Would you play on a progression server?

"Everyday we take the Massive daily posts and bring them to Dragoon discussions. We would like to thank Massively for their original content."

EverQuest fans have been abuzz ever since SOE announced that a new progression server will come to the game this March. A progression server is kind of like a "way back" machine, resetting an MMO to the core game with expansions rolled out at a steady pace thereafter. It basically allows one to experience a sped-up version of how the MMO initially developed while forcing the players to stay together within certain boundaries.

Even if your memory is long and clear enough to know that the good old days weren't always good, nostalgia has a way of sucking you in, prompting cries for a "classic shard" to try to duplicate that original experience. And that doesn't always necessitate some shadowy underground emulator (which we can't talk about on Massively anyway, so don't do it!). Sometimes the companies themselves try to cash in on the nostalgia. Gamers coming to a long-established MMO years after launch often feel behind the curve as the bulk of the playerbase is already at max level, yet progression servers put everyone on equal footing -- at least initially.

So would you play on a progression server if your MMO offered one? What would it be like to go back to old vanilla World of Warcraft or Ultima Online's era of a free-for-all frontier? Or would it be an unnecessary nostalgia trip that would fail to recapture that unique initial experience?

TH

Maybe of MxO before it got fucked.

TH