Green 2.0 advice

[cd288]

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

A server can certainly be classic without doing 1:1 patches. You do know that you can't wind the clock back to actual '99, right...

And no, "cd288", I'm not talking from an "I" perspective here, but from a healthier server in general perspective as in what would benefit the majority and health of the servers the most in the long run, as stated numerous times by now. But you seem very stuck in a "me, me, me"-perspective, so I get why you wouldn't understand something like that.

And enough with your childish "go find another server" arguments, as you very well know there are none even close.

Except you’re acting like your opinion is some massively held opinion that makes all these large numbers of people go “well I would play P99 if it wasn’t for them making manastones classic”

In reality, there aren’t really any of those people. Theirs not some huge group of people sitting around just waiting for P99 to take manastones out of the game in order to join the server. The server is just fine. We have close to 2k pop a lot of the time across both servers.

You can have your opinion but stop acting like you just have some altruistic intention in mind to help all these people play P99

[cd288]

Also does anyone think this guy types a LOT like DSM? Lol

[Calmethar]

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

Except you’re acting like your opinion is some massively held opinion that makes all these large numbers of people go “well I would play P99 if it wasn’t for them making manastones classic”

In reality, there aren’t really any of those people. Theirs not some huge group of people sitting around just waiting for P99 to take manastones out of the game in order to join the server. The server is just fine. We have close to 2k pop a lot of the time across both servers.

You can have your opinion but stop acting like you just have some altruistic intention in mind to help all these people play P99

No, wrong again, I've never said that either, so maybe you should just stop being such a smart-arse all the time, huh.

Here's what I said: "Here's a wishlist".

And no, "cd288", I'm not "acting", I do have an altruistic intention, mainly to get younger generations interested in the great aspects of old EQ. And time-limited items for one is the opposite of that. But e.g. leaving them as is for all to enjoy throughout the lifetime of a server might actually very well attract a few more players, get them to stick around longer, or even spread the word of the fun to be had.

The same goes for trading as long as the majority of players are in just one specific timezone. The option of e.g. AFK-trading as well in the tunnel wouldn't ruin everything that's "classic". That's just a desperate attempt of an argument, as no one can really define what "classic" actually is, as it's very much an individual thing. It doesn't have a set in stone definition, so you don't get to decide what's exactly "classic" and what's not, "cd288". It's about the game and the servers, not about some overused silly term that doesn't define anything in actuality.

As in if the game closed down for an entire day back in '99, it wouldn't be true "classic" if that didn't also happen in 2022. It doesn't work like that, it's a new day and it's a new game, so throwing around that imaginary "classic" term gets us nowhere.

But now we're at it, there's definitely more that could be added to the list of catering to new and younger players, to get them interested in the niche genre that is the great aspects of old EQ. One example could be removing both the race and class exp. penalties entirely from the "timeline". Another could be to add "Trivial loot code" for a good deal of lower level nameds, so that lower level players actually have the chance of "getting lucky" with a drop now and then, instead of seeing anything worthwhile being camped 24/7 by level 60 players, who could earn more plat per hour by just grinding anyway.

And I'm sure there's a lot of other options that could be discussed as well to benefit the servers a great deal in the long run. You, for one, are clearly not willing to do that, and that's fine, but stop throwing straw man arguments my way if you've got nothing actual to contribute with anyway.

Also does anyone think this guy types a LOT like DSM? Lol

I told you to stop with the childish arguments, "cd288". That should be easy enough to comprehend.

[cd288]

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

No, wrong again, I've never said that either, so maybe you should just stop being such a smart-arse all the time, huh.

Also from Calmethar: "But there's always something to be done from a population aspect, as when the bulk of those players reach max. level and some of them eventually grow tired for whatever reason, the servers will always need fresh players to keep the grouping options open throughout the leveling range. And perhaps 1.5-2k would be a healthier number for both servers, also making it much more possible and viable to actually fire up a third server."

TLDR for the second quote above: Said in the context of the population would be larger if we got rid of time limited items either by removing them or making them drop forever.

Seems like you definitely said what I said you did huh?

