Project 1999 - In some ways TLPs play more classic than P99.

I've played on several TLPs over the last 6 years, but I still prefer P99. The content drops too fast in TLPs so everything you're doing becomes obsolete every few weeks; the XP bonus events pigeon hole people to really only leveling during 4-day weekends, and multi-boxing is a huge pain in the ass but feels mandatory. There's also no class balance. Monks bare fists are the best weapons in the game until Plane of Time, which makes Rogues and most other melee DPS completely non-viable until Plane of Time. Also the pay 2 win aspects of TLP kind of ruin it for me.

But there are things about TLPs that are more classic than P99. Particularly when it comes to leveling. One of the only major complaints I have about P99 is that players only level in Unrest, Mistmoore, City of Mist, and Karnor's Castle. (I'm obviously not counting solo play with this generalization).

One of the things I liked about TLPs is when I turned LFG on I got groups in places like Runnyeye, Sol A, Permafrost etc. Upper Guk was not only as popular as UR is on P99, But I actually found that I enjoyed playing in it more than UR.

I remember regularly finding groups in Blackburrow and Befallen at low level etc. Now I understand that some of this is just due to the fact that P99 is an older server, and that a lot of zones were also populated when the server was new, but keep in mind that I did play pre-kunark P99 and even back then I noticed that players almost exclusively leveled in UR and Mistmoore. I guess one main difference was that HHK Goblins, Splitpaw, and CT were also kind of super active. To this day I don't know why so many people choose City of Mist over CT. I remember doing 30-45 in a single day on two separate characters Pre-Kunark. It's like people forgot how insane the ZEM in that particularly zone is, or has it been nerfed?

But also one of my fondest memories from TLP, and something I consider classic, was actually treating Lower Guk like a leveling zone. Lots of BR groups. Lots of groups sit in Supp Room and pull exe/cav/sage. Lots of groups sit at Ghoul AM and pull Lord, Hand Room, even Frenzied if possible. Things like this are basically illegal on P99 due to the PNP, but I remember leveling in Lower Guk back in the day and don't consider players sitting afk at a single spawn killing a mob every 30 minutes as being a classic Lower Guk experience. I imagine this is one of the reasons very few players would go to Guk to level even if you offered them a Teleport.

I also like on TLP how at 50ish when you turn LFG on you get groups in Sebilis, Chardok, Velk's, Hole, Sol B (bats and bugs is pretty good at 50+, can even do Efreeti if your group is strong enough). I've ironically learned most of the zones on P99 from playing on TLPs because when you play on TLP, especially as a Monk, you're going to get very used to pulling mobs deep in Sol B, Sebilis and the Hole in ways that would be borderline suicidal on P99 due to the zones being ghost towns.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though P99 comes close to being classic, it doesn't play like Classic. I don't remember anyone leveling in UR or Mistmoore after Kunark came out. I remember the Sarnak Fort having a ton of groups in it, then going to the Giant Fort in FM, and then to OT, and then to DL, and then to KC, and then to Sebilis etc. Which BTW OT and DL still have a ton of groups in them on TLPs. I know I'm not just misremembering things. I know that was the general true classic pipe-line. It feels like so many people try to gas-light me into Kunark leveling not being the meta. There was 200+ people in LOIO on my server (my server was the first to split due to it's size). It's not even feasible that zones like UR and MM could have been viable leveling options. But I also remember trying to go back to UR because I missed it. Not only was it empty, the exp was just vastly inferior compared to LOIO.

I basically just am tired of leveling in the same zones over and over again. Like right now I could get a group in Karnor's Castle, but I couldn't get a group in Velk's, Sebilis, The Hole etc. and trust me, I've tried to twist people's arms to play other places and they just won't do it. Leveling to 60 in KC is super not classic btw. You would have had a really hard time even hitting level 54 in KC.

This is really just a rant since there's no obvious solution to this problem. Another thing that was probably unique for me, but my friends and I actually did level in Dalnir, Kaesora, Droga etc. Especially after they became hot zones. I remember where I was when 9/11 happened and it was the goblin zone in Frontier Mountains that's closest to the Giant Fort. I think Nurga?

I've had a lot of diff friends who never played original EQ play P99 and I always try to explain to them that it's not true classic, and that in true classic we did more things than just go to UR and that Qeynos and Gfay were both teeming with life and a lot of people just logged in and hung out and socialized in these areas. I know for the first year or so of playing EQ I never logged in to grind. I just logged in and did random stuff, which sometimes resulted in me gaining experience, but not always etc.

TL;DR I wish P99 played more like real classic rather than ignoring 95% of the game. Because for me that's not classic.

PS. I also remember leveling in Oasis a ton as a kid, but the mobs didn't spawn at the high rates they do now, and I remember it being a ghost zone after LOIO came out. If there's one thing I could change about P99 it would be like weekend events that incentivize players to level in different dungeons or something. The craziest one for me is UR too. I enjoy the zone. Lots of memories and nostalgia. But Upper Guk is more conveniently located, safer, and IMHO a better leveling experience. I guess you can't get to 30+ in Upper Guk, which is the only major draw back, but the basement of UR is literally my least favorite part of UR. Better off going to MM at that point realistically.

PSS. Also just posting this here because it's a huge larp to act like 99% of players weren't KOS in Chardok.