Project 1999 & Emulated Everquest Servers: meet Project Quarm

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Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Pwnz0r posted:

Oh man, I had no idea you were a goon Zliz !. I actually just messaged your email regarding your Zliz EQMAP for P1999. Is there any way you can update this for velious? I read over your instructions, and I think I may run into issues for the 'dimensions' of the zones. I created a folder called 06Velious, added the map .jpg's, but for the actual .txt files that need stuff like the map dimensions I basically just copy pasted them all from another map and I assume this will make my actual loc showup wrong on the map itself but I wanted to get the map atleast loading the new velious zones so I could see them and at the very least guess where to go etc.

How can I go about getting these dimensions of the zones? Cobalt Scar, Western Wastes, Eastern Wastes, Great Divide, Iceclad Ocean, Skyshrine, City of Thurgadin, Kael Drakkal, The Wakening Land, I left out a lot of the dungeons and such because rarely do I use it in those type of zones. However the big wide open zones like ice clad, E/W wastes, GD, even wakening lands. Would be amazing to have this function again. Please if there is anything you can do, I have red plat or whatever I can donate to you.

For those wondering what I am talking about, He made a wonderful program that reads your logs and uses the /loc in game command to show you where you are on a overlay map. 100% legit, I used it on characters for quillmane farming that had no track etc, just to visually run the lines and find it a few times. Even though I know certain zones, like west karana, or dreadlands, or burning woods for example. I let this run in my background, and sometimes I will just overlay it always on top, fade it a bit. then while im auto running, ill hit my /loc macro, and itll show me where i am, how far off I am from being a certain place etc.

Hey, I have just finished updating ZlizEQMap to match Velious. It's strange that you had to create a 06Velious directory - maybe you had an old version? Regarding the dimensions, check out the How it Works section of the readme.

For those who don't know, I wrote a map program that haxx0rs your legit EQ log file in order to display your position on a map (old school eqatlas.com style map) with a red x. The basic features are:

quote:

Complete EQAtlas map library for the old world, The Planes, Kunark, Velious and selected other zones (some maps slightly improved and edited)

Player location on the map, marked with an 'x' when you perform a /loc in-game

In addition to marking the player location, can show direction arrow (based on Sense Heading)

Automatic zone switching as you zone in-game

EQAtlas map legend (some slightly edited)

Automatic detection of which character you're playing

Multiple maps per zone, for example in dungeons with multiple floors

List of clickable connected zones for each zone

Waypoint functionality

Adjustable transparency and always-on-top

Server-agnostic; supports Project1999, The Al'Kabor Project, and can be extended to match any server

Classic eqatlas.com look

Screenshots:

General map view; player location marked by red arrow.

Displaying map overlay feature; adjustable window transparency.

Here's the full info:

http://www.zlizeq.com/ZlizEQ_Projects-ZlizEQMap

I just uploaded version 5 (download here), which doesn't really have anything new in the program itself, just metadata updates:

quote:

v5 (August 3, 2015)

Adjusted zone names in the ZoneData-Project1999.txt file to properly support Velious on Project1999.

Added missing map data and image for Plane of Mischief.

I'd be happy if you goons will spread the word about it to your guildmates and P99-playing friends (lol?). Just don't post too much about it on the P99 forums, because whiners will come out of the woodwork to claim that this is "not classic" and should be illegal. It uses simple log file parsing that has been possible since classic times, and even though you couldn't alt-tab back in the day, I'd say this program is within the spirit still.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2015 22:18

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 23:08

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Pwnz0r posted:

Anyway Pilsner if you can look into it, Great Divide whenever you zone into it with the zliz map is giving a "cannot find Great Divide" error. The names and everything seem to line up(----side issue but not a big deal i copy pasted the old south karana quillmane maps over to v5, when I don't farm cloaks for friends I make them use that if they have no access to a bard/ranger to easily track quillmane and learn the spawn)

[Sat Aug 01 22:09:09 2015] LOADING, PLEASE WAIT...
[Sat Aug 01 22:09:24 2015] You have entered Great Divide.

I did notice its as greatdivide1.jpg so I added in same image as just greatdivide.jpg but haven't tested it yet to confirm it works. Not sure why the rest of the maps would work fine with 1s and GD wouldn't

I was told the name of GD was "The Great Divide", but maybe that was incorrect or has changed from beta. You can easily change it yourself for now: Close the app, open the file "ZoneData-Project1999.txt" in the ZoneData directory, then just change the name of the zone from "greatdivide=The Great Divide" to "greatdivide=Great Divide".

Can you review the long zone names? Here's what I got from another helpful goon:

cobaltscar=Cobalt Scar
crystal=Crystal Caverns
eastwastes=Eastern Wastelands
frozenshadow=Tower of Frozen Shadow
greatdivide=The Great Divide
growthplane=Plane of Growth
iceclad=Iceclad Ocean
kael=Kael Drakkel
mischiefplane=Plane of Mischief
necropolis=Dragon Necropolis
sirens=Sirens Grotto
skyshrine=Skyshrine
sleeper=Sleepers Tomb
templeveeshan=Temple of Veeshan
thurgadina=City of Thurgadin
thurgadinb=Icewell Keep
velketor=Velketor's Labyrinth
wakening=The Wakening Lands
westwastes=Western Wastelands

The map images are named with a number in order to support maps with multiple images, like dungeons.

