[bigjerry]

Originally Posted by Mistle [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It was funny watching the history of the second try at progression servers unfold.

Fippy was the first (I'm not counting the 2007 ones, they were a different story). On this server you had to beat the content to open a vote for the launching next expansion. Fippy was super popular, so much so that a second server was opened (Vulak). This was back in 2011 so p99 hadn't achieved the legendary status (or notoriety) it has now. People WANTED a nostalgia server and this was finally their chance. And the evolution of the server really showed this. 9 days to complete vanilla, 13 to complete kunark, 16 for velious, 13 for luclin. I don't know what the completion dates were after this. It got funny after that. As I said, the progression servers were seen as nostalgia trips for most the players. Not many players felt any nostalgia for GoD, and the vote to open it failed repeatedly, especially thanks to the poor behavior of the raiding guilds at the time talking down to the more casual people who wanted to experience their nostalgia as long as they could (sound familiar?). It did eventually pass, and from then on the population hit the shits, first raiding guilds leaving because of the stonewall, then everyone else leaving because the vote succeeded and it was no longer nostalgic EQ. The server still exists, but by 2015 there are posts mentioning that there were zero people in the bazaar (note: Takp, which currently tops out just over 200 people, normally has around 35 bazaar traders for comparison), and its only slightly behind the Live servers in progression.

The overflow server from Fippy was called Vulak. This server is dead. The casuals left with the death of nostalgia and there wasn't enough people to feed the few raiding guilds left enough people to maintain their rosters. Posts as far back as the beginning of 2014 were complaining that the server no longer had a population large enough to advance. It somehow managed to stagger its way to SoD on the backs of one terribad guild, but they are gone and no one expects Vulak to ever advance further. Any hope in 2015 was ended by Ragefire and Lockjaw.

Four years after Fippy was Ragefire and Lockjaw soon after. The main difference with these servers was a nod to those who wanted slower releases of expansions (basically the casuals who wanted to maintain the nostalgia factor as long as possible). They have six month unlock timers. Or, they did at first. This is changing as the nostalgia population quits. Both of them are as far as I know still in Luclin for a while yet, but having learned from previous history, DBG is increasing the expansion rate to 3 months after PoP, since the nostalgia casuals will quit then and Vulak proved the raiders won't stay if the progression is too slow. Notable about these servers was the failure to address the extreme power disparity between classic content and modern class balance; the servers were notorious for botted mage armies camping literally everything in the game.

And now the much faster moving Phinny, obviously aimed at the raiding population, with no votes that hamstrung earlier server progression. Instancing to prevent cockblocking, only "trueboxing" allowed.

Sometime this year there will be another progression server (basically already confirmed). Smart money is it will be after Phinny hits GoD and the same casual population collapse that hit Fippy and Vulak strikes; the new progression server will pick them up.

Originally Posted by jcr4990 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Joined Phinny late kunark. Fail to see why that's relevant but congratz on being almost right?

1st - I didn't say AoS did shady tactics to kill AHR. I admitted that OGC used questionable tactics to win the race to AHR. I was referring to the "rift stealing" incident. Open world competition (On the rare occasion it actually happens and its not just AoS circlejerking themselves) is pretty ruthless. I don't believe for 0.00001 seconds that AoS wouldn't have done the same thing if the shoe was on the other foot and neither does anyone with a functioning brain.

2nd - Basically covered this in 1st. Competition happened. AoS got outplayed then cried about OGC playing unfair while they consult their ShowEQ batphone

3rd - Again welcome to competing for open world mobs. Are you new to Everquest or just being dumb? AoS and OGC weren't the only guilds aggressively competing for shards and resorting to trains/KSing. It's not exactly a surprise that the top 2 guilds would be doing that. Both guilds have and will continue to do whatever it takes to win on expansion launches even if it means bending/breaking the rules and stepping on other people/guilds. This isn't exclusive to Phinny. Stop by the P99 Raid Discussion forums if you need proof.

4th - I have seen some bosses pulled to zone in and never denied that. I've never seen AHR pulled to zone in and the vast majority of the time I don't see any bosses get pulled to zone in. Depends on who's leading the raid at the time and what pullers/kiters we have to work with. I wouldn't be embarrassed to say we pull bosses to zonein all the time if we really did that. I don't know why you think I'd lie about it.

5th - This is where I realized you're genuinely retarded. If you honestly think all 18 guilds with AHR kills on Phinny have 100+ fully VT geared players you are LITERALLY the least intelligent person I've ever encountered on this forum and that's saying a hell of a lot. Most of those guilds don't even have 100+ active raiders. Many of them don't split AT ALL. How many weeks were there in Luclin? 18? For most guilds not splitting at all that's 18 VT clears the entire expansion. I'm no mathematician but it's pretty obvious your brain is fucked if you think only 18 AHR kills can "fully gear" 100+ people.

Seriously man are you just trolling or really this stupid?

dude