Sullon Zek information?

[Darkone]

Hey,

Anyone out there that has any screenshots from sullon zek back in the day? We're working on emulating this server and its ruleset but a few screenshots regarding how different teams nameplates were displayed would be helpful.

Personally i played on Vallon Zek (race wars) and there the different teams had different colors.

We found some old screenshots from Sullon Zek and it shows there were definitely some different displays going on but were unsure if this was because of the teams having different colors of if it has to do with the person taking the image is "out of range" on a level 1-4 character which cannot pvp.

Here some pictures we found:

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In the first picture it looks like the cleric that has a blue name is being screenshotted by a spy that is most likely lvl 1, wile the second screenshots show a guy on a different team being attacked by someone and his name is purple which may indicate that one team had purple names and blue names might be "out of range" nameplate color.

If anyone played on sullon zek and have actual screenshots of this that would be helpful, or just simply remember how it was back in the day, thanks.

[shovelquest]

Is it just impossible to get rid of the black dropshadow in the names on P99? Would love to see those old janky names.

[Kirdan]

I played on SZ. The nameplates were the same across teams and just like p99: blue was the default, purple when roleplaying. The consider messages were how you could tell teams apart. Good and Evil would glare at each other threateningly, while Neutral would appear apprehensive to both Good and Evil. Teammates would consider you ally. Even cons (+/- 5 levels) were white, and dying to an even con (or lower) would cost you experience.

[Dulu]

Originally Posted by Kirdan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I played on SZ. The nameplates were the same across teams and just like p99: blue was the default, purple when roleplaying. The consider messages were how you could tell teams apart. Good and Evil would glare at each other threateningly, while Neutral would appear apprehensive to both Good and Evil. Teammates would consider you ally. Even cons (+/- 5 levels) were white, and dying to an even con (or lower) would cost you experience.

You could also quickly tell by looking at the race and judging them.

Trolls, Ogres, Ikar, Dark Elves were always evil.

High Elves, Wood Elves were always good.

Halflings were always neutral.

Gnomes could be evil or neutral. I don't think they could be good? Same in reverse for Dwarves, I think they could be neutral or good, but not evil.

Humans, Erudites, Half Elves could all be any faction so you had to con them like Kirdan said.

Classes were also faction locked. I think Shadowknights and Necromancers were evil only. Paladins were good only.

[Kirdan]

Originally Posted by Dulu [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You could also quickly tell by looking at the race and judging them.

Trolls, Ogres, Ikar, Dark Elves were always evil.

High Elves, Wood Elves were always good.

Halflings were always neutral.

Gnomes could be evil or neutral. I don't think they could be good? Same in reverse for Dwarves, I think they could be neutral or good, but not evil.

Humans, Erudites, Half Elves could all be any faction so you had to con them like Kirdan said.

Classes were also faction locked. I think Shadowknights and Necromancers were evil only. Paladins were good only.

Mostly correct. Any race of wizard could choose Solusek Ro and be neutral, so there were neutral Dark and High Elves. Dwarves could not be good, only neutral. I want to say that Wood Elf bards and warriors could also choose Rallos Zek and be evil, but my memory on that one is fuzzy. When Luclin launched, Vah Shir were made Tunare-only on SZ to limit them to the good team.

For class restrictions, NEC/SHD were evil only and DRU/RNG/PAL were non-evil only.

[fusionz02]

Off topic, but just my experience when I played SZ back when it first went live...

Some input (IMHO):

65% of players -> Evil
25% of players -> Neutral (Newt)
10% of players -> Goodie

Evil had all the advantages on most xp zones... Goodies had it bad. I remember playing a pally and getting creamed on by newts and evils in MM all the time... any Kunark/Velious zones you had to seriously wake up early in the morning xping "under the radar" in those zones.

