Proposed new server ruleset: PvE+ [long effortpost]

[Lakeland]

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

I don't think you read the post very carefully (you don't seem to be alone in that regard, although to be fair it was a huge wall of text despite my best efforts to format it for maximum readability).

1) Only DROPPABLE gear would be at risk from being destroyed by raid mobs. The best gear is all NO DROP. Past a certain level of gearing you'd mostly only risk losing some resist jewelry/gear. Or you could put no gear at risk by wearing only NO DROP gear and otherwise empty slots, accepting reduced stats and thus increasing the difficulty of the encounter. The entire purpose is balancing risk, reward and difficulty.

2) Mobs faster than SoW and outdoor XP penalties: discourages easy outdoor leveling and forces people into dungeons. If you can't hack dungeon leveling then you won't advance. That's the entire point of raising the difficulty level.

3) The idea is the Traveling merchant would be *extremely* rare and totally random. Most players would never encounter him. You could not camp him. You would just hope to get lucky one day. The idea that half the server would have access to him is wrong. I'm talking about a rarity level where he might only spawn a few times per real life year for a few minutes at a time, in one of two dozen or so zones.

4) Guilds might zerg more, or they might not. Does it really matter? It's not a raid-focused server proposal. The point is to increase the difficulty and risk of all aspects of the the game, including raiding. It's SUPPOSED to be harder and more punishing, so players would adapt their approach and play more carefully. Working as intended.

I read it, every long winded word, but tell me what out of these things you listed are "classic eq"? Traveling merchant is simply something you want, not one thing about it says "classic eq" and honestly you want everything else "harder" but you want some merchant randomly wandering around to make things easier? Very odd.

Why penalize players who want to be outside? So if I can't find a group I get 75% experience loss killing stuff? Why? What makes this "classic eq"?

Gear getting destroyed by raid mobs? When was this in the "spirit" of "classic eq"? No, see we read it, we just realize you have a theory of what you want in a game and want it added to an existing game. You don't want "classic" you want your version and again by all means that's cool but don't act like it's anything close to "class eq" because it just is not.

[Vexenu]

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

I read it, every long winded word, but tell me what out of these things you listed are "classic eq"? Traveling merchant is simply something you want, not one thing about it says "classic eq" and honestly you want everything else "harder" but you want some merchant randomly wandering around to make things easier? Very odd.

Why penalize players who want to be outside? So if I can't find a group I get 75% experience loss killing stuff? Why? What makes this "classic eq"?

Gear getting destroyed by raid mobs? When was this in the "spirit" of "classic eq"? No, see we read it, we just realize you have a theory of what you want in a game and want it added to an existing game. You don't want "classic" you want your version and again by all means that's cool but don't act like it's anything close to "class eq" because it just is not.

The spirit of Classic EQ is, in my view, when overcoming the environment of the game itself is the biggest challenge the player faces, as opposed to the state of the server now, where the challenge is only in killing mobs before other players do. If you want to preserve classic mechanics and content, the only way to make the world/environment more difficult to overcome is to tweak it in the ways I suggested.

I want to penalize you for XPing outside because XPing outside is trivially easy. This ruleset is specifically designed to be hard. It's designed to heavily encourage grouping in dungeons for advancement, and rewards XPing in more difficult zones. These changes are obviously "not classic" in themselves. But you know what is classic? Grouping in dungeons and relying on other players just to stay alive, much less advance your character.

Gear destroyed by raid mobs is basically taking the PvP item loot rules from Rallos Zek and applying them to raid mobs. It's fairly hardcore, sure. But that's the point. Any guild that could raid successfully on the PvE+ server would be legit as fuck and everyone would know it.

[Lakeland]

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

The spirit of Classic EQ is, in my view, when overcoming the environment of the game itself is the biggest challenge the player faces, as opposed to the state of the server now, where the challenge is only in killing mobs before other players do. If you want to preserve classic mechanics and content, the only way to make the world/environment more difficult to overcome is to tweak it in the ways I suggested.

I want to penalize you for XPing outside because XPing outside is trivially easy. This ruleset is specifically designed to be hard. It's designed to heavily encourage grouping in dungeons for advancement, and rewards XPing in more difficult zones. These changes are obviously "not classic" in themselves. But you know what is classic? Grouping in dungeons and relying on other players just to stay alive, much less advance your character.

