View Full Version : My personal review of P99 Green: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
About me
Innoruuk sever (60 epic Monk)
The Sleeper server (60 epic Magician)
Test (Various high level with swarming SK)
P99 Green: 53 Iksar Necro, 37 Iksar Monk, 24 Human Druid, 23 DE Mage
The Good
- It's free (not freemium or free-to-play)
- There is a lot less downtime than Live
- It's popular, for now, so there are people in newbie zones (adventuring and buffing)
- There are no mercs
- There are no Kronos
- There is no Verant store selling XP pots for $
- The vast majority of people seem friendly and chilled out; there is far less drama than on live server.
- It's not easy if you do it legit.
- It passes the time.
- There are no Luclin models.
- It runs on a 12 year old laptopand a throttled 30kbps data connection.
The Bad
-It's cramped and spawns are highly contested, forever.
- There are bazaar characters in EC spamming and ripping people off that's why they take a while to answer when you send them a tell; real players answer right away and have reasonable prices.
- Higher latency and screen lag than Live servers.
- Lacking basic features (pet window, working hot bars, unique icons)
- No sci-fi aspect, ever.
- No Beastlords, ever.
- No Halfling Rangers, ever.
- Mobs on Green and Blue drop the same amount of plat but items on Green cost up to 5 x times more than on blue even though populations are roughly the same; there's lot of sellers hoping it stays that way keeping prices up. You want to sell an item for a reasonable price? A seller is going to buy it and flip it so a newb is gonna pay 5 x more for it.
The Ugly
- P99 is stuck in a moment of time forever when there is a great bias for evil races and classes (self harm, witchcraft, playing dead like a sissy, lifetaps, eating oneself, talking to the dead etc) so heroic righteous classes like Rangers, Paladins and Druids are a permanent joke on P99.
- Humans are blind, dumb, weak and have no racials to speak of and the best plat farming zones are ones in which you kill humans (humans being neutral have potential for good).
- Iksar regen makes all other Necro's technically inferior, forever. All Necro at 60 should be equal and you should play the race because you like the look of it not because it's min-max.
- PnP policy benefits camp stealers, trainers and kill stealers (good people don't need signs telling them how to behave in public).
- P99 is an unnoficial emulated version of EverQuest and there are lots of those but there's only one official EverQuest so P99 is not as unique as you may think it is.
- Pet classes share XP with pet (duh)
- The early birds have already caught the worms so they will always have OP pre-nerf loot and you won't.
- Bow damage is a joke and will always be a joke.
- Although it's popular, people seem to level in a bubble and only group out of necessity.
- P99 is not Classic/Vanilla; it's the original game with two full blown commercial expansions released after 1999.
- P99 is min/max heaven...so there's no fashion or lore to speak of.
- Raid rotations....you can't just turn up and kill a raid mob; you have to check a sanctioned list HOWEVER if you have an XP camp for hours and somebody gets you killed then somebody immediatley has a right to your camp because you're no longer there.
- You have to 'learn to love it' a bit like an ugly version of yourself unlike Live back in the day when the experience was magical from day one.
- You don't know how long the server is going to stick around for or what's going to happen to it.
- With some classes the monumental stuggle has no endgame reward other than kudos from other players (Ranger vs Necro for example).
- Whether it's Live, TLP, test or P99 I play on my own because I have no friends or faily to speak of and the game isn't designed around solo play but evil classes can do it better.
There's no edit button on this forum (more duh).
- There are login issues with P99 which you don't get on Live. I guess having to reboot my phone 10 times to log in is part of the 'no hand holding' classic experience? If you're not pulling your hair out wanting to bomb verant offices then you ain't playing EQ the way it was intended to be played even if you can't login?
(Edit: I can edit this post but not my OP).
- EC tunnel exists on P99 but it's a bit of an illusion. It's more like the Luclin bazaar in EC tunnel.
starkind
12-19-2021, 02:09 PM
No one is forcing you to play an iksar necro.
There's other classes to play.
The only classes that need to buy anything from EC are monk, war, rogue. And even then you can easily hit 40 plus with a weapon you can farm yourself.
There's no compelling reason to play an ogre or put all stats into sta.
