Fewer quakes and impact on server population

[TytosOfEight]

Quarm and THJ are clearly impacting the server population at the moment. And we've experienced nearly 50% fewer quakes this year compared to the same period last year, from January to May. Let's be honest, the appeal of Quarm and THJ lies in their easy access to loot. In my view, the decrease in quakes and the lengthy 7-day windows are further damaging this server. What do you think is the reason behind the significant reduction in the number of quakes?

[Ghost_of_Fippy]

If the Devs do not get their act together soon, and merge Green to Blue, then launch a new Green server,

Everyone is going to end up moving over to Quarm, and not coming back.

[sajbert]

It's not the percieved lack of quakes. Easy loot is not why anyone would play p99.

Most people have achieved or abandoned the tasks that they set out to do on Green and Blue. The tryhards since long got their Warder loot and left. A few RMT'ers and cliques lock down anything still of value. The vast majority of zones are deserted.

A merge is due or a new fresh with the plans of one day merging that server with existing Green at the end of its timeline.

I can't say I understand the lack of communication from the p1999 team. It's nothing new but it doesn't help.

I honestly just wish they'd tell is what's planned or what isn't.

[Goregasmic]

Quakes arent really classic, just be lucky you have them. Back then on my server there were rotations for raid mobs/zones and you had to beat a guild to it to get on a rotation. There were 25+ guilds on the trak rotation which meant you had to wait almost 3 months to get a shot at trakanon.

That and servers have been on farm status for years now, if you don't have the loot you wanted already thats on you. New servers certainly won't help with that.

A p99 road map or at least stating there is none for the moment would be nice though.

[sajbert]

if you don't have the loot you wanted already thats on you. New servers certainly won't help with that.

Except for Legacy loot which for anyone with a completionist mentality will make most classes feel incomplete. Even the tradable cost silly amounts. Farming enough for beads would take me forever if I didn't have them already.

I'd happily take a rotating schedule of legacy drops.

[Goregasmic]

My point was more about if you think getting loot on a deserted server on farm status is hard, I don't think you'll fare any better on a new server bursting with players contesting everything.

Outside legacy stuff, it has never been easier to get most gear.

[Salaryman]

RED99

Im glad you n00bs are migrating to qarm or what ever that lame server is called

Then maybe the GMs can focus on things that really matter (PVP) instead of dealing with 2000000 elflawyer petitions about how someone stole your quilmane and you cant do anything about it because you are a coward who is afraid of PVP

RED99

[Infectious]

Quarm helped me quit EQ. Quarm is just new, but gets boring extremely fast with fast respawns and loot pinata. They have no economy what so ever as well.

[TytosOfEight]

Do you people actually play on the server, or just haunt the forums and offer gloomy points of view? Of course quakes bring people back to the server; they’re fun, there’s competition, and people can earn/spend their dkp. It gets people to log in, which has a cascading effect into the longer term. They then have to login to redo faction, recharge items, restock consumables. The point is that it stimulates activity and provides a focus and direction for many people who might be undecided or have other games competing for their attention

[Goregasmic]

Do you people actually play on the server, or just haunt the forums and offer gloomy points of view? Of course quakes bring people back to the server; they’re fun, there’s competition, and people can earn/spend their dkp. It gets people to log in, which has a cascading effect into the longer term. They then have to login to redo faction, recharge items, restock consumables. The point is that it stimulates activity and provides a focus and direction for many people who might be undecided or have other games competing for their attention

They're not getting money for running p99 so they don't care if you play it or not. They're also dedicated to running a mostly classic experience so they're not going to turn it in a loot piñata to attract new players.

Seems like you don't want to play classic EQ and that's alright.

