Vacant Zones

[AegnorP99]

There's no real point to this thread, but I'm excited at the prospect of people actually leveling in zones that are ghost towns on Blue. Will we see loads of people in the Qeynos aqueducts? In Splitpaw? Runnyeye? Friggin Kerran Isle? Sure hope so! These zones are pretty cool need some love.

[zaneosak]

Seems like people will be forced to go to usually less popular zones just due to leveling places like crushbone, unrest, oasis being 50+ people making them basically unplayable. Will be a good thing as people will branch out to weird zones to level, plenty of them actually have high ZEM, just have their own problems like long respawn time or too many caster mobs, etc. etc.

[Lufos]

btw. what are the ZEMs for classic? Same as blue/velious?

[loramin]

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

btw. what are the ZEMs for classic? Same as blue/velious?

Odds are yeah, but I'm still holding out hope otherwise.

ZEMs have been a bit of anomaly here since the early days. When it comes to pretty much EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE ENTIRE PROJECT, with virtually every other decision they make, the devs weigh in on "make it work like it did in '99, regardless of player knowledge".

ZEMs are virtually the only thing where the devs depart from their normal standards and instead decide "let's make this one aspect unclassic!" So I'm hoping against hope that they use Green as a chance to revert that and go with actual classic ZEMs ... but I'm not holding my breath [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[AbstractVision]

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

Odds are yeah, but I'm still holding out hope otherwise.

ZEMs have been a bit of anomaly here since the early days. When it comes to pretty much EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE ENTIRE PROJECT, with virtually every other decision they make, the devs weigh in on "make it work like it did in '99, regardless of player knowledge".

ZEMs are virtually the only thing where the devs depart from their normal standards and instead decide "let's make this one aspect unclassic!" So I'm hoping against hope that they use Green as a chance to revert that and go with actual classic ZEMs ... but I'm not holding my breath [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What are the classic ZEMs? What links do we have to prove them? They may just need to be brought up again by enough people.

[loramin]

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

What are the classic ZEMs? What links do we have to prove them? They may just need to be brought up again by enough people.

I'm no ClassicQuester, but I believe the stock EQEmu ones (ie. the ones listed in the wiki) are those ZEMs.

As I understand it, back in the day people used the cheat program ShowEQ on live to determine the exact ZEM of every zone. The original EQ Emulator people had access to that data, and based the stock EQ Emulator ZEMs on them.

Because those ZEMs were widely known, and because on live ZEMs were only known by ShowEQ users (ie. relatively rare, fairly technical, cheaters), Nilbog changed them on P99 to restore mystery.

But with the hindsight of all these years of project decisions, that choice really feels out of sync with all the rest of the decisions that have been made.Almost universally they've all favored "the actual way classic was" over "re-creating a classic feel". See CH items, Midnight Mallets, obtaining OT Hammer via Puppet Strings ...

[kabouter]

Yeah I'm the same as you, hoping to get some groups in the less popular zones.

And I know it isn't classic, but it would be nice if they lowered the ZEM on some very popular zones as well. Crushbone, Unrest, Guk and Mistmoore could do without the modifier.

[Legidias]

I think yall are overestimating people. I feel very confident its gonna be like Unrest with 30 people LFG all the time and every spawn spot claimed.

[zaneosak]

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

I think yall are overestimating people. I feel very confident its gonna be like Unrest with 30 people LFG all the time and every spawn spot claimed.

I just see this as illogical. Sitting in LFG for 2 hours waiting for a spot in Main Room which will have like 12-14 spawns claimed on that long ass respawn timer just because of the bonus XP is nuts to me, you are probably right to some degree but if people just sprawl out a bit, the results would be better long term for most people, sitting lfg in unrest fighting over beetles sounds like a dogshit experience.

[Wurl]

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

I just see this as illogical. Sitting in LFG for 2 hours waiting for a spot in Main Room which will have like 12-14 spawns claimed on that long ass respawn timer just because of the bonus XP is nuts to me, you are probably right to some degree but if people just sprawl out a bit, the results would be better long term for most people, sitting lfg in unrest fighting over beetles sounds like a dogshit experience.

There are a few problems with this, from the perspective of a solo or duo player:
1. Travel time to check a new spot. Any spot could be camped on the server, and if you waste time running to an out-of-the-way spot that's camped then suddenly that 2 hours looks a lot more reasonable.
2. In a busy zone you always have the option to "/camp" and try again later, and you can be confident a group will be there waiting for you.
2. Eating one death due to trying an area you're not familiar with sets you back a ridiculous amount of time.

Once you weigh in those risks, it actually makes more sense to sit and wait for a group spot in one of the safe, reliable leveling spots.