NEW 99 SERVER!!!! YESSS

[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.

[Fawqueue]

The more I think about it, and see it discussed, the more I'm beginning to agree with 'Paug. I don't want really care about trying to achieve a perfect balance between all three teams. EverQuest isn't a perfect game to begin with, it's challenging in ways it sometimes doesn't need to be. But that's part of the charm.

Back on live they also had this mindset to 'improve' the experience. Developers thought aspects of the game created imbalance (like open world raiding) and decided that crazy new instancing idea might be a great way to alleviate the issue. I don't want to go down this road in the pursuit of making something I already enjoyed 'better'. Just give us the SZ rule set, and let us challenge ourselves to make it different this time. We are all aware that Evil ruled live years ago, but it doesn't have to happen that way again. Our blue server certainly has an identity of it's own that doesn't resemble many of our live servers. Just give us our playground and let us make it work.

[Vexenu]

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

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.

Under classic SZ rules it's more like Evil team is easy mode, Neutral is hard and Good is insane/suicidal.

Evil team has the best races and two of the most popular PvP classes. They also have natural zone control of the two best dungeons in classic (Guk & SolB). Kunark just makes this worse, and is far from evenly split as you say. Evil has two cities, while Good and Neutral share a single city. Evils also get the OT hammer to quickly mobilize to OT, while Good and Neutral have no quick way to access FV. Evils also have total control over Cabilis and all the surrounding zones and Kunark dungeons. This means that Evils can essentially level up in Kunark almost totally uncontested.

I know this, because I did it back in the day on my Iksar Monk. The only low level PvP I ever saw on Kunark was sporadic attacks from guys in <Honorbound>. There was almost no other Neutral/Good presence on Kunark at the sub-50 levels, so Evils could avoid PvP almost entirely while leveling due to controlling the entire continent of Kunark.

In contrast, Neutrals had a much harder time avoiding PvP. They would try to find less popular dungeons like Runnyeye to hang out in, but Evil SKs and Necros (due to Invis/IVU/FD) had a much easier time following them deep inside than any Neutral/Good classes could do. And Goods had it even worse, controlling nothing more than EF, Perma and QH in the most remote corner of Norrath.

Three simple changes would go a long way toward encouraging more team balance:

1) FFA PvP within the Evil team
2) Good and Neutral team stat/XP bonuses (+20, +10 respectively)
3) FV version of OT Hammer

These are relatively minor changes from the perspective of modifying the game and how it plays, but would have a big impact on helping to even the teams. Basically, you just have to give hardcore players a reason to NOT roll on the Evil team, because they literally hold every card otherwise. They have the best races, the easiest leveling/gearing and exclusive access to one of the most important items in the game (OT Hammer). Without modifications to address this glaring imbalance, I would expect the Evil team on a P1999 SZ server to be even more dominant than it was on live.

A ruleset that WORKS and promotes a populous and well-balanced server is more important than one that is 100% faithful to classic. The Devs agree with this, and have said they have no intention of porting over a vanilla RZ, TZ/VZ or SZ ruleset. So the teams server WILL have some kind of modified ruleset, the only question is, what will the modifications be?

Read more of my suggested ruleset here: http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...d.php?t=120312

[porigromus]

So which team setup would work the best? Deity Based? Race Based? Some other way you think would work? I am curious.

[Vexenu]

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

So which team setup would work the best? Deity Based? Race Based? Some other way you think would work? I am curious.

Deity based SZ teams are great from a roleplaying perspective and have a lot of potential from a practical perspective. They just need those fairly minor balancing chances I mentioned to avoid a repeat of Evil domination on Live. FFA PvP within the Evil team means that Evil PKs can prey on their fellow Evils, which weakens the Evil team a bit and denies them total safety on Kunark while leveling up. Having the Evil team FFA also makes it a less attractive choice for Blue players who will migrate to the server, making it much more likely they will roll Good or Newt to have the built-in protection of a hardcoded team while leveling.

Stat bonuses to Goods and Newts makes them more attractive to powergamers and brings them closer to parity to the Evil races. And a FV Hammer means that endgame focused guilds wouldn't be losing one of the most crucial raid mobilization items by going Good or Newt.

The goal is simply to incentivize a greater percentage of hardcore players to choose the Good and Newt teams than did on Live. If you could just ensure that each team had just one strong, endgame focused guild to rally around from the beginning, I think things would play out very well.

[Fawqueue]

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

Under classic SZ rules it's more like Evil team is easy mode, Neutral is hard and Good is insane/suicidal.

Evil team has the best races and two of the most popular PvP classes. They also have natural zone control of the two best dungeons in classic (Guk & SolB). Kunark just makes this worse, and is far from evenly split as you say. Evil has two cities, while Good and Neutral share a single city. Evils also get the OT hammer to quickly mobilize to OT, while Good and Neutral have no quick way to access FV. Evils also have total control over Cabilis and all the surrounding zones and Kunark dungeons. This means that Evils can essentially level up in Kunark almost totally uncontested.

I know this, because I did it back in the day on my Iksar Monk. The only low level PvP I ever saw on Kunark was sporadic attacks from guys in <Honorbound>. There was almost no other Neutral/Good presence on Kunark at the sub-50 levels, so Evils could avoid PvP almost entirely while leveling due to controlling the entire continent of Kunark.

