Green mechanics questions

[Endorra]

I've looked around a bit for an answer to these, but I haven't found a clear/reliable one.

If green is following the classic-> velious timeline, are spell mechanics meant to do the same?

Will pets not eat xp at launch?

Will Whirl Til You Hurl be useful again?

Shaman/necro charm?

etc.

[Tecmos Deception]

Good questions.

I noticed on green that ducking doesn't immediately interrupt spellcasts, which is going to be a big enough shock for a lot of folks already. I can only imagine if we DON'T end up with the overpowered classic features but do end up with the extra-challenging parts that there will be tears over it.


I suppose leaving the "this is silly and was broken and that's why verant fixed it, so we should leave it fixed too" stuff OUT of green while reintroducing the timeline-accurate difficulties like no ducks to interrupt and removing our favorite low-level exp quests and whatever else would be a decent compromise between classic mechanics and classic experience though. And I'm usually the guy who errs on the side of classic mechanics.

[Kavious]

None of the above

[loramin]

I've looked around a bit for an answer to these, but I haven't found a clear/reliable one.

If green is following the classic-> velious timeline, are spell mechanics meant to do the same?

Will pets not eat xp at launch?

Will Whirl Til You Hurl be useful again?

Shaman/necro charm?

etc.

"Shaman/necro charm?" has been confirmed as "likely won't happen on Green" (there was an official staff response in a bug thread, but I'm too lazy to find and link it). Although they didn't explicitly say this, I suspect the decision was because they don't have time to check the player-charming abilities that NPC Shaman/Necromancers would get ... if it was just "flipping a switch" to give the spells to PCs I'd think they would have done it.

As for the rest, I don't think the staff has explicitly answered any of them, but generally it seems like they will make it classic when convenient ... and there's going to be a lot of stuff (eg. pets not eating XP is likely a perfect example) where they won't find it convenient to truly "do classic".

[aaezil]

Wont be that classic sadly :(

[Danth]

... and there's going to be a lot of stuff (eg. pets not eating XP is likely a perfect example) where they won't find it convenient to truly "do classic".

Call a duck a duck: Things that make the game harder are way more likely to be put in than things which make it easier. That's the price of admission on P99: Green.

Danth

[Vidar]

Can i ask some questions about green on this thread also, pls.

Can we change the farclip plane?

Is there any strafing on green?

can we change key bindings on green?

[Polixa]

can we change key bindings on green?

I would assume yes since the first thing you would want to do on a new character is change the Classic attack key from A to something else, tilde being a popular choice.

[Endorra]

Good questions.

I noticed on green that ducking doesn't immediately interrupt spellcasts, which is going to be a big enough shock for a lot of folks already. I can only imagine if we DON'T end up with the overpowered classic features but do end up with the extra-challenging parts that there will be tears over it.


I suppose leaving the "this is silly and was broken and that's why verant fixed it, so we should leave it fixed too" stuff OUT of green while reintroducing the timeline-accurate difficulties like no ducks to interrupt and removing our favorite low-level exp quests and whatever else would be a decent compromise between classic mechanics and classic experience though. And I'm usually the guy who errs on the side of classic mechanics.

I noticed the ducking thing, too. My personal opinion is that it's rather one-sided to say that we shouldn't have things that aren't classic, but then label other classic mechanics as "broken." All of the things that "aren't classic" like pet windows, ducking interrupts, multiple hotbars, etc. were "fixed" later in the EQ timeline. I don't mind playing a truly classic game... but it needs to be truly classic. The game was never balanced; the shifting dynamic, to me, is kind of the point.

Just my 2 cents.

As for the rest, I don't think the staff has explicitly answered any of them, but generally it seems like they will make it classic when convenient ... and there's going to be a lot of stuff (eg. pets not eating XP is likely a perfect example) where they won't find it convenient to truly "do classic".

After playing the green beta a bit, this is kind of what it feels like to me. I must say it's a little underwhelming. To me it feels like playing someone's idea of what classic "should" have been, instead of what classic WAS.

[BlackBellamy]

When you say “WAS” you mean your perception of something that happened 20 years ago in capital letters as opposed to someone else’s perception of those events in all lower case. To be classic it must exist. Like a 1973 Barracuda. That’s real, it’s classic. You can hear it and smell it and touch it. It even has classic plates on it that’s how classic it is.