Pilsner fucked around with this message at 12:33 on Aug 7, 2015

# ¿ Aug 7, 2015 12:30

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Dirt posted:

I was curious what stuff costs for actual cash, so I did some google work.

You can buy 100k plat for like 125 bucks.

How is that even profitable for the people doing the selling? That has to break down to something hilarious when you look at hours per dollar.

Well what happened over time in WoW was that they stopped having literal gold farmers, i.e. real people hammering away at easy mobs for gold and drops, or teleport hacking in dungeons, to spending their time automating hacking of accounts in order to sell stuff. I don't know if there's much hacking on Project1999 though, or rather through EQEmu that we login through.

An alternative to farming plat is selling dungeon and raid drops. All raid targets are completely cleared every week (or more often), and as players quit or get corrupt, those items flow out into the economy and RMT. Thus you can't really compare the hours you'd need to spend grinding plat via pp and gem drops to how much plat is sold for in dollars. Furthermore, peoples' time is free, so to speak, so you can't even compare it having a minimum wage job.

I also don't see how RMT is such a big problem. What I'm truly baffled about is that people pay hundreds of dollars for items on an emulated EQ server..... come on! Oh well, it's your :10bux:

# ¿ Aug 12, 2015 21:22

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

lemonslol posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQef-p_QkwM

I like to imagine that this kind of person is everyone I group with.

Haha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hMPljgII-k

Good to listen to, though. Going to fire up the original XMI files and listen to them right now with the correct soundfont.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2015 09:36

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

A Mean Cow posted:

Got Luclin models to work BTW. You just have to load the Luclin globalload.txt file after logging in.

Use the normal one to log in to character selection, log out to account sign-in screen, replace the globalload file with the luclin-edited one and log back in. Pain in the rear end because you have to do it every time, but it works.

edit: may be bannable if you admit it so don't go around shouting about it in zones, faggots. Lets not ruin a good thing

edit again: also someone invite me, 16 Bard Kannarus, I'm just another lovely bard but I can kind of mez mobs now so I might be good for more than pulling a whole zone and kiting them by myself while everyone else curses bloody murder and calls for bards to be nerfed.

Luclin models.... good thing.... hmm. NOT CLASSIC!

# ¿ Aug 28, 2015 11:51

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

iNteg posted:

Bro are you playing blue again? And what's your toons name?

Afraid not, not really feeling it. Been busy the last couple of months with moving to a new house, so haven't really had the time. I'll probably start playing Live EQ again soon.

I reached level 50 with my lizard Monk Zliz on P1999, got him decked out with good buyable weapons and jboots + other clickies, and that's good enough for now. I guess I made it a bit boring for myself near the end by solo grinding Oggok guards from level 45-50 - drat that got boring near the end! But the plat was good and I couldn't find better solo XP spots.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2015 21:49

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Kalaxus posted:

I managed to grind my way to 7 in Nek Forest but am now stuck with mobs that barely give any xp and mobs that are so strong they require HT to even have a shot of soloing. Back in 1999, I smuggled myself out to Crushbone for these levels with my SK not realising just how many damned warrior faction DEs there are scattered around Neriak. The pyramid and monoliths in nek forest spawn way too many mummies, and fighting the zombies is like 20% chance of victory with HT and even if I win disease increases downtime by around 5x or so it seems. Guess I have to look into those guilds you all been mentioning to level up

Just go to EC. EC and WC can take you to level 20 easily, and you're in a handy area for getting newbie buffs from tunnel campers. Just beware of human guards of course.

As soon as you can (you'll need a magic weapon - try if you can mooch something cheap off a tunnel seller), start killing every will-o-wisp you see. Save all Lighstone and Greater Lightstone, bank them if needed, and go turn them into the dark elf in south ro (http://wiki.project1999.com/Evil_Research). Good XP in the teens.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2015 09:05

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Summit posted:

Ogre or Iksar would be the best choice but I went with Human to see a different side of things. I was curious about the challenge of being a 'good' race but a bad class. I've also never seen much of the Qeynos side of the continent. Freeport would be more ideal leveling for sure and I'll probably head over there eventually, but it was not an option (probably because I went with Bertox as a religion). So far I'm not regretting the choice, even if it's slower. It's very immersive to be concerned about faction. I'm checking around corners constantly and of course I have to go into the sewers to train/sell for max value. Feels like being a real evil dude rather than just another Ogre in Ogretown. So far I've run into two NPCs that were KOS, one in a sewing shop who must have been upstairs from the entrance. The other was a Barbarian in the bar near the docks. Not sure what faction they are on since I am able to walk around freely past the guards and merchants otherwise.

