Green concept? Still confused.

[akagami]

As someone who has never given P99 (as a TLPer, of course I've always known about it) a serious try, this could be biased from my lack of experience here but....

Am I the only one still kind of confused as to exactly what the plan is for patch progression in green?

I've read http://wiki.project1999.com/Green_Server. Besides the schedule I also see "each month will have unlocks of patches from March 1999 to December 2001."

But does this mean the goal of green is supposed to encompass every small change observed in the patch notes? Some posters seem to suggest this, but that just seems highly unrealistic and unlikely.

Are there specific class/defining-mechanics that are intended to be "patched-in" and then patched-out? Will there be an attempt to patch every little minute spell detail? Or will it mostly be based around the zone release schedule linked above, and similar to having different phases like WoW classic?

Does the dev team want to purposefully remain ambiguous as to what the exact plan is, or as to what exact changes they feel will deserve being reflected in the timeline? Maybe as a way to recreate that sense of "not knowing" that came with original EQ? I wouldn't mind that, but it'd be nice to get clarification.

This isn't a call-out or thread about whining. I've scoured a lot of information over the last week and at this point I still honestly don't know exactly.

[Tecmos Deception]

You're overthinking it.

[Videri]

Oh yes, there will be more patches than just launch/Kunark/Velious. There are lots more dates of importance in the timeline, such as the removal of certain legacy items and the addition of Paineel. Check this out and tell me if it doesn’t answer your question:
http://wiki.project1999.com/EverQuest_Timeline

[akagami]

You're overthinking it.

This isn't wrong :)

[El-Hefe]

The ultimate goal is to have it be as accurate to the original timeline as possible. Yes, that means tiny mechanics changes in every patch.

[Tecmos Deception]

This isn't wrong :)

The staff generally aim to recreate classic. They generally succeed. But it's an impossible task so there are compromises for different reasons along the way, which is why some of your questions can't really be answered by anyone except nilbog or rogean, and even they are just humans who can change their minds over time on different matters. Etc.

[kylok]

Think of it as TLP that ends at velious and has in era patches that follow a timeline

[Videri]

The staff generally aim to recreate classic. They generally succeed. But it's an impossible task so there are compromises for different reasons along the way, which is why some of your questions can't really be answered by anyone except nilbog or rogean, and even they are just humans who can change their minds over time on different matters. Etc.

Who’s overthinking it now?

[magusfire24]

Except that this puts back in things that SOE/Daybreak took out. Like corpse runs with no npc that can summon corpse, darkness, old ui. old character models. no easy way to port with plane of knowledge or luclin. So more traveling and relying on others to help you. Slower regen of health and mana due to not having the enhanced out of combat regen.

[Videri]

Except that this puts back in things that SOE/Daybreak took out. Like corpse runs with no npc that can summon corpse, darkness, old ui. old character models. no easy way to port with plane of knowledge or luclin. So more traveling and relying on others to help you. Slower regen of health and mana due to not having the enhanced out of combat regen.

Are you ready to play some real EverQuest, OP? It’s better.

[Fammaden]

The big picture concept is that it will follow the timeframes from release through Velious. So one yearish spent in vanilla, under a year of Kunark, then another yearish plus in Velious, then reset.

All the detail oriented stuff you can just wait and read the patch notes as they happen while you play if you aren't worried about it too much.

[akagami]

Except that this puts back in things that SOE/Daybreak took out. Like corpse runs with no npc that can summon corpse, darkness, old ui. old character models. no easy way to port with plane of knowledge or luclin. So more traveling and relying on others to help you. Slower regen of health and mana due to not having the enhanced out of combat regen.

I understand all of that and have logged into in the green beta.

What I am getting at more is how the patch progression is planning on being handled and things that will be changed/unchanged.

Not all things will be the same as the old patch timeline, since there were some things that were already rejected (Necro/Sham charm). So, in general, what kind of things are going in and what kind of things aren't? Is the goal really to create the exact patch timeline (some seem to suggest this) through monthly updates?

The big picture concept is that it will follow the timeframes from release through Velious. So one yearish spent in vanilla, under a year of Kunark, then another yearish plus in Velious, then reset.

All the detail oriented stuff you can just wait and read the patch notes as they happen while you play if you aren't worried about it too much.



Idk, it's like a week out so I kind of figured there'd just be more information maybe. But you and others are right. Should just go with the flow more and enjoy the ride.

[Niedar]

Yes, the goal is to recreate the original patch timeline but replicating it 100% is unrealistic so think of it as a work in progress that will get better the next go around.

[cd288]

I understand all of that and have logged into in the green beta.

What I am getting at more is how the patch progression is planning on being handled and things that will be changed/unchanged.

