Grr bark bark grr! SOE launches another EQ progression server on Feb 15th

[Simond]

If an old-school UO emu gets a bloody thread then an official SOE-run progression server deserves one as well. : )

As per the thread title, SOE is launching another time-locked progression server for EQ. It's going to be named after the best suicidal gnoll NPC in the game, and it looks like SOE is actually trying a little this time - maybe they're annoyed with the P99 people 'stealing their players' or something. They're making a bunch of changes to try and revert as much as possible to old-school EQ (OOC-regen won't be unlocked until the relevant expansion, no beastlords or furries until Luclin, no scalies until Velious, no freebie newbie armour, jewellery/alchemy back to original skills, etc. etc.). So it's as close as SOE is ever going to get to a genuine P99-style retro-emu-server.

SOE is also trying to drag ex-players back: If you have an inactive EQ account (cancelled, not banned) - you've got free playtime until Februiary 21st.

The live date for the time-locked progression server has now been announced as Tuesday 15th February - so earlier than the originally suggested date of March.

A few interesting things from the offical faq -

What sort of items and content will and will not be available at launch on Fippy?

* For the Fippy Darkpaw Server we have done our absolute best to remove items which would give an inappropriate or undue advantage such as Defiant Armor or certain tradeskill related items. Generally the items that you will find should be items that came with the expansion currently available or were unlocked during that expansion. Augments created specifically for progression servers will be available.

Will there be Hotzones or Hotzone drops??

* Hotzones and Hotzone items will not be available on Fippy at release

How about Marketplace items, will Mounts be available?

* In addition to restrictions on items initially available within the game, Marketplace, Loyalty, and Claim items have been similarly addressed. If an item or buff offers stats, it will probably not be offered from any of those methods until a later date. Mounts will not be available until Legacy of Ykesha is unlocked or later, depending on the mount.

How will tradeskills work on Fippy Darkpaw?

* We have made efforts to limit tradeskills to the expansion when the recipe actually came out. Potion making and jewelry making have had the old recipes enabled, and these will stay this way until the Prophecy of Ro expansion is unlocked. Similarly the new poisons will not be activated until around Underfoot. The exception is spell research where we will not reverse it to the older method. Instead, we have limited recipes for the appropriate expansion and made ingredients for research available in more zones..

How will progression work on Fippy Darkpaw?

* As with the previous progression servers, players will need to defeat certain challenges to unlock newer expansions. Once these challenges have been defeated there will be a grace period where the server will stay in the current expansion. After the grace period, players will be able to vote through an in game poll to unlock the next expansion. The voting period will be one week.

Initially the grace period will be 90 days before voting will start for Kunark, then 60 days for each expansion after that. At some point we will even have a vote to see if players wish to change that grace period.

If the majority of players vote to unlock the next expansion, the next expansion will unlock at the end of the poll. If the majority of players voted to stay with the current expansion, then there will be a one week grace period before another poll will be posted. This will happen until a majority players vote to unlock the next expansion.

Dev-Ngreth:

Time of server release: ROUGH estimate, 10am PST on the 15th.

Revamp zones: Revamped zones will be in their current form.

Some zones had "Alternate Data" these zone will have the original data if available, and swith to the "new data" at the aproximate expansion time it was done on live.

Expansion classes: The classes will not be available until the expansion they were introduced.

Racial penalties and bonuses: The bonuses will stay, the penalties will NOT be re-instated.

Alchemy and JC: It was a change in plans. While we could have made further restrictions, since the data and drops for old jewelry, alchemy and poison making are readily available, we decided to make it the even more original way. So it will be the old way until an appropriate expansion where it will swap.

This was not feasible with what was done with spell research. It will continue to be the "new" way, just with a restricted recipe availability.

Spells: It will be the current method of spell acquisition.

Exp gain: exp has been scaled back. At this point I don't plan to give an exact number, though that may change.

Hell levels are not back. We did not restore the original curves, instead we just slowed down experience gain overall. It will use the current "curves" but exp gain has been slowed.

Boats: translocators will still be available because boats are still unreliable. Unfortunately they are still buggy and we have not been able to spend the time needed to nail it down.

Progression vote griefing: We are working on a new poling systems. You will even see a new button on the EQ button in the February patch, but the system is not done yet, and will not be complete until the March patch, which is still plenty of time for progression since the absolute minimum will be 90 days before a vote is needed, though we can hope for more!

We will be able to restrict the poll to just the progression server, AND we plan to even level limit it so people can't be scabs and just create a level 1 character to vote... they have to get to a certain level, I.E be a player on the server. The voting will be account based, not character based, so each account gets 1 vote.

