# What about a self-renewing P99 server with a 12-month cycle?

[AresPredator]

I've been thinking about the question of a new P99 server, and I wonder if we are looking at the problem from the wrong angle.

There will probably always be players waiting for the next fresh P99 server. But every time we create another permanent server, we also create another permanent population. After enough years, that new server will eventually have exactly the same problem as the old ones: established level 60s, huge economies, veteran networks, twinks, powerleveling and a large amount of content that is no longer really part of the everyday experience of new players.

So why not create **one self-renewing server instead of another permanent server?**

### The basic idea

A dedicated P99 server with a fixed **12-month cycle**:

**Day 1:** Everyone starts from scratch.

**Months 1–12:** The server operates normally under P99 rules.

**Day 365:** Complete character wipe.

**Day 366:** The next cycle begins.

The server itself would remain the same. The community would remain the same. Only the characters, inventories, banks and accumulated wealth would be reset.

In other words:

> **One server, one community, one new beginning every year.**

### Why I think this could work

The important difference between this and simply opening another server is that the community would not permanently fragment.

Instead of:

Blue → Green → Server X → Server Y → ...

we would have:

**Season 1 → Renewal→ Season 2 → Renewal → Season 3 → ...**

Everyone would return to the same starting point.

And I think the one-year period is important.

Some players can reach 60 extremely quickly, while others may need many months. A twelve-month cycle gives hardcore players enough time to establish themselves while still giving normal and casual players plenty of time to progress.

The early level 60s would actually get to enjoy being the elite players for many months.

But their advantage would have an expiration date and no more sitting in the Tunnel...

That is the part I find interesting.

### The economy would become meaningful again

On an old permanent server, things like Bone Chips, Orc Belts, low-level crafting materials and beginner equipment eventually become almost meaningless to wealthy veterans.

On a fresh cycle, those same items suddenly matter again.

A player who can make decent low-level armor or who knows where to obtain an obscure quest item can actually become economically important for 1 Year.

Tradeskills would matter.

Low-level zones would matter.

Questing would matter.

And a level 15 character with 100 platinum would actually feel rich.

The world would constantly regenerate its economy instead of accumulating wealth indefinitely.

### The Renewal would not be a punishment

This is probably the hardest part of the idea psychologically.

The Renewal would have to be part of the server's identity from Day 1.

Players would know exactly what they are signing up for:

> **This character has one year to live.**

That changes the meaning of progression.

Getting to level 60 is still an achievement. Obtaining rare equipment still matters. Building a successful tradeskill character still matters.

But none of it becomes permanent like in Real Life.

At the end of the cycle, the character's story is finished.

And the next generation begins fresh and Powerful.

I play Rust occasionally, and despite all the things I dislike about Rust, I think the developers got one thing fundamentally right: the "wipe" keeps the game young.

On wipe day, people are not necessarily mourning their old bases. Many of them are excited to start again.

EverQuest could potentially use the same principle in a very different way.

### It could also create a shared timeline

Imagine knowing that everyone on the server is currently living in the same chapter.

Month 1:

> "Who is already level 50?"

Month 4:

> "Who has the best smith?"

Month 7:

> "Who has managed to complete Darkforge?"

Month 10:

> "Only two months left. What have we still not done?"

Month 12:

> **Wipe day.**

And then everyone is back at level 1.

Not because the previous year was meaningless.

Because **the previous year was the story of the previous generation.**

### Most importantly: no endless server multiplication

I don't think the solution to an aging P99 population is necessarily to keep opening permanent servers.

That just creates more permanent populations.

What if instead there were **one server specifically designed never to become permanently old?**

The infrastructure stays.

The rules stay.

The community stays.

The world stays.

Only the population gets a new beginning.

I have no idea whether this would actually work at scale, which is why I'm throwing the idea out here rather than presenting it as a finished proposal.

But I would genuinely like to know:

**Would you play on a P99 server that had a guaranteed 12-month lifespan and a renew at the end of every cycle?**

And if not, what would make the idea unacceptable to you?

Maybe the idea is terrible.

