New to P99, couple questions....

[Sithil]

I'm sure everyone of these has been answered a million times before but being new here I have a couple questions:

I remember no maps, but don't remember a time before having a compass that spun like crazy until sense heading was at a decent lvl. When was compass added originally and will it ever be added to P99?

Also Guild Management, this one shocked me as I didn't know it wasn't always there. When was that window/tool added originally and again would P99 ever consider adding it?

It's been so long that some others I remembered after it happened but were shocking to start like re-meming spells after death and pelts not being stackable.

I assume at this point P99 is not going further, I.E. Luclin or PoP, but I do think some of the additions after Velious weren't original but were put in for play-ability. I originally started playing during pop, so some of things come back to memory cause they were this way during Pop but others are brand new since I didn't start until 2002 or 2003.
Thanks for any replies and answers.

[Crede]

I don't recall when exactly any of these things were added, but I can tell you none of them will ever be on p99. If you're looking for those things at some point you'd be better off trying one of the progression servers on live.

[loramin]

I assume at this point P99 is not going further, I.E. Luclin or PoP, but I do think some of the additions after Velious weren't original but were put in for play-ability.

An important thing to understand about this server is that the people in charge don't give a flying kick about playability. But I don't mean that as a slight against them: I think they'd say the same thing.

What they do care about, passionately, is re-creating Everquest circa 1999-2001. Everquest (in that era) had tons of things wrong with it. Fixes for those things, eg. adding a compass to fix the PITA that is sense heading, came in subsequent expansions/patches ... but those expansions/patches also broke the "classic feel" of EverQuest. A lot of this had to do with EQ's creator (Aradune/Brad McQuaid) leaving before Luclin.

In the minds of the people who run this server losing the classic feel is far, far worse than the classic problems, usability or otherwise. So, what I'm trying to get at is, don't come here expecting a "good" game, at least by the metrics we'd use today ... or even by the metrics we judged EQ ten years ago. And definitely don't come to try and convince the staff to make a "good" game by today's standards; it will never happen.

Come for something that was "good in its own way" back in '99, as well as for the awesome community and incredible staff who make P99 one of the best-run (if not the best run) emulated EQ server in existence. Having to deal with some terrible decisions made by Verant back in 1999 is just part of the server's charm.

[Byrjun]

I remember no maps, but don't remember a time before having a compass that spun like crazy until sense heading was at a decent lvl. When was compass added originally and will it ever be added to P99?

Luclin. So no, never on P99. The best you can do is put Sense Heading to a hidden hotkey and bind one or both of your left/right movement keys to the same hotkey, so you use sense heading every time you turn left or right. This helps you skill up quickly, and you can put the messages in their own transparent window somewhere so you just get constant feedback of which direction you're going.

Also Guild Management, this one shocked me as I didn't know it wasn't always there. When was that window/tool added originally and again would P99 ever consider adding it?

Man I don't even remember. Wasn't this added in like the GoD - OoW era? Way past P99. DAoC was an older MMO that had a guild management system before EQ did so if you played that maybe you're confusing them.

I assume at this point P99 is not going further, I.E. Luclin or PoP, but I do think some of the additions after Velious weren't original but were put in for play-ability.

Not sure which additions you mean. Stuff like FTE announcements and simulated repops aren't real classic features obviously, but they were created to address serious P99-specific problems and they were done while keeping the spirit of classic EverQuest a top priority.

Some stuff just can't be changed, or it's very difficult. The Titanium client itself is from way beyond Velious. P99 actually had some stuff that comes baked into the Titanium client for a long time (maps in starter zones, the compass, bunch of other stuff) but over time the devs finally figured out how to remove all the newer quality of life features to make the project more classic.

[Sithil]

Don't worry loramin, I know at this point P99 has been around for years so what you see is basically what you get. I'm not naive to think anything is going to change, just wanted some clarification on a couple things I noticed just starting here.

Some things I've noticed, like pelts not stacking, were how things were but it's been changed for so long my brain just didn't remember. Another question I had that wasn't expected was buff timers. How the heck do you tell how much longer your buffs have?