You can literally get by on any race/class combo putting every point into CHA, AGI, or dex. Once you have thurgadin armor There's absolutely no difference between you and anyone else. And before than the difference is less than 5% vs any dark blue or higher, and 0% vs greens.
People do box. It actually hurts the legit players more. Try takp. It's almost as good as p99 and you can help them polish the broken quests, factions, and NPC chat texts once pop is debugged.
Mblake1981
12-19-2021, 02:24 PM
The Best
- Not freemium or free-to-play
- There are no mercs
- There are no Kronos
- There are no Luclin models.
- P99 is stuck in a moment of time forever
- It's not easy if you do it legit.
- No sci-fi aspect, ever.
- No Beastlords, ever.
- Humans are blind, dumb, weak and have no racials to speak of
- With some classes the monumental stuggle has no endgame reward other than kudos from other players.
- You can't just turn up and kill a raid mob
The Terrible
- It's free
- It runs on a 12 year old laptop
:p
Conclusion:
Live is one extreme and P99 is the other and it's somewhere in between where I want to be but Verant has got (or should have) absolute authority on the subject being the original developer so I'm out of luck until they do it because I prefer official OR something comes along that's better than EQ, P99 and WoW, which I can't imagine, but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist or won't exist. Something which doesn't have so many fuckups and nerfs and isn't just about making money and you're not punished for being heroic and rewarded for perpetual self harming.
EveQuest 3?
ReoDobbs
12-19-2021, 03:23 PM
The #1 thing I agree with you the strongest is the PnP policy. The toxicity and exploiting how it is written has made it too much LawyerQuest vs using common sense and instead of relieving pressure from the GMs it puts them in an awkward place to follow this nonsense
oldschoolguy
12-19-2021, 03:42 PM
I just started on the blue, got to lvl 5. But there are absolutely no groups, no one in the zone, feels kind of lonely. Sometimes there is a twink who absolutely never talks to anyone or high lvl player on /anon who is also afk... but otherwise dead. Might give up if it stays this way till 8.
Is green better, are there groups on green at low levels? I'm not really a hardcore player, just want to group for fun and you know the old school stuff, hang around, shoot shit, tell jokes, guild stuff eventually. That's the fun part of grouping. EQ was never really a solo game.
I just started on the blue, got to lvl 5. But there are absolutely no groups, no one in the zone, feels kind of lonely. Sometimes there is a twink who absolutely never talks to anyone or high lvl player on /anon who is also afk... but otherwise dead. Might give up if it stays this way till 8.
Is green better, are there groups on green at low levels? I'm not really a hardcore player, just want to group for fun and you know the old school stuff, hang around, shoot shit, tell jokes, guild stuff eventually. That's the fun part of grouping. EQ was never really a solo game.
Green is busy at the bottom, it's the biggest selling point. Not sure about the top.
EQ needs people and Green has that (at least for now) so enjoy it while it lasts but there's no room to grow at 60 and no way to level the playing field.
Green is full of greed.
I haven't tried blue. I've tried to log into it but it won't let me.
Tunabros
12-19-2021, 04:06 PM
drugs
No one is forcing you to play an iksar necro.
There's other classes to play.
The only classes that need to buy anything from EC are monk, war, rogue. And even then you can easily hit 40 plus with a weapon you can farm yourself.
There's no compelling reason to play an ogre or put all stats into sta.
You can literally get by on any race/class combo putting every point into CHA, AGI, or dex. Once you have thurgadin armor There's absolutely no difference between you and anyone else. And before than the difference is less than 5% vs any dark blue or higher, and 0% vs greens.
People do box. It actually hurts the legit players more. Try takp. It's almost as good as p99 and you can help them polish the broken quests, factions, and NPC chat texts once pop is debugged.
I'm not trying another emulated server.
I felt the need to try P99 because I heard about it years ago in the news when Verant blessed it with protection.
I've also been looking to relive those days like other people have...the nostalgia....a time machine; official EQ is a barren wasteland in the newbie zones and it's no surprise because every new expansion hurts the original newbie zones and the Mines of Gloomingdeep doesn't help either. EQ is now in the hands of a gold digger and that needs to be fixed and P99 doesn't fix it.