Though unlike Sleeper server, we do have an EXP slowdown going which will affect the rate of level gain this time.

I don't doubt there will be some people that spend very long hours, and optimize everything possible in a way that was not possible in 1999 and do it quickly, but it will not be as easy as the last time we did the progression server.

While we cannot stop this 100%, we hope the level limit we plan to apply will help reduce that because it will increase the time investment needed for them to grief the server.

We have not nailed down exactly what level we plan to do this, but there *IS* reduced exp on the server, as I mentioned before, so the time investment will be longer than it would be on a normal server.

Server stopping at Velious:: That is actually something that interest us here. We are curious if people really DO want that "Classic" server that is stuck at Velious, or if they will finally get bored enough to unlock Luclin.

(And I'm probably going to log in, go "Oh yeah, that's why I quit" and log out again. Just like the last progression server )

[Koyasha]

They kinda lost me at the 'revamped zones will be in their current form' part.  If I could go back and screw around in the original Cazic Thule, Freeport, Plane of Hate - yes, with all its crazy bugginess - and especially the Plane of Mischief, they'd get some more money out of me, even if I didn't stick around for too long.  The last time I tried going back that's at least one of the reasons I got bored and quit again - I couldn't go back to some of the old places I really loved, cause they had been revamped.

Funny thing - as much as the revamp zones are graphically superior to the originals, I think they look far worse.  The original style at least is familiar and draws me in through nostalgia if nothing else, unlike the revamped appearance.

[Simond]

Only the zones with new geometry (Freeport) will be post-revamp. Everything that's just a "same zone, new mobs"-style revamp should have the original zone until the revamp is 'due'. That's what the "Alternate data" bit means. So new Freeport, but original CT, PoH/PoM, etc.

[Koyasha]

I wonder why.  I know for a fact that the geometry for the old zones still exists, as of last year, at least, if I remember right.  A friend managed to bind in old North Ro, and gating still took her there, and other than being inaccessible, the zone and all its creatures were still present.  Still, if Mischief is going to be old Mischief...maybe I'll need to go check it out after all.

Edit: Admittedly, the timing is pretty bad right now.  Especially with Dragon Age 2 coming up, I also want to check out Rift and see if I like it, etc.  Still, if once I'm done with DA2 the progression server hasn't advanced at an exceedingly fast pace or something, it might be worth checking out just to revisit Mischief and Hate and such, and maybe get some Rubicite and Manastones.   

[Surlyboi]

You've ruined your progression, you'll not ruin mine.

[Minvaren]

Presumably the server stays up longer than Fippy did, right?   

[Strazos]

Wow, if I had nothing to do, this might be amusing to try, just for kicks.

As is...who has time for this anymore?

Also, no idea what class I would even play...rogue was impossible to solo with.

[Shatter]

So it goes up the same day as OB Rift starts...hmmm.   

[Minvaren]

Also, no idea what class I would even play...rogue was impossible to solo with.

EQ Solo = Necro.

[Merusk]

Necro, Druid, Mages and to a lesser extent Shadow Knights early on.   Wizards and Enchanters got pretty good at it, too.

Really, anything with plenty of ranged attacks seemed to do ok after those hellish 20s & 30s.

[El Gallo]

I am only moderately ashamed to admit that I will be taking a hit off this nostalgia pipe.

Mages (revamped pets) will be invincible, monks (revamped unarmed damage table) and necros (revamped pets) nearly so, and all other casters (revamped spells + spell-per-level progression + focus items) right behind.  

[Ruvaldt]

I'll be playing.  I actually co-led a major guild on one of the last two progression servers and continued once they were merged.  Getting back together with the same group to do it all over again, but honestly, if it wasn't for them I wouldn't do it.  I just know that it'll fit my playtime (reasonable) and preferences (no poopsocking) perfectly.

[pants]

I just know that it'll fit my playtime (reasonable) and preferences (no poopsocking) perfectly.

Where do you get the no poopsocking from?  While I haven't done a heap of research about whats in and out (I haven't played EQ since 2003, so I am very out of the loop for what is in these days), stuff like

They're making a bunch of changes to try and revert as much as possible to old-school EQ (OOC-regen won't be unlocked until the relevant expansion, no beastlords or furries until Luclin, no scalies until Velious, no freebie newbie armour, jewellery/alchemy back to original skills, etc. etc.).

Says to me that they're trying for the poopsock 1999 version, with staring at spellbooks and 5-10 minute downtime between fights.  What am I missing?