Gear destroyed by raid mobs is basically taking the PvP item loot rules from Rallos Zek and applying them to raid mobs. It's fairly hardcore, sure. But that's the point. Any guild that could raid successfully on the PvE+ server would be legit as fuck and everyone would know it.

The problem comes in the fact that grouping, even back in the day, wasn't always possible and it sure won't always be possible on an emulated server with MUCH less population. So what are people to do when they aren't able to group? What will a new player like myself do when no one groups because they all have established guildmates/friends and the new player is running around with nothing? How long will new players play when they can't solo to level and sit forever waiting for a group because soloing has become so useless exp wise its not worth doing, especially since even with SoW the second you get an add your dead because you now can't run away from anything?

You want things that sound good, as I said it could even be better then it is now I'm not denying that, but it's not logically functional. You'd be running a completely hardcore server without any casual players, the irony is them players already only group/raid so what's the real change for them? If a server like you want existed how is any player that just entering going to accomplish anything?

I think some people who have played for a long time on 1999 forget what it's like to be a complete noob because your plan basically destroys any new players coming up. Just the food concept in general is enough to make people so frustrated they quit. If life happens and I have to log away from a city what do I do when I log back on? Run to a city wasting huge amounts of time just to buy food just to run all the way back to where I was? How is this helping advance the game or make it fun? Limiting my ability to play alts? How is that fun or useful? I just don't understand it from the concept of an old EQ player but new 1999 player.

Again I'm not saying your ideas are bad, I'm just saying it's absolutely not in the spirit of the classic game. I miss grouping in games to level (that's why I'm back here) but I don't think you can force that, you would just run people off the game. I mained a cleric back in EQ from launch, soloing wasn't really a thing for me but that was ok because I'd find groups easy enough and with a good reputation among the player base and guildmates I did just fine. With so few players here, I'm absolutely worried about trying to level my cleric as it is because no one looks for groups, everyone is twinked out and soloing or being powerleveled. If we were under your rules what would a new player as a cleric do? Don't say "Find a group" because that's the obvious answer but it just doesn't work that way as I said earlier.

EQ was hard, really hard at times, but it wasn't SO much so you wouldn't be able to do something while lfg. Your plan basically makes you sit bored if your lfg, well that's when your not running to a merchant every log in to get food and water.

[Teako]

oh hey look it's another "WE SHOULD DO THIS BECAUSE I LIKE THIS INSTEAD OF CLASSIC" post.

servers must be down!

[Raev]

I think your post is interesting but in the end completely jumps the shark. IMHO there are three big problems with classic 'feel' on Project 1999 currently.

1. Since the server is so old, mudflation reigns and twinking is insane. Fungi/Tstaff monks can own huge sections of dungeons solo. I saw an Awakened Rogue with a Horn of Hsagra, Fungi, Belt of the Great Turtle, Cloak of Flames, and a fucking AOW mask. Needless to say, he was a douche. Even newer players can get superb mid level weapons like the Frozen Shard for cheap.

2. Due to the stagnant content, everyone builds huge armies of alts. Every older player has a pocket cleric and wizard and 10 toons to camp at every raid target. This hugely reduces cooperation because I can ask a friend to log on my own cleric or portbot for 2 minutes and increases demand for epic items and such.

3. A significant group of players are still trying to "win" an emulated EQ server via poopsocking/rule lawyering/waking up at 4AM. The insane competition over the raid scene percolates down and creates this an antisocial attitude where people are busy fucking each other over.

I would also like to see a more classic 'feel' to the server, but I don't think anything near what you are proposing is necessary.

• All items receive a required level = level of the NPC they dropped from -10. This eliminates the vast majority of twinking.
• All buffs cannot be cast on any player < the buff level -10.
• Item recharging is much more expensive, ~10x
• Logging in to a toon binds your IP to that toon for 1 week, preventing you from logging in to other toons. Mules/Guildbots/pocket clerics/Naggy toons vanish.
• Elimination of variance + GM enforced rotation on all raid targets with a tier system to make it more interesting.