[Salaryman]

Do you people actually play on the server, or just haunt the forums and offer gloomy points of view? Of course quakes bring people back to the server; they’re fun, there’s competition, and people can earn/spend their dkp. It gets people to log in, which has a cascading effect into the longer term. They then have to login to redo faction, recharge items, restock consumables. The point is that it stimulates activity and provides a focus and direction for many people who might be undecided or have other games competing for their attention

RED99

Your assumption is correct, these pve n00bs dont play. They sit in the comon tunels in full ntov with nothing to use their bis gear on and post in the forums.

The True Questers play on RED99

RED99

[TytosOfEight]

They're not getting money for running p99 so they don't care if you play it or not. They're also dedicated to running a mostly classic experience so they're not going to turn it in a loot piñata to attract new players.

Seems like you don't want to play classic EQ and that's alright.

So was it not classic last year when there was nearly 50% more quakes during the same time of year?

[Ghost_of_Fippy]

RED99

Im glad you n00bs are migrating to qarm or what ever that lame server is called

Then maybe the GMs can focus on things that really matter (PVP) instead of dealing with 2000000 elflawyer petitions about how someone stole your quilmane and you cant do anything about it because you are a coward who is afraid of PVP

RED99

You don't even have enough peeps logging into your sever during prime hours, for an Emperor Crush raid. That is why you spend all your time here on the forums trolling. No one over there to play with. ...LOL

[Goregasmic]

So was it not classic last year when there was nearly 50% more quakes during the same time of year?

Quakes didn't happen in classic. I think live saw a lot more server resets due to weekly maintenance, not sure how that worked on the raiding scene.

Live didn't have velious on farm status for 5 years though.

[TytosOfEight]

On my server on live, back in the day, server resets would occur weekly, sometimes twice weekly. So frequent quakes are very classic. But, you’re right about five years of Velious not being classic, and this speaks to my point. The way I see it, to keep this server active the GMs have to either:

1. Reset and release a new server, something I don’t particularly care about
2. Include some custom content like, for example, special epic-like quests that provide AAs and Luclin spells. And maybe some new zones from later expansions. This could be really fun
3. Expand the timeline and release Luclin
4. Or, include more quakes and fun events, such as limited access to legacy loot etc

I think 4 alone would do a lot for the server and would be easier to implement

[sajbert]

I don't see the point of adding Luclin or custom content to a server which set out to recreate a Classic experience. Nor do I see the devs having energy to bother with it and Luclin seems especially pointless now that Quarm's doing it.

If they don't plan on releasing another fresh server I think they should just add rotating Legacy content on the original release schedule meaning players given time will have another go at Firepots, Guise, Manastone, Beads and even Warder Loot. Sure, not exactly Classic but like you say, neither is 5 years of Velious. I think it would motivate players to return and start up more alts as well.

Whilst fresh may seem enticing it's also somewhat of a pain. On green people were struggling to find free camps just to kill a single mob every 6-12 minutes on repeat. The XP is crawling, many abilities are missing and class XP penalties are brutal.

[kissemisse]

I can't say I understand the lack of communication from the p1999 team. It's nothing new but it doesn't help.

I honestly just wish they'd tell is what's planned or what isn't.

This.
Just tell us.

[Duik]

DED99

Childish drivel about PVP (lulz) being important.

DED99

[Goregasmic]

I don't see the point of adding Luclin or custom content to a server which set out to recreate a Classic experience. Nor do I see the devs having energy to bother with it and Luclin seems especially pointless now that Quarm's doing it.

If they don't plan on releasing another fresh server I think they should just add rotating Legacy content on the original release schedule meaning players given time will have another go at Firepots, Guise, Manastone, Beads and even Warder Loot. Sure, not exactly Classic but like you say, neither is 5 years of Velious. I think it would motivate players to return and start up more alts as well.

Whilst fresh may seem enticing it's also somewhat of a pain. On green people were struggling to find free camps just to kill a single mob every 6-12 minutes on repeat. The XP is crawling, many abilities are missing and class XP penalties are brutal.

Yeah I could see them resetting sleeper's tomb every 2 years or whatever the original timeline is but that would probably be fun for like 1 day.