[Kail]

SOE is also trying to drag ex-players back: If you have an inactive EQ account (cancelled, not banned) - you've got free playtime until Februiary 21st.

To the best of my knowledge, I've never had an EQ account (certainly never played it) but got the e-mail anyway.  Maybe it's just going out to everyone with an SoE account?

[Cadaverine]

I got the email the other day, and decided to it a whirl for old times sake.   

Playing EQ for an hour, or two, really makes me appreciate WoW, Rifts, et all, and all the little quality-of-life things that they have added throughout the years since EQ.

[trias_e]

It's funny, I went back to Project 1999 after playing WoW and Rift, and instead I realized how much I hate about the new school MMORPGs. 

[HaemishM]

Boats: translocators will still be available because boats are still unreliable. Unfortunately they are still buggy and we have not been able to spend the time needed to nail it down.

 

So wait, why don't they just call this a Masochist Nostalgia server? Because it sounds to me like slamming my nuts in a car door and thinking about that time a hot girl kicked me in the chao sack during high school.

[Hawkbit]

True story:  I was playing EQ very causally in the beginning.   While my friends were out raiding the planes, I was happy to farm up spider silks and wisps from Kerra Isle.  When the patch hit that broke the boats, I was camped on Kerra Isle.  There were no translocators and I didn't know anyone to come get me.  It took four RL days for my petition to go through to move me from that zone.  Ahhh, the fond memories. 

[shiznitz]

Well, at least I know now not to play a Ranger...

[Merusk]

Last I played EQ, our rangers were affectionately known as the corpse brigade. We had one fight (I think it was a dragon in Temple of Veeshan) where a ranger lived through the whole fight and it was cause for celebration.   I don't think this was uncommon for the class, either.

[pants]

Last I played EQ, our rangers were affectionately known as the corpse brigade. We had one fight (I think it was a dragon in Temple of Veeshan) where a ranger lived through the whole fight and it was cause for celebration.   I don't think this was uncommon for the class, either.

Uhm, was it Cazic-Thule?  The God who would death touch 1 person on the pull - so one person always died?  - We would always send in a particular ranger, because they were going to die anyway.

Who thought it was a good idea to be certain that 1 person out of your raid group would always die and spend 5-10 minutes watching everyone else have fun?

[Koyasha]

Who thought it was a good idea to be certain that 1 person out of your raid group would always die and spend 5-10 minutes watching everyone else have fun?

Uh, they didn't.  They immediately got ressed and rebuffed.  Any DT fight you usually had at least one cleric assigned to res/rebuff duty.  Well honestly on almost any fight you usually had at least one cleric assigned to res/rebuff duty, but especially on fights with death touch.  I, at least, never saw a raid that just let the death touch eater sit there dead for the entire fight.

[Merusk]

I'm sure it wasn't CT, because I never did CT.  VT, Ssra Temple, Giants in the giant city, stuff in the caverns on Luclin and early planes are all I raided.  I stopped shortly before my guild went on to do that Paladin God.. Mith-Mar? Ro?  I had a coworker who was doing the Rathe Council at the time I was doing that stuff, though. 

The dragons in VT had some sort of wacky aggro thing with a ranged attack, from what I remember the rangers telling me.  Their bow attacks would get the dragons shooting something at them that would kill them. That was.. hm.. almost 8 years ago now so I'm probably forgetting specifics. Wow, time's flown.   

[Trippy]

Last I played EQ, our rangers were affectionately known as the corpse brigade.

RANGER DOWN!

The Rangers I knew hated that

[Tale]

The Fippy progression server is pointless. If you want the oldschool EQ experience, Project 1999 delivers it including the old zones, working boats, the old UI, hell levels, workable player population and none of SOE's "we couldn't revert fully to oldschool" excuses.

[Ruvaldt]

That isn't a list of reasons why a progression server is pointless, it's a list of reasons why I'd never play on the Project 1999 server.

I just know that it'll fit my playtime (reasonable) and preferences (no poopsocking) perfectly.

Where do you get the no poopsocking from?

Because I choose not to, and so does the guild I co-led on Sleeper/Combine.  EQ can be fun without playing for 12+ hour stretches.  No, there won't be any staring at spellbooks, and when did you play EQ having to wait 5 - 10 minutes between fights?  I'm not happy about the no OOC regen thing, so I agree with you there; we had it on Sleeper/Combine and I liked it.  Improved spells, spell progressions, monk hand to hand damage, pet revamps, etc are all being kept along with changes to mitigation over time.  In fact, pcs even respawn with their gear rather than having to retrieve all of their stuff on corpse runs, thankfully.

