A Better Post about Project 1999

I seriously feel like I dropped the ball in the last post, but here's my attempt at making it all better.

Project 1999 can be found HERE

Once you have installed EverQuest Titanium (DO NOT PATCH THE GAME ONCE IT FINISHES INSTALLING) Duxa's All in One Installer can be found HERE

To use the Luclin character models... read THIS and you can copy and paste the following link into your GlobalLoad file mentioned in the previous link to get all Luclin models at once LINK

Now that the links are out of the way, let's talk about the game.

EverQuest Project 1999 (hereby known as P99) is, like I said in a previous post, a recreation of the original EverQuest experience as it was in 1999.  Lots of things are removed, but you retain the convenience of the "modern" UI (at least the one I personally remember).  You can use the Luclin character models if you follow some rather difficult (but probably easy) instructions linked above, but visuals aren't going to bring the compas, map, find command, Soul Binders, Spell Descriptions, or newbie quests back.

Seeing as this is a very detailed recreation, you're not going to have any trouble running this on your pc on max settings with everything turned on all the time, but don't expect to be blown away by the graphics.  In fact, it looks so bad it's almost the same as playing a table top RPG where you're making up what things REALLY look like in your head.  Yes, you can see "a rat" but if you can't picture what it would look like in a more sophisticated graphics engine than you may have a bad time.  I basically see the graphics as a place holder for my imagination.  The world I see is just the sandbox I'm playing in.  Your sand won't mean the same to you as my sand does to me, so don't come here expecting Rift's graphics.  The beauty is in the depth of the game.  This was a labor of love produced when there was very little precedent for a game of this type. Sure, Ultima Online was successful, Dungeons and Dragons is still popular, and there were other massively multiplayer online roleplaying games that were text based and wildly popular (for the genre and time period). But, EverQuest was just different.  The world is just so vast.  Every room is thought out.  Every mob is carefully placed.  The game is amazing... while looking like it could be played on a calculator watch.

Pros: Will play on any working PC
Cons: Graphics will turn a lot of people off.

"What can I expect of the gameplay?" said the person who played his first MMO in the 2010s.

If you're used to any modern role playing game without ever having stepped foot in Norath, you're in for a rude awakening.  This is tab targeting and D20 die rolls all day err day.  It's basically a digital world built around the standards of tabletop RPGs and functions very similarly.  It's almost turn based in its "simplicity."  Sure, you'll have keys to hit and timings to learn, but you basically click a mob to target it, activate your auto attack, and stay in range.  You guys will punch each other in the face until one of you dies.  Some mobs run, so that's a whole 'nother can of worms, but for the most part you are attacking something that will stand there and attack you back until only one is living.

At early levels this can be seen as mind numbingly boring to those who aren't emotionally invested in the exploration of the world.  Experience gain is slow.  Picture the slowest XP gain you can.  Now cut that speed in half.  That's still about 10x faster than EverQuest was at launch.  The grind was still based on tabletop and text based RPGs where max level wasn't a goal you had to hit.  It was out there, and you knew it existed, but the vast majority of my friends didn't hit a level cap until well into the 4th or 5th expansion regardless of when they started.  It was just too hard.  Not that a long slow grind is a bad thing.  The world is so amazing to just hang out in and offers plenty of really high quality social time.  You just need to fight your way through the first few levels and get yourself set up with your baseline skills before you are ready to progress to the meat and potatoes of EQ...

Group Dynamics and Social Structure

EverQuest and by extention P99 embrace the Trinity of MMO group structure (Tank soaks damage, Healer keeps tank alive, DPS kills things quickly).  And then EverQuest takes it a step further.  In EverQuest you have the Trinity, and that can work, but there's also a group roll for puller, slower, and crowd control.  Yes, you can duo as Tank/Healer and get xp.  Add in some DPS and you'll be moving right along.  Add in a slower or some crowd control and you'll be safe and happy.  Find that final piece... the puller... and your experience bar is going to FLY (by P99 standards).

To illustrate this a bit for those who have no idea why these rolls work the way they do, let's design my perfect group:

Warrior, Cleric, Enchanter, Bard, Rogue, Wizard
or you could say:
Tank, Healer, Slower/CC, Puller/CC, DPS, DPS

The group finds a relatively safe spot where monsters won't spawn and "set up camp."  The bard is able to "split pull" which means he can pull 1 monster from a tightly packed group of monsters and have him show up back at camp alone.  This means you don't have to take on the whole pack of monsters at once and can challenge the highest difficulty monsters that your gear/level allow instead of having to dial it back so you can handle 10 at once.

Bard tells the group: "Incoming 'a small rat' GET THIS THING OFF ME!"

He's got one, and he's on his way.  At this point the Warrior positions himself to take on the monster once it hits camp.  He uses his "aggro" building abilities to make the monster ignore the Bard and start beating on him instead.  The tank selects his armor and weapons with one goal in mind: Take all the damage and keep the group safe.  Tank classes have higher damage mitigation and scale well with high armor and stamina(vitality).  They are the shield that protects the group but it comes at the cost of being very low damage.  Once he has the mob's undivided attention, he announces that fact, and now everyone else is ready to do their part.

