Some thoughts on zone populating

[Angelox]

I guess a lot of us have different views on what "EQ Live" should be, or what is more important to EQ.
In my case, it's drops, named mobs, their drops, and their availability; I also think rare mobs should be rare, and rare drops should be rare. These are a few things that made EQ last so many years with me, and still draw me back. I'll admit, I did some questing, usually with turn in items I bought from Bazaar ( with plat i got from selling drops i didn't need). I know there's a lot of players like me, because I met/played with them on live. Things like "faction" and "tradeskills" , are secondary to me - they always seem to get repetetive, long, and drug out. I did a few characters tradeskills, but never again (too boring). Im saying this because I really think this is a very improtant aspect to Everquest to me, and probably to many others, I don't see much going into that - even the PEQ database has plenty missing in this area (drops, named mobs, their drops, etc.).
When Everquest first came out - there was very little importance given to things like tradeskills, and faction - we played for the groups, the plat and the drops - the servers were always over crowded with players too.
If you want to see what I mean, download my database, install it on a different schema, make yourself a character, then work your way up tell you get to the LoY zones which are playable at around level 35. I made these zones so they would be like they were, when I played them on live. There's much more needed to be done in these zones, but they are now very playable.
This is important; if you never played in the zone, then you shouldn't be populating it. You need to find someone who played that zone to death, and knows it well. For example, I just realized I did all I can do in Omens, because I am lost in zones like Causeway, never played there. I'll do better if I go back to the zones I know, and fix turn-in quests and such.
Something to think about anyways

[WildcardX]

Couldn't agree with you more.

While I want to play EQ as I remeber it being, I don't expect an exact replica down to the exact verb and noun a NPC said in a quest. I just want to play in something close.

Earlier this summer, Sesmar and I decided to merge our individual efforts into a combined effort on a new tool that can be used to allow people to build their EQ world database. Our reasoning here was pretty much what you just talked about. Allow people who are experts on particular zones to build those zones from memory by giving them a zone map and allow them to drag and drop their NPCs and other world objects on to it. Unfortunately, since him and I started this in spring, I went on and bought a house and did the whole move into the new house thing so I know I didnt get much done this summer at all on it. We'll see, maybe him and I can get this done before the year is out.

[CrabClaw]

Totally! I don't mind how 100% book-standard it is or whether a cetain gnoll is slightly askew, I just want a well stocked game with live-ish content. That is why I went with cavedudes database for the most part and now yours. But, I do respect greatly the hard work that was done in PEQ though.

[Angelox]

It's really nice to know someone out there is actually working on a tool that anyone can use.
I know life can get very random; things can change from one second to another. But it's always good to never quit on a goal you've set, even if it takes years.
I just hope if/when ever you do get something out like this, people will publish their work and not go "rouge" on us.

[hayward6]

Originally Posted by WildcardX

Couldn't agree with you more.

While I want to play EQ as I remeber it being, I don't expect an exact replica down to the exact verb and noun a NPC said in a quest. I just want to play in something close.

Earlier this summer, Sesmar and I decided to merge our individual efforts into a combined effort on a new tool that can be used to allow people to build their EQ world database. Our reasoning here was pretty much what you just talked about. Allow people who are experts on particular zones to build those zones from memory by giving them a zone map and allow them to drag and drop their NPCs and other world objects on to it. Unfortunately, since him and I started this in spring, I went on and bought a house and did the whole move into the new house thing so I know I didnt get much done this summer at all on it. We'll see, maybe him and I can get this done before the year is out.

That would be great. I have been playing EQ for about 7 years now and I still play even now. I have alot of zone knowledge but little programing or SQL knowledge, something like that would be sweet and make the game alot more like live for everyone if I could put a little time into it. And I know there are alot of people out there like me.