Newish Player and State of the server(blue)?

[Poison85]

Hi, I'm kinda new to p99 and I've been reading a lot of stuff lately on the forums and some websites. I just have one concern and that is that the blue server is very end game heavy. I always hear about important mobs being perma-camped and I have experienced how generous the community is(at least in the starting areas). It's amazing how many people just throw items and money at you sometimes. Is it worth starting to play again? I've heard a lot of negative things about the higher level community. Overall I'm just kinda confused about the state of the server. :confused:

[Troxx]

The game is pretty vibrant from level 1 to mid/high 50s. There are a ton of level 60s out there but pretty much all of them have alts ranging from the newbie yard on up. There are a ton of casuals, some who have played years and never made it much past the low 50s on any single character.

The only thing that sucks is the raid scene. You are pretty much left with a choice between selling your soul and life to the pixel gods or settling for minor content.

The content itself isn't terribly difficult for the most part -the challenge is only in your willingness to compete with a horde of folks willing to park multiple level 60s everywhere and log in at a moments notice when something spawns. Raid targets die so soon after spawning that you can't really schedule specific raid times other than to farm the equivalent of trash mobs for middle-tier set armors.

There's fun to be had at 60, just don't expect to kill or even have the chance to wipe to any really great targets without joining one of the dominant guilds on the server - including contested kunark targets.

[loramin]

One very important thing to understand: the forums DO NOT represent the server. The people who frequent the forums are a small subset of the overall P99 population, and it tends to be a very ... critical subset (to put it politely). So please, take anything you read here with many grains of salt.

All that being said, I think the server has a population consistent with live servers (although everyone's memory of live is of course different). Certainly places like Karnor's Castle where the less adventurous tend to gather are busy, but if you look around there are plenty of other places even at the highest levels. For instance, I was in Charasis (great very high-end dungeon) last Saturday morning and there were only two other people in the zone (and even at peak times people get groups there).

So I'd say come join us, make a character and I'm pretty sure you'll be hooked with just a few hours of that EverCrack. Whatever faults the high-end has, it wouldn't be full of people if it wasn't fun on some level.

P.S. As mentioned the raid scene has its ... faults. But again, it's not as bad as the forums make it sound. While it's true the fanatic players grab the most popular raid targets as soon as they spawn, they certainly do not monopolize all raid content, and plenty of guilds with members who have lives raid (just not the best stuff).

If you're coming here to kill the Sleeper yourself or do other top tier raid content, and you have a job/life, this may not be the server for you (also the Sleeper is already dead). But if you've come to play EQ and not raid, or raid but not the very top stuff, or raid the top stuff and you have no job/life, you'll be fine.

[fan D]

leveling up is fun, the most fun thing to do is get a group of like minded pals and hit all of the obscure camps/dungeons you never did on live. Don't spend time in boring zones like Dreadlands, don't spend your precious exp time leveling up pulling a tiger to the wall of a zone...ya know ?

Hit up sola, dungeon crawl through that place. Make it an event, crawl through all over upper guk. Conqueor the Mistmoore Castle. Hit the fucked up random Kunark dungeons like Nurga, Dalnir, Kaesora etc...hit all those spots you or nobody else did on live. That's the most fun i've had and ive been playing this server for 15hours a day for the past 6 years.

When you get to the raid scene, if you want to kill the hardest mobs and get the best loot, you have to join one of the two big guilds. Killing these NTOV dragon isn't an event, it feels more like a job. You sit there and auto attack while it's in one place for a few seconds until it dies. The mobs die very quickly and there's not much mystery to it. To even get a chance to kill the dragon, you have to endure a -/+ 16hour variance spawn time. Someone in your guild has to stare at its spawn point for 1second up to 16hours. You take rotations, shifts, to keep eyes there. There are multiple guilds doing this. Virtually anyone in the two top guilds will tell ya there isn't much fun to it. You aren't doing dungeon crawls, you aren't clearing mobs to get to the boss. You sit at TOV entrance and the all the dragons come to you, most people don't get to see the actual zone. This goes for almost every raid zone.