Anyone have any good stories about rarer class combos? Advantages in the way of items people aren't normally familiar with? On live my main was a human ranger. Not many people were really aware that was an option so I would commonly get comments about thinking I was a Rogue until I cast a spell. Wasn't much different beyond that though. You start in Surefall Glade which is a neat little out of the way zone for human druids and rangers. It's opposite Qeynos. I made my way over to elf lands pretty quickly though, having always been more familiar with those zones.

There's also the elusive Erudite Paladin, who could look forward to this:

Shield of the Stalwart Seas

As far as I recall, rolling a Erudite Paladin was/is something people do only in two cases:

1) Ignorance
2) Intentionally rolling the weakest possible class and race combo for the heck of it

# ¿ Sep 2, 2015 14:35

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Not_Rainbow_Horse posted:

the only thing that i wish pilsner's tool did was when updating location the X animated from last location to current location instead of just jumping from last location to current location. It's a small thing, but that animation let me know if i was headed in the right direction. No complaints though, you did a good job pilsy.

That's a pretty cool idea. I'm thinking I could quickly flash a line from the old to the new point, if the distance is longer than a reasonable amount of pixels. I'll put it on the todo list.

Zaphod42 posted:

Apparently early in EQ development erudites were known as "High men" (similar to 'high elves')

Hey you weren't kidding:

https://youtu.be/w6_1xi_ItXM?t=11s

Pilsner fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Sep 3, 2015

# ¿ Sep 3, 2015 11:32

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

I just put up a new version (6) with the following changes:

The font size of the legend text can now be changed in the Settings & Help form. Default size is 10.
Fixed incorrectly named Great Divide zone name in the ZoneData-Project1999.txt file, so that the map for Great Divide now loads without errors.
Fixed a small error in the vertical loc labels on the Ocean of Tears map.

Here's a direct link:

http://www.zlizeq.com/Files/ZlizEQMap-v6.zip

Interesting work on the trail / dot thing, although I will hold my horses until I'm sure it's worth spending time on. Is it for farming or kiting and such that a trail of past locs would be useful?

Auto-making a /loc when dying isn't possible for sure.

Zaphod42 posted:

Yeah putting an automatic marker when you die would be legit super useful. If I'm smart enough I hit /loc but then I've gotta figure out where on the map that is manually after I spawn, having a marker would be super convenient.

Looks like "you have been slain" is the key phrase you'd look for, and I guess just grab the most recent /loc before that ideally.

If you do a /loc just before you die, and scroll up to see the loc, you can just put it in the waypoint text-box in the top-right corner, then click the "Set WP" button. It will put a little blue circle on the map where that loc is.

Ironically I had to highlight the waypoint with red in the screenshot, since it's a fairly low-visible blue circle, but you should see it pop up when you do it yourself.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2015 16:17

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Pwnz0r posted:

This is actually really nice, I had a lovely map i made in VB that I manually loaded maps from. It wasn't as good as P's, didn't even think of adding zone to zone map switching etc just transparency and overlay etc. But it did have a trailing function you could toggle a bar up and down how big you wanted your trail to show where you came from, or where you were headed loc to loc wise. One thing I am curious about, It seems like ever since the velious release update that the map program becomes super huge. Like it always loads a HUGE portion on the far right, of blank space even though Legend box is unchecked. So everytime you zone you have to resize it 98% of the time to fit the map only with no extra pieces.

The code I made for auto-resizing the program is really ghetto; it adds up the pixel size of the various controls and then sets the window size accordingly. Badly in need of refactoring, but ironically I don't like GUI programming so much, so I give up quickly when it comes to pixel-fiddling. It seems to resize fine for me, though, with the exception of when the app is minimized; then the window will be a bit too big when you restore it.

The best solution would be to make the GUI have one of those "containers" that auto-arrange controls and resize the form accordingly, but :effort:

.

You can also disable auto-resize on mapswitching by unticking the checkbox in the lower left corner.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2015 09:34

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Eerkik posted:

So to level up I should just be grinding the mobs outside qeynos early on right? I turned in my tattered note thing and am level 2 and a half but drat these bats and skeletons and gnolls give pisspoor experience

Welcome to EQ.

You can try engaging level 2 (even con - black text) mobs, but stay near the guards as some might whoop you. As you get to level 3, engaging level 3 mobs will be a huge risk. Until level 5, it's actually the safest and fastest to just kill the easy level 1 mobs en masse. Low risk, and you will get to level 4 or 5 where you will get new spells and/or a skill. At level 4 you should be able to safely and swiftly kill level 2 mobs, but level 3 mobs will still be a gamle.

Which class are you?

# ¿ Sep 10, 2015 12:03

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Ashenden posted:

E: Remembered the real reason why Monk is so painful, you can't even carry blunt weapons to skill up 1HB and 2HB, let alone make any money.

The importance of the weight penalty for Monks, when you're levelling, is way overrated. When you're new and have mediocre gear, and also need to farm cash (I started completely from scratch), you can forget all about staying below the weight penalty; a typical weight when you've banked and are carrying 50p or so, ready to head out into the field, is around 30-40. The AC loss up to around 40 is significant, but above that, it's minor, so you might as well say gently caress it and just do your thing. I solo'd from 1-50 basically saying screw it to the weight limit, and while it naturally caused some AC loss, I managed fine. I used to go up to the encumberance limit all the time, before I vendored and banked.

