New to 1999 - Old to EQ: Status of Raids? Nagafen? Vox? Trak?

[sujianhua]

So I'm thinking about playing EQ again and 1999 seems like the right place to be. I'm a pretty regular player, probably every night about 4 hours or so. What I want to know is... how are things going for higher level raids?

Nagafen & Vox: Are these perma-farmed by leading guild alts? Much chance for the community?

Trakanon?

.... other dragons?

How about camping the FBSS? Used to be tough to get in back in the day, but the camp would eventually open up.

You know, stuff like that.

Lots of magic in EQ and I'd like to come back, but if it's an environment where "normal" players don't have a chance at stuff, well... probably not.

[susvain0362]

The past couple of years one guild, TMO, gets atleast 90% of the boss kills. Naggy/vox arent contested as fiercely as trak anymore.

But yeah this guild TMO will have someone tracking each boss the hours its suppose to spawn and when it does they send mass phone texts to every member and they get 30+ people everytime even at 3am or 6am anyday of the week. If they want it that bad they poopsock the mob, which is having a sufficient raid force standing at the mobs spawn point in its window to spawn.

Bosses have a variance of +\- couple hours, its not classic with a set spawn.

Other guilds can do plane of hate and fear trash, or plane of sky. Or one other guild forceful entry sometimes beats TMO at their own game and out poopsocks of batphones them for a boss.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

Not a single player has told me to look forward to raiding on p99

[a_gnoll_pup]

Not a single player has told me to look forward to raiding on p99

The problem with expecting to raid on P99 is it's not life or death to raid; the journey to most people is more important than endgame farming.

Those feels when you first killed that guard that KS'd you in Misty,
The feeling of working to get your epic which may or may not happen,
The adventure of finding your corpse with the help of the people you've met along your journey,
The faction metagame and the feeling when you've ground out enough faction to get inside the city, dodging guilds that still hate you,
and making friendships with everyone along the way.

These kind of things are what classic EQ are about. The best thing about Classic EQ is that there was so much damn content - that no one touches anymore in the live game with so much depth and lore behind them. Now a days MMOs are about the rush to endgame, to sit at your chair and log in only a few days a week and be on call for contested. There is no game out there that rivals the feel of adventuring in classic EQ. The moment you had to whip out your wallet to get an edge over other players is the day the genre died.

EQ was the first MMORPG done right, and potentially one of the last few done right. It's supposed to be a persistent, living world, and if slaughtering dragons that die in 30 seconds is your idea of the only thing 'fun' on Project 1999, then you need to just re-evaluate your priorities and enjoy the game for what it is; One of the most beautiful sandbox games that there ever was.

Now tell me, do you want to play EQ, or play the modern MMO?

http://i.imgur.com/gCdHZWJ.jpg

[sujianhua]

Ya all of that is why I'm looking at p99, it's the socializing and working towards stuff that make me reminisce about EQ. The most important memories to me were guild related though. Recruiting, building up a guild, getting your guilds first dragon kills. Nagafen is my personal favorite ^_^

[fastboy21]

The problem isn't a game design problem. EQ here is working (amazingly) mostly as it should due to the work of a very dedicated team. Of course, if you just don't like EQ when it is working properly you aren't ever going to love EQ here either.

The issues on p99 are mostly community issues (i.e. the players). Most of the population is great. There are some issues that have risen out of folks having time to roll so many alts due to the slower time line. The raid community is pretty bleh.

It isn't a new thing. It happened back on some of the original servers also. There were some servers that were much much worse than others. I wouldn't say that p99's raid scene is as bad as the worst EQ server back in the day, but it is definitely up there.

Be prepared for all the lovely things that come along with old EQ raiding...of course, you don't have to raid. Old EQ also had plenty of non-raiding folks, and we have that here too.

[Weekapaug]

Not a single player has told me to look forward to raiding on p99

I've been playing here off and on for over 3 years and have way too many toons, none above 52....pretty much just play what I'm feeling at any given time as I come and go. A good friend is constantly on about me finally picking a class to do the 50s with so I can app his guild and raid. A few weeks ago I finally had to break it to him that I had zero interest in raiding on this server, for now, at least.

"I need to be in a raiding guild on p99 right now about like I need a case of the crabs" was how I put it, actually.

I love the group game and the community, though. Closest thing to the classic live experience I know of, atm.

[letsallkillandy]

Not a single player has told me to look forward to raiding on p99

This was the exact same attitude I was introduced to when I started playing.

However I may add that its still fun leveling up, making friends, getting loot, twinking alts, running the numbers game in EC. I love this server but the raid / guild drama is awful. So much so that I have been reluctant to join any guilds with my main. My hope is that velious will solve that with the multi-faction raids alleviating the awful bickering that goes on here.

[pharmakos]

there's a good amount of raid-ish stuff you can do at level 50+ that isn't as highly contested as the dragons.

[sujianhua]

Sounds like a private hunting preserve.

Lots of merit with the other stuff, but for me, in my 300+ days plays of EQ, with my guild, I saw Trakanon twice, Nagafen & Vox surely less than 10 times combined. It was worth it. If that is more like 0, 0, 0 here, I'll pass.

