Project M
 

Many many many years ago, the EQ team had a brilliant idea on Test. It was called project M. With Project M, you could press a button on the Character select screen (aptly labled Project M) and you would randomly spawn in the game world as a monster. You had no controll on what or where you spawned as, but you were a Mob.

The idea they were testing was adding a 3rd faction to the game, controlled mobs.

I enjoyed this experiment much, whether as an Orc Pawn in Crushbone, or a Madman in the Oasis. It was interesting to see things from the mob's perspective, and you could actually level up a mob so you could have a lvl 6 or 7 orc pawn if you dedicated the time (which could really cause some trouble).

Unfortunatly, the idea never made it off test and was eventually removed from there, but the idea was popular enough to be modified and added to a later expansion.

My question is, if a server was willing to do this (a project M style, where a player could take control of random mobs) would it be possible? Is anyone currently doing this.

It's definately possible. Just do the reverse of bots, and you can have Project M all over again.

I'm pretty sure Spirit Shrouds evolved from Project M. I think what they decided to do was better control under what conditions the player "mobs" could interact with real players, so they created the monster missions, etc.

Maybe when we get the spirit shrouds thing figured out, a full-blown Project M will be more easily supported.

oh man it will be totally awesome

Had a friend talking to me about this. My biggest concern is how popular would an idea like this be?

It was entertaining for the short time it was on test but if it were to be a perm. feature I'm sure it would lose it's novelty and just make legit players annoyed.

It would be "possible" but very difficult with our current design.

You mean exactly the same thing that happened when it was on live...

I remember messing around with it, beyond the initial cool im a fire beetle, it could only really be used to grief people and even minimally at that.