Red server status...A biography

[Socratos]

I thought it would be neat to create a thread where I give my own opinions of the server so far as an outsider now inside of the community. One that I can update as the time or need arises. I wanted to do this because of all of the vitriol I have seen directed at both the server, and those who play within it. Keep in mind my opinions are my own, and colored by my own experiences. As such I will paint a picture of my time with the game as a whole, and how I ended up on red.

I am not an old friend of everquest. I never played on live, and up until about a month and a half or so ago I had never even seen the game. Only heard talk of it being the predecessor to WoW. Some documentary I had seen on youtube was where I originally heard the name many years ago. I was bored of modern mmos and craved a game that didn't feel like a single player experience (heh pretty ironic for the road ahead). I found p99 and was determined to play it. First hurdle was even getting the thing installed. I can say many great things about the community I have met while playing this game. I have nothing nice to say about the official discord, though. Is and was the most unfriendly community I have had the displeasure of interacting with. Unhelpful, and straight up rude. I left it pretty quickly. Had I not been absolutely determined to try the game that "birthed" WoW I would have never given this game a chance because of the discord. Not everyone I encountered was rude. There are enough egotistical characters to successfully prevent the oddball player from joining in it though, that is for sure.

With that mini rant out of the way I saw that green was the most fresh server available so promptly joined it. I made a half elf bard. No idea what I am doing and hell if it wasn't a difficult start. I expected to pull idk 4 mobs and just start murdering everything around my starting zone. Not only did I realize I couldn't treat this like WoW and just chain pull mobs, but the mobs in a zone could vary wildly. I have probably racked up at least 300 deaths since I started playing. Anyways some point around lvl 9-12 I had a friendly druid by the name of Bromanz adopt me. He showed me what PLing was, and sent me on my way with a fat pocket at about lvl 20. He took me to Runnyeye. I fell in love with the game at Runnyeye. I made an erudite enchanter next and had much the same experience. Everyone has been so nice in game. Bromanz who I previously mentioned actuallly helped many people lvl. I noticed for the entire time I played he was always grabbing some low lvl player and helping them get through the low lvls quickly. He is an angel and I have only nice things to say about whoever they are. The worst encounters I've had is just players remaining silent. Far cry from what I have seen in my years of WoW. Any who I felt like maybe I wasn't experiencing the game the "legit" way. The way one might experience it on live back in the day. I gave away everything and started anew. Self found with a stable of alts that are also self found trading amongst themselves. Was a lot of fun. I got "far" it seemed in the time I played on green. One thing that I forgot to mention that kind of crushed my expectations is the grouping. I guess maybe this game is old and figured out, but grouping before lvl 13 is almost impossible. After 13 if you aren't in one specific area of the game you are just going to be soloing. Kind of crap since I started playing specifically to play support classes for groups. People simply do not want to group. It's the entire reason I started playing, but couldn't find one. Everyone is twinked out the wazoo because the server is so old so they probably get by better solo instead of splitting xp. I had a love of dungeons and wanted to experience each fully. Those hopes died pretty quickly. At least the hope that I would be able to do it with a group organically. There are certain zones that get used, and the others are just left to wither away. Kind of sad to realize this, but such is the life of an old game. A nagging feeling began to emerge within the warrens specifically. Perma camps. I noticed since I was soft locking myself to certain dungeons with different characters I would see the same characters on every single day seemingly all day long for the entire month and a half I played. I learned they were permanently camping certain mobs. I don't even know what kinds of stuff these kinds of mobs drop, but a lvl 60 permamently camping a lvl 18 mob? Especially marked as anon so you can't even see if it is probably take or not? More on the anon stuff later, but it was just jarring to see. Most of my gaming experience has been with instancing so this is a relatively new problem for me. Just didn't sit right with me. After brief research I learned what perma camps were, and how the "solution" was to simply play the game for the next year and hope one of them messes up and allows you the "honor" of fighting something. I am new so could be far off base with this. It just didn't feel right. I had a thought. First off it not just being a dps race seems stupid to me as an outsider. It not being a first to tag seems stupid to me. It all just seems dumb. Oh but if one could fight someone for a camp....hmmmm maybe that would be cool. So with my dreams of self found kinda crushed to find out I have next to no shot at farming my own nice gear, mixed with me seeing people in EC tunnel trying to sell mob kills I said red seems like trying out. After all I only ever really pvped in WoW anyways.