In contrast, Neutrals had a much harder time avoiding PvP. They would try to find less popular dungeons like Runnyeye to hang out in, but Evil SKs and Necros (due to Invis/IVU/FD) had a much easier time following them deep inside than any Neutral/Good classes could do. And Goods had it even worse, controlling nothing more than EF, Perma and QH in the most remote corner of Norrath.

Three simple changes would go a long way toward encouraging more team balance:

1) FFA PvP within the Evil team
2) Good and Neutral team stat/XP bonuses (+20, +10 respectively)
3) FV version of OT Hammer

These are relatively minor changes from the perspective of modifying the game and how it plays, but would have a big impact on helping to even the teams. Basically, you just have to give hardcore players a reason to NOT roll on the Evil team, because they literally hold every card otherwise. They have the best races, the easiest leveling/gearing and exclusive access to one of the most important items in the game (OT Hammer). Without modifications to address this glaring imbalance, I would expect the Evil team on a P1999 SZ server to be even more dominant than it was on live.

A ruleset that WORKS and promotes a populous and well-balanced server is more important than one that is 100% faithful to classic. The Devs agree with this, and have said they have no intention of porting over a vanilla RZ, TZ/VZ or SZ ruleset. So the teams server WILL have some kind of modified ruleset, the only question is, what will the modifications be?

Read more of my suggested ruleset here: http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...d.php?t=120312

Yes, the territory that Evil can effectively cover is greater than the other two factions. But increased stats and a FV hammer will do nothing to change that, so both of those suggestions are really unnecessary. FFA within Evil is about the only thing that could maybe...and I mean maybe...have an impact here. But there's no guarantee they won't stop PvPing each other to wipe out the invading neutrals or goods, and then resume their in-fighting.

That being said, I wouldn't hate it entirely if it was SZ rules with evil on FFA. But the other two suggestions are not just un-classic, they aren't even EQ period. There's no FV hammer now or in the past, nor do good races have a natural +20 to all stats. That's the kind of change I don't want, not because it has to be purely classic or bust, but because it's the kind of nonsense I expect from some dude running an emulator for shits and giggles.

But if we're going to try any of that, I suppose I could see how the 'house divided' Evil strategy works out.

[Zuranthium]

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

There's no FV hammer now or in the past, nor do good races have a natural +20 to all stats. That's the kind of change I don't want, not because it has to be purely classic or bust, but because it's the kind of nonsense I expect from some dude running an emulator for shits and giggles.

Use some logic. These proposed changes obviously aren't for shits and giggles. They are carefully thought out and rather perfect.

[Clark]

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

New servers always awesome, nothing quite like running around in cloth conspiring for a group to go acquire their warrior precious double Giant Snake Fangs.

lol

[Fawqueue]

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

Use some logic. These proposed changes obviously aren't for shits and giggles. They are carefully thought out and rather perfect.

I'm not so sure that they are either. Will stat bonuses change the geography of the game and alleviate the issue with Evil having prime locations? Will a FV hammer mean that Good and Neutral don't share one city on Kunark while Evil has two? Will either of those make up for the fact that Evil has necros and shadowknights?

No. Evil will still have the same advantages regardless.

How about we give Good epics at level 20 and Neutral can have built-in SoW and a 50% chance to resist detrimental effects. That would certainly make them more attractive to power-gamers, and just as thought out as 'lets just throw stats at the problem'.

Like I said, I'm down to try the Evil is FFA idea. I don't know if it will help, but maybe competing guilds will form and turn a 3-team system into a 4+ battle for control. Modifying races, stats, classes, and creating new items I would prefer not to see though. I know not everyone feels this way but if the devs do go the route of creating custom modifications I guess we'll see how it goes.

[Weekapaug]

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

Yes, the territory that Evil can effectively cover is greater than the other two factions. But increased stats and a FV hammer will do nothing to change that, so both of those suggestions are really unnecessary. FFA within Evil is about the only thing that could maybe...and I mean maybe...have an impact here. But there's no guarantee they won't stop PvPing each other to wipe out the invading neutrals or goods, and then resume their in-fighting.

That being said, I wouldn't hate it entirely if it was SZ rules with evil on FFA. But the other two suggestions are not just un-classic, they aren't even EQ period. There's no FV hammer now or in the past, nor do good races have a natural +20 to all stats. That's the kind of change I don't want, not because it has to be purely classic or bust, but because it's the kind of nonsense I expect from some dude running an emulator for shits and giggles.

But if we're going to try any of that, I suppose I could see how the 'house divided' Evil strategy works out.

Bingo.

Classic EQ isn't even balanced in PvE, it's absurd to think you are going to force true teams balance with exp bonuses and a stupid fucking gate hammer.

Evil will be overplayed and have all of their advantages even with the ridiculous changes these guys want. The teams will not be balanced. Teams are never balanced in any PvP game. They are freaking obsessed with adding a FV hammer....an item that doesn't exist in EQ as if that will change something in Kunark. It won't. Kunark isn't even a concern if Velious content is available at launch.

Read thru their posts. "Avoid pvp" this. "Avoid pvp" that. They need to go play a game with battleground pvp and just leave this server to those of us who enjoy a challenge.

All of that said, as I said before, evil being FFA might not be a bad idea.y