So... How classic do you want it?

[Zephys]

DO IT

[Jimjam]

Meditate was designed to be a cost benefit analysis. Trading situational attention for increased mana retention. Maybe sentinel will be a usefull spell again?

[Lojik]

Awesome

[Danth]

Note that fullscreen meditate was only fully removed in 2002. Hence this really ought to be on "blue" as well.

Players had to manually use the meditate skill prior to mid 2000. There was a slash command for it in addition to the UI button. The command was removed when meditating was made automatic (the UI button remained in-place as a sort of relic).

Danth

[Wurl]

I can only assume people posting in support of this really want green to fail. This would truly ruin the server, and would be such a shame.

For the TRULY classic experience, green should throttle everyone's connections to dialup speeds. Otherwise it's just not classic!!! Also we should lock resolution at 800x600, no one played on a resolution bigger than that. HMM how can we make everyone use rollerball mice and giant CRTs to play? Is that possible? Oh and fullscreen mode only of course, tabbing out of the client is NOT classic.

[Lufos]

yeah and where is my mom constantly interrupting me. It would not be the same. :-)

I sure hope, that staring at a blackscreen while medding is optional.

[Zeboim]

Can we at least get Gems? It was literally the only thing that made spellbook med tolerable.

[Halfcell]

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

I can only assume people posting in support of this really want green to fail. This would truly ruin the server, and would be such a shame.

This. I get it, staring at the spell book is classic, but it also blows. The main concern I have with it though is not just how brutally shitty it will be. In truth, I will reach level 35 behind some, but ahead of most, and have to endure this terrible idea for less time than the average player.

Staring at your spell book is hella classic, in fact it might be single most recognizable aspect of classic not currently in game. But what worries me is the effect it will have on the least recognizable, but most important aspect of P99 that is classic.

A constant influx of new players.

Classic Everquest had new players, all the time. Fresh blood replacing those that have taken a break, and keeping alive all of those aspects of the game that veterans blow past without thinking. Somehow, against all odds, P99 has managed to replicate this. Every time I level a new toon I am amazed by how many people I meet that either just found P99, or literally just found Everquest at all.

Staring at your spell book does add balance, and it is classic, but it makes the experience unbelievably boring and tedious. I, and probably you, have the game knowledge necessary to both anticipate the enjoyment to be had once this mechanic disappears, and minimize the time we are subjected to it.

Classic EQ could survive this objectively bad decision because it was the only game in town, a groundbreaking pioneer, and a profoundly new kind of experience. Green will not have that benefit.

Make a low level toon on blue some time and ask yourself if the people you are leveling with would be there if they had to stare at a spellbook for literally 90% of their ingame time. The answer is almost certainly no for most of them. The hard truth is that without this constant influx of new blood, however, P99 would have died long ago.

Making unnecessary, ill conceived, and deeply un-fun barriers to entry for new players is one "Classic" mechanic that P99 cannot afford.

[Vexenu]

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

Staring at your spell book is hella classic, in fact it might be single most recognizable aspect of classic not currently in game. But what worries me is the effect it will have on the least recognizable, but most important aspect of P99 that is classic.

A constant influx of new players.

A legitimate concern. But there's still Blue, right? A new player who stumbles upon P1999 doesn't have to roll on Green for a more authentic experience. He can easily opt for the more modern client on Blue.

At the end of the day, we have to keep in mind that the goal of this project is to recreate the experience of classic EverQuest as closely as possible. And something that a lot of players have forgotten is that most of the modern conveniences we've gotten used to on the Titanium client (gamma for night blindness, target cycling, item linking, third-person mouse wheel scroll, no spellbook medding) have significant impacts on actual gameplay. They are not just quality of life changes. They fundamentally change the way the game is played. And they change it unquestionably in an un-classic direction. This is why I support any change that moves in the direction of classic gameplay.

[Danth]

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

A legitimate concern.

Maybe, and maybe it's much ado about nothing. Ten years ago when P99beta was leading up to launch I remember many of what were effectively the exact same arguments being made--but in the support of multiboxing. Need it, people won't stand for not having it, taking it away will drive newbies out, etc etc. Obviously history has proven that crowd wrong. Let's run with more-nearly-classic and see what happens.

Danth