I remember it being the most INSTENSE and FUN pvp server. (You were only limited to 1 character creation). I've played on RZ as well. Would be interesting if this was brought back. The 6-60 level range of pvp can be brutal... so I hope all if it were to be created that players do respect the "LnS" Loot-n-scoot rule after killing someone and they say "LnS", in addition to allowing some "agreement" on "truce" zones cause the playing field was definitely not the same back then for good diety/races.

Also a sidenote:
Nec's corpse summons allowed an advantage for raiding while newts and good goodies were limited to end game.

Anyone else remember anything?

[Zahovoon]

Yeah it would still be heavily one sided and zerged, if there was a population at all for Red 2.0 Teams. Rogean Test Server... heard it here first.

The biggest benefit of Teams is the resistance can work on people and that gear is locked in for your team. Getting burned turns the resistance into psychopaths (Tempest) and they go with a scorched earth burn it down strategy logically so, but it breaks the system basically.

The other main thing would be Variance for raid mobs especially Classic/Kunark, to create some window of PVP instead of Zerg shows up at 10:07 and no one can compete. On Live my guild was smaller, and raided late, so if there was a mob up we could snipe it because no one would give a fuck or have numbers. We had a 50 vs 50 in POH over Inny once with the B team guilds, Knights of the white rose with that situation. Zone crashed when they zoned in, 100 people loaded in staggered in POH and fought it out, one of my most memorable pvp fights and it didn't involve the alphas.

[Darlore]

Race wars was a ton of fun especially at launch. I have fond memories of lines of gnomes and dwarves running over the hill in GFay while getting blasted by Elves.

What would the Red 2.0 Teams PvP setup be in an ideal state? I understand that it likely will never happen if P99 continues on it's current trajectory, but if you were CEO of P99 how would you design teams pvp?

[Zuranthium]

Originally Posted by Darlore [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What would the Red 2.0 Teams PvP setup be in an ideal state? I understand that it likely will never happen if P99 continues on it's current trajectory, but if you were CEO of P99 how would you design teams pvp?

Gonna copy+paste what I wrote a few years ago:

1.) Revamp of the entire spell/resist system such that PvP in EQ would play out similar to Guild Wars 1 (but with an open world), which is still the best PvP game in existence and already shares some similarities with EQ (can only use 8 spells at a time).

2.) 3-way team server with self-balancing mechanic to buff/debuff the teams based on their populations and the amount of zones they control (a team controlling a zone could be defined as whichever team has most frequently killed the "boss" NPC's in a zone over the past month).

3.) Structured PvP tournaments with a set number of players per team. Various rewards are possible for the winners and also the winning team's overall server team could gain some kind of small bonus for the week, which incentivizes each of the 3 server teams to care about PvP.

4.) Items in the game more balanced so as not to create such a big imbalance between those who happen to have tons of Raid gear and those who don't. Also more options for Best-In-Slot gear, so that people have more ability to choose how their character looks, rather than being forced to used a specific piece of gear.

5.) Standardized zoning times and disabling the plugging mechanic.

6.) Increased XP gain and also gaining XP from PvP (there are various ways to prevent this from being abused but I won't type it all out there). The game should be less about PvE, if that is a player's inclination.

[Vexenu]

Another unique feature of SZ were "Insignias". If you killed another player who was within +/- 5 levels of you, they would lose experience and you could loot an Insignia (an item with a coin graphic and which was stackable) of their god. The insignia type depended on level. I believe under level 30s dropped lesser insignias, 30-49 normal insignias, and 50+ greater insignias. So for example, if you were a level 51 Necromancer and killed a level 47 Bard, you could loot all his plat and also an "Insignia of Veeshan." If you then killed a level 52 Druid, you might loot a "Greater Insignia of Karana." The insignias could be turned in to an NPC for potions (IIRC corpse summoning potions?).

Due to their coin graphic, insignias also gave rise to the SZ-specific terminology of "coined", which meant that you killed someone within 5 levels of you, and thus cost them XP and looted all their plat and their insignia (i.e. "Fatso the Druid down and coined in Eastern Wastes!").