Luclin was classic, PoP was not.

[Blathe Shadowsbane]

Change my mind. Yeah i know brad/aradune left, but eventually I'd love a server to just let us play up to Luclin.

[beargryllz]

6/10, good foundations, but ultimately low-effort troll

[loramin]

eventually I'd love a server to just let us play up to Luclin.

So build it. That's the only way it will happen, and you don't need permission from anyone here to do so.

[Kohedron]

I'd be 99% fine with Luclin if Nexus didn't exist. And not even the fast travel part, just the 'everyone is allowed' part

[Gozuk]

Turn the Shady Swashbuckler area of the EC tunnel into an Arena. That was the best part of Luclin... The Bazaar arena was always poppin off

[Argh]

To me, PoP was the end of the classic era.

[solleks]

Hated it

[Nagoya]

Change my mind. Yeah i know brad/aradune left, but eventually I'd love a server to just let us play up to Luclin.

why would we have to change your mind?
think what you have to think man! Go with your heart!

[Shinko]

No more ec tun = non classic

And cats gtfo

[Izmael]

yeah no

[Foxplay]

As much as I love aa grinding I disagree with it being "classic" it was a huge change to the game, and the Nexus made the game feel "smaller" due to making travel eaiser (without a druid or wiz buddy)

I'm not a tunnel cat. Pretty much hate that part of the "game" so won't comment on the bazaar.

So in total they did a poor job making luclin feel like it belonged in the world, despite it having some good content in it as well as much needed balancing for some suffering classes in the form of aa points

Also luclin models where God awful with everyone standing akwardly to one side like they are trying to squeeze out a fart

[mcoy]

My biggest complaint about Luclin (other than the Nexus and PoK making ports and spells too easy to come across...) was Paludal Caverns. 1-20 was no longer a thing with the ridiculous bonus and ease of killing there.

-Mcoy

[wwoneo]

AAs and Bazaar made Luclin a decent expansion. The graphical changes made it horrible. No one cares about the Nexus porting; we have Dial A Port... The guild makes it even more convenient than waiting the 15 minutes for nexus porting.

[jerok88]

My biggest complaint about Luclin (other than the Nexus and PoK making ports and spells too easy to come across...) was Paludal Caverns. 1-20 was no longer a thing with the ridiculous bonus and ease of killing there.

-Mcoy
And there was ok my 2 bandit camps right? I remember lfging there and killing the phleg disease guys in the tunnels.

Tutorial escape to paludal sucked compared to leveling in Gray, crushbone, heading to the oasis, good times...

[Nibblewitz]

Classic is classic. No expansions!

[Arkanjil]

http://i.imgur.com/WOxx7oi.jpg

[Sonderbeast]

Sky was the end of classic

[Xanthias]

The graphics were horrid, granted the naked bug was amusing for a bit.
I miss AAs though heh.

[Bummey]

Luclin was good.

Some player models were good. The animations were not.

[kaluppo]

You can select to have them turned off.

I did just that when Luclin first launched. I liked what I was used to so I turned off the new models so all the character models would still look the same to me.

[elwing]

Neutral zones in luclin was the start of then end for pvpteam server... Lots of good thing in luclin, but please no bazaar...

[indiscriminate_hater]

https://i.imgur.com/IO6WmLr.jpg

[indiscriminate_hater]

oh whoops I didn't even read OP's post before pumping that out

[Sonderbeast]

its really to bad that theres no fantaastc servers with the most superior and livelike code of any emu serv and cute girl devs and cute girls playing well-supported warriors named Tsiuri with a sane boxing policy that makes the game casual friendly and a warm blanket global chat channel containing largely warmhearted noncutthroat sweetheart individuals which value your company & support you ingame rather than desiring to drive you off their overpopulous box which are about to enter luclin for a year or 3, thereby becoming the first playable EQ since mac. I really miss luclin.

Squeaky clean

[turbosilk]

I'd be 99% fine with Luclin if Nexus didn't exist. And not even the fast travel part, just the 'everyone is allowed' part

This is also why the OT hammers need the MQ nerfed. It's the primary reason you don't see wiz and druids in dungeons cuz melee can easily hammer out.

[Expediency]

Hated the nexus/travel books first time I saw them; hate them now. That+bazaar robots broke the game for me. AAs were not much better.

Id love to see some luclin zones on p99 Theyd be ultra hard without AAs. Pass on the bells & whistles

[loramin]

I think we all just need new custom content from the P99 devs *hint hint* *nudge nudge*.

