Proposed new server ruleset: PvE+ [long effortpost]

[Vexenu]

Over the past few years there has been much speculation and anticipation over the launch of a new server. While much of the excitement is rooted simply in the prospect of having a totally fresh start, there is also considerable potential for expanding gameplay through custom rulesets which differ from those currently existing on Blue and Red. The three major rulesets I've seen proposed are:

1) Teams PvP - Most likely race or deity based
2) Green/Recycle - Server with a built in sunset/wipe feature after "X" amount of time
3) Purple - A hybrid Blue/Red server with PvP limited within certain parameters (i.e. restricted by time/zone to coincide with competitive raid target spawns)

All three of these rulesets have pros and cons. Teams, for example, has the most potential for fun and interesting gameplay, but is also the most likely to suffer low population over the long term. Green would always provide a fresh start around the corner, but this would also have a negative impact on players' long-term investment in the server (meaning population would peak at launch and precipitously decline as the reset neared). And Purple offers an interesting dynamic, but is in a sense the most radical of the three, having never been implemented (to my knowledge at least) in any live or emu server. It could be a great compromise, or it could turn out to simply result in the worst aspects of both Blue and Red.

That being the case, I have been thinking about a new ruleset and would like to get some community feedback on it. I call this new ruleset: PvE+

The fundamental goals behind the PvE+ ruleset:

1) Remain as Classic as possible, with a focus on the spirit rather than the letter of Classic
2) Implement solutions to address the problems with P1999 gameplay that have become apparent over the life of the project (most notably endgame overcrowding)
3) Promote pro-social and cooperative behavior between players while retaining avenues for healthy competition between guilds
4) Require minimal implementation of custom resources by the developers and minimal policing of the playerbase by GMs/Guides
5) To whatever degree is possible in a game as thoroughly explored/fully known as EQ is to most of us, recreate the feelings of danger and excitement that we experienced when first adventuring in Norrath years ago

So how exactly does PvE+ propose to achieve those goals, and how does it differ from other rulesets? To put it as simply as possible: PvE+ proposes to make the PvE content of the game much more difficult. And this goes much further than simply buffing the HP and damage output of mobs. PvE+ is about creating a world that is more hostile to the individual player. The overall effect of PvE+ would therefore be to:

1) Greatly promote cooperation between players in order to ensure survival and enable leveling
2) Reduce the overall speed of leveling
3) Increase the difficulty of obtaining rare items
4) Make the world feel larger and more dangerous
5) Discourage soloing and excessive twinking

PvE+ is necessary because we've become too good at EQ. The game has, in a sense, been fully "solved". Our mastery over the game has resulted in a gameplay experience that has become stagnant, predictable and which, while mostly Classic in the mechanical sense, is far from the classic feel of Everquest. Original EQ was an extremely difficult game, but a large amount of that difficulty was due to unfamiliarity with the game's mechanics and content. Now that both the mechanics and content of the game have been fully explored, the only avenue we have for recreating the Classic feel while retaining Classic content and mechanics is therefore to ramp up the difficulty setting.

Specifics of how PvE+ proposes to make the game more difficult (as you read through these suggestions, pause to consider the deeper implications each would have on gameplay):


Item recharging is disabled
Large experience penalty for characters over level 10 in outdoor zones (Ranging from 25%-75%, i.e. 75% penalty in Overthere, 25% penalty in CoM/KC. XP is hard to come by, low risk is low reward)
All outdoor mobs run at slightly above SoW speed and have larger agro radius (travel is dangerous and not undertaken lightly, especially solo)
All mobs deal increased damage and have increased hitpoints
All food and water are NO RENT items and must be freshly acquired each session (Summon food and water line of spells are suddenly highly useful and pro-social)
NO RENT items decay even while corpsed (you're not getting around it that easily)
Multi-questing is disabled
PBAOE spells reduced to 10 maximum targets (from current 25 - AOE groups highly discouraged)
Endurance is decreased gradually by attacking with melee weapons, and attacks cannot continue when no endurance remains. (Invigor becomes a crucial and pro-social spell for both grouping and raiding)
Fungus Covered Scale Tunic is NO DROP (trivializes low end content)
Buffs can only be cast on players who are no lower than 10 levels below the buff level itself (i.e. a level 60 buff can land on a level 50, but not a level 49. A level 60 could only buff a level 10 using his level 20 buffs).
All players (casters included) may only bind in city zones (cities become adventuring hubs/gathering places)
10-25% XP bonuses in historically underutilized - read: difficult - leveling dungeons: Najena, Nurga/Droga, Runnyeye, Permafrost, Cazic Thule, Splitpaw Lair, Kerra Island, Kedge Keep, Kaesora, Crystal Caverns, ToFS (higher risk = higher reward, and spreads people out to avoid overcrowding in SolB, LGuk, CoM, etc...)
Wizards and Druids receive a whole group buff that enables the character with the buff to be teleported. The buff has a duration of 30 minutes and the spell has a cooldown of 30 minutes. This does not apply to self-teleports. The effect is to fully retain the porting ability of Wizards and Druids individually and within guilds and groups, but limits their ability to port many different players in a short period of time (this restricts effortless Dial-A-Port style travel, which is grossly un-Classic at this point, makes the world feel much larger and makes Wizards/Druids more attractive for groups)
Monk sneak pulling is disabled (current state is un-classic)
Dungeon mobs flee at full speed at 20% health unless snared
Experience lost in certain flagged zones cannot be regained through resurrection (the Plane of Fear and Hate should be absolutely terrifying)
Higher level zones and certain dungeons may be environmentally hostile in one way or another, i.e. requiring a minimum resist check to avoid taking damage. For example, 150 CR might be required in Velks to avoid freezing (DoT/snare/slow effect) while 150 PR and Enduring Breath might be required in Sebilis to avoid the noxious fumes (Envenomed Breath DoT) of Trakanon, the undead and the frogloks.
If a player is killed by any normal mob, one random piece of equipped, droppable gear the player is wearing will be "looted" by the mob (transfered to the mob's item table). When/if the mob is later killed, the item can be re-looted normally by the player himself, his group, or anyone else for that matter. Safety in numbers! Soloing is very risky. NO DROP items are safe from looting and thus become preferred when available.
If a player is killed by a raid mob, one random piece of the player's equipped, droppable gear will be "looted" by the mob and permanently destroyed. NO DROP gear cannot be looted by the mob and is thus preferred. Raiding becomes much riskier and wipes have real consequences. Real risk and real reward. You'll have to risk your existing gear if you want to acquire better raid gear.
Soulfire is only clickable by Paladins
Mobs are much more resistant to charm
Raid mobs are perma-rooted and must be killed in place
A traveling merchant: an *extremely* rare spawn in certain zones. He spawns randomly with no PH and wanders before despawning five minutes or so later, and is also KOS to mobs and easily killed. He is a vendor who sells NO DROP versions of legacy and GM items: Guises, Manastones, Pre-nerf Fungus staffs, Oogly Sticks, etc... The items will be extremely expensive (probably ranging from 100k-5 million pp) and paid for with special pre-purchased gems that vendor (and resell) for 100k apiece - so you can keep them on you in case you encounter the traveling merchant. This functions as a plat sink and a way to make legacy items rarely available throughout the life of the server. Additionally, the traveling merchant may also propose to trade one his legacy items for a specific item he is seeking, which could be anything randomly pulled from a long list of loot. Ex: Traveling merchant spawns and randomly decides that he will exchange a Guise of the Deceiver for a Symbol of Loyalty to Vox. Or maybe it's a Totem of the Warrior Spirit. Or maybe a Crown of the Froglok Kings. You most likely are not carrying the item he's asking for. But if you are...you're a very happy camper on that day. Could also obviously be spawned by a GM for special events/random fun.



