The perfect "classic in spirit" server.

[douglas1999]

I often see debates on this forum regarding whether a certain thing on p99 is "classic" or not. Classic in this sense usually means that a certain item\mob\mechanic existed on the original Verant EQ servers.

Sometimes though there are "classic in spirit" changes which, while not classic in a strict literal sense, create an overall experience that is closer to "classic" for the majority of players. The recent changes to AE bard songs is an example; there were a handful of bards during classic who COULD swarm the way it was being done here, but it was rare and limited by hardware and connection limitations for most players, therefor adding a 25 mob limit creates an overall experience that is closer to classic for the majority of players. It's really only "unclassic" for the small handful of bards who could do it on live in 1999.

Along these lines, what would a perfect "classic in spirit" server look like? I know it's long been the plan of the devs to release a "proper timeline" server at some point once all pre-Luclin Velious content is implemented, but should it be a strict classic server or should considerations be made to make it more classic in spirit? My personal list of changes would be:

- Make group experience considerably better than solo exp under the best circumstances. It's really sad sitting around in dreadlands soloing at level 40 while four other people are nearby doing the same thing, and you all know you aren't grouping because the xp gain will take a hit. This, to me, just shouldn't happen in "classic" EQ. Soloing should still be possible of course, but I think xp gain for soloing should be greatly mitigated so as to make grouping always the better option.

-Make Cazic Thule a viable dungeon for grouping again. I remember there being groups around the clock in CT on Povar back in 1999. I think the mobs should be retuned (fewer healers) and maybe the ZEM increased to make grouping here an attractive option for people again. Perhaps lower the level requirement of the druid group port to feerrott.

-Absolutely do away with all forms of multiquesting. I know it was quite common on live, but it's just so abused by people here that it really detracts from the game. You should have to work for your quested items, damnit.

-Do away with item recharging. Again, possible on live, but abused here to an extent that hurts the game.

These four changes, I feel, would create an overall experience that is closer to "classic" for the greatest number of players. I don't think "did it exist in any way shape or form on live?" should be the only consideration when determining if something is classic; how prevalent that thing was should also be weighed heavily.

[Rhambuk]

I miss ct so much my favorite leveling zone in classic there weren't enough camps for the people that wanted to exp there!

[Alanus]

I think Epics should not be MQable. You shouldn't be able to buy an Epic.

[stormlord]

I think part of the problem is p1999 has been locked in classic/kunark/velious content for YEARS and also most of the players know vastly more than they did back in the day. This creates a situation where the economy is much different and also how we play is much different too. Thus, not only are things happening differently, but hence what we want changed also is different. The end result is if this server keeps altering itself to appease the players it might start to look very different from classic. However, there's nothing inherently wrong with that, if it's still a playable MMO.

For me personally I think classic Everquest exhausted itself. What I really wanted was something similar to Everquest but entirely new content, new skill/spells and so on. Project1999 won't do that.

I moved on to Wurm ONline and it actually, compared to many modern MMO's, was a lot like classic Everquest--except it's player-driven. This was back in 2012. I immediately fell in love. Wurm Online is what I imagined MMO's might someday become. It, unlike Everquest 2, met all my fantasies I had back then. I will--if situations allows--go back to playing soon because, well, I logged out in an abandoned mine and my stuff is probably trapped there. Of course, Wurm Online isn't a perfect MMO, but nothing ever is. Everything can always improve. You just have to realize one man's garbage is another's treasure. The perfect MMO is going to be different for different people. There's no universal answer.

That said, I sometimes come back to these forums. I remember Everquest fondly. I first played in 1999, for about 3 months and it left a permanent mark on me. Played live off/on for 10 years. I played at p1999 for a couple years, mostly grouping with noobs. It's what I wanted. It's also the most enjoyable time in the game, I think. I think when you start approaching higher levels, it becomes more of a destination, instead of a journey or adventure. When I made an alt, being I made many, I rarely transferred items/money/etc. It was about the journey. I didn't care about high levels.

