ZEMs for Kunark and Velious

[cd288]

Have the staff said anything about whether there are plans to revise the ZEMs in any way for the zones in these expansions? Similar to what they have done for the old world zones.

[Cen]

They weren't on the list at the time, so it's likely so far nobody knows. I'm hopeful some Kunark adjustments will happen.

I think Kurns needs a bump down, the outdoor zones need a bump up across the board similar to the outdoor zones we got bumped on classic, especially Lake of Ill omen.

I really feel like Dalnir needs more love ;D

[Baler]

I hope they don't nerf Kurns too hard. It's one of my favorite zones given the unique tower designed with a basement and subterranean cavern underneath that many have never seen.

I'd like to see a small bump up for Warslik Woods, There are a bunch of camps in that zone that are under utilized (other than giants). Which span a respectful range of lower levels.

[cd288]

I hope they don't nerf Kurns too hard. It's one of my favorite zones given the unique tower designed with a basement and subterranean cavern underneath that many have never seen.

I'd like to see a small bump up for Warslik Woods, There are a bunch of camps in that zone that are under utilized (other than giants). Which span a respectful range of lower levels.

I’d like to see Kurns get a need just because I feel like so many non-Iksar lowbies go there making zones in the old world less populated. No zone where you can go at that level should have such a high ZEM that people are going from all over the world as lowbies to level in that zone.

[Baler]

I’d like to see Kurns get a need just because I feel like so many non-Iksar lowbies go there making zones in the old world less populated. No zone where you can go at that level should have such a high ZEM that people are going from all over the world as lowbies to level in that zone.

Um Befallen has a high Zem, Crushbone has a high Zem, Unrest has a high Zem, Runnyeye has a high Zem.

Blue is a very different server than green. I don't think it will be how it was with twinked players having their 60 druid friend port them over.

Also remember that EVAC doesn't work anywhere until velious. So people will have to run to Karnor's Castle in order to get evac'd to EJ. Like they did back during the 7 years of kunark on blue. :)

[cd288]

Um Befallen has a high Zem, Crushbone has a high Zem, Unrest has a high Zem, Runnyeye has a high Zem.

Blue is a very different server than green. I don't think it will be how it was with twinked players having their 60 druid friend port them over.

Also remember that EVAC doesn't work anywhere until velious. So people will have to run to Karnor's Castle in order to get evac'd to EJ. Like they did back during the 7 years of kunark on blue. :)

With the changes none of those really have a super high ZEM like Kurns with the exception of Runnyeye. Some of those are also not nearly as simple safe and easy as Kurns

[Coridan]

especially Lake of Ill omen.


LOIO and sarnak fort was the biggest 20s grouping spot in Kunark on live. It was basically the spot to go to when you finished at Oasis.

[mcoy]

LOIO and sarnak fort was the biggest 20s grouping spot in Kunark on live. It was basically the spot to go to when you finished at Oasis.

[Sun Nov 11 22:15:55 2001] [24 Cleric] Mccoy (Human) <Celestial Prophets>
[Sun Nov 11 22:15:55 2001] There are 99 players in Lake of Ill Omen.

-Mcoy

[Exard3k]

I hope they don't nerf Kurns too hard. It's one of my favorite zones given the unique tower designed with a basement and subterranean cavern underneath that many have never seen.


If it is one of your favorite zones, ZEM doesn't matter much. I like having high ZEM on underused zones. Also spreads out the high player amount in hot spots. Kurn's doesn't need a high ZEM to be populated.

[cd288]

LOIO and sarnak fort was the biggest 20s grouping spot in Kunark on live. It was basically the spot to go to when you finished at Oasis.

Yeah I remember this as well. Making that run from FV through the Drachnids was always a really stressful experience lol.

Someone mentioned that the old ZEMs were the last set of ZEMs they could find, but that could just be speculation. If it's not, then it probably explains why LOIO's ZEM was so low, because it would have been reduced on live to get people to spread out.

[Dolalin]

The ZEM mystery has been solved, old values deduced. It's no longer a serious point of investigation.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=343193&page=3

P99 wants to do custom ZEMs though to spread people out a bit and get more content seen, and I agree with it.

