LDON

[phacemeltar]

what are the chances of getting content like LDON on p99? i thought this was a great part of EQ, and had it been done well then it would have really made the game more fun. is there any chance the devs would be interested to work on implementing some stuff like this? maybe some custom events? would be nice if there was some instanced dungeons that would reap good rewards, like LDON but better.

[Pint]

What are the chances of getting instanced content on p99? 0, there is no chance, wtf were you thinking = \

[phacemeltar]

why not? shit would be awesome

[Cecily]

I'd like anything that would give lv 60 chars something to do after 60 besides raid or farm. AAs + LDoN would be amazing... and never happening.

[Xer0]

I'd like anything that would give lv 60 chars something to do after 60 besides raid or farm. AAs + LDoN would be amazing... and never happening.

I feel it is kind of sad AAs will never be introduced.Rangers are doomed to be forever gimped.

[BlkCamel]

why not? shit would be awesome


I will save you the hate of the rest of the community, which I know that you know, will lay on this.


NOT CLASSIC:D

[Zuranthium]

Instanced content is awful.

Instanced zones are something that should be used for PvP only - specific battlegrounds and such for 4v4 battles, 6v6 battles, 8v8, etc. They of course will not be used here on p99, but I'm just talking about game design in general. This works for PvP because it's a separate game type (different from world PvP, obviously).

For PvE, instanced zones take away from the realism of the world, they take away from interacting with other players, and they take away from people exploring. Why go try to find an area that isn't being hunted in when you can always just have your own area? That's not a real MMORPG. It's just an MMO.

Now, THAT said, I'd love to see a classic-era custom content server a couple years down the road (with some different game mechanics than EQ too). It would have all of the zones that appear on the classic EQ world map, but weren't actually put into EQ during classic. There's a ton of them:

Abysmal Sea (I envision it as the largest zone in the game with a series of boats each stopping at a different island and you needing to travel to the other side of each dangerous island on foot -- eventually the zone would connect from the "west" side of the world over to the Akanon area), The Grand Plateau, Stonebrunt Mountains, The Vasty Deep, The Barren Cost, The Buried Sea, Broken Skull Rock, some kind of outdoor zone south of Qeynos, Jaggedpine Forest, The Northlands, The Hatchland, The Dead Hills, Winter's Deep, Lake Neriuss, some kind of outdoor zone southwest of West Commonlands (would connect to the bottom part of North Ro), The Loping Plains, Wayunder Lake, Hills of Shade, Elizerain Lake (should be the zone inbetween Steamfont Mountains and Greater Faydark), Dragonscale Hills.

Plus there are tons of other zones you could add that would fit into the classic world - The Warrens, a dungeon or two underneath Nektulos Forest, a dungeon underneath Neriak, Plane of Shadow (accessed from the very top of Tower of Frozen Shadow), a dungeon underneath Kaladim that would connect to another dungeon which connects to Lesser Faydark, a dungeon underneath Mistmoore Castle, a Minotaur dungeon over in Steamfont, a dungeon underneath Akanon, Veksar underneath Lake of Ill Omen. Tons of things could be added. Plus you can improve zones that are rather dead with more content - like The Emerald Jungle or Dagnor's Cauldron.

Also, speaking of the Norrath map, it still really annoys me where Lesser Faydark was placed in the game. The west zone-out of Greater Faydark should go to Lesser Faydark and then Lesser Faydark should connect to Butcherblock. Grrrr.

[phacemeltar]

Instanced content is awful.

Instanced zones are something that should be used for PvP only - specific battlegrounds and such for 4v4 battles, 6v6 battles, 8v8, etc. They of course will not be used here on p99, but I'm just talking about game design in general. This works for PvP because it's a separate game type (different from world PvP, obviously).

For PvE, instanced zones take away from the realism of the world, they take away from interacting with other players, and they take away from people exploring. Why go try to find an area that isn't being hunted in when you can always just have your own area? That's not a real MMORPG. It's just an MMO.

Now, THAT said, I'd love to see a classic-era custom content server a couple years down the road (with some different game mechanics than EQ too). It would have all of the zones that appear on the classic EQ world map, but weren't actually put into EQ during classic. There's a ton of them:

Abysmal Sea (I envision it as the largest zone in the game with a series of boats each stopping at a different island and you needing to travel to the other side of each dangerous island on foot -- eventually the zone would connect from the "west" side of the world over to the Akanon area), The Grand Plateau, Stonebrunt Mountains, The Vasty Deep, The Barren Cost, The Buried Sea, Broken Skull Rock, some kind of outdoor zone south of Qeynos, Jaggedpine Forest, The Northlands, The Hatchland, The Dead Hills, Winter's Deep, Lake Neriuss, some kind of outdoor zone south of outdoor zone southwest of West Commonlands (would connect to the bottom part of North Ro), The Loping Plains, Wayunder Lake, Hills of Shade, Elizerain Lake (should be the zone inbetween Steamfont Mountains and Greater Faydark), Dragonscale Hills.

Plus there are tons of other zones you could add that would fit into the classic world - The Warrens, a dungeon or two underneath Nektulos Forest, a dungeon underneath Neriak, Plane of Shadow (accessed from the very top of Tower of Frozen Shadow), a dungeon underneath Kaladim that would connect to another dungeon which connects to Lesser Faydark, a dungeon underneath Mistmoore Castle, a Minotaur dungeon over in Steamfont, a dungeon underneath Akanon, Veksar underneath Lake of Ill Omen. Tons of things could be added. Plus you can improve zones that are rather dead with more content - like The Emerald Jungle or Dagnor's Cauldron.

Also, speaking of the Norrath map, it still really annoys me where Lesser Faydark was placed in the game. The west zone-out of Greater Faydark should go to Lesser Faydark and then Lesser Faydark should connect to Butcherblock. Grrrr.

sounds fun. i always thought the idea of an emulator trying to improve the original idea as exciting. sony folded under the WoW pressure and really dropped the ball on great potential.

thats why i brought up LDON. i think randomly generated dungeons with random loots could really be done well, but LDON itself was boring.. just 3 or 4 mobs per room, and a lame boss at the end. traps were worthless, and tbh the loot wasnt even very good.

also, just because theres an instanced dungeon does not mean another group couldnt go in behind you. would just mean that the dungeon path is randomly generated on entry, and that there is a time limit until it closes. you gota free your mind from blizzard's crapfest

[Daldaen]

Instanced content also hugely reduces butthurtness, rule lawyering and overall douchery.

