NEW 99 SERVER!!!! YESSS

[Weekapaug]

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

Like I said, it's either a custom ruleset (which need hardly be "candyland", rather very light modifications) or no server at all.

Oh, really? No, there is going to be a teams based pvp server. All other details are still up for discussion. I missed the part of the twitch feed where you were put in charge of deciding that it would be "a custom ruleset or no server at all." It's happening, whether you like the ruleset or not, skippy.

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

Any new server based on the existing vanilla EQ PvP rulesets (RZ, VZ/TZ or SZ) will fail very hard. A custom ruleset to address their weaknesses is needed.

Broad sweeping statements based on zero fact, or with even evidence presented to back up your OPINION, which is all any of what you are saying is. Which is fine, you are entitled to it, but you and the other guy's matter-of-fact statements about this being the best, and that will fail blah blah are getting old. Stop presenting your opinon as fact, especially when you offer no examples as to why you think that. It's ridiculous.

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

Most people would rather have a server that's 99% classic and thrives than one that's 100% classic and a ghost town. And it's extremely disingenuous to compare a server with small, behind the scenes changes to emu's with tons of customized, game-altering changes.

First, you don't speak for "most people." You may think you do, you may say you do, but you don't.

Second, what you are proposing isn't 99% classic. You start inventing faction items, and FV hammers and all manner of candyland non-EQ content and it won't even be 75% classic.

Third, a server that is "100% classic" being a ghost town is, again, your own conjecture. Nothing more. SZ was an overwhelming success without broad sweeping changes to the game. Which is what you are proposing not, as you say, "behind the scenes" changes. You can keep repeating that over and over if you want, but it doesn't change the fact that you are proposing a cocked up ruleset server, making it just like every other EMU out there that nobody plays on.

It's ridiculous.

I say again, strict SZ ruleset...no pvp limit after level 6, allow training, with velious content, no item loot and it will be a fantastic server, because SZ was a fantastic server....The problems came with expansions that we won't be getting here. There's no need to cock it up with a bunch of little tweaks and this and that and the other designed to handhold everybody in an effort to avoid griefing. Griefing always happens in PvP, and every little ruleset change you make to prevent it only makes it worse. Leave the game open, and difficult, and allow training and let the players work it out. The only tweak I would consider a good idea, possibly, is allowing evil to pk itself....They nearly put that in on live, but didn't at the last min. And thats a big maybe.

That's MY opinion. Not facts, opinion. Based on observing first hand what happened with the actual successful SZ server on live. You are welcome to have yours, but please for all that is holy, stop stating your opinion as fact and making broad sweeping statements that are nothing more than conjecture on your part.

[Zuranthium]

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

Nobody is going to play on some nerd mental maturbation of a server that is unrecognizable from real EQ. You guys are proposing candyland.

There are already EMU's (like all of them, pretty much) that have "creative" rulesets. Nobody really plays on them. If you couldn't use MQ on a lot of them, practically no one would. You know where the pops are? P99, because it's doing it's best to be like actual EQ.

It's hardly unrecognizable from real EQ; exactly the opposite in fact. It's the realest EQ experience you can get, because the only way to actually get something like the "classic EQ experience" is to put in rules that shape the game towards what EQ in 1999 was actually like (and intended to be like). Just copying the code doesn't create the same result. The server has done a great job at making zones/monsters/items/skills like they were in Classic and that's the important framework. You don't need to strictly copy everything else. Trying to do so just hinders the game and makes it less like Classic Everquest, because people have already figured out the entire game and put it on a wiki, which massively changes how the game is played.

[Vexenu]

No point arguing with you. The ruleset I suggested simply corrects the problems with the vanilla SZ ruleset, and the devs have stated they have no interest in simply porting over any of the classic PvP rulesets. They are committed to making a Teams PvP server that can actually be successful at this point in time, and that requires at least a small bit of customization. If you don't think that's a good thing, that's your opinion, and you don't have to play there. Most people aren't so incredibly anal about sticking 100% to classic, however.

You seem to have a fetish for a totally classic experience, so nothing short of a time machine will ever satisfy you. Good luck with that.