EDIT: And yes I'm looking forward to Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen. It's a dream and it won't die, unless we do! Lets face it, we've all been touched. There's no going back to a time before.
https://pantheonmmo.com/

[Rygar]

I absolutely 100% agree with doing away with MQs and Recharging. Programming oversights that were left in but 'not supported by GM assistance' just scream to me that they wanted to do away with it but the fix was so embedded into the game that it was too tough to do. If the devs saw this problem before implementation, I'm guessing it would have been done away with.

I know they want the blue server to be a 'frozen in time museum' of how EQ was back in the day, so I doubt this will be removed. For Green Server I would love to see this. Could simply make it so any charged item could not be sold to a vendor.

I also think the raid scene is not classic in spirit, entire zones can be trained around and bosses pulled out solo to kill. Killing 10+ dragons in a night shouldn't be something realistically achievable. Make TL boxes disappear after 15 seconds, remove DA idols or other clickies, and make it so bosses can't be pulled out of their lair (either make them invulnerable outside a certain radius or permaroot). Even pulling mobs from different islands in Plane of Sky should be nerfed. A simple question of 'is this what the devs intended?' should be a good enough litmus test if something should be nerfed. In some cases the zones need to be re-done to accomodate this, when roamers have a chance in VP to instantly repop after you kill them, it doesn't lend well to crawling through the dungeon well.

While not a 'classic in spirit' for this next one, the economy inflation is horrid. Devs missed the boat with Velious. SS / Thurg / ToV armor quests are so highly sought after, the gems for these should be 100% vendor purchased, not dropped by any mobs anywhere. Prices should be high similar to BP gems for bp / legs / helm. Would even argue these prices should vary based on average amount of plat on the server (ignoring the plat lord exceptions sitting on millions of plat). I also think the same could be said for Blue Diamonds / Black Sapphires / Jacinth for jewelry.

Another 'not classic in spirit' but would like to see more quest progression items similar to the Shackle of Steel monk bracer quest. These quests are not impossible but is something you want to stay on top of early and can help reward you with a very decent item (I still use my shackle at level 60 and obtained at level 40ish). Even epic quests could be made longer to help progress up through the lower levels where you don't just start it one day at level 45. Multiple quests for multiple slots on multiple classes can add a lot of enjoyment and not just have players focus on a min-to-max grind.

Edit: I also think certain raid zones / mobs should be able to hit you through DA / Harmshield line of spells to avoid exploiting... just like a Death Touch mob can harm you through this.

[Twochain]

Classic in spirit? No thanks. When I was 10 years old playing, I was using a black and white monitor because my other one broke, running around aimlessly with 9 fps because i couldn't tab out to the wiki and figure out where shit was.. thus taking hours to make it anywhere..


Although, despite that, some of my most fond memories involve my father and I sitting in his poorly lit office, both playing EQ, with the sound of a rain storm playing from one of our speakers.

But it would have been way more sick with 100 FPS, 144Hz monitors, and a freaking wiki lol.

[Jaleth]

If it was redone "in spirit" ( I know it won't ), then I believe the hybrid experience penalty should be removed the second time through. This was put it in by mistake and nearly all players didn't know about it back upon the game's release, or how much it was affecting group exp. Here I have personally heard players not wanting hybrids due to their known exp penalty.

It was never intended, so should be left out the next go around.

[mickmoranis]

just make recycle server and solve everyones problems at once.

[Pemolis]

Utgarde is starting soon (DAOC), enjoy a fresh classic server. I'm not advertizing the switch but people scream for resets all the time.

[Champion_Standing]

Make every item in the game no drop and lore, including food and water.

[Swish]

just make recycle server and solve everyones problems at once.

pvp teams server would fix everything at once, make p99 great again

[mickmoranis]

recycle teams, swap to blue/red at the end.

Life would be goog.

[Swish]

recycle teams, swap to blue/red at the end.

Life would be goog.

