REally no problems yet up through T4, all epics completed all armor completed, flagged for T5. Starting T5 now.

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there! I hope you are appreciated and showered with attention!! So far for my special day, I got up early, helped my dad clip his dog, changed my wife's car and my truck's oil and made a big breakfast for everyone! Made me feel pretty good.

So far so good up to T2 complete. Did 1 quest per noob vendor and doing turnins on epic 1.5-3.0, FG quest, all armor up to T2.

Gotta go get groceries, will be back to continue. Anything specifically you want tested?

I am going to basically speed run every tier with a couple new toons and see if I see anything.

First of all, I am very appreciative of all the work put into this server. I cannot even fathom how you do that, for free, and have your own life on the side.
I read everything, and I get that you have to make decisions as the content creator.

Taking away the GSS requirement for VP solved your GSS tied to advancement problem, we don't need more to drop in VP for this.
Gss dropping in the zone is fine, I have no issues with that. However, they are NOT rare at all to people who know how to farm them. These GSS drops extra, not needed GSS for that party or will be very shortly (again, as seen with TOFS essences dropping in Sleeper...exact same thing.)

TL:DR: GSS is THE gold standard... and GSoA is silver. Having so many drop in VP effectively crashes the market. Having a healthy market is what makes this thrive.

In the end, I am just happy to be here. Do as you will, I am along for the ride. Thank you for all you do.

The last thing I'll say is that what made EQ good was the ever-present danger. Dying deep in a dungeon threatened your entire weekend. Forgetting to bind when you went across the continent cost you a day of your life. The principle that made EQ so addictive was the way it could punish you and the way it could lay you low like that was proportionate to the heights you felt for accomplishments.

This is true, and an example of a founding dynamic I both loved and hated. EZ server never did capitalize on this aspect of the game like live or P99 did, it is a completely different entity and an alternative to such servers.

The real point here is please just disconnect T10 and GSS. GSS can still be rare and whatever status symbol you want, but don't stop progression while people farm them.

I never had much care for status symbols, I am more of a function guy. I took the time to farm up resources so I could have a large crew and help others. The connection to progression is entirely what makes GSS worth having. The scarcity makes it valuable.

As someone that has never interacted, grouped or traded with anyone else on the server, I'm telling you you'll hit 79 with your raid and still be dozens of GSS short of the current requirements. In fact, it's probably worse for me because I actually did all three factions one at a time.

I have respect for this. You earned your own way and were not pushed through. You also have a very good point when you say just grinding for these just to get your crew up to snuff is not at all fun.
I will say, perhaps the best way to address this would be increasing GSS drops in T10 as opposed to dropping more in Vp. Specifically, giving bosses a better chance to drop them might be the best way as they basically don't have a chance in hell right now...and you have to earn bosses.

The fact that I was able to purchase 16 GSS from one person in VP just shows you how much more often they seem to be dropping in a tier two above the quest zone, which as I've said many times, is a flawed way to go about it...

Tankus makes a good point regarding people in VP, these either already will be or will be quickly just extra GSS, just like tofs drops in Sleepers crashed their value.

I still say don't make GSS more available. They can be traded for, and everyone doesn't need a bunch of GSS. This zone is a gut check, UA is very high-end.

I think making this more available doesn't only cheapen T10 progress, it cheapens the whole experience. I think that way too many people have been pushed through T10... faction is over way too quickly is the issue, not the rarity of GSS (I know this from first-hand experience, I realize I assisted too many too much. My heart was in the right place but I shoulda thought of the big picture consequence.)

I feel the same way about GSoA. You only *need* it on your main war. Everyone else is a bonus. If you fought through the tiers and through T10 you will have at least two toons, for example, your MT and ST with ear 50s and on the way to getting a third done. There are other viable alternatives for DPS, every monk/pali/etc doesn't need an earring.

GSS and Gsoa are the real currency on this server, and to a lesser extent, essences. Introducing more is directly inflating the economy, thus literally cheapening the experience for people who put in the time to farm resources. Farming resources is an essential aspect to this game and one of the principals EQ was founded on, and we both love it and hate it.

Anyone saying they are about to quit...believe me, I have been there. And I realized I was mainly just being whiny. I was trying to get too far too fast and taking the content and grind for granted. My intention here is not to insult anyone, only to relate as I can with my personal experience. This is not a job, it is a nostalgic/hobby project. Every project like this has setbacks, gut checks, and frustrating moments. It is a good idea to step away when it becomes too much of a grind and return later.

