Just an update. We are still cruising forward. Release is not far off. Nilbog is picking out hardware for the server. We're also creating and testing pathing maps for the Emu community based on Derision and KLS's b!tch!n' code.

SolA, SolB, Lower Guk, Highpass, & Highkeep are all up for testing in addition to the great zones KLS has already done. Come by & help out the Emu community at large. All of our pathing files will be going into the map SVN once they've passed the test.

Source/DB updates:

-Food/water now correctly crippling mana/endurance.
-Flash of Light working pretty dang well.
-Mob run speed tweaked. Your chances of escaping are low!
-Loot drops for all zones have been revamped and updated. Includes guards, animals, and zones.
-Skills: I've started "nerfing" skills down to a more classic line. They'll no longer be scaled for level 75 progression.
-Pets now are summoned with a variable +2/-2 of their base level.
-Alchemy was beaten into submission with the nerf bat and returned to it's classic pricing. We are not reverting to the old alchemy system since a wide revamp to the original would be rather pointless to undo shortly.
-Quests: All classic quests from newbie tunics to the FA have been scripted and put in place. Texts were gleaned from a multitude of sources including live, Tokyo2000, and Allakhazam.

i dont think this box will ever be live

Anybody can half-ass a so-called Classic server; these guys have actually put in the work and it shows! It is remarkable how much is missing and / or different if you compare 'classic' and either of the two open databases. Check it out and see for yourselves!

Just to clarify your statement, are you saying that project1999 has more content than either of the two current LIVE-like databases? Just a tad confused.

he is saying that i am rite, and this server will never be up

What's the point of rhetoric? This isn't Duke Nukem Forever :P

Anyways, in other news, prekunark is ready to go. Just finalizing some stuff with hardware.. will make further updates when they are available.

If there is anything you would like to verify in prekunark before launch, now's the time to check it out. All prekunark zones currently running static and things look great imo.

http://classicbetatest.guildlaunch.com

The amount of stuff that had to be changed to revert it to classic was immense. From all the mobs in EC, to CT, to RunnyEye....Not to mention there are 7000 invalid entries of a rusty dagger in the loot tables, plus stuff like tradeskill drops, Sol Ro quest drops, hate/fear/sky drops, crocs not pathing in oasis, dark elves liking high elves & vice versa, lack of scripting on city events like Trumpy (who still isn't finished!=()....the list goes on. One query Nil ran made something like 74000 changes?

This hasn't been easy or small by any stretch.

Broken lootdrop_id that were dropping 50% of the time that only contain Bronze Spear and Cloth pants. Lootdrop_id that had every item that the creature could possibly drop in a single lootdrop_id, meaning that research, weapons, armor, gems, rations, bags, etc all dropping from the same table.

There is a ton of stuff that is really half assed that had to be fixed. All of the developers on the project put a lot of work into fixing things that we felt just weren't done right.

I wouldn't cal you a rite, more of a move, mayhaps even a step or procession, but certainly not a rite. Besides, who has time for rites anymore? Takes days, have to find a virgin, and all the chicken blood. Do you have any idea how little blood chickens have? Takes dozens for a good rite these days.

We don't have a development schedule. We are working to make a classic server. If it takes 2 years, it takes 2 years. The amount of stuff we've changed to revert things is literally daunting to even think about. I scripted almost 300 quests alone by taking info from anywhere I could find it. Added the aggro speeches to the mobs in hate as well as the zone emotes. We've worked really hard on not failing at classic & I think we've done a decent job of dodging fail.

That's what I figured. I just couldn't determine the direction of the statement he had made. I can't imagine the amount of work you've put in. I'll be on your server soon.

You could alwasy do what Verant did. Go live now and fix as you go. :P Then it would be a truly clasic experience.

inc classic emu server #9. duration: 3 weeks

That's enough, sasaluge. You have been doing nothing but putting this server down repeatedly in this thread. Either don't post, or post something nice. Bad mouthing servers is against the forum rules and this is a warning. It seems like half or more of your total posts are either making fun of someone, their server, putting them down, or a combination of those 3. Whether you are joking or not, it is hard to tell. Either way, please stop it.