[d3r14k]

I think we all just need new custom content from the P99 devs *hint hint* *nudge nudge*.

Agree ^

Maybe we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves though. Chardok 2.0 first, then Green 99, then all the custom hotness.

A MAN CAN DREAM, CAN'T HE!?

Edit: Honestly, maybe I should just can it. I haven't even come close to completing all the current content yet.

[Slonekb05]

I liked the zones in luclin and pop... just take out POK, nexus, and bazaar. AA’d were nice also.. gave a reason to continue to play your max lvs chars other than raiding.

[Robbintha Hood]

I think we all just need new custom content from the P99 devs *hint hint* *nudge nudge*.

I would like to see a custom release of Luclin. Here's some suggestions I think would be pretty cool if the Staff were able to implement.

-No Nexus Ports. Keep ports as a sole ability of wizards and druids.
-Reduced number of AAs and make AAs available at lvl 60. It would help maintain a level of difficulty in older content, but probably would cause Luclin content to be watered down a little.
-No Luclin Character Graphics & No ability to turn on said graphics.
-No Bot traders, and no Bazaar. Turn the zone-in(s) to the Bazaar as a one-way port to EC Tunnel as a worst case scenario
-No Playable Moon Kitties. Helps exclude the updated character graphics.
-Keep Beastlord Class. Just make it available to the original classes excluding the Moon Kitties (obviously).

[Gilder]

Luclin was great. Cats were cool. Books were bad m'kay.

[elwing]

Books are not luclin... Remove neutral zones, bazaar and luclin is mostly good... Other content that could be easily released is veksar...

[LuckyBones]

Luclin is p2002.... just go there.. the staff isn't going to give any of you what you want. Lol

[LuckyBones]

You know what would be cool? Gta5 but with no car jacking. Lmao

[BarnabusCollins]

luclin environment skins were not classic and teribadawful

[fadetree]

Luclin is p2002.... just go there.. the staff isn't going to give any of you what you want. Lol

Nice try. I think he meant TAKP.

[jolanar]

I would love Luclin to be on p99, but mostly because I feel like I've hit the glass ceiling on what I can do here without raiding. Would love to have tons of new zones to explore and quests to do.

[Walex]

If you want Luclin, try TAKP. They are in Velious now with Luclin launching in the next couple of months.

[Bummey]

If you want Luclin, try TAKP. They are in Velious now with Luclin launching in the next couple of months.

it doesn't save my mac laptop's UI or key bind settings

also, boxers. first thing i saw when i made a new TAKP character: a person followed by a train of bots.

[fadetree]

They allow 3 max. No giant box squads holding down content. You do see a lot of trio soloing because the pop is currently low. You don't have to box if you don't want to. Boxing is classic anyways, even back when you had to pay for accounts, and most people only had 2 or 3 boxes. You won't see huge amounts of boxers on raids because it's hard and they are just as tough on macros and automation as they are here. If you have some kind of spiritual objection to boxing, then yeah you won't like that aspect of it. Otherwise, it's a great server with great devs and the same kind of attention to historical detail and in-era mechanics that you see here.

[wooseon]

AA exping = no classic

[kaev]

Nexus ports are a 15min cooldown to 5 locations.

North Karana, Toxxulia, Greater Faydark, Dreadlands, and Great Divide.

So if you want to travel from North Karana to Dreadlands you have to wait 0-15 minutes to port to the nexus, let's assume a 7.5 min average. Then once in the Nexus you must wait another 15 min for the ports to recycle and send people down.

Total trip time from North Karana to Dreadlands, 22.5 minute average. Most people on this server get frustrated if they can't find a port within 5 minutes.

Nexus travel is really a non-issue. It's just another form of boats. Long wait time to minimal destinations.


Daldaen is exactly correct here. Nexus was cool because it was like boats and the TD firepot room (minus the retarded "you can bind in the firepot room because casters aren't yet overpowered enough, but only for the first couple days of the expansion" bit.) Boiats + firepots (+ nexus) mean you can get around on your own, but if you've got a wizard or druid friend you can get around 10x faster.

(The best part of PoP launch was all the crying about not getting the 10-15pp porters expected back then. PoK and the books was incredibly stupid, but that had nothing to with anybody's sense of entitlement over port fees and everything to do with reducing the value of port classes in groups.)