I've yet to meet a Druid on P99 who didn't create a Druid just to port for plat.
On P99 the righteous Druid is nothing more than a money grabbing taxi (and money grabbing AC camper) being used to twink the character they really want to play which is either SK or Iksar Monk.
starkind
12-19-2021, 06:08 PM
I'm not trying another emulated server.
I felt the need to try P99 because I heard about it years ago in the news when Verant blessed it with protection.
I've also been looking to relive those days like other people have...the nostalgia....a time machine; official EQ is a barren wasteland in the newbie zones and it's no surprise because every new expansion hurts the original newbie zones and the Mines of Gloomingdeep doesn't help either. EQ is now in the hands of a gold digger and that needs to be fixed and P99 doesn't fix it.
Takp is that mid point. Definately at least humor that. Although all our communcommunities are static. You won't get much interaction if you don't work for it..
Our real world is collapsing in greed, catering to children and the brainwashed as if they're commodities. No commercial venture will produce anything like EQ 1 again. Not until people get past "stats", "raids", and "progression. And world, lore building becomes the focus, not locked behind AAs, and time gated content, and factions that are never KoS permanently. Without choice. On rails.
Give TakP a shot.
And continue to make posts and exploring what you want. Design it in your head and lay it out. Over and over until you can create and express even the meanest part.
ReoDobbs
12-19-2021, 08:27 PM
Green is busy at the bottom, it's the biggest selling point. Not sure about the top.
EQ needs people and Green has that (at least for now) so enjoy it while it lasts but there's no room to grow at 60 and no way to level the playing field.
Green is full of greed.
I haven't tried blue. I've tried to log into it but it won't let me.
Busy is not the word I'd use. It's "busier" but when you Crushbone is empty 20/24 hours I wouldn't use the word "busy".
Swish
12-19-2021, 09:04 PM
I've yet to meet a Druid on P99 who didn't create a Druid just to port for plat.
On P99 the righteous Druid is nothing more than a money grabbing taxi (and money grabbing AC camper) being used to twink the character they really want to play which is either SK or Iksar Monk.
Fair comment honestly, lol. I think that's somewhat due to a druid's limitations in a group as well... they fall behind with healing, their nukes aren't great, their dots arent useful in a fast paced group, and while their DS is good... a mage adds more DPS in total.
AenorVZ
12-19-2021, 09:43 PM
You sound like a WoW player.
Arvan
12-19-2021, 10:24 PM
... because I have no friends
ill be your friend
- There are bazaar characters in EC spamming and ripping people off that's why they take a while to answer when you send them a tell; real players answer right away and have reasonable prices.
If you're selling items at market value, it's likely going to take a while to find a buyer. So you send out your auction message, go do laundry, browse Reddit, etc., then come back in a few minutes. Staring at your screen the entire time you're in the tunnel is a good way to go crazy, and make 20 minutes feel like two hours. That's why it often takes time to respond, and has nothing to do with being a "real player" or not.
starkind
12-19-2021, 10:29 PM
Just use the wtb/sell forum. Log out of your main and into your mule. Hook up. Back to main. Gg
- Iksar regen makes all other Necro's technically inferior, forever. All Necro at 60 should be equal and you should play the race because you like the look of it not because it's min-max.
One of the most efficient classes gets a bit more efficient by choose Iksar, that's it. It's not game breaking, nothing an Iksar necro could do that another race couldn't.
Raid's don't wipe cause the necro twitching a cleric wasn't a lizard.
Disclaimer: I can't back up that last statement, haven't raided since Planes of Power.
starkind
12-20-2021, 09:09 AM
I used to raid where there was like one necro out of 50 ppl. Out of 6 clerics I didn't often get twitched unless the three og clerics with years raiding in the guild were dead.
I honestly don't think it matters what race/starting stats any one has.
unsunghero
12-20-2021, 01:00 PM
If you're selling items at market value, it's likely going to take a while to find a buyer. So you send out your auction message, go do laundry, browse Reddit, etc., then come back in a few minutes. Staring at your screen the entire time you're in the tunnel is a good way to go crazy, and make 20 minutes feel like two hours. That's why it often takes time to respond, and has nothing to do with being a "real player" or not.