The overall effect of the PvE+ ruleset is to shift the focus of gameplay away from the level and loot treadmill it's degenerated into today and toward a more classic experience: struggling to make your way through a dangerous world, and being forced to rely heavily on friends and strangers to successfully do so. Enhanced difficulty makes every accomplishment in the game more meaningful. Leveling itself is supposed to be difficult. It should not be easy to get to level 30, much less level 50 or 60. Climbing the level ladder should entail increasing risk, difficulty, teamwork and itemization requirements.

The PvE+ server is not intended to be an endgame raiding server. It's not meant to be a leveling treadmill that deposits you at 60 into the midst of 40 other people where you just show up as "a_warm_body_00" and collect loot easily over time. It's an adventuring server. The goal is to make the entire game (from levels 1-60, from Blackburrow to Sleeper's Tomb, from a decaying skeleton to Tunare) an ever-increasing obstacle course where you must carefully balance risk vs. reward. Note that the vast majority of the suggested changes contained in the ruleset are essentially just tweaks to existing gameplay mechanics. This is not a custom ruleset that drastically alters classic EQ gameplay. The gameplay itself would remain essentially unchanged from what it is now, it would simply be more difficult and carry greater risk.

Feedback: What do you think of the PvE+ ruleset?

Suggestions: What ideas would you add to the PvE+ ruleset to enhance gameplay and increase difficulty? Longwinded effortposts encouraged. Bonus points if it's somehow even longer than this one.

[Rang]

WTS Loot Rights on this Post 100k PST

[Psykes]

Not trolling, but you probably could have leveled a character from 1-23 on red in the time it took you to write this up

[korilla]

few options here..
1. make your own server
2. apply to join the staff
3. deal with it

[Baler]

First page, How long did this take you to edit in MS word, etc?

Some of your good ideas conflict with "shit's classic" :(
But I like the ingenuity.

IF there is a classic, custom server in the works. Some of these ideas could certainly be used or already in the works.

[Ravager]

Let me know when this server launches.

[Ikon]

Sounds interesting - I'd play on it over current server.

Personally I'd just like a green server with classic rules and mechanics like the way it was originally that progresses in the same time frame as it did on live.

I'd like to see problem mechanics removed:

- No MQ (or at least 1 MQ per month per character max)
- Lazy aggro in Kunark Velious
- No OP FD -> Sneak
- No binding in dungeons in Kunark / Velious
- Original bind rules for melee's Kunark / Velious
- Randomized and relocated manastones / Fungi's
- Soulfires pre-nerfed Pally only
- Fully implemented classic PnP not just cherry picked PnP
- No drop removed for all items except some quest itmes, epic quest items and epics
- TLC on common highly camped mobs

[Triiz]

So you want to keep the "Spirit of classic" by making it as non-classic as possible? Mobs faster than SOW, no rent food, mobs looting you, environment attacks you, outdoor xp penalties which would leave the majority of Norrath completely empty, half the server buys Manastone + pre-nerf Fungi staff from "rare" vendor which is an insanely OP combination for the majority of caster classes.

People put massive amounts of time into gear at the higher end, only to have it looted and destroyed by a raid mob? I'm confused how that is in the spirit of classic at all.

I'm sure you put a lot of time into these ideas but c'mon man that's basically an entirely different game and I'm far from a "classic purist".

Edit: just to add, if raid wipes did have those kind of consequences everything would just be downed with zerg numbers. People aren't going to risk losing something they worked days/weeks for when they can just roll in with 200 people. Guilds already do zerg raids with no fear of losing their gear, can't imagine how it'd be with risk like that added to it. Also mobs like that death touch every 30 seconds would likely just be avoided completely.

[Lakeland]

So you want to keep the "Spirit of classic" by making it as non-classic as possible? Mobs faster than SOW, no rent food, mobs looting you, environment attacks you, outdoor xp penalties which would leave the majority of Norrath completely empty, half the server buys Manastone + pre-nerf Fungi staff from "rare" vendor which is an insanely OP combination for the majority of caster classes.

People put massive amounts of time into gear at the higher end, only to have it looted and destroyed by a raid mob? I'm confused how that is in the spirit of classic at all.

I'm sure you put a lot of time into these ideas but c'mon man that's basically an entirely different game and I'm far from a "classic purist".


He said what I was thinking. Thank you Triiz. The OP listed so much stuff that wasn't in "classic EQ" he made a new game, which is fine if they like that, but they shouldn't act like it's "classic EQ".

[Teako]

oh hey look it's another "WE SHOULD DO THIS BECAUSE I LIKE THIS INSTEAD OF CLASSIC" post.

servers must be down!

[Raev]

I think your post is interesting but in the end completely jumps the shark. IMHO there are three big problems with classic 'feel' on Project 1999 currently.

1. Since the server is so old, mudflation reigns and twinking is insane. Fungi/Tstaff monks can own huge sections of dungeons solo. I saw an Awakened Rogue with a Horn of Hsagra, Fungi, Belt of the Great Turtle, Cloak of Flames, and a fucking AOW mask. Needless to say, he was a douche. Even newer players can get superb mid level weapons like the Frozen Shard for cheap.

2. Due to the stagnant content, everyone builds huge armies of alts. Every older player has a pocket cleric and wizard and 10 toons to camp at every raid target. This hugely reduces cooperation because I can ask a friend to log on my own cleric or portbot for 2 minutes and increases demand for epic items and such.

3. A significant group of players are still trying to "win" an emulated EQ server via poopsocking/rule lawyering/waking up at 4AM. The insane competition over the raid scene percolates down and creates this an antisocial attitude where people are busy fucking each other over.

I would also like to see a more classic 'feel' to the server, but I don't think anything near what you are proposing is necessary.

All items receive a required level = level of the NPC they dropped from -10. This eliminates the vast majority of twinking.
All buffs cannot be cast on any player < the buff level -10.
Item recharging is much more expensive, ~10x
Logging in to a toon binds your IP to that toon for 1 week, preventing you from logging in to other toons. Mules/Guildbots/pocket clerics/Naggy toons vanish.
Elimination of variance + GM enforced rotation on all raid targets with a tier system to make it more interesting.


All that being said, none of this will happen. The GMs here simply prefer the current environment. My changes could be done in a week; if they actually wanted to do something they would have done so long ago. The server is what it is, either accept it or play somewhere else.

[Vexenu]

So you want to keep the "Spirit of classic" by making it as non-classic as possible? Mobs faster than SOW, no rent food, mobs looting you, environment attacks you, outdoor xp penalties which would leave the majority of Norrath completely empty, half the server buys Manastone + pre-nerf Fungi staff from "rare" vendor which is an insanely OP combination for the majority of caster classes.

People put massive amounts of time into gear at the higher end, only to have it looted and destroyed by a raid mob? I'm confused how that is in the spirit of classic at all.