Cycling legacy content would be interesting, or making a quest for the more popular ones and making them no drop.

I think AAs is a bad idea (they'd never do it anyway) because it would further trivialize the actual content. Everyone is complaining about lack of grouping due to solo twinks, this will only make things worse. Honestly though, if you want non classic changes or new content I think people are just on the wrong server for that.

They made teal last time due to the overwhelming popularity of green at release, pretty sure they'd do the same this time around.

But honestly, they're already swamped with like 20 000+ petitions, I'm not sure they're ready for a new server on that front. Although 50% of those petitions are probably Salaryman asking why kelorek'dar drops 2 swords and no shield.

[Viscere]

just merge already tbh

[nbkr1ckynbk]

They're not getting money for running p99 so they don't care if you play it or not. They're also dedicated to running a mostly classic experience so they're not going to turn it in a loot piñata to attract new players.

Seems like you don't want to play classic EQ and that's alright.

You don't think they get money for running p99? They get donations. Albeit, I'm sure it's slowed quite a bit in the last year or two and that's why I feel like that's why there is almost zero sightings of the big wigs anymore since they're in the end stages of what they set out to do and all they can do is cycle servers in classic and have what, only 2 or 3 current servers per their agreement with daybreak? I know they made a killing when they turned on ads during the whole celebgate thing went down. But their interest in this project is just non-existent anymore or they would have put forth SOME kind of effort in the last couple of years to maintain interest but it's clear they give basically fck-all about anything anymore except for maybe milking what's left with the least amount of effort given. But they definitely made money. I dunno why they chose to just allow things to die a slow painful death with all the effort that was put into this thing in the beginning, unless it was just their agreement with daybreak that kept their hands tied, but like I said, it feels like they made theirs and are just milking what's left and letting it die a slow painful death 🤷🤷

[Tewaz]

Yeah I could see them resetting sleeper's tomb every 2 years...

You could see them doing something they haven't ever done or even entertained the idea of? Great!

There is a fundamental flaw at the heart of this project. They want a 100% classic server ...but not really. Rooted dragons, nerfed recharge cost, nerfed life tap, quakes, and most importantly, the most important thing about this server that differentiates it beyond all others:

Velious locked for 9 years and counting.

Also, the server gets locked into metas that are completely devoid of CSR intervention through lack of developer support creating staleness for the end game.

We constantly post here and on the discords about what the developers could do to make the server more fun and bring old and new players back to the server.

But Nilbog and Rogean just don't want that. They don't want lures to their server. They don't want custom content or future expansions. I think it's tragic but that's the way it is.

[Samoht]

Quakes didn't happen in classic. I think live saw a lot more server resets due to weekly maintenance, not sure how that worked on the raiding scene.

While it's true that a quake is a simulated repop exclusive to P99, the quake was designed to be an on demand substitute for the weekly maintenance repop that came from server resets or from spontaneous resets that happened time to time. So quakes themselves may not have existed on live, but repops did, and they were weekly during this era.

Insisting quakes did not exist may be true, but weekly maintenance repops did exist, so you're just dissecting the choice of word, and it is not an argument made in good faith.

[Goregasmic]

You could see them doing something they haven't ever done or even entertained the idea of? Great!

I'm not a classic absolutist but stuff I suggested would somewhat remain in the spirit of classic. If you think they won't even bother with that why suggest adding new zones/mobs/AA when it clearly goes beyond the scope of the server's goal?

