p99 at lowest point since launch

[cd288]

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

I do agree, raids b4 rooted dragons were fun to pull etc but you didn't get to see much. I use to run Necro pets up to aary steps to see a little but if you didn't fte dragons you never really got to see ntov at all.

I wish there was a way to do both. Sometimes have them rooted then maybe unroot them on a quake I dunno. Hub/hall tagging was fun too. Mix it up /nod

The simple fact of the matter is that if people were doing these pulling tricks extensively on live back in the day, the devs would've stepped in to find a solution. They would've viewed it as exploitative. And I would bet their solution would've been rooting them or something similar (maybe that they only chase so far, etc.).

[Bardp1999]

Didnt realize this was a "what would 1999 devs do to solve EQ problems" server, thought this was a classic server that emulated classic mechanics as they were in 1999

[Twochain]

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

The simple fact of the matter is that if people were doing these pulling tricks extensively on live back in the day, the devs would've stepped in to find a solution. They would've viewed it as exploitative. And I would bet their solution would've been rooting them or something similar (maybe that they only chase so far, etc.).

Absolutely not true, a good portion of people i've talked to who raided ToV back in live said that they pretty much exclusively killed dragons on Aary steps.


Also I don't exactly buy into the notion that only pullers had fun during that era... because if you weren't out in the hub helping, or helping pull, that's because you didn't want to. Sedativex exclusively pulled on his shaman. Clerics is one of the better classes to pull with. Mages were the absolute best. ANY class could hall tag or clean up mobs. Wizards are great, and at one point were the premiere pulling class when you could still bind in zone.

I also find it weird that a Red player is in here talking about how rose tinted glasses and unrooted dragons... considering the red server hasn't been able to raid NToV SINCE the dragons were rooted. Honestly, has vulak been killed on the red server in the last two years at all??

All this being said, i'm not crying up a storm about rooted dragons. I still think races and lockouts is what we should try for next. If the dragons were unrooted tomorrow, there would be some issues. You're not allowed to coth race anymore, so you'd have to run from zonein, FTE, and get it back to the zone in clean.

[Clazxiss]

Originally Posted by Bardp1999 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Didnt realize this was a "what would 1999 devs do to solve EQ problems" server, thought this was a classic server that emulated classic mechanics as they were in 1999

I think people should be thankful for what the volunteer P99 staff has done to work through some tough issues. The original EQ dev team wielded their nerf bats like children around a pinata. Breaking things instead of fixing them was their MO all the way through Planes of Power.

I played an ENC on live. How excited I was that charm would allow me to take on mini bosses in the plane of storms during PoP. But because there were endless complaints about enchanters owning that zone, the devs nerfed the mechanics of their charm, effectively killing the spell line itself. Other solutions could've rectified that problem, but again, the EQ Dev team loved its nerf bat.

Recall when players killed the Sleeper? Dev team logged into a naked human and murdered the raid force for this. Then if I remember right, suspensions and bans were issued to that raid force.

So now that we've had a brief history lesson, what do you think the EQ Dev team of old would've done with ToV and the drama it dumps on the Guides? Based on how they handled other scenarios, I don't think people would be happy with what possible solutions they'd come up with.

[Ennewi]

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

I do agree, raids b4 rooted dragons were fun to pull etc but you didn't get to see much. I use to run Necro pets up to aary steps to see a little but if you didn't fte dragons you never really got to see ntov at all.

I wish there was a way to do both. Sometimes have them rooted then maybe unroot them on a quake I dunno. Hub/hall tagging was fun too. Mix it up /nod

Snared dragons?!

[SantagarBrax]

There's a few facts here I'd like to point out from personal experience.

1) FTE lockout era was boring as fuck for everyone except FTE'ers, although I will admit it allowed smaller guilds to compete in the raid scene on a much more successful level and perhaps an argument could be made that it therefore promoted more competition.

2) Complaining about trains (classic mechanic btw) in an attempt to blow out of proportion the actual amount of times this occurs for the sake of free mobs seems to be a theme mainly for one particular guild, Riot. It's part of the game and imo the perception should be viewed as such. 99% of the time it's not intentional from anyone. Training mobs away - if you haven't realized by now that the meta has changed in ToV, then this is why you fail and will continue to do so. Week in and week out you guys fail to learn how to properly train away mobs and you fail every time because 4-6 people won't put in the effort to learn, then complain to everyone else here on these forums how unfair things are when you lose mobs.

