Legacy items on Green99 - pros and cons

[Izmael]

The staff didn't give us any hints on whether or not legacy items will drop on Green, so it's all up open for speculation. Maybe some items will drop, maybe all of them, maybe none. Maybe Green will merge to Blue after, maybe it will be with legacy items, maybe without.


I'm still unsure on what I prefer, to be honest.

I joined P99 in 2014 so obviously missed things such as Guise, Manastone, Locket, etc.
A part of me wants the legacy items to drop on Green, so I get a chance to sock it hard for a couple months and get a shot at all the good stuff, get a bunch of characters guised, bound at the pots, fill a bag or two with manastones, etc etc.

On the other hand, there are a few other things to consider.

TRUST
There's only one true classic Everquest server in the world, and that's Blue99. There's no alternative. And part of the success of it is the TRUST we, players, put into it. The trust that has been gained by server thanks to the competent and committed staff behind it. Creating and maintaining such a service with such quality of ...everything, really - is no joke, and the staff showed repeatedly that they know what they are doing.

Therefore, we trust them to keep the only Classic EQ instance in the world up, and our characters and items safely there. One particular aspect of EQ is that some items gain value because they no longer drop.

We know that if we quit for a year or four, then decide to log back in, all our characters and items will be exactly where we left them. P99 is our Classic EQ safehouse.

A merging Green99 with legacy items could potentially alter this immutability and automatically undermine this trust.

The poor casual fellow who joined in 2018 and worked their ass off for 6 months to pay for a CoS, suddenly sees all his efforts devalued. He will feel like crap and won't trust P99 any longer to preserve the value of his efforts.


ECONOMY
Another aspect is purely macroeconomic. P99 economy is deflationary. Too many items enter the world and 99% of items keep getting cheaper. I don't think this is healthy or desirable. The very few items who keep being expensive are the legacy items (along with some exceptions such as AoN or Puppet Strings). I think it is important that some stuff remains expensive, for the health of the economy which is a big part of what classic EQ is.



LEGACY STATUS
Third aspect: legacy items are legacy for a reason. An item has legacy status or it does not. If there's knowledge that it will drop again, then it's simply not legacy any longer. It's temporarily not dropping, that's all. Legacy items are an important aspect of classic EQ.



GAMEPLAY
Fourth aspect: None of the legacy items are essential for the gameplay and are purely status symbols. (One exception is CoS but there are gazillions stashed on mules). Legacy items are the early adopter rewards. By allowing a new influx of such items, early adopter rewards are simply erased. Again, this potentially undermines the trust that P99 will preserve your acquired status.


SHITSHOW
Fifth aspect: Allowing legacy items to drop would mean that the Green server would be nothing else but an opportunity to farm them. Instead of actually enjoying pre-Kunark classic EQ, it would be a shit flinging contest filled with petitions, trains, lawyering and general mayhem around the few legacy camps. The few stay-at-home neckbeards will most likely deny the general population any kind of realistic shot. I don't know if P99 needs it.