Why no pre-fear capped server?

[Namsaknoi]

Sorry for this 2-star attention seeking thread which would never happen, and made to fit RnF, but I was always fascinated by pre-fear and pre-Kunark content as I started during Kunark, and on P99 I used to play on blue and blue server chat seem much slower than here so I am posting here.
Can you please help to add or correct any information and knowledge I have below? I got them from past experience, scouring bits and pieces online, and also while playing P99.


Beta - 1997 Nov to 1999 Mar - 16 months

- 56kbps modem was starting to become more common, but 4.8kbps to 14.4kbps was probably the standard
- Small population of players
- Concept of 'Beta-testing' was already quite alien to many people back then, at least not for public to try as there weren't many online games
- Probably no raid scene and no concept of it, but guilds were starting to form
- Full of bugs
- Items, spells, quests, NPCs and zones were still being added and tweaked
- Vox and Nagafen was never expected to be killed and no loot table, never did during beta
- Megalodon existed in Lake of Rathtear for sometime, but was extremely buggy and was warping everywhere on the island, never killed and probably no loot table and eventually removed during the beta
- No Leviathan (of OOT), never existed
- Similar story with Mayong Mistmoore, and became mostly GM event GM controlled character later on
- Nothing else notable during beta?


Release, to Kunark release - 1999 Mar to 2000 Apr - 14 months

- 56kbps modem is now mainstream, some had ISDN, and even smaller group of people reach 1/10 mbps if they play from college/company/institution network
- First quarter was pre-fear, eventually Fires of Heaven killed Vox and forced Vox and Nagafen to be itemized, and quickly forcing developer to create PoF
- Up to this point, loot was definitely not in minds of the developers, Short Short of Ykesha, Flowing Black Silk Sash, Rubicite/Fine Plate/Mithril would be BIS or near-BIS, chain or below had crap for gear, not many people reached 50, majority of people had very little game information and found leveling extremely difficult
- Second quarter was just addition of Plane of Fear, itemization of Kedge Keep (or was with PoH patch in third quarter)
- Third quarter was big change, no more Rubicite but Temple of Solusek Ro and mid-level class armor quests to make of for Rubicite armor, along with few other Sol Ro quests. Probably pre-buff Robe of the Lost Circle, Hero Bracers and pre-buff Burning Rapier quests appeared during this time. Addition of Plane of Hate. Journeyman's boots is now quested item instead of a drop. No more Manastone. No more Guise of the Deceiver but replaced with Mask of Deception.
- Fourth quarter more changes, Plane of Sky, already had mid-upper Kunark-level gear drops pre-buff and had difficulty of high end Kunark but was eventually beaten just before Kunark was released, Paineel also added, thus Erudite SK and Necromancer, and their relevant quests, Splitpaw revamp, Kerra Island, with quests like Kerran Toy

[Namsaknoi]

Oh and also important is that up to then, people played on 19" or smaller CRT monitors and 640 x 480 VGA or less, no 800 x 600 SVGA until Velious even if your computer was capable of higher, and the play screen was even smaller, like 320 x 240, or 1/4 of the screen, while the rest of the screen filled with the template and buttons. You had no other options. You meditated with book until level 35 and had to manually check time to time to see if your group was in trouble or not. That also includes chat and combat log, which was not customizable.

[Toxigen]

cool story

[Jimjam]

I just want to pick up on how you mention Vox/Naggy were unitemised at release as they weren't really anticipated to be killed so easily/frequently.

Something I really hate about early EQ is just how dropped in Naggy/Vox are.

Don't get me wrong - I love the cave art of Naggy in the Solusek dungeons, at Vox's claw marks through permafrost and her factioned little goblins.

However, beyond that, those dragons just don't seem to exist among the wider EQ world.

No one talks of them, no written legends, rumours, organisations explicitly keeping an eye on their activities. The dragons just don't feel part of the world. They feel thrown in.

Sadly, it was one of the aspects that made EQ feel gamey, instead of the wider simulated world it often felt.

[cd288]

Overall I think this is accurate, but not sure I would say that not many people reached 50 out of the total population of players. It certainly took people longer than it would today, but there were a solid number of level 50s by the time PoF came out.

I thought Megaladon (or other massive lake NPC) was never in beta and was just a rumor or otherwise there were stray references in code etc. that indicated they had thought about putting one in there and never did. Mayong Mistmoore existed as a standard NPC during Beta?

I also don't recall no 800 x 600 till Velious. Pretty sure I was playing on that resolution in Kunark as it had been around for a few years by then. You could still see chat/combat text while meditating with spellbook btw (not sure if that last sentence was you saying you couldn't).

[cd288]

Also, don't think it's true that Vox/Nagafen were never intended to be killed. I think you are mixing that up with the Sleeper.

What they didn't expect were for raids to become much larger sized and for Vox/Nagafen to be killed as easily as they were as quickly as they were. They thought they'd designed them as much tougher encounters and quickly realized that these guilds were bringing like 30+ people to the encounter. You can see them talk about it in some post-EQ interviews.

[wuanahto]

yeah i can go for some max agro cap banishing from zone stuff. say 48 people max able to agro cazic thule the god. anyone else who gets on the agro list RANDOM people get teleported out
its nu-classic
it enforces working together

fear is a small zone so it should banish people to a non popular camp in the cazic thule zone

[Dolalin]

Pretty much everyone had a 28.8 modem by late 1997. Certainly by 1998. People were junking 14.4's even back in 95/96.

[Dolalin]

I found most early patch notes off the Beta CD. They are here:

https://wiki.project1999.com/Beta_Patch_Notes

Other classic notes are here, I think this is complete:

https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_N...re_Classic_Era

[Ekco]

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

No one talks of them, no written legends, rumours, organisations explicitly keeping an eye on their activities. The dragons just don't feel part of the world. They feel thrown in.

There are some, the dwarf in rathe mountains that turns the scales into a BP/Cloak for example come to mind. i forget the quest text i assume it's pretty decent though.