Or maybe we have simply never tried looking at P99's "next server" problem this way.

**One server. One community. A new Norrath every year Sylvester .**

### What Rust gets right about wipes

One of the reasons I think this concept could work for EverQuest is that there is already a game where this principle has been working for years -> Rust.

Rust wipes are not treated as a failure of the game. They are part of the game. Players know from the beginning that their base, their stockpiles and everything they have built will eventually disappear, and yet people invest enormous amounts of time and effort into them.

In fact, when wipe day approaches, the atmosphere often becomes almost celebratory. Players are already looking forward to starting over. After a month or a few months, very few people are sitting there mourning the loss of everything they built in the previous cycle. Those achievements have already served their purpose: they created a story, gave the players goals and provided a reason to play.

The important lesson is that **progress does not have to be permanent in order to be meaningful**.

A successful EQ seasonal server could use exactly the same principle, while giving the cycle much more time than Rust does. A twelve-month EverQuest cycle would allow players to build characters, economies, guilds and reputations over a long period, knowing from day one that the world has a natural end.

The wipe would not erase the value of what happened during that year.

**It would be what makes the next year possible.**

[CrazyPro]

4 months per expansion?

[branamil]

That requires a lot of developer time to "automate". As you can tell they work for free and fix about 1 muffin vendor per year. So anything that requires them to do a lot of work is a non-starter.

[wuanahto]

this shit sounds fun at first but after a few wipes people will stop coming back
plus there is very little reason for anyone to join in month 8 or 9 or so
ultra advanced raids probably wont go anywhere and doing all the work from scratch to have a dedicated wipe date would be dooming
dread is a better word, why the fuck should i show up if its month 11? 4 more resets for almost nothing so woopty fuckin do.
not only is that basically a risk to never see an item drop, having it drop in week 52 would feel so empty, almost as if the server itself defeated you

[Hamish]

I like the idea, I'd join. I join most of the "official" progression servers whenever they start one up, just because I love levelling with others. I won't be joining the latest one, though, because it starts way after Velious. I abandoned my characters on blue when green started, and I had so much fun!

We'd still have the green, blue and red servers for those that didn't fancy it.

I'd like it if you could keep your character's name and maybe their starting stats over a reset. Anyone who didn't want that would be free to delete and re-create their character, of course.

Day 1 could be amazing fun!

[OriginalContentGuy]

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

**One server. One community. A new Norrath every year Sylvester .

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[Drueric]

If they are going to do a wipe, it should be after several yers and it should be unnnounced.

[AresPredator]

Thanks for all the feedback so far. There are several legitimate concerns here, and I think some of them actually help improve the original idea.

I don't think the goal should be to simply take Green, wipe it every year, and tell everyone to start over. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of two permanent server slots with rotating worlds, rather than an ever-growing number of permanent servers.

1. The problem of joining late

The strongest objection, in my opinion, is the one raised by WuanahTo:

Why would someone join in month 9 or 11 if the server is going to reset shortly afterwards?

I think that's a very good question.

The solution could be to have two seasonal servers starting six months apart.

For example:

Server A

Month 0: Fresh start

Month 0–6: Open to new characters

Month 6–12: Closed to new characters

Month 12: Reset and fresh start

Server B

Starts six months after Server A

Follows exactly the same cycle

This means there is always one relatively young server available.

A new player would never accidentally join a server that is already nine months old and scheduled to disappear in three months.

Instead, the server browser could simply show something like:

Fresh Server – 2 months old – New characters welcome

and

Mature Server – 8 months old – New characters disabled

When the mature server resets, the roles reverse.

This would create a permanent source of fresh starts without creating an endless number of permanent servers.

2. "People will stop coming back after a few wipes"

Maybe some will.

But I think this is actually one of the things that should be tested rather than assumed.

Rust has demonstrated that a regular wipe can itself become part of the appeal of a game. Players know that what they build is temporary, and that knowledge does not necessarily make the experience meaningless.

Quite often it does the opposite.

The value of progression changes when it has a deadline.

A character that will exist forever can always be improved tomorrow.