I'm sure you put a lot of time into these ideas but c'mon man that's basically an entirely different game and I'm far from a "classic purist".

Edit: just to add, if raid wipes did have those kind of consequences everything would just be downed with zerg numbers. People aren't going to risk losing something they worked days/weeks for when they can just roll in with 200 people. Guilds already do zerg raids with no fear of losing their gear, can't imagine how it'd be with risk like that added to it. Also mobs like that death touch every 30 seconds would likely just be avoided completely.

I don't think you read the post very carefully (you don't seem to be alone in that regard, although to be fair it was a huge wall of text despite my best efforts to format it for maximum readability).

1) Only DROPPABLE gear would be at risk from being destroyed by raid mobs. The best gear is all NO DROP. Past a certain level of gearing you'd mostly only risk losing some resist jewelry/gear. Or you could put no gear at risk by wearing only NO DROP gear and otherwise empty slots, accepting reduced stats and thus increasing the difficulty of the encounter. The entire purpose is balancing risk, reward and difficulty.

2) Mobs faster than SoW and outdoor XP penalties: discourages easy outdoor leveling and forces people into dungeons. If you can't hack dungeon leveling then you won't advance. That's the entire point of raising the difficulty level.

3) The idea is the Traveling merchant would be *extremely* rare and totally random. Most players would never encounter him. You could not camp him. You would just hope to get lucky one day. The idea that half the server would have access to him is wrong. I'm talking about a rarity level where he might only spawn a few times per real life year for a few minutes at a time, in one of two dozen or so zones.

4) Guilds might zerg more, or they might not. Does it really matter? It's not a raid-focused server proposal. The point is to increase the difficulty and risk of all aspects of the the game, including raiding. It's SUPPOSED to be harder and more punishing, so players would adapt their approach and play more carefully. Working as intended.

[Sadiki]

Every thread.

> Implement all of these changes I like.
> Those changes are too drastic, implement these over-the-top changes instead.

Perhaps these people would enjoy one of the many other servers available on EQemu.

[Lakeland]

I don't think you read the post very carefully (you don't seem to be alone in that regard, although to be fair it was a huge wall of text despite my best efforts to format it for maximum readability).

1) Only DROPPABLE gear would be at risk from being destroyed by raid mobs. The best gear is all NO DROP. Past a certain level of gearing you'd mostly only risk losing some resist jewelry/gear. Or you could put no gear at risk by wearing only NO DROP gear and otherwise empty slots, accepting reduced stats and thus increasing the difficulty of the encounter. The entire purpose is balancing risk, reward and difficulty.

2) Mobs faster than SoW and outdoor XP penalties: discourages easy outdoor leveling and forces people into dungeons. If you can't hack dungeon leveling then you won't advance. That's the entire point of raising the difficulty level.

3) The idea is the Traveling merchant would be *extremely* rare and totally random. Most players would never encounter him. You could not camp him. You would just hope to get lucky one day. The idea that half the server would have access to him is wrong. I'm talking about a rarity level where he might only spawn a few times per real life year for a few minutes at a time, in one of two dozen or so zones.

4) Guilds might zerg more, or they might not. Does it really matter? It's not a raid-focused server proposal. The point is to increase the difficulty and risk of all aspects of the the game, including raiding. It's SUPPOSED to be harder and more punishing, so players would adapt their approach and play more carefully. Working as intended.

I read it, every long winded word, but tell me what out of these things you listed are "classic eq"? Traveling merchant is simply something you want, not one thing about it says "classic eq" and honestly you want everything else "harder" but you want some merchant randomly wandering around to make things easier? Very odd.

Why penalize players who want to be outside? So if I can't find a group I get 75% experience loss killing stuff? Why? What makes this "classic eq"?

Gear getting destroyed by raid mobs? When was this in the "spirit" of "classic eq"? No, see we read it, we just realize you have a theory of what you want in a game and want it added to an existing game. You don't want "classic" you want your version and again by all means that's cool but don't act like it's anything close to "class eq" because it just is not.

[Vexenu]

I think your post is interesting but in the end completely jumps the shark. IMHO there are three big problems with classic 'feel' on Project 1999 currently.

1. Since the server is so old, mudflation reigns and twinking is insane. Fungi/Tstaff monks can own huge sections of dungeons solo. I saw an Awakened Rogue with a Horn of Hsagra, Fungi, Belt of the Great Turtle, Cloak of Flames, and a fucking AOW mask. Needless to say, he was a douche. Even newer players can get superb mid level weapons like the Frozen Shard for cheap.

2. Due to the stagnant content, everyone builds huge armies of alts. Every older player has a pocket cleric and wizard and 10 toons to camp at every raid target. This hugely reduces cooperation because I can ask a friend to log on my own cleric or portbot for 2 minutes and increases demand for epic items and such.

3. A significant group of players are still trying to "win" an emulated EQ server via poopsocking/rule lawyering/waking up at 4AM. The insane competition over the raid scene percolates down and creates this an antisocial attitude where people are busy fucking each other over.

I would also like to see a more classic 'feel' to the server, but I don't think anything near what you are proposing is necessary.

All items receive a required level = level of the NPC they dropped from -10. This eliminates the vast majority of twinking.
All buffs cannot be cast on any player < the buff level -10.
Item recharging is much more expensive, ~10x
Logging in to a toon binds your IP to that toon for 1 week, preventing you from logging in to other toons. Mules/Guildbots/pocket clerics/Naggy toons vanish.
Elimination of variance + GM enforced rotation on all raid targets with a tier system to make it more interesting.


All that being said, none of this will happen. The GMs here simply prefer the current environment. My changes could be done in a week; if they actually wanted to do something they would have done so long ago. The server is what it is, either accept it or play somewhere else.

Those would be good changes, but the IP binding would be too easy to circumvent for those inclined to do so. You'd just end up punishing honest players.

Sounds interesting - I'd play on it over current server.

Personally I'd just like a green server with classic rules and mechanics like the way it was originally that progresses in the same time frame as it did on live.

I'd like to see problem mechanics removed:

- No MQ (or at least 1 MQ per month per character max)
- Lazy aggro in Kunark Velious
- No OP FD -> Sneak
- No binding in dungeons in Kunark / Velious
- Original bind rules for melee's Kunark / Velious
- Randomized and relocated manastones / Fungi's
- Soulfires pre-nerfed Pally only
- Fully implemented classic PnP not just cherry picked PnP
- No drop removed for all items except some quest itmes, epic quest items and epics
- TLC on common highly camped mobs

Agree with most of these changes as well.

[fadetree]

I'm with ya in spirit, but I think this is a little too hardcore.

[Vexenu]

Also, for fuck's sake people, this is an obvious theorycraft thread and hypothetical discussion. I assure you, your pixels are at no risk and there is zero chance that Rogean and nilbog will suddenly implement these ideas. There's no need to have your jimmies rustled so hard you joyless, unimaginative bastards, so lighten up. It's just a topic for discussion.

DURRRR NOT CLASSIC GO PLAY SOMEWHERE ELSE

*clutches pixels tightly to chest*

[Lakeland]

Also, for fuck's sake people, this is an obvious theorycraft thread and hypothetical discussion. I assure you, your pixels are at no risk and there is zero chance that Rogean and nilbog will suddenly implement these ideas. There's no need to have your jimmies rustled so hard you joyless, unimaginative bastards, so lighten up. It's just a topic for discussion.

