I've played "modern" EQ for a majourity of the time that I've actually played EQ; only took a few weeks of an experimental jab at Project 1999. And I noticed something on forums (not necessarily this one) and YouTube. There seem to be lots and lots of seemingly P99 elitists who claim (with no basis aside from their own opinions, it seems) that P99 is the only "true EverQuest" or the only "real EverQuest" and that the current live servers' EverQuest is "FailQuest" and has been labeled as 'Bull___' ( you already know what it is. I'm not spelling it out ). I want complete honesty. Where on Norrath does this attitude come from? The fact that some EQ veterans seem to think they know "what's good" or the idea that only 'old school EQ is the only true EQ' ? Just because they were around during EQ's bright-eye bushy-tailed days, that they have some sort of authority or right to decide what the 'true EQ' is?
This is the same ol' song and dance. You talk to a car guy and he will say "the last real car was made in xxxx year". The sports guy will say "its all about the money these days". The EQ guy "The only real EQ was up to xx expansion". These statements are all true for that individual I guess but for the rest of us who continue to enjoy the game and explore ALL of what Norrath has to offer this is EQ. They can tell me otherwise but it does not change the fact that this is still called EQ last time I checked.
But it is up to everyone to decide what is his/her player style. I would not go and say "My way of playing is the only true way". Group or bot or raid or slack thats up to you. That is what makes EQ worth playing.
So eq on p99 has great class balance. Every class matters. Every. Class. Nowadays, I don't even group with healers half the time. I just use a merc. There are no issues with this. But on p99, you want *THE BEST HEALER* you can find. It matters. You don't want people to die, that's the obvious reason, but also back on p99 mana management was huge. If the healer goes oom, now everyone has to just sit there waiting. You don't want a bad healer, that will ruin a group, and a great healer will make a group better. *it actually matters*. Pullers and crowd control classes mattered. Go into plane of fear with some bad enchanter and a monk that just runs around in circles typing out the theme song to dragonball over and over named Goku. You're going to die. I can't tell you many modern game scenarios where this is the case, and if you can, in comparison to original plane of fear, even the revamp is maybe 35% of what original fear was in these ways. Also, as a newer player, you're probably doing that new pofear revamp with some seasoned guys that did it ages ago. It's not challenging *for you*. You aren't going to experience what these guys experienced. I realize that the same thing can be said of P99, but damn does it matter. You want to play the game, not be guided through the game. Choose the playing the game option. It's better. Tanks mattered. Nowadays this is the one exception. I think they matter more now, and that their role is harder now to a large degree. DPS always mattered, and I do think dps is harder now technically. But back in the day, aggro was a greater concern, and dps had to work WITH THE GROUP to be the best. If some dumb rogue was not assisting and just breaking all the mezzes in chardok, it was probably going to kill the group. I'd say that the risks were better as aggro management was a well done requirement of dps'ing well. In addition, nowadays the best way to disc is always just to do it. Back then, there were times when saving a disc or sitting on a disc might mean you were the best player, knowing that say a 6 spawn is coming up soon that usually trains, or just being a bit conservative in that fashion could save a group. That was really an area where you had a tough choice to make sometimes. Nowadays caster vs melee feels often a bit more balanced than it used to.. kunark wizards did less dps than warriors and I see the current faux paus in saying that, but it was wrong in a different and worse way back then. So point in case, even though now classes are more capable, back then it was better balanced which led to an enjoyable experience. Then let's look at the content. Back then, I remember content that doing it made me feel amazing, and not just *me*, I thought the group I was playing with was an amazing group. There was a bond between players that was irrefutable. Nowadays, what do you honestly find to be the difference between a healer and a merc. Usually the merc complains less AMIRITE? (yes, I'm correct). I remember the first time I did the efreeti spawn in solb, and we had 2 sk's, a wizard, a rogue, a cleric, and me as an enchanter. We could barely pull it off, and one of the sk's ended up using rune charges off his shield from nagafen just to make it possible, and that was literally the difference between success and failure. No member of that group was bad. I felt good about having been a part of that group. It was so hard, but it was so rewarding to succeed at it when compared to any modern successes I have had in game. Like I said above, look at original plane of fear vs modern raids. The old stuff managed to matter more. Maybe it was the atmosphere, maybe it was the difference in power between player and mob. Maybe it was the challenges involved (probably that), maybe it was just that it was a newer idea, and we were all younger. But that content was pretty amazing. Modern content adds some interesting things, but it just can't capture that same feeling. You get maybe 2-3 minutes of that sort of feeling per expansion tops. It's really hard to describe that sort of excitement, but if daybreak could hire a guy that could do that, this would be the #1 played game in the history of the world. Original eq had more of that than current eq. Then, let's look at the population of players. So look at what I just said, read it again. There was a need for great players to do that content, and when that need was there, people rose to the challenge. There was always winners and losers, but hard, rewarding content (don't just make it hard and you get 10 more attack for doing it) breeds better players and makes for a better game. So Let's talk about the rewards, What's the last piece of loot you got that actually gave you any kind of pride or joy. Mine was the slow stick from plane of time on my enchanter, and an artifact weapon that was 64/40 and looked like the lord inquisitor seru sword (2hander though) from an event. Those were some cool items. Those were years ago though. Now it's basically all just going through an item factory. The mask doesn't change anything for me. The pet proc weapon from the ship anniversary mission counts I guess, that was an innovative and interesting thing to have in the game because the item changed the way those people played to some degree. Even if the pet proc weapon didn't do that much, it did a little bit, and it made people think, which is what an item should do if it's at it's best. You need to put in items that people have to earn, and aren't just given to them. They should have to earn them through skill, not month long questing, it should be from a challenge. And when they get them, they should change the way that person plays the game for the better. Slow stick let me slow in between casts, and also had a very long range for pulling, which was the hidden and almost better benefit. Some epic 2.0' were like that, look at the sk shaman cleric druid (initially at least) bard monk rogue and wizard epics. Damn. Those were some good epics. People probably still use all of them today barring the druid one. That's the sort of experience that is needed for this game, and it's the sort of experience P99 and Red99 can give to people. So there's your difference.
