ReExperience EverQuest / REEQ Think Tank

[Godhand]

I was going to post this in the Server discussion forum but I didn't want to get this mingled in with servers that are actually up and available right now. If this needs to be moved somewhere else then whatever.

I want to get some discussion and perhaps interest going for a server I've been quietly working on the past few months.

The goal of REEQ is to emulate the launch of EverQuest with knowledge I've obtained in the 10 years EverQuest has been released. The goal is to not give a 100% classic feel, but to release a quality MMO. The server will begin with classic zones only and progress until Velious. Past Velious I will not release anymore expansions, but I may release "custom expansions" of a few zones at a time.

Basically, everything will be the same but different. It's custom EQ but at the same time it's not. Basically look at this server as EverQuest Leaf Green. I'm taking the original game and improving it the best I can. I'll try to patch "problems" with classic EQ as I see fit, for example more weapon options so you don't go from wielding a Fine Steel Long Sword to a Short Sword of the Ykesha. Some spells may be changed, quests may be changed, etc. Knowledge of the original game will be beneficial but at the same time there will be a lot of new spawns and things to learn.

The largest change will be with raids. I'm throwing out the asstacular "tank this mob until it death touches you" encounters and actually putting in scripts and interesting abilities on ALL raid mobs. IF I can get a large enough community, what I would really like to see is 2-3 raid guilds with some guilds being able to do some content while others being able to do other. That will basically show me that I've succeeded. I'm really trying to put in a large variety of types of events to test a wide gamut of raiding expertise. More on this later.

A lot of new raiding encounters will be added to classic, with some extras in Kunark, while Velious mostly has enough raiding options. Here is an example of what I'm talking about:

Mayong Mistmoore will be attackable in his castle. His event consists of him "turning into" vampire bats at certain %s. Everytime he respawns as himself he gains new and fun abilities.

The Planes are mostly completely reworked. Minis are interesting and itemized, not DT machines that drop a fire emerald if you kill them. Fear minis have abilities that synergize with each other and require a bit of thinking to find the "work around" to their AEs. Hate minis are some really difficulty and interesting encounters that I'm pretty excited about people perhaps going up against someday.

Basically, if you're a raider or just an EQ fan at heart you should really enjoy this server. I've got maybe 85% of the classic raid encounters completely scripted with the vast majority of that 15% being Plane of Sky. I'm really excited about Plane of Sky as the final raid zone of Classic. Finally you'll be able to experience this zone in an enjoyable manner.

Something I mentioned about with the "wide variety of raid encounters." I'm currently tossing around in my head with what the community would and would not enjoy. Personally, I'm a big fan of PVP. My major question is whether zone-wide pvp in certain raid zones would be supported. For example, Temple of Solusek Ro has been turned into a sort of Ring-like raid event. I think it'd be great to add PVP to the zone, making it so that guilds who excel at PVP would be able to complete this encounter.

Anyways, this is now my thread to talk about my server. Any questions / comments / concerns should be posted. I'm not even promising that this server will ever reach the light of day, but it really is amazing how much work you can get done every day when you're unemployed

[blackdragonsdg]

A few things I would like to see on a server like this is to really return things to the way they were like setting the old world spells back to the way they were at the release of Velious. SOE changed the spells some where along the way and really screwed them up. Both levels to acquire the spells as well as the mana to effect ratio needs to be returned to normal instead of the garbage that it is now on live server.

Old world zones like Rathe Mountains need to be restored to there original state as well. When SOE redid the spawns in that zone I was pissed for a long time as it was one of my favorite zones to camp in the mid thirties.

The usage of coin needs to be altered because going from finding 2cp at level 5 to finding 5pp at level 55 sucked. Combine that with only having a couple of mobs in the game that dropped more made things near impossible as a new player as most were in there 50's before they got rid of the banded armor they were using. While it is unlikely that any sort of economy will take hold on any emu server the need for money can still be used. One of my friends suggested to me to create custom merchants where you could buy higher end armor, grant it at a cost but still it would be better than having to have 50-70 of your closest friends help you kill a mob for the chance at something decent.

Just my opinion however but your server sounds interesting and I would be willing to try it out once it goes live.

[Godhand]

As far as "returning things to the way they were at classic" zones will for the most part be gone over with a fine-tooth comb and anything that I don't want in the zone will be removed. I'll also be adding mobs such as named that were never on live as I see fit. Some mobs I've even kept in and reworked (such as The Chilling Terror in Permafrost, which is now a Vox raid miniboss because I liked the name).

[LumieX]

hey man thats real cool and I've actually always dreamed of doing the same thing, except on an even bigger scale than you probably in that I was gonna re-envision each class from the ground up practically and rework the entire item tables and rework tradeskills and alter several game mechanics like the resist system and ac system and how stats affect your character etc since I have really good ideas as to how these systems should work

itll be kinda like shards of dalaya except with pvp

Also, having played EQ pvp for about 8 years, I'd really like to make this into more of a pvp server and I've come up with an insane amount of good ideas for pvp over the years in terms of how to encourage it properly and how to balance it to near perfection

I've wanted to set it up so that there is two teams, good and evil and have the towns set up strategically so that one team doesn't have a better positional advantage over important zones than the other team. I thought it would be cool as a pvp server to make it so that you can raid eachothers cities/kings and then eventually eachothers planes/gods

Mayong Mistmoore will be attackable in his castle. His event consists of him "turning into" vampire bats at certain %s. Everytime he respawns as himself he gains new and fun abilities.

The Planes are mostly completely reworked. Minis are interesting and itemized, not DT machines that drop a fire emerald if you kill them. Fear minis have abilities that synergize with each other and require a bit of thinking to find the "work around" to their AEs. Hate minis are some really difficulty and interesting encounters that I'm pretty excited about people perhaps going up against someday.

definitely things I've thought of and can't believe were never put in live...it wasn't until velious that more interesting raid encounters were put in and I really liked luclin raids(not VT though, but ssra was incredible)

I figure we've all beaten a lot of EQ since it's creation so why do people insist on playing the same game over again and demand they get #summon commands and 6x exp gains and stuff...you'd think you'd want it to be even more challenging the next time around, not easier

this is why I always thought it would be cool to completely redo EQ and make it even more brutally unforgiving then it was before and really push people to the limits of their skill but do it in a way where you can't just zerg the shit out of everything to win(altho im not opposed to there being SOME zergable encounters)

I personally think a really well done server could draw a great deal of attention, even from people who thought they'd never play the game ever again

[Godhand]

The game will not be customized to the point of SoD. It's taken a TEAM of devlopers years to get it to the way it is now, and I don't have that kind of time. There's also a lot of changes there that I don't like at all. I also don't want to compete directly with a server that has 500+ active players.

The game will not be completely PVP. Again, it's just not the crowd I'm developing for, I also don't want to compete with the 500+ active players of VZTZ. If you want full PVP, play there.

PVP raid zones is an idea I'm considering though, and will most likely implement into at least one zone. So say Temple of Solusek Ro is a PVP zone, if you're guild A and you excel at PVP, you'll most likely be able to win that encounter and keeping a lock on gear that Guild B cannot obtain.

I'm not going to "re-envision" each class because it's not necessary. Yes I'm going to go through spells and tweak them a bit but that's about it. Tradeskills will also be made more important but that's not a top priority right now.

[Traul]

Sounds like a fun idea. =)