Hmmm I don’t do any of this. I personally hate selling in the EC tunnel, so I purposefully don’t sell at whatever arbitrary number the price gougers have decided to set. For example, don’t ever pay 3k for clarity II. It’s not scarce, like at all. It used to be like 500 appropriately priced for its rarity until spell price gougers decided to all make it 3k for literally no reason at all other than greed, and the only reason it stays that way is people cave and pay
The prices of stuff are completely made up on the spot. They just all match each other’s made up price not based on scarcity to form a little oligopoly on that item or spell to try to force you to pay it. After all, if they’re the only one no life camping that item, what other choice do you have?
Anyway, I don’t sell big ticket items so I purposefully discount mine half or less than the wiki price. I also consider it rude to put up an auction and then go afk so I sit there waiting for /tells, sometimes I’ll even hold off using the bathroom to be available for people. But again I’m not a price gouging power seller so I don’t expect others to be like me
Jimjam
12-20-2021, 02:48 PM
I used to raid where there was like one necro out of 50 ppl. Out of 6 clerics I didn't often get twitched unless the three og clerics with years raiding in the guild were dead.
I honestly don't think it matters what race/starting stats any one has.
From a raid twitch perspective the min max race for necromancer is one that can play a cleric instead.
Swish
12-20-2021, 07:10 PM
From a raid twitch perspective the min max race for necromancer is one that can play a cleric instead.
I disagree, necros make raid progress more efficient with twitching and even some patch heals on those last 1-2 groups with the worst tank/knight or rogue that takes a few hits.
Tethler
12-20-2021, 10:49 PM
The only raid rotation on green is plane of sky, which is a necessity due to spawn mechanics.
The price difference for items between green and blue is due to blue being around for more than 10 years compared to 2 years for green. People have farmed a whole lot more stuff on blue, making things a lot cheaper. It's not related to the population.
The missing "basic features" you listed are not there because they were not in the original game or first two expansions (with the exception of the broken 7-0 hotkeys on green, no idea why they dropped the ball there).
mattydef
12-21-2021, 01:27 AM
I have enough characters fashioned out on blue to cover the whole server. Fuck min/max, having a cool looking character is far superior.
If you're selling items at market value, it's likely going to take a while to find a buyer. So you send out your auction message, go do laundry, browse Reddit, etc., then come back in a few minutes. Staring at your screen the entire time you're in the tunnel is a good way to go crazy, and make 20 minutes feel like two hours. That's why it often takes time to respond, and has nothing to do with being a "real player" or not.
And you call yourself 'eqsales' and charge 5 x more than usual and stand in the same spot for 24 hours?
ReoDobbs
12-21-2021, 08:02 PM
And you call yourself 'eqsales' and charge 5 x more than usual and stand in the same spot for 24 hours?
Sepho*
Fair comment honestly, lol. I think that's somewhat due to a druid's limitations in a group as well... they fall behind with healing, their nukes aren't great, their dots arent useful in a fast paced group, and while their DS is good... a mage adds more DPS in total.
I very recently logged into AB server and a L119 female Wood Elf Druid gave me SOW in PoK. I said, 'Some things never change'.
This Druid wasn't a taxi though and to get L119 takes a ton of work; L44 not so much.
The most difficult thing about making a Druid on P99 is coming up with an eye catching porting slogan to stand out from the rest of the taxi's at the taxi rank.
There was no porting guild in classic.
starkind
12-22-2021, 01:25 PM
I tried being a serious druid but no one took me serious
i think the only serious druid on p99 is Kimm
unsunghero
12-22-2021, 02:02 PM
I very recently logged into AB server and a L119 female Wood Elf Druid gave me SOW in PoK. I said, 'Some things never change'.
This Druid wasn't a taxi though and to get L119 takes a ton of work; L44 not so much.
The most difficult thing about making a Druid on P99 is coming up with an eye catching porting slogan to stand out from the rest of the taxi's at the taxi rank.
There was no porting guild in classic.