[Tasslehofp99]

go play wow

[Kika Maslyaka]

thats why i brought up LDON. i think randomly generated dungeons with random loots could really be done well, but LDON itself was boring.. just 3 or 4 mobs per room, and a lame boss at the end. traps were worthless, and tbh the loot wasnt even very good.

also, just because theres an instanced dungeon does not mean another group couldnt go in behind you. would just mean that the dungeon path is randomly generated on entry, and that there is a time limit until it closes. you gota free your mind from blizzard's crapfest

anything randomly generated will not be much higher quality than LDON - to be generated based on some coded in principle, means that these zones would not have any character, and be very very similar - yep thats exactly what LDON was:
3-4 mobs per room, occasional boss, etc.

The only good side about LDON was easy group finding in a highly bloated world (at that point), and accumulation of gear via tedious grind but guaranteed reward, instead of hopping for chances for random boss drops that were camped 24/7.

As far as what to do after 60 - raise lev cap, and add custom content in spirit of classic.

P.S. AAs sucked - it was nothing but long ass mandatory grind to bring up your char to mandatory standard of being viable for high end raiding. Specially for tanks. High end content in turn was tuned with idea that person have grinded like 3/4 of all possible AAs allready, with clear intention to keep people grinding and paying.
AAs would have worked if they were similar to current WoW talents: you get LIMITED points and very limited options you can choose from - then you could really customize your character.

[fadetree]

I Liked AA's as they were when first introduced. Shit got silly after a few releases, though.

[Xer0]

As much as I thought LDoN breathed new life into eq live at it's launch, I don't expect or really have a hope to see it implemented on p99. Instancing really is one of the biggest affronts to the clasic MMO experience, albeit a great way to remedy the "too many people" issue some tend to have. I dont think that issue really exists here, althought adding a quest/reward system is a great way to add replay value.

[prc018100]

Instanced content is awful.

Instanced zones are something that should be used for PvP only - specific battlegrounds and such for 4v4 battles, 6v6 battles, 8v8, etc. They of course will not be used here on p99, but I'm just talking about game design in general. This works for PvP because it's a separate game type (different from world PvP, obviously).

For PvE, instanced zones take away from the realism of the world, they take away from interacting with other players, and they take away from people exploring. Why go try to find an area that isn't being hunted in when you can always just have your own area? That's not a real MMORPG. It's just an MMO.

Now, THAT said, I'd love to see a classic-era custom content server a couple years down the road (with some different game mechanics than EQ too). It would have all of the zones that appear on the classic EQ world map, but weren't actually put into EQ during classic. There's a ton of them:

Abysmal Sea (I envision it as the largest zone in the game with a series of boats each stopping at a different island and you needing to travel to the other side of each dangerous island on foot -- eventually the zone would connect from the "west" side of the world over to the Akanon area), The Grand Plateau, Stonebrunt Mountains, The Vasty Deep, The Barren Cost, The Buried Sea, Broken Skull Rock, some kind of outdoor zone south of Qeynos, Jaggedpine Forest, The Northlands, The Hatchland, The Dead Hills, Winter's Deep, Lake Neriuss, some kind of outdoor zone south of outdoor zone southwest of West Commonlands (would connect to the bottom part of North Ro), The Loping Plains, Wayunder Lake, Hills of Shade, Elizerain Lake (should be the zone inbetween Steamfont Mountains and Greater Faydark), Dragonscale Hills.

Plus there are tons of other zones you could add that would fit into the classic world - The Warrens, a dungeon or two underneath Nektulos Forest, a dungeon underneath Neriak, Plane of Shadow (accessed from the very top of Tower of Frozen Shadow), a dungeon underneath Kaladim that would connect to another dungeon which connects to Lesser Faydark, a dungeon underneath Mistmoore Castle, a Minotaur dungeon over in Steamfont, a dungeon underneath Akanon, Veksar underneath Lake of Ill Omen. Tons of things could be added. Plus you can improve zones that are rather dead with more content - like The Emerald Jungle or Dagnor's Cauldron.

Also, speaking of the Norrath map, it still really annoys me where Lesser Faydark was placed in the game. The west zone-out of Greater Faydark should go to Lesser Faydark and then Lesser Faydark should connect to Butcherblock. Grrrr.

There is another private server called Shards of Dalaya (https://www.shardsofdalaya.com/) that basically did everything you describe. It took all of the classic zones + many others and made a new world full of custom spawns, quests, etc. I played on it for a while and really enjoyed it. Totally confused the heck outa me coming to play in p1999 though as some of the newbie zones are high level etc. The community is pretty great too and they have AA's and something called tomes to keep you playing post 65 (the level cap last i played). The only downside to the server is that it is impossible for a casual player to catch the current players with a new char and they allow you to box 2 chars which I found to be tedious. You don't have to box, but it's hard for my OCD side to level solo when I could be leveling 2 chars at the same time. They also implemented a feature that allows you to lock your characters items so you can give info to your guild / friends and they can play your char without worrying they will delete or remove your gear. So, some of the really high level chars allow other guilds to use their chars to help progress.

[Kika Maslyaka]

There is another private server called Shards of Dalaya (https://www.shardsofdalaya.com/) that basically did everything you describe. It took all of the classic zones + many others and made a new world full of custom spawns, quests, etc. I played on it for a while and really enjoyed it. Totally confused the heck outa me coming to play in p1999 though as some of the newbie zones are high level etc. The community is pretty great too and they have AA's and something called tomes to keep you playing post 65 (the level cap last i played). The only downside to the server is that it is impossible for a casual player to catch the current players with a new char and they allow you to box 2 chars which I found to be tedious. You don't have to box, but it's hard for my OCD side to level solo when I could be leveling 2 chars at the same time. They also implemented a feature that allows you to lock your characters items so you can give info to your guild / friends and they can play your char without worrying they will delete or remove your gear. So, some of the really high level chars allow other guilds to use their chars to help progress.

