Project 1999 - The difference between the Play Nice Policy on this server and Everquest in 2000 &...

Project 1999 (/forums/index.php)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by ELance (Post 2804867)

Interesting theory, but I disagree.

I don't expect or need customer service. I reckoned I have probably played this game 600 hours and never once petitioned a GM for anything. With an average of 1000 players logged online a day that should be four petitions a day at most. Also no one was "forced" to share camps in 2000 and 2001. Killstealing was forbidden, and if someone was accused of it they would be monitored and given a warning if they did. Apart from that they were encouraged to share. Whether they did or not I think was immaterial; the first person to engage a mob had rights to it. What I mean is that the only official GM action ever in such disputes was to say "share". Warnings were only issued for killstealing.

Here is a post from newsgroups on 2/26/01 that explains it:

>
> Camping: Would someone please write a new players guide or have the GMs
> and their assistants sit down and get their stories straight? I have
> had a GM
> "say You can't camp a zone." Another one says, " you can't camp a rare
> spawn"
> Still another says " Camping is still enforced, but we refer to it as
> the play nice rule. Take turns (kids) and play nice" If this is such a
> big problem, why not set a flag so that the person getting the first hit
> has responsibility for the critter. Have others ge the message "That
> creaature is under attack" Ok, I know nothing about programming so
> maybe this would be a bite, and there would have to be a way of
> releasing it once you realize you can't handle it. Hey, there ya go,
> this wouild force more people to group up unless they really wanted to
> solo.
The only rules for camping are in the play nice policy availble at
www.everquest.com
Yes, gms do kinda enforce them differently. The actual rule is the
first player to cast a spell that engages the critter or melee engages
the critter gets it and anyone else is ksing. Camping is not actually
supported in the pnp, but if called a gm will intervene and say "share."

Another that addresses the idea of ownership in perpetuity from 10/23/2000:

" No one wants to address the fundamental point. Why does being there

: first grant you ownership in perpetuity?
It WAS already addressed. NOTHING grants someone ownership in perpetuity.
However, the commonly held GENTLEMANLY code of conduct says you don't bust
up someone else's camp. If some spot is in use, go find another spot that
isn't. You are imposing on THEM, not the otherway around."

1) Yes as I said 2000 and 2001, an era it may be supposed this server was trying to emulate.
2) A fair point, but that was the Everquest we all played and liked. If there were disputes then, it means that some players did not agree with the notions of whatever group liked to codify camps. And thus those players would not have a home on a server that bans them, and thus this server will not be the Everquest of 2000 and 2001.
3 & 4) Players are immediately threatened with suspensions for sharing mobs with groups who claim ownership in perpetuity by reason of being there first.

As to the last comment, that is insulting and uncalled for. What is "meta"? And why are we changing things? I thought the intent of this server was to emulate Everquest in 1999-2001.

Massively multiplayer online games (as well as that MUDs on which they are based) are well known to thrive when types of players are kept in equilibrium. You may not understand it, but what they are doing on this server is exactly what has ruined MMORPGs, and exactly what writers such as Bartle warned about with heavy-handed intervention through coding and GMs. The idea of the ideal MMORPG is that players will work things out themselves, and there does not need to be control through systems and excessive policies. As you have noted many players respect this idea of camps, and think those that do not are rude, and thus a player that does not will acquire a lesser reputation than those that do, and thus any issue that there may be is resolved by the players without the intervention of GMs (or later systems such as instancing and mob locking). The reputation of a player that does not respect camps will be less in proportion to those that do, *in proportion to the number of players that do hold this idea of ownership in perpetuity on the server*, simulating a virtual world.

yikes

*peels out and speeds toward the horizon*

Quote:

Originally Posted by ELance (Post 2804867)

The only rules for camping are in the play nice policy availble at
www.everquest.com
Yes, gms do kinda enforce them differently. The actual rule is the
first player to cast a spell that engages the critter or melee engages
the critter gets it and anyone else is ksing. Camping is not actually
supported in the pnp, but if called a gm will intervene and say "share."

Quote:

8.3 Exploitation
Policy:
Exploitation is defined as abusing weaknesses in the game system to the advantage of one or more players
with the intention of profiting from them in some manner.
...
Things that are not Exploitation:
...
• Camping – sitting in one spot to await the spawn of a monster or item.

But again, even if you look at the classic GM rules, it's still not reasonable to expect such policies here when live had an entire team of paid GMs and Project 1999 does not.

Incidentally, the old staff rules did not prohibit kill stealing. On the contrary, "vulching" was explicitly listed (along with "Camping") as not being an exploitation:

Quote:

Things that are not Exploitation:
...
• Vulching – “stealing” kills from other players

For reference, here's a link to those old rules.

Aww came here expecting Lulz :(

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nexii (Post 2804863)

Lawyerquesting people into camp sharing was sure to ruin your reputation.

I agree (among those who held the idea of ownership in perpetuity by reason of being there first), but do not see how this pertains to GMs defining and enforcing camps and suspending players that do not comply. I have seen no evidence in many hours of reading newsgroups that this ever happened in 2000 and 2001, and indeed everything that I have read suggests that this would have caused intense and angry outcry if it ever did happen, and that the policies of this server on camping are the polar opposite of the policies in 2000 and 2001 as to camping.