All that being said, none of this will happen. The GMs here simply prefer the current environment. My changes could be done in a week; if they actually wanted to do something they would have done so long ago. The server is what it is, either accept it or play somewhere else.

[Sadiki]

Every thread.

> Implement all of these changes I like.
> Those changes are too drastic, implement these over-the-top changes instead.

Perhaps these people would enjoy one of the many other servers available on EQemu.

[Vexenu]

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

I think your post is interesting but in the end completely jumps the shark. IMHO there are three big problems with classic 'feel' on Project 1999 currently.

1. Since the server is so old, mudflation reigns and twinking is insane. Fungi/Tstaff monks can own huge sections of dungeons solo. I saw an Awakened Rogue with a Horn of Hsagra, Fungi, Belt of the Great Turtle, Cloak of Flames, and a fucking AOW mask. Needless to say, he was a douche. Even newer players can get superb mid level weapons like the Frozen Shard for cheap.

2. Due to the stagnant content, everyone builds huge armies of alts. Every older player has a pocket cleric and wizard and 10 toons to camp at every raid target. This hugely reduces cooperation because I can ask a friend to log on my own cleric or portbot for 2 minutes and increases demand for epic items and such.

3. A significant group of players are still trying to "win" an emulated EQ server via poopsocking/rule lawyering/waking up at 4AM. The insane competition over the raid scene percolates down and creates this an antisocial attitude where people are busy fucking each other over.

I would also like to see a more classic 'feel' to the server, but I don't think anything near what you are proposing is necessary.

• All items receive a required level = level of the NPC they dropped from -10. This eliminates the vast majority of twinking.
• All buffs cannot be cast on any player < the buff level -10.
• Item recharging is much more expensive, ~10x
• Logging in to a toon binds your IP to that toon for 1 week, preventing you from logging in to other toons. Mules/Guildbots/pocket clerics/Naggy toons vanish.
• Elimination of variance + GM enforced rotation on all raid targets with a tier system to make it more interesting.

All that being said, none of this will happen. The GMs here simply prefer the current environment. My changes could be done in a week; if they actually wanted to do something they would have done so long ago. The server is what it is, either accept it or play somewhere else.

Those would be good changes, but the IP binding would be too easy to circumvent for those inclined to do so. You'd just end up punishing honest players.

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

Sounds interesting - I'd play on it over current server.

Personally I'd just like a green server with classic rules and mechanics like the way it was originally that progresses in the same time frame as it did on live.

I'd like to see problem mechanics removed:

- No MQ (or at least 1 MQ per month per character max)
- Lazy aggro in Kunark Velious
- No OP FD -> Sneak
- No binding in dungeons in Kunark / Velious
- Original bind rules for melee's Kunark / Velious
- Randomized and relocated manastones / Fungi's
- Soulfires pre-nerfed Pally only
- Fully implemented classic PnP not just cherry picked PnP
- No drop removed for all items except some quest itmes, epic quest items and epics
- TLC on common highly camped mobs

Agree with most of these changes as well.

[fadetree]

I'm with ya in spirit, but I think this is a little too hardcore.

[Vexenu]

Also, for fuck's sake people, this is an obvious theorycraft thread and hypothetical discussion. I assure you, your pixels are at no risk and there is zero chance that Rogean and nilbog will suddenly implement these ideas. There's no need to have your jimmies rustled so hard you joyless, unimaginative bastards, so lighten up. It's just a topic for discussion.

DURRRR NOT CLASSIC GO PLAY SOMEWHERE ELSE

*clutches pixels tightly to chest*

[Lakeland]

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

Also, for fuck's sake people, this is an obvious theorycraft thread and hypothetical discussion. I assure you, your pixels are at no risk and there is zero chance that Rogean and nilbog will suddenly implement these ideas. There's no need to have your jimmies rustled so hard you joyless, unimaginative bastards, so lighten up. It's just a topic for discussion.

DURRRR NOT CLASSIC GO PLAY SOMEWHERE ELSE

*clutches pixels tightly to chest*

Seems the only one with any real panties all bunched up is you. Someone asked for opinions on an idea, he's getting them except for your post which is simply someone jumping around complaining about people who aren't complaining.