It's been about a month since I started messing with EverQuest Project 1999 and I've got a much better feel for what I've gotten myself into than I had when I originally posted about the game. At that point I was going off of mostly speculation based on what I had seen at that point. Today, I'd like to talk about what I've actually seen and done and give you an idea of what makes this game different.
How's the population?
This is probably the most frequently asked question when someone sees me playing Project1999 on stream. The simple, factual answer is between 600 and 1200 players depending on the time of day. I have no idea how that compares to the live server or EverQuest in its day. One thing that has been pretty clear is that there are people everywhere. From level 1 to 16 I've seen people moving around Qeynos, Black Burrow, and Western Karana. I've been in some full groups of strangers. I've been in zones that were too busy to be of use to me. I've also went to "hotzones" like Black Burrow and seen nobody in the zone. The server isn't crowded by any means, but there are lots of people enjoying the game at any given time. Just this morning I was shocked to see 8 people in Western Karana. That's more than I'd ever seen in the zone on live.
The important thing to point out when talking about population is that the only population you care about is the population that can help you do the things you want to do. What difference would it make to me personally if there were 10,000 players online and I was the only level 1 player around Ak'Anon? That's the situation on the live server from my personal experience. Leveling is so fast on live that you'll never get to know anyone. If I have a night off and play for 6 hours I'll blow by anyone who wasn't online to the point that they won't be able to group with me anymore. In Project 1999 the XP is slow. I've been farming bandits in Western Karana for weeks and have run into a lot of the same people day to day. It's nice to have a farming spot that lasts a few weeks because you're getting to know the area. For me, West Karana offers a good source of experience from the mobs and a great repeatable quest for both experience and platinum from the stuff they drop. I know my way around from the camp, to town, to the turn in NPC, and back and it's comfortable to keep doing what I'm doing.
I guess the best way to put it is I'm comfortable doing what I'm doing with the people who are around my level in the zones that I frequent. That's a good population if you ask me.
Understanding an old school mentality
MMOs used to be all about the journey. The games were meant to be enjoyed from the day you roll your character all the way through max level. The raid content that was available was basically a bonus. It was a way to reward you for spending all that time killing "a grass snake"s by giving you a chance to best huge monsters and make use of all the skills and gear you've earned. It wasn't an understanding that you were required to hit max level before you could enjoy a game until quite recently. I had no knowledge or interest in raiding end game stuff until I had been playing EverQuest for many years. Now, people routinely talk about "how long until max level" and "end game" is brought up in the first reviews of the game! This mentality has trivialized the time spent in game before max level. Companies are no longer building in a compelling experience from 1 to max. They are simply cranking out raid encounters and forgetting about everything else.
In the interest of keeping people engaged in the gameplay, modern games typically make you feel powerful early. You never get the feeling of being a tiny speck in the universe because they are afraid of losing subs. In contrast, my level 1 barbarian warrior almost stayed level 1 because the Vengeful Soloist (high level monster) was hanging around the entrance to the newbie hunting grounds and kept coming out of left field and murdering me. He wanders around, so even if you can't see him, you know he's out there somewhere waiting to put you in the ground if you stop paying attention. By the end of the night I had been killed by that stupid skeleton 6 times. It honestly feels like he's there to keep you from feeling like you have anything figured out. He's not far from the guards, but he's just as fast as you are, so you'll be limping to the city guards at low health praying that they save you many times regardless of how careful you are.
The other thing that I find very different with EverQuest is how quests are given out. You have to actually find an NPC that needs something done. I typically start with the guild master at my starting city and then walk around and hail every NPC in town trying to find something to do. When you say the right stuff they might point you in the right direction, but it's way more likely they'll just give you a hint. Then, when you're progressing through the quest there's a good chance that you'll run into monsters that you have no chance in killing... because the quests aren't given by level. You very rarely even know what the reward is going to be when you start... or if the task at hand is the only task or a piece of a large chain. Contrast that with the modern quest window that tells you where to go, what has to be done, and what the reward is before you even accept the quest. It is just a completely different feeling. It's exciting to hail someone and see what they have to say. You could end up with a bit of experience and gold for the things you were already doing or be sent on some epic quest that could last for months. You have no idea and things are never segregated by level, so it's a crap shoot what you're getting into. It's so much more rewarding... even when you spend a whole day collecting ice goblin necklaces to end up with a lantern.
In fact, getting that silly lantern after spending all that time collecting necklaces made it better. I got a lot of xp killing ice goblins, I had a goal to achieve, and when it was all over I got myself a light source. Would I have preferred a nice piece of armor or a weapon? Yes. But, the game doesn't work like that. It's never easy and there are no short cuts to get where you want to go.
When it feels like there is a short cut, there's often a down side. There is a repeatable quest in Black Burrow where you collect gnoll fangs and turn them in to a Captain Tillian in Qeynos for xp. You get a TON of experience for turning them in, but you lose faction standing with the "corrupt Qeynos guards." When you start turning them in it's almost impossible to tell which guards are which. Most guards were "indifferent" to me when I got to town. After turning in a bunch of fangs I noticed a guard "glowered at me dubiously" which meant I was not very well regarded. At that point I stopped turning fangs in. Meanwhile, a couple of my friends from the stream who wanted to catch up quickly kept turning in fangs for the "free" xp. Now, the corrupt guards are "Kill on Sight" to them. That means there are guards in town that will attack them the second they see them every time they want to go to Qeynos. These guards "path" around town, so both of these guys have a few deaths a piece thanks to their "free" xp and easy shortcut to leveling.