BTW, I am willing to help when I am on to get over a hump. Again, I will not hand hold as I did in the past, but I am willing to help.
As for the new zone, I am a newb all over again and have yet to give it a proper go. I have been very busy as of late and have not been on much.

The old-schoolers started with gnolls then orcs. Gnolls are much easier to break into than orcs. I recommend Having your shield maxed out and ear on the main tank. Pull a lot of mobs at once so you can use your discs to do the max damage. Be careful of assassins. If they hit you in the back you die fast.
You can combo gloves and savage onslaught, use your repost from glasses, use your furious disc, not necessarily in that order... I usually start with glasses.
Make sure to assist damage with your crew anytime after your war has all mobs together has got the enemies down at least like 60% or more depending...I usually waited till most were dead. Your crew is really there more for cleanup than main group DPS. Necros can be used earlier, but can be summoned and destroyed. BTW if you don't have a necro with max neck and death spell line, look into it. Pretty cheap to build and great for helping with T10 DPS.

*I modified the HW zone bit to better reflect my thoughts*

I agree very strongly with what Draca said about T10. If there is no achievement to completing that zone, what is the point? I know I am not alone in thinking that cheapening the value of GSS by making them more common would be a great injustice to the struggle that is T10.

 Yes it can get old and you can burn out... my advice is to take a break and don't make it a job. T10 when done in chunks is very rewarding and I think fun...even though I have put something like 50 toons and helped many others through it.

I am a bit bummed about not being able to ZP Holloween, but I feel the logic is sound here. Being able to zp it really diminishes the experience...I would also agree that named mobs NEED to have a better chance to spawn. They are rare even with ZP and without it would take forever to see a specific one. LIKE 2X AT LEAST.

I also would like to see it more often, but don't think it should be available all the time. Maybe for like a week every two months or something would be about perfect...or 4 days at the beginning of every month would be even better.

Thanks again Draca and Akkadius for all you do. It does my heart good to see this server still chugging along.

Fantastic changes, TY Drac for all of your time and hard work put into this.

These issues primarilly came about due to people reaching the ceiling and having nothing else to do for so long. So they helped others skip through content and made 100 alts that are top tier. They stacked resources.

Fixing old content that is already here is a very slippery slope and almost impossible to really "fix" without some major nerfs (disable zp or delete all but some, ((possibly make new long refresh item,)) make exp single target or self) and don't forget, even doing these drastic measures would still leave things very lop sided as the rich stay rich and all content up to sleepers trivial.

Best solution I see is leaving things as are here. Make a clone server (without the toons) and dial back evasion, disable all ZP (or create new long refresh item) and make exp buffs single target. Every other "solution" is just a bandaid. The new server will have future content. This one either wont or will have things added very.....very slowly.

In conclusion, without severly nerfing things and pissing everyone off there really is no way to "fix" these things...and content is going to be a huge bitch to create.

I would say we should in general step back from mass buffing and pushing people through content. It only seems to spoil the fun in the end for a lot of people. I will always be available to help kill a boss or give someone those last 5 essences to get that next UW but I wont hand hold anymore.

The worst thing I heard the other day was someone complaining about the "long camps" of mass pulling for resources. Yikes. It took me the better part of a year to get my first set of gnoll armor, and I don't even know how long for orc.

That would be awsome I think. Would even have the opportunity of tweaking it quite a bit, we are most likely going to have to do this eventually anyways. Think of actually being able to scale evasion and such so that we can actually use it in future content.

I say Play as you want. You don't have to take help at all, people know some people want to take it slow here. If they don't listen simply leave the zone.
Personally, I would take the help, get your crew up fast and once you are at the top make a new group and go through the content at your own pace. There are instances so you can absolutely do as much or little on your own here. I have restarted at least ten times here and have had a blast doing it. It's nostalgia on rewind yet I find something new each time through.
If you ooc something you are going to get people who want to help, it is actually part of the charm here and we have all reached out for help from time to time, it is just that we have had the content maxed out for so long here thus the push for new content and older players taking a good break.
Believe it or not this community is a sign of success, so many gamers wish they had it this good on their servers.  

I would say that it would be a blast to have a concurrent server that started from scratch here with all content unlocked or a progressive version of this server that reset every 2 years or so. You know what's going to happen going into it, there is no need to hord materials or something you live for the moment. That would be doable and practical because it would be a completely seperate entity.

I would absolutely contribute to every step of your progress from the ground up... I have GSS for you and all essences for UW. Let's get you a Main tank up and you can do the rest from there.

Thank you for the event! And the extra day on top. Was a blast revisiting.