Luclin was classic, PoP was not.

[xCry0x]

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

P99 being permalocked, perhaps with some addition or revamp of classic zones, is the way for me to keep the original eq spirit alive.

I think you need to look at it from the perspective of what problem is anyone trying to actually solve.

The purpose of the server is to recreate the original experience as much as possible. I think most people agree that the "original" wow was Vanilla - Kunark and kind of Velious. Velious was really the point in which you get into WoW style expansions where prior content starts to become obsolete with every subsequent release.

I think by in large the server is successful at that. I know I definitely got my full "Classic" experience (I leveled up pre velious here).

Now on a complete personal tangent. The success of the prior comes at the expense of the long term health of the server - which is a bit of a silly statement given this server has kept a health population for a long time.

That said, I think everyone can agree that the ongoing "problem" of p99 is the end game raid scene. You keep the server classic and as such the top inflates. You get casual players such as myself who end up getting "fully geared" for vanilla standards -- full hate/fear + sky stuff. But cannot reasonably progress further because the hardcore controls the top indefinitely -- always new people joining the top, always another alt to level.

So then you get all this animosity brewing, all these stupid rules of engagement to try to accomodate. However, giving a group of capable casual players a 1-2-3 hour window to engage spawns doesn't help if the boss spawns at 2am in the morning. Capable, but casual players, need a schedule -- eg we log in at 5pm pst on Thursday and do x.

The only solution there, if I could magically snap my fingers and engineer whatever I wanted, is raid instances for the raid zones. Fear, Hate, Sky, VP, ToV, ST, PoG, PoM. Leave everything else world spawn open competitive - if aftermath wants to kill world dragons, trakanon, vs, etc every single spawn from now to eternity so be it. You can't make a zone like sebilis instanced to accommodate the 10 casual but trak capable guilds on the server - it would completely destroy what made EQ EQ. But the raid zones are by their nature designed for multi-group engagement.

Anyway - that is my completely unimportant complaint coming from someone that just logged back into p99 for the first time since late 2013 (I can't believe it has been that long). I basically quit after I "finished" my char since there was nothing left to do without quitting my guild and joining TMO back then.

[Nagoya]

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

Some of the most fun I had in EQ was in bazaar arena and dueling in EC. Nobody ever duels in EC here tho. Was a constant thing to have a bunch of people dueling near shady on Emarr.

I think we also have to remember that most players in classic were age 10-25, where most players on p99 are 25-40. Maybe we don't find the same things fun, even within the same game, that we play for nostalgia. We can recreate a game from 1999, but we can't go back to 1999 folks.

[Linkamus]

Originally Posted by xCry0x [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The only solution there, if I could magically snap my fingers and engineer whatever I wanted, is raid instances for the raid zones. Fear, Hate, Sky, VP, ToV, ST, PoG, PoM.

IMO instancing ruins mmos. What makes items awesome, and what makes acquiring the items awesome is the scarcity of the item, and the difficulty in acquiring it. Instancing takes away from the magic of finally getting that one piece that maybe not many others have.

Aside from this, instancing will make content go stale much faster. If a guild can fully gear their whole crew in 6 months, because of the convenience of instancing, then what? What to do now?

The cutthroat first come first serve raid scene is not for me anymore, which is why I played on AK, and now TAKP. But I still want the scarcity of items. Having to rotate raid targets means we only get to kill KT once or twice a month as a guild. Which results to even after a year and a half of raiding Velious, there are still mains that want KT heads, which creates incentive to get online and raid, keeping the content interesting for a long period of time. So TAKP strikes a perfect balance (in my humble opinion) by items still being scarce (because of no instancing), while at the same time, no waking up at 2 a.m. to hit a target.

Even though I haven't really played on P99 much, I would still be saddened to hear that the most popular classic EQ emu introduced instancing. Luckily, I don't think that will ever happen!

[xCry0x]

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

The cutthroat first come first serve raid scene is not for me anymore.