[Weekapaug]

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

No point arguing with you. The ruleset I suggested simply corrects the problems with the vanilla SZ ruleset, and the devs have stated they have no interest in simply porting over any of the classic PvP rulesets. They are committed to making a Teams PvP server that can actually be successful at this point in time, and that requires at least a small bit of customization. If you don't think that's a good thing, that's your opinion, and you don't have to play there. Most people aren't so incredibly anal about sticking 100% to classic, however.

You seem to have a fetish for a totally classic experience, so nothing short of a time machine will ever satisfy you. Good luck with that.

You apparently missed my entire point.

First, it's not that SZ was classic per se. It's that it worked. SZ ruleset was largely a response to what had not worked on the earlier zeks. They tried narrow level limits earlier, for example. It got abused and people used it to grief. So on SZ they opened the whole range up and that, along with training, helped balance it out. No one is suggesting it was perfect, you still had griefing, and no matter what anyone tries there will still be griefing here, but actual history has shown that the more little tweaks and rules you put in, the more they get abused. This is not theory. This is what actually happened.

Second, it was wildly popular, even amongst people who had never played EQ PvP before. People played it. LOTS of people played it.

SZ did not suffer because of it's ruleset. I don't know where you get that from. SZ suffered from later expansion content that worked against the nature of that ruleset. The server was intended to have teams controlling areas of the map. They even had a status map on the main site showing who owned what at a particular time. It worked great at the time, and was a very fun part of playing there. This was, however, later undermined by the portals of luclin and the clicky books of pop.

Then there were external factors, like Luclin. SZ was released in the summer of '01 and Luclin got released a few months later. Lots of people went back to their blue servers because they had older blue mains to take into the new era. Simultaneously, like within a 1 or 2 week period, DAoC released, pretty much a PvP game that appealed to a lot of the same people that SZ did, so it took a hit from that, too. There was another much anticipated pvp game that came out around this time, but I forget the name and exactly when that was. But you see my point.

But the ruleset was completely sound. I played there for the first few months before heading off to DAoC, myself, and when I came back played my blue mains in Luclin, but while I was there it was fantastic. Somebody in another thread said they played there up to GoD and it was, largely, just fine. That was around the time EQ, in general, took a hit because GoD wasn't popular, and EQ2 and WoW released. There had never been an EQ before to last 14 years and people thought it was getting old, etc, at that point and a lot started moving on. That affected all servers.

Any problems SZ had were largely due to bad timing with later expansions and external factors. But the ruleset was, largely, sound.

My problem with going off to the races with customization is that's not EQ. That's EQ EMU's and you don't get all that many people who want to play them. P99 appeals to the broadest base of players because it is the closest thing to actual EQ we've seen yet.

Your mantra that this is some "classic fetish" on my part is ridiculous, but I guess you can keep repeating that along with everything else you keep repeating over and over and it will somehow become true. It's not. It's about SZ being the pvp server that worked and appealed to the most people. Exactly what we want with this new server.

[Zuranthium]

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

You apparently missed my entire point.

First, it's not that SZ was classic per se. It's that it worked.

No it didn't work. People loved the ruleset in theory, but in practice the Evil team simply dominates because the setup of them game favors them ridiculously. Some people still got enjoyment out of the server because of the "no rules" aspect, but on the whole SZ was not a success. It COULD be a success if the teams were actually more balanced and it was a real 3-way war.

[Swish]

This is the thing... you push for a definition of people's idea of "classic" and you get all kinds of stupid.

Start saying that you'll remove item linking, reduce the spell book to 5 per page (instead of 8) and stuff like that... and they start backtracking in a lot of cases.

What I think a lot of people mean by "classic" is where P99 is at the moment, but with a Sullon Zek ruleset that isn't customized.

If you're talking about blue classic, nothing has been announced about a new blue server and you're just feeding a load of white noise if you think that ideas you mention now will apply when Nilbog puts out a new beta server in 2015/2016/20-whatever.

[Weekapaug]

In theory? I actually played there as did many others and it was wildly successful. The most popular zek before or since. You?

