Agnarr, EverQuest Progression Server?

[ro9ue]

Anyone doing this right now? I'm thinking about buying a membership sub to play this if it's active. Post your experiences so far.

[Fencers]

I played on one of the previous prog servers; Ragefire. It was great- up to SOL, iirc. The new one is POP locked or something.

Since I last played a few more prog servers went up. They tend to be popular. Doubt they're ghost towns.

[stellvia]

I'm currently playing on Phinegal, which was the latest TLP server before Agnarr to release. Each have slightly different rulesets as follows:

Ragefire: Double XP, allows full boxing, non-instanced raids and dungeons, and voting on when to advance to the next expansion. A guild named Twisted Legacy (Which had previously been on the Fippy TLP server years ago) basically ruined the server with extremely anti-competitive behaviors and cheating, RMT of items, etc. Lots of people with 24-box mage armies etc. Currently At Luclin and I think they finally voted to enter PoP.

Lockjaw: Launched a few months after Ragefire, it was their solution to Ragefire's cancerous atmosphere. Automatically advances expansions every 6 months. "Truebox" rules enforced which means only one account per PC, whereas on Ragefire you could run as many accounts as the system could handle. Still has the double XP. Not very much population these days AFAIK.

Phinegal: Normal XP and penalizes soloing to prevent certain exploitative powerleveling strats that were present on Ragefire/Lockjaw. Truebox rules. Expansions automatically launch every 6 mos, instances for raids. Normal zones also spawn a separate channel to join once they gain more than ~30 people to keep down overcrowding. Is/was the most popular server in EQ. Currently at PoP + LdoN. Going into Gates of Discord in about 6 weeks. (Which has had the level balance issues fixed that were present in the original release of that expansion. They fucked up and had it balanced for L70 somehow when it was for L65, which was a big part of the reason it was so goddamn hard and drove everyone off to WoW at the time)

Agnarr: Server just launched this weekend. Double XP and rest of the ruleset is identical to Phinegal. Lots of hype surrounding the server, but I think its mostly people who want to farm up cheap Kronos and move them to other servers. Touted as the "alt friendly" server due to the double XP and stopping at PoP+LdoN.

Phinegal has the newer tutorial mission which gives you a full set of armor thats ~L50-55 raid gear quality, so don't feel you would be super behind starting there now. I'm biased but I feel Phinegal is still a better option than Agnarr if you want to continue getting the full EQ experience. Most people heard about how GoD went poorly the first time and refuse to even try it, but I'm excited to see it in its balanced form it was meant to be done as. With instanced raids most people are also approaching GoD in proper gear unlike in the classic release era when only like 2 guilds per server would have enough gear to take it on properly.

[Hctaz]

Interesting. Are these official legacy type servers? How do they function? Is it a true experience of the previous expansions in their entirety or is it just limiting people to the old game content simply by limiting the content and levels available but while keeping all advancements done in the future? I've never played EQ but I'm genuinely interested in this since I know WoW is so against legacy servers.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm currently playing on Phinegal, which was the latest TLP server before Agnarr to release. Each have slightly different rulesets as follows:

Ragefire: Double XP, allows full boxing, non-instanced raids and dungeons, and voting on when to advance to the next expansion. A guild named Twisted Legacy (Which had previously been on the Fippy TLP server years ago) basically ruined the server with extremely anti-competitive behaviors and cheating, RMT of items, etc. Lots of people with 24-box mage armies etc. Currently At Luclin and I think they finally voted to enter PoP.

Lockjaw: Launched a few months after Ragefire, it was their solution to Ragefire's cancerous atmosphere. Automatically advances expansions every 6 months. "Truebox" rules enforced which means only one account per PC, whereas on Ragefire you could run as many accounts as the system could handle. Still has the double XP. Not very much population these days AFAIK.

Phinegal: Normal XP and penalizes soloing to prevent certain exploitative powerleveling strats that were present on Ragefire/Lockjaw. Truebox rules. Expansions automatically launch every 6 mos, instances for raids. Normal zones also spawn a separate channel to join once they gain more than ~30 people to keep down overcrowding. Is/was the most popular server in EQ. Currently at PoP + LdoN. Going into Gates of Discord in about 6 weeks. (Which has had the level balance issues fixed that were present in the original release of that expansion. They fucked up and had it balanced for L70 somehow when it was for L65, which was a big part of the reason it was so goddamn hard and drove everyone off to WoW at the time)

Agnarr: Server just launched this weekend. Double XP and rest of the ruleset is identical to Phinegal. Lots of hype surrounding the server, but I think its mostly people who want to farm up cheap Kronos and move them to other servers. Touted as the "alt friendly" server due to the double XP and stopping at PoP+LdoN.