DURRRR NOT CLASSIC GO PLAY SOMEWHERE ELSE

*clutches pixels tightly to chest*

Seems the only one with any real panties all bunched up is you. Someone asked for opinions on an idea, he's getting them except for your post which is simply someone jumping around complaining about people who aren't complaining.

[Vexenu]

Seems the only one with any real panties all bunched up is you. Someone asked for opinions on an idea, he's getting them except for your post which is simply someone jumping around complaining about people who aren't complaining.

I assure you that my panties are not bunched up. I'd simply like to hear more intelligent criticism than "LOL NOT CLASSIC" or "MAKE UR OWN SERVER BRO".

There is no need for people to feel so rustled by hypothetical discussion of a server ruleset.

[Izmael]

Obviously quite a bit of thinking went into OP's post - I'd undersign about 95% of it.

Not sure what to think of the traveling merchant (why?) and charm resistance (if we nerf charm, we have to nerf a bunch of other stuff as well - necros soloing, druids/wizards quadding, bards swarming (even 10 is a lot of mobs).

I totally agree with the general idea - make EQ hard as it was back when we all were clueless.

Maybe make ALL the mobs hit for the 2x or 3x the damage they are supposed to and make sure they outrun any kind of speed spell outdoors AND indoors should be enough to make it pretty damn hard to get loot and exp?

Maybe also make all mobs summon so root/rot, fear kite and such don't work.

Basically force people to group and even then it should be super hard to achieve anything.

[Lakeland]

I assure you that my panties are not bunched up. I'd simply like to hear more intelligent criticism than "LOL NOT CLASSIC" or "MAKE UR OWN SERVER BRO".

There is no need for people to feel so rustled by hypothetical discussion of a server ruleset.

Well when someone says

"1) Remain as Classic as possible, with a focus on the spirit rather than the letter of Classic"

As the first point to the thread it's probably expected people will point out if the ideas are neither "classic" nor the "spirit of" isn't it? If you have ideas on how to make basketball more fun and in essence change it to football it's no longer what it was, it might be great or even better but it's not what it start off being. Not one thing about what he said is "Classic as possible".

Also, read the thread over and tell me who has the most "rustled" post in the thread...

[Vexenu]

I read it, every long winded word, but tell me what out of these things you listed are "classic eq"? Traveling merchant is simply something you want, not one thing about it says "classic eq" and honestly you want everything else "harder" but you want some merchant randomly wandering around to make things easier? Very odd.

Why penalize players who want to be outside? So if I can't find a group I get 75% experience loss killing stuff? Why? What makes this "classic eq"?

Gear getting destroyed by raid mobs? When was this in the "spirit" of "classic eq"? No, see we read it, we just realize you have a theory of what you want in a game and want it added to an existing game. You don't want "classic" you want your version and again by all means that's cool but don't act like it's anything close to "class eq" because it just is not.

The spirit of Classic EQ is, in my view, when overcoming the environment of the game itself is the biggest challenge the player faces, as opposed to the state of the server now, where the challenge is only in killing mobs before other players do. If you want to preserve classic mechanics and content, the only way to make the world/environment more difficult to overcome is to tweak it in the ways I suggested.

I want to penalize you for XPing outside because XPing outside is trivially easy. This ruleset is specifically designed to be hard. It's designed to heavily encourage grouping in dungeons for advancement, and rewards XPing in more difficult zones. These changes are obviously "not classic" in themselves. But you know what is classic? Grouping in dungeons and relying on other players just to stay alive, much less advance your character.

Gear destroyed by raid mobs is basically taking the PvP item loot rules from Rallos Zek and applying them to raid mobs. It's fairly hardcore, sure. But that's the point. Any guild that could raid successfully on the PvE+ server would be legit as fuck and everyone would know it.

[Whirled]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hn9xAaKUbw
Some people hold pixels very sacred.^
Hope this helps.

[Turdler]

I like the effort put into your proposal; but FRAT!

[Lakeland]

The spirit of Classic EQ is, in my view, when overcoming the environment of the game itself is the biggest challenge the player faces, as opposed to the state of the server now, where the challenge is only in killing mobs before other players do. If you want to preserve classic mechanics and content, the only way to make the world/environment more difficult to overcome is to tweak it in the ways I suggested.

I want to penalize you for XPing outside because XPing outside is trivially easy. This ruleset is specifically designed to be hard. It's designed to heavily encourage grouping in dungeons for advancement, and rewards XPing in more difficult zones. These changes are obviously "not classic" in themselves. But you know what is classic? Grouping in dungeons and relying on other players just to stay alive, much less advance your character.

Gear destroyed by raid mobs is basically taking the PvP item loot rules from Rallos Zek and applying them to raid mobs. It's fairly hardcore, sure. But that's the point. Any guild that could raid successfully on the PvE+ server would be legit as fuck and everyone would know it.

The problem comes in the fact that grouping, even back in the day, wasn't always possible and it sure won't always be possible on an emulated server with MUCH less population. So what are people to do when they aren't able to group? What will a new player like myself do when no one groups because they all have established guildmates/friends and the new player is running around with nothing? How long will new players play when they can't solo to level and sit forever waiting for a group because soloing has become so useless exp wise its not worth doing, especially since even with SoW the second you get an add your dead because you now can't run away from anything?

You want things that sound good, as I said it could even be better then it is now I'm not denying that, but it's not logically functional. You'd be running a completely hardcore server without any casual players, the irony is them players already only group/raid so what's the real change for them? If a server like you want existed how is any player that just entering going to accomplish anything?

I think some people who have played for a long time on 1999 forget what it's like to be a complete noob because your plan basically destroys any new players coming up. Just the food concept in general is enough to make people so frustrated they quit. If life happens and I have to log away from a city what do I do when I log back on? Run to a city wasting huge amounts of time just to buy food just to run all the way back to where I was? How is this helping advance the game or make it fun? Limiting my ability to play alts? How is that fun or useful? I just don't understand it from the concept of an old EQ player but new 1999 player.

Again I'm not saying your ideas are bad, I'm just saying it's absolutely not in the spirit of the classic game. I miss grouping in games to level (that's why I'm back here) but I don't think you can force that, you would just run people off the game. I mained a cleric back in EQ from launch, soloing wasn't really a thing for me but that was ok because I'd find groups easy enough and with a good reputation among the player base and guildmates I did just fine. With so few players here, I'm absolutely worried about trying to level my cleric as it is because no one looks for groups, everyone is twinked out and soloing or being powerleveled. If we were under your rules what would a new player as a cleric do? Don't say "Find a group" because that's the obvious answer but it just doesn't work that way as I said earlier.

EQ was hard, really hard at times, but it wasn't SO much so you wouldn't be able to do something while lfg. Your plan basically makes you sit bored if your lfg, well that's when your not running to a merchant every log in to get food and water.

[Vexenu]

Obviously quite a bit of thinking went into OP's post - I'd undersign about 95% of it.

Not sure what to think of the traveling merchant (why?) and charm resistance (if we nerf charm, we have to nerf a bunch of other stuff as well - necros soloing, druids/wizards quadding, bards swarming (even 10 is a lot of mobs).

I totally agree with the general idea - make EQ hard as it was back when we all were clueless.