Shards have the same problem modern EQ Live has - 95% of players are at lev cap doing uber raids.
They started out good, but they never really gave anything to a casual/solo player to do when they hit lev cap.
If a new player starts today - you will fun time getting to max lev, but then you will get stuck - there is no one to raid with at lowest tier raids, and to get to the high end, you will need a whole guild to hand-hold you trough like 15 tiers of content keying and gearing you for 6 months before you can raid what they are raiding now.
Unless you join a game with 17 others new players - you pretty much will play solo and then quit.

[apio]

There exists servers outside of p99 on eqemu who offer LDON, AAs and all that.

PEQ The Grand Creation is one of them, you mightve seen them on the server list

edit: It is my hope that those servers will one day be able to achieve the level of quality this server has achieved. P99 and SoD are just on another level qualitywise

[apio]

oh and also, Shards has 1 advantage for an EMU server. their content is tailored towards 3 groups (18 people maximum) on raids. you can 2 box. So if you really wanna raid, that means you basically need 8 decicated people and yourself, and you can rock and roll. Theres tons of content.

[Hastley]

go play wow

werent you a bitchy little cry baby before raid rotation came out. shut the fuck up

[moklianne]

I actually enjoyed LDON quite a bit on live when it was released. Same went for PoP and Luclin. That isn't the mission of this server though. Besides, the server resources required for all of those instances would be rough. I'm not sure the admins here want to buy another server or two just for instancing.

[Halius]

I had quit EQ like 6 months after PoP was released, I didn't mind all the AAs and such but the planes and fast travel and stuff just made the world so much smaller to me and I got bored. I came back after LDoN was released just to test the waters of the EQ instancing. I thought it was alright but I ultimately ended up quitting again after about a month.

[seratt]

That's why I love this server. Anything post velious will never happen. Thank God...

[jaybone]

werent you a bitchy little cry baby before raid rotation came out. shut the fuck up

[Cecily]

What are the chances of getting instanced content on p99? 0, there is no chance, wtf were you thinking = \

http://www.project1999.com/raid.php

Haha I'd say pretty good.

[sox7d]

god-status trolling. 9/10.

I had a lot of fun in LDoN, but there's a time and place for everything.

[Cyrano]

I think eventually they should open up some AA's once Velious has been out for awhile. The only thing keeping TMO and IB going at this point is the thought of Velious coming out, once there's no new content to work for would be cool to see less hardcore people get a shot at raid mobs which AA's would help them out with immensely.

[Laugher]

https://assets-cdn.soe.com/uploads/dcsclient/000/000/030/582.jpg?v=0.0

[Kika Maslyaka]

I actually enjoyed LDON quite a bit on live when it was released. Same went for PoP and Luclin. That isn't the mission of this server though. Besides, the server resources required for all of those instances would be rough. I'm not sure the admins here want to buy another server or two just for instancing.

You incorrect.
running an instanced zone is no different than running a normal zone, specially a very small one. Its the number of players that create server load, not number of zones.

[4WOFURY]

go play wow

[webrunner5]

There WAS a reason all this stuff, Ldon, Cats on the Moon, PoP, AA's were added was to keep EQ from becoming boring as hell.

So you might not like a lot of stuff that happened, and is the reason you are here. But tell me that 3 years from now if you are happy as a pig in shit on P1999.

Some of us have been here almost 4 years now. Velious is a LITTLE LATE as you can see. :eek:

[SCB]

I don't care about instances or AA's (unless totally redone somehow), but seeing all the other "non-classic classic" zones as mentioned on Page 1 (and in my old map of Norrath I have in a box somewhere) would be super legit once the server has run its course.

[Ikonoclastia]

I think everything that came after Luclin (pretty much everything SOE) was total garbage.

I hate to say it but Luclin was classic EQ. Sure the cats sucked but the very first time I went into Nertherbian Lair was cool as crap, scary freaky place Luclin. The bazaar wasn't that bad, you had to still click on each character. Havin spent yesterday off and on for 8 hours /auctioning stuff I prefer that to the EC tunnels.

Regards the bazaar, we still have that, just in a forum version anyway.

If you ever did grinding in Luclin, death was never very far away, still had naked corpse runs, still had to travel to get places.

That mini expansion, forgot what it was called, and PoP were however complete shite and things went downhill from there IMO.

[jaybone]

PoP was amazing.

[Kika Maslyaka]

PoP was amazing.

PoP was definitely a lot better than Luclin.
Luclin was just poor design decision, and even worse implementation. The only really thought out zones were Ssra and probably The Deep.

[HeallunRumblebelly]

PoP was definitely a lot better than Luclin.
Luclin was just poor design decision, and even worse implementation. The only really thought out zones were Ssra and probably The Deep.

Akheva, maiden's eye, umbral plains, griegs, sseru, fungus grove!

[Kafter]

I wish this server would go up to PoP. Luclin i thought was a fun expansion, pauldals caverns was the shit for teen to late twenties exp. PoP would give all these hardcores a lot of content and still leave enough for us casuals to enjoy the game.

But for the record, LDON sucked.

[SamwiseRed]

What I loved about LDON, more fuckin dungeons with bosses.

What I hated was the augs which ruined Rallos Zek and instances.

[Cecily]

I liked killing the orcs and dying to trapped chests.

[moklianne]

You incorrect.
running an instanced zone is no different than running a normal zone, specially a very small one. Its the number of players that create server load, not number of zones.

An entire zone needs to be spawned and maintained in memory that didn't need to before. Its using more memory than whatever that same group of people was using in a static zone. There are now more NPC's to track and so forth. A static zone's NPC's always need to be tracked whether there are players or not in it. An instance will be spawned and destroyed based on if its needed or not.

[Tewaz]

The thing that was great about EQMac was how much raid content there was. I think it was broken into 9 tiers through PoP. I think having that much content would really help with this server. People could stop poopsocking for their 5th alt and could really dive deep into one character, since that much content takes years to get through.

[Kika Maslyaka]

An entire zone needs to be spawned and maintained in memory that didn't need to before. Its using more memory than whatever that same group of people was using in a static zone. There are now more NPC's to track and so forth. A static zone's NPC's always need to be tracked whether there are players or not in it. An instance will be spawned and destroyed based on if its needed or not.

Irrelevant. Zone without players uses like 100k of RAM. Creation and destruction of instance takes microseconds of server operation time.
The server primarily consumes resources if zone has players in it. A single player in a single zones consumes as much RAM as 10 idle zones. Comparing this to number of players on the server, even if you add 100 instances on top of it, server load won't go up even 1%.