P1999 can have a classic feel. It can give you a classic experience. And both of those are totally subjective. All these classic not classic discussions just smell like gate keeping to me.

[Canelek]

I would like that 1973 Barracuda please.

[Reecon]

Just cause something is classic doesnt mean exploits and major bugs shouldnt be fixed at the start of the server, there is a reason sony changed things alot in classic and some of those changes should definitely be in at the beginning instead of letting ppl who now know about them exploit til they are fixed (alot of thee exploits, bugged quests etc wasnt even known by the vast majority of the playerbase in classic til they were fixed, unlike here on p99 where practically everyone knows these exploits and bugged quests)

[Reecon]

Just cause something is classic doesnt mean exploits and major bugs shouldnt be fixed at the start of the server, there is a reason sony changed things alot in classic and some of those changes should definitely be in at the beginning instead of letting ppl who now know about them exploit til they are fixed (alot of thee exploits, bugged quests etc wasnt even known by the vast majority of the playerbase in classic til they were fixed, unlike here on p99 where practically everyone knows these exploits and bugged quests)

Cant seem to edit my post so just adding that i think even things like jboots being in najena, manastones, and DE masks everyone can use shouldnt be in game at start either, there was a reason they were removed or moved to quest form, by lvl 30 you can eliminate mobs outrunning you by farming jboots in najena and you eliminate nighttime with the DE mask that give you ultra vision, one of the reasons to even start a DE in the first place and manastones are just self explanatory (cleric + CH + manastone = EZ mode)

[Tecmos Deception]

There's no way nilbog and rogean are going to remove such staples of classic EQ as manastones and guises, no matter the arguments you make about them being overpowered or how verant in hindsight decided they should have been done differently.

As I've talked about on these forums 100 times over the years, there's the classic experience and there's classic mechanics. Nobody is going to manage to fully recreate either of those things, and even less so will they fully recreate them simultaneously.

P99 is nilbog and rogean (and many others) working on their vision of the right balance between classic mechanics, including the quirks and "bugs" and "exploits" that they feel help make this era of EQ so memorable for a lot of folks, and the classic experience, as difficult as it may be to give "the classic experience" a definition anyone can agree on. We're just along for the ride.

[cd288]

Cant seem to edit my post so just adding that i think even things like jboots being in najena, manastones, and DE masks everyone can use shouldnt be in game at start either, there was a reason they were removed or moved to quest form, by lvl 30 you can eliminate mobs outrunning you by farming jboots in najena and you eliminate nighttime with the DE mask that give you ultra vision, one of the reasons to even start a DE in the first place and manastones are just self explanatory (cleric + CH + manastone = EZ mode)

I'd much rather have JBoots in Najena with the list mechanism rather than people being able to camp the AC to sell MQs for the JBoots quest. MQ selling might be one of my least favorite abuses of classic mechanics. The list mechanic, if it applies to the AC, will of course cut down on this a bit on Green, but the ability to put yourself on the list to sell a no drop quest item for thousands of plat will still be there.

At least when the boots drop in Najena you can't MQ them.

[fastboy21]

Staring at the book, no tab targeting, no pet window, no multiple hot bars, no automemm'ing of spell lists, no ducking to interrupt...

These are all things that are meant to be class balancing features in vanilla. Thankfully, many of them will be on p99.

It isn't perfect vanilla-classic, but its a pretty awesome simulated version of classic EQ.

[loramin]

There's no way nilbog and rogean are going to remove such staples of classic EQ as manastones and guises, no matter the arguments you make about them being overpowered or how verant in hindsight decided they should have been done differently.

As I've talked about on these forums 100 times over the years, there's the classic experience and there's classic mechanics. Nobody is going to manage to fully recreate either of those things, and even less so will they fully recreate them simultaneously.

P99 is nilbog and rogean (and many others) working on their vision of the right balance between classic mechanics, including the quirks and "bugs" and "exploits" that they feel help make this era of EQ so memorable for a lot of folks, and the classic experience, as difficult as it may be to give "the classic experience" a definition anyone can agree on. We're just along for the ride.

I think the thing is ... for a long time we thought we knew the line: it was something like "mechanics ALWAYS ... unless there is a technical limitation (eg. Titanium can't do a true classic UI), a truly massive environment-altering (and likely staff-impacting) mechanic (eg. mass AoEing), or a one in a million arbitrary staff violation of classic (eg. OOT boat direction).

