The promised time locked progression servers for the EverQuest 25th anniversary went live yesterday without apparent incident.
Teek and Tormax arrive
Earlier in the week I gave Daybreak a poke when I mentioned that the Cataclysm Classic launch was unlike some of the Daybreak launches, with a projected go live time and an actual go live that sometimes arrives many hours later. But the EverQuest team posted to their Discord at 12:02 Pacific time yesterday that the servers were live. I stand rebuked.
That was lunch time for me, so I launched EverQuest to see the new servers online. On the preferred servers section you can see them on the alphabetical list, above and below the Thornblade server. (I guess Thornblade went live with Mischief back in 2021.)
The list available yesterday
I initially decided to peek in on the Teek server, but was faced with a queue to get in.
There is a wait to join Teek
I had guessed that Teek might be the more popular of the two, and was apparently correct as after I got tired of waiting… the EQ queue is primitive and doesn’t give you updates… I swapped to Tormax and got right in. I even got the name Wilhelm on a warrior I rolled up quickly. nice to get your name without having to go through the arduous name reservation process they had setp… then dropped into the world and realized I hadn’t specified my starting point, so it put me in Freeport. Yuck.
So I logged out, deleted that character, started over again, selected South Qeynos, and joined the world. There were some people on and running around out in front of Qeynos. I went and beat on some mobs, just to join in.
Beetle Battle
It was, of course, not 1999 so a lot of modern updates are still present on this sort of server. You can see the health status on the Prince Klicknik above, “considering” a mob tells you its level, and when you kill a mob it tells you exactly the percentage of your current level you received in experience… and when you look at your character sheet, it tells you your progress towards the next level as a percentage as well.
Back in my day we had to measure progress by counting pixels… so I am kind of glad we’ve moved on.
I probably won’t play on the server when it comes down to it… but if I do want to play some, I’ll probably re-roll as a druid. I will not make my 1999 mistakes again.
As I posted previously, the two servers follow the same basic rule set, which is:
- Standard Time-Locked Progression unlocks—New expansions unlock automatically every 8-12 weeks. (Early expansions unlock more often. Other exceptions apply. The specific schedule is below.)
- Experience: Progression standard. It starts off slower than live but faster than EverQuest at the original launch and increases at Gates of Discord, Depths of Darkhollow, and The Serpent Spine. At The Serpent Spine experience is as normal live servers. Legacy Experience is not included on this server.
- Focus Effects: Remain unavailable until the Shadows of Luclin unlocks.
- This server starts with True Box enabled. You may have only 1 client per computer logged into the server at the same time.
- When Omens of War unlocks, the server switches to Relaxed True Box. You may have up to 3 clients per computer logged into the server at the same time.
- When The Buried Sea unlocks, True Box will be removed.
The main difference is that the Teek server features randomized loot and free trade, which means raid bosses across an expansion will share a common, combined loot table and that nothing will be “bind on pick up,” so you will be able to trade or sell whatever loot you acquire.
The unlock cadence for both servers will be:
- Server launches in Ruins of Kunark
- Twelve weeks after launch: Scars of Velious
- Eight weeks later: Shadows of Luclin
- Eight weeks later: Planes for Power and Legacy of Ykesha
- Twelve weeks later: Lost Dungeons of Norrath
- Four weeks later: Gates of Discord
- Eight weeks later: Omens of War and Dragons of Norath
- At this point the schedule becomes consistent. Enjoy expansions for twelve weeks when a new level cap is unlocked, and eight weeks in expansions where the level cap stays the same.
So it goes, another pair of special servers… I suppose they at least learned they need to do them in pairs… are off and running.
Related:
- Daybreak – Teek and Tormax are Live!
The Ancient Gaming Noob 