Not that my 2 cents really matters but since this thread is mostly just based on anecdotal evidence I'll toss mine in anyway. I started in late 1999 and played past velious. I know with certainty that enchanters did not use charm very much at all back then.
As to why they didn't I can't say for certain. I suppose it could have been, as some in this thread have theorized, that the average intelligence of the human race was lower in those years. Or it could be, as those of the opposing viewpoint have suggested, that charm simply didn't work as well back then, however preposterous that might sound. I couldn't prove anything either way.
One other thing I'll add because someone mentioned it early in this discussion was that the lull/calm line of spells also didn't work very well in old EQ. Again I can only offer my anecdotal evidence but I am absolutely certain that this is true. My main up through velious was a paladin so I had those spells. I know that they were so unreliable that I wouldn't even try using them on a group with more than three mobs. Usually I would only try it if there were only two mobs near each other.
Calm got resisted a lot and when mobs resisted they would agro so it wasn't safe to even try using it on a large group. I never actually kept track but it seemed to me that it got resisted at least 50% of the time (no proof though). It was so unreliable that I usually wouldn't even keep it memorized even if I was pulling.
Some time later on they did change something that made that line of spells work much better but that was after I had retired my paladin which was after Luclin came out. I don't remember exactly when it changed but I know it was at least after Luclin. I also don't know what they changed that made those spells work better. It might have been a change directly on those spells or it might have had something to do with MR of mobs in general.
Oh, and while were talking about classic/not classic stuff. The way mobs flee is not classic on P99. Back in the day when a mob was fleeing it would run in a straight line forever. That is why it was possible to fear things into walls and then just stand behind them beating on them. It doesn't work that way on p99.
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