Not all things will be the same as the old patch timeline, since there were some things that were already rejected (Necro/Sham charm). So, in general, what kind of things are going in and what kind of things aren't? Is the goal really to create the exact patch timeline (some seem to suggest this) through monthly updates?





Idk, it's like a week out so I kind of figured there'd just be more information maybe. But you and others are right. Should just go with the flow more and enjoy the ride.

We don't really know for sure how this will work in terms of will every little change be replicated. We know some changes will not be, such as Necro/Shaman charming. There's no real complete list of decisions on things yet.

However, IMO it's a pretty safe bet to apply a couple of rules of thumb when wondering what something from a patch note will be like on day 1: (i) if it's something that was arguably a bug fix, they will probably just implement the fixed version at launch (because if it's a bug, the EQ devs would've fixed it earlier if they'd known about it), (ii) if it's something from classic that allowed exploitation or otherwise made things really easy/cheesey for an individual player, but was later changed in a patch, I would expect that they will just go with the patched version from day 1, (iii) if it's something that would potentially require several weeks (or maybe a couple months or more) of development and testing, I would expect that they will not implement it on this iteration of Green (for example, the Necro/Shaman charm mechanics that you mentioned, the different iterations of Splitpaw that they went through on live, etc.).

[urbanbo]

YAY - KS'ing wizards will be running around taking kills from groups because group damage compared to individual damage did not exist for a few months in.

[cd288]

Lol is that actually confirmed or are you just /s

[kylok]

YAY - KS'ing wizards will be running around taking kills from groups because group damage compared to individual damage did not exist for a few months in.

Doubtful

[DMN]

in the first 2-3 months the vast majority of patches gave no text, or some very cryptic text like "fixed some quest issues" they always of course added something about improving server stability and whatnot, too.


it would be virtually impossible for any of us not working at verant who saved the original patches to figure out what was changed, so there is no way for P99 to 100% recapture the patch history.

[Rogean]

they always of course added something about improving server stability and whatnot, too.

Damn, does that mean I have to undo the amazing server stability so that we can 'patch' it later? :((

[DMN]

Damn, does that mean I have to undo the amazing server stability so that we can 'patch' it later? :((

or you could just lie to us weekly. Same dif. heh.

[Kalanmyr]

The staff generally aim to recreate classic. They generally succeed.

From what I'm reading this is still a far shot from classic, still so much is unknown and cannot be rebuilt. It appears several compromises have been made. What's really annoying is despite this not being classic, the devs seem to go out of their way to remove quality of life improvements to the game including sticking us with this garbage UI. The current blue UI is fine, why make a 20 year old game worse from a QoL perspective. Completely nonsensical. It's not like the orignal EQ classic devs were like "We definitely don't want tab targeting in at launch, it makes the game too easy"... More like it was the first MMO of its kind and they didn't think about it at the time, if they had the bandwidth and the foresight, they would have had things like tab-targeting in at launch. Hope they plan on throttling all of our connections too, so we get the real classic experience!

End rant.

[BlackBellamy]

Am I the only one still kind of confused as to exactly what the plan is for patch progression in green?

The plan is the vague description on the homepage. Literally everything else is speculation, barring the occasional dev forum posts since that haven't really detailed that process. Personally I believe the goal is to give you that classic experience where you have a general idea of whats going and know patches will come but you don't really know when and what will change, just like you didn't know back then.

[kylok]

From what I'm reading this is still a far shot from classic, still so much is unknown and cannot be rebuilt. It appears several compromises have been made. What's really annoying is despite this not being classic, the devs seem to go out of their way to remove quality of life improvements to the game including sticking us with this garbage UI. The current blue UI is fine, why make a 20 year old game worse from a QoL perspective. Completely nonsensical. It's not like the orignal EQ classic devs were like "We definitely don't want tab targeting in at launch, it makes the game too easy"... More like it was the first MMO of its kind and they didn't think about it at the time, if they had the bandwidth and the foresight, they would have had things like tab-targeting in at launch. Hope they plan on throttling all of our connections too, so we get the real classic experience!

End rant.

Perhaps, but it's the closest you will likely ever find.

[Kalanmyr]

Perhaps, but it's the closest you will likely ever find.

Agreed. I'm excited for the server. You mostly missed my point, and the OP is right... The idea behind green is still a bit confusing and sends mixed signals. Server is an approximation of classic era, with a titanium client, and a forced velious UI... Lol it's all over the place. Maybe just my opinion, but I think the better approach is make the content classic with modern playability. I'm sure I'm not alone in this thought.

[Vivix]

Agreed. I'm excited for the server. You mostly missed my point, and the OP is right... The idea behind green is still a bit confusing and sends mixed signals. Server is an approximation of classic era, with a titanium client, and a forced velious UI... Lol it's all over the place.Maybe just my opinion, but I think the better approach is make the content classic with modern playability. I'm sure I'm not alone in this thought.

