so many and farming items/plat all day, they can sell those things for Kronos. It's probably why EQ is still around - they must make enough from the Krono trading to make it worth doing, I suppose. I can't imagine it's very profitable overall though, there just aren't that many players to sell them to.
I think this server will evolve into something like what the Test server was for official EQ before it allowed transfers. There was a smallish but big enough to do all content group of veterans of the server, who helped the devs whenever they needed it. But after a while the devs rarely needed help and that guild didn't have much to gun for so its activity dropped off. Then there was a second guild, and it resembled what a Live guild would be like much more (this was Primal Brood, I am quite certain at least one dev here is VERY familiar with it). It did all the content without any help from any characters who had progressed beyond what it had killed. Eventually it was the place to go if you wanted to play and raid on a consistent schedule. But there was also everyone else playing regularly but not wanting to be in a dedicated raid guild. These people all sort of banded together and did community raids, with a community dkp tracking site. Anyone who wanted to come could and they picked targets on a more casual schedule. This was all with a smaller raiding population than current Takp has, but probably the same number of players overall. I can see Takp looking a lot like this in a couple years.
This is a cool idea. Spin off a server where the leveling game is fun and active. Let people copy their characters over to TAKP Prime once they reach a certain level. Could be a nice recruiting pipeline for guilds who struggle for numbers but aspire to beat Time.
I'm sure some other game or emu has done this, but you could even imagine periodically spinning off servers with finite lifetimes by design. For example: spin off a fresh TLP server with some interesting ruleset, do 3 months of Classic + Kunark, 3 months of Velious, 3 months of Luclin, then shut down the spin-off server and merge its players into TAKP Prime. Let that new class of level 60 characters from the spin-off server tear into PoP on TAKP Prime for a while, then repeat with some other interesting/fun ruleset. Basically, keep the TAKP Prime raid scene intact but a) give TAKP community members new reasons to log in, and b) create a pipeline of new people into TAKP Prime's endgame, where its population is.
This thread feels like an attempt to direct the server in a direction for players that have already beaten the end game. I doubt the devs want to create specific worlds for top tier guilds but I could be wrong. I think the mission was completed and the guilds that completed it faster will have their members drop off sooner than guilds that are still yet to beat the end game. Either way I will tell you this...I still find it almost impossible to find anything up to kill that is worthwhile outside of raids on a server that is apparently having "low numbers" lol
Most of the big goals I had, have been completed when it comes to fixes. I wanted to get all the unique loot / missing npcs that drop unique loot added. From what I've got on my missing npc list, none of the missing npcs have any unique drops left. We still have probably 50+ missing npcs across all zones that need added, im slowly chipping away at that - but those aren't even noticeable usually unless they drop something unique. I went through almost every npc to try and find missing dialogue and fix up the dialogue we had. I went through nearly every quest and fixed up everything to be current with available info. I'm down to fixing little things that PQ players are bug reporting, like pathing, spawn chances, loot table fixes, faction hits, mob emotes, respawn timers - etc. The bug reports on PQ have slowed down by a good amount too, just because things are being fixed on TAKP as fast as they get reported (and there wasn't a massive amount of bugs to begin with). I'm still finding new dialogue sometimes, or things in quests to fix, but it's a lot slower now. I still have a list of things I want to fix up eventually, like getting a good loot table for the big akheva "named" that drop Pallid, Centi, Ans Xund, Lunar, etc., instead of the hit/miss tables we use on them where certain ones only drop a single weapon. Or removing the rest of the "ghost" weapons that npcs are holding but aren't currently dropping (most are guildmasters, but still some regular npcs to fix). But none of those things I have planned are going to keep someone around who is logging in to farm plane of time every week and looking for some next big thing to do. However, those things will help future projects that start up from the takp database, or even a future takp progression server if something like that ever starts up.
You did and do great things along with all the other devs here so thank you for that. I tend to feel there is a nervous feeling from the top tier guilds about how they will retain their members now that they have beaten the end game. For many of them the feeling is over and it's only the ones with alts that want to continue that farm over and over again that will stay but the others may drop off. If you want to get bis over all your alts then maybe the journey continues...but if not then those will drop off. I personally think the higher end guilds are in trouble more than anyone else atm...I will continue helping new members towards time and attempting phase whatever until the server shuts down. Even if we don't get past phase whatever we will still continue to chip away each week until we progress. Regardless if we recruit low or top tier players I feel one day we can still hit and beat end game...it will just take a lot longer than the rest =P
Barn, Tem regularly gets 50+ players for Time raids. Juggling toons around so people can get in to loot or whatever is annoying enough that we recently had to close recruiting. I don't think a dwindling playerbase will affect the high end guilds very much, but who knows.