A character with six months left creates a different kind of motivation.

And every new cycle creates another Day 1.

Day 1 could be amazing fun.

One of the replies here already described exactly that experience after moving from Blue to Green: abandoning old characters and discovering how much fun it was to level with everyone else again.

That is exactly the experience I am proposing to make repeatable.

3. "There is no reason to join late"

With the two-server model, I think this problem largely disappears.

You don't join a server in month 11.

You join the other server.

And even during the first six months, a player does not need to reach level 60 to have had a meaningful experience.

Someone joining in month 4 still has two months in a completely fresh economy, with people levelling, trading, forming groups, making guilds and discovering camps.

The point would not be:

"You have to finish all of Norrath before the reset."

The point would be:

"You get to experience a living Norrath during one of its generations."

You don't have to finish the world.

You just have to participate in it.



4. "What about high-end raids?"

This is probably the biggest design question.

Personally, I would not try to force every cycle to reproduce the entire existing endgame progression.

In fact, I think a seasonal server could work better with a **limited scope**.

For example, I would seriously consider making the seasonal world **Classic-only**, or at least delaying expansions considerably.

Norrath itself is already enormous.

There is no need to constantly add more and more zones and items simply to keep veteran players occupied.

Classic Norrath has enough content to support an enormous number of different character journeys.

The objective would be to make the existing world matter again rather than constantly expanding it.

---

5. "Getting an item in week 52 would feel pointless"

I agree with this criticism.

That is another reason I think a six-month character-creation window is better than allowing new characters throughout the entire 12-month cycle.

The first six months are the **growth phase**.

The second six months are the **mature phase**.

By then, the economy is established, guilds are established, characters are powerful, and people are working toward achievements rather than simply trying to establish themselves.

And everyone knows the exact reset date from Day 1.

That changes the psychology.

An item obtained in month 11 isn't meaningless because it is temporary.

It becomes something you accomplished **knowing exactly how much time remained.**

The temporary nature is part of the achievement.

---

6. "This would require too much developer time"

This is the most understandable practical objection.

P99 developers work on the project in their free time, so anything requiring a massive amount of new development is obviously unrealistic.

But I don't think a seasonal system necessarily requires massive amounts of new game development.

There would be no need for:

* new zones
* new classes
* new items
* new progression systems
* new raids
* new graphics
* new expansion content

The game already exists.

The core technical requirement would primarily be a **reliable, tested reset procedure** that returns the seasonal server to a known clean starting state.

Obviously the exact implementation would depend on how the P99 server infrastructure works, and I'm not pretending to know the backend.

But conceptually this is very different from developing another expansion or another completely new game system.

And once such a reset mechanism existed, the process could be repeated.

The initial development cost would therefore potentially create a system that could be used for years.

---

7. Why not just open another permanent Green server?

This is actually my biggest concern with the current model.

Every time the community wants a fresh start, opening another permanent server solves the immediate problem.

But it also creates another permanent population center.

Eventually you have:

**Blue → Green → Red → New Green → New Green 2 → ...**

Instead of renewing the community, you keep dividing it.

A rotating system would do the opposite.

There would be a fixed number of worlds, but the worlds themselves would periodically become young again.

**The community would renew instead of fragmenting.**

That's the fundamental difference.

---

8. Nobody would be forced to wipe

This is important.

Blue and Green would not need to disappear.

People who love permanent characters, long-term progression, established economies and old guilds could continue playing exactly as they do now.

The seasonal servers would simply provide a different experience.

Someone who wants:

> **"My character should exist indefinitely."**

has Blue/Green.

Someone who wants:

> **"I want to experience a fresh Norrath where everyone starts from roughly the same point."**

has the seasonal server.

Both playstyles can coexist.

---

9. What would carry over?

One interesting possibility would be to allow very limited meta-progression.

For example, perhaps a player could reserve their character name for the next cycle.

Maybe some cosmetic information or account-level achievements could survive.

But **power, wealth, equipment and progression should not.**

Otherwise the old economy simply gets smuggled into the new world.