This is also why the OT hammers need the MQ nerfed. It's the primary reason you don't see wiz and druids in dungeons cuz melee can easily hammer out.

Except for agreeing with another poster whining about the nexus, this is 100% correct. I would gladly wave goodbye to all 6 of my OT hammers if they were removed from p99 entirely.

[Jimjam]

I have a friend that hated planes of power. He felt it dumb that after reaching peak power in mortal realms you were sent back to square 1 to kill planar large rats in justice, innovation and disease. Looking back, I am not sure I disagree with him.

[SamwiseRed]

luclin broke eq pvp beyond how broken it already was

[katrik]

Yeah, no. Unless you want most of the population to magically disappear, no.

[Jhaerik]

Change my mind. Yeah i know brad/aradune left, but eventually I'd love a server to just let us play up to Luclin.

It already exists you know.

p2002 is a thing.

[Cen]

Luclin was good.

Some player models were good. The animations were not.

Iksar got upgraded 100000%, and everything else sucked :D

[katrik]

Iksar got upgraded 100000%, and everything else sucked :D

BLASPHEMY

[fadetree]

PoP was the pinnacle of EQ in my opinion.
TAKP and P2002 both are heading for luclin soon and eventually PoP. One is well run with knowledgeable, fair and even-handed devs, attention to era and a friendly population, and one has none of those things.
Or stay here if that's not your thing, nothing beats p99 in that era.

[Bummey]

Iksar got upgraded 100000%, and everything else sucked :D

Wow, uhh, no. Iksar are among the worst. The animations are so stiff and wooden.

PoP was the pinnacle of EQ in my opinion.

You misspelled OoW.

[loramin]

Um what? Where is he going to get all the customized .xml files and sub-data? You think Nilbog will just casually hand that out to anyone?

You can start the emulated server..that's the easy part, and you could scrape together some default database files..that's where it ends.

Of course Nilbog doesn't share the P99 source or database, but you don't need either to run an emulator server.

Do you think P2002 or any of the other major EQ emulators magically stole everything from P99? Of course not: they used the stock EQ Emulator data, which is certainly good enough to get started, and then whoever is running the server tweaked it from there. Any non-classic server would have to do that, no matter what, even if they could steal everything from P99, because you can't steal Luclin/PoP data from P99.

Honestly you could take the stock EQ Emulator data, not change a single thing, and still make a server tons of people would play on. P99 didn't achieve success because of their ultra-classic tweaks; in fact, some might argue the server succeeded in spite of them. Building a successful server is about building a community, and that requires a lot of things like quality (and uncorrupt) GMs which have nothing to do with the technical aspect.

If someone wants to start a successful PoP (or any era) server their biggest challenge is going to be the non-technical community building ... not making sure every mob is in exactly the same place it was back in '99.

[Foxplay]

Of course Nilbog doesn't share the P99 source or database, but you don't need either to run an emulator server.

Do you think P2002 or any of the other major EQ emulators magically stole everything from P99? Of course not: they used the stock EQ Emulator data, which is certainly good enough to get started, and then whoever is running the server tweaked it from there. Any non-classic server would have to do that, no matter what, even if they could steal everything from P99, because you can't steal Luclin/PoP data from P99.

Honestly you could take the stock EQ Emulator data, not change a single thing, and still make a server tons of people would play on. P99 didn't achieve success because of their ultra-classic tweaks; in fact, some might argue the server succeeded in spite of them. Building a successful server is about building a community, and that requires a lot of things like quality (and uncorrupt) GMs which have nothing to do with the technical aspect.

If someone wants to start a successful PoP (or any era) server that's their biggest challenge, not making sure every mob is in exactly the same place it was back in '99.

Incorrect it takes hotpockets and beer

[Vormotus]

Luclin was good in some aspects, but extremely bad in others, for instance, how it made the world smaller, which was made even worse later by instant teleporting through POK.

Over and over I have seen this trend in other MMO games ... like EVE, the moment the universe/world/sandbox/planet in a game becomes super easy to travel to and within it , the game begins the slow ride into the nothingness that is streamlining.

Though I would love to play a Beastlord again (miss my scaly wolf) ... hmm no.

I dont care if the server here is full of people bored at the endgame, I like knowing that Velious is endgame and the HORROR that was AA farming will never happen here again.

