Introducing Project 1999: Green

[loramin]

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

Can we get some type of donation feedback prior to server releasing? Like are we on track with the current donations to procure new equipment? Is this going to be a problem at current donation rates?

Historically that hasn't been Rogean's style. P99 isn't a non-profit, so they don't have to disclose anything: your money essentially goes into a black box. In fact, Rogean mentioning that the new Green hardware is expensive is probably the closest he's ever come to giving any info whatsoever about P99's finances.

To be clear, I'm not trying to imply that anyone is secretly profiting off P99. All it takes is a little "back of the envelope" math to realize that clearly isn't the case. I'm also not suggesting that the (relatively tiny) Project 1999 should file as a 501c non-profit org [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm just saying, this is a small fan project, and they seem to have an attitude of "we'll take what we can get in donations, we'll pay for the rest out of pocket, and doing anything more (like providing transparency) is too much hassle". That's worked for them in the past, and it hasn't stopped people from donating in spite of it.

[BlackBellamy]

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

...it hasn't stopped people from donating in spite of it.

I donated based on past value [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] This way I can't be disappointed about how I spent it.

[loramin]

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

I was about to post something similar but thankfully we have other people that share this mindset. Maybe we could have some indication to what a donation and amount would cover, for example, "A $50 donation covers the operational cost of [something] for [duration].".

I agree that would be nice ... and really in general I'm a very pro-transparency person. If you're going to beg people for money, I feel you owe them an honest explanation of where it's going.

But since P99 isn't "begging" for your money, they're just sort of saying "we're paying for all this so you can play here, and we wouldn't mind some help", I think BlackBellamy had it exactly right. You can donate ...

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

based on past value [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] This way I can't be disappointed about how I spent it.

Also, another challenge to releasing a "monthly cost of operations" number is that Rogean hosts the P99 servers the old school way (he builds a physical machine and installs it in a data center; no AWS here). So there's both fixed monthly data center hosting costs, unplanned non-monthly costs (eg. a hard drive failed and needs replacing), and planned non-monthly costs (eg. the new Green server). Not to mention of course Rogean's time: even if he never paid a single hardware cost or hosting fee, if Rogean just charged us half his professional rate this project would likely go belly up in a month or two [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I get the sense that Rogean isn't trying to keep those numbers a secret so much as he doesn't want to take the time to review his receipts and bank statements and such to calculate that number ... and again, he's ok with losing whatever people aren't willing to donate as a result, because he knows most still will:

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

based on past value [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Nagoya]

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

Historically that hasn't been Rogean's style. P99 isn't a non-profit, so they don't have to disclose anything: your money essentially goes into a black box. In fact, Rogean mentioning that the new Green hardware is expensive is probably the closest he's ever come to giving any info whatsoever about P99's finances.

To be clear, I'm not trying to imply that anyone is secretly profiting off P99. All it takes is a little "back of the envelope" math to realize that clearly isn't the case. I'm also not suggesting that the (relatively tiny) Project 1999 should file as a 501c non-profit org [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm just saying, this is a small fan project, and they seem to have an attitude of "we'll take what we can get in donations, we'll pay for the rest out of pocket, and doing anything more (like providing transparency) is too much hassle". That's worked for them in the past, and it hasn't stopped people from donating in spite of it.

good one loramin.
riiyan's post history makes me affraid that his question was not innocent at all.
a donation is by definition a gift, no strings attached.
give if you want, don't give if you don't want.
don't worry for their finances they don't need an accountant.

[Cyph]

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

Historically that hasn't been Rogean's style. P99 isn't a non-profit, so they don't have to disclose anything: your money essentially goes into a black box. In fact, Rogean mentioning that the new Green hardware is expensive is probably the closest he's ever come to giving any info whatsoever about P99's finances.

To be clear, I'm not trying to imply that anyone is secretly profiting off P99. All it takes is a little "back of the envelope" math to realize that clearly isn't the case. I'm also not suggesting that the (relatively tiny) Project 1999 should file as a 501c non-profit org [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm just saying, this is a small fan project, and they seem to have an attitude of "we'll take what we can get in donations, we'll pay for the rest out of pocket, and doing anything more (like providing transparency) is too much hassle". That's worked for them in the past, and it hasn't stopped people from donating in spite of it.