The most important thing about the reset would be that everyone starts economically equal again.

Knowledge survives.

Experience survives.

Friendships survive.

Player skill survives.

**Wealth does not.**

And I think that is actually one of the most interesting parts of the concept.

A veteran's greatest advantage on Day 1 would not be having 50,000 platinum.

It would be knowing where to hunt, which quests are worth doing, which items are valuable, how the economy works and how to build an effective character.

In other words:

> **The real permanent progression would be the player, not the character.**

---

10. The reset would create a permanent content machine

This is perhaps the biggest reason I find the idea interesting.

A permanent MMO has to continually create reasons for players to keep playing.

Eventually this can lead to more zones, more levels, more items, more raids and more complexity.

A seasonal system creates new content out of the existing content.

The same world feels different because the social and economic conditions have changed.

The first Crushbone group of a new cycle matters.

The first Blackburrow group matters.

The first valuable drop matters.

The first guild that establishes itself matters.

The first person to reach a high level matters.

The first player to discover an efficient camp matters.

And then, eventually, the world ends.

And the next generation begins.

That is a huge amount of replayability without requiring the developers to constantly make the world larger.


11. The world itself becomes the content

This is perhaps the most important philosophical difference.

A game like EverQuest already contains an enormous amount of content.

What changes over time is not necessarily the content itself.

It is the context in which the content is experienced.

A zone with nobody in it is a completely different game from the same zone packed with players.

An item that was worthless on an established server can become incredibly valuable during the first weeks of a new cycle.

A camp that nobody cares about on Green can become fiercely contested on Day 3 of a fresh server.

The content was already there.

The players create the new context.

That is why I think the wipe itself can function as a content-generation mechanism.


12. The two-server cycle

So if I were refining the original proposal today, I would actually suggest this:

Two seasonal servers. Six months apart.

Each server:

accepts new characters for six months
remains playable for twelve months
is closed to new Players
has a clearly announced reset date
resets completely after twelve months
immediately begins a new cycle

The two servers alternate.

That means there is always one fresh or relatively young Norrath available, while the mature server provides a completely different experience for established players.

No endless server proliferation.

No accidental month-11 starts.

No need to keep creating permanent servers every time people want a fresh economy.

Just:

Two worlds.
Two generations.
One community.
Constant renewal.

I don't claim this is necessarily easy to implement, and I certainly don't claim that every player would enjoy it.

But I do think it is worth discussing as an alternative to the current model of continually adding permanent servers.

The question isn't whether everyone wants their characters wiped.

They obviously don't.

The interesting question is whether there is a significant group of players who would choose a world where progression has a known lifetime.

If that group exists, perhaps P99 doesn't need another permanent server.

[Namsaknoi]

In the beginning it may attract a lot of casuals, and some HC players when there are no raid targets on both blue and green and don't feel like farming. But every time the server resets it would make players contemplate wtf they are doing with their life and eventually quit, at least a random newb toon you make on green or blue would last as long as you want it to last, and whatever wealth you create with it adds and stays with your collection. The server will eventually be deader than red.

[wuanahto]

Now that i had some time to think about it and get high
the devs should announce the launch of a new server for april 1st, Pyrite99
devs actually release a new server on april 1st tho
everything is sped up by 90 to 95%, spawn timers, exp gain, what the fuck ever
no money, no money drops, no quest reward money, vendors give everything away for free they offer nothing for your stuff, nothing is nodrop, the economy will be trading items
all 3 xpacs at the start
increased loot drops, old nerfed weapons and armor will continue not being nerfed (beads, deepwater helm, etc)
but midnight april going into may the server just locks up, giving a link for account retrieval and it leads to a rickroll edit with everquest stuff like gnomes dancing in a coldain disco with wizards and shit changing the color of the ice to the beat
the devs say fucking NOTHING to ANYONE in ANY THREAD EVER
11 months pass
Pyrite99 is back up and everything is exactly as it was a year ago
then its only up for a day

I was going to say something like Bristlebane99 or Fizzlethorp99 but i think those were actual EQ server names and might make someone sad