Too much horror and nightmares :(

[Kaedain]

the nexus portal thing is way overblown, people routinely pay for ports from EC to Lavastorm etc.. hard to believe a lot of people are going to wait the 10-15minutes it takes for the nexus ? ports would be just fine

[fadetree]

Some of us liked luclin AA. It's what finally gave a few classes some badly needed upgrades. Rangers, for instance, who were nerfed in beta for being 'too powerful'. PoP took it a little too far, but it was still OK. The devs then began to see it as a cheap way to add functionality into the game without doing any real class analysis or expansion design AND yes, to lock us into grinding.

It depends on why you play...for me, I do not play to 'get to max level'. I happen to be a dopamine addict, so I count on continuous small doses when I complete some task or level in the elf sim. To me, luclin AA was a great addition.

[kotton05]

luclin was awesome lots of bads in here dont like it tho

[Vormotus]

I don't even get the PoK books hate. You can travel to home cities but still need rides to places like Cobalt Scar, EJ, Dreadlands, Karanas, Surefall, etc.



I know and I understand your point, but I think it boils down to some of the aspects of the mechanics that go beyond sheer mechanics and utility see?

Hope I can make myself clear :D

It is not hate, because that is too strong an emotion, for me anyway. What I mean is something a bit deeper.

See, not everybody is equal, much less when gaming, and even more so within a game as complex and so loaded with emotional baggage (for some, myself included) as Everquest.

I do not hate, nor hated the expansions per se, (again , hate is too strong a word for me) but I saw sharply the way social mechanics suddenly went off the drain when the game began to grow and grow and grow and the social norm of the day went bust.

I am no expert, and I could be totally off the hook here, but what I remember vividly from those days was how expectations (and I include here your very solid viewpoint on mechanics and self-reliance and not pigeonholing classes into these crude niches you describe, which is a good point) suddenly changed in the social sphere of the game.

Back then I was in Povar, I raided little, never been my main interest here, but mostly exploring and enjoying the virtual landscape and the fun social interactions, this to tell you that my focus on gaming was to walk around, be a bit social and then stroll randomly as I chatted here or there with this or that person, persons I knew were real (in so far as a virtual representation of them could be "real") and to this day, and here I candidly confess it, have never had friends like those I got in EQ, a feat beyond my means in any other mmo I have been through the ages.

I spent about two years in the Test Server when I grew disillusioned with the way EQ was going and remained there due to the small community, despite Test having even more mechanic changes and earlier access to xpacs, community was super tight, I even ended up on the Botsquad with Sinbot and his dreaded drama ladden Raid Alliance haha, but I loved the small sense of community.

This guy was bad, this one was fun, this is a scammer, this other is weird, etc, etc.

Now I am digressing, back to my point,

Having explained this, again, I saw how on Live the shift from Velious to Luclin changed, specially due to the Bazaar and the Nexus Spires began to shrink distances, both physical and mental by giving utility, but for me at least, began to widen the gap between players.

It is a purely social construct for me, that goes beyond mechanics and roles, and here I hope I explain myself, english is not my first language haha.

So yes, that is what happened in my experience, and have seen it over the years in many other mmos, last one being Eve Online and how the game changed mimicking closely my prior experience in EQ.

It seems, that when everything is constrained, community is small and you get to know people, there is a thriving social aspect that I totally love, not because I am super social, honestly I am a bit of a loner, nothing special there, but I thoroughly enjoy seeing "real" people around, killing this or that, leveling, joking, being human in virtuality, enjoying, despite wildly different backgrounds, sticking pixels, killing them and feeling great or good or focused about it. Kinda weird but you know what I mean :p

To be honest again with everyone, mmos have been the only constant things in my ultra chaotic life, so there is that.

Certain expansions just injected so much chaos , new social norms and hierarchy structures that ended up shattering what little stability I enjoyed in these games at first.

Though growth is inevitable, fixed settings, like I am now discovering P99 is, are just marvels to me:)

Again, sorry for the long post, if you read all of this I thank you, if you skipped here to the end, thanks too haha.

Love to you man and love to the game! :D

hugs!

[Jhaerik]

Well considering I play on p2002 now.. and we have PoK books.. I still find myself constantly logging my wizzy to port/TL....

PoK books don't do you much good when you are farming Juggies with a melee in group on a server without welfare OTH. :P

[xCry0x]

I didn't play enough luclin - but for me, the bazaar killed a huge part of the game.

I never was big into trading, but I loved the way it works. Bazaar/AH functionality sucks the human interaction out of the game, which is what "classic" eq is all about imo.