Maybe make ALL the mobs hit for the 2x or 3x the damage they are supposed to and make sure they outrun any kind of speed spell outdoors AND indoors should be enough to make it pretty damn hard to get loot and exp?

Maybe also make all mobs summon so root/rot, fear kite and such don't work.

Basically force people to group and even then it should be super hard to achieve anything.

Regarding Traveling merchant...maybe it is a dumb idea. The thought was simply to address the whining from players who joined the server later not having access to Guises and Manastones and such. The idea would be that everyone would have hypothetical access to them...you'd just have to have enough plat and/or get really, really, really lucky. How lucky am I talking here? Like "AFK autorun through Sro on your way to and from Lower Guk and randomly run smack into the AC on the way there AND back" lucky. Or "randomly running around near the Windmill in LOIO and the Sarnak Courier spawns on top of you and drops a Gazughi ring" lucky. The idea would be that only a handful of players in a given real life calendar year would even SEE the guy, much less be able to buy from him. Basically, he should be almost mythical. It's just something to add spice to the server. By far the most disposable and least important suggestion I made, however, and the first one I'd jettison.

Nerfing charm: it's just overpowered in its current state. Charming in classic was more difficult, if only for hardware and client software limitations. But you didn't see pretty much every Enchanter soloing like crazy with Charm back in the day. Not even close. This is what I mean by focusing on the spirit rather than the letter of classic. The spirit of classic = Enchanters mostly grouping, CCing and buffing, charming only sporadically and at great risk to themselves.

You wouldn't need to change Necro soloing or Wizard quadding. Why? The loot code. So a Necro could solo and a Wizard could quad...but if they fuck up and die they will have one of their items looted by the mob, and have no one in their group able to kill it and get their item back. The Wiz would also be suffering the outdoor XP penalty if quadding, and if the Necro is soloing in a dungeon he's already taking a risk. It's all about risk versus reward.

[Vexenu]

The problem comes in the fact that grouping, even back in the day, wasn't always possible and it sure won't always be possible on an emulated server with MUCH less population. So what are people to do when they aren't able to group? What will a new player like myself do when no one groups because they all have established guildmates/friends and the new player is running around with nothing? How long will new players play when they can't solo to level and sit forever waiting for a group because soloing has become so useless exp wise its not worth doing, especially since even with SoW the second you get an add your dead because you now can't run away from anything?

You want things that sound good, as I said it could even be better then it is now I'm not denying that, but it's not logically functional. You'd be running a completely hardcore server without any casual players, the irony is them players already only group/raid so what's the real change for them? If a server like you want existed how is any player that just entering going to accomplish anything?

I think some people who have played for a long time on 1999 forget what it's like to be a complete noob because your plan basically destroys any new players coming up. Just the food concept in general is enough to make people so frustrated they quit. If life happens and I have to log away from a city what do I do when I log back on? Run to a city wasting huge amounts of time just to buy food just to run all the way back to where I was? How is this helping advance the game or make it fun? Limiting my ability to play alts? How is that fun or useful? I just don't understand it from the concept of an old EQ player but new 1999 player.

Again I'm not saying your ideas are bad, I'm just saying it's absolutely not in the spirit of the classic game. I miss grouping in games to level (that's why I'm back here) but I don't think you can force that, you would just run people off the game. I mained a cleric back in EQ from launch, soloing wasn't really a thing for me but that was ok because I'd find groups easy enough and with a good reputation among the player base and guildmates I did just fine. With so few players here, I'm absolutely worried about trying to level my cleric as it is because no one looks for groups, everyone is twinked out and soloing or being powerleveled. If we were under your rules what would a new player as a cleric do? Don't say "Find a group" because that's the obvious answer but it just doesn't work that way as I said earlier.

EQ was hard, really hard at times, but it wasn't SO much so you wouldn't be able to do something while lfg. Your plan basically makes you sit bored if your lfg, well that's when your not running to a merchant every log in to get food and water.

Thank you, these are valid concerns and I finally see what you're getting at. But I think you're too focused on the negatives here, and too myopic in your scope. Yes, it would be tough as a new player - but it wouldn't just be tough for you. It would be tough for everyone. Including twinked players. And that's the point. And because it would be tough for everyone, you'd be pretty much forced to group together just to stay alive - and that's the spirit of classic!

I think the server would actually appeal more to casual players than hardcore raiders, because casual players in my experience tend to enjoy the leveling, grouping, exploring and socializing aspect of the game more than the raiding-focused players do. This would be a server with slow advancement/progression, but a lot of forced socialization and opportunities to interact and adventure with others. For example, something as currently mundane on the server as running from the DL Druid ring to FV might be so dangerous on a PvE+ server as to require at least a full group of mid 30s players, and be risky for most classes to attempt solo even in the 50s. What's the result? You force people to band together to accomplish things. And because of that, something as simple as running across DL engenders not only a feeling of accomplishment, but provides an opportunity for socialization and community building.

And ultimately, remember, even if this ruleset did exist, the Blue server would still remain the same as it is now. You could choose which you wanted to play on. So if this was too hardcore you could just play on Blue.

[Izmael]

Fair enough with the traveling merchant.

Charm in current state is powerful, is it OVERpowered though? I'm not sure.

Back in the days people just didn't know how to use it well. People were also a lot more scared to die than today because CR wasn't as trivial as it is today and getting res was far from trivial as well (travel was harder so you really had to sweet talk those clerics). Taking an exp death 55+ wasn't something a lot of people were too keen about really.

So basically less people even attempted charm soloing, arguably the hardest and most rewarding soloing path, let alone get good at it. I think literally 90%+ of level 60 druids never ever casted a single charm spell in their career back in the days (I'm talking 2001 and earlier).

Maybe charm breaks less on p99, but it makes this way of approaching EQ enjoyable, that's a Good Thing. One of the qualities of EQ has always been the "There's more than one way to do it" factor.

[Lakeland]

Thank you, these are valid concerns and I finally see what you're getting at. But I think you're too focused on the negatives here, and too myopic in your scope. Yes, it would be tough as a new player - but it wouldn't just be tough for you. It would be tough for everyone. Including twinked players. And that's the point. And because it would be tough for everyone, you'd be pretty much forced to group together just to stay alive - and that's the spirit of classic!

I think the server would actually appeal more to casual players than hardcore raiders, because casual players in my experience tend to enjoy the leveling, grouping, exploring and socializing aspect of the game more than the raiding-focused players do. This would be a server with slow advancement/progression, but a lot of forced socialization and opportunities to interact and adventure with others. For example, something as currently mundane on the server as running from the DL Druid ring to FV might be so dangerous on a PvE+ server as to require at least a full group of mid 30s players, and be risky for most classes to attempt solo even in the 50s. What's the result? You force people to band together to accomplish things. And because of that, something as simple as running across DL engenders not only a feeling of accomplishment, but provides an opportunity for socialization and community building.

And ultimately, remember, even if this ruleset did exist, the Blue server would still remain the same as it is now. You could choose which you wanted to play on. So if this was too hardcore you could just play on Blue.

You keep saying "you group" but I don't understand how that just instantly works? Even in Classic when Seb was the best place to be getting a group was a chore, so when you say "you'd need to group" it makes me think of long times waiting for others to need to go to where I want to go or I simply won't be able to go there and I have to think how many would like that besides people with a strong group of players they can count on to group with. Also your going to create an elitist attitude because the risk is higher people will be less likely to just pick up randoms in a group.