Warrior tells the group: "Assist me with 'a small rat' RAWR!"

Now it's time for the Enchanter to get in on the mob.  It's the enchanter's job to weaken the monster so the warrior takes as little damage as possible.  The Enchanter can also "debuff" a mob making it weaker to specific attacks and magic, but these spells make monsters VERY angry... so the enchanter has to learn how mobs react to his spells and be careful not to pull the focus (called aggro) from the warrior.  Typically, if a warrior calls for an assist he is certain he's ready to hold that mob's attention, but it also isn't an invitation to test that fact.  [NOTE: Aggro isn't a lock no matter how good a tank you are.  That means you need to be careful you don't take that aggro from the warrior... can you tell I played a warrior for years?].

Enchanter tells the group: "a small rat has been slowed"

At the same time the Enchanter is de-buffing the mob, the Rogue and Wizard enter the fight.  It's their job to make the fight as short as possible.  They use their abilities and magic to destroy anything brought to the group.  This reduces the strain on resources and prevents fights from getting risky.  A smart DPS character can cover for a bad member elsewhere.  A bad DPS character can grind a group down to a crawl.  It's one of the most "enjoyed" roles in groups because you get to just unload on mobs one after another and watch big numbers fly through your logs.  Not only that, but most DPS classes can bring some neat tricks to the table as well.  These tricks could help the other classes by enhancing their role or temporarily covering for someone who falls in battle until they can be resurrected.

I don't have a typical chat macro for DPS... they are normally too busy comparing crits.

Through all this we have the Cleric resting in the back carefully monitoring the health of all the members of the party.  The whole group is counting on the cleric for heals, but he is targeting the warrior.  The warrior and cleric have a special relationship where the two of them can cover up a world of hurt from everyone else.  The warrior can take a whole buss full of damage, but if he goes down, the cleric dies, and the group is wiped.  Because of this, the cleric is paying extra attention to the warrior to ensure he survives.  Does the warrior need a quick spike of health before the enchanter can get the mob slowed?  Would a Heal over Time (HoT) work?  Does he need the HoT along with spot heals or can I go into the longer and less mana intensive "complete heal?"  How intense a heal can I cast without the mob turning on me?  It may not seem like it from all the action going on around the cleric, but his or her mana bar will determine how quickly your experience bar fills.  If the cleric is being forced to use mana-inefficient quick heals or being forced to heal more than just the warrior than he's going to have to meditate way more frequently.  A cleric going out of mana (OOM) is a kick in the guts to the rest of the group.  This could be for a number of reasons.  The way this is normally directed is at the cleric's gear, skill level, or game experience.  This could be true, but there is so much more that goes into a cleric's effectiveness.  Is the Warrior geared well enough for this content?  Does your group do enough damage?  Are the slows coming fast enough and staying on the mob the whole fight?  Is the crowd control effective?  Are the pulls sloppy or too heavy with adds?  Basically, if you're a good cleric your tell windows will be popping all over with group invites every time you log in, but it can be a thankless job.

Now, we have the warrior taking damage and keeping aggro, the rogue and wizard doing damage, the enchanter keeping the mobs weak, and the cleric healing, but what's the bard doing?  He's helping out with a little DPS of his own while "timing" the fight.  A top tier puller will have the next mob to the group by the time the last one dies.  In order to pull this off, the bard must gain a feel for the group quickly and know where to pull from, how long each pull takes, the "pathing" that will effect the mob's behavior, and how to get back.  A great puller can turn your otherwise slow and boring camp into a nonstop slug-fest for as long as you can take it.

I understand how groups work, but what did you mean by "social situations?"

You end up spending a lot of time with people far away from home who you are trusting to do their jobs so you can all leave rich and happy.  If they screw up, that could mean hours of misery getting your stuff back along with a huge loss in experience (you lose a ton when you die)... and time.  Building a bit of comradery among yourselves is a natural thing.  You'll be joking around, telling stories, comparing gear, and having a well flowing conversation before you know it.  It isn't every group that becomes fast friends, but friendliness and respect go a long way when you're counting on that clutch heal or quick stun.  This isn't match making where you could just drop out, be teleported back to your world, and join a different group of people.  You make the cleric angry and your corpse could be stuck at the bottom of an endless dungeon until it rots to dust.  The time spent building a group, moving to your camp, and getting things started is enough to make people behave like actual decent human beings to each other.

On an emulated server like p99 this attitude of "let's help each other out and be cool" is even more prevalent.  They don't have the marketing team of a major publisher going out and doing everything they can to bring in more people.  If the community stinks, the server dies.  In the small amount of time I've spent in p99's Norath I've already made a friend who turned out to be the leader of a guild that has the goal of helping new players.  In that guild was a cross sample of all the goodness I saw back in my nostalgia producing early days of EQ.  In fact, my first guild, Kingdom of Lights was set up in much the same way.  They were a family guild who spent more time leveling together and having fun than they did worrying about progression or raids.    I think I may have found a real home... even if I can't find my way through Freeport yet.