I was about to post something similar but thankfully we have other people that share this mindset. Maybe we could have some indication to what a donation and amount would cover, for example, "A $50 donation covers the operational cost of [something] for [duration].".

[Gustoo]

On red 99 all pvp sub 60 was grief because normal people weren't trying to engage in pvp at level 20 in unrest because they stood to lose exp (non rezzable) and time and fall behind on grinding. If all 15 noobs in zone band together and kill the griefer in max droppable gear he is back there in 5 minutes smashing them with nothing lost at all.

That's because no item loot and bad custom ruleset.

On item loot ganking this lone wolf fool for loot is priority 1 for anyone with a brain it's way more fun to try to get an fbss than to kill a few more ghouls.

Other would be griefers also make other griefers targets because there is something to actually gain.

Griefers also think twice before coming out with the big guns and start to bag gear like losers and therefore become easy to kill when things get dicey. All in all rallos zek rules 1000x better for lowbie nakeds who have nothing to lose. All mellee can use free banded for life and casters literally need nothing to pwn other nakeds in classic era

A majorly broken mechanic that I'm sure staff won't bring back is the old deleveling mechanic which allowed players to retain their full skill level despite character level decrease. These deleveled epic psychopaths were truly unkillable zone bosses and the sinister joy of those griefers may never be heard in games again except in the halls of vallhalla. This was the major thing that broke the above game play on live.

That deleveling isn't possible here (while retaining skills) and epic weapons I believe have level requirements here which changes things as well.

[Gustoo]

Teams with large level range and again zero reward for lowbie to fight just encourages the same garbage can grief that red 99 saw. Bad team gets to see it as their job to grief enemy team in noov zone until enemy team hi levels come to defend it. Those defenders always have better things to do and never get anything except hero points for defending the lowbies. This is a bad dynamic and is basically going to result in same problems seen on red99 custom pvp server.

And I am skeptical about super custom teams server given our track record here.

So back to rallos or discord.

[Gustoo]

Yeah I'm just going to reiterate that classic everquest without item loot doesn't give anyone sub level 50/60 to PVP except for contesting loot targets.

When it comes to normal pop grinding through levels, they just run away to a shittier zone to avoid the pvp battle, so pvp doesn't happen and when it does it is an inconvenience.

The only thing that makes griefers worth fighting is item loot, when you get to take a valuable piece of gear from them when you and your noob gang manage to kill a guy.

Low level griefers are usually not grouped because if they could get a group together, they would probably kill some actual content.

Either way they are actually worth killing when they can be looted, and the old naked player killer is a much softer target and O.K. to deal with.

You're always going to have that naked wizard swinging by to try to get a cheap shot on a low HP player, that will never stop. With item loot its actually worth fighting the real twinks.

Also posting videos of twinks running away as the visible graphics on their items go away as they're bagged is always nice and shameful for those dudes.


Even though I mainly want a rallos zek full classic timeline server, I think the best server for this community is discord permadeath because it lets people win and go down in history, and then the server resets and everyone gets to go through the fun time again. The server gets more and more dead as competition gets eliminated..then it resets.

Its worth a try anyways and this kind of server is expected to wipe so there is no p99 ethos risk there.

[Benanov]

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

The only thing that makes griefers worth fighting is item loot, when you get to take a valuable piece of gear from them when you and your noob gang manage to kill a guy.

On Rallos the griefers were all wearing solely nodrop shit already, it was just a way to take your stuff. Item loot was awful.

[Gustoo]

That mainly comes to play in velious when you can get stuff like the cool thurg no drop stuff.

Junk from Lguk is worse than banded so they aren't hi threat and easy to smash. There will always be bad guys being disruptive under all rulesets. The biggest pvp problem (super twinks) are actually a fun part of the game when there is item loot.

The garbage you are wearing when you get killed in unrest is not impactful to your ability to enjoy the game. The fluidity of item ownership also creates a way more enjoyable economy. Items were cheap.

The players are a lot different 20 years later. People know that there is more than 1 place to level up for one thing.