The last time I played on a progression server we raided 2-3 times a week, usually for 2 hour stretches, or 3+ on the weekends if anything good was up, and in terms of the content we were tackling we were second only to the bleeding edge that lived online.

[Strazos]

I remember getting vanish (or whatever the improved hide skill was) on my rogue...it was a great day, for I no longer had a good excuse to ever die in groups if I had a chance to fire it.

There was some raid, middling plane stuff perhaps. Some fight where if people start dying, hardcore skeletons start spawning from their corpses. We had a full 50+ person raid or whatever totally wipe...except for me. I got to stand there and stare at a stack of 50+ lvl 70 skeletons while everyone screamed for me to run away. They eventually de-popped, and I started dragging corpses.

Oh corpse runs...couldn't solo for shit, but at least I could almost always get a corpse back for someone.

I also loved the day that I figured out that running+strafing was slightly faster than just running, and could actually outrun mobs that way. Many a train was dragged to a zone line when that was figured out. Or that damn ice spider down in the caverns in Velious. Has a tank drop so we all started to run. I managed to drag everything back to the dwarf outpost, where I panicked and jumped up on some ledge...the only ledge, it turns out, that mobs cannot get to you. Shit ran in circles trying to get to me, until the guards worked them down.

Good times.

[Koyasha]

There was some raid, middling plane stuff perhaps. Some fight where if people start dying, hardcore skeletons start spawning from their corpses. We had a full 50+ person raid or whatever totally wipe...except for me. I got to stand there and stare at a stack of 50+ lvl 70 skeletons while everyone screamed for me to run away. They eventually de-popped, and I started dragging corpses.

Shei Vinitras.  The mob that zergs you back, x4.  For each person that dies, 4 skeletons spawn.  This includes pets.  This includes swarm pets, when they had those in.  I think I went once when some mage or something clicked his swarm pet button.  It was an instant wipe.

[Merusk]

No, there won't be any staring at spellbooks, and when did you play EQ having to wait 5 - 10 minutes between fights? 

1999 and 2000, quad-kiting Walruses in Velious or killing the Druids in Karanas.  Kill 4, you're OOM then the mana bar took about 5 mins to fill up.  Those were the pre-KEI days.

[Strazos]

Oh, soloing...fuck that noise. 

[Hawkbit]

No, there won't be any staring at spellbooks, and when did you play EQ having to wait 5 - 10 minutes between fights? 

1999 and 2000, quad-kiting Walruses in Velious or killing the Druids in Karanas.  Kill 4, you're OOM then the mana bar took about 5 mins to fill up.  Those were the pre-KEI days.

My wizard would quad spectres at the tower, then I'd go lift weights in the next room for a few reps while waiting on mana.  Rinse, repeat.  I actually worked out pretty well.  Best arms I've had in life were playing EQ... as odd as that is.

[Ruvaldt]

Ah, I see.  I never really solo'd much so my mileage definitely varied.

[Surlyboi]

Last I played EQ, our rangers were affectionately known as the corpse brigade. We had one fight (I think it was a dragon in Temple of Veeshan) where a ranger lived through the whole fight and it was cause for celebration.   I don't think this was uncommon for the class, either.

I survived an epic run on City of Mist when almost the entire rest of the raid wiped.

How?

I fell asleep while auto-following the enchanter. One of the only times pre PoP that I survived a raid the whole way through.

[Cadaverine]

No, there won't be any staring at spellbooks, and when did you play EQ having to wait 5 - 10 minutes between fights? 

1999 and 2000, quad-kiting Walruses in Velious or killing the Druids in Karanas.  Kill 4, you're OOM then the mana bar took about 5 mins to fill up.  Those were the pre-KEI days.

If my memory isn't playing tricks on me, I believe it took my Druid 16 minutes to go from 0 to full mana while quad kiting the dwarves in Butcherblock in the 40s.

[Sky]

My wizard would quad spectres at the tower, then I'd go lift weights in the next room for a few reps while waiting on mana.  Rinse, repeat.  I actually worked out pretty well.  Best arms I've had in life were playing EQ... as odd as that is.

I had the same kind of routine. Sometimes I'd change it up with smoking pot and playing guitar. Or reading a book. It had a certain zen quality to it, but it would drive me absolutely insane now that I'm used to actually playing games while I'm playing games.

My favorite raid was plane of hate, I made a 45 minute beer run and really didn't miss anything (had my buddy over playing his wizard at the pc next to mine who would move me if needed).