Theres nothing to hate about this idea, we should consider it going forward ^^

[A1rh3ad]

Yes panthion! I hope its not a flop. I can see myself coming back here even if it is a success though.
What I'm here for is probably much different than many of you. Many of you are here out of nostalgia. I have no nostalgia for EQ. In fact the first time seriously playing it was on live a while after they announced the new upcoming expansion on facebook. Looking for an MMO for years none of them ever peaked my interest or scratched that itch the same way vanilla wow did, I said to myself "I remember fiddling with EQ a long time ago. Everyone said it was hard and I love retro and hard." I told my wife about it and we decided to download the FTP client. We started playing until about lv15 or so before realising that this was not the same game. I googled private servers classic everquest and this poped up. I've been hooked since. What really made me stray away from EQ originally was the graphice and UI. I absolutely hated it. With P99 i can upgrade the graphics and it uses the new UI. Basically everything I was looking for in an MMO. There is no wonder why I was instantly hooked. Pure classic gameplay.

[Lhancelot]

Everyone said it was hard and I love retro and hard.

What are we talking about again?

[A1rh3ad]

What are we talking about again?

Oh and did I mention its big and very long?

[Dreenk317]

This thread is kind of funny. Not that I really care, but there are already many changes in place that make this very much not "pure classic gameplay". And I agree with many that "did the debts intend for this" should be asked much more often than it is. But, if they go much further than they already have. They will have to open the door to all sorts of non classic changes. Sure, some of them would be great things to change in my oppinion,(cough cough, pets eating exp when solo unless I outdamage them, but oh ya, they can't taunt or hold Agro at all, cough cough). But forcing people to group, removing clickies, editing zones and mobs to change how it's possible to pull them, increasing exp gain for groups, these things would be completely not cool, and not classic.

The reason exp gets cut when grouped, is because it's being shared by the whole group.... And with the group working as a team, you should be killing so fast and efficiently so as to gain more exp then soloing. Chainpullers for the win.

Also...... server reset isn't a bad idea, everyone would bitch and moan and whine and gripe..... and then come right back, saw it several times with Uthgarf. Everyone crying that a reset would make everyone leave when in reality, maybe two hundred of the twelve hundred didn't come right back. But within a month everyone was always back and it was healthy for the server every time. I'm not saying do it, just saying it usually isn't as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be.

[Lhancelot]

This thread is kind of funny. Not that I really care, but there are already many changes in place that make this very much not "pure classic gameplay". And I agree with many that "did the debts intend for this" should be asked much more often than it is. But, if they go much further than they already have. They will have to open the door to all sorts of non classic changes. Sure, some of them would be great things to change in my oppinion,(cough cough, pets eating exp when solo unless I outdamage them, but oh ya, they can't taunt or hold Agro at all, cough cough). But forcing people to group, removing clickies, editing zones and mobs to change how it's possible to pull them, increasing exp gain for groups, these things would be completely not cool, and not classic.

The reason exp gets cut when grouped, is because it's being shared by the whole group.... And with the group working as a team, you should be killing so fast and efficiently so as to gain more exp then soloing. Chainpullers for the win.

Also...... server reset isn't a bad idea, everyone would bitch and moan and whine and gripe..... and then come right back, saw it several times with Uthgarf. Everyone crying that a reset would make everyone leave when in reality, maybe two hundred of the twelve hundred didn't come right back. But within a month everyone was always back and it was healthy for the server every time. I'm not saying do it, just saying it usually isn't as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be.

Truth.

[cam_jp]

Is there a reason the group bonus exp can't be roughly calibrated so that neither grouping nor soloing is preferable? So that folks whose idea of 'classic' is being able to do certain solo tactics in certain zones, as they remember it, can; and those who want it to be more social can do so without any penalty? Even just narrowing this gap by a fair bit would achieve this balance, I imagine.

[Tecmos Deception]

Classic in spirit, or classic experience, would only be possible if the game were practically unrecognizable as everquest.

What made the game back then was how novel it all was to us. Very few people knew the zones, the quests, the mechanics, the gear, the exploit tricks, like many of us do now. Nobody had resources anything like the p99 wiki. We generally had poor internet and no voip. Few visited forums.

To recreate what classic felt like for most people would mean redoing most of the game so that the players again are going in fresh.

But odds are that ruin the game for the sort of people who tracked down and play the current p99, imo.