[Clark]

I'd like anything that would give lv 60 chars something to do after 60 besides raid or farm. AAs + LDoN would be amazing

[Ikonoclastia]

Akheva, maiden's eye, umbral plains, griegs, sseru, fungus grove!
I friggin loved Umbral Plains. Some of the trains were hilarious, even though they killed you - one minute everything was nice and peaceful, decent xp and next just a mass of dead bodies and flailing caveman arms... loading please wait :) vampires guys were cool too. Okay it was a bit wow'ish but still cool.

[Swish]

Wait for "after Velious" content... I think some custom LDON style challenges would be a welcome addition to keep P99 fresh :p

[Kika Maslyaka]

Akheva, maiden's eye, umbral plains, griegs, sseru, fungus grove!

well..
I liked richness of new graphics, but it was poorly used - outdoors were just plain rectangular boxes with too few land features, elevations etc. They could have been designed better. Too many low/mid level zones in general, made world too bloated. Paludals stole newbies from everywhere with its insane ZEM. Zone level ranges were poorly thought out- some low level zones were encircled by higher level zones on both sides, preventing proper lev people from reaching them. Some zones were so out of the way and so little content - they were always empty - Scarlet Desert, Moons Letalis.
Umbral Plains - this zone always looked weird to me- its Umbral Plains - means Shadow Plains, yet it was bright as day there - the zone was suppose to be dark, or at least covered with mist. Really broke my immersion.

Dungeon wise:
Akheva and Acrylia were OK, but not really grandeur.
Griegs End - yeah was probably nice.
Vex Thal was amazing architecture wise, but ultra boring raid implementation, design as MEGA TIME SINK, rather than entertainment.

[coki]

Fishing for treasure maps and then doing said treasure maps in Shards of Dalaya was really fun

[HawkMasterson1999]

maybe when the classic project is finished somebody can put in the work to develop luclin on a new server. Maybe even include /movelog from p99?

[loramin]

I wouldn't count on it. Anyone could make an EQ emulator server that has Luclin, but it would be "modern EQ minus some expansions" not "classic EQ + Luclin." To get the latter you'd need the P99 source, and as AFAIK the P99 staff hasn't shared that with anyone.

[loramin]

(But at least the P99 staff has expressed interest in custom content post-Velious, and that custom content would likely leverage zones from Luclin, PoP, etc.)

[NegaStoat]

That's why I love this server. Anything post velious will never happen. Thank God...
Actually, on Sirken's stream it was kicked around that custom content wasn't something off the table completely - once all of Velious content up to pre Luclin was finished and bug free on the server.

Veksar, Stonebrunt Mountains, Warrens, and a few other pieces of content could be fair game in being installed with a judicious eye towards the existing classic content of the game.

All of the dungeon settings introduced with LDoN? I'd say - go for it. As long as they are NOT instanced. If they were added as persistent dungeons with altered content to meet the server's needs, let 'er rip. That fake Zone wall in Oasis could end up going somewhere.

[Swish]

That's why I love this server. Anything post velious will never happen. Thank God...

As if there was zero enjoyment out of Luclin/PoP/etc... you guys are weird :rolleyes:

[Kika Maslyaka]

That fake Zone wall in Oasis could end up going somewhere.

now I curious - where exactly is that?

[NegaStoat]

The fake zone wall is commonly camped in Oasis for orc highway poaching. It was intended pre Original launch of the game to connect to another zone, but it didn't pan out.

[Zuranthium]

There is another private server called Shards of Dalaya (https://www.shardsofdalaya.com/) that basically did everything you describe.

I played SoD in late 2008 for a month or so. It was exciting because the guy I was in a relationship with found it for me and I was eager to show him something akin to the classic EQ experience, but then his computer broke so I stopped and moved onto other things.

The game itself was a good attempt but there wasn't enough of a playerbase and I would prefer an accurate Norrath with added content that fits into the existing game world. Plus the mechanics could definitely be better.

They did do a good re-make of Acrylia Caverns on that server. Had better monsters than the stupid, weird Neanderthal crap that was in the zone in Luclin during live (the game world of that expansion was so nonsensical, ugh).

As if there was zero enjoyment out of Luclin/PoP/etc... you guys are weird :rolleyes:

Luclin is really, really bad for EQ. The zone designs were poor for the most part and just didn't make sense when taken as a whole. The expansion drastically hurts the game world because everyone goes up to the moon so easily, the itemization is ridiculous, and zones like Paludal Caverns turn the lower level game into EZ mode. The old zones drastically empty out and the whole game starts to feel artificial. That was definitely a massive detriment for me. Plus, the AA's turned the game into even more of a gigantic grind fest. Ick.

Beastlords were lazily designed, and as such they were unnecessary, but the different pets were cool. I was perfectly fine with them and liked seeing them in the old world zones. I was very open to having the cat race as well. That's a standard RPG thing they fit into the game world. Everquest did have the Kerra who weren't seen enough because they were placed in a completely "dead" area.

Planes of Power ruined the game. Plane of Knowledge destroys any semblance that was left of a real world. Everything just becomes a lifeless go-to. I found the Planes themselves to be terribly designed (except for maybe Plane of Torment). They weren't interesting or awe-inspiring in the least. The original Everquest "Planes" could definitely be better, but at least Fear and Hate had personality and were scary before everyone got overpowered in the expansions.

Legacy of Ykesha had the GPS maps, which is bad, and it would have made way more sense for this zone to be accessed by a raft from Innothule Swamp, but I was cool with everything else about it. Adding to the old-world zones is good thing, I was fine with Frogloks as a playable race, and I liked that this expansion actually tried to have a world-changing event.

Lost Dungeons of Norrath is the perfect idea for an expansion if implemented correctly (ie - NOT instanced and actual good dungeons). It completely sucked as implemented, though. The era of this expansion was the last time I ever logged onto EQ. When I would actually try to form groups in cool zones people would just be like "yeah, I'm gonna go to an LDoN". Ugh. Terrible.