Also, the more expansions you get the more you empty out original content. You add luclin and I doubt you see anyone in any vanilla content anymore - could be wrong.

The classic experience for me is:
- Leveling up via crushbone, oasis, unrest, highpass, lower guk, etc.
- EC trade spam
- Plane of hate/fear gear
- Original epic quests
- Kunark content, mainly karnors/seb and the associated raid content since it doesn't replace the vanilla raid content.

Velious even starts to replace vanilla since you have new (better) armor sets to go after etc.

[Axlrose]

My personal history lesson -

I started playing on Live the day Kunark was released. While I had my moments I played a weekend away, overall those moments were far and few between. Thus I did not get to grind through everything and picked up rag tag groups that were doing areas I have experienced before. So as expansions were released, it was getting harder and harder to find people to adventure in those zones I never visited. These new expansions offered better phat lewt and higher rate of returns in experience versus time. If I wanted to continue playing Live, I had to follow the crowds.

Eventually, I went back to try some of those zones I never got to experience in their day. They were all lifeless - the monsters were ever present, but nobody wanted anything to do with them. Nobody wanted ports since using the books was so much easier. Why grind for faction when bankers and merchants in areas like Plane of Knowledge dealt with anybody and everybody on even terms. And those items I finally obtained in those older zones? Vendor trash compared to what common mobs in the latest expansion were spewing out.

So like my younger self, time is still something I do not have towards gaming more than a bit here and there. But as this server stands right now, eventually I will reach that point where someone might need a port. Or a group needs me in one of those zones I never got to see. Or I might decide to go for another walk and go from Erudin to Ak'Anon (as both good and evil) and see players along the numerous zones adventuring. I understand there are people that have seen and done it all and want something different. But short of the developers here changing their mind on expansions...

To this day, I still remember when Luclin was released, there was one lone seller in the East Commonlands tunnels begging anybody to just look at his items for sale. The day I decided to give this server a go (after contemplating my gaming situation as before to what could be now), the moment I stepped from West Freeport to East Commonlands and saw the ~spam~ of auctions, I felt good.

Just my rambling thoughts on the matter.

[xCry0x]

To this day, I still remember when Luclin was released, there was one lone seller in the East Commonlands tunnels begging anybody to just look at his items for sale. The day I decided to give this server a go (after contemplating my gaming situation as before to what could be now), the moment I stepped from West Freeport to East Commonlands and saw the ~spam~ of auctions, I felt good.




Yup - that.

I can appreciate that people always want more content - but that just turns this into a live progression server.

There are obviously issues with p99. It has proven to be a perfect social experiment in why modern MMOs need to have instanced raids.

However, for the people that haven't jumped in and exhausted the content, the server is great at capturing that original EQ feel. I started in 2013 here and even at that point the end game was exhausted. I still had a perfect experience leveling up and getting to complete my gear sets like I did back in 99/2000.

Then, it got stale so I walked away. Oh well - that should somewhat be the expectation with a server designed to be stuck in time.

[Linkamus]

Change my mind. Yeah i know brad/aradune left, but eventually I'd love a server to just let us play up to Luclin.

TAKP will likely remain in Luclin for quite awhile before PoP is released ;) .

[Alanus]

To this day, I still remember when Luclin was released, there was one lone seller in the East Commonlands tunnels begging anybody to just look at his items for sale. The day I decided to give this server a go (after contemplating my gaming situation as before to what could be now), the moment I stepped from West Freeport to East Commonlands and saw the ~spam~ of auctions, I felt good.



On E'ci, EC was still the hotspot until the merchant/seller thing happened

[Vormotus]

I didn't play enough luclin - but for me, the bazaar killed a huge part of the game.


Yep, that is what I been talking about, most of the convenience, ends up destroying most incentives for more meaningful human interaction.

P99 being permalocked, perhaps with some addition or revamp of classic zones, is the way for me to keep the original eq spirit alive.

Anything else is just trying to emulate LIVE and that is in my very personal opinion the wrong path.

The more classic the better:)

[wwoneo]

P99 being permalocked, perhaps with some addition or revamp of classic zones, is the way for me to keep the original eq spirit alive.

The more classic the better:)

Adding completely new additions, or revamps, to classic zones is more classic than releasing classic Luclin.

Wut?

[Vormotus]

Adding completely new additions, or revamps, to classic zones is more classic than releasing classic Luclin.

Wut?

In regards to keeping as much as possible and feasible to classic while trying to advance, but not going towards luclin?

