A Few Questions about P99 on Green

[Kaa]

Hey Everyone,

I wasn't sure where to post this so I posted it here, but feel free obviously to move it if this is the wrong place.

I've been playing and greatly enjoying P99 Green recently but I have a few questions about exactly what it is; apologies if this has been answered elsewhere, I hope it hasn't.

I understand that Green is an 'EQ Emulator' but what exactly does that mean? Namely:

How was the server built? Does it read data from the official EQ servers? For example, will presently unsolved quests on EQ Live (I'm convinced there remain at least one or two) exist on P99 servers or not?

Secondly. How 'classic' is Green? I understand the server staff has taken great pains to make everything era-appropriate and I for one am extremely grateful for this. Have there been any decisions to deliberately make certain aspects non-classic?

Does the existence of manastones for example make raids (or soloing, or grouping...I'm not sure which) trivially easy (for people who own one) by comparison to how they were in 1999-2000? Were manastones removed from players' inventories when they were removed from the game back then, or left in the inventories of players fortunate enough to have them?

Lastly, is there any hope of getting the music fixed completely? I'm extremely grateful that the old/classic music plays at all, but there's some kind of bug where often it plays in two keys simultaneously or otherwise is discordant. I'm guessing this isn't fixable.

Again, I wasn't sure where to ask these questions, sorry for any noob questions here.

Best of luck and happy hunting, and THANK YOU for making and running this server!!

[loramin]

http://wiki.project1999.com/Non-Classic_Compendium answers most of your questions. As for:

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

I understand that Green is an 'EQ Emulator' but what exactly does that mean? Namely:

How was the server built? Does it read data from the official EQ servers? For example, will presently unsolved quests on EQ Live (I'm convinced there remain at least one or two) exist on P99 servers or not?

EQ Emulator is open source software, made by fans using data recorded from the live servers ... but it's 100% fan-written: no one had access to Verant/SOE's code. P99 runs a customized version of that software, tailored to re-creating '99-'01 (the open source version, which you yourself could download and run a server with, if you wanted, is very different).

By using that old game data they've re-created things very closely to how they were back then, and that includes leaving all incomplete quests (as of 2001 just before Luclin's release) incomplete here as well.

[BlackBellamy]

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

Hey Everyone,

..... ....... ....... ...... ......?

This server is a snapshot of the game as it was in 1999. So whatever was fixed or broken then is in the same state now. And if it didn't get fixed or added until Luclin, it will never be. And if whatever you're thinking was changed/added in Luclin or later, you'll never see it here.

There's tons of non-classic functionality around, starting with the UI. They do what they can. I'm sure at any given time someone is starting "Dis not klassik!!" thread with their favorite thing they surely remember but can't really prove was or was not in the game in 1999.

Forget manastones. What makes the game easier is the fact that everyone knows every single exploit and method to do every raid. We just had a round of nerfs because people were abusing mechanics to trivialize content.

You're on your own fixing the music. The game is super-old and behaves weird on some modern systems. There are a couple of threads about replacing music and graphics with updated versions, maybe these will help you.

[Kaa]

Well, I'm certainly not complaining about anything, just more curious how the server works. Thanks for pointing me in the direction of that wiki page and for filling me in more generally. My concern if anything was that things might be too easy (are ultra rare spawns/drops circa 1999-2001 still ultra rare on P99?), I'm pleased that the developers are taking player behavior into account and keeping things difficult with certain changes having to be made.

Re: Unsolved quests, I think I came across one quest at any rate on Live most likely dating to the Classic era that was never solved, but is solvable on Live (unless it's broken but I have no reason to believe it is). Would a quest like this exist on P99 or not, I'm guessing no since no one's ever posted (to my knowledge) an account of it on Allakhazam or what have you

[BlackBellamy]

I didn't mean to imply you were [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] I meant this forum is rife with people pointing out things that aren't 'classic' and about half the time it's just vague memories of how things used to work.