You should get some WR bags ASAP. Some good ones:

Bag of Sewn Evil-Eye
Light Burlap Sack
Forager Bag
Lionhide Backpack
Shralok Pack

When you get the cash, a tink bag is naturally amazing.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2015 12:22

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Ashenden posted:

Also, I've always wondered: Why do I have almost no music? I think I only have character screen, Neriak Forest, and combat.

Zaphod42 posted:

I have the same problem, its mildly annoying but I have all the EQ music long memorized, and I usually have the volume turned down so I can watch Netflix too.

But if you find a solution lemme know.

There are a few reasons, some can be fixed and some cannot:

First, EQ never had music in all zones. Some zones, such as cities (Kelethin, Felwithe, etc.) have one music track playing everywhere. Kaladim has music mostly related to which guild you are near (Bard, Warrior, etc.). Some dungeons have it (Najena and Sol B at least have music tracks - can't remember if they actually play in there), very few outdoor zones have zone-wide music. EQ music is mostly situational; like when walking near the Gfay wizard spires, majestic music will play; walking near an undead ruin will trigger gloomy music.

Second, Kunark features no music, at all. Velious has a little, mostly in city zones, and some might also remember the caribbean-style music around the Othmir in Cobaltscar.

If you are hearing zero music, something might be up with your sound driver or MIDI handling (mp3 only started with PoP). If you are hearing music where you sometimes think it sounds off-key or corrupted, there is a solution detailed in this thead:

http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81207

To further expand, I can recommend listening to the original music files shipped with EQ. They are in a format called XMI, which are MIDI-like files where each file can contain multiple underlying tracks, and are found in the root EQ install directory. Some of the music I have never heard play anywhere in EQ, and some of it is truly amazing stuff, particularly the "mistmoore.xmi" contains some dreamy tracks. The file "gl.xmi" contains general-purpose tracks such as the vendor music, combat music, death music, guild master music, etc. I have written a guide on how to listen to it here: http://www.zlizeq.com/Game_Information-Music_and_Graphics#1_Listening_to_EverQuest_Music

# ¿ Sep 11, 2015 21:35

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

tyler is a joke posted:

I did aviaks on monk and enchanter from 18-24ish. These are the guards near the zone line as well as other guard shacks around.

Look up the map for the gypsy camps. They sell to anyone including Iksar. As an iksar monk this was key as you will get a poo poo ton of money via copper/silver. What you do to "bank" with gypsies is sell everything, then buy a ton of compasses. Sell the compasses back. You take a hit of one or two copper I think. This essentially exchanges all your gold/silver/copper for plat. They also sell food/water I think.

To expand on this trick; an even better way of stockpiling cash on the go is to buy gems until you either only have platinum left; or if badly needed, exchange plat for gems. Optimal is of course the expensive gems, but in a pinch, stuff like Emerald or less is also fine. When you visit town again, don your best CHA gear, get CHA buffed if necessary, and visit a friendly (and non-greedy) vendor, sell the gems, then bank.

If you can't find a gem vendor, the compass trick (or similar items that sell/buy for close to the same) is good.

You will lose 10% cash this way, as the minimum difference between buy and sell prices is 10%, but it's better than having to destroy cash for sure.

Zaphod42 posted:

Seriously.

"You know what Everquest needs? PERMADEATH." Said nobody in the history of loving ever.

It'd be stupid even if it was PvE, but with PvP its double stupid. Now you grind for hours to level 20 until some level 60 gank squad rolls through and whoops, you're dead for good, start over.

Well actually it's classic; although too early in the timeline. There was a Discord server launched December 19, 2003, and shutdown January 12, 2004. Also, how do you think someone will even get to level 60?

http://www.vgln.com/pc/107186172465029.shtml

quote:

Discord is a hardcore Player vs. Player server, offering players fast-paced gameplay with the threat of elimination by other players. The battle begins December 19, 2003 and ends January 12, 2004 with the highest-scoring survivors proclaimed the winners. Battles are fought to the death and the slain will not be restored or resurrected for any reason. Any character slain will be recreated as a newbie and will have to start all over again. Corpse looting is allowed, but all corpses will decay in 30 minutes. Each EverQuest account will be allowed one character on the Discord server. Players can reach level 50 with no Alternative Advancements, while an increased experience modifier will facilitate faster paced gameplay.

Points are based on the victims, not the killer. Players can only gain points from characters that are within 20 levels of them and higher level targets will earn more points. The point total is distributed evenly between each person in a group with any fraction of a point rounded up to a full point. Additionally, if your character is slain, half of your earned kill points are lost.

The top six surviving players with the most kill points on January 12, 2004, will be proclaimed victorious. The six victors will receive honors that will forever remind Norrath or their strength and bravery. The victorious will be bestowed the following prizes:

A class-appropriate item will be named after each winning character in the upcoming EverQuest expansion, the Gates of Discord. As an example, a winning Ranger may have a magical bow named after their character, while a Wizard might have an enchanted staff given their name.