Well then I don't see the need to suggest spin off servers if that's the case. Tem hit end game first and is still obviously farming it so all is well in the life of end game Takp
For more "casual" players there is a LOT left to achieve here. Enough to keep me busy for years yet, and I've been at it for more than 20. The only real barriers that remain are numbers checks for humans in a raid. Like Temerity, Destiny has been pushing along toward these goals across AK and TAKP for a long old time, and I don't doubt that both will still be hacking away at Plane of Time when and if this server ever closes. Population will find its low point balance and life in-game will adjust. Things will move slower than exciting peak population times, that's inevitable. As long as the lights are on, I think there will be a fun and rewarding raid scene here... it's just going to look a little different.
I also think there is a big difference between guilds that just log in for raids vs guilds that just have people logging in regardless. I agree the casual way has so much more to look forward to...and if even the guilds at end game have to cap recruitment then I don't see a need for this thread!
I'm pleased to hear that Temerity is weathering this storm. I won't pretend to know or guess as to why Temerity has such good raid attendance, but I will express a certain amount of envy (in a good way!), because Paragon has only killed Quarm twice. We have players who have responded everywhere between "Ok, beat the game" (and then moved on to play on another EMU) as well as "Yes! We've unlocked more Best In Slot gear" (and motivated to put Quarm on Farm status). I look forward to the time when Paragon can be so comfortable clearing all of PoTime regularly that it's a little annoying to figure out how to distribute the loot. Speaking for <Paragon>, the dwindling player base is a constant source of concern for our team. We have been constantly recruiting for as long as we have the energy for it, and wouldn't be around if we stopped. We have had strong stretches of attendance of 40+, but 50 has been rare, and 30 is more common today. Even with the infusion of <Blood Guard> members. There is very much a sense that, as Kovah has previously put very well, PoP flagging is rough on new players on this server. To the point that it's a detriment to recruiting new players. It's very daunting. Back flagging is tedious at best for players who have done those raids 20 times already, only to benefit a few handful of new players. And with out a constant stream of new players, we have serious concerns over our ability to be a "high end guild". I would be pleased to see anything that promotes the retention of new players, and right now new players over level 60 really struggle with getting flagged, even with the healthy amount of sharing the guilds provide each other with.
Tem has a 15+ year history to fall back on. Many of us have met one another, celebrated kids, mourned deaths, it's more than just an EQ guild to most of us. No other guild can replicate that, frankly without those personal ties I would not have been on the server or played the game for as long as I have, and that's true for many of our members.
btw on the topic of akheva weapons, i added everything that's on magelo that we were missing, only to notice that most of the deep akheva spawns havent even been killed 100 times, so those loot tables are very unfinished. There's 6 loot tables (Centi, Akhevan, Shadow flame, Astral, Lunar and Pallid), basically getting 1 to drop from a mob means that any of that table can drop. The drop rates are less than 1% from those tables, so it'd probably take 200-300 kills to see which tables they're capable of dropping. Anyway, it's caught up with current magelo, but still a lot to discover/uncover in there before our akheva is complete. There's even 8 or so astral/lunar weapons that aren't in our database even though magelo shows most of them dropping during our era
If it makes you feel slightly better, Tem doesn't actually hit 50 very often. A handful of times since the early days of raiding PoP. 50 is pretty much our cap out number right now.
It would probably help with flagging process, if instead of guild rotations, this would become (fun?) server event, server raid, with no flags numbers limited (if this is possible)? With server wide countdown for when it starts? This way number of these events could probably be even smaller, less frequent?
Obviously for loot, backflag raids aren't worth it. However, unless an 85/15 rule is implemented, then what are the odds that Tem or NAG, or some sort of server alliance will start to regularly run open server raids for backflagging on a semi-regular basis? New players being able to progress is important to attract/retain them, and even for existing players, the option to flag alts is important to retain them as well.
The odds are probably pretty low. There are some raids that can be done with low numbers, like Grummus, AD, and VZ. There are some that can still give trouble even to Elemental + guilds, like Mithaniel Marr. Then, there are those that just suck from a time perspective, like Sol Ro. Full open backflag raids are just unlikely due to those factors.
Destiny will be starting a backflagging rotation in the new year. All are welcome to join us in it. I think it would be in all of our best interest to come together in a concerted push to get new members and alts flagged up for our guilds. If non-Destiny turnout looks to be substantial for these raids then we can try out a random loot method or something in an open raid setting instead of just tag alongs. Following that flagging push we will work through elemental gods to continue the process. The server needs all the blood in the elementals and Time that it can get. It's a good time to join Destiny if you'd like to work on PoP progress and contribute to personal and guild advancement in a meaningful way. If you've already got a guild, that's okay too. Hop on the flag train and let's carve a path for those newer to the server
Good idea. One idea for handling loot on a server-wide open raid basis is to use an adaptation of the Mayong Mistmoore loot rules. Basically, one loot per human per raid. You could make it one loot per human per raid cycle if you liked, but that might be more difficult to track. Random numbers to determine winners. Just a simple way to sort that out.
I hands down loved the anniversary events. I’d take off work in December just to play all the special quests. Miss them, but know it takes staff time that isn’t around.
Back on AK destiny still used /random for all loot haha. I'm definitely open to figuring out loot if it means a good turnout and some cooperation!