If this were true classic there would be no gnome SKs for example.

That is all. I do not think anyone here believe this is 100% classic, but a version as close to classic, yet people want to progress, so I believe the best compromise is some revamps of classic zones as the lmit :)

Hope that is understood?

Personally though I even believe Velious is a bit much haha, I just love the old world and Kunark mostly.

Cheers!

[Christina.]

Turn the Shady Swashbuckler area of the EC tunnel into an Arena. That was the best part of Luclin... The Bazaar arena was always poppin off

the bazaar arena! so cool

[Gozuk]

the bazaar arena! so cool

Yeah that was a ton of fun. Even before PoP there was always a good amount of people on Bertoxx server brawling in the Freeport arena. Great times. Bazaar arena would get crazy.

[Kutsumo]

Some of the most fun I had in EQ was in bazaar arena and dueling in EC. Nobody ever duels in EC here tho. Was a constant thing to have a bunch of people dueling near shady on Emarr.

[nilbog]

Was a constant thing to have a bunch of people dueling near shady on Emarr.

[xCry0x]

P99 being permalocked, perhaps with some addition or revamp of classic zones, is the way for me to keep the original eq spirit alive.



I think you need to look at it from the perspective of what problem is anyone trying to actually solve.

The purpose of the server is to recreate the original experience as much as possible. I think most people agree that the "original" wow was Vanilla - Kunark and kind of Velious. Velious was really the point in which you get into WoW style expansions where prior content starts to become obsolete with every subsequent release.

I think by in large the server is successful at that. I know I definitely got my full "Classic" experience (I leveled up pre velious here).

Now on a complete personal tangent. The success of the prior comes at the expense of the long term health of the server - which is a bit of a silly statement given this server has kept a health population for a long time.

That said, I think everyone can agree that the ongoing "problem" of p99 is the end game raid scene. You keep the server classic and as such the top inflates. You get casual players such as myself who end up getting "fully geared" for vanilla standards -- full hate/fear + sky stuff. But cannot reasonably progress further because the hardcore controls the top indefinitely -- always new people joining the top, always another alt to level.

So then you get all this animosity brewing, all these stupid rules of engagement to try to accomodate. However, giving a group of capable casual players a 1-2-3 hour window to engage spawns doesn't help if the boss spawns at 2am in the morning. Capable, but casual players, need a schedule -- eg we log in at 5pm pst on Thursday and do x.

The only solution there, if I could magically snap my fingers and engineer whatever I wanted, is raid instances for the raid zones. Fear, Hate, Sky, VP, ToV, ST, PoG, PoM. Leave everything else world spawn open competitive - if aftermath wants to kill world dragons, trakanon, vs, etc every single spawn from now to eternity so be it. You can't make a zone like sebilis instanced to accommodate the 10 casual but trak capable guilds on the server - it would completely destroy what made EQ EQ. But the raid zones are by their nature designed for multi-group engagement.

Anyway - that is my completely unimportant complaint coming from someone that just logged back into p99 for the first time since late 2013 (I can't believe it has been that long). I basically quit after I "finished" my char since there was nothing left to do without quitting my guild and joining TMO back then.

[Nagoya]

Some of the most fun I had in EQ was in bazaar arena and dueling in EC. Nobody ever duels in EC here tho. Was a constant thing to have a bunch of people dueling near shady on Emarr.

I think we also have to remember that most players in classic were age 10-25, where most players on p99 are 25-40. Maybe we don't find the same things fun, even within the same game, that we play for nostalgia. We can recreate a game from 1999, but we can't go back to 1999 folks.

[Linkamus]

The only solution there, if I could magically snap my fingers and engineer whatever I wanted, is raid instances for the raid zones. Fear, Hate, Sky, VP, ToV, ST, PoG, PoM.

IMO instancing ruins mmos. What makes items awesome, and what makes acquiring the items awesome is the scarcity of the item, and the difficulty in acquiring it. Instancing takes away from the magic of finally getting that one piece that maybe not many others have.

Aside from this, instancing will make content go stale much faster. If a guild can fully gear their whole crew in 6 months, because of the convenience of instancing, then what? What to do now?

The cutthroat first come first serve raid scene is not for me anymore, which is why I played on AK, and now TAKP. But I still want the scarcity of items. Having to rotate raid targets means we only get to kill KT once or twice a month as a guild. Which results to even after a year and a half of raiding Velious, there are still mains that want KT heads, which creates incentive to get online and raid, keeping the content interesting for a long period of time. So TAKP strikes a perfect balance (in my humble opinion) by items still being scarce (because of no instancing), while at the same time, no waking up at 2 a.m. to hit a target.

