Everquest (No Expansions)

[ScottBerta]

I think P99 was the most fun when it was pre Velious.

[Sonark]

Originally Posted by ScottBerta [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think P99 was the most fun when it was pre Velious.

I think p99 was the most fun when it was an idea in someone's head.

Just like Classic was.

[Ciderpress]

The immense knowledge of every aspect of the game is what makes the experience different now. I remember my first char on live was a barbarian warrior, rolled like a week after the game was released. I vividly remember joining a full group of newbie barbs, and we worked together to take down wooly mammoths, cause it just seemed like an obvious thing to do. Today, you'd never, ever see that in a million years because it's a moronically slow and inefficient way to attain both xp and money, but damn it was fun. No clue what we were doing, but killing those big scary mammoths felt so epic.

[Zuranthium]

The game/genre being so new definitely contributed to what made 1999 Everquest special, but also people were actually roleplaying back then, and having no play nice policy added to that element of vitality. Instead of continuing to make the game into a lived-in RPG where people can progress by adventuring around, it was sadly turned into more and more of a streamlined, constricted experience with huge timesinks required to get the "best stuff". The entire genre was ruined because of this.

As things stand with the game these days, Kunark era is best. There's enough content to keep everyone busy, and the game world doesn't become so disconnected as it does in Velious, nor as tainted with overpowered gear and tedious raids. If forced to not stray very far from the in-game coding, an ideal emu server would be Kunark-era with the Velious-era class updates, some faster respawn times and more ways to obtain certain pieces of equipment, more level restrictions on equipment and power-leveling, and some of the raid encounters made more challenging (Innoruuk, Cazic-Thule, etc). Definitely a less restrictive play-nice-policy too. I also think that even for a non-PvP server it would be good and manageable for PvP to be a factor (can flag your character on/off for PvP once a week, gain more exp and some other benefit while it's on; enable PvP in raid areas sometimes; have guild-based PvP tournaments where the winning guild gets a bonus).

[Wakanda]

Originally Posted by Ciderpress [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The immense knowledge of every aspect of the game is what makes the experience different now. I remember my first char on live was a barbarian warrior, rolled like a week after the game was released. I vividly remember joining a full group of newbie barbs, and we worked together to take down wooly mammoths, cause it just seemed like an obvious thing to do. Today, you'd never, ever see that in a million years because it's a moronically slow and inefficient way to attain both xp and money, but damn it was fun. No clue what we were doing, but killing those big scary mammoths felt so epic.

I think about this all of the time. Especially since I have friends who play P99, but never played EQ back in the day. It’s hard to explain to them that there were groups of players EVERYWHERE. Like I remember Qeynos and Qeynos Hills as a really populated area. Same with GFAY. It’s always surreal to me how they are ghost zones on these types of projects ��

Also part of the hunting random things like Mammoth back in the day.. I literally never logged into the game with the intention of grinding, every time I logged in it was a new adventure and I’d usually end up getting some loot and exp along the way because we would just try killing random things in random areas. We didn’t even know where loot dropped, so in my mind it was totally possible that an FBSS may drop in West Karana �� and there were all kinds of rumors. I remember the first time I saw an Ishva robe in game I freaked out and wanted it so bad, but the dude who had it straight up refused to tell anyone where he got it (not that it would have been an easy camp either way, 36 hours respawn and rare drop).

Edit I just remembered when I thought exe axe and oracle robes were among the best items in the entire game ��

[Sonark]

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

. Instead of continuing to make the game into a lived-in RPG where people can progress by adventuring around, it was sadly turned into more and more of a streamlined, constricted experience with huge timesinks required to get the "best stuff". The entire genre was ruined because of this.

...when do you think the Plane of Sky was implemented, approximately?

[Zuranthium]

Originally Posted by Sonark [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

...when do you think the Plane of Sky was implemented, approximately?

It came out January 2000, and less than 1% of the playerbase at the time was doing it. January 2000 actually marks a significant shift though. Lots of people got the game as a Christmas present at the end of 1999 and that created an influx of players who were trying to "catch up" and treating the game as less of an RPG. A couple months later the play-nice-policy was introduced, which was the official downfall of classic Everquest and the entire MMORPG genre.

Instead of updating the game by introducing non-static spawn mechanics and loot drops and NPC behavior, and other favorable updates to promote adventuring and world interaction instead of "camping", they limited what players could do and just kept adding more and more time-consuming static content onto the pile. Thus it became what the entire genre followed, with games like WoW dumbing things down as a defining feature and new generations of players never knowing what was lost.

[Sonark]

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It came out January 2000, and less than 1% of the playerbase at the time was doing it. January 2000 actually marks a significant shift though. Lots of people got the game as a Christmas present at the end of 1999 and that created an influx of players who were trying to "catch up" and treating the game as less of an RPG. A couple months later the play-nice-policy was introduced, which was the official downfall of classic Everquest and the entire MMORPG genre.

Instead of updating the game by introducing non-static spawn mechanics and loot drops and NPC behavior, and other favorable updates to promote adventuring and world interaction instead of "camping", they limited what players could do and just kept adding more and more time-consuming static content onto the pile. Thus it became what the entire genre followed, with games like WoW dumbing things down as a defining feature and new generations of players never knowing what was lost.

Just gonna die on the hill, then?

Alright.

[cd288]

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The game/genre being so new definitely contributed to what made 1999 Everquest special, but also people were actually roleplaying back then, and having no play nice policy added to that element of vitality. Instead of continuing to make the game into a lived-in RPG where people can progress by adventuring around, it was sadly turned into more and more of a streamlined, constricted experience with huge timesinks required to get the "best stuff". The entire genre was ruined because of this.

As things stand with the game these days, Kunark era is best. There's enough content to keep everyone busy, and the game world doesn't become so disconnected as it does in Velious, nor as tainted with overpowered gear and tedious raids. If forced to not stray very far from the in-game coding, an ideal emu server would be Kunark-era with the Velious-era class updates, some faster respawn times and more ways to obtain certain pieces of equipment, more level restrictions on equipment and power-leveling, and some of the raid encounters made more challenging (Innoruuk, Cazic-Thule, etc). Definitely a less restrictive play-nice-policy too. I also think that even for a non-PvP server it would be good and manageable for PvP to be a factor (can flag your character on/off for PvP once a week, gain more exp and some other benefit while it's on; enable PvP in raid areas sometimes; have guild-based PvP tournaments where the winning guild gets a bonus).

All this guy's posts inevitably circle back to "I want to be able to grief people on a PvE server like you could for a very limited period of time when EQ first came out"

[Zuranthium]

Sad your comprehension is that low. 1 year is not a "very limited period of time" either.