5k Bounty for Classic Research (Are You a Wayback Machine Pro?)

[Lhancelot]

Have faith in the forumquesters here, ask your question and nearly everytime it will get some sort of response and answer with zero reward needed.

I am pretty sure Daldaen, Rygar, etc. would have tried to help regardless of a 5k reward being offered.

All a reward offer did was create dialogue that had nothing to do with the actual question in the thread. Like my post here. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Daldaen]

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

Very nice find Daldaen, thank you!

I'm still a little curious, just because that source is from 2005 (it references the "Dragons of Norath" expansion, which I'd never even heard of, and I played for years after the classic period). As a result, what they refer to as "the old formula" might just be the formula from 2004-2005. In other words, if there was ever a change to the formula in the six year period before that post (not an unreasonable possibility), it may not have shown up in that post ... but there's no way to know as there's no "old old formula" mentioned there.

Still, that was great sleuthing, so maybe I should award half the prize? I totally want to be fair and give the promised reward, but since the above doesn't conclusively show that successes affected skill-ups in 1999-2001 it doesn't feel like it quite meets the criteria.

I'll leave it up to the forum: at the very least I owe Daldaen (or a proxy of his choosing) 2.5k, and if the consensus is that this is conclusive proof and I'm just being nitpicky then Daldaen will win the whole thing.

So some EverQuest history, the DoN expansion was the one to increase the Tradeskill cap from 250->300. Because of this increase, as well as the Stat cap increases made possible by PoP/OoW level increases and AA lines like Planar Power + Innate Enlightenment, the "old" formula did not make sense any longer, and needed to be modified to account for the new skill cap.

Now you can read into this and say "well of course it could've been changed from 2001-2004". Yes, that is within the realm of possibility. But outside of a developer quote in that era (which as far as I'm concerned doesn't exist, I have looked), you will never have definitive proof. Logically, there is little reason to believe they changed the formula in that time period, particularly because of how friendly those calculations are for later expansion stat cap.

In PoP a 65 caster can reach 355 WIS/INT. In OoW a 70 caster can reach 405 WIS/INT. If the formula had been changed in the 2002-2004 period, one would assume it would be changed such that it accounts for these higher WIS/INT values that effectively make the first Check irrelevant as you will always pass it (unless difficulty 4 TS + failure).

I don't care about the Platinum. Charm a skeleton in some newbie zone and feed him the Platinum and let new players crush skeletons trying to find it.

[loramin]

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

ow you can read into this and say "well of course it could've been changed from 2001-2004". Yes, that is within the realm of possibility. But outside of a developer quote in that era (which as far as I'm concerned doesn't exist, I have looked), you will never have definitive proof.

First off, it could also have changed in 1999-2001, and that might still explain things (eg. if people set beliefs in 99, but din't update them when things changed). But to the main point, I realize you can't prove a negative. What I was hoping to find was ... look back in the day it was "common knowledge" that skill-ups were independent of success. This "fact" was repeated many times in old forums. Whether it was true or not I can't say, but it was a belief held by many back then.

So if people were spreading bad information, at some point the correct information became known, and at that point there should be forum posts of people correcting the mistake. Alternatively, if the belief was correct at some point and stopped being correct there should be evidence of that. But the whole community of tradeskillers with belief X should not be able to switch to belief Y without some record of it, and that's what I had hoped that someone could find (or if someone can find a way to access the old EQ traders forum posts I could probably find it myself).

[Lifebar]

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

Someone just made 5k... or got their account banned for RMT... I'm still not sure what is going on here.

My whynotboth.jpg is still on cooldown.

[Daldaen]

Wrong.

You are missing the *10 to the stat. Basically it's redundant because the 10 multiplier and the 10 divisor cancel out. Just gonna use your first example:

240 / (2 * 1) = 120%

This means every successful combine on a difficulty 2 tradeskill with 255 WIS/INT, will pass check 1.