Count me as another tombstone.

This isn't original EQ, it's close, but you said it yourself. Release timeline = problems. So adjust the rules to face reality. How about a kill counter. If you've killed Nagafen 20 times, you don't get to kill that particular one any more. Or if you've got 3/4 of the kills over a 2 month period, you get ported out for that 4th one. Even giving the community the very muckity muck is enough.

[sujianhua]

ah screw it, you're right. I loved original EQ, but that was F'ed up how a group of 60 people could hoard every kill, guildbanking 100% of the items. Problems are exacerbated and obviously not going to change.

No thx glass ceiling. I am willing to raid 4 hours a night, not be on call for a 2nd job.

[Tecmos Deception]

ah screw it, you're right. I loved original EQ, but that was F'ed up how a group of 60 people could hoard every kill, guildbanking 100% of the items. Problems are exacerbated and obviously not going to change.

No thx glass ceiling. I am willing to raid 4 hours a night, not be on call for a 2nd job.

Don't let the forum drama people scare you away. There are raiders with TMO who only answer batphones during reasonable hours, and there are other guilds that kill raid mobs once in a while (though not frequently).

It may be a lot of fun to kill those raid mobs when you've never done it before, or only done it a few times, or whatever. But there's lots of other stuff that's fun too (more fun, imo). If you joined any one of the major guilds you'll see proportionally as many raid kills as it sounds like you saw on live (bda, taken, divinity, europa all get a maestro or draco or inny or gorenaire or something here or there; forceful entry kills everything outside of VP ocassionally; TMO kills all of vp and most of everything else) while also being able to have a blast leveling up, playing alts, raiding the planes with cool people, etc.

[sujianhua]

Forceful entry looks awesome, pretty much exactly what I am looking for.

[Cyph]

I'm too low to participate in any raids, but you know what, I'm thoroughly enjoying my experience here. Some of the posts here on the forums give the impression that it's a sordid server but my experiences thus far in game have only been of the positive nature. Generally speaking I've found that being nice to others means they'll be nice back to you, even the more jerkier of people.

[Picked]

I'm in your shoes. I play about 4 hours an evening or so. More on the weekends. I am in a raiding guild and get my share of excitement. If you get into a guild that is big enough that can ascertain the numbers it really isn't that bad. The guild I am in gets their share of kills.

[webrunner5]

The top 5 or 6 guilds all do raids a lot. Hey and guess what you can always join TMO. They do take new people all the time.

And like has been said, this is a LOT better server than the forums suggest.

[Halfelfbard]

Make friends, learn the raid strats, or even ask a guilds class rep for some solid advice. Say there's a TMO bard jus chillen, sure fire chance if u ask they will give u some insight on how to kite fear. Or some basic raid twists. Or what resist gear to get.

U might not have the guilds tag, but hell u know what todo..and jus tell a raid leader/officer say gore spawned they need another bard, well u know what todo.../tell blahblah Halfelf kinda told me what todo on this raid, need another resister? U prob gonna b fightin dragons today!

[Ruenaros]

P1999 is still running Everquest: unemployed edition. Your best bet to get raid mobs is to life a live that keeps you within 2-3 minutes of an EQ capable machine that you can login to at the drop of a hat.

There is hope for the future with Velious and/or simulated weekly maintenance both in the works... but those could still be years away, never, or tomorrow for all we know.

[skipdog]

ah screw it, you're right. I loved original EQ, but that was F'ed up how a group of 60 people could hoard every kill, guildbanking 100% of the items. Problems are exacerbated and obviously not going to change.

No thx glass ceiling. I am willing to raid 4 hours a night, not be on call for a 2nd job.

Oh jeez. You know there are a TON of guilds who clear plane of sky on a weekly basis and do regular hate/fear clears, right? Also, 4 hours/night is more than what many TMO members put in. It's not like they boot their players who don't respond to every single batphone.

It makes me laugh everytime I see one of these posts talking about how 'I wanna have a life so I can't app to TMO since my 20+ hours/week isn't enough'

[Tasslehofp99]

Forceful Entry killed Trakanon, Venril Sathir, and Faydedar all within a 48 hour period just last week. While TMO is pretty aggressively farming loot that they've had on lock for a while now, other guilds generally get kills if they want them.

[Spitty]

If only your guild wasn't named fucking Forceful Entry, it'd be a totally worthwhile pursuit.

[webrunner5]

If only your guild wasn't named fucking Forceful Entry, it'd be a totally worthwhile pursuit.

Where you been Spitty. Just get out of jail, rehab?? I missed you. :p Best comments on here.

[Spitty]

I got so angry that bearskin potion bags are still fucking broken that I had to take a break and go be needlessly enraged somewhere else.

I was pissed off in California for a while, incredibly perturbed during a drive through Nevada, flamed hard in Idaho for about a day before I realized that's incredibly dangerous (Idahoans are fucking nuts), floated down the Columbia on a raft of pure angst and finally was uncommonly aggressive for a while on the Oregon coast.

Beautiful scenery, lovely trip and I verified that people are still fucking booger-eating stupid in the nicest of places.

How you been, running dat web?