Each winning character will receive their named item shortly after the new EverQuest expansion, Gates of Discord, launches.
Winners will be allowed a one-time transfer of their character and all gear from the Discord server to another server of their choosing. Winning characters will be awarded a unique title that distinguishes them from their fellow Norrathians.

Discord is not for the weak or fainthearted, so there will be no in-game support; in other words, Game Masters will not be watching over your shoulder. For more information on the Discord Server rule-set please visit: http://www.everquest.com.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2015 09:15

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Pathos posted:

The guy who makes ZlizEqMap posts in this thread, right? Because if so, lower guk is totally hosed up on it. Like catastrophically so. Upper guk isn't perfect but lower is unusable. And mistmoore is also hosed up but not as badly.

There are two possibilities for it; either the eqatlas maps (from http://www.allakabor.com/eqatlas/lowerguk.html ) are just not properly to scale, or perhaps I made a mistake in my calculations for the map scaling and boundaries. I have a level 50 Monk, but I don't really feel like going deep into Lower Guk, so I can't really test it myself. If someone just a tad technically inclined can look at the documentation (the numbers in the first lines of the gukbottom1.txt and gukbottom2.txt files) and see what's wrong, maybe it can be fixed.

Is both live side and dead side hosed up?

# ¿ Oct 19, 2015 14:19

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Tashan Dorrsett posted:

nostalgic everquest screenshots is my fetish

Here's a porn site for you:

http://www.dbq.com/kass/

Note that the pics look broken in Firefox - try with Chrome.

Example:

# ¿ Nov 27, 2015 16:51

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

hayden. posted:

It's weird that it looks up the character by name and not by some integer ID. Was this ever actually confirmed as working at some point or just an urban legend?

Anecdotal, but I'm 99.9% sure the unique ID of your character back in the day was the character name. We are talking about EverQuest here, where you could enter Sebilis and go "/tell Trakanon yo", and if it gave back no error message, you knew Trak was up. :downs:

It's insane to think about the exploits that were possible back then.

I've also heard that way back, you could die, log out, delete the char, make a new one with the same name, then go loot your old corpse (for no drop transferring).

# ¿ Mar 10, 2016 09:29

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

~~Anyone on blue want to sell a Circle of Shadow? Just want to buy one for future investment purposes, and who knows if I might roll a necro or SK one day.~~

Edit: Got it

Pilsner fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Mar 13, 2016

# ¿ Mar 12, 2016 16:07

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

I'm not a PvP fan, but I understand the mindset of wanting to play EQ PvP. I've always been a fan for playing games as they were made, whether single player or multiplayer, and never really enjoyed mods or custom maps and the like. It has its charm to undertake and conquer a game as it was designed, however imbalanced or whack it might be.

I mean honestly, everyone is free to roll whatever race or class they want; it's not as if you click a button and get a random char rolled for you. You can choose which zone you want to go to, and either fight or flee as you please.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2016 12:10

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

DeathSandwich posted:

As a first character, I would probably avoid Warrior, Rogue, and Monk simply due to the degree that they are gear dependent and also because gameplay for them involves hitting 2 buttons every 6 seconds.

Correction; 1 button every 10* seconds

I managed to get a Monk (my first char on P1999) to 50 untwinked, but it was certainly a long, slow haul. It relies heavily on the in-fight bind wound trick, and you're bound to very specific areas of certain zones where the mob range and difficulty is just right. For example, SolA gnomes from 40 to 45, no earlier, and at 45 the xp is poop. I just like Monks a lot, and spell casting in old school EQ is so insanely cumbersome. Just the way you need to wait for half a second before casting after stopping movement, lest your spell will be interrupted, is so terrible.

If you make it far though, they are definitely the powerhouses of EQ, whereas melee are crippled in terms of utility.

*until hasted

A Strange Aeon posted:

This just made me think about the overall design paradigm for the classes when they created EQ. I know we all joke about the "vision", but obviously people sat and thought about what skills and spells each class should get, at what levels, what gear they can equip, etc. So the fact that Druids end up pretty unwanted at later levels beyond utility teleports and SOWs, that Rangers are never as badass as Tolkien and D&D would make you believe they should be, that Warriors are almost always competing unfavorably with Shadowknights and Paladins (until end game) etc. are all really interesting realities.

Has any original design documentation ever leaked? I feel like it'd be interesting to read. Obviously you can get some information from the nerfs and enhancements they made to things over the life of the game, or maybe changes they made based on the Beta, but I know after Kunark and Velious, a whole new design team took over (at least, that's what I always thought).

I really don't think they thought very far. Remember, raiding was an unplanned concept when EQ was launched. Naggy and Vox weren't meant to be killed as they say, and grouping was just meant to be casual and un-optimized. Many things such as CH chains, FD pulling, sneak pulling, mass quest turn-in xp abuse, mob splitting, kiting, bard swarming and all that wasn't planned at all. Who knows if they even thought that people would solo quad kite; many of the other AoE spells in the game were/are downright useless. It shines through that most of the vision back then was just that people wouldn't min/max, but rather group casually and cast some helpful/damaging/utlity spells now and then.... or something.