Can you imagine a new game having a mechanic like that? Want to level quick? Do this... but we'll make this town a death trap. I'm sure they'd be afraid people would just uninstall.
Death
I've also re-acquired my fear of dying in EverQuest. If it takes me 10 minutes to get to the place I want to hunt monsters then that's 10 minutes I'm going to lose if I die. I've found that I lose about an hour's worth of xp every time I die and Resurrections are laughably hard to find. I've only seen one cleric since I started playing other than the one I rolled and you don't get a rez spell until way later in the game. Your corpse goes away if you loot everything off of it, so you'd have to leave an item on the corpse you want rezzed and hope to find someone to rez you... not worth it at this point. That means it's not worth pushing yourself to the absolute limit because death is such a drastic penalty. On live I was typically fighting mobs that conned red meaning they are at least 3 levels higher than I am. On Project 1999 I prefer to fight light blues because they are the lowest level I can get xp from killing (with this odd exception of some greens giving xp that I don't understand). I end up getting more xp and having more fun because I'm not out of mana or dead while fighting light blues.
What type of maniac would prefer a high death penalty in an MMO? It seems like it would be a bad design choice. When you take a closer look at what a huge death penalty does to a game you start to realize why it was there in the first place. It makes every life valuable. If dying does nothing to your character and you're right back in the action, why fear death? Why play safe? Why learn encounters or practice things? Why would you have to know your character? Your skills? Your abilities? When the game keeps you safe on its own then things become way less meaningful.
This doesn't even take into account corpse runs. I forgot how I used to keep a full set of plate armor and weapons in the bank for my warrior just for when he'd die. I remembered when I died and didn't have any way of protecting myself on my way back to my corpse. Luckily, I wasn't far from home when I was put down. If that had been in the bottom of some crypt in the middle of nowhere I would have needed to have a backup set of gear just to get my real gear back.
Experience Gain
The "grind" has been fun. I make plenty of progress when I'm online and have been smoothly moving from level to level. It's slow enough that I get a real good feel of where I am and what I'm doing but it's not so slow that I'll be bored of what I'm doing before the next option becomes available. I would like to try new places from time to time, but I have been having a lot of new friends joining the game and basing out of one place that's easy to get to has been very useful. If I was on my own I'd of probably moved from Qeynos to Freeport, but as it stands, West Karana is fine and Qeynos is feeling like home. Sure, it's been a month and I'm only level 16, but I wouldn't want it any other way. I'm feeling like this is the best pacing in any MMO I've played. The world is complex and moving any faster would trivialize content before I even had a grip on where I'm at. I really like it.
Other Hurdles to Jump
At level 16 I finally got Breeze and Quickness (mana regen and weapon attack speed buffs) which means I have at least one version of every spell class I'm going to get. Prior to hitting 16 I felt incomplete. I'm glad I'm there, but a month to get here was a lot. I wouldn't want to get xp faster, I'd like to see these spells unlocked just a touch earlier.
Spells, spell reagents, and spell research that aren't available in either Qeynos or Halas simply don't exist. I'm not about to make a trek to a new city just to buy tiny daggers so I can summon an illusion pet. I'm also not about to go halfway across the world to buy the updated illusions or research spells. I'm going to have to end up dumping all my skill points into research so I can try to avoid failing the spell combines because the components are hard to come by. One of the "torn pages" I need I only have 1 of, so if that fails I may find myself killing level 15 humanoid mobs for days for no experience just to find that specific half page again. This must be less of a problem for porting classes, but for me, I just don't see the value in grabbing any non-essential spell from far away when I can do just fine without it. There have been two exceptions to this. Breeze is from The Overthere... and SUPERHUBBBRO got it for me. The other is my AE mez which I have to research. Once I have 5 or 10 of each the left and right side of the pages I need to research it I'll make the trip and try it out.
I forgot all about the fact that you can't just group with anyone. I know that's not a new concept, but you can only group with people in your level range. At level 10 you can group up to 16 (I believe) and the formula goes your level + ((your level/2) + 1). That isn't so forgiving early on. Not a huge deal when you're looking for group members, but when you're trying to group with friends you'd wish it was just a higher xp penalty vs no xp at all for the lowbie.
"I have no use for this" was added way after this era. If you don't have any idea what I'm talking about... when you gave a quest item to an NPC who didn't need it on live the NPC would hand it back and say "I have no use for this." On Project 1999 they simply consume the item with no recourse. Even killing the NPC won't get your item back... so it's gone. I made the mistake of handing my tattered note to the wrong NPC 3 out of 4 times meaning I have 3 characters who are completely nude for the start of their existence. In fact, none of those 3 have chest armor due to that piece being "covered" by the tattered note gear and not well represented as dropped equipment in newbie zones.
Will I keep playing?
Yes. I'm actually pretty happy with Project 1999 right now. I'm enjoying the pace of the world and the quality of the people I'm running into. The guys from the stream who have joined me online have been a lot of fun as well. I hope we all keep at it.
The only disappointing thing about playing Project 1999 on stream is that it's not very popular with viewers. I do intend to continue playing the game on stream, but I will try and mix other games in there from time to time.
That being said, Tera is another game that I've had my eye on for a while and while I normally can tune out his BS, Jay has been persistent about me getting involved... so I probably will in the coming week or two.
Tropico 4 has been a blast too. Just a silly sim game that's fun to play. I will have a review of that game soon.
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