That being said, with how much you invest in even the seemingly smallest of tasks it's very likely that tempers will flare.  I can't speak to this on p99, but I can say with certainty that being trained by someone who thought we were stealing monsters from "his camp" happened a ton back in the early days.  P99 has its own rules in regards to training (and a bunch of other stuff) but I don't really have a perspective on this one yet. I just don't want to pretend like this is the happiest place on Earth or that the community has found a path that leads to world peace.  It's still an online game that people invest big time and energy into.  With passion comes anger from time to time.  Be ready for it.


Sounds great.  Why isn't everyone playing it?

Here's what will make you hate it if you've never played it before... especially this era:

• Absolutely no clue where you should be going, what connects to where, what direction your facing, etc.  You MUST consult 3rd party resources on the web
• Death Penalties are steep.  Lose a ton of XP and you're forced to get back to your corpse in order to get your stuff back.  If you want any of the XP you lost back then you need to find someone to come to your corpse and 'rez' you.
• Tab Targeting "turn based-like" combat.  You target, turn on attack, and every "tick" will result in a series of die rolls that determines if you miss, hit, or critically strike and for how much damage based on gear/weapons/stats.  Things like "haste" speed up the time between ticks.  You'll basically be waiting for abilities to cool off and mana to return while you autoattack.  (as a warrior, most of my time in early EQ was spent waiting for the "kick" or "bash" button to pop up so I could do it again... aka fights took one finger once they were started)
• A ton of downtime.  
• Forming groups (untested on p99, going off of EQ experience)
• Getting to camps 
• Meditating to regain mana. (no 'out of combat' status to increase resource regen)
• Waiting for player assistance for: buffs, corpse summoning, rez, teleport, etc (untested in p99)
• No helpful "modern" tools like being able to get directions to NPCs you're looking for, no maps, no compass by default (I believe there is a crafted compass in p99... will edit if there isn't), no match making, dungeon finder, etc.  You're on your own to use the simple tools available to do all the social stuff.
• Graphics are terrible and you won't be able to appreciate them if you've never played during this time (you can use Luclin models as they are included with EQ: Titanium, but even with those models you're not going to be blown away by any of the visuals). 
• You need a copy of EverQuest Titanium to gain access to P99.  I'm sure if your local store doesn't have a copy you could find it on the internet... somewherrrrrrre
• S L O W paced from time to time... especially when you first start out.  The "tutorial" is actually the first 10 or so hours when you're useless and frail shivering in the cold outside your home town with no dps, no utility, and no game knowledge.  Once you start venturing out, things will become more clear and you will become more powerful.  Things get exponentially faster and more exciting as time goes on, but it will never rival the pace and excitement of a modern RPG.  [It's up to you to immerse yourself in the game for the excitement.  It's not going to be spoon fed to you.]

Wow, that list is brutal.  Forget all that "sounds great" stuff.

Well, my friend, the positives can be summed up very simply:

The world is vast and dangerous.  You'll feel a sense of endless adventure and meet wonderful people along the way.  You will never be a big fish in this pond.  You are a speck on the horizon if you're lucky and that feeling makes everything about a virtual world feel alive and amazing.  You won't be able to recreate this experience anywhere else.

Also, this server is a labor of love from some 'civilians' like us.  There's no telling how long this will be maintained (even though it's been up and very active for years).  Without a place to play EverQuest just like this, the experience is lost forever.

If you love MMOs... you owe it to yourself to try this out.  Just so you can say that you know where it all started.  You need to feel what it's like to be in a world like this.  It's the feeling nobody's been able to recreate since due to inflated sales goals and an ever growing "casual*" gaming market that has no interest in the abject fear and helplessness that Norath produces.

If you're wondering why you would put yourself through that kind of suffering on purpose you need to remember there's no Friday night without Monday morning.  If you don't earn it, it's not worth it.  If you have ice cream for dinner, what is special about desert?  All these silly phrases sum up why I suddenly drop any MMO I try.  I realize all I've done on my 40 hours to max level is eat ice cream and cake without the vegetables first.  There's only so much cake you'll eat before you go numb to its sweetness.  

SO POUND A F---ING MEAD AND START SMASHING GNOLL SKULLS!

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*NOTE about the use of "causal gaming."  I mean absolutely no disrespect with the use of "casual."  In this sense it's the difference between EQ's LFG tool and the modern "casual friendly" time restricted gamer's dungeon finder.  If you only get an hour every so often to play, then you'll love features that drop you into the action.  It's a nice, casual way to play.  You're part of the fastest growing and most lucrative segment in gaming.  Enjoy it!

If you are looking to settle in for a long gaming session, you have the choice to play a game like EQ where a single group of 6 could end up together a whole weekend.  I consider this to be the opposite of "casual gaming" but NOT "hardcore."  It's just more... invested.  

I'll post about this topic in the future, but the word "casual" should never have been given a negative connotation.