Some noob questions

[unsunghero]

Heya all, just started on p99 last night, had wanted to play for years but the setup process seemed daunting to me. Turns out it wasn’t that bad! I played the original vanilla EQ a lot but had alt-itis, so I think my highest leg char was only like 38, which a bunch of lower level alts

Even though I don’t remember what I’m doing, already at lev 5 on chanter

Some noob questions:

I figured out the best view for me is first person zoomed out to become third person. This way I can use right click mouselook to turn the char. But unfortunately there is no way to use the left mouse button to look around in this view; the left mouse button does nothing. So, when I’m fighting in a dangerous area, I have to mouseturn (right click and hold) my char around the mob in circles to be able to spin the camera around 360 degrees to look around me to make sure something horrible isn’t pathing my way. Is there any way to use left mouse to spin the camera without turning the char? Or is my way the best/only way to keep an eye on surroundings when fighting?

Next question: weapon skills. I know as a chanter I won’t be meleeing for very long, but I wanted to at least try to keep my weapon skills and defense relatively up there. They are all lagging behind, and I still don’t even have 1h blunt at all (just pierce and 2hb). Do I have to be fighting something that gives exp in order to get melee/defense skill ups? If so, should I stall out on leveling and buy a junk 1h blunt in order to raise them as high as I can now before mobs will start completely wrecking me in melee range? I’m worried about keeping my defense skill up. However the idea of stopping leveling to let the lowest possible blue con mob beat on me for hours doesn’t seem all that appealing

Ty for any help with these questions. May ask more as a reply to this

[unsunghero]

Ok well I didn’t get any help with my camera question so I’ll try to offer my own solution. What I did was change the camera mode keybind from F9 to the B button. This is much easier for my fingers to reach. I still play mostly in first person zoomed out with the mouse scroll wheel. But for some reason this camera mode does not let you zoom out very far, nor does it let you look around by moving the camera with the left mouse

So while hunting or fighting in a zone, I have to hit B to change camera a few times, find the one that zooms very far out, and spin the camera around using right mouse button. It’s super awkward but at least it lets me pan the camera all around my char so I can make sure no high level KOS mob is walking up behind me to kill me. I know you all probably don’t like the dreaded WoW acronym but I wish the camera at least was a bit more like what I was used to from classic WoW where I could look around with the camera by holding left mouse [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Now about the green server and the community. Wow, not what I expected at all. First off, it’s incredibly busy. Every good mob site is perma camped. I tend to tunnel vision games when I enjoy them so I played like 15 hours straight deep into the morning at 4am last night. All the good camps STILL camped at 4am. And while the noobs are very friendly and high level players are cordial, this server is a shark tank. I get a vibe of “get the F out of my way, I got char progression to be doing” from everyone 100% of the time. People will say nice things and maybe answer a question, maybe toss out a buff or two, but that’s about the extent anyone gives a crap about me. No one really cares if I join their guild or not. I even had a few times where I was dying with a mob killing me, laying on the ground bleeding out, and new players stood there waiting for me to die so they could get my mob after, while high level players stepped right on my face as they ran over me dying super fast with SoW to their destination

The community is not mean, per se, but it is focused, and it seems like a shark tank to me. “Get gud, or get the F out of my way” like I said is the vibe I’m getting on Green...

This reply is for any lurkers still reading this thread

[plzrelax]

You can do shift+T to look behind you. It’s not classic but it certainly helps to have a rear view

[Ravager]

Left mouse button is for walking forward by default I think. You can change its bindings in options. Some mice don't let you right and left click simultaneously and that has nothing to do with the game. I've got a Surface mouse and that is one of the complaints people have with it, you can only click one button at a time.

[unsunghero]

This is apparently a common problem. I did a quick google search. Here's a few other people with the same issue:

From a 2016 thread: "I would also like to set up mouse-look so I can spin around to look without changing direction of my character and that's not seeming to work either. I am using a track-ball but it works with WoW and other games so I figured it should here on P1999 too"

From a 2010 thread: "However I have several issues, mostly with the mouse. How can I efficiently use the mouse to move around the camera (something like in wow). When I enable mouse look it turns the camera right when I move my mouse left"

From a 2014 thread: "As i remember it, in game you can hold down your left mouse button and look around without turning the character, when standing still, or when holding down keyboard movement buttons. I know mouse look is right button and actually turns the character. Mouse look is selected in options and is working just fine.


The basic consensus is that it is not possible to look around using the left mouse button. For that you have to change your viewpoint with F9 a few times to get a particular one, and then you can use the right mouse at that point to spin the camera around to look around without turning your character, but the controls will always be inverted. So moving the mouse to the right will spin the camera left and vice-versa. It is very disorienting. However, it is very important to use this when kiting a mob to be able to look behind you

Thus far, the best solution seems to be what I was already doing. I bound the change camera view command from F9 to the B keyboard key. Then when I am fighting or meditating in a dangerous area, I hit B a few times to get the max zoomed out camera view. Then I hold right mouse and spin the camera around a few times to look around (I also have to use this view when kiting). Then when I am ready to fight again, I go back to first person view using B and use the mousewheel to scroll out. It can be cumbersome but I am already used to it by now

[aspomwell]

My setup is a little different. All key-bindings are modified using the options screen (Alt-o).

I map shift-Z to my first person camera, scrolling back on the mouse-wheel kicks me back to the 3rd person view you mentioned.

I map shift-X to the 3rd-person camera view that doesn't turn you but lets you see all around you, sorry, not logged in and can't tell you exactly which camera view that is.

I switch between those two cameras constantly, and since these apply to the client and not character it behaves the same way between all my toons.

Likewise, I have shift-C and shift-V set to open all bags and close all bags, way helpful.