Phinegal has the newer tutorial mission which gives you a full set of armor thats ~L50-55 raid gear quality, so don't feel you would be super behind starting there now. I'm biased but I feel Phinegal is still a better option than Agnarr if you want to continue getting the full EQ experience. Most people heard about how GoD went poorly the first time and refuse to even try it, but I'm excited to see it in its balanced form it was meant to be done as. With instanced raids most people are also approaching GoD in proper gear unlike in the classic release era when only like 2 guilds per server would have enough gear to take it on properly.

Quoting you since you seem to have experience with these.

[stellvia]

They're official legacy servers. All of the NPCs, quests, zones, etc. are tagged with which expansion they launched with. This means they can set some server variable to say, Kunark, and NPCs not from Classic and Kunark will not be spawned anywhere, and you won't be able to enter any zones not from that era. Alternative Advancement goes active with Luclin, you can't get AAs that weren't available in that expansion, etc. Most of the newer things introduced into the game later are disabled, but not all. IE: Zone maps, compass, and certain alchemy potions are still active. Anything that can be disabled, is though.

EDIT: Expansions launch every 4 mos for Phinegal I meant, not 6.

[SinR]

Question: Are the servers like doing it when it was considered "New and Current" with game rules that have since changed, like let's say doing Molten Core on a 1.x client, or is it like level locking at 60 and doing it with the 7.2.0 client?

[stellvia]

As I said, a bit of both. Its the current client, but most of the features not available in that era are removed/disabled. IE: Advanced raid windows from later expansions not available, buff-blocking, etc. That said, EQ never had anywhere near the development budget of WoW, so the current client is largely identical to how it was in Planes of Power originally. Whatever core formula changes may have been done over the years will still somewhat affect the gameplay on TLP, but they generally don't mess with that stuff very much.

Their usual way to fix/balance things was via AAs in whatever expansion that was at the time. IE: Enchanter pets couldn't be controlled, but rather than update them to accept commands automatically, AAs to control the pet were added to a later expansion.

Long story short: There has been a certain level of power creep, if for no other reason than focus effects were added to various items later on and they're still active on the TLP as they have no way of disabling them strictly for TLP. Its hard to say exactly so much, because a lot of it just comes down to knowledge and better framerates of modern PCs allowing you to react quicker than in the past.

Used to be you had to look down at your feet/down at 45 degree angle or you'd get like 2fps, and now all the stats in the game have tooltips explanining them, game formulas have been revealed to players over the years etc.

[ro9ue]

Seems really interesting. As a person who always wanted to go back to EQ1, doing a progression server seems a great way to do it if there's going to be a lot of people active (since EQ isn't much of a solo game).

Thanks for the comments. Probably going to check this out. Also if anyone here actually wants to group/guild up let me know.

[Jtbrig7390]

Seems really interesting. As a person who always wanted to go back to EQ1, doing a progression server seems a great way to do it if there's going to be a lot of people active (since EQ isn't much of a solo game).

Thanks for the comments. Probably going to check this out. Also if anyone here actually wants to group/guild up let me know.

The streamer cohhcarnage has a guild on there anyone is welcome to and is playing it as well. He will also be streaming some EQ1 today.

https://www.twitch.tv/cohhcarnage

I tried EQ1 many time's but the UI turns me off so fast.

[stellvia]

Even with a custom UI skin? I think most people with a custom use one called Sparx, but no, its not as extensible as say WoW.

[ro9ue]

Just got my member access, will be making a character tonight on Agnarr!!! Good thing I got that 1080GTX to play EQ1 lol

[stellvia]

You missed out on the 50% bonus XP for Memorial Day weekend

[Coombs]

God I love EQ and have played on the new servers. They aren't as good as Project 1999. The only flaw with that server is its age, and everything has been farmed to death. A fresh legacy server with the original UI would be a fun experience. However, the thing with EQ in the beginning was the mystery, and all of the game has been figured out. Still, it's a great game if you can play it with friends.