Green Class Distribution

[DMN]

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

Necro was never one of the top population classes in my experience. It should have been in 1999, if everyone understood how OP it was (and if so many people weren't scared of "being evil"), but that wasn't the case. Perhaps on the high-end levels during 1999 there might a high amount of Necros (but not at the end of Kunark...), because of how much easier the class was able to level, but if you look at other levels I don't think they were so widespread.

A lot of wizards quit and moved over to mage/necro, and quite a few mages and, heck, even some degree a few disillusioned druids also moved to necros over the first year. Necros probably weren't at the top the first couple months but would rapidly start to climb up in population. it was a simple case of "if you can't beat em, join em."

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

Enchanter as a low population class by the end of Kunark isn't accurate to me. The term "holy trinity" (referring to having a Warrior, Enchanter, and Cleric in your party) was coined during Kunark. Enchanters were getting more popular by the month in 2000, people were understanding the power of their buffs and crowd control. Clarity was literally called "crack".

Enchanters were getting more powerful and people were wanting them in groups more often, indeed, but almost exclusively for CC and buffs. Most of the people who would want to play this type of passive character would have already rolled up a priest class or a bard. And generally people tend to like to play something a bit different on their "main alt". So they will roll up rogues, monks, warriors, etc, not an enchanter. In EQ the holy trinity for a group might have been a tank/enc/cleric, for raiding it was warrior/rogue/cleric. And by a year in a lot of people started to focus a lot on the hopes/intention of raiding. Since that was about all you had to do once you had maxed level and got some good gear.

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

I also find it strange you say Bard grew in popularity a lot between 1999 and the end of Kunark. I feel like they got less popular during that period, partially because more people were learning about their exp penalty, and partially because other classes (especially Enchanter) were getting more popular. I would say Bard got a bit more popular again during Velious, because more people were learning to mass AOE kite, but they were always one of the lower population classes.

Reasons why bards became a lot more popular:
1. they got debatably the best epic in the game
2. People had begun to fully debunk the claim that bards were just group-only characters, who would often find themselves asleep at the keyboard playing the manasong.
3. AoE kiting became viable for people due to improve internet connections, making bards the fastest levelers in the game. The massive kunark outdoor zones also helped in this regard.
4. The general "raiding guild theory" back then was you wanted 1 bard for every 5-6 members of their guild. Bards ended up being more sought after in guilds than clerics because there were already a lot of clerics.
5. While You could easily get druid or wizard port to kunark only a bard in the group could move you around kunark at warp speed onc you arrived.
6. Fashionquest.

[Zuranthium]

I don't think your perspective of the whole playerbase back then is all that accurate. Most people were not raid-focused in Kunark. They were just trying to get to level 60 or trying to figure things out. Virtually nobody had a Bard epic in Kunark era and I don't at all remember the playerbase being amazed by that epic specifically and rushing to make a Bard because they heard about it.

I wouldn't call Enchanter "passive" either. Constantly mezzing a bunch of mobs is quite an active role, and I don't think mainly only people who were already playing a healer or Bard were the type who would do Enchanter, nor would those people be actively dissuaded from making an Enchanter as the class grew in renown. I'd say it's the other way around - some people who played Bard actually switched to Enchanter because it was the stronger class. I don't think too many Enchanter players were switching to Bard, heh. Bard was always its own specific thing that appealed to a specific type of player. It had more melee ability than other casters and song twisting was a strenuous thing, so it felt different, and the roleplay aspect of the game in 1999 was quite strong. A significant amount of people who picked the class back then just wanted to roleplay as a musician/performer.

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

A lot of wizards quit and moved over to mage/necro, and quite a few mages and, heck, even some degree a few disillusioned druids also moved to necros over the first year. Necros probably weren't at the top the first couple months but would rapidly start to climb up in population. It was a simple case of "if you can't beat em, join em."

1 year after the launch of the game is not the "majority of 1999" period that I was talking about. Wizards definitely started declining in population for several reasons (and the introduction of the Play Nice Policy was a big one, because they were no longer allowed to actually use their burst damage in an advantageous way) but they were very popular during that earlier era. They were literally named "masters of magical damage" by Verant, which was reinforced by the Magician and Enchanter class descriptions saying "this class does not have the same offensive ability as the Wizard", so many new players picked Wizard on that basis alone, but the actual in-game play of being able to burst things down back then was also impressive, as were the teleports.

The thing about Necros back then is they were constantly being nerfed by the time more people were realizing just how OP the class was, and a lot of players simply didn't want to switch over to the class even if they understood they were OP. Necros were noticeably most OP at the higher levels and after more people had found out about giving the pets low-delay weapons, but people who were already in their high 30's/40's didn't want to just abandon the character they were already playing. Plus, the whole "evil" thing. A significant amount of the playerbase back then simply refused to group with Necromancers or "evil" characters, and they themselves didn't want to make an evil character because of being scared about being attacked by more NPC's out in the game world.

[Rafiell]

I don't understand how im one of the very few SKs on the server, there seems to be lots of us in my guild...although I haven't been on much the last few months

[cd288]

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

I don't understand how im one of the very few SKs on the server, there seems to be lots of us in my guild...although I haven't been on much the last few months

Your 40% (or if you’re a Troll or Ogre 60+%) exp penalty probably has something to do with it

[Loadsamoney]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Your 40% (or if you’re a Troll or Ogre 60+%) exp penalty probably has something to do with it

People still haven't adopted the whole "play what you want to play, not just what is statistically the best."

[cd288]

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

People still haven't adopted the whole "play what you want to play, not just what is statistically the best."

I mean I’m not obsessed with min/maxing my exp but I also do like to get SOME progress out of my very limited play time lol

[Loadsamoney]

Need more Paladins.