Which brings you onward to check 2. Which is determined by your current skill. If your skilll is 190+ it's a flat 5%.

But honestly outside of JC/Alchemy and niche Tailoring stuff, tradeskills are useless on a Velious locked server. Once Luclin or PoP release they all actually start to have value.

[Rygar]

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

Wrong.

You are missing the *10 to the stat. Basically it's redundant because the 10 multiplier and the 10 divisor cancel out. Just gonna use your first example:

240 / (2 * 1) = 120%

This means every successful combine on a difficulty 2 tradeskill with 255 WIS/INT, will pass check 1.

Which brings you onward to check 2. Which is determined by your current skill. If your skilll is 190+ it's a flat 5%.

But honestly outside of JC/Alchemy and niche Tailoring stuff, tradeskills are useless on a Velious locked server. Once Luclin or PoP release they all actually start to have value.

Doh! Careless of me, and now it makes sense that Pass #1 would be easier than Pass #2.

And trade skills are useful as a tear soaked badge of honor!

Fixed Pass #1 formulas:

Pass #1 values:
Successful Combine w/ 255 wisdom, tradeskill difficulty = 2:
((240 * 10) / (2 * 1)) / 10 = 120% chance for skill up

Successful Combine w/ 255 wisdom, tradeskill difficulty = 4:
((240 * 10) / (4 * 1)) / 10 = 60% chance for skill up

Failed Combine w/ 255 wisdom, tradeskill difficulty = 2:
((240 * 10) / (2 * 2)) / 10 = 60% chance for skill up

Failed Combine w/ 255 wisdom, tradeskill difficulty = 4:
((240 * 10 / (4 * 2)) / 10 = 30% chance for skill up

Just for giggles using lower level wisdom of 150 for comparison:

Pass #1 values:
Successful Combine w/ 150 wisdom, tradeskill difficulty = 2:
((135 * 10) / (2 * 1)) / 10 = 67.5% chance for skill up

Successful Combine w/ 150 wisdom, tradeskill difficulty = 4:
((135 * 10) / (4 * 1)) / 10 = 33.75% chance for skill up

Failed Combine w/ 150 wisdom, tradeskill difficulty = 2:
((135 * 10) / (2 * 2)) / 10 = 33.75% chance for skill up

Failed Combine w/ 150 wisdom, tradeskill difficulty = 4:
((135 * 10 / (4 * 2)) / 10 = 16.875% chance for skill up

Question remains if staff would accept this as ample evidence that successful combines were indeed higher skill up percentage than failed combines (part of the criteria of Loramin's bounty). I thought I saw in a thread you uninstalled P99, so not sure if you even care to collect or maybe donate it to a noob!

[HippoNipple]

Everyone saying this is RMT needs to take a break from this game before it is too late.

[Baler]

REAL WORLD TRADE

If staff let this slide they have to allow other Real World Trades with In Game plat acceptable.

[loramin]

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

REAL WORLD TRADE

If staff let this slide they have to allow other Real World Trades with In Game plat acceptable.

While I understand the "slipper slope" argument, I have to disagree with this. The staff are not automatons, they're people. If they can reasonably distinguish "real RMT" from an attempt to make the server more classic then they can absolutely allow one and not the other. Hell, that's the legal standard of obscenity right (you know it when you see it)?

I'm not saying I won't get in trouble for this, but I'm willing to take the chance, and at least if I am wrong hopefully the staff will take mercy on me because of my intentions.

[Baler]

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

While I understand the "slipper slope" argument,

So it's okay for me to sell everything and anything related to p99 or classic everquest for in game plat?

Information specifically.

I'll join an 'enemy' guild just to sell information about them. Based on loramin's "bounty" this is acceptable atm. Given the staff have not closed this yet.
This isn't eve online where scamming and subterfuge is allowed.

---
again I know people are going to call me bad names for being so picky. but slippery slope or not. This is bad. BECAUSE OF BAD EGGS IN THE PAST.