There will probably be a lot of fixes that go in over time. We've had close to 200 folks come through and help out over time, but things get missed. It's the nature of things.

And while humorous to mimic Verant, that is one thing we don't really want to try lol.

Thanks Trev.

Thanks Dantes, as of late, things have been quiet honestly. Few folks will log in, look around, fire off a "Holy hell, this is classic and painful! I love it!"

Between a few RL things and work I've slacked off a bit in the past 2 weeks. But, we'll clean up the last few hanging issues in the next bit.

Thanks for the support!

uhh
 

All he does on any thread is troll and say random negative things...

i speak the truth bro, sorry if it makes u upset

That's not the truth at all.. at least as far as the duration of my server.

There's not really a point in responding to you.. but what the hell, until your "rites" are revoked, I suppose I need to defend myself.

sasaluge is 9 leave him alone. he can only get on the computer when his parents arent home

keep working on what sounds to be a fun server!

please disregard sasaluge,he probably wont be around much longer, at least not under that troll account. hopefully the powers that be will ban all the forum/login server accounts associated with his IP.

why? well... maybe because of this?

The search link didn't work :x

eep! sorry didnt stop to check it out. humm mebbe somthing due to the method im linking by causing that. :oops:

'tis just a link to Sasaluge's post history.

I probably shouldn't have even made this post as its not really my affair. I dont post often but i still stop by near-daily, just get tired of checking new threads to see whatswhat and end up reading negative comment after negative comment that all are ultimately non-constructive and generally makes visiting a thread an unpleasnt experience.

still, this should have probably been one of those moments where one types out a thread then goes back and deletes it rather than posting ,as in the end im causing yet more drama rather than helping in any way...

Sorry guys.

Ahh yeah, I had already reviewed all of his posts, which is the main reason I asked him to stop with the flaming and negativity. It serves no purpose at all other than to start potential drama, and that is something I personally try to keep off of these boards as much as possible.

Personally, I think your server sounds like the place I've been looking for. I will definitely head over to your site and sign-up.

I originally played EQ from the summer of '99 up until a few weeks into the launch of Luclin. I then took about a year off from playing. Eventually, I returned to the game a few weeks after Ykesha went line. I played pretty regularly until Gates of Discord went live. I really tried to like that expansion, but something about it just never felt right. By the time Omens of War launched, I felt very disassociated with EQ. I think I made it into a few weeks of Omens before I threw in the towel; haven't been back since (at least not to Live!).

I am one of those people I guess that considers Classic EQ to consist of Original, Kunark, and Velious. This, my Classic time line, is where I would prefer to be, but I will admit that I did find enjoyment with most expansions in some form or another through Ykesha. Hell, I even had some fun during Lost Dungeons, for a little while, but it got old pretty quick. But Classic, that is where my heart belongs.

So far, since discovering the whole eqemu scene I have yet to play on a public server. Though I do have a private one setup and I have been having fun on it using the PEQ database. Some zones are not very classic anymore which is slightly sad and I think I shed a tear when I ran out to kill Hill Giants in Rathe Mountains and instead found a mess of tadpoles with legs in my old stomping grounds. Also, some of the old world zones seemed to be sparsely populated or the mobs that used to move just stood there.

Note: When I downloaded the PEQ installer package I thought it originally had a 2009 release date but actually it was 2008 so some of those ghost-town like zones may have been populated by now. I plan on redoing my server with all newer eqemu and PEQ stuff, maybe even trying the AX Classic database.