Now to the part in my journey about red. I did some reading on the Wiki. Confused me greatly. At this point I hadn't quite seen lvl 30 on a toon yet. I did some digging and reading. I asked on the aforementioned discord where I was greeted by a particularly disdainful fellow. It put me off of red. All I could see anywhere about red is players from green or blue shitting on it. To the point that I honestly expect this post to get several comments from those folks saying something along the lines of "Nice job rextar3070 we know it's you and you suck eat it we hate red it's dead". I'm not sure if the red community has been ugly in the past to them or not. I don't know the history. All I know is red players are foaming at the mouth for a reset and green and blue players like to hop in and make fun of them. It's actually worse than that. I was actively discouraged and turned away from red by them. Almost like they don't want players on red. If you aren't playing red, or aren't actively thinking about playing red then why are you even popping in to pour salt in a wound and stir up crap? That is neither here nor there. I have problems with red, but thought it important to mention this in the case that anyone else has thought of trying out red.

I found out I can use my same login account and stuff for red. I actually asked chatgpt what class to play first. Gave me necro. Hey I made a lvl 8 necro may as well check it out. So the bad stuff up front like ripping a bandaid off. Red server feels a bit lonely. The population has fluctuated from about 18 players to 79 players since I have been watching it. Low population and solo heavy gameplay so far. I have a lvl 14 iksar necro, and a lvl 8 erudite enchanter. I have not gotten a group yet. Honestly this is no different for me so far than green though. I have seen a few players out in the world. one was actually a shaman that was a bit higher lvl than me. I asked him to group up for kurns, he declined. Wanting to know what the pvp was about I decided to engage him. I killed him, though not very fulfilling. Would have rather grouped, but the knowledge of what spells work in pvp and what spells don't (fear) was nice to gain.

Something that I understand the why for is the anon and roleplaying tag stuff. I totally understand why it is there. I don't like it at all, though. You're playing on a pvp server, presumably because you enjoy pvp. Why hide behind the anon tag? I have seen the derogatory name of blubie to reference players scared of pvp. I think playing on a pvp server and trying to hide where you are is being much more scared than the blubies. At least they are openly admitting they don't want pvp. An entire pvp server sitting hidden just feels like you are playing on a pvp server just to say you're on a pvp server.When I can /who all 1 60 and I am the only person to come up though? Eh, kind of sounds like you're scared to be engaged unless you have an overwhelming edge and buffed up to the nines. I understand no one cares and the mechanics of a 20 year old game isn't going to change. What would be way way way better is an anon tag with a time limit cd. If you go hunting you can switch on Anon for up to x amount of time so that the players can't see you coming. With some sort of cd on when you are allowed to activate it again. The current system is just meh. I hate it. I don't know if this is exactly how it was on live back in the day, but I just hate the anon tag. I even disliked it when I played green. The anon tag seems to me from everyone I have spoken to that have it is a way for you to say you don't want to interact with other people in a game that is praised for the fact you need to interact with players. If you're one of those high valued buff giving classes I can kind of understand it. I did make it a point to not offer any buffs or assistance to those wearing the tag on green. If you don't wish to be bothered by the community then I don't think you should be allowed to bother the community. Though it did make a lot of sense for the dial a port guys.

Long rant over. I haven't noticed any meaningful difference in playing on red as opposed to green so far. The only real difference is camps are open. I have a sneaking suspicion that as I grow in lvl I would have reached the lvls in which players on the green begin teaming up for groups a lot more. I will cross that path in red once I meet it and hopefully keep this post updated. I have had people on the red server tell me the pvp is unfair, sweaty, and a joke on the server. My opinions are still a blank slate at the moment. I look forward to playing more, and interacting with you more. To anyone who spent the time to read this thanks and feel free to leave a comment or even hate on me.

To leave it at the bottom in case anyone skipped down. Red server seems fine so far. The only difference I have noticed up to lvl 14 is I don't see people running by doing their own things as much

[Jimjam]

Tldr:

I have seen a few players out in the world. one was actually a shaman that was a bit higher lvl than me. I asked him to group up for kurns, he declined. Wanting to know what the pvp was about I decided to engage him. I killed him, though not very fulfilling. Would have rather grouped

I have a sneaking suspicion that as I grow in lvl I would have reached the lvls in which players on the green begin teaming up for groups a lot more.

[Salaryman]

RED99

Didn't read.

RED99

[Duik]

DED99

Also didn't read.

DED99

[Swish]

There's a base 50% XP bonus on red between 1-50. If you get to group it'll get bigger per group member (designed to get you to the 50s faster).

Camps are open, mobs are up. The same people who won't play red because of the lower population complain about having to camp share/rule lawyers and are happy waiting in line for pixels for months/years.

[spoil]

You wanted to experience group PvE, so you left green for red. Okay.

[Pseudechis]

Guys leveling in Kunark on red. Not classic. Go battle the mistmoore fungi twinks.