Evils have some advantages but even with them having average levels higher than us (I played neutral) we generally held our own, but that's why velious is needed to offset kunark. Goods and Neutrals have a place to go, despite the early advantage evils get with Kunark. My guild moved there at 25 and immediately started factioning, for example. The server took a lot of hits later in population that caused it to homogenize down. As I get into in my previous post, a lot of the problems that SZ had were due to timing and external factors that all of EQ suffered from. Had nothing to do with the ruleset.

You seem to have this notion that you can somehow legislate perfect balance and it will never happen, no matter what you force down everyone's throat. DAoC is an entire game based on 3 way Realm versus Realm combat and no matter what little bonuses and incentives they gave underdog realms in that game, every server always had one dominant realm, another that gave a good fight, and one clear underdog. And that will happen here, too. And it will still be fun as long as populations hold up.

And that's the thing. If you start changing this and that and going crazy with every little thing in an effort to force team balance that you will never get, you are going to turn people off to the idea of playing there. And that's the worst possible problem a server like this can have.

[Zuranthium]

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

In theory? I actually played there as did many others and it was wildly successful. The most popular zek before or since. You?

If it was wildly successful it would have needed multiple servers to keep up with the demand of people who wanted that ruleset.

I played there as a Neut Druid and it underwhelmed me. The good team was mostly irrelevant and the evil team quickly locked down the most important game areas. Everything felt like an effort to just nuisance the evil team rather than a real back-and-forth war between opposing factions.

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

And that's the thing. If you start changing this and that and going crazy with every little thing in an effort to force team balance that you will never get, you are going to turn people off to the idea of playing there.

It's not "going crazy with every little thing", it's making the concept workable. Either way, the two things people care about most with regards to Classic Everquest are the game world itself and the adventure.

It's funny, you're the one who is actually going crazy about every little thing. You think Classic Everquest as it used to exist can't be improved upon, which is ignorant. Don't mix up bad changes to the game with positive changes. You can't just say "because other EQ Emu's mod their game so that it's far easier, this shows how any mods to the exact Classic EQ code never work".

[Weekapaug]

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

If it was wildly successful it would have needed multiple servers to keep up with the demand of people who wanted that ruleset.

I played there as a Neut Druid and it underwhelmed me. The good team was mostly irrelevant and the evil team quickly locked down the most important game areas. Everything felt like an effort to just nuisance the evil team rather than a real back-and-forth war between opposing factions.



It's not "going crazy with every little thing", it's making the concept workable. Either way, the two things people care about most with regards to Classic Everquest are the game world itself and the adventure.

It's funny, you're the one who is actually going crazy about every little thing. You think Classic Everquest as it used to exist can't be improved upon, which is ignorant. Don't mix up bad changes to the game with positive changes. You can't just say "because other EQ Emu's mod their game so that it's far easier, this shows how any mods to the exact Classic EQ code never work".

LOL

[Glasken]

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

If it was wildly successful it would have needed multiple servers to keep up with the demand of people who wanted that ruleset.

I played there as a Neut Druid and it underwhelmed me. The good team was mostly irrelevant and the evil team quickly locked down the most important game areas. Everything felt like an effort to just nuisance the evil team rather than a real back-and-forth war between opposing factions.



It's not "going crazy with every little thing", it's making the concept workable. Either way, the two things people care about most with regards to Classic Everquest are the game world itself and the adventure.

It's funny, you're the one who is actually going crazy about every little thing. You think Classic Everquest as it used to exist can't be improved upon, which is ignorant. Don't mix up bad changes to the game with positive changes. You can't just say "because other EQ Emu's mod their game so that it's far easier, this shows how any mods to the exact Classic EQ code never work".

I am with the 'Paug on this. Classic SZ ruleset. Evil has it easy, with most of the high level dungeons being near a base of their faction. That means N and G play on hard mode. If this intimidates you, don't play on such a server. If you like that challenge, jump in the deep end.

Location-based advantages apply to the classic continents only. Kunark is evenly split with access and Velious is a complete FFA. Plenty of opportunity for PVE content with your team. Plenty of opportunity for PVP with your team. Do not edit the rule set.

I never liked the compass anyway.