What's truly stupid about EQ is that until well after EQ tapered off into obscurity (as WoW launched in 2004), the devs still hadn't changed any of the game basics (neither the engine nor the gameplay) nor seen the light about min/maxing or raid optimization. The dumbasses deserved to have their game "die", although these days I love EQ as a solo boxing adventure.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2016 21:31

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Here's some of the path my untwinked Monk took if it helps. I forgot some of the ranges, but approximately:

1-14ish: Field of Bone - it doesn't get better
14-20: Kurn's. Don't leave before 20.
20-21ish: Killing will-o-wisps in EC/WC for Greater Lightstones, then turning them into the Dark Elf in Sro. Not so good xp, but it ups your faction so you can bank in Neriak (super useful for an Iksar), and gives a little xp. It's also easy and comfortable in a sunny, green, crowded zone:3
21-23: Gnolls (live and undead) in the southwest corner of EK; aviak guards in Lake Rathe; gargs in OOT
23-30: Random mobs in South Karana (got 3 peggy cloaks that way)
30-35: sisters in OOT (decent xp, and mainly the best cash camp until the 40's, which was important for me as my first char)
35-40: more South Karana random mobs
40-45: Sol A gnomes; there are lots of them, just beware of damage shields; you'll need a 2-hander and good timing.
45-50: Oggok guards (inside), intimidation kiting, bind wound abuse, and very good cash from all the Fine Steel. A monk can vendor and bank; in theory a rogue could do the same, but it would be insanely risky to go to the bank, since they have no FD.

xZAOx posted:

/soapbox on

People who play EQ and focus on solo'ing are missing the entire point of the game and 100% are Doing It Wrong.

/soapbox off

Yeah you're right, but my location (EU), personal schedule and habits just don't match up with old school EQ grouping. Too much childcare, too much AFK'ing, too much multitasking IRL. I love the living world of P99 (I played last year when there were up to 2000 people online at night - amazing to see the old zones full of life), but just like to buzz around doing my own thing.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2016 20:17

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

TGG posted:

I've been playing off and on for a bit now, have a wiz at 25 named Cortical that I've been slowly working up, would love a goon invite to get out of this faaaaaar too goofy Monty Python guild I've found myself in. Such a pleasure so far to just relive my teenage years would love to do it with a consistent group if possible! Also drat as a guy who got a mage to 43 in vanilla wizard is more boring than I thought.

Wizards are very much the same, but look forward to the level 29 AoE snare Bonds of Force, after which you can begin quad kiting efficiently. Get the Staff of Temperate Flux and you can pull so easily while running around. Quad kiting is really fun.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2016 10:01

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

retpocileh posted:

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=222964

Basically it lets you regen at the rate of an additional 1-2 fungi tunics while in combat.

Here's a simpler one:

code:

/pause 3, /tar Yourcharactername
/pause 1, /doability 1
/stand

You can adjust the first pause to match your lag, I need 3.

I think the final two lines that resume attack are too slow and cumbersome, so I just do a super quick tab and hit attack again.

Oh, and typical to see the P99 forum full of whiners who claim this is exploiting.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2016 22:40

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

A Strange Aeon posted:

Maybe I was just never any good at the game but how would boxing even work? You just turn on auto attack with your tank character and heal him with your cleric?

Good boxing is about having classes that synergize (for example; one tank, one healer), don't overlap (druid & shaman, wizard & mage, bard & enchanter overlap), and allow you to go further than with just one char. I did it way back in 2002, adding a Shaman box to help my Rogue solo. Shaman buffs, debuffs and heals, Rogue fights. I went from being able to do virtually nothing solo to be able to do a lot.

These days I box 4 characters in Live EQ, using a piece of software called ISBoxer to distribute keypresses. It's so much fun.

It also doesn't have to be expensive, since you can box free account characters just fine. I find it crazy that the first batch of recent TLP servers were so filled with 6-boxers; that's at least $50 per month when using black market-bought Kronos, or close to $100 if subscribing officially.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2016 09:10

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

faulteroy posted:

That's good to hear. Zland and Kland should be a lot easier than they are.

Zland is particularly rough without poo poo tons of Wort pots and Reapers/Soulfires to keep people from catching low HP aggro.

Speaking of this, can anyone recall raid guilds back in the day "exploiting" clickies such as Soulfire, Ivy Hoop and the like? I wasn't in the top raid scene back then, but you'd wonder why anyone would ever wipe to a 32k dragon if they had Ivy Hoops at hand back then...

It's funny to see that server-wide broadcast constantly on P99 when someone obtains a Soulfire. I guess raiders are on a constant grind on off-raid hours for the quest items.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2016 23:34

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

DarkStryke posted:

I was running at/near the top for everything from release through Velious, and there was no clicky farming or any of that garbage that has gone on with p1999 raiding. At best we ran recharging on some items (ivy hoops weren't one of them), but the guys here have taken neckbearding and outright exploiting to unprecedented levels. It's crazy and at the same time depressing, these are middle-aged men acting far worse than they did almost 20 years ago.