Even though I haven't really played on P99 much, I would still be saddened to hear that the most popular classic EQ emu introduced instancing. Luckily, I don't think that will ever happen!

[xCry0x]

The cutthroat first come first serve raid scene is not for me anymore.



Man - that line is another personal rant for me. I had the same mindset when I was playing. So I joined a more casual guild and spent my week "raiding" hate and fear trash for armor and doing a weekly joint sky raid of the first handful of islands.

I probably spent a solid 2-3 hours in a night doing hate. Another 2-3 doing fear and then who knows how long crawling islands in sky.

My friends in TMO? They played alts, or earned dkp scouting raid targets. Their raids consisted of switching characters, killing a high value target, and then going back to what they were doing before.

If they weren't online when a spawn happened - oh well. Some were more OCD about it than others.

At the time, I told myself I was just a casual raider and didn't want to get into that "hardcore" scene. In hindsight, its hard to say who was really more hardcore.

I definitely feel like a dummy though because I proceeded to further regress and started playing utopia again after everquest. And what did I do there? You bet your ass I woke up at 2am to send my armies out and coordinate attacks during wars.



Even though I haven't really played on P99 much, I would still be saddened to hear that the most popular classic EQ emu introduced instancing. Luckily, I don't think that will ever happen!

Oh - I agree to the extent that it would never happen. =) I still think you can strike a balance.

I remember being in hate pulling trash to the zone in with about 20 people. Then Maestro spawned - and while we figured out how we were going to pull, one of the top guilds pulled, trained it ontop of us, stayed alive long enough for their crew to log in, killed most of us in the process, and killed maestro.

They naturally "helped" us by rezzing -- and I think offered to give us one of the drops, which was cool. But at the same time, we could have killed Maestro had we been given a chance. We were there first, we just weren't experienced in training the zone to get FTE like the top guilds were. I understand there is a bit more structure in place now though. Maybe it isn't as much of an issue.

[Vormotus]

I think we also have to remember that most players in classic were age 10-25, where most players on p99 are 25-40. Maybe we don't find the same things fun, even within the same game, that we play for nostalgia. We can recreate a game from 1999, but we can't go back to 1999 folks.


I am a bit older and what you say is true. Nothing will bring back the same feeling, but hey! We try haha :D

EQ has been like this force of mental calm for me.

I have been going on and off to Live every few years, but I always get bored due to the way Live is now.

I tried one TLP and it was fun, but progression is what kills it for me, and a lot of others, as you see pop decline the more xpacs that are unlocked.

If they leave the server as it is for 10 more years I will be happy ;)

[xCry0x]

I am a bit older and what you say is true. Nothing will bring back the same feeling, but hey! We try haha :D



It was pretty spot on for me -- except that I played live on Tunare and we were one of the weird Gfey instead of EC servers. So that was different here =)

The major difference is that I was 12 when I played EQ originally. Playing it as an adult was fun because I could play with a bit more intelligence.

[Vormotus]

It was pretty spot on for me -- except that I played live on Tunare and we were one of the weird Gfey instead of EC servers. So that was different here =)

The major difference is that I was 12 when I played EQ originally. Playing it as an adult was fun because I could play with a bit more intelligence.

Tell me about it! :D

I played when I was young, and even today , despite being in a WILDLY different setting and real life environment (Much Older, Exiled and living in a foreign country) EQ still gives me this amazing sense of calm I enjoy so much.

I would not be lying when I tell you that I some days log to be semi afk with the constant background environment noise of the game.

Currently semi afk in the Karanas listening to the rain and night sounds as I write this and do other things around the house.

I too can play differently now, chat here and there, meet new people, met a nice friendly druid last night from the US, talked about this and that, then moved to Qeynos to buff newbies at the gate with sow, just relax.

EQ is many things to many people, and the end spectrum being top heavy and hardcore raid focused is the least of my worries, heck If I make it to 60 with my self made studded leather armor pieces and the occasional nice treasure on a slot here or there I would be happy still.

And with your previous posts, yeah instancing .... Dont know man, instancing I am divided on that topic.

But your post was good, love reading other peoples experiences hehe.

Many many hugs to you man, from the Isthmus with Love :)