[Calmethar]

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

Also from Calmethar: "But there's always something to be done from a population aspect, as when the bulk of those players reach max. level and some of them eventually grow tired for whatever reason, the servers will always need fresh players to keep the grouping options open throughout the leveling range. And perhaps 1.5-2k would be a healthier number for both servers, also making it much more possible and viable to actually fire up a third server."

TLDR for the second quote above: Said in the context of the population would be larger if we got rid of time limited items either by removing them or making them drop forever.

Seems like you definitely said what I said you did huh?

No, I specifically did not, smart-arse, but you keep purposefully dragging things completely out of context to try to suit your twisted straw man arguments, as you got nothing to contribute with whatsoever, that's crystal clear to everyone by now.

Here's what I wrote:

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

But making it less of a pain for non-US time-zone players, especially newer ones, to do some early trading would help them stick around more often. That was the point of that remark, feel free to suggest other things that could help the P99 servers in a healthy direction for all of us.

And the part you cut out of your quotation above:

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

With a healthy direction I didn't just mean population-wise.

I was quite clearly adressing the AFK-trading option, and even more clearly stating that I didn't just mean population-wise.

And here's where "cd288" goes completely haywire. This quote from "cd288" below here was specifically what I was directly quoting and adressing while I stated

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

No, wrong again, I've never said that either

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

Except you’re acting like your opinion is some massively held opinion that makes all these large numbers of people go “well I would play P99 if it wasn’t for them making manastones classic”

In reality, there aren’t really any of those people. Theirs not some huge group of people sitting around just waiting for P99 to take manastones out of the game in order to join the server. The server is just fine. We have close to 2k pop a lot of the time across both servers.

You can have your opinion but stop acting like you just have some altruistic intention in mind to help all these people play P99

That has absolutely nothing to do with:

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

Said in the context of the population would be larger if we got rid of time limited items either by removing them or making them drop forever.

Zip, zero, nothing. Clutching at straws like a mad. What a forum-warrior.
"cd288", dragging things completely out of context since '99. Or were you even born there.

Enough with the children's games, troll. Find someone elses posts to blatantly harash.

[PabloEdvardo]

These camps were camped by 10-20 people 24/7 from the moment it was possible to camp them until the moment they were removed from the game.

That's not even close to true. Manastone, Jboots, Rubi BP, and Guise all had relatively low numbers for the first month or two.

It wasn't until after the Teal and Green merge, and the month prior to the nerf, at which point the situation you're describing occurred.

I did all of those list camps prior to the merge.

Fear and Hate were rotated between guilds in 8-hour blocks, with each guild owning 1-3 blocks. A guild would fully clear the Plane of Fear during each of their eight-hour blocks in order to fully utilize their slot and get as much loot as they can.

Also not true. Guilds were competing for FTE on spawns. Guilds showed up when mobs were respawning and if they got FTE they would OOC the message. It was highly competitive.

In addition, next launch, mobs will have an 8-16 hour window, instead of just 8 hours, which will change this dynamic greatly.

Expect clerics and shamans wearing Lustrous Russet Boots, rogues wearing Lustrous Russet Breastplate, bards wearing Lustrous Russet Bracer, and more.

The hate armor is supposed to drop in Plane of Fear until Hate is added when it's moved there. Green did not implement this properly. As far as who will wear what, everyone will be seeking out LR armor regardless of class. The bracer and gauntlets are the most sought after items and hardest to acquire.

Fear and Hate were rotated between guilds in 8-hour blocks, with each guild owning 1-3 blocks. A guild would fully clear the Plane of Hate during each of their eight-hour blocks in order to fully utilize their slot and get as much loot as they can. The level cap is still 50, so it’s quite difficult. Expect to wipe sometimes.

Again, not entirely true. Not all guilds participated in the UN agreements, some went up and competed for FTE on spawns. It also wasn't purely an 8 hour block rotation, most guilds got a day or two including multiple blocks.

Supposedly Seal Team would do Plane of Sky using almost exclusively mages

Correct. If you want to farm PoS in classic, you need a mage army with lvl49 air pets. This also means that "Words of Incarceration" will be in extremely high demand. You can farm them off things like the Imps in SolB near Efreeti.