Outside of raiding, the server is really great and pleasant for most people.

Reminds me of the Staff of Forbidden Rites; that is one I definitely remember people using. Guilds would give it to a Monk, who could then do effective CR.

I recall it that the recharge/buyback price was yanked up to the millions during Luclin, making it ineffective to recharge.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2016 08:54

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Rlazgoth posted:

After reinstalling EQ and realizing that the live server is nothing like what I remember, I got P1999 up and running and started an Enchanter on blue. I quit EQ over 10 years ago so I forgot many of the game's subtleties, and selected Tunare for deity when creating the character. I am now level 10 and not very willing to reroll as I'm quite some hours in, but everyone is telling me that by not being Agnostic, I locked myself out of the Enchanter epic as well as a bunch of quests and spells. Am I truly hosed or are there workarounds for this?

I'm doing the enc epic on live as we speak, on a Dark Elf, and even on Live, I can illusion my way out of every city I need to visit. I think you'll be fine. If not, there are simple quests you can do to increase necessary faction, or, according to Alla, an NPC you can kill in order to get faction for the evil Qeynos caster underground place.

Pilsner fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Apr 9, 2016

# ¿ Apr 9, 2016 00:19

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Rlazgoth posted:

The problem is not the race itself. Specifically, what I was told (and looked up) is that by having Tunare as deity, even with illusion I'll remain KOS in Neriak and other cities I'll eventually need to go to. I guess the DE equivalent would be choosing Innoruuk?

I played a Paladin on live and I just grinded factions the old way, but people are making it sound like deity choice outright breaks some class specific quests that depend on illusions.

Hmm well, in Neriak you "just" need to kill a level 60 NPC surrounded by a shitload of guards and Cleric NPCs. I'm not sure if a goodie-two-shoes High Elf Enchanter, agnostic or not, can just walz into Neriak without faction work.

You also need to visit Felwithe and chat with a Paladin for a quest. That will obviously be no problem as Tunare deity. Then there's Cabilis and Oggok where you need to kill (Cabilis) and quest (Oggok); both nasty cities. No enchanters are welcome in Cabilis, only Dark Elves are welcome in Oggok. Illusions and Alliance spell should take care of Oggok.

Ak'anon has another major quest NPC, Tunare should be more than welcome. Same with the Firiona Vie master NPC.

All in all the only major issues I can think of is the Qeynos catacombs sub-quest and maybe the Neriak kill.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2016 00:35

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Prophecy120 posted:

I think that's sort of the problem, at least it's what I ran into on my shaman. With 1500 people on at primetime and a huge majority of them 50+, everything is camped. Ice Giants, Seafuries, Specters, Hill Giants etc. Anything you would consider a 'money camp' is already taken.

You can try the SK treants (in the northeast corner of the zone), they are not so often camped. It's not exactly killer cash, but okay. Beware, they are druids and have damage shields.

Gargoyles in OOT drop eyes, which are the best cash for a newbie until.....

Sisters in OOT are the best cash until level 35/40 or so, they are so easy and reliable. Requires being able to vendor just nearby (sneak or faction). Fairly, but not permanently camped. Also, it's funny to see the mudslinging in /ooc over seafuries.

Another great "camp" is killing guards in Oggok. It requires high level, more effort, along with sneak, faction tricks and/or feign death (or you'll be zoning constantly), but my Monk raked in the dough grinding 45-50 there due to the fact that guards drop Fine Steel. I could sell at merchants by sneaking, and even bank in order to dump money. Those 5-15p per guard really add up.

Gnome guards (outside of Ak'Anon) are also a classic, haven't tried it on P99 though.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2016 15:10

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Pwnz0r posted:

@zliz if you see this and still keeping up to date, how would i go about adding my own plane of growth file to the map? I guess I can load just the image of it, but I am curious how do you get the zone 'specs' to make the location show up properly?

Hm did I really forget to add PoG to the mapset? Strange. I'll look at that soon and upload a new version.

In the meanwhile, try reading this section:

http://www.zlizeq.com/ZlizEQ_Projects-ZlizEQMap#8_Tips

You'll need to add the map named growthplane1.jpg to the \ZoneMaps\06Velious directory, then make a corresponding growthplane1.txt file to the \ZoneData\06Velious directory with the relevant "specs". You'll have to find a map with coords so you can see where 0,0 is, and then I simply use Paint.NET to figure out how many coords one pixel takes up by selecting a square upon the coordinate grid on the map image, and seeing how many pixels it takes up.

As said, I'll look at adding it later though. Any other maps missing or errors you've encountered?