The amount of work to create this experience was no small task and it sounds like you are just looking for an excuse to get conveniences added.

[El-Hefe]

Agreed. I'm excited for the server. You mostly missed my point, and the OP is right... The idea behind green is still a bit confusing and sends mixed signals. Server is an approximation of classic era, with a titanium client, and a forced velious UI... Lol it's all over the place. Maybe just my opinion

The UI is day 1 classic.

There are two classic UIs, the iconic stone viewport UI and if you hit F10, transparent windows with a smattering of stone windows. The F10 UI is what we have on Green, because the stone UI is not feasible in the Titanium client on modern displays.

So no, the developers are not “All over the place” they’re actually quite consistent in that regard. They are making the server as classic as possible with the client they have. If you’re looking for a server with classic content with modern quality of life you should check out the Daybreak TLP servers.

[Gustoo]

Yeah dumb thread even compared to old pvp troll threads.

Green is right on target hits the bulls eye right in the nuts. Ui an darkness mega huge gains and make the game 100x better.

I can't imagine staff being any more clear.

This is the closest to a 1999 replica that they can get right now.

Green 2.0 might be even more classic 5 years from now.

Good luck boys

[Kalanmyr]

The UI is day 1 classic.

There are two classic UIs, the iconic stone viewport UI and if you hit F10, transparent windows with a smattering of stone windows. The F10 UI is what we have on Green, because the stone UI is not feasible in the Titanium client on modern displays.

So no, the developers are not “All over the place” they’re actually quite consistent in that regard. They are making the server as classic as possible with the client they have. If you’re looking for a server with classic content with modern quality of life you should check out the Daybreak TLP servers.

Thanks for the correction on the UI I didn't know, I played in full marble. Still, my point stands. My opinion is the server would be more fun to play and likely have more players if the UI was nicer and basic functions like tab targeting was available.

I voice my opinion because there are not options. Daybreak goes through expansions at a stupid rate and have stupid items that give insane stats early. I'm on board with phased content, but phased playability just sounds stupid. You won't convince me otherwise, just like I won't convince dudes like gustaboo who have a weird hard on for "pure" classic even if it reduces the accessibility.

The amount of work to create this experience was no small task and it sounds like you are just looking for an excuse to get conveniences added.

This quote is great. I'm not asking them to be added... They were already in... The devs had to go out of their way and spend time figuring out how to disable them.... That's the sad part. Cool features that bring back the classic atmosphere are things like darkness. That is time well spent. I'm betting I'm in the silent majority on this one, active forum posters are not representative of the average player like myself

[Danth]

Consider any non-classic feature here something that is subject to change/removal at any time, possibly without notice. That has very much been the case for the past ten years on P1999.

However you aren't the silent majority. You may be the majority, but they're by no means silent. Suffice it to say the folks make their displeasure known when non-classic-but-nice things are taken out from time to time. A lot of folks within the community here would prefer "classic+" over strict classic.

Danth

[El-Hefe]

Thanks for the correction on the UI I didn't know, I played in full marble. Still, my point stands. My opinion is the server would be more fun to play and likely have more players if the UI was nicer and basic functions like tab targeting was available.

I voice my opinion because there are not options. Daybreak goes through expansions at a stupid rate and have stupid items that give insane stats early. I'm on board with phased content, but phased playability just sounds stupid. You won't convince me otherwise, just like I won't convince dudes like gustaboo who have a weird hard on for "pure" classic even if it reduces the accessibility.

The “weird hardon” for classic pureness you speak of is a common sentiment on this server because it is literally the mission statement of the server. The developers have made it clear since day one that they aren’t interested in the most fun server, or the most popular.

The goal since day one has been to make a server as close to classic as possible with the software available. That is never going to change, and frankly: It’s just super annoying at this point that every couple weeks some fool comes through with his “I like that server is classic but how about making it less classic” rant.

There are dozens of servers that feature classic content with non classic UIs and mechanics why go to the one server that is trying to be different and rant about how they should make their server just like every other classic-lite box? P2002, TAKP, P99 Blue and Daybreak TLP are all just a click away.

[Kalanmyr]

There are dozens of servers that feature classic content with non classic UIs and mechanics why go to the one server that is trying to be different and rant about how they should make their server just like every other classic-lite box? P2002, TAKP, P99 Blue and Daybreak TLP are all just a click away.

Let me know if any of those suggestions have
A) more than 500 players peak time
B) are currently going through a progression starting at EQC where each expansion is released about 1 year apart
C) no custom content
D) unaccelerated XP gains and starting at level 1

None of the servers you mentioned meet all of those requirements. I don't want to play on a PoP server or a dead server. If there was a fitting alternative, I'd be playing already.