Max lev on retail is not hard at all, especially if u want to pay2win
You can pay to skip, when I was playing it was to level 85. Then pay to get a max rank merc, then buy some XP potions from cash shop
The only thing that slows you down is eventually you hit a wall of mountainous mob hp as you start approaching the level cap. Your group-quality gear from 2 expansions ago just doesn’t do enough damage. Usually the merc can heal you indefinitely and never run oom as long as it’s the max rank you can only get with a paying sub, but it can take like 20 minutes of DPS’ing to kill a single mob with millions of hp
But then all you have to do is buy some current expansion group quality gear from bazaar
Max lev on retail is not hard at all, especially if u want to pay2win
You can pay to skip, when I was playing it was to level 85. Then pay to get a max rank merc, then buy some XP potions from cash shop
The only thing that slows you down is eventually you hit a wall of mountainous mob hp as you start approaching the level cap. Your group-quality gear from 2 expansions ago just doesn’t do enough damage. Usually the merc can heal you indefinitely and never run oom as long as it’s the max rank you can only get with a paying sub, but it can take like 20 minutes of DPS’ing to kill a single mob with millions of hp
But then all you have to do is buy some current expansion group quality gear from bazaar
Not everybody pays to win though, some people still do it legit. P99 is not hard because EQ in general is not hard; mobs are dumb so they are easy.
Side note: Thinking about it, evil races and classes soloing better actually makes sense. Good should rely on teamwork, because good is popular and therefore has friends, and evil relies on soloing because evil has no friends.
greenspectre
12-23-2021, 03:12 AM
If you're selling items at market value, it's likely going to take a while to find a buyer. So you send out your auction message, go do laundry, browse Reddit, etc., then come back in a few minutes. Staring at your screen the entire time you're in the tunnel is a good way to go crazy, and make 20 minutes feel like two hours. That's why it often takes time to respond, and has nothing to do with being a "real player" or not.
I always choose to look at "market value" as flexible. The thing I consider most when buying/selling an item is what is my time worth.
Example: I bought a fungi tunic for 85k cash a couple weeks ago. Market value, most agree, is 75-80k on green. However, I'd been /auc to buy it for 80k for hours. Within 5 minutes of upping my price in my message to 85, somebody simply /auc's that they're selling a fungi for 85. I strongly suspect they were tipped off by a friend that "this guy is paying 85 cash for a fungi, get here".
Did I overpay vs the market value? Of course. But I spent hours already looking at 80. I could have spent hours more doing the same. A couple hours in Velks doing UD's or something could net me that 5k difference, and has done so since. My TIME was more valuable than the 5k difference. If I didn't have a 60 Shaman, the 5k difference might matter more.
Consequently, before OVP's stopped dropping they were maybe 8-9k and I had someone offer me a Crown of King Tranix and a Sash of the Dragonborn for mine, after I'd initially passed on the Crown alone. Obviously I took that deal. I had the time to spare at the time to sell the items individually as I was selling other things at the time too.
If you treat EC as an "easy come, easy go" thing, it's less maddening. Don't get hung up on one thing unless its the holy grail you're chasing and you just barely have enough to make it happen.
Tethler
12-23-2021, 10:45 PM
P99 is not hard because EQ in general is not hard
I clicked off DMF instead of Lich and killed myself. Does life really have to be a 50/50 gamble in emergency situations?
starkind
12-24-2021, 01:48 PM
My not safe TriGgEr wArning RevIewW
I deign not to post it in this thread..... I want to thank everyone who helped enable me to write this today (https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=396764).
It is not the power of positive thinking, however one day I will be a lvl 60 mage without epic and likely using a lvl 52 water pet or something to do the same thing while I gear alts with trash drops.
So no hard feelings even to the aggressors on this project. I just don't think anyone has a clue.
I mean the upside is that the zone is being used.
bigfun
12-25-2021, 02:26 AM
- There are login issues with P99 which you don't get on Live. I guess having to reboot my phone 10 times to log in is part of the 'no hand holding' classic experience?
you play on your phone??????????:confused:
starkind
12-25-2021, 06:00 AM
Tethered wireless mobile
Internet...
bigfun
12-25-2021, 12:52 PM
That makes much more sense. I legit thought they meant they play on their phone. Was confused how you see anything on that tiny screen!
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