[Scrubosaur]

Luclin : VT = awesomesauce
PoP : pretty much every boss fight was damn fun.
LDON : boring as hell, rinse and repeat instanced dungeons

[Erydan Ouragan]

Luclin : VT = awesomesauce
PoP : pretty much every boss fight was damn fun.
LDON : boring as hell, rinse and repeat instanced dungeons

I agree with this. In my opinion, PoP was the pinnacle of Everquest.

Luclin brought AAs which were a welcome addition for most classes and amazing for others. Wizards, rangers, paladins and druids became viable at end-game. I understand people hated raids in Luclin because of the stupid amount of hitpoints mobs had and the colossal time-sink it was to key your guild for Vex Thal, but for me, luclin was just amazing. Akheva Ruins is my favorite zone in the whole game.

Then PoP brought more AAs and classes became truly fantastic and an absolute blast to play. Divine Arbitration for clerics, Fading memories for bards, druids becoming amazing healers, blah blah blah. People on p1999 will dislike PoK and the easy-mode transportation it offered, but let's be real here; yes it made life easier, but the game was far from easy-mode even with PoK books. If you died, you were naked, lost xp and still had to get your corpse back and preferably a rez. Still very far from popping a few feet away at the spirit healer, clicking a button to respawn and another button for the repair bill.

This is why, i think, Project 1999 should eventually go up to PoP and stop there. It was the perfect balance between nice quality of life improvement, class balance improvement, and general awesomeness to play. It would offer tons of content for the casuals and hardcore people with plenty of room inbetween. It could offer the option for "classic" guilds to work their way up from hate/fear/sky -> VP -> ssra/vexthal -> planes if they should so desire.

I understand the strong desire for people to keep it "classic", but i have bad news, Project 1999 is not classic anymore. Classic is level 50 max and old world only. We're in kunark now and velious will be out eventually. Stopping at PoP without LDoN would be amazing, keep instances out of the game to keep the exploration and social aspect of the game going, but having the quality of life improvement, AAs to bring out balance and plenty of content for everyone would be so cool, i would cream my greaves.

My 2 copper pieces.

[Zuranthium]

Stopping at PoP without LDoN would be amazing, keep instances out of the game to keep the exploration and social aspect of the game going, but having the quality of life improvement, AAs to bring out balance and plenty of content for everyone would be so cool, i would cream my greaves.

Exploration? LOL. PoP absolutely kills it. The whole game except for very specific "chosen" leveling/raiding zones becomes dead 99% of the time.

Social aspect? LOL. People just sit in PoP. There are basically never any more interesting encounters of meeting people and interacting out in the field. Everyone gets SoW/Clarity from a random person standing around and then just goes and teleports around to wherever they want.

AA's are NOT needed to balance classes better. That's something you can do by tweaking the skills and game mechanics themselves. AA's are simply a massive grind. Wow, there is some serious Pavlovian dog shit going on here.

[Xer0]

Exploration? LOL. PoP absolutely kills it. The whole game except for very specific "chosen" leveling/raiding zones becomes dead 99% of the time.

Social aspect? LOL. People just sit in PoP. There are basically never any more interesting encounters of meeting people and interacting out in the field. Everyone gets SoW/Clarity from a random person standing around and then just goes and teleports around to wherever they want.

AA's are NOT needed to balance classes better. That's something you can do by tweaking the skills and game mechanics themselves. AA's are simply a massive grind. Wow, there is some serious Pavlovian dog shit going on here.


Not really.POK only put these pedestals in areas directly outside of major cities. Yes it made it easier to get around, completely killed the travelling/exploring? nay.

[pasi]

Wheres my Luclin copypasta when I need it. Either way, Luclin and PoP were awesome additions to this game.

LDoN was a bone for non-raiders. I'd say casuals, but the people who were draped in 220/100 LDoN BPs were the most hardcore motherfuckers playing the game - they just didn't raid... or they knew how to exploit clay bracelets.

The LDoN raids were also a nice preview to the rape city that was Gates of Disco. I still have my alteration rock and frosty gem, fuck going back for another in this lifetime.

[Zuranthium]

Not really.POK only put these pedestals in areas directly outside of major cities. Yes it made it easier to get around, completely killed the travelling/exploring? nay.

For the original game world it VERY much did. Largely the same for Kunark as well. Those areas of the game were already ridiculously obsolete and the easy-mode travel made the zones altogether barren. Most zones it was only you there, despite it being primetime hours. That is a travesty. Plus, aside from the books, everyone was sitting in PoK, so it was extremely easy to get a random Wizard or Druid to teleport you to the other non-book destinations.

When nobody is on Norrath, or a large percentage of people aren't, Everquest is dead to me. I don't want to freaking stand around on the moon or in some random plane. I want to partake in a living, breathing high-fantasy world.

Adding the moon and a ton of planes is a terrible thing for the game. More content can be added to the game by improving existing zones and by adding new zones that connect to existing Norrath zones. When zones are interconnected and all zones are worthwhile, it keeps people flowing through them. That is necessary for Everquest to actually be alive.

You can easily add 5 new outdoor zones and 5 new dungeons to Faydwer, all of them being zones that completely make sense with the lore and geography and most of which are actually depicted on the world map to begin with! You can easily add more content to the western side of the world (Odus/Qeynos/Halas areas), which would significantly improve the game world because because those areas are CRIMINALLY under-represented and underutilized. Plus you can add more to southern Antonica (another zone southwest of Feerott; Innothule Swamp connecting to the Broken Skull Rock zones) and you can add a bunch more the Netuklos and Misty Thicket areas while also interconnecting them with the new zones.

There's SO much extra potential without straying from the original continents.

[apio]

Look I see how some people can hate certain expansions, but the implementation of those does not force you to play those expansions. A guild like <Vintage>, who limited itself to classic, then kunark, then velious, etc. worked just fine.

Yes, Luclin had its problems, but so did Kunark. So did Velious. Taking Paludal as an example of why the expansion sucks is pretty silly. Nobody says Kunark sucks because people started going to Kurn's. Nobody said Velketor's lab sucks because people stopped doing Kunark content whatsoever.

