Legacy items on Green99 - pros and cons
 

The staff didn't give us any hints on whether or not legacy items will drop on Green, so it's all up open for speculation. Maybe some items will drop, maybe all of them, maybe none. Maybe Green will merge to Blue after, maybe it will be with legacy items, maybe without.


I'm still unsure on what I prefer, to be honest.

I joined P99 in 2014 so obviously missed things such as Guise, Manastone, Locket, etc.
A part of me wants the legacy items to drop on Green, so I get a chance to sock it hard for a couple months and get a shot at all the good stuff, get a bunch of characters guised, bound at the pots, fill a bag or two with manastones, etc etc.

On the other hand, there are a few other things to consider.

TRUST
There's only one true classic Everquest server in the world, and that's Blue99. There's no alternative. And part of the success of it is the TRUST we, players, put into it. The trust that has been gained by server thanks to the competent and committed staff behind it. Creating and maintaining such a service with such quality of ...everything, really - is no joke, and the staff showed repeatedly that they know what they are doing.

Therefore, we trust them to keep the only Classic EQ instance in the world up, and our characters and items safely there. One particular aspect of EQ is that some items gain value because they no longer drop.

We know that if we quit for a year or four, then decide to log back in, all our characters and items will be exactly where we left them. P99 is our Classic EQ safehouse.

A merging Green99 with legacy items could potentially alter this immutability and automatically undermine this trust.

The poor casual fellow who joined in 2018 and worked their ass off for 6 months to pay for a CoS, suddenly sees all his efforts devalued. He will feel like crap and won't trust P99 any longer to preserve the value of his efforts.


ECONOMY
Another aspect is purely macroeconomic. P99 economy is deflationary. Too many items enter the world and 99% of items keep getting cheaper. I don't think this is healthy or desirable. The very few items who keep being expensive are the legacy items (along with some exceptions such as AoN or Puppet Strings). I think it is important that some stuff remains expensive, for the health of the economy which is a big part of what classic EQ is.



LEGACY STATUS
Third aspect: legacy items are legacy for a reason. An item has legacy status or it does not. If there's knowledge that it will drop again, then it's simply not legacy any longer. It's temporarily not dropping, that's all. Legacy items are an important aspect of classic EQ.



GAMEPLAY
Fourth aspect: None of the legacy items are essential for the gameplay and are purely status symbols. (One exception is CoS but there are gazillions stashed on mules). Legacy items are the early adopter rewards. By allowing a new influx of such items, early adopter rewards are simply erased. Again, this potentially undermines the trust that P99 will preserve your acquired status.


SHITSHOW
Fifth aspect: Allowing legacy items to drop would mean that the Green server would be nothing else but an opportunity to farm them. Instead of actually enjoying pre-Kunark classic EQ, it would be a shit flinging contest filled with petitions, trains, lawyering and general mayhem around the few legacy camps. The few stay-at-home neckbeards will most likely deny the general population any kind of realistic shot. I don't know if P99 needs it.

Like i mentioned in one of the other threads, simply making these items no drop will mitigate a significant amount of problems.

Even if you removed the items the "neckbeards" will just migrate to the highest value items and make them shithows, too. You can't really escape that issue by waving a wand and making a few select items disappear.

I have zero inside knowledge but can say with near certainty they will have the items. It's pretty much non-starter to completely remove them.

Blue99 the only true classic server?

My necro's lifetaps would like to have a word with you.

Blue is a beta for green. You know what's the classic policy for beta servers?

Wipe it clean!

Just play the game and enjoy it. They have their own plans and it's unlikely anyone else's opinions will be a factor in how to run it. It'll be whatever it'll be.

Yes.

Red99 doesn't count, because playing Everquest with a total population of 20 inbred drug addict virgins, is not classic.

Classic is playing Everquest with a ton of people, like on Blue.

(But everything in my OP actually applies to Red).

They can very well be completely unsure of how to proceed with legacy items and be welcoming a healthy debate.

That would be IMO a terrible way of dealing with it, as it would create non-classic items that never existed anywhere, such as a non-drop manastone.

But that's ok. They can keep the GEB s camp on lock down for months and make a ton of plat, who cares. The GEBs will always drop and eventually become common.

Why are you so certain? Nobody would play on green if manastone isn't dropping? I would. I never experienced pre-Kunark EQ and would love to have a look.

Did you read the updated forum rules?