It occurs to me that I had not been really keeping track of all of the poll results when it comes to the EverQuest II Time Locked Expansion PvE server. That server, Stormhold, has had a few polls already during its short tenure, plus the series of polls that led up to the launch of the server.
Specifically, the result of this question, posed to EQII player back in the middle of June.
I do recall thinking back then that, at least for the base, level 1-50 game, even 60 days seemed like a short run. But the fact that the poll to unlock Desert of Flames is up and running now, I am going to guess that the “vote every 30 days” option must have won the poll.
A quick check of the forums shows that, while they did not spend much time announcing poll results (They announce every Tuesday downtime. But poll results? Not likely), they did finally update the FAQ for the TLE servers in that regard, with the relevant passage being:
Players will have the option to vote to unlock content every 30-days. The voting period will last a week, and it will take a majority vote of 2/3 (or more) of the server votes to unlock the next expansion. If the server votes not to unlock the next expansion, the vote will start again after 30-days.
If the server chooses not to unlock content three times in a row, the votes for the next expansion will change to 90-days in-between votes. This will reset back to 30-days in-between votes after an expansion is successfully unlocked on your server.
30 days between expansion unlocks is crazy talk in my view of the world. At that rate Stormhold could be a normal live server before it turns a year old. So I was clearly going to vote no, and all the more so since I have spent nearly as much time playing as I would have liked.
The server is still active, the low level zones are still running multiple versions every time I log in, and because I am a slacker who has spent all my play time in Minecraft of late, I voted “no” for the unlock. Desert of Flames can wait. If you rushed to level 50 in under 30 days, go make an alt.
If I wanted to be behind in expansions on an EQII server, I could go play on any of the live servers. As noted on the server consolidation post, I have that option on three servers already.
Unlike the EverQuest Time Locked Progression servers, to unlock an expansion here requires a 2/3 Yes vote. I wonder if… or when… there will be enough “yes” votes to move the game along.
Meanwhile, I had best find some time to play my level 15 Shadow Knight. He can’t idle forever or I will be behind an expansion.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 