I am perfectly OK with people limiting their content, and nobody is stopping you from doing that. Just join or create a progression guild that stops at a certain expansion level... Just because YOU personally dislike something, doesn't mean you gotta ruin it for everyone who does :)

I was a part of Vintage on EQMac, and it was amazing - We didn't use the PoK, and other new stuff, and tried to beat Velious content without Luclin gear (something that barely happened in the original timeline). People had a blast doing it. Having the choice certainly opens up new and alternative ways of playing. I think implemented correctly different people and opinions can co-exist. After all, the reason we are all here is NOSTALGIA, and you CAN have that feeling for Luclin and PoP content as well. I know I do, and just because you don't doesnt make everyone else wrong ;)

[fadetree]

I'd like to see PoP, but with the transport stones disabled except for the absolutely required ones, and no ridiculous paludal zem.

[Robben]

The PoK books turned the old-world zones into ghost towns.

I too enjoyed the PoP raids, but those books really diminished the scope of the game.


The devs seemed to completely neglect the old zones once Luclin/PoP came around and it killed that portion of the game

[myriverse]

They neglected the old zones before Luclin/PoP too. So...

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

Neglected until Ldon that is (at least from a storyline pov)

Mistmoore crypts were the best.

[Kika Maslyaka]

Exploration? LOL. PoP absolutely kills it. The whole game except for very specific "chosen" leveling/raiding zones becomes dead 99% of the time.

Social aspect? LOL. People just sit in PoP. There are basically never any more interesting encounters of meeting people and interacting out in the field. Everyone gets SoW/Clarity from a random person standing around and then just goes and teleports around to wherever they want.

AA's are NOT needed to balance classes better. That's something you can do by tweaking the skills and game mechanics themselves. AA's are simply a massive grind. Wow, there is some serious Pavlovian dog shit going on here.

I think that by the time PoK books were added old world was already a ghost town, from all the previous additions. It was just a flower to the grave already covered with earth.

EQ had inherited problems even in original content design they never went back to address.
For example lets compare:

Crushbone - tiny cramped area, with lev 12 mobs roaming next to lev 5 mobs, caused continuous trains. On other hand - lots of good non generic loot.

Blackburrow - amazingly designed cavern system, and the only classic zone with truly 3-dimentional layout (not just floors, on top of each other like in RunnyEye, but uniquely interconnected system of tunnels and caves). YET - there is not a single name mob here! Not a single loot drop that can equal to what you can get in Crushbone.

Another pair:
EverFrost - a very large zone, but with lots of landscape features
vs
West Karana - dull and empty - no zone geography what so ever, no landscape features. Not even mobs in sight! Nothing. It barely had any players even in classic times, even before Kunark.

Now, Kunark comes along and does 2 things:
-zones that designed a lot better with features and geography
-much better loot drops from same level mobs - this one was HUGE mistake. It immediately made old world zones to devalue, with exception of selected areas/loot camps.

They should have given Kunark mobs either similar quality loot, or go back and rework the old zones that were terribly lacking. They never did.

Then Velious comes along and drops even better loot on same level range for 40+ level game.

And finally Luclin:
-Lev 25 mobs drop weapons with ratios of what 45+ named droped in Sol A/Permafrost
-Low level zones with insane ZEM
-and at the same time, the map of Luclin is poorly designed, with some zones clearly being superior in content and loot, while others super out of the way and worthless right from the start.

When people say that after initial EQ release all Brad McQuad did is smocked crack and talked about "Vision" - I am starting to believe: - its like expansions had no general oversight. No senior designer to make sure that things progress smoothly, and actually fit together. One designer was making one zone with one idea with respect to game balance, and another was working with completely different set of ideas.

So as you see here - this trend was quickly piling up. By the time of PoP - books or no books, didn't really matter. The game HAD TO BE OVERHAULED, but they didn't care - they wanted to sell another expansion.
Yes PoP actualy for the first time ahd interesting raids, but at least half of the zones again were poorly designed.

yes, Torment was awesome. Plane of Time- the pinnacle zone of entire expansion - SUCKED - there is literally nothing there.
I could go on for another 3 pages comparing in details what could have been done, and what wasn't, but I think you get general ideas.
They started good, but then were continuously pressed to get the next expansion out of the door, and ton of things went half done or not done at all.
And whats worse, they barely ever admitted to this flaws, and never fixed most of them.
Today, EQ lead designer is beating himself in a chest proudly saying "EQ is the largest MMO in the world - we 700 have unique zones!"
700 EMPTY zones, I may add. And then he comes in rerolled forums (http://www.rerolled.org/showthread.php?5605-Why-all-the-Emulated-EQ-servers-if-EQ-is-free-to-play) and start asking questions - why people are still playing EMU if EQ is f2p???
Poor sob.

[moklianne]

The PoK books turned the old-world zones into ghost towns.

I too enjoyed the PoP raids, but those books really diminished the scope of the game.


The devs seemed to completely neglect the old zones once Luclin/PoP came around and it killed that portion of the game

Kunark added a whole separate continent as did Velious, the only reason the classic zones were still used were because they provided enough exp for the new levels in Kunark and Velious. Also, you can't continuously expand zones into (and beyond) the size of West Karana. Traveling becomes even more tedious than it already is.

PoP raiding and the expansion as a whole I consider the pinnacle of EQ. I say this after playing and raiding in all expansions leading up to VoA (a few years old now). TSS and SoF were great as well.

It would be awesome if features from future expansions could be voted upon and implemented after Velious is complete. Such as, most of PoP with the exception of the easy porting (books) everywhere, Luclin without trader mode or set the spire portals to every hour instead of every 15 minutes, Epic 2.0's from OOW, etc

[webrunner5]

When people say that after initial EQ release all Brad McQuad did is smocked crack and talked about "Vision" - I am starting to believe: - its like expansions had no general oversight. No senior designer to make sure that things progress smoothly, and actually fit together. One designer was making one zone with one idea with respect to game balance, and another was working with completely different set of ideas.

So as you see here - this trend was quickly piling up. By the time of PoP - books or no books, didn't really matter. The game HAD TO BE OVERHAULED, but they didn't care - they wanted to sell another expansion.
Yes PoP actualy for the first time ahd interesting raids, but at least half of the zones again were poorly designed.

yes, Torment was awesome. Plane of Time- the pinnacle zone of entire expansion - SUCKED - there is literally nothing there.
I could go on for another 3 pages comparing in details what could have been done, and what wasn't, but I think you get general ideas.
They started good, but then were continuously pressed to get the next expansion out of the door, and ton of things went half done or not done at all.
And whats worse, they barely ever admitted to this flaws, and never fixed most of them.
Today, EQ lead designer is beating himself in a chest proudly saying "EQ is the largest MMO in the world - we 700 have unique zones!"
700 EMPTY zones, I may add. And then he comes in rerolled forums (http://www.rerolled.org/showthread.php?5605-Why-all-the-Emulated-EQ-servers-if-EQ-is-free-to-play) and start asking questions - why people are still playing EMU if EQ is f2p???
Poor sob.