[cd288]

You don't think they get money for running p99? They get donations. Albeit, I'm sure it's slowed quite a bit in the last year or two and that's why I feel like that's why there is almost zero sightings of the big wigs anymore since they're in the end stages of what they set out to do and all they can do is cycle servers in classic and have what, only 2 or 3 current servers per their agreement with daybreak? I know they made a killing when they turned on ads during the whole celebgate thing went down. But their interest in this project is just non-existent anymore or they would have put forth SOME kind of effort in the last couple of years to maintain interest but it's clear they give basically fck-all about anything anymore except for maybe milking what's left with the least amount of effort given. But they definitely made money. I dunno why they chose to just allow things to die a slow painful death with all the effort that was put into this thing in the beginning, unless it was just their agreement with daybreak that kept their hands tied, but like I said, it feels like they made theirs and are just milking what's left and letting it die a slow painful death 🤷🤷

They get donations to help offset some of the cost and expense of keeping the servers running. They're not legally allowed to make money off the IP.

[cd288]

I can't say I understand the lack of communication from the p1999 team. It's nothing new but it doesn't help.

I honestly just wish they'd tell is what's planned or what isn't.

The issue is half of this community will go nuts on them with complaining if they say something and then it doesn't happen exactly how they said it would or exactly when they said it would.

There's no incentive for them to communicate when they'll just get dragged for the slightest deviation because half this community are whiney.

And if they ever roll a new server, thousands of people will show up to play it whether they communicate now about it or not.

[torporseller]

The reason there are fewer quakes is pretty obvious. Especially more obvious by recent lead GMs blistering reply to a recent petition which in short form said "this is bullshit, you guys figure it out yourselves"

The top guilds in P99 act like 40 year old children 90% of the time, they argue and bitch and moan over mobs that are not only 26 years old , but 5-6 years old on this iteration. Less quakes is less petitions and less head aches less having to "clarify" bullshit.

Your original post is also in need of correction. People dont play those servers for "Ease of loot" but for ease of ACCESS TO CONTENT. If someone gets off work and wants to raid with their friends, they shouldnt have to hope for a evening quake or that their play time lands during a late window of a 16 hour spawn window, and even if it does spawn you have to fight over it with degenerates who sat in that spawn window for the full 16 hours.

P99 is probably the best version of Everquest there is if you want the classic experience 1-60 but once you decide to raid, its unrecognizable. The combination of that and these other servers actually allowing you to fight the mobs on your own schedule is why people flee. I doubt even some of the big guilds like socking windows, but for some reason they do it anyways because the culture of this raid scene on the server has engrained it into their brains that its the only way.

At the end of the day, I doubt the staff give two shits what the population is though, its a free server.

[TytosOfEight]

The reason there are fewer quakes is pretty obvious. Especially more obvious by recent lead GMs blistering reply to a recent petition which in short form said "this is bullshit, you guys figure it out yourselves"

The top guilds in P99 act like 40 year old children 90% of the time, they argue and bitch and moan over mobs that are not only 26 years old , but 5-6 years old on this iteration. Less quakes is less petitions and less head aches less having to "clarify" bullshit.

Your original post is also in need of correction. People dont play those servers for "Ease of loot" but for ease of ACCESS TO CONTENT. If someone gets off work and wants to raid with their friends, they shouldnt have to hope for a evening quake or that their play time lands during a late window of a 16 hour spawn window, and even if it does spawn you have to fight over it with degenerates who sat in that spawn window for the full 16 hours.

P99 is probably the best version of Everquest there is if you want the classic experience 1-60 but once you decide to raid, its unrecognizable. The combination of that and these other servers actually allowing you to fight the mobs on your own schedule is why people flee. I doubt even some of the big guilds like socking windows, but for some reason they do it anyways because the culture of this raid scene on the server has engrained it into their brains that its the only way.

At the end of the day, I doubt the staff give two shits what the population is though, its a free server.


To be frank, your perspective seems somewhat biased and a bit resentful. Should the actions of a few individuals, or your personal dislike for the raiding scene on P99, spoil the experience for everyone else? Certainly not. And please, let's not use the excuse that it's a free server. These individuals volunteered to assist and should perform their duties to the best of their abilities. Currently, the server is quite glitchy, with some encounters not functioning due to insufficient server resets. Additionally, the lengthy spawn windows and lack of quakes are making it difficult (and less fun) for smaller guilds or those who are less intense overall.

