Game Mechanics: Pet taking half exp

[zaltabik00]

So I play a mage here on p99 and I only played a mage on live for many years. Im pretty new to server. Pet takes half of your exp when solo'ing unless you do more than 50% damage. According to the Wiki as long as you did at least 1 damage to the mob you were fighting then you would receive full exp, why did this change? As a mage we are built to be solo'ers. We have strong pets and the ability to keep those pets alive. We are not the strongest dps in the game and not always a first selection for a group which is why being able to solo is one of the aspects people enjoy about being a mage. However if you have to out damage your pet to gain full exp then you are basically stuck with 1% a kill. If you are out damaging your pet then you are medding after two kills. So basically you can solo and gain the same amount of exp you would in a full group at a tiny fraction of the speed that a group can kill in or you are forced to group anyway. This a link to a post from a guy that copy and pasted from the Developers corner http://everquest.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=960. It is dated 2002 so im just wondering was that change made later or is this a p99 thing with pets. I love to play my mage as a solo class but it would be incredibly slow to level one up solo'ing so there really is no point unless you are farming for gear. Maybe we all need to just quit and make OP enchanters or rogues with epics at level 1.