I wish I had more skills with C++ or even Perl, but at the moment I am a newbie (was learning C++ before I found eqemu). I think if someone were given a choice between having me code something or having a chimp do it, the choice would be a tough one. So, from that standpoint, I am really not much service to you. :)

I wouldn't let the one guy earlier bother you too much. From the way it sounds, you guys have put a lot of work into this project. I can imagine some people who have tried to release previous Classic servers, have just turned off a few zones, removed a few mobs, deleted some items, lowered the level cap, and called it Classic. If you start with the database I have, just doing those things are not going to get that Classic feel. I think most people like me would only play on them for a few days before they realized they were playing a game of about Ykesha era without some zones. Definitely not Classic.

Sorry for the long post. Wish you the best of luck!

Conifer

Hey Conifer thanks for the interest in the server. We had someone who came to play on our servers who ended up being our savior in terms of source updates! We can't thank Ladoth enough and the project really moved very far forward in a short amount of time.

We would be happy to have you on the server and pre-Kunark is pretty well ready to launch and the only thing holding us back at this time is server hardware. Nilbog wants to have a dedicated machine to run the server and have completely static zones so at this time we are waiting on being able to purchase the hardware before we can launch.

Since pre-kunark is "done" (I only put in quotations since we are bound to miss some stuff and we will need people to continue to report stuff even after we go live) things seems to be at a standstill at this time until we can get the hardware in place.

You can currently go and play on the beta server though and check out what we have done. Please make sure you visit the "Files" section of the forum and follow all the mandatory threads to get yourself set up!

One more thing...

I saw in some earlier posts some people not liking the sound of not having access to the #zone command in some form or fashion; probably want the PoK in there also. :roll:

If I were striving for the classic approach, I would definitely not put the #zone function in the game. The PoK is not a solution either when you get down to it. If the population is large enough, sure the old player run druid and wizard transportation system might be feasible, but realistically I would not count on it.

What I would do is not quite Classic, but it would be in line with Classic. Hell, being new to eqemu, this may not even be possible but I will throw it out there anyway. I would put an NPC translocator at each Classic druid rings and wizard spires and allow them to be able to teleport a player to a corresponding ring or spire. Druids to only druid rings, and wizards to only wizard rings. Maybe even charge a small fee. If the charge could scale with player level that would be nice.

This is a way to add some--fast travel--that is in line with the Classic era. If you are allowing multiboxing and all that, this might not be a big issue since some people will probably have secondaries that are druids or wizards. Just an idea.

You may have even done something like this.

Conifer

P.S. I wish the real boats of classic worked. I would definate

I have to say, Conifer, that was an excellent post! I played from beta through the release of PoP but quit for good, never to return, shortly after that. Like you, I began to feel very disconnected with EQ. All of my RL friends that I played EQ with became disenchanted with EQ much sooner and quit right before or very shortly after the release of Luclin. Before I quit for good also, I realized that the game had gone too far. It began to deviate from my desired EQ experience with Luclin's release.

At Project 1999, you have a huge job to do as I'm sure you're all aware of. You have the chance to make the hopes and dreams of many people come true. I look forward to the chance to see the original vision of EQ as close as possible come to life again.

Classic all the way baby!

Also, an addon to Conifer's travel post. I agree that no access to #zone or existence of PoK would be the best thing and give it the best classic feel. An alternative to his suggestion of the translocators are ancient runes. These runes have to be looted, have unlimited charges and teleport the user to the respective druid rings or wizard spires.

Just a thought.

Sounds like an interesting server. Already casually playing on a couple servers and i'll be sure to check this one out.
From what I have seen on the servers forums its shaping up nice.
Already picked up a couple good ideas off reading the posts by them selfs.
Keep up the good work.

Hey thanks for all of your concerns while I am a developer I can't make any final decisions on things like translocators but I can almost guarantee you that there will not be any type of service with regards to teleportation. Travel time in old world really isn't a huge deal as the map is not THAT huge, and there will be druids around I am sure of it. Nexus, PoK etc really ruined an important part of EQ. It kind of took away part of that bartering and service part of the game.

Boats are something that have been looked at and while there has been things that have been partially working, I don't think there has been a definitive fix. At this time there is translocators that will take you from dock to dock but the boats are not working at this time I don't believe (although Xzerion and Aeolwind were working on it a few weeks ago but I am not sure exactly how far they got on it).