We both agree that your ideas make it harder, anyone can see that, I just think it absolutely destroys any casual base the first time people log in and realize they have to find food/water then find a group to be able to do anything, then find an indoor zone because anything outside is basically useless experience wise. That sounds very non casual to me. That said I'm probably in the minority as a casual EQ player playing 1999 anyway so it very well could appeal to the masses.

[Vexenu]

Charm in current state is powerful, is it OVERpowered though? I'm not sure.

Back in the days people just didn't know how to use it well. People were also a lot more scared to die than today because CR wasn't as trivial as it is today and getting res was far from trivial as well (travel was harder so you really had to sweet talk those clerics). Taking an exp death 55+ wasn't something a lot of people were too keen about really.

So basically less people even attempted charm soloing, arguably the hardest and most rewarding soloing path, let alone get good at it. I think literally 90%+ of level 60 druids never ever casted a single charm spell in their career back in the days (I'm talking 2001 and earlier).

Maybe charm breaks less on p99, but it makes this way of approaching EQ enjoyable, that's a Good Thing. One of the qualities of EQ has always been the "There's more than one way to do it" factor.

Again, this is why I make the distinction between the spirit and the letter of classic. Let's suppose that the code for charm on P1999 is somehow exactly the same as it was back in the day on Live, and that most Enchanters, Druids and Necros back then just weren't skilled or knowledgeable enough to take advantage of it. Even if that was the case, the end result would be the same as if charming was simply hardcoded to be more difficult: there were less people charming! That's all we can say for sure: whether due to ignorance/lack of player skill or actual hard coded differences with the spell, charming was much less common back in the day.

Thus, if we want to reproduce the spirit of classic (which had much less charming going on) we are forced to do so through hardcoding the resists of the spell itself, since we cannot erase our superior knowledge of the game. Essentially, we must play with an artificially higher difficulty setting due to our advanced knowledge and experience after having had 17 years to get comfortable with the game.

Increasing the difficulty of the game is the entire idea behind the ruleset. You would roll on the PvE+ server intentionally knowing it would be harder than what you were used to on Blue and had gotten comfortable with, but would do so with the expectation that as a result of that difficulty your overall experience would be closer to your original experience with the game many years ago.

[Vexenu]

You keep saying "you group" but I don't understand how that just instantly works? Even in Classic when Seb was the best place to be getting a group was a chore, so when you say "you'd need to group" it makes me think of long times waiting for others to need to go to where I want to go or I simply won't be able to go there and I have to think how many would like that besides people with a strong group of players they can count on to group with. Also your going to create an elitist attitude because the risk is higher people will be less likely to just pick up randoms in a group.

We both agree that your ideas make it harder, anyone can see that, I just think it absolutely destroys any casual base the first time people log in and realize they have to find food/water then find a group to be able to do anything, then find an indoor zone because anything outside is basically useless experience wise. That sounds very non casual to me. That said I'm probably in the minority as a casual EQ player playing 1999 anyway so it very well could appeal to the masses.

I think this would be a more likely scenario:

- Log in
- You are camped in a city, because that's where people congregate for safety, is the only place people can bind and is where you can buy food. There will always be other players around for these reasons
- You go buy food from the merchant, summon some yourself (Priest or Mage) or ask another player to summon some for you
- You interact with other players and form a group to travel together and adventure in a nearby dungeon

Something like that would feel a lot more like classic than Blue currently does.

But again, if that doesn't appeal to you, you wouldn't have to play there. Blue would remain the same. PvE+ obviously wouldn't be for everyone and you're an example of someone who doesn't see the appeal. Nothing wrong with that - just not your cup of tea.

[Lakeland]

I think this would be a more likely scenario:

- Log in
- You are camped in a city, because that's where people congregate for safety, is the only place people can bind and is where you can buy food. There will always be other players around for these reasons
- You go buy food from the merchant, summon some yourself (Priest or Mage) or ask another player to summon some for you
- You interact with other players and form a group to travel together and adventure in a nearby dungeon

Something like that would feel a lot more like classic than Blue currently does.

But again, if that doesn't appeal to you, you wouldn't have to play there. Blue would remain the same. PvE+ obviously wouldn't be for everyone and you're an example of someone who doesn't see the appeal. Nothing wrong with that - just not your cup of tea.

It has less to do with if I like it and more to do with just wondering how you see it working. So why would all these people just randomly be sitting in the city waiting for others to log in there, I'm new to p99, does every class have gate or do you actually run back to a city (in your server you'd run through horribly dangerous areas, just to have to run back next time, this makes little sense except you make it needed because of the food issue)? Your scenario plays out in best case only, not reality. People often log out when not in a city. Players don't generally just want to sit in a city doing nothing, and so when someone logs in what are the odds of people being there to group? IF you say it would be easy (for the sake of argument) then that means the people sitting there were just there waiting? See again it seems good, but how often do you figure that actually works out like that?

I think you are thinking I dislike your idea, and for me it's doesn't matter if I do or don't because I can take that away from it and put it into practical practice and wonder how that would actually work.

[fadetree]

I think a fundamental problem with his idea is that there's a difference between 'mystery' and 'unreasonably hard'. If you are flailing around because you *don't* know the mechanics, yes it makes seem harder. That just feels ok, understandable, and it's also fun figuring out stuff. There's hope to be had and cool new techniques to be shared.

However, if you take known mechanics and just make them WAY harder, it doesn't feel the same. You know perfectly well why things are or are not working, and you know there's nothing you can do to make them any better other than just group up and play really hard and suffer through it. That's a valid play style for some, but you will lose people's interest at a huge clip, I predict. You will do nothing to 'recapture' the original feels of being alone in a harsh world without a clue, because everybody has a clue. Let's face it, even as well known and 'easy' as it is, EQ will still make you pay horribly for mistakes and they seem to happen in infuriatingly obscure and random ways. It's balanced some though, becuase lots of teh game is fairly well known and more or less 'easy'. Cranking up the 'hardness' knob will make those kinds of things even harder to take.

I personally would be fine with no MQ and lots more of the good stuff being non-droppable.

Now, if a NEW game was all super bad-ass hard, then yeah I can see that. I'm looking at you, Pantheon.

[Vexenu]

It has less to do with if I like it and more to do with just wondering how you see it working. So why would all these people just randomly be sitting in the city waiting for others to log in there, I'm new to p99, does every class have gate or do you actually run back to a city (in your server you'd run through horribly dangerous areas, just to have to run back next time, this makes little sense except you make it needed because of the food issue)? Your scenario plays out in best case only, not reality. People often log out when not in a city. Players don't generally just want to sit in a city doing nothing, and so when someone logs in what are the odds of people being there to group? IF you say it would be easy (for the sake of argument) then that means the people sitting there were just there waiting? See again it seems good, but how often do you figure that actually works out like that?

I think you are thinking I dislike your idea, and for me it's doesn't matter if I do or don't because I can take that away from it and put it into practical practice and wonder how that would actually work.