[DMN]

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

I don't think your perspective of the whole playerbase back then is all that accurate. Most people were not raid-focused in Kunark. They were just trying to get to level 60 or trying to figure things out. Virtually nobody had a Bard epic in Kunark era and I don't at all remember the playerbase being amazed by that epic specifically and rushing to make a Bard because they heard about it.

By the end of kunark people weren't raid focused? Really? so why the massive exodus of hybrids? They had already played their characters to 50+why were they abandoning them? And with kunark there were tons of new tings to keep the bigger/uber guilds occupied while the 90% of other guilds could move in to the planes left largely vacant. raiding became massively more accessible to everyone.

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

I wouldn't call Enchanter "passive" either. Constantly mezzing a bunch of mobs is quite an active role.

Well, I would, since the entire game is about killing shit and enchanters were never killing anything. It takes a certain type of person to play those roles.

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

1 year after the launch of the game is not the "majority of 1999" period that I was talking about.

I covered about 2 years, which is the majority of 99's scope.

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

The thing about Necros back then is they were constantly being nerfed by the time more people were realizing just how OP the class was

Because tons of people were playing them. The squeaky wheel gets the grease but in verant's world the squeaking mouse got "greased" as well.

Verant primarily used 2 ways to determine class adjustments (AKA nerfs/buffs) 1. how many people are choosing to play the class, and 2. how do the players generally feel about said class. I have no clue why they didn't do like in beta and have highly knowledgeable people give them feedback, but it's the path they chose nonetheless.

So your class could be incredibly overpowered and still get buffs if the pop of your class was small and most people thought you weren't a very good class. This is EXACTLY what happened to shaman/bard/enchanters who ere already overpowered in vanilla.

[Zuranthium]

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

By the end of kunark people weren't raid focused? Really? so why the massive exodus of hybrids? They had already played their characters to 50+why were they abandoning them? And with kunark there were tons of new tings to keep the bigger/uber guilds occupied while the 90% of other guilds could move in to the planes left largely vacant. raiding became massively more accessible to everyone.

There was a mass exodus of hybrids because more and more people learned about their exp penalty and because Warrior/Rogue/Monk were all given much better upgrades in Kunark. The first person to hit level 60 was a Ranger and he was publicly complaining about how bad the class was in Kunark, which caused a huge ripple effect. People in 1999 weren't complaining about a specific class being drastically underpowered in comparison to most others, aside from Rogues to some degree.

Raiding was hardly "massively accessible to everyone". Not even close. The planes were not "left largely vacant" in Kunark era and it still took a significantly populated and relatively skilled guild to do "trash mob" Planes clears, of which there really weren't that many when looking at the whole playerbase. First of all, you had to actually get to that level, and I don't think you understand how much of the EQ playerbase had trouble leveling back then, and how the majority of players were sub level 50 even in Kunark era still.

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

Well, I would, since the entire game is about killing shit and enchanters were never killing anything. It takes a certain type of person to play those roles.

Plenty of people are happy doing roles that aren't exclusively about "killing shit". Enchanters were capable of killing with Charm or the animation pet anyway. Charm wasn't used to the extent it is today, but it wasn't uncommon to see Enchanters use it for soloing or small groups, or even full groups in safer areas. Enchanters could often be seen in cities using Charm to throw guards into each other and level that way. The continually increasing knowledge of using Charm is part of what contributed to the class continually becoming more popular.

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

[Necros got nerfed because tons of people were playing them.

There were a solid amount of Necro players, but they didn't dominate the overall class counts at all. They were nerfed because of being clearly OP and the constant complaints of how imba it was. Plenty of abilities got nerfed back in the day that weren't from the most popular classes. Whirl Till You Hurl on Enchanters, for example.

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

your class could be incredibly overpowered and still get buffs if the pop of your class was small and most people thought you weren't a very good class. This is EXACTLY what happened to shaman/bard/enchanters who ere already overpowered in vanilla.

Those classes didn't get buffs, what are you talking about? Bards actually got their higher level Charm song nerfed. Enchanter did get Clarity after initially not having it very early on, but they got that skill after Whirl Till You Hurl was nerfed.

I wouldn't say Shaman was OP for the most part in Vanilla either, compared to a lot of other classes. They are just an inferior version of Druid until Level 34, really. They come into their own at that point and peak extremely well at Level 49/50, with powerful DoT's and their slow spells having reached maximum efficiency, but slows weren't as needed in that era and other casting classes could do more impressive things.

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

I covered about 2 years, which is the majority of 99's scope.

WTF? The game only existed for 9.5 months in 1999 (realistically less than that because of early server issues). That period of time + all of 2000 does not make the 1999 timeframe a "majority".

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

Dunno what server you were playing in the summer of 1999, but some rag came out with a review of EQ that claimed Necro the best class & Gnome the best race for Necro. Within two weeks orc hill in GFay and CB were overrun with Gnome Necros (on Tunare server at least, would be surprised if that was a unique experience). Necros were not rare.

Nobody said Necros were rare. They simply weren't one of the top played classes. Gnome Necros were able to be Agnostic back in the day, but it was changed. I'm sure there were spikes in how much Necro got played because of things like what you just mentioned, but the nerfs and "we don't want a Necro in our group" mentality from some of the playerbase also buffered it.

[DMN]

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

WTF? The game only existed for 9.5 months in 1999 (realistically less than that because of early server issues). That period of time + all of 2000 does not make the 1999 timeframe a "majority".

Whoa. You were literally talking about the year 1999, and not the general era that project 1999 is seeking to emulate?

Then I and any one else can safely dismiss you as being a loony on this entry alone :

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

05. Druid (plenty of nature lovers, very well rounded skillset)

Think I'll be cutting my losses on this dialog. You clearly have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Serves me right for giving benefit of the doubt.