The team really strives for this to be a classic experience and we don't want any part of the game to be "easier" for the sake of convenience. Putting a self teleportation system into the game would just be damaging I think for the community.

Other points of debate that have been brought up have included multi-boxing and soulbinders. I don't want to comment too much on those points as nothing has been set in stone but those two issues bring up concerns of community. Soulbinders may have to stay just for the sake that you won't see casters sitting around in cities waiting to bind people so they may be a necessary evil.

Boxing has been a really touchy issue on both sides. We have had people say they will downright not play on Project 1999 if boxing is not allowed, but at the same time we have been able to down huge raid targets with a small number of people due to multi-boxing. So I am sure once we are ready to launch there will be a list of rules/concerns involving some of these issues.

Thanks again for bringing up these issues and I hope I did ok to address them.

I hope to be able to possibly jump on this weekend and check things out.

I hope I didn't ruffle any feathers or annoy anyone by posting that transport idea. I just threw the druid/wizard transport idea out there because it popped in my head as I was reading through this thread. It was one of those ideas that if a compromise had to be made, it sounded better than either #zone or PoK. I usually play a druid as a main, so transportation is usually not an issue for me anyway. :)

I remember how it was before the PoK was around with the constant whispers and requests for a teleport. I usually had no problem with going and getting someone if I wasn't busy or in a good group. Then again, I do remember quite a few occasions being cussed out and called about every name under the sun (by random people I'd never even met) for not dropping whatever I was doing and teleporting halfway across the world to pick them up and take them to where they wanted to go. It seems like those guys were also the types that would always say something like, "Paying well!" or "I'll make it worth your time!" only to have them end up /rude gesturing you and run off without so much as a thanks; let alone a copper for your time. Ah, the good old days.

But on the other hand, I also made a lot of good friends by teleporting people around. I also got invited into a lot of groups as a result of taking the time to teleport a few people. The cash supplement wasn't bad either. I actually got my first pair of Golden Efreeti Boots from money I made teleporting people around. I never was lucky with getting Djarn to drop them when I was there.

I can see the point of soulbinders being almost a requirement. I remember there used to be people who it seems only sat at the West Freeport gate or at the main lift in Kelethin and bound people all day and night for tips. It was the low level casters way of getting cash for spells and equipment. It worked pretty good for a new game with a large population and only the original three continents, but once Kunark launched it got a little tougher to find someone to bind you. Enter Velious, and getting a bind could be a major hassle if it wasn't prime time.

As far as multi-boxing goes, I guess some people love it, and others hate it. I would most likely single-box anyway so whatever is decided there wouldn't bother me any.

Hmmm...my P.S. statement didn't post correctly earlier. What I was going to say was that if the boats worked correctly, I would definitely prefer riding those as opposed to using those translocators. But I bet they are definitely a challenge to get working, considering Sony didn't ever bother to fix them.


Good luck,
Conifer

Join Date: Aug 2004

older than all of ur accounts i see.. nuff said

I hope you guys reconsider. It's not necessarily for convenience, but rather to give players the gameplay opportunities they had in classic. Be realistic, the server population will (and this is generous) cap around 100 at peak times. 100 players spread all across Norrath, spanning 50 levels. The fact is unless you want to force people to travel ~1 hour every time they want to group up with people (especially at low-mid levels), some form of reasonable transportation should be implemented.

Conifer's idea doesn't make the game any less legit, it just offers people the same grouping opportunities they would have had in classic.

And your posts are still just as useless as they were back then.

You could include the peqzone command (or a variation of it) and make it give you rez sickness for 10 mins when you use it.

The problem with allowing a teleport command/ability is the intermediate zones that no one cares about aren't used. Solution: make them useful (probably not possible if you're just recreating classic).

You could also make a custom zone command/item that you could only use every x minutes and will only teleport you a maximum number of zones away. This would make the player think when to use it (to avoid kithicor at night for example). If it were an item, you'd force players to have to run to their corpses still.