Quote:

Originally Posted by loramin (Post 2804901)

First off, the play nice policy "availble" at www.everquest.com is 100% not relevant here. This server emulates classic, not live, EverQuest. If you want to compare apples to apples, you have to look at a classic GM guide, which in fact does explicitly support camping:

But again, even if you look at the classic GM rules, it's still not reasonable to expect such policies here when live had an entire team of paid GMs and Project 1999 does not.

Incidentally, the old staff rules did not prohibit kill stealing. On the contrary, "vulching" was explicitly listed (along with "Camping") as not being an exploitation:

For reference, here's a link to those old rules.

You didn't read my post. You are quoting a quote of mine from a newsgroup in 2001.

EDIT: To be fair, it wasn't in italics. I would edit it now if I could.

This server didn't go wrong with camps.

The camp rules being a sensitive issue has more to do this server being a lot more ridiculously top heavy than live. In live Kunark and Velious was like 1/10th the time span as on our server here. People were leveling. They didn't have as many advanced tactics. People didn't know the camps as well.

That being said, camping was still very much a thing. I specifically remember holding down the Ancient Cyclop camp for my jboots back in the day. I remember drama in HHK about what camps were what.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ELance (Post 2804912)

You didn't read my post. You are quoting a quote of mine from a newsgroup in 2001.

EDIT: To be fair, it wasn't in italics. I would edit it now if I could.

An addendum to this post (can't edit it any more):

But what policies? All I said was the GMs encouraged players to share and gave warnings for killstealing. This could be accomplished by a post on the message board, "share", and occasional monitoring of players for killstealing when petitions were made You seem to be trying awfully hard to argue this one point. Two understandings about this that I have: 1) the only case of this I have seen on Project 1999 the GMs answered the petition in 10 or 15 minutes...not exactly short-staffed, but again it hardly matters, cause 2) my understanding in classic is players had to fend for themselves. A warning would only be issued for killstealing if a GM witnessed it, and in order for them to witness it they would likely have had to have been notified about it after one or more killstealings had already happened. I read a post on newsgroups about the AC camp in SRO...the consensus was that you had to fend for yourself, GMs wouldn't sit there for hours and hours, and you would have to compete with other players for damage. Why do you think it is bad to compete with other players for damage? On a private server I would expect it would be even more free-wheeling, and as I understand it in 1999 it was... first engagement was the law of the land; kill-stealing as later was acknowledged as grounds for a warning, but only if a GM saw it...and they likely wouldn't have seen anything but malicious and intentional killstealing, not the usual close-call and incidental kind.... My question is why you think and wish that the GMs should protect players from other players as it were. You don't like a virtual world, and wish to live in a controlled environment?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ELance (Post 2804912)

You didn't read my post. You are quoting a quote of mine from a newsgroup in 2001.

EDIT: To be fair, it wasn't in italics. I would edit it now if I could.

To be even fairer your post was extremely long, and a bit rambling/not well focused ;) This is very much the kettle calling the pot black (as I'm sure other posters will agree, my posts tend to be long-winded). But when you write a massive not-super-organized scrawl of text like that, it's very natural for people to lose sight of what you were trying to communicate, or to have a reaction like:

Quote:

Originally Posted by America (Post 2804899)

yikes

*peels out and speeds toward the horizon*

But still the core points I said remain:

Project 1999 does not have the customer support resources that live EQ had, and as such their policies are necessarily going to be different
In as much as they do try to adhere to policies, they adhere to classic policies, not current live ones
Those classic policies are not very explicit (I linked them; you can see for yourself)
You have shown zero evidence (unless I missed it in that scrawl) that, according to the classic Play Nice Policy, it was acceptable for someone to to take a mob someone else was camping. As I noted, "kill stealing" (ie. "vulching" :confused:) in some form was explicitly allowed, but the guidebook never actually clarifies what they mean by that. It might simply refer to two players racing for an outdoor mob and one player getting it even though the second player felt they "stole" it. We just don't know.

Given those points, I really don't see your argument that P99's policies are needlessly unclassic; on the contrary they seem, to me at least, to be "as classic as possible" for a volunteer-run server.

you can play live if you want dps races

move to resolved

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teppler (Post 2804921)

Alas some people don't seem to understand what has happened here. This is not some natural or understandable outgrowth of a different game or the natural outcome of a private server. These policies are 1) the polar opposite of Everquest in 1999-2001, 2) highly exclusive and controlled in a way that Everquest was not then (Everquest was not only guildies, campers, raiders, and powergamers in 1999-2001. Not all players logged on to sit in a zone doing nothing while waiting on a list. There were roleplayers, many various and not rigidly defined camps, evil players that would not group with good players and soloers) There would have been a tremendous outcry back then if a policy like this had ever been enforced... players told that their only ambition in a zone was to join a list for a group whose only claim to it was that they were there first. What if that group had a Shadow Knight in it and it was a paladin in the zone? The GMs would not have told the paladin to do nothing or be suspended, they would have told the group to share with him. These policies are the antithesis of an MMORPG as it was then and of Everquest in 1999-2001. They are documented as detrimental to the diversity of a playerbase in an MMORPG and thus to a virtual world. It's shameful to excuse them, and any attemps to do so (as far as I have seen) can be seen as pleas for the GMs to make the game a controlled environment rather than a virtual world.