[Salaryman]

RED99

[cd288]

To be frank, your perspective seems somewhat biased and a bit resentful. Should the actions of a few individuals, or your personal dislike for the raiding scene on P99, spoil the experience for everyone else? Certainly not. And please, let's not use the excuse that it's a free server. These individuals volunteered to assist and should perform their duties to the best of their abilities. Currently, the server is quite glitchy, with some encounters not functioning due to insufficient server resets. Additionally, the lengthy spawn windows and lack of quakes are making it difficult (and less fun) for smaller guilds or those who are less intense overall.

Well on the one hand I don't blame the staff at all. The person you replied to is absolutely correct that the majority of raiding guilds on P99 throw temper tantrums and submit multi page Word doc petitions over the slightest issues.

As far as his other comments that raiding on here is unrecognizable to classic, other than guilds having armies of bots I would disagree with him.

[JayDee]

I don't see the point of adding Luclin or custom content to a server which set out to recreate a Classic experience. Nor do I see the devs having energy to bother with it and Luclin seems especially pointless now that Quarm's doing it.

If they don't plan on releasing another fresh server I think they should just add rotating Legacy content on the original release schedule meaning players given time will have another go at Firepots, Guise, Manastone, Beads and even Warder Loot. Sure, not exactly Classic but like you say, neither is 5 years of Velious. I think it would motivate players to return and start up more alts as well.

Whilst fresh may seem enticing it's also somewhat of a pain. On green people were struggling to find free camps just to kill a single mob every 6-12 minutes on repeat. The XP is crawling, many abilities are missing and class XP penalties are brutal.


100% agree on the warder thing. Maybe after a month or two allow waking the sleeper then bring it back a year later. Would bring a lot of people back and its Classic content

[Ciderpress]

Legacy items are not legacy items if you can just get them at your leisure. The entire appeal is that they are one and done, you either get them or you don't and when they're gone they're gone. They can all be traded\bought\sold anyway, other than guises which are the only actual cool legacy item. Server pop is fine for the content imo, several hundred people play every day. It's not like if the pop was 2500 there would be lots of groups, it would just be more neckbeard raiders. It's the nature of the beast.

All that being said I too long for a fresh p99 server. The hero's whatever is a cool novelty but it might as well be a different game. It's like shards of dalaya; if you're gonna modify everquest that much why not just make a new game with new ip?

[JayDee]

Thing that makes sleeper different is

A) there is no set amount of time for when it expires. It's more when a group of people feel like being dicks and preventing others from getting items. Fair play

B) its end game content that will keep people compelled to continue playing and thus perhaps donating to the project

C) waking the sleeper marks the end of classic (in fact it wasnt killed til much later on most servers) and I dont see p99 ending anytime soon

[Goregasmic]

The entire appeal is that they are one and done, you either get them or you don't and when they're gone they're gone.

Lets not pretend stuff like elder prayer beads is just a novelty bauble. On live they also brought some of them back under different mechanisms (casino, wandering merchants) so that argument doesn't hold all that much water. P99 being P99 it probably will stay the way it is though.

That being said I wouldn't be against them opening up sleeper's tomb a bit more. That's the end of classic but that's not how the game ends. 5 years of velious is not classic either, they could get a bit more funky with the timeline but I doubt it would go beyond a perdiodic reset.

[sajbert]

Legacy items are not legacy items if you can just get them at your leisure. The entire appeal is that they are one and done, you either get them or you don't and when they're gone they're gone. They can all be traded\bought\sold anyway, other than guises which are the only actual cool legacy item. Server pop is fine for the content imo, several hundred people play every day. It's not like if the pop was 2500 there would be lots of groups, it would just be more neckbeard raiders. It's the nature of the beast.