Well the big problem was after the first release of EQ they started needing more developers for each zone. And if you play a Puller class, ergo Monk, you will find that X amount of the zones are alike but different. Meaning say 3 different developers designed say 5 zones each. All different mindsets with different pathing, spliting difficulty, etc.

So that is what I think made some zones great and other sort of sucked. More expansions put more pressure on the developers and some were good at it, others not.

I agree, WK, SK and NK all sort of sucks mobs wise, and feature wise. The Overthere is not far behind but at least has some mobs in it. Only a Bard can like it lol.

If you still play live like I do at times, it is SCARY how many zones there really is now. And they are doing a Lot better job at them than they did in the past. Live is really pretty cool if you just take your time on one toon and think past PoP. Start one up and play it the hard way like we did years ago you could spend 5 years and never find, or be in all of the neat places, there are on live. It is that good.

I don't want to hear about PoK stones and Cats on the Moon. You DO NOT have to use them if you don't want to. You are allowed to play a Human Monk and walk 12 zones if that is what you want. Hell it isn't a race to the top just like it should not be here.

[Tewaz]

Add the Plane of Tranquility as the only PoK book and you could add all of the content of PoP without the negatives.

[Erydan Ouragan]

Exploration? LOL. PoP absolutely kills it. The whole game except for very specific "chosen" leveling/raiding zones becomes dead 99% of the time.

Najena, Dalnir, Gorge of King Zorb... There's empty zones on p99 as well.

Social aspect? LOL. People just sit in PoP. There are basically never any more interesting encounters of meeting people and interacting out in the field. Everyone gets SoW/Clarity from a random person standing around and then just goes and teleports around to wherever they want.

So instead, people sit in EC tunnel, get SoW and Clarity from a random person standing around and teleport around to wherever they want from a druid or a wizard.

AA's are NOT needed to balance classes better. That's something you can do by tweaking the skills and game mechanics themselves. AA's are simply a massive grind. Wow, there is some serious Pavlovian dog shit going on here.

Everquest by itself, is a massive grind. First you grind the levels, then the plat to buy decent gear, then with the decent gear you farm the plat and buy the resist gear, or camp it, and then you start doing raids and farm the dkp or whatever system your guild uses and get raiding gear.

Sure you could tweak the skills and game mechanics, modify spell/skill values and adding new ones to bring balance, but i'd prefer AAs. It would be yet another long grind but hey, that's what the game is about and in the mean time, i get to have fun with my friends, so why not :)

[moklianne]

Sure you could tweak the skills and game mechanics, modify spell/skill values and adding new ones to bring balance, but i'd prefer AAs. It would be yet another long grind but hey, that's what the game is about and in the mean time, i get to have fun with my friends, so why not :)

I actually enjoyed AA's, the problem is that they quickly became an e-penis measuring stick above your level. "You only have 1K AA's? lulz"

The AA's in Luclin and PoP made a lot of sense, there were very few garbage AA's. If you look at live today, there are thousands of AA's that have minimal value vs their cost.

[Zuranthium]

West Karana - dull and empty - no zone geography what so ever, no landscape features. Not even mobs in sight! Nothing. It barely had any players even in classic times, even before Kunark.

Erm, that's not true at all. There were a lot of people in West Karana pre-Kunark. Bandits, Scarecrows, Cyclopes, and Ogres in that zone were all heavily camped. There are farm houses, big hills, towers, and forest lines throughout the zone, plus the river to the south. I really like the expansive nature of the zone.

Now, I do think Everquest has a design flaw in that running around and trying to hunt random stuff in West Karana doesn't give you a good reward. In zones like this, individual monsters in the spread-out areas should give exp bonuses because it takes you extra time to actually get to them. Groups should be rewarded for having a tracking Ranger in these areas, since they can find stuff to hunt quicker that way. With West Karana being such a large zone there's definitely room for more content as well, although you don't want to overdo it because the point of the zone is that its supposed to be a giant plains/farmland.

[HawkMasterson1999]

So much hate for the karanas... I think they're awesome and norath would feel much smaller and lesser without them.

[Erydan Ouragan]

I actually enjoyed AA's, the problem is that they quickly became an e-penis measuring stick above your level. "You only have 1K AA's? lulz"

The AA's in Luclin and PoP made a lot of sense, there were very few garbage AA's. If you look at live today, there are thousands of AA's that have minimal value vs their cost.

Ahh yes, the e-penis measuring stick. Unfortunately, that's a product of human psychology. Most human beings are competitive by nature and are not only satisfied when they have more for themselves, but also when the other people around them have less than they have.

Even if there was an mmo where everybody is the same, have the same spells and items, people would still find a way to argue why they're the best and everybody else sucks.

I agree with your comment about the luclin and PoP AAs, that's why i said i believe PoP is the pinnacle of Everquest. Other expansions just added bloat and unnecessary things to keep people in the rat race, give them something to do.

[loramin]

So much hate for the karanas... I think they're awesome and norath would feel much smaller and lesser without them.

Oh dear god, I actually agree with Hawk on something.

/wrists

[HawkMasterson1999]

There may be hope for you yet... probably not though.

[loramin]

Ahh yes, the e-penis measuring stick. Unfortunately, that's a product of human psychology. Most human beings are competitive by nature and are not only satisfied when they have more for themselves, but also when the other people around them have less than they have.


And this was the problem of AAs. EQ is already a game that favors those with the most time to invest in it, but before AAs that only resulted in a few "tiers" of players:

1) casual, not yet 60
2) casual, 60
3) raiding, 60
4) top-end raiding 60

"Social mobility" between those tiers was pretty fluid: even if you weren't yet 60, all you had to do to become "the 1%" was get to 60 and join the right guild (which might require doing annoying work like getting your VP key, but it wasn't that hard).