But that perception is proving incorrect. Green will be missing plenty of classic mechanics, and as Danth noted, they don't seem to follow that previous pattern. I'm not in any way faulting the staff on this, and as the Non-Classic Compendium (http://wiki.project1999.com/Non-Classic_Compendium) shows, the staff have many non-obvious concerns which impact their decisions. I also don't think the staff owes a "classic line in the sand" (or anything else) to anyone.

BUT ... I think people act better when they have better information. I think people would respond with less negative/"that seems wrong!" posts if the staff could come out and say "here is the general criteria we use to decide whether something is an exploit that we (unclassically) won't implement, or whether it's a classic feature that we will implement (even though everyone hates it, or even though the original Verant devs patched it out a few months later)."

It's not about where they draw the line: it's their server, draw it how they want. And again, they don't owe it to anyone to share how they draw that line, or to draw it in any consistent way ... it's just that if they could let us know where the line is, at least with broad strokes, then no one would be surprised when a decision puts their favorite/least favorite thing on the "other" side of the line.

P.S. Simple example: I still don't feel the SG nerf is consistent with P99's past decisions. As I remember it (and memories are crap I know) EVERYONE knew about the SG glitch. I wasn't even a raider then and I knew about it! Being able to get through SG safely without knowing how to make the run or having to wait for a Succor is hardly game-altering, when compared to stuff like item recharging. I truly believe less people even knew how to recharge in 2001 than knew how to glitch through SG ...

... but again, I'm not saying I'm right and the devs are wrong! I'm just saying that from my limited perspective the decision seems wrong, and if there was an explicit criteria (even a vague one) that explained why the staff sees that as a glitch and recharging as a feature, I'd better understand their decision. But even if I don't understand it ... hey, free server :D)

[Lojik]

I think you need to balance classic input v. classic output. Fully classic client/game mechanics are only one input, the other can't really be controlled (players with 20 years of experience, better connections/computers/information available/3rd party tools/3rd party talk.) With so much info available about EQ (even early glitches and what not) they will add in the classic mechanics that make it harder and keep out the ones that make it easier, since it is infinitely easier to exploit than on live due to available information. On live once a few people learned and exploited something it was nerfed. Here everyone would line up to exploit resulting in unclassic outcomes. People would just do the elemental armor quest then tumpy tonics to 50. Doesn't sound like a fun green experience to me.

[fastboy21]

There are just too many things to consider and too little time before launch.

Each decision about “classic, so in” vs. “not classic, so out” vs. “classic, but intentionally kept out” vs. “not classic, but intentionally put in” vs “classic, but we can’t add it in titanium” vs. “ not classic, but we can’t remove it from titanium”...-every situation feels unique and selected sometimes arbitrarily. It is hard to predict how staff will rule any element anymore.

[Tecmos Deception]

It is hard to predict how staff will rule any element anymore.

That sounds classic to me! :p

[loramin]

That sounds classic to me! :p

100%, that's how it was with the Verant devs :) But at the same time, the Verant devs didn't have a bunch of players volunteering to do research on how the Verant devs should write their code either.

Again, NOT saying the devs owe it to us or anything, I'm just saying I think there would be significantly less surprised/negative responses after EVERY decision, if there was a clear criteria.

And I also don't see how it could be bad for the project to have some kind of explicit guiding principles. Again I'm not talking about an explanation of every decision, or a super detailed list that players could use to argue with them ("you didn't fulfill criteria 15.B sub-point 12!").

I'm just suggesting that a paragraph or two somewhere saying "thing X trumps thing Y for us, but thing Y trumps thing Z, and if neither X or Y apply we consider A, B, and C and do out best to get the most of all three" it would probably get a lot of people on the same page with them.

[Fammaden]

I think at this point its all bug fixes until launch anyway. They most likely don't have time to make any major content or mechanics adjustments in time for next week, so what we are seeing in beta in that regard is probably what we are getting at least initially.

Correct me if I'm wrong I mostly just browse the player threads not the bug report section to see any official responses.

[cd288]

Staring at the book, no tab targeting, no pet window, no multiple hot bars, no automemm'ing of spell lists, no ducking to interrupt...

These are all things that are meant to be class balancing features in vanilla. Thankfully, many of them will be on p99.

It isn't perfect vanilla-classic, but its a pretty awesome simulated version of classic EQ.

It's not really staring at the book though. Since it's the Velious UI, you can just move the book window so it's like not on the screen much and still see everything around you.