Things are definitely easier, but not in terms of spawns or drops, just that people have totally figured stuff out in between. For example when the game was released enchanters weren't all that popular at start because they weren't thought very useful and also hard to play. When Green launched every single hardcore farmer made an enchanter and if you log into Lower Guk at like 8 am it's 6 professional enchanters clearing the place out. There are websites that detail every exploitable mechanic. We know every single piece of gear and the stats so there's no more figuring out what BiS is. So it's easier like that.

Which quest?

This thread made my sound nicer, though I wasn't having any issues with it just wasn't sounding right on modern systems https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=81207

[Kaa]

There's a Dragoon who spawns in the Ocean of Tears named Dragoon d'Artellin or something like that, on one of the islands. He either drops or is related to a note to or from Dragoon d'Artellin which you can get and read. I'm not sure exactly beyond that, it's been a while. Everything suggests this is an unsolved quest (unless it's been solved and is on Allakhazam or something), I discovered it on EQMac I believe.

I was excited to see that there's a fix for the MIDI music being out of key but alas, one of the downloads necessary to implement the fix outlined in the first post in that thread no longer sends you to a working link (broken link). Think anyone will mind if I thread necro?? (Or could you send me your download of bassmididrv.exe? Was that the fix you used?)

Thanks.

Also are drop rates/spawn rates about right to your knowledge? I got a Polished Granite Tomahawk from Highpass a couple nights ago and my suspicion was always that it was an ultra rare drop, maybe I was just lucky this time.

Edit: Apparently that thread on the EQ MIDIs remains active, no thread necro needed! I'll keep following it until someone posts another fix which appears to be in the offing

[loramin]

http://wiki.project1999.com/Dragoon_Artellin

No known quests for him.

EDIT: According to Allkahazam http://wiki.project1999.com/The_Prophet in Crushbone drops a note:

Lord High Prophet,

We wish to inform you of alliance in our supply point.
We have made allies with the lovely fish. They shall keep our point safe.
We shall see you at the rock just before dawn.

Artellin D'Nev

But I think that's just more flavor text showing the Dark Elf alliance with Crushbone, not a quest. Not sure if that note drops here or not (it's not mentioned in the wiki, so it may not be classic?)

[BlackBellamy]

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

Edit: Apparently that thread on the EQ MIDIs remains active, no thread necro needed! I'll keep following it until someone posts another fix which appears to be in the offing

Actually I remember having issues with that first solution I found something later in the thread which actually helped me:

Originally Posted by ir0nfist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Bassmidi won't work with anything after Win 7 as far as I know because midi mapper has been removed. I linked to VirtualMidiSynth a couple years ago a few pages back. That will work and still does. I just decided to maybe play a little bit and it works. I'm using a different soundfont though than most others as well. You have to disable "Increase Process Priority to REALTIME" in virtualmidisynth options or it won't work from my experience.
VirtualMidiSynth
Soundfont I use: FluidR3_GM.sfArk
Needed to decompress that font: sfark

[Kaa]

Right, I got that note from the Prophet on EQMac or one of the TLP servers and figured it was for an unsolved quest. Could just be flavor as you say, but I wouldn't rule out it being an unsolved quest. If the Prophet doesn't drop the note on EQMac, maybe it was added later (I think that's kind of unlikely that they'd add flavor text for Classic-era lore post-Luclin but I could be wrong, they finished the Gnoll Slayer quest during the Luclin era for example).

As far as the music goes, I'm not sure how to do the fix. I think they're going to post a guide soon on that other thread or on the wiki, but, thank you at any rate for mentioning what worked for you.

I guess my primary concerns at this point relate to music (for example, there is no underwater music -- there was in Classic) and sound effects (are the sound effects properly classic/complete i.e. is everything that was in the game in 1999 in the game on the green server?). But there are people working on this who know far more about it than I do, so I'll keep my eyes peeled there.

Cheers

[cd288]

Manastones were not removed from any accounts back then to my knowledge. They just weren’t able to be used in Kunark or Velious zones