Cities would basically function as physical LFG hubs (which was fairly common in early classic gameplay). You would want to stay close by to cities for safety, food and grouping. It would not be easy, cheap or common to summon a Wizard or Druid for a port to cross the world instantly. If you wanted a port you would most likely have to go to a city, find a Druid or Wizard and wait until he had a few people who agreed on a destination and port all at once (Under the proposed ruleset that would be the only economical way to sell ports). Or, if you didn't want to bother with a port you could wait for the boat. If it was nearby you might want to run there, if you felt confident crossing the zone yourself. If not you would hope to find people to run with you for safety in numbers. That is really as classic as it gets. I remember people banding together and running from Qeynos to Freeport. It was the only way to get there safely with such limited knowledge of the game back then.

It seems like you are interpreting the proposed ruleset through the lens of current player behaviors, which is the mistake. Players would behave totally differently on a PvE+ server out of necessity. And you would obviously have more freedom as you got higher level. A level 40 will feel safer in more zones than a level 15 and wouldn't be as reliant on staying close by to cities all the time. A more realistic scenario for a level 40 might be:

-Log in
-Camped at the Droga entrance in FM after XPing in Droga the night before
-Zone in and see if any groups available.
-Sorry, groups are full
-You go next door to Nurga, careful to avoid the wandering mobs
-You begin to get hungry and thirsty
-You luckily encounter a Shaman outside Nurga who summons you some food and water in exchange for a tip, saving you a run back to OT or Cab
-You find a group in Nurga and start to XP

[Maciver]

tl;dr

[mickmoranis]

it literally says on the front page of the project what the next server is lel

[Vexenu]

I think a fundamental problem with his idea is that there's a difference between 'mystery' and 'unreasonably hard'. If you are flailing around because you *don't* know the mechanics, yes it makes seem harder. That just feels ok, understandable, and it's also fun figuring out stuff. There's hope to be had and cool new techniques to be shared.

However, if you take known mechanics and just make them WAY harder, it doesn't feel the same. You know perfectly well why things are or are not working, and you know there's nothing you can do to make them any better other than just group up and play really hard and suffer through it. That's a valid play style for some, but you will lose people's interest at a huge clip, I predict. You will do nothing to 'recapture' the original feels of being alone in a harsh world without a clue, because everybody has a clue. Let's face it, even as well known and 'easy' as it is, EQ will still make you pay horribly for mistakes and they seem to happen in infuriatingly obscure and random ways. It's balanced some though, becuase lots of teh game is fairly well known and more or less 'easy'. Cranking up the 'hardness' knob will make those kinds of things even harder to take.

I personally would be fine with no MQ and lots more of the good stuff being non-droppable.

Now, if a NEW game was all super bad-ass hard, then yeah I can see that. I'm looking at you, Pantheon.

This is a good point, but on the other hand, why are we playing EQ to begin with and not a modern MMO which is much easier and more convenient to the player in almost every respect? Nostalgia plays a big role, but I think there's also simply something appealing about difficult gameplay for many people here. So I agree - a PvE+ server would definitely not be the same feeling as classic, which is impossible to replicate - but artificially enhancing the difficulty would produce the closest thing possible at this point. It would certainly feel more classic than Blue is now, at least, which is the main goal behind the proposal.

[HippoNipple]

Everyone in this thread cares more about a new server than the only person that could actually make another p99 server.

[zati]

Everyone in this thread cares more about a new server than the only person that could actually make another p99 server.


cold blooded. /thread tho

Also you got to look at it at the perspective of the GMs tho. They got lives, it takes hard work to code all the stuff they do, and they don't get paid.

Would anyone in this thread man up and do all that for the sake of an old game? Well its nice to come up with sick ideas; the best constructive way would be to learn to code, gain yrs of experience, then implement ALL of that knowing you get no profit. So yeah.. I'm just thankful that the game even exists at this point in time and are people willing to run it for free.

[rollin5k]

Binding IP to accounts would be fuckin amazing

[Vexenu]

I wonder how many people would be in favor of the following simple, relatively easy to implement changes for any new server, regardless of ruleset:


Item recharging is disabled (or at minimum recharge costs exponentially increased)
Multi-questing is disabled
PBAOE spells reduced to 10 maximum targets
Monk sneak pulling is disabled
Soulfire is only clickable by Paladins
Rotation enforced (if not a PvP server)


I think these are all fairly conservative and would enjoy broad popular support. And I think most people would agree they would have a positive impact on the health of the server.

Binding accounts could maybe work if it used a combination of IP and MAC addresses. But I'm not sure how necessary or even beneficial that would be on anything except the Teams PvP server (where it would be an absolute godsend).

[Ikon]

I wonder how many people would be in favor of the following simple, relatively easy to implement changes for any new server, regardless of ruleset:


Item recharging is disabled (or at minimum recharge costs exponentially increased)
Multi-questing is disabled
PBAOE spells reduced to 10 maximum targets
Monk sneak pulling is disabled
Soulfire is only clickable by Paladins
Rotation enforced (if not a PvP server)


I think these are all fairly conservative and would enjoy broad popular support. And I think most people would agree they would have a positive impact on the health of the server.

Binding accounts could maybe work if it used a combination of IP and MAC addresses. But I'm not sure how necessary or even beneficial that would be on anything except the Teams PvP server (where it would be an absolute godsend).
Put lazy aggro in there too. In regards to PBAOE i think better to find out the real values of the 3 types and set them to classic. Each of the AOE spells had limitation on the number it could hit in classic.

[Galvatar]

Make a server and only let reasonable people play.

Only competition there is with yourself.

[Jimjam]

I think we should just reskin player models to look like space marines, and then all the 'FTE' calls before charging down terrible monsters will be immersive battle cries of "For The Emperor"!

[fadetree]

I wonder how many people would be in favor of the following simple, relatively easy to implement changes for any new server, regardless of ruleset:


Item recharging is disabled (or at minimum recharge costs exponentially increased)
Multi-questing is disabled
PBAOE spells reduced to 10 maximum targets
Monk sneak pulling is disabled
Soulfire is only clickable by Paladins
Rotation enforced (if not a PvP server)


I think these are all fairly conservative and would enjoy broad popular support. And I think most people would agree they would have a positive impact on the health of the server.

Binding accounts could maybe work if it used a combination of IP and MAC addresses. But I'm not sure how necessary or even beneficial that would be on anything except the Teams PvP server (where it would be an absolute godsend).

I'd be ok with this, except that rotations cannot be enforced without drastically increasing CS staff and all the problems that go with it.

[SantagarBrax]

this is Amazing. Very well thought out, descriptive, and accomplishes the goal of what EQ was at launch.

I love it~!

[SantagarBrax]

all of these people complaining and criticizing are missing the point completely.

The idea is to make EQ the hardest it can be, requiring more engagement on the server between people to accomplish everything.

What is so difficult to understand? Why does every tom, dick, and harry have to be negative and miss the spirit of the thread?

Rhetorical question, take a lap Farley.

[Vexenu]

all of these people complaining and criticizing are missing the point completely.

The idea is to make EQ the hardest it can be, requiring more engagement on the server between people to accomplish everything.

What is so difficult to understand? Why does every tom, dick, and harry have to be negative and miss the spirit of the thread?

Rhetorical question, take a lap Farley.

Thanks for the vote of support.

I think the issue is that most of the players on P1999 (especially most who are active in the high end game) have been playing Everquest on P1999 longer than they actually played EQ live. And certainly almost all of us have played more P1999 than we did actual Classic EQ (up through Velious expansion), since that was something like a 2-3 year window at most before the game moved to Luclin and beyond.

