Shards of Dalaya?

[sox7d]

I haven't played it in a few years, but does anyone else think that the fleshed out quests 1-60 without stat inflation, flavored classes and dangerous "fast travel" made it what EQ should have been?

If they made it soloable and had the p99 population, I'd be on that shit religiously.

[Greegon]

whats this fast travel?

[apio]

https://shardsofdalaya.com/forum/threads/mansion-of-portals-information.28474/

[Cookiefist]

I spent many years playing on Dalaya but finally got bored due to low pop. I would be there now if it had double the pop. End game is super fun, fresh, and challenging. Less toxic community too from what I remember.

[apio]

It is actually quite popular, their forum has like 5k users more than P99 currently has. I think the raid size there (limited to 18 players) is optimal for Emu Communities and it doesn't require the huge population an EQ server needs to be interesting.

You don't need to throw 30 to 40 people at content, like it is required from Velious onwards on a regular EQ server.

There are a lot of other nice things about the server. A lot of the content is completely different with different mobs and interesting lore(for example, Guk connects to Lower Guk connects to Sebilis, etc.), the raid encounters are actually challenging (and very well tuned to the raid size), progression is very interesting and theres butt loads of content, be it 18 man, 6 man, or whatever else.

Its definitely worth a shot if you haven't checked it out.

[Glenzig]

I thought about going to Dalaya last year, but chose p99 instead for its classicness. Not disappointed at all. Does Dalaya run on the titanium client also?

[apio]

You start from a titanium install but then you use their own patcher which changes quite a lot of stuff, compared to the handful of files you need to change on P99

[Tongpow]

It WAS actually quite popular, their forum has like 5k users more than P99 currently has.

it has forum users because its like 10years old at this point it was the most popular server for years before p99 was even a server, pretty sure Red99 has a higher population than them now.


rip PR , CW
http://shardsofdalaya.com/fomelo/fomelo.php?char=Oshieh

[apio]

you need 9 people who each play 2 characers to reach the raid size. You don't need to have a huge active playerbase when you do your own thing together with a few friends.

It never had a huge playerbase like P99, and it doesn't have the same forum rules so theres practically no forum questing. Which makes the member numbers even more impressive

No Jugger Charm? Noob ! ;)

[sox7d]

A few years back my brother and I spent a fantastic two weeks coming from California to a Wisconsin winter eating cookies, tea and sitting by the fire looking out the living room window as the snow fell. All meanwhile duoing in SoD as new monk and shaman, travelling all over for loot and completing the twilight quests. Comfiest vacation ever.

[Cecily]

It was hard as hell to join a guild there because low raid number cap. That and my uh friend, Budrick, stripped all of my druid Wyntir's gear. Loved that server, but raiding was very much a job on shards compared to P99's flexible schedule.

[Byrjun]

It's a great custom server with some mind blowingly amazing mechanics and content. The problem is it's also the oldest EQ emu server and the game is permanently fucked by mudflation.

If you two box up to max level you'll have maybe Velious-Luclin style gear... like +20 to 70ish HP type stuff. High end raid loot is 1000+ HP per piece. If a raid guild recruits you, they have to completely outfit you slot by slot in new gear to make you relevant on those raids. So why would they choose you over some random guy who's friends with an officer?

Because of the mudflation and established playerbase, it's nearly impossible to become active in the raid scene. It's really fun if you just want to play casually with some friends, though. The adept system is brilliant, tradeskills are brilliant, there's really a lot of great ideas on that server.

They really need to just say good-bye, nuke the database and restart SoD on the Titanium client so it can be accessed from the standard EQEmu launcher and give everyone a fresh start with redesigned itemization to remove some of the insane power creep.

[Tongpow]

nothing has more than +265hp other than the Charms and they deal with mudflation with the charm slot items the best one costing 1.2mill plat

raid scene is fucked though tier 1-6 is empty and you used to be able to show up to pugs as a fresh 65 and skip all that shit, the first bottleneck being tier 7 where most family casual guilds go to die / feed the 1 active tier 10+ guild

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Charms
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Raid_Tiers

it's best days are behind it by about 5years

[Byrjun]

Did they retune item balance? I remember seeing some really crazy stuff.

But to give an example, here's a shaman I put quite a lot of time into: http://shardsofdalaya.com/fomelo/fomelo.php?char=pryokor

Decent gear for a level 60 (well, back when I played) ... but absolutely cannot compare to even +200/+200 stuff. So why would a raid guild recruit me? Answer: they wouldn't.

[porigromus]

tried it but fell even less immersion than when I was in Luclin or PoP. You can tell it is a mashed up mixed up game when you play it. Signs for areas say one thing but they call it something else. Nothing flowed well together, it definitely felt cobbled together.

That is why I dislike most emu servers. Taking a complete game experience world and butchering into some weird mash up. It isn't only the emus, SOE actually did that to live and that is why I quit.

New player models running through old world graphics? What the .... that didn't feel like a cohesive world any longer ... weird books placed around without a thought of cohesive world feel just for convenience. The world lost it's living feeling and was replaced with mashed up mixed up graphics world with features that are convenient in a monster killing factory.

[Cecily]

Did they retune item balance? I remember seeing some really crazy stuff.

But to give an example, here's a shaman I put quite a lot of time into: http://shardsofdalaya.com/fomelo/fomelo.php?char=pryokor

Decent gear for a level 60 (well, back when I played) ... but absolutely cannot compare to even +200/+200 stuff. So why would a raid guild recruit me? Answer: they wouldn't.

I noticed you didn't have a ton of AAs like myself here: http://shardsofdalaya.com/fomelo/fomelo.php?char=yvette. Kinda funny how similar her stats are to Cecily's.

Another big thing that sucked beyond getting a raiding guild was the high end people were absolute jerks to group with, IF they grouped you instead of rejecting you because your profile's gear wasn't up to their standards. You made it to 65 and were basically stuck solo, unable to get raid gear or AAs. I'm very happy to see that tiny community wither and die honestly.

[Byrjun]

Yeah, I also had a lot of negative run ins with the "older established" playerbase once I reached 65. Coupled with the long ass AA grind that's what caused me to quit. 2 boxing up to 65 was fun though. I still commend them for the world they built and all the fresh, interesting mechanics they were able to cram into a game like EQ.

But yeah, the best thing they could do at this point is scrap it and recreate it on Titanium. My first character there was a necromancer. He has an OP pet heal clicky that hasn't been obtainable since like 2006 (when they got rid of all the Lands of Magic zones) and was able to max all of his specializations due to a bug. Who knows what other crazy unobtainable shit is still on that server.

Wiping the mudflation clean and getting a larger population from being selectable on the main EQEmu launcher would also really help SoD.


Edit: I have a 65 monk too. Innate fists are 15/18... monks OP everywhere apparently.

[cyryllis]

thought shards of dalaya was awesome back when the population was high years ago and it wasnt completely 2 boxed chars. spent years playing there.

heres my old char, example of gear obtainable there years ago

http://shardsofdalaya.com/fomelo/fomelo.php?char=serillis