Some concerns about starting P99

[Xaanka]

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

I played Everquest back when the game was new and played through the Planes of Power Expansion before moving on to other games. I have always remembered EQ fondly and recently I came across Project 99 and was pretty excited to dive in and see the old world that I remembered. I say "was excited" because there seem to be a few factors that might make starting undesirable. I was hoping the community could address them.

1. Because there is only one server that has been going for a while the game seems very top heavy and overcrowded. Of course, I only have one toon at level ten right now, but it looks to me as if lower levels almost don't exist and end game raiding is a cluster**** because there are so many people going after it. Raiding is obviously a big part of this game and I don't want to get to level 50+ only to find out that every raid has a Disney World sized waiting line just to get a shot at it.

Take 5 minutes and read the blue rants and flames forums. Raids, and many spawns do have Disney World sized waiting lines for them. The blue server is overcrowded and the end game raiding scene is more than a clusterfuck.

Consider playing on the red server, where there are no welfare lines for raid mobs and rare spawns. Even if you don't give a single shit about Everquest PVP, there's plenty of other people on red who share your mentality to play with.

2. Due to issue number one and most players are either already high level or are power leveling lower level toons, it looks like I will literally be soloing all the way to at least level 50. I don't want to solo my way through these levels and having to do so would kill any desire I have to play. But so far I have been unable to get a group playing around the Blackburrow area.

It's a lot easier to find leveling groups on the red server, because of the global ooc chat. There is also a very active leveling guild on the server with pretty constant groups going at most level ranges during most times.

3. Inflation has gotten out of control and I don't know if I will ever be able to catch up financially. Because there are no real plat sinks everyone has tens of thousands of plat. I saw one player offering 12k for a rez, another offering 10k, one paying 300 for a port, etc... When I played live, 10k was more than enough to MQ the Ancient Cyclops quest much less get a rez. And if I got ten plat to port someone I considered myself lucky. I have no idea what that MQ goes for now. If platinum is really that worthless then I will never catch up to the rest of the game.

Any thoughts from the community are welcome.

Yeah it's crazy, you'll never catch up if you haven't played for years. 10k is more than enough to get 3 Ancient Cyclops MQ's on the red server. Inflation is not nearly as bad, and while both servers are top heavy and 60 focused, it really isn't as bad. Sure once you're 56+ these people can kill you on red, but it's taken me less than 6mo to go from being in rags, to outgearing many players who've active on red since release. The gear gap and topheaviness is still pretty crazy on red, but it's nothing compared to blue. Especially with Velious, and Plane of Fear 2.0 recently released. Due to the way the red server raid rules work, and how the scene is with less guilds than blue, most new players see loot MUCH quicker than they do on blue because their guilds see more raid mobs every week + have less people to distribute gear between.

[Kekephee]

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

Take 5 minutes and read the blue rants and flames forums. Raids, and many spawns do have Disney World sized waiting lines for them. The blue server is overcrowded and the end game raiding scene is more than a clusterfuck.

Rants and Flames is a lie. Don't ever read any of it thinking it's real. It's all a big game where we all pretend to hate each other and to be monsters and Red players come in and lie about how overcrowded our raid scene is and our guilds are because RnF is a game and so they can get people to switch servers.

Consider playing on the red server, where there are no welfare lines for raid mobs and rare spawns. Even if you don't give a single shit about Everquest PVP, there's plenty of other people on red who share your mentality to play with.

Red is an option. The population is significantly lower- we like to joke that it's impossibly low and you'll be playing EQ single-player, but that's an exaggeration. However, it IS lower, and since you did explicitly say that you're concerned about finding people to group with, well, that is worth mentioning.

You won't be soloing to 50, though, on either server. There's always plenty of groups in most of the zones on Blue, and people on Red are voracious group-seekers because of the exp bonus.