Beware the Ides of March

[Littul Jonn]

Rooted dragons will be the downfall of p99.

Something that has always set p99 apart from other Everquest emulators is the competition aspect of the game. Whether it was the days of TMO or Aftermath / Awakened vs Casuals, there has always been competition in killing the most sought after Raid bosses in this game. With rooted dragons, competition has NOT been removed from the game, but i believe it will be unsustainable in the future.

In February 2018 I joined Azure Guard after the CSG Alliance broke up, we were capable of killing most mid level targets but struggled in ToV. With the help of my guildies, we leveled COTH mages, made clerics, recruited more people and were able to compete in TOV against the likes of Tempest, Aftermath, and Core. It took close to 6 months to do but our first Vulak that we competed for and killed with AM, Temp, and Core in the zone was EPIC.

Fast forward to rooted dragons. COTH Mages, DA idol farming, and petition flame wars are now somewhat less relavent but here's the cost. You need 60+ elf pals to kill most targets in ToV now, (10+ clerics, 5ish Warriors, +DPS, Support, etc). While this does not remove the competition aspect from the game it changes it in an unsustainable way. The server elite have said "its not about loot, its about denying pixels", which is true however worded poorly. Lack of pixels is scarcity which will drive the value of those pixels up.

The server elite have enjoyed their exclusiveness for quite some time but now that you can't be exclusive and attain pixels, the value of pixels or will to login is dwindling. Blame it on summer BBQs or whatever but the truth is getting 60+ (a conservative estimate) for Vulaks, Vyems, etc is not going to be sustainable for long. With Classic WoW, Green99, and other games on the horizon, if you *need* those numbers to kill those dragons there will be less and less people available.

The staff do the best they can and implementing rooted dragons decreases petitions in some ways but at what cost? This sever was the last bastion of true competition. I told someone from Aftermath once, "I'd rather lose KT to you guys 10 times in a row and beat you legitimately once rather than have him rotated between guilds".

Many of my former guild mates and competitors are now in a larger guild and know this isn't me coming off as salty. I hope for p99's sake that i'm wrong, it's always nice to have a game to come back to when winter/free play time/no bbq season allows. I just hope this doesn't kill the game.

These are just my thoughts and opinions and not that of Azure Guard leadership.

Beware the Ides of March...


TLDR: Rooted dragons suck, one giant guild is the same as a server rotation essentially, bring back competition.