I also have my strafe left button (A) overridden to also press hotkey10, which on all my characters does a sense heading, and a loc, and any other character specific thing I may want to train up (forage, track). This way it automatically gets hit everytime I hit the A key. ZLizmaps and Nparse can both use this to display your location and orientation on their maps, but even if you don't use those tools having a loc close to where you died is very helpful in locating your corpse, and seriously, who actually clicks a forage button?

[unsunghero]

appreciate the feedback on the camera stuff

You know what I love? I love how every single guard in every single town, and every single guard tower in the entire game are stuck in an endless loop of dying over and over and over

I was trying to do the stein of moggok quest, and stopped by erudin for the Erud's tonic. Figured I'd hit up the bank there. Being bound 4 zones away in NK wasn't a big deal because there was no way I was going to die in a major city

NOPE. Turns out friendly fire is a thing. And as soon as I teleported into the palace, it was a war zone of massacred guards like every other city in this game. My screen had barely finished loading when I was hit for 850 damage by some NPC wizard's AOE because I happened to have teleported in near someone killing guards

Gotta love min/max culture which requires everyone and their mother camp every guard in the game 24/7. Really gets you immersed...

[TripSin]

Re: weapon/defense skills as an enchanter: You are correct in that you will only be meleeing at very low levels. For skill ups, the enemy can't be too lower level than you. They can be green, but they have to be high enough level green (I think yeah for when you'd get xp). I don't think it's worth worrying about and going out of your way to try to train.

Re: the constant killing of city guards: Good targets that you can solo are a limited, scarce resource as you've already stated. If you get that high in level you will see and probably find yourself killing them as well at some points. I've never been hit by guard AoE. That just sounds unlucky. But getting deleted on zone in by something silly is a classic EQ experience.

Re: camera: I personally just switch between first person and third person as needed with mouse scroll. Changed binds to WASD for movement. To pan the camera hold right click and move mouse. Shift+t to look behind you (can be rebound, will be useful when charming as enc). If I need to look around me while medding, I hit F9 three times (I should maybe rebind this) and hold right click again to pan the camera. Another useful bind for charming is the cycle between last two targets.

Re: people letting you die. You can't expect people to babysit you. Higher level characters don't really have reasons to be sitting there in newbie yards, they are likely just passing through. If you need help you should ask for it. Or get into a group and then yes, you can expect your groupmates to help you (but as an enchanter you are playing the most dangerous and execution/skill-dependent class in the game so you will want to learn to be as self-reliant as possible because death comes often and comes incredibly fast for enchanters).

[unsunghero]

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

Re: weapon/defense skills as an enchanter: You are correct in that you will only be meleeing at very low levels. For skill ups, the enemy can't be too lower level than you. They can be green, but they have to be high enough level green (I think yeah for when you'd get xp). I don't think it's worth worrying about and going out of your way to try to train.

Re: the constant killing of city guards: Good targets that you can solo are a limited, scarce resource as you've already stated. If you get that high in level you will see and probably find yourself killing them as well at some points. I've never been hit by guard AoE. That just sounds unlucky. But getting deleted on zone in by something silly is a classic EQ experience.

Re: camera: I personally just switch between first person and third person as needed with mouse scroll. Changed binds to WASD for movement. To pan the camera hold right click and move mouse. Shift+t to look behind you (can be rebound, will be useful when charming as enc). If I need to look around me while medding, I hit F9 three times (I should maybe rebind this) and hold right click again to pan the camera. Another useful bind for charming is the cycle between last two targets.

Re: people letting you die. You can't expect people to babysit you. Higher level characters don't really have reasons to be sitting there in newbie yards, they are likely just passing through. If you need help you should ask for it. Or get into a group and then yes, you can expect your groupmates to help you (but as an enchanter you are playing the most dangerous and execution/skill-dependent class in the game so you will want to learn to be as self-reliant as possible because death comes often and comes incredibly fast for enchanters).

Yeah whoever was killing guards must have aggro'd this level 61 NPC wizard. I looked up the NPC who killed me, was a lev 61 wizard who also killed the 2 people killing guards right next to me

And I have been helped with buffs many times, even offered ports by friendly high levels. The community in this game is pretty awesome TBH

Although I don't really need much help. By level 14, I was able to save 600pp without selling bonechips or crushbone belts or any of that (wasn't much of a market for that from what I was seeing). The only downside of Green from what I've been seeing in the EC tunnel is that the prices on Green for just about every piece of gear, no matter the seller, are higher than any previous sale EVER listed on the wikki, and no one is willing to come down on price. Green prices just seem inflated. Also, I'm finding out that that it lacks some serious QoL stuff like no tab cycling which I probably spent 30 minutes trying to figure out why the button was bugged, trying all these different hotkeys

Now I see Blue population last night was only 200 or so below Green. Wouldn't be surprised if Green ends up being sort of a "fad" and everyone flocks back to Blue due to the QoL changes there. If so, no big deal, will mean more spawn camps open on Green then lol

[TripSin]

Sure you have *some* ridiculously greedy people, but in my experience (I also play enchanter, now in upper 40s - though I haven't been playing much at all in recent months) everything I've bought was at or near the average price listed on the wiki (you can also check: https://unixgeek.com/last-week-P1999Green.html). Most enchanter gear is pretty affordable. I personally always sell my stuff at the average or even lower.

Yes, Green makes it even much harder than it normally is to be an enchanter due to things like not allowing the ability to cycle through targets and not letting us have the pet window like blue. I definitely would not count on green being a "fad". Green may or may not be merged into blue at some point in the future, but that would be long into the future. If you want to more easily find groups at lower and all levels, Green is where you want to be. If you just want to solo, want those QoL features, and prefer the blue economy then yeah you may want to play on that server instead.