All that being said I too long for a fresh p99 server. The hero's whatever is a cool novelty but it might as well be a different game. It's like shards of dalaya; if you're gonna modify everquest that much why not just make a new game with new ip?
Even if legacy items were to be reintroduced instead of a new fresh you'd still have to wait several years between each chance at beads or manastone. The camps would still be a pain and possibly worse than before. There'd certainly be a significant level of hardship behind acquiring one, unlike on Quarm. I guess a "classic" concern would be paineel erudites or iksars being able to get a Guise.

As for pop, honestly it's quite dead and 95% of the world is just depressing. Outside raiding and a handful of zones there is nothing going on. Outside of raiding or soloing there isn't much.

I'd consider playing again but without knowing if there'll ever be another fresh and not having the option to get guise or firepot binds on another toon I just don't feel motivate and I think I'm far from the only one.

[Salaryman]

RED99

The Sleeper hath been awakened and you will be mad about it for the rest of your life.

RED99

[Keeboo]

Well on the one hand I don't blame the staff at all. The person you replied to is absolutely correct that the majority of raiding guilds on P99 throw temper tantrums and submit multi page Word doc petitions over the slightest issues.

As far as his other comments that raiding on here is unrecognizable to classic, other than guilds having armies of bots I would disagree with him.

There's been a grand total of twelve petitions by all guilds combined over the last year. Not exactly "over the slightest issue".

[cd288]

There's been a grand total of twelve petitions by all guilds combined over the last year. Not exactly "over the slightest issue".

Have you raided longer than the last year?

Have you seen the size of the petitions some of these guilds will submit?

[Keeboo]

Have you raided longer than the last year?

Have you seen the size of the petitions some of these guilds will submit?

Yes, I have, and I wasn't disputing that multi-page petitions are submitted, I was disputing the claim that they're filed "over the slightest issue".

[kjs86z2]

Have you raided longer than the last year?

Have you seen the size of the petitions some of these guilds will submit?

edit: found it https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=437991

lol

sirken used to just raid ban guilds that submitted stupid petitions / counter petitions

[Jimjam]

based

[Bigpoppa]

The server is what it is. All you will do by limiting quakes is get people to quit. Its too old for people to get excited about 7day windows. God forbid quake +2 or +3 weeks. Puke. Its not exciting anymore. Quakes bring a little bit of it back. Don't just kill the community because quakes aren't classic.

[Duik]

Quakes or the equivalent live server resets etc are classic.

[Kutark Validus]

It's not the percieved lack of quakes. Easy loot is not why anyone would play p99.

Most people have achieved or abandoned the tasks that they set out to do on Green and Blue. The tryhards since long got their Warder loot and left. A few RMT'ers and cliques lock down anything still of value. The vast majority of zones are deserted.

A merge is due or a new fresh with the plans of one day merging that server with existing Green at the end of its timeline.

I can't say I understand the lack of communication from the p1999 team. It's nothing new but it doesn't help.

I honestly just wish they'd tell is what's planned or what isn't.

I feel like they're just burnt out at this point. Like essentially they're the GRRM to P99's Song of Ice and Fire.

[Swish]

https://i.imgur.com/pxyQt16.gif

[cd288]

I feel like they're just burnt out at this point. Like essentially they're the GRRM to P99's Song of Ice and Fire.

Disagree with this. The past several months shows they're clearly still doing some level of work. They continue to patch things or make changes that would be reflected in future servers (even Nilbog has said in response to patch notes "this would be reflected in future iterations of the server").

I'm sure there will eventually be another server. Blue sat at the end of it's timeline for awhile and people said there'd never be a Green. It'll happen eventually.

But I do agree even just a simple "Yes we still plan to release a new P99 server and possibly merge Blue and Green at the same time. We're not exactly sure when that would happen since we have other work to do, but yes we still plan to at some point" message would be greatly appreciated.

[HalflingWarrior]

I haven't played on P99 in several years now, but still I occasionally check the Forums hoping to see announcement of a "Fresh" server.