Lots of posts and I will do the best I can to try and provide answers and/or reasoning to some of these questions but I will definitely point Nilbog to this thread to add anything I may have missed.
No ruffling of feathers, we are a pretty thick-skinned bunch and handle things in a pretty civilized manner. This project is firmly planted as classic, and while some people value convenience, everyone on this project values accuracy. Giving people the ability to go wherever they wish at any time really takes away from not only your starting locale, but also your racial penalties.

Look at it like this: In classic if you were a Troll or Ogre, you had no safe haven on Faydwer. You were hated by every race and you would have no where to sell or bank. If we had translocaters in place, a troll could hunt in Mistmoore and then leave the continent via a translocator instantly, selling their loot and banking all their cash. They really suffer no penalty for choosing their race and they would have never had to encounter an enemy race from that continent. Where in reality that Troll in classic would have had to either pay for a teleport from a druid/wizard to get back to Grobb or take the boat back through all the dwarves.

I understand where people are coming from with regards to wanting some form of teleportation service. I just honestly can't see it coming to fruition on this server. I don't think it will be the type of thing that will keep people from playing on the server. Just something that kind of annoys people, much like many aspects of classic did. ;)

Like I said, I understand your guys' concern and I understand that population is going to be a large factor for this server. Issues of things like Soulbinders, Translocators and Multi-Boxing all firmly rely on population. Who knows, maybe there is not enough people that want to put themselves through the grind of a true classic experience and this will have to be addressed. But it will be addressed at that time.

The thing is, everyone will be in the same situation as you. It isn't like everyone on the server will be in Crushbone and you are the only person in Blackburrow. Everyone will try to stick close to their locale, much like you did on Live. If you start in Freeport, then you will be doing NRO and Oasis. If you start in Qeynos you will be doing Blackburrow and the Karanas.

I can guarantee you that #zone will not be given to people on the server. It is available for the beta, but that will be the extent of it. Not even a variation of #zone will be permitted. I also can't foresee any item teleportation being permitted either.

There will be no "custom" zones. Although there are a lot of zones that are basically custom since they had to be built from scratch. So I guess you can consider that to be a form of a custom zone.


Like I said I will point Nilbog towards this thread and he can hopefully clear up any questions I may not have handled properly.

Just keep in mind that a server has to be fun to attract people. If people enjoy spending hours travelling between locations, you're good to go. Same goes for people staying in one area of the world.

I can see local grouping being successful if you were looking at population sizes of like 500 or more, but as a previous poster pointed out, you're more likely to see 50-100 people at peak periods (spread over 50 levels). You might also find the server's player base is more weighted towards teleporting classes.

Of course, if it works, you're more likely to have close-knit groups and guilds.

Again, I don't want to dissuade you from your idea for this server. I just don't want to see so much work go to waste if the server doesn't work out well.

This is the target. A lot of what EQ was was the community. We have quite a bit of RL friends that are going to be on the server, probably in the neighborhood of 20+. POK and to a very small extent, Nexus is what siren'd the swansong of EQ for me. It removed the inter-reliance of players on each other: MGB Buffs, instant travel, etc. EQ classes were balanced on the needs & detriments of other classes. Once those were removed EQ became much less interactive and more like something else entirely.

I just don't understand why you would run the high chance of turning off everybody except the 'absolute hardcore classic players' over what could be a small compromise. We're not talking about enabling PoK, but just putting pay-to-use teleporters at each spire. Then hey, if the population becomes large enough, they can always be removed.

You guys are aiming for classic, but classic didn't have server populations of <100. Classic wasn't designed for such low populations. You've got to make minor adjustments to compensate for this or else gameplay will suffer greatly.

Also, having the spire-travel system Conifer suggested isn't going to damage class interaction if there isn't a druid within 8 zones to interact with in the first place.