3) Menden / Galach never made their promotions count. They never took "ownership" and established how their administration was going to do things. This ambiguity in both leadership and establishing and/or reinforcing the rules has directly contributed to the vast majority of petitions over the past year, due to their own lack of involvement at the very beginning and continued failure to do so correct this mistake. (I'll give you bag limits and RW roll change, it's notable and worth mentioning)

4) I disagree that it's "all about the pixels". That's just the sweet cherry on top after motivating 60 people to overcome failure, sometimes multiple failures in a row, and persevere in order to achieve the victory of the kill over the competition. The competition isn't just against other guilds, it's also against attrition within your own guild throughout many facets. These are the most enjoyable and memorable kills (May 5th Vulak for example, Trak wipe 5% last week, etc) and the up's and down's are both bitter and sweet.

5) Casuals. There are many options out there for casual players that "don't have time" nor the willpower to compete: TLP, Takp, casual blue/green 99 without complaining about the raid scene with which you do not participate in, etc.

Things go in cycles if you haven't noticed. Burning everything down because it's currently not in a cycle that you enjoy isn't the way. Just wait a while until a cycle comes around that you enjoy playing. Breaks are good and highly recommended for everyone.

~Unchained~

[Ennewi]

Originally Posted by Bardp1999 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Didnt realize this was a "what would 1999 devs do to solve EQ problems" server, thought this was a classic server that emulated classic mechanics as they were in 1999

If players only ever did what 1999 players were known to do in EQ, the devs here could emulate classic mechanics as they were with no additional work required. But that would be ridiculous to expect of us, the players, as then we wouldn't really be challenging ourselves. However, tt would be just as ridiculous to expect them not to actively participate as devs. EQ had this same power struggle back then, some of which can be seen here and there in the patch notes. The main difference here stems from how long players have had to break the mechanics, trying to keep them broken while bending the rules in the name of classic. Players could exploit guard patching in Freeport by running on top of the city walls. It was classic and, when brought to the attention of GMs, a punishable offense. Not every exploit was made known to the GMs because even (most of) the playerbase was unaware.

McQuaid himself said that low level characters weren't meant to wield their epics, that it was an oversight, even though technically it was possible in classic...hence the level restriction in place now. The same argument could be used to support paladin-only SoulFires, among other limitations in place on Project1999.

[Ennewi]

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

Players could exploit guard pathing in Freeport by running on top of the city walls. It was classic and, when brought to the attention of GMs, became a punishable offense. Not every exploit was made known to the GMs because even (most of) the playerbase was unaware.

Tl; dr...
The original game was not a finished product on launch day or on the last day of Velious. A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned. Luckily for us classic EQ wasn't abandoned entirely.

[Twochain]

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

There's a few facts here I'd like to point out from personal experience.

1) FTE lockout era was boring as fuck for everyone except FTE'ers, although I will admit it allowed smaller guilds to compete in the raid scene on a much more successful level and perhaps an argument could be made that it therefore promoted more competition.

2) Complaining about trains (classic mechanic btw) in an attempt to blow out of proportion the actual amount of times this occurs for the sake of free mobs seems to be a theme mainly for one particular guild, Riot. It's part of the game and imo the perception should be viewed as such. 99% of the time it's not intentional from anyone. Training mobs away - if you haven't realized by now that the meta has changed in ToV, then this is why you fail and will continue to do so. Week in and week out you guys fail to learn how to properly train away mobs and you fail every time because 4-6 people won't put in the effort to learn, then complain to everyone else here on these forums how unfair things are when you lose mobs.

3) Menden / Galach never made their promotions count. They never took "ownership" and established how their administration was going to do things. This ambiguity in both leadership and establishing and/or reinforcing the rules has directly contributed to the vast majority of petitions over the past year, due to their own lack of involvement at the very beginning and continued failure to do so correct this mistake. (I'll give you bag limits and RW roll change, it's notable and worth mentioning)

4) I disagree that it's "all about the pixels". That's just the sweet cherry on top after motivating 60 people to overcome failure, sometimes multiple failures in a row, and persevere in order to achieve the victory of the kill over the competition. The competition isn't just against other guilds, it's also against attrition within your own guild throughout many facets. These are the most enjoyable and memorable kills (May 5th Vulak for example, Trak wipe 5% last week, etc) and the up's and down's are both bitter and sweet.

