gem drops

[compulsion]

I am posting this mostly out of curiosity, for people who have more guild leading and PvE experience than myself.

On this server I have seen drops from dino, bugs, and rarely a drop in Hate. Despite usually being in the "xp group", I have not seen 1 gem from Fear or Sky. Gem prices are through the roof, and there are plenty of established 60s who are still trying to get a decent resist set.

What I don't understand is, if this server has the same drops as on live, why were gems so common and cheap in on live servers. As a PK on RZ I had no problem collecting a very good resist set from item loot alone. I don't even remember JC stuff being of any significant value at all. When I rerolled for the SZ release, after our first Vox kill and just a few planar raids, diamond and bd gear was being distributed by the guild. At the time I was the 3rd of my class to hit 60, and we were the first raiders for our team, not the recipients of leftover goods.

Look up diamond on allakhazam and you will find several posts from 2001 stating that these gems drop from several high level encounters in several zones, and specifically naming imps, giants, and higher level guk mobs as having a chance to drop them. This period specific evidence also aligns with my personal experience that the various gems were not very rare on live. I have not found any pre-Velious information on drop rates, unfortunately, so for that I am just going on memory.

So, if you lead a guild, ran a guild bank, or just have a wealth of PvE experience from live, I'm really curious to hear your take on the subject.

[Tomatoking]

you are 100% right gems in fear hate and sky were common , fire giants too

you dont honestly think this server is even the slightest bit like live do you?

it was made to be like live , they tried and i give them credit but truth is it sucks

[tehruoh]

still pretty fun tho

[Tomatoking]

not really , only had the population for 1 guild really and they established themselves by exploiting vox and rode the recruitment bandwagon through kunark

even paid off staff to not get banned , dunno how any of you take this so serious.

[compulsion]

There are like 1000 other threads for endless name calling. Could this thread stay relevant to the actual topic.

Tehruoh I agree. EQ was a fun game. This server has had its moments. The issue at hand is why game mechanics have been changed, which it seems they have, in order to force even longer hours of farming.

EQ already takes a pretty serious time commitment. I'm wondering why drop rates have been changed in order to throw another barrier in between players and endgame. I don't play this server because I want "counterstrike with elves", but I also don't expect to be forced to waste dozens of extra hours(or longer) on what should be a regular part of progression.

Gems on live, evidence suggests, were just a part of the game that you picked up as you went along and enabled players to transition into endgame. Gem drops here, because they are rare drops in limited areas, actually serve to prevent players from making that same transition.

[Jenni D]

just do bugs in seb. diamonds jacinths n bd common as seeing HB making a fool of himself

[Cwall 52.0]

i miss heartbrand posting inane bullshit on the forums

[Twain]

I would assume the reason the drop rates are lower is because there are not as many people farming them. On live, you have a shit ton of people killing the mobs 24/7. With the drop rates increased, you obviously get a lot of gems. On live, it would not be a big deal because there are plenty of players. On R99 however, every lvl 20 unrest twink would be 200 MR. All these twinks would kill the server population because they would destroy every new person trying to level. I do remember leveling my bard on Live down in The Hole. I soloed there for a long ass time making bank and maxing AAs for each level. I assume the Hole's drop rate was probably low until Luclin or maybe PoP.

[Nirgon]

Must have been nice just handing out all those diamonds and blue diamonds like candy for your Vox raids.

In Gates of Discord or whatever expansion you were on when that was happening.

[Twain]

I'm pretty sure this was like Underfoot lol. I only played a bard on live for 6 months before I quit again. I would afk at the rock with 2 spawns near the drop down to the hole. The 2 mobs spawned every 4-6 minutes and with a bard singing and Merc tank, I would afk level all day. Of course I would get home from work to find myself dead every couple days, but what do you expect playing on Zek.