Wow, quite a bit of posts on this matter of teleports and such. Just wanted to clarify my position so no one bans me from the server before I get to even play on it. :D

I would definitely launch with no system but a true classic, player based teleport system. The real goal of the project, from how I understand it, is to be as original of an EQ experience as possible. You can't do that by starting off with a bunch of compromises. The only way to start off with a true classic server is to have all the things in place; both the good and bad. Good, bad, it is all personal opinion anyway. What one person loves, someone out there is sure to hate with a passion.

As a player, some of the original things EQ was famous for around launch time maybe a little tough to adjust back too; at first. But I seem to remember the harshness of the game forced a lot of grouping and because of that, I know that I made lots of good friends. I always thought of old school EQ as a chat-room with a fun game built around it. I know there were times were I might have only killed 2 or 3 mobs, if any, in an hour of play because I was just happily chatting away. Hanging around with and meeting new people was what was fun. The game wasn't bad either.

From a developer's standpoint, I would think that the main goal is to get to as classic as possible. Period. If you can get to the point of being as close to original as possible, any compromises that might have to be made because of class issues or population can then be made. But if the original goal was Vanilla EQ, stick to your guns, take no prisoners, and try to deliver the best damn Classic experience possible.

The teleport system I talked about was a compromise that has no place in original EQ and as such I don't think it should be available as a launch option. I just see it as one of those compromises, that if had to be made, would be a lot better than some easier methods. Nothing more, nothing less. It is not a request; just a silly idea--the lesser of the evils as I saw them in my mind.

The only thing I would hope is that the goal would be more orient towards a few months after the original release of EQ. I shudder to think of some of the things at launch that were broken or not even in the game yet at that time. Most of those types of true "Bugs" I think could be left out with little to no complaints from most people. :)

When you are new to a community, it is sometimes hard to judge how people will react to certain ideas. Sorry if I seem to be repeating myself (and for my overly long posts).

Conifer

Sorry guys.. I had to leave town to visit a friend in the hospital. I didn't arrive back until today.. took a while to catch up on all this :P

Here's the deal. My original intent was to create a server as close to the original experience as I could.. and this objective never changed. In the future, I might make a different server, with different goals, and customizations. I tried my best to recreate content based on my mission goal (legit pve classic). In this particular progression, items will be nerfed and unnerfed as they originally were, zones will be locked and unlocked as per the timeline. The timeline was created based on patch dates and research.

If I were to pick and choose customizations based purely on a "time saving" features, it completely changes the game. I sympathize with the soulbinder arguments.. some people say, remove them because they aren't classic. Other people say keep them because if you're somewhere remote, finding a bind might be impossible. In this instance, I can see a compromise because of population differences. That bind might never show up, whereas not having a port.. that's just a convenience factor.

I interpreted some of the posts to mean that having to run everywhere is non-classic. I remember running all the time.. to my destination, while shouting for ports.. which usually didn't happen. This is in a prekunark setting.. so I'm not seeing the problem here.

Traditionally, locating a port was difficult..or damn near impossible. People went to the lengths of leveling up alternate characters just to use for ports. Later, transporation was widely common and a source of income for said porters. If everyone was moving around at their leisure.. certain zones become useless.. and those random chance encounters you might have.. simply won't exist.

I want to reiterate that I appreciate all the feedback given on all the issues. Thats the only way I know how people feel about them :P Ideas mentioned here sound great.. and if needed, those will surely be on the poll options. Almost all decisions have been made by the feedback of beta testers.

yes. :) And also I would be doing an injustice to the people on my forums that don't read or post here.. by changing my mission statement to classic eq : convenience edition. The most hardcore classic purists are located there.. and if polled, would greatly outnumber the amount of posted differences here.

Adventurers banding together against common foes in the quest for loot and glory in a fantasy setting? Sure :p

In closing.. I want to say I am not immune to compromise. If the majority of players deem something in need of change.. there's a high probability that we will change it.

Feel free to post any questions or concerns at the forums
http://classicbetatest.guildlaunch.com