The better point is why is it not optional? Let the people who have hard ons for classic use it. Any reasonable person would make it optional so that those who really really want it EXACTLY as it was can feel free to do so, and those that would prefer a slightly more readable and configurable UI can do that as well. Make it the default even, and you gotta go out of your way to get the Blue UI.

[BlackBellamy]

Any reasonable person would make it optional.

Perhaps it will be easier if you stop thinking of P1999 as a consumer product that is sensitive to customer sentiment in order to increase sales. Think of it as a toy someone is letting you use, and if you don't want to play with it that's probably fine with them.

[zodium]

The goal since day one has been to make a server as close to classic as possible with the software available. That is never going to change, and frankly: It’s just super annoying at this point that every couple weeks some fool comes through with his “I like that server is classic but how about making it less classic” rant.

if you think of p99 as a psychological or anthropological project instead of a software development project, you'll see that these people whining about classic features are themselves extremely classic, and simply way more immersed than you.

[Kalanmyr]

Perhaps it will be easier if you stop thinking of P1999 as a consumer product that is sensitive to customer sentiment in order to increase sales. Think of it as a toy someone is letting you use, and if you don't want to play with it that's probably fine with them.

I understand the pure volunteer model and the idgaf attitude toward things like this. They can afford that because there isn't an apples to apples alternative. I'd say the analogy is more like someone is letting you use their toy and then telling you how to play with it. Don't be surprised when people like me protest.

I think what doesn't come across is my appreciation for the work that has been put into this server, which I've been playing on and off for about 9 years. You can appreciate something and give criticism at the same time. If everyone sat around head nodding from day 1 this server wouldn't be what it is today, so people should really stop silencing other's opinions, which I see happening often as a forum lurker.

[El-Hefe]

I understand the pure volunteer model and the idgaf attitude toward things like this. They can afford that because there isn't an apples to apples alternative. I'd say the analogy is more like someone is letting you use their toy and then telling you how to play with it. Don't be surprised when people like me protest.

I think what doesn't come across is my appreciation for the work that has been put into this server, which I've been playing on and off for about 9 years. You can appreciate something and give criticism at the same time. If everyone sat around head nodding from day 1 this server wouldn't be what it is today, so people should really stop silencing other's opinions, which I see happening often as a forum lurker.

Can you give any examples of when randos complaining about the server being too classic lead to positive change on the server?

[Kalanmyr]

Can you give any examples of when randos complaining about the server being too classic lead to positive change on the server?

If you don't have anything to say, please stop diluting the post with noise. Let someone else chime in eh? "join date sept 2019" calling others "randos". Last response you'll be getting from me if you aren't contributing to the conversation in a meaningful way.

[kylok]

If you don't have anything to say, please stop diluting the post with noise. Let someone else chime in eh? "join date sept 2019" calling others "randos". Last response you'll be getting from me if you aren't contributing to the conversation in a meaningful way.



https://i.imgur.com/8YM1pCj.jpg

Here is a UI I made on Green to test this. It allows me to log off and back on with no issues whatsoever.

This guy managed to edit the velious ui from his end to make it more to his liking. Maybe you could PM them and see if they could help you with your quest?

[Kalanmyr]

This guy managed to edit the velious ui from his end to make it more to his liking. Maybe you could PM them and see if they could help you with your quest?

Thanks for the heads up. The UI thing isn't game breaking, it's just needlessly annoying. I'm still planning on ditching work to play a classicish EQ server launch. Will be the first time in a LONG time since I've been able to do that.

Bring back Splitpaw 1.0!!!!

[Barantor]

If you don't have anything to say, please stop diluting the post with noise. Let someone else chime in eh? "join date sept 2019" calling others "randos". Last response you'll be getting from me if you aren't contributing to the conversation in a meaningful way.

... You put a rant about the UI in the middle of a post about how the progress of the server isn't laid out in specifics then called out someone on how long they've been here. Ironic.


Back to OP's point, given the volunteer nature of the development of this experience I think it's been great as far as them letting us know what's going on. It does take a bit of reading, but I guess someone could go through and make some sort of guide to all the new folks?

[El-Hefe]

I understand the pure volunteer model and the idgaf attitude toward things like this. They can afford that because there isn't an apples to apples alternative. I'd say the analogy is more like someone is letting you use their toy and then telling you how to play with it. Don't be surprised when people like me protest.

I think what doesn't come across is my appreciation for the work that has been put into this server, which I've been playing on and off for about 9 years. You can appreciate something and give criticism at the same time. If everyone sat around head nodding from day 1 this server wouldn't be what it is today, so people should really stop silencing other's opinions, which I see happening often as a forum lurker.

Can you give any examples of when complaining about the server being too classic lead to positive change on the server?