[loramin]

The ZEM mystery has been solved, old values deduced. It's no longer a serious point of investigation.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=343193&page=3

P99 wants to do custom ZEMs though to spread people out a bit and get more content seen, and I agree with it.

I believe it's also "to restore classic mystery" ... but yeah I 100% support it too. The staff's default position is "classic mechanics (ie. make the server work the way the server did in '99)". But on the rare cases where they instead focus on "classic environment (ie. make the server feel like it did in '99)" ... the server feels a lot more like 1999 :) To me that's even more important than perfectly duplicating the mechanics ... in a way that doesn't feel at all like the game anyone remembers.

(Although ... for Green I sort of wish they had tried classic ZEMs, just because we've literally never seen them used here and Green was supposed to be "extra classic". Oh well, maybe Green 2.0.)

[cd288]

The ZEM mystery has been solved, old values deduced. It's no longer a serious point of investigation.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=343193&page=3

P99 wants to do custom ZEMs though to spread people out a bit and get more content seen, and I agree with it.

Right, but those values are just the values as they were at that point in time. The ZEMs were pretty frequently rotated, which was why I was happy to see the staff rotate them here and would like to see something similar done to the expansion zones (one dungeon such as CoM should never be so much more utilized by groups than all the others, for example).

[loramin]

The ZEMs were pretty frequently rotated

Source? According to https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_Notes there was only one official mention of ZEM changes in the classic era: https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_Notes#Zone_Experience at the start of 2001. I wouldn't consider one change, after two years of no changes, as "frequent".

Was there some other place they mentioned ZEM changes?

[cd288]

Source? According to https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_Notes there was only one official mention of ZEM changes in the classic era: https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_Notes#Zone_Experience at the start of 2001. I wouldn't consider one change, after two years of no changes, as "frequent".

Was there some other place they mentioned ZEM changes?

It wasn’t mentioned in patch notes like that. That’s why that one is so odd because they would rotate it and not list the zones they’d updated because they wanted people to explore and figure it out themselves.

[Baler]

Dolalin has put in so, so, so many hours helping improve p99 through bug reports.
I had to learn the hard way to respect his bug reports.

@cd288, don't disrespect loramin, he is one of the good guys.

[Dolalin]

It wasn’t mentioned in patch notes like that. That’s why that one is so odd because they would rotate it and not list the zones they’d updated because they wanted people to explore and figure it out themselves.

They didn't start tinkering with ZEMs in any real way until 2001, and didn't start rotating them regularly until PoP/LDoN.

That being said, P99 runs with custom ZEMs so maybe Rogean will rotate them now and then.

[zaneosak]

Would assume all outdoor zones except a few with abnormal zem (Lake of Ill Omen for example) would be moved to their old-world counterparts or at least moved up % based relative to the 33% bump of old world outdoor zones.

I would be interested to see if they do a tiered dungeon ZEM system like they have now. 150+ ZEm is like the Paw, CT, Kedge, Perma, Runny, Gorge. Then you have the the 125 ZEM tier Befallen, Blackburrow, Najena, Sol A, Upper Guk.... Will be curious if they fit some non appealing Kunark dungeons into those molds.

I would imagine Sebilis would get the LGuk and SolB treatment due to the loots. Maybe even a penalty.

[zaneosak]

It wasn’t mentioned in patch notes like that. That’s why that one is so odd because they would rotate it and not list the zones they’d updated because they wanted people to explore and figure it out themselves.

All I can say about figuring out and confirming ZEMs is that I tested Lake of Ill Omen ZEM on blue a few years back soloing bloodgills because they are always very near the same level and the ZEM is pretty much spot on and since its a weird ZEM (actually a penalty) it makes be believe the ZEM charts are pretty close from the source he mentions. I'm talking like within 2 bloodgills to being exact and the level difference in mobs can account for that.

[magusfire24]

Yeah I remember this as well. Making that run from FV through the Drachnids was always a really stressful experience lol.

Someone mentioned that the old ZEMs were the last set of ZEMs they could find, but that could just be speculation. If it's not, then it probably explains why LOIO's ZEM was so low, because it would have been reduced on live to get people to spread out.

Yeah those Drachnids were very scary for sure. But that is where all the good groups were back then.