[Chuck76]

As a new player myself I was attracted to the idea of a genuine original experience. But one thing I find game breaking is, the Line-of-sight caster nerf, that went in on live during Luclin. This is currently in the game. As a caster I can not cast magic through walls. And if I begin a cast a melle just ducks out of site at the last minute and my spell won't land. This broke the game for caster pvp on live ( in addition to obscene spell resists from Luclin and on raid gear) and I was hoping an old school version would have put this back to it's original settings.

Also the fact that even on a server with 100 or so people, there are people, like Smallmee who group newbs then port them to kos druid rings while shouting profanities in ooc.

[Swish]

As a new player myself I was attracted to the idea of a genuine original experience. But one thing I find game breaking is, the Line-of-sight caster nerf, that went in on live during Luclin. This is currently in the game. As a caster I can not cast magic through walls. And if I begin a cast a melle just ducks out of site at the last minute and my spell won't land. This broke the game for caster pvp on live ( in addition to obscene spell resists from Luclin and on raid gear) and I was hoping an old school version would have put this back to it's original settings.

Also the fact that even on a server with 100 or so people, there are people, like Smallmee who group newbs then port them to kos druid rings while shouting profanities in ooc.

This is situational, I've personally nuked a guy who ran around a corner outside Velks, and cast another spell which also landed despite not having LOS.

If you think something is a bug and can back up the evidence that things were different during Velious era EQ on live (easier said than done, but worth a go) then make a thread in the bug section of the forums.

Some things are fixed quickly, others take more time (duck cancel on blue etc, never was fixed but does now belong at this point).

[Sancta]

You are able to purchase and use a compass here on P99.

[Egilmn]

Also the fact that even on a server with 100 or so people, there are people, like Smallmee who group newbs then port them to kos druid rings while shouting profanities in ooc.

Typical red player, you will see plenty more of that there. Many of them are asperger-type griefers who want to feel better about themselves. It is easy to grief pvp in eq so that is why they are attracted to it.

[Byrjun]

Some things I've noticed, like pelts not stacking, were how things were but it's been changed for so long my brain just didn't remember. Another question I had that wasn't expected was buff timers. How the heck do you tell how much longer your buffs have?

Oh yeah, buff timers recently hit the chopping block. They figured out how to remove that around the end of Kunark.

Look up GINA (http://eq.gimasoft.com/gina/Default.aspx). It's another program you have to run, but it's way more powerful than the default buff timers anyways. Just have to take some time setting it up. It's just a log parser, so it's legal to use.

[Izmael]

Some things are fixed quickly, others take more time (duck cancel on blue etc,

Are you saying duck interrupting shouldn't be there? I swear I remember we used to duck CHs in rotations back then on live to save mana (when CH was about to land but tank was full HP or close).

[Jimjam]

Are you saying duck interrupting shouldn't be there? I swear I remember we used to duck CHs in rotations back then on live to save mana (when CH was about to land but tank was full HP or close).

You might have been forcing sit using the button in the abilities window?

[Qtip]

As a new player myself I was attracted to the idea of a genuine original experience. But one thing I find game breaking is, the Line-of-sight caster nerf, that went in on live during Luclin. This is currently in the game. As a caster I can not cast magic through walls. And if I begin a cast a melle just ducks out of site at the last minute and my spell won't land. This broke the game for caster pvp on live ( in addition to obscene spell resists from Luclin and on raid gear) and I was hoping an old school version would have put this back to it's original settings.

Also the fact that even on a server with 100 or so people, there are people, like Smallmee who group newbs then port them to kos druid rings while shouting profanities in ooc.

You need lns at start and end of spell on indoors. Outdoors you only need lns to start.

[kotton05]

Also depends on the spell. I know lull and cancel magic don't obey normal LOS.

[indiscriminate_hater]

bring back the compass

[Izmael]

You might have been forcing sit using the button in the abilities window?

I learned about THAT trick on P99, so nope.

[dude]

I would say no ducking but I only played a rogue back then so uh what would a rogue know about ducking spells they just BS them.

[borgy93]

Are you saying duck interrupting shouldn't be there? I swear I remember we used to duck CHs in rotations back then on live to save mana (when CH was about to land but tank was full HP or close).

If your ducked when the spells cast time ends it wont cast but ducking wouldn't stop casting so you could duck/unduck and it would still cast.