5) Casuals. There are many options out there for casual players that "don't have time" nor the willpower to compete: TLP, Takp, casual blue/green 99 without complaining about the raid scene with which you do not participate in, etc.

Things go in cycles if you haven't noticed. Burning everything down because it's currently not in a cycle that you enjoy isn't the way. Just wait a while until a cycle comes around that you enjoy playing. Breaks are good and highly recommended for everyone.

~Unchained~

FTE lockouts would be a little different with rooted dragons, as you would still need to crawl. It would essentially be the same as it is now, except, ya know, without two guilds on top of each other. And the more I think about it, the more I think it should be a solution for green but not blue. IF we did go that route on blue, i'd hope that bag limits would be removed.

Hell on Blue, i'd be fine with giving non Vanq/KRiot 24 hour lock outs instead of 1 hour. I'd hope it would motivate some smaller guilds to show up and give it a shot. (Even though it didn't really happen that way when Sirken implemented this, FoH/Venerate did often try to compete when they were clearly the 4th or 5th guild on the chain, we even got a statue once and got AoW down to 40%.. but it did allow Rustle to operate as a small raid force)

The fact that were years into Menden/Galachs tenure and there has been 0 real scandals, 0 people crying that they got banned for literally no reason, No months long raid bans ETC, i'd point to that as them doing a good job. Don't forget that after Sirken stepped down the GM's that remained almost immediately tried to impose a forced rotation for the whole server. (Thank you Rogean for throwing the kibosh on that) People cry about "indifference" in regards to current rulings.. but I don't think it's indifference. I think people who blatantly break rules on raids, with proof, will get immediately slapped. Everything in the Gray area probably falls into the "play on, and play better" ruling. And of course, that's not something you can say to a whole server, because the tears that would ensue would flood the north east. And not for nothing, it's probably the best way to go about P99 raiding in 2021. Riot is alive because of a GM enforced bag limit. If not, they'd probably be dead, because the brutal nature of this server is, that if you're a hard core raiding guild, and not snagging Vulak kills, you die. AM went from the biggest zerg EQ has ever seen, to barely fielding 50-60 people in LESS THAN TWO MONTHS because we started losing Vulaks to Riot. Riot is not dying because GM's are indifferent, it's because their Vulak strat isn't great, and they don't have enough people making plays to ensure kills. Just like AM.

[Croco]

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

FTE lockouts would be a little different with rooted dragons, as you would still need to crawl. It would essentially be the same as it is now, except, ya know, without two guilds on top of each other. And the more I think about it, the more I think it should be a solution for green but not blue. IF we did go that route on blue, i'd hope that bag limits would be removed.

Hell on Blue, i'd be fine with giving non Vanq/KRiot 24 hour lock outs instead of 1 hour. I'd hope it would motivate some smaller guilds to show up and give it a shot. (Even though it didn't really happen that way when Sirken implemented this, FoH/Venerate did often try to compete when they were clearly the 4th or 5th guild on the chain, we even got a statue once and got AoW down to 40%.. but it did allow Rustle to operate as a small raid force)

The fact that were years into Menden/Galachs tenure and there has been 0 real scandals, 0 people crying that they got banned for literally no reason, No months long raid bans ETC, i'd point to that as them doing a good job. Don't forget that after Sirken stepped down the GM's that remained almost immediately tried to impose a forced rotation for the whole server. (Thank you Rogean for throwing the kibosh on that) People cry about "indifference" in regards to current rulings.. but I don't think it's indifference. I think people who blatantly break rules on raids, with proof, will get immediately slapped. Everything in the Gray area probably falls into the "play on, and play better" ruling. And of course, that's not something you can say to a whole server, because the tears that would ensue would flood the north east. And not for nothing, it's probably the best way to go about P99 raiding in 2021. Riot is alive because of a GM enforced bag limit. If not, they'd probably be dead, because the brutal nature of this server is, that if you're a hard core raiding guild, and not snagging Vulak kills, you die. AM went from the biggest zerg EQ has ever seen, to barely fielding 50-60 people in LESS THAN TWO MONTHS because we started losing Vulaks to Riot. Riot is not dying because GM's are indifferent, it's because their Vulak strat isn't great, and they don't have enough people making plays to ensure kills. Just like AM.

Lol, there's 4 months of petitions stacked up. Yeah they're doing a "great" job. Not sure what you count as a "real" scandal but there definitely have been some. There's still one going on right now.