# ¿ Jul 11, 2016 08:44

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Orange Red Bull posted:

they are currently selling for 9-10k

In a way it's amazing that on a server such as P1999, where people knew like 5 years in advance that they'd be removed, the price still spikes when the nerf actually happens. I bought one before just the nerf just to stash away because of that.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2016 14:53

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

ResidentSleeper posted:

what is discord

The Discord server. It might be awakened again on P99.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9364

# ¿ Sep 2, 2016 21:41

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Secular Humanist posted:

Do they just straight up not test patches before rolling them out? Like, how does poo poo like that slip through? Notwithstanding the fact that it's an emu project etc..

faulteroy posted:

I don't think they do much testing, if at all.. there's no public test server since Velious beta went down. A lot of bugs have involved skills/spells not working properly in one zone, but working fine in others. Seems like they basically just fire up a single zone in a test instance, play with stuff for a few minutes, and call it done.

Haynar made some pathing updates in 2015 that introduced warping bugs to a bunch of different zones, none of which have been fixed.

Remember it's a free project made by amateurs. Testing on an internal test server where maybe, at best, 5 project members can log on at once to test, is not representative of what will happen when stuff goes live, where hundreds of people are active at once. You just gotta give them a break, MMORPG's are ridiculously complex, even old EQ.

Besides..... it's classic to have patches break poo poo anyway.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2016 09:22

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

I have a patch ready for ZlizEQMap which includes a Plane of Growth map. Just to be sure, can some of you guys who have visited PoG search your log files and see precisely what it says when you enter the zone? Like:

You have entered Plane of Growth

Some zones have "The" in front of the name, for example it's "The Wakening Lands", not "Wakening Lands".

Thanks!

# ¿ Sep 15, 2016 18:52

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Thanks Arae, I'll put up a new version this weekend.

alex.kay posted:

This looks cool. I started playing last month and just found out about this.. Is it possible to use on a Mac? I access the game thru a wine wrapper .

I'm afraid I have no idea, it's a Window program, but you can give it a shot.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2016 09:36

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Here is version 7 of ZlizEQMap:

http://www.zlizeq.com/ZlizEQ_Projects-ZlizEQMap

Two fixes:
* A map for Plane of Growth has been added.
* The program should now be more tolerant of a suddenly missing / moved EverQuest directory and prompt you to choose it again when starting up.

Enjoy, and spread the word in your guilds (but not on the P99 forum or people will whine).

# ¿ Sep 16, 2016 21:12

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Herv posted:

I totally agree. The level curve from using the top admin commands to scripting events is gigantic.

I just did poo poo like this, was fun as hell for a few nights, then... meh.

http://www.rerolled.org/showthread.php?4108-EQEMU-Boss-Fights

I love the one with Tunare vs. Neriak where they all start a cascade of footstep sounds after getting worn down by DS.

KingFisher posted:

Hey Goons,

Lets say I wanted me own EMU server, what would be the cost of spinning up a server with classic through planes?
I would then need to change the game significantly. I want a custom server called "Pantheon".

The basic idea is to treat all of EQ like an RPG you play through once with a group and "Beat EQ".
I define beating EQ as
1. The group of 6 players between them having 1 of each class at max level/AA's with any possible gear they might desire.
2. The the party killing every mob at-least once. Completing every significant quest at-least once.
3. Crafting each significant item at-least once.

To enable this the following changes would need to be made:
Each zone would be instanced. You can tell and NPC to respawn the zone at the entry, mobs don't respawn unless you want them to.
Mobs grant much more exp (how much is TBD) , to hit max level/AA's you basically kill everything once, and do all the quests / crafting you need to/want to do.
Obviously every mob/raid needs to be beatable by a single group.
For parties without all human players (be that single or boxing), I would want mercs/bots or the ability to make a PC into a bot temporarily.
All loot drop 100% of the time and x6. so players didn't have to kill a mob multiple times unless for fun.
All quest mobs up 100% of the time.
All named mobs up 100% of the time.

Players would then be able to make a plan to work their way through all of the games content making sure to kill everything and complete quests on their way to killing the gods and becoming one themselves.

Thoughts?

Sorry to be a party pooper, but if you aren't a fairly experienced software developer with advanced knowledge of C++ (the codebase of EQEmu), ability to setup a server, and at least more than basic database knowledge I would forget it. Sure you can hire a consultant, but it would drain your wallet beyond belief, and I think it would be very frustrating not knowing what is done, when it's done and being able to do it yourself. Hacking EMU servers is for programmers, it's not like setting up a WordPress site.

Pilsner fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Sep 23, 2016

# ¿ Sep 23, 2016 09:32

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Da Mott Man posted:

75% of this you could setup in a weekend.

This is the hard part that would take some time to make a quest for and would require some hefty perl scripting.

I hadn't thought about using the quest system for that, that's a good idea.

But still... if the guy has never seen a database before, it would be nigh impossible to do alone.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2016 11:26

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 23:08

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Meatgrinder posted:

And, lastly, and I cannot stress this enough: level > gear.

True, although for melee, weapons are ridiculously influential on your damage output.

I also put a lot of cash into clickies when I played - goblin earring, jboots, stave of shielding (technically not a clickie, proccie?), etc. Their power boost is not so great (except Jboots of course), but I just loooooove clickies.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2016 22:10

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The MMO HMO > Project 1999 & Emulated Everquest Servers: meet Project Quarm

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