Can't Decide, Live or P99

[Tecmos Deception]

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

I know it's redundant asking P99 players which server I should stick to. But I wanted to hear your reasons behind it.

Let me start off by saying, I've played this game during release back in my younger, hardcore, can afford to eat hot pockets everyday phase. Today, as an adult with responsibilities things have changed!

I'm looking to revisit the world of norrath as a CASUAL gamer. Yes, I said it. Casual gamer! I'm aware most have stopped reading by now.

I have issues with both live and p99 so I'm trying to weight my options.

Live:
Pros -
Larger Community
Faster Leveling
More Content
New UI
New Spellbook (UI)

Cons -
Community is all max level and ignores newbies so I'd be playing alone for 4 years till I reach max level.
Monthly Subscription
Mercenaries - killing the community because everyone is boxing mercs and multiple accounts.

P1999
Pros -
Amazing Community
Oldschool Content
Oldschool Spell Graphics
Sense of Worth! You build a reputation
1 Character at a time!
(I think)

Cons -
Death ( Same as Live? not sure)
Very Slow Leveling (for a casual gamer)
All high level camps are taken by high end guilds? This is what I've read. What's the point of leveling up if you can't get anything out of it.
Old Spellbook (unorganized spellbook / page flipping / rememming spells without right clicking hotbar into sub catagories to choose spells)


Many more pro's cons of both, was just thinking quickly.

Basically I love the game to death, but would be playing casually (if that's possible) Has anyone had success with raiding or playing like 2 hours a day and being max level? Because back in the day, we'd raid for like 7 hours. I can't do that lol.

I just feel like I'd be able to play Live servers casually more so than P99. But I wouldn't see a soul.

Your thoughts? Please keep the flames to a minimum, this is EQ, not WoW.

Your cons for live cancel out the pros. Who cares if there are a lot of people if none of them will play with you? Who cares if there is a lot of content if there is no one doing 99% of it? Etc.

Your cons for p99 are irrelevant for you. You are a casual player, so what do you care if VP is dominated by one guild? You're a casual player, so what do you care how fast you leve? Just play however much you can/want to and enjoy that; that's what classic EQ was really about anyways.

[mgellan]

I just find the level of immersion on live to be totally screwed up by all the "helpful" dialog boxes and similar crap. I tried a new toon on Live when it went F2P and quit pretty fast because of the all annoying "Click here for next task" shit. P99 = great community + great immersion, which is why we play the game in the first place IMHO. Screw live.

Regards,
Mg

[sykotic]

IMO your cons make the game more difficult, which make it more enjoyable.. for me anyway. Minus not being able to Rclick gems for spells.

Pretty typical for a couple high level guilds to dominate, and you can always join them if they'll have you.


P99 FTW

[Furniture]

I recently tried live again with a gold account and stopped pretty quickly. I had two main issues which I think if they didnt exist, would make live pretty awesome.

1) The mercenaries being so overpowered its what kills it for me. They give you tank mercenaries for very cheap (even free up to level 12 or so) that can tank and solo any mob up to like 5-6 levels of you because he has insane hp/regen/gear/stats. This is done to boost characters to level 60 asap to catch up on content from some of the newer expansions that they want you to play and to be able to catch up to friends/guildmates, trivializing a massive amount of old content. Since you only get one merc out at a time I think it would be a pretty good system as long as the mercenary was equal to a player. They should replace generic archetype mercenaries with mercenaries you can hire of all the classes with the same stats as players.

2) Defiant gear also further trivializes all old content 1-60. This gear drops off every mob in the game and for a mere 5 bucks you can buy this armor in a full set your your level range from the eq live marketplace thats shoved down your throat every three seconds. Not that you have to even have a full set, the defiant gear is extremely powerful, better stats anything for several expansions, plus you have your godlike tank merc to do everything for you.


If they released a server with just these two things removed, then i'd love to play it. It would be the ultimate casual eq experience.

[Thulack]

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

I recently tried live again with a gold account and stopped pretty quickly. I had two main issues which I think if they didnt exist, would make live pretty awesome.

1) The mercenaries being so overpowered its what kills it for me. They give you tank mercenaries for very cheap (even free up to level 12 or so) that can tank and solo any mob up to like 5-6 levels of you because he has insane hp/regen/gear/stats. This is done to boost characters to level 60 asap to catch up on content from some of the newer expansions that they want you to play and to be able to catch up to friends/guildmates, trivializing a massive amount of old content. Since you only get one merc out at a time I think it would be a pretty good system as long as the mercenary was equal to a player. They should replace generic archetype mercenaries with mercenaries you can hire of all the classes with the same stats as players.

2) Defiant gear also further trivializes all old content 1-60. This gear drops off every mob in the game and for a mere 5 bucks you can buy this armor in a full set your your level range from the eq live marketplace thats shoved down your throat every three seconds. Not that you have to even have a full set, the defiant gear is extremely powerful, better stats anything for several expansions, plus you have your godlike tank merc to do everything for you.


If they released a server with just these two things removed, then i'd love to play it. It would be the ultimate casual eq experience.

Everything you don't like was put in to make people catch up easier to the top end of the community. Leveling is silly easy anymore on live so catching up to everyone else is not a issue if your willing to put some time in. If someone is only planning on playing 15-20 hours a week then i would stick to P99. If you want to put more hours in i would play on live. You will have more things to accomplish in the long run. EQ live is free to play up to level 90 and 1000aa so you can try it out for awhile and if you don't like it can always come back here. Worse comes to worse and you spend a month or 2 on live and then come back here to nothing different.