What I'm getting at is that most people have forgotten what original EQ actually felt like, and have entirely adapted themselves to the current P1999 version of EQ, which is, while classic in large part mechanically and content-wise, a far cry from the gameplay "feel" of the original EQ during the classic era. Most people have forgotten how HARD simple things were in actual classic EQ. The game becomes trivial and meaningless when the content itself poses no challenge due to a combination of massive widespread twinking, advanced knowledge of game mechanics and content and a much improved and more capable client that allows the player to do things that were impossible in the Velious-era classic client.

Literally the only difficulty on P1999 at this point comes, in one way or another, from trying to kill mobs before other players do. That's it, almost entirely. Everything else in the game is extremely easy to accomplish. You can't throw a rock without hitting an Epic Cleric to get a rez from or a Druid to port you. You can pay 50pp for weapons far beyond planar-level in original classic.

It's just so different than what actual classic was like. There's a certain hollowness to it, and I'm many people feel the same way. But it's hard to forcefully reject the style of gameplay you've grown accustomed to and which has (for many people) resulted in a massive horde of pixels across multiple accounts worth of characters.

[clacbec]

Monk lazy agro and sneak pull, devs get no clue how to fix that i m pretty sure

[Bombg]

I'd be ok with this, except that rotations cannot be enforced without drastically increasing CS staff and all the problems that go with it.

Would rotations require more GM support? I feel like the system would more or less run itself once a few guilds are made examples of. It may even require less support than the current rules. The server I played on had a rotation running for years and never once required any GM intervention because it wasn't GM enforced.

[Swish]

The thing is everyone wants something new, but if its not on the P1999 banner its not going to attract enough of a crowd. It's enough of an uphill battle trying to get 10 out of 1300 people to try red server when the population really isn't enticing.

Think TAKP and "that other one" are 100 or under most of the time and that's with boxing, think the latter hovers around 40 with boxing.

As for the Sleeper server, is that even still open? Was so broken and buggy on its release nobody stayed.

[fadetree]

Would rotations require more GM support? I feel like the system would more or less run itself once a few guilds are made examples of. It may even require less support than the current rules. The server I played on had a rotation running for years and never once required any GM intervention because it wasn't GM enforced.

Go read the raid forum and see if you still feel like that would happen. I don't know for sure, but I just don't see that kind of thing happening here. I'd be all for it, but it's been tried before.

[maskedmelon]

Here you would inevitably end up with dozens of spinoff guilds that would form alliances with one another to raid together and get locks on 90% of content. If that didn't work, you'd end up with dozens more guilds of alts that would do effectively the same thing, just not together at the same time, but still eating up the same number of rotation slots/content.

It can still be fun though either way! :3

[Swish]

At this point I think its safe to say nobody wants to start again on a server unless its a P99 server, all in good time. Coming soon etc.

[Jimjam]

At this point I think its safe to say nobody wants to start again on a server unless its a P99 server, all in good time. Coming soon etc.
It wouldn't be p1999, but remember how when you complete Plane of Time Xegony magics everything back to how it should be?

This would be a great theme for a progression server; after PoP is defeated the server resets back to vanilla. Enjoy your 5 minutes of Quarm loots!

[Ikon]

Go read the raid forum and see if you still feel like that would happen. I don't know for sure, but I just don't see that kind of thing happening here. I'd be all for it, but it's been tried before.
Likely it would reduce petitions. Can't really petition if your not up on the rotation. Can't really defend taking a mob if your not up on the rotation.

[Raev]

You know, the best way to do this would simply be: if an NPC is less than 90% of the level of anyone in your group, it drops no loot and you get no XP.

[Zekayy]

to long to read

[Ivory]

You know, the best way to do this would simply be: if an NPC is less than 90% of the level of anyone in your group, it drops no loot and you get no XP.

Until you take up baking and go looking for fire beetle eyes :o

[Ikon]

Until you take up baking and go looking for fire beetle eyes :o
TLC worked on anything that was magic lore I think. Anything else was fine and dropped 100%.

[Rygar]

A lot of your ideas will make the game more difficult and harder to advance, I just think they would be too frustrating and people would leave the game. If I don't have time to group but want to work on a quest or tradeskills, I can run around and do it on p99 myself, but it seems a lot harder in your world to convince other people to do my coldain ring or help me increase my blacksmithing. You are making a game that requires 4hr blocks of time to achieve things in (finding a group is the frustrating part, actually doing things is the rewarding part), I think that is a flaw in classic that only encourages addictive personalities and poopsockers. The food no rent stuff I don't get, how does a bottle of water go bad?

Raid mobs destroying gear permanently? Seems extreme. I think vanilla WOW had it right with repairing early on, where if you didn't repair gear it could permanently destroy. You could make repairs only doable in town, so that people can't just park out at mobs round the clock. Wiping with some partial repair damage could destroy your gear permanently, this would slow the raid machine down a bunch and could add risk (Do we attempt Vulak again and risk a wipe and lots of tears with lost gear? or concede mob and fight another day?). You would probably need to restrict repairs to town and not allow items or tradeskills to do this, else every raid would have them there. This could also balance the economy. Perhaps items that are repaired have a 1 hr 'cooldown' period where they can't be repaired again until that time is up.

In regards to charming, I agree it is OP without that much consequence. I just think when charm breaks mob gets some kind of 'rage' buff that makes it unstunnable / unrootable / unsnarable / unmezzable / uncharmable and adds 50% haste buff for 10 seconds. Still very usable in groups, but extremely dangerous solo (better be ready to chain cast rune).

Recharging should exist, but not by current method. Maybe certain items can be recharged in certain town locations using a vendor, and have deity / faction restrictions (such as only Tunare worshippers can recharge root nets). A lot of these charge items should be NO DROP to prevent transferring for recharges.

I'm definitely in favor of larger assist calls on mobs, it never made sense to me that you can beat a froggie down and then 20 feet away some guard that is FACING YOU is just letting you beat up his buddy. For immersion sake and better focus on off-tanking / CC it would be better that any mob within a 200-250 range is given an assist call (but that mob won't issue an assist call else entire dungeon would pull at once).

I really like the permanent EXP loss angle in the planes, that is just really appealing to me. Can make for some great stories, especially if you add a lot of mobs to the zone in to make breaking in difficult (my most fond classic memory is a rough break-in to Plane of Hate). Getting gear and kills in that zone would make you feel legit as hell.

No MQ I agree on 100%, same with corpsing no-rent items (makes no sense to me how it currently works in game).

In general, I'd encourage your changes to make you fight as a smarter player, not just require more numbers or a longer grind. As an example, maybe you can cap rez exp gain to 75% in the game, so that death always has a real consequence, yet make rez available to paladins and necromancers so it is more available in the realm.

Bottom line though, any changes to EQ aren't going to be called 'classic in spirit' or anything like that, just call it what it is: improvements to classic. Should help avoid the haters (although most people seem to hate threads like this... which were classic on EQ server boards everywhere back in the day).

[fadetree]

I've always liked the repair mechanic, especially when the 'higher' levels of repair are only available from actual players. It helps solve a bunch of problems and adds a lot of immersion and camaraderie.

[Amyas]

What is in the spirit of classic is subjective to opinion.

[Amyas]

Sounds like a pain in the ass to me.