[cam_jp]

According to a one sense of 'classic in spirit', that's all very true.

But surely we all know that what we're really looking for is a game that feels in most of the important ways like the game we remember & love, but also a decent, playable game. The latter only being no longer a sub-set of the former due to all of the things Tecmos & others have mentioned... so there needs to be some amendments here-and-there.

And yeh, I've said subjective things like 'the important things we remember & love' or 'decent, playable game'...

I guess as I read these threads, there's a massive polarising of opinion when it seems entirely achievable to mostly satisfy most people in both camps... let's hope the devs shoot for that.

[Dreenk317]

According to a one sense of 'classic in spirit', that's all very true.

But surely we all know that what we're really looking for is a game that feels in most of the important ways like the game we remember & love, but also a decent, playable game. The latter only being no longer a sub-set of the former due to all of the things Tecmos & others have mentioned... so there needs to be some amendments here-and-there.

And yeh, I've said subjective things like 'the important things we remember & love' or 'decent, playable game'...

I guess as I read these threads, there's a massive polarising of opinion when it seems entirely achievable to mostly satisfy most people in both camps... let's hope the devs shoot for that.

It's possible, but it would no longer be true classic Everquest. That's all. Not saying it would be worse, or better. But would definitely not be the same. And I, for one, enjoy classic Everquest as it's represented here. Even though there are things that I do wish were changed. This is also the closest thing to exactly what I want, so I'm happy.

[cam_jp]

It's possible, but it would no longer be true classic Everquest. That's all. Not saying it would be worse, or better. But would definitely not be the same. And I, for one, enjoy classic Everquest as it's represented here. Even though there are things that I do wish were changed. This is also the closest thing to exactly what I want, so I'm happy.

So, using the group XP thing as an example, you would feel like other people grouping in DL to be social and work together would not be the same, even if you could continue to solo there, if you felt like it, with no penalty one way or the other XP-wise?

That's the sort of win-win compromise I have in mind. I dare say there are others like it.

I think I'd then be pretty happy with any situation that has no win-win possibility defaulting to some strict sense of 'classic', as a final arbiter, even when the outcome isn't according to my preference.

[Dreenk317]

So, using the group XP thing as an example, you would feel like other people grouping in DL to be social and work together would not be the same, even if you could continue to solo there, if you felt like it, with no penalty one way or the other XP-wise?

That's the sort of win-win compromise I have in mind. I dare say there are others like it.

I think I'd then be pretty happy with any situation that has no win-win possibility defaulting to some strict sense of 'classic', as a final arbiter, even when the outcome isn't according to my preference.

I just think of it differently. Those players in DL that are grouped and being social are choosing to do so. As such they are able to kill more mobs, faster, and safer (the group backs each other up, assists, supports, etc.). The trade off is that they receive less exp per kill for all these benefits. The solo player kills slower, has more risk (generally no one around to assist or heal if things go wrong). And as such, for this added risk and difficulty, recieves more experience.

Some classes are better at this than others (necro and Druid for example) but they are supposed to be good soloers. And that's the way the game is and has always been. And personally, the class diversity, the fact that some are great at this and suck at that, is one of the things I love most about this game. To many games make all classes viable in all situations,and that's just not my idea of fun in an mmo.

[cam_jp]

Good points. You've convinced me to not mind if they don't change it.

[Vandil]

Project 1999 does a good job of emulating the Classic-to-Pre-Luclin Era.

The server admins added custom rules/policies that were not present on Live, but are meant to help make the nostalgia trip better for everyone. Perhaps one of the most controversial is the inability to multi-box, which was one way to "solo" in the pre-Mercenary days of EQ Live.

The server is also affected by the player base, who can leverage far more knowledge than players had in 1999-2001, and use modern gaming strategies to have an advantage. Modern gaming hardware also provides an advantage.

That said, Project 1999 is free and no warranty is offered or implied. It is a fan server with its own rules. There are other fan servers that do Luclin and PoP, etc, and allow multi-boxing, and if those things are important to you, then log in on one of those other fan servers or roll your own server.