Man - that line is another personal rant for me. I had the same mindset when I was playing. So I joined a more casual guild and spent my week "raiding" hate and fear trash for armor and doing a weekly joint sky raid of the first handful of islands.

I probably spent a solid 2-3 hours in a night doing hate. Another 2-3 doing fear and then who knows how long crawling islands in sky.

My friends in TMO? They played alts, or earned dkp scouting raid targets. Their raids consisted of switching characters, killing a high value target, and then going back to what they were doing before.

If they weren't online when a spawn happened - oh well. Some were more OCD about it than others.

At the time, I told myself I was just a casual raider and didn't want to get into that "hardcore" scene. In hindsight, its hard to say who was really more hardcore.

I definitely feel like a dummy though because I proceeded to further regress and started playing utopia again after everquest. And what did I do there? You bet your ass I woke up at 2am to send my armies out and coordinate attacks during wars.

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

Even though I haven't really played on P99 much, I would still be saddened to hear that the most popular classic EQ emu introduced instancing. Luckily, I don't think that will ever happen!

Oh - I agree to the extent that it would never happen. =) I still think you can strike a balance.

I remember being in hate pulling trash to the zone in with about 20 people. Then Maestro spawned - and while we figured out how we were going to pull, one of the top guilds pulled, trained it ontop of us, stayed alive long enough for their crew to log in, killed most of us in the process, and killed maestro.

They naturally "helped" us by rezzing -- and I think offered to give us one of the drops, which was cool. But at the same time, we could have killed Maestro had we been given a chance. We were there first, we just weren't experienced in training the zone to get FTE like the top guilds were. I understand there is a bit more structure in place now though. Maybe it isn't as much of an issue.

[Vormotus]

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

I think we also have to remember that most players in classic were age 10-25, where most players on p99 are 25-40. Maybe we don't find the same things fun, even within the same game, that we play for nostalgia. We can recreate a game from 1999, but we can't go back to 1999 folks.

I am a bit older and what you say is true. Nothing will bring back the same feeling, but hey! We try haha [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

EQ has been like this force of mental calm for me.

I have been going on and off to Live every few years, but I always get bored due to the way Live is now.

I tried one TLP and it was fun, but progression is what kills it for me, and a lot of others, as you see pop decline the more xpacs that are unlocked.

If they leave the server as it is for 10 more years I will be happy [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[xCry0x]

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

I am a bit older and what you say is true. Nothing will bring back the same feeling, but hey! We try haha [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It was pretty spot on for me -- except that I played live on Tunare and we were one of the weird Gfey instead of EC servers. So that was different here =)

The major difference is that I was 12 when I played EQ originally. Playing it as an adult was fun because I could play with a bit more intelligence.

[Vormotus]

Originally Posted by xCry0x [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It was pretty spot on for me -- except that I played live on Tunare and we were one of the weird Gfey instead of EC servers. So that was different here =)

The major difference is that I was 12 when I played EQ originally. Playing it as an adult was fun because I could play with a bit more intelligence.

Tell me about it! [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I played when I was young, and even today , despite being in a WILDLY different setting and real life environment (Much Older, Exiled and living in a foreign country) EQ still gives me this amazing sense of calm I enjoy so much.

I would not be lying when I tell you that I some days log to be semi afk with the constant background environment noise of the game.

Currently semi afk in the Karanas listening to the rain and night sounds as I write this and do other things around the house.

I too can play differently now, chat here and there, meet new people, met a nice friendly druid last night from the US, talked about this and that, then moved to Qeynos to buff newbies at the gate with sow, just relax.

EQ is many things to many people, and the end spectrum being top heavy and hardcore raid focused is the least of my worries, heck If I make it to 60 with my self made studded leather armor pieces and the occasional nice treasure on a slot here or there I would be happy still.

And with your previous posts, yeah instancing .... Dont know man, instancing I am divided on that topic.

But your post was good, love reading other peoples experiences hehe.

Many many hugs to you man, from the Isthmus with Love [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]