Then you have to think, why do I want these best items? All of the Velious content was cleared on day1 with people in only Kunark gear. None of these best loots in the game will help your guild progress and make things easier for you. You're going to be maxed in your stats with cheap EC tunnel gear.

So really, the game is what you make out of it. You have to make it fun for yourself. There is no right way to play. Spend your time doing obscure tradeskill recipes, or spend your time in the most obscure zones. Don't rush to 60 in the easy, vanilla, common spots. There ain't much to look forward to at 60.

[Sancta]

The raid scene isn't as toxic as the forums make it out to be, 90% of the people commenting on the raid scene do not play here anymore. It's really easy to tell who raids and who doesn't. If you don't want toxicity just don't read the forums.

[Lowako]

Everything that isn't NToV raiding in this game is super enjoyable either solo/pugging or with a few friends. The forums typically make things seem like much bigger issues than they actually are as well. If you just play the game with some pals and work toward achieving whatever in game goals you might have, you'll find it a bit easier and funner than you may expect.

[Lune]

Hi, I'm kinda new to p99 and I've been reading a lot of stuff lately on the forums and some websites. I just have one concern and that is that the blue server is very end game heavy. I always hear about important mobs being perma-camped and I have experienced how generous the community is(at least in the starting areas). It's amazing how many people just throw items and money at you sometimes. Is it worth starting to play again? I've heard a lot of negative things about the higher level community. Overall I'm just kinda confused about the state of the server. :confused:

I had the same concerns when I started in 2011. At the time, a huge swathe of the high level end-game community had just been banned/deleveled for cheating or something. The raiding scene was worse, being dominated by only a single guild, and the population was only about 450.

I had a fucking blast on this server for years.

I raided a bit during a few different periods of time and that was ok for a while but I burned out pretty quickly each time, as I do in any MMO. That didn't keep me from experiencing the game, as I loved to do stuff like Sebilis, camp items in droga, twink and level alts, flip items in EC for money, etc. The raiding scene isn't perfect but I view it as totally optional.

The community here is quite unlike any you'll find in other online games because... well... it's a community. People communicate, interact constantly, they have reputations, and they rely on each other. It's really something special.

[Sage Truthbearer]

Like other said, the game is what you make of it. If you just want to have fun playing the classic EQ that we all know and love from 1999-2001 era, then this server offers an incredibly fun experience.

I had a great time on my various play-throughs. Being able to start from scratch on a highly-populated server that's very similar to what we had on EQ live and join pick-up groups, make new friends, and re-explore all of the classic, kunark, and velious cities, zones, and dungeons is neat.

[Expediency]

The raid scene isn't as toxic as the forums make it out to be, 90% of the people commenting on the raid scene do not play here anymore. It's really easy to tell who raids and who doesn't. If you don't want toxicity just don't read the forums.

This is the best advice you will read. It takes quite a bit to get banned from these forums, a very vocal minority who havent played in years (but cant stand to sever their ties the community) talks trash constantly.

If you want to hit sky, fear, hate, kill some of the lesser kunark/velious targets, or get a set of HoT armor, all of this can be accomplished in at least 10 different casual guilds. The toxicity comes mostly from the top level mobs that people go to ridiculous lengths to secure.

[Swish]

P99 raiding is cancerous, stay away.

The raid scene isn't as toxic as the forums make it out to be, 90% of the people commenting on the raid scene do not play here anymore.

Don't know how Kushie hasn't been banned yet, has nothing good to say about P99...quite the opposite.

[ZiggyTheMuss]

It's 100% still worth playing OP. Just don't get any notions of raiding any high end raid mobs unless you want to sell your soul. The classic experience is still attainable. Also don't listen to people who have more than 10,000 posts, I mean that's just common sense. Most of us have lives still that don't revolve around obsessive forum posting.

[gnatte]

Most forum trolls don't play here or got banned and are salty AF, don't listen to them and have fun without letting them get in the way.