After AAs you had three new tiers within each of those:

1) no or very few AAs
2) essential AAs
3) tons of AAs

Now suddenly the gulf between the 1% (tons of AAs top-end raiding) and the <60 player was HUGE. Now you had to get to 60, and at least earn all your essential AAs to even be considered by top guilds. And it only got worse as more AAs were added.

TLDR: AAs made it nearly impossible for a casual player to catch up to a hardcore player in a way that new raid zones and new level increases never did.

[Zuranthium]

Najena, Dalnir, Gorge of King Zorb... There's empty zones on p99 as well.

Yes and that could be improved. Gorge is a cool zone but there just isn't enough value there for hunting. If it had a better exp mod it would be worthwhile, plus you can add a higher level dungeon that's connected to the zone, so then you get traffic through the zone.

Najena could be given more reward for the depths of the dungeon. The top part of the dungeon is fine for exping already and I've frequently seen people there. Runneye needs wayyyy more reward as you go deeper into it. Dalnir/Nurga/Droga just need better drops. Kaesora could use a bit of love too.

So instead, people sit in EC tunnel, get SoW and Clarity from a random person standing around and teleport around to wherever they want from a druid or a wizard.

People can't instantly travel to EC, nor is EC so centralized that everyone automatically goes there. This would be especially true if the game world was balanced better. If there was more content on the western side of the world and in Faydwer, then you would see South Qeynos and Greater Faydark becoming busy, bustling hubs.

[iruinedyourday]

West Karana - dull and empty - no zone geography what so ever, no landscape features. Not even mobs in sight! Nothing. It barely had any players even in classic times, even before Kunark

Erm, that's not true at all. There were a lot of people in West Karana pre-Kunark. Bandits, Scarecrows, Cyclopes, and Ogres in that zone were all heavily camped. There are farm houses, big hills, towers, and forest lines throughout the zone, plus the river to the south. I really like the expansive nature of the zone.

Now, I do think Everquest has a design flaw in that running around and trying to hunt random stuff in West Karana doesn't give you a good reward. In zones like this, individual monsters in the spread-out areas should give exp bonuses because it takes you extra time to actually get to them. Groups should be rewarded for having a tracking Ranger in these areas, since they can find stuff to hunt quicker that way. With West Karana being such a large zone there's definitely room for more content as well, although you don't want to overdo it because the point of the zone is that its supposed to be a giant plains/farmland.

Bandits are fantastic XP and Plat in WC for the teens, best in the game! I loved that zone, particularly for the reasons the prior post listed it being dull. It was this place where I felt the 'common man' of eq, lived. Its drastically low level, there are cute human farms, there is that weird scarecrow that chases after you if you walk on the farmers field, there is that interesting family of barbarian fishermen, that you can raise faction with in Halas to shop with, or slaughter if you're evil to loot their family forged bronze armor. Its a beautiful zone. Mysterious ogre's deep in the mountains, where giants roam behind the trees.

Eq is a game that has always had more of a 'world' to it than any other MMO, ever. I attribute this to multiple 'happy accidents' in the games design but one of the main things I believe helps shape that, is the lack of instancing. Yes it means zones are camped & over crowding can be frustrating. But the result is that its an open living world where you have to interact with people. Instanced zones destroy this illusion.

Ill never forget the feeling I had when I hit 40, and went to lguk for the first time, the dead side of the zone was completely camped. You could walk a level 1 toon around in there without fear of death, anywhere (unless a spawn happened to pop right on top of you). Though some people found this to be frustrating, I found it to be magical. The gear people wore running around in this 'player made underground city for the elite' was beautiful, gold, blue, high level spell particles flowing all over the place. The auction channel was on fire, updated with gear you couldn't even find in EC, Ooc chatter was flowing. It was incredible, a secret city under a mysterious dungeon, all run, organized, managed, and exists because of of over crowding & players. The froglock tad hunting trolls of Innothule had no idea what roared beneath their feet.

Classic EQ is 100% about, what you make of it.

[Glenzig]

Instanced content is the roadway to modern mmo crap game play. Never ever ever ever ever add any instanced content to p99 please.

[Kika Maslyaka]

People can't instantly travel to EC, nor is EC so centralized that everyone automatically goes there. This would be especially true if the game world was balanced better. If there was more content on the western side of the world and in Faydwer, then you would see South Qeynos and Greater Faydark becoming busy, bustling hubs.

Well people do tend to create their own hubs, though I would prefer them to be more distributed around, using actual cities. Of course game was made such way that Freeport/EC ended up the most "practical" center of the world.

[coki]

So like if you were one of the lucky few to bind at firepots before that became an issue, you basically had the POK of "your time" ??? hrmmmm

[Kika Maslyaka]

So like if you were one of the lucky few to bind at firepots before that became an issue, you basically had the POK of "your time" ??? hrmmmm

I would purge all FP binds.

[Clark]

I actually enjoyed AA's, the problem is that they quickly became an e-penis measuring stick above your level.

lol

[Rakzar]

I think most people on this server would be happy if they added aas.

Has there been any dev acknowledgement or response to this?

[Kika Maslyaka]

I think most people on this server would be happy if they added aas.

Has there been any dev acknowledgement or response to this?

Rogean mentioned on few occasions that he gutted most of AA code, and not likely to redo it.

[Rakzar]

I think most people on this server would be happy if they added aas.

Has there been any dev acknowledgement or response to this?

[Rakzar]

So never going to be here? Fairly disapointing

[moklianne]

I would purge all FP binds.

Make them swim...

[Swish]

So never going to be here? Fairly disapointing

The alternative is someone makes their own P99 server (better than the Sleeper etc), and adds a bunch of custom content themselves with things like AAs, frogloks, drakkin, custom stat gear, etc etc.

Build it and they will come :p

[moklianne]

So never going to be here? Fairly disapointing

This server set out to get up to Velious and that's it. There is a rumor that custom content may be considered at some point after, but its not official. It could theoretically be included as 'custom content', but highly unlikely. If they did custom content, I would imagine it would be continuing the storylines of existing quests, no new zones ever made, maybe just additions to existing ones, etc.

[iruinedyourday]

Eh... I wouldn't have left live for this project had I known it would start turning into shitty live eventually.

Just make a new character. Seems like people are asking for something the server said it wasn't. Like swish said, if you really want this stuff, start a 2005 server. I would call it "projectLive" :)