[loramin]

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

It wasn't until after the Teal and Green merge, and the month prior to the nerf, at which point the situation you're describing occurred.

This was not true, for the manastone camp on Teal at least. That camp had a full list (with maybe an average of five people on it) for months prior to the merge. I know because I tried (and sadly failed) to get one.

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

Also does anyone think this guy types a LOT like DSM? Lol

He does strongly resemble DSM.

[PabloEdvardo]

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

This was not true, for the manastone camp on Teal at least. That camp had a full list (with maybe an average of five people on it) for months prior to the merge. I know because I tried (and sadly failed) to get one.



He does strongly resemble DSM.

It was true on Green

Edit: In general, I agree with the sentiments in this thread that something needs to be done about p99 raiding and content progression.

Again and again we've been told that this isn't about creating a 1:1 forensic reproduction of classic everquest, but that some non-classic changes are because they want the game to give the classic experience when playing. Meaning, they want it to feel like you're playing in 1999 again.

I did NToV on Live across two servers, two "uber" guilds, and both of them did not pull the dragons. We would move them slightly within their lairs or pull them maybe down a hallway, but we weren't doing entrance pulls and kiteouts and trains. Rooting the dragons actually does bring the experience closer to what it was like on live. This is one example of how they've used non-classic changes to produce a classic experience.

So I also believe they need to strongly reconsider things like having multiple servers or raid content spawn rates or instancing. The number and intensity of raid guilds on these servers is unlike the majority of the experiences that players had on live. On live each server had raiding guilds which stuck to "their lane", and because new content was always coming out (new expansions, progression) rather than guilds competing for the top content, they progressed their members along the content and geared them up along the way. Once a player was geared through previous content in one guild, they would often leave and join the next guild up.

We see this a little bit in p99 with how guilds will be doing fear/hate in kunark while other guilds are chasing kunark dragons and VP, but once velious is reached and progression ends, the natural stratification of the guilds goes away completely.

In addition, p99 is extremely top-heavy when left to one server. Since 2-3 guilds on p99 all end up targeting the same "tier" of content, yet the spawn rates of the monsters is unaffected (and arguably even worse due to variances), players end up with a non-classic experience when it comes to loot availability. If on a Live server you only had maybe 100-150 players in an uber guild needing to be equipped on their mains, on p99 players often have 2 or more raiding level characters they regularly use, meaning with multiple guilds you might have 600-800 characters competing for the same drop availability.

Unlike Live when a guild would get every single spawn of specific bosses until they chose to progress past it, with competition on p99 guilds often get only a percentage of those kills.

All of this compounds into extremely low average loot availability for most players, and because progression dies at Velious, the top guilds never stop wanting Velious loot, and continue to farm it for years for their new members and alts, meaning other guilds are actually still actively prevented from progressing naturally to those bosses like they were in classic and kunark.

tl;dr is that more non-classic changes could do a lot to restore the classic raid experience on p99 instead of this completely non-classic competitive system with a fraction of the loot available per member

ideas like: get rid of variance, quadruple the spawn rate, add automated random weekly quakes, allow guild+character based instancing with lockouts, increase the number of items dropped per table, have multiple servers running the same timeline so you only have one uber guild per server, etc.

what we have today is NOT a classic experience, and this comes from someone who did progression raiding on live across multiple guilds, on two servers, and who also raided Green with a top guild, doing all the content

[Calmethar]

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

He does strongly resemble DSM.

No, I don't.

[Calmethar]

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

ideas like: get rid of variance, quadruple the spawn rate, add automated random weekly quakes, allow guild+character based instancing with lockouts, increase the number of items dropped per table, have multiple servers running the same timeline so you only have one uber guild per server, etc.

what we have today is NOT a classic experience, and this comes from someone who did progression raiding on live across multiple guilds, on two servers, and who also raided Green with a top guild, doing all the content

All good suggestions, which should be discussed, as there should always be room for improvement.

Simple lockout timers, not even instanced, would by itself make for a much more enjoyable experience for everyone, as the respawn rate could even be instant then.