Being a player that has played in earlier days of EQ doesn't mean you are good playing in today's EQ. Lot of things have changed for many classes. Take the cleric for example, some called "veteran" clerics still spam light as the only heal spell to heal, and think it's still the best way to heal today. Many classes were boring to play in earlier days of EQ. When the warrior had like 4 abilities in total to click, how is that fun ? When the difference between a good tank and a bad one was if the tank was clicking taunt when he was loosing aggro to get aggro back ? Today's EQ is much more likely to show you the skill differences between players. For example for the warrior class, which warrior holds aggro better than an other, which warrior uses his survival disc better than the others, etc. Each class has way more AA/ disc options to handle, and the best skilled players are those that manage to make the good use of them. Choosing the better ones, leaving the bad ones. This gives you a wider range of skill between players of the same class. In raids, for a warrior, where was the skill in clicking your defensive disc against the raid boss mob, clicking 2 aggro buttons or 2 DPS disc if you aren't MT, and that's all you wait until the event is over ? Where was the skill for clerics in raid in doing a CH chain and just following the timer of the chain to cast nearly one spell through the whole fight ? Modern EQ has more options for classes to perform. Clerics for example have many ways to achieve the same result, some will prefer interventions to renewals, but they will perform as good in the end. I'm sure that many P99 players who think they are the most skilled players would suck if they would play EQ in the current content. To the OP, who gives a rat what they think ? What matters is your enjoyment. Are you serious ? A tremendous amount of difference. A healer player does way better than a healer merc. The player has access to a lot more spells /AA than a healer merc. If your healer player doesn't do better than your merc, then your healer player is very terrible
They sure do, and when you have a tank with you that I can heal through 4 mobs on a melee hybrid because their health bar moves slower than that time I tried to download an hour long youtube video, guess how much all that healing the cleric has matters. Here's the cut. If you have a real tank with you, the merc is usually more than enough. Meanwhile, as a real tank you are dealing more dps than a tank merc would deal, and you deal with adds more appropriately. You don't go running around if there's an add lowering melee dps. You've probably got much stronger aggro. The tank covers all the *necessary bases*. I'm not anti healer. I think the content should be harder and require what a real healer offers in some cases. I want that to be what we have for a game. But turning a blind eye to this is the worse evil. Healers deserve better than the current state of the game. Healing doesn't matter enough. That's all.
The life bar of a tank moves more if he tank 4 mobs, even EoK mobs. At least from a warrior perspective. If this tank was using a healer merc, he could tank 2 mobs. So here is a difference. If it's a knight, then they were able to tank more mobs at same time years before too because of their better self healing. Try raiding, and you will see if healing doesn't matter enough. Depending of who are the healers assigned to heal you, your survival can vary a lot.
I have seen some things out of tanks. They're pretty handy with the tanking multiple mobs as required, especially if they're good. Back in the day, you needed a good healer with that good tank or you were out of luck. Now, you can get by in groups just fine with a real tank that is good and a merc healer, or you can play a real healer with a merc tank. But as gear gets better, the real tank will have advantages due to improvements in tanking, and dps additions. The cleric getting more gear/aa will improve the situation too but not to the same degree. It's an unfair but true observation. Your whole "try raiding" act is laughable. I can tell this bothers you as you are a tank to hear, but what I'm saying is the truth. Healers absolutely matter on raids, but raiding isn't the summary of everquest. I often play a class that can heal and I utilize that. On raids it's cool. But step out of that particular ivory tower into the game as a whole, and watch that viewpoint drop off real fast. Thanks to the people that still play a healer despite this group game scenario. And I know right now shaman and druid have it pretty good, but that has not historically been the case, it's been more of what I described. I know the fates of healers and tanks power wise are sort of intertwined as they have to cover a gap on raids together, but if you're a sane person you have to acknowledge what I'm saying about healers outside of raids man. I wouldn't be caught dead playing a cleric as a main if I even wanted to spend 20% of my playing time doing group content, because I'd be almost worthless for 20% of my play time in that case. Again, congratulations to shaman and druids for getting dots, but the real solution to this would be one that preserves the integrity of the priest classes by making content require what they were meant to do again. Original eq did this pretty well. People respected healers a lot more back then, especially the great ones. Nowadays, with mercs around that are more than capable, it matters less. Notice you go right to raiding where mercs don't exist for your point, but mercs do exist, and they cause the exact issue that I just described.
It's good for the game that to progress you aren't forced to roll with having a special class in your group. As a warrior, I know i can do some things on my own, instead of waiting to get a spot in a group. Before, your group needed only one tank on healer, and you were filling the rest of the group with DPS. Which was letting tanks and healers out of luck if this spot was yet taken. The actual situation is much better for these archetypes. The inverse can be said too. if you did not have your tank or your healer, you could not do anything. Now mercs fill the slot both ways, either replacing the class you lack, either allowing the tank to use a healer merc or the healer to use a tank merc to go solo until they find more people to group with. And for the harder group content like missions, you need a real group to do stuff. Many players on live servers are raiding, yes not all, but many. So raiding is a big part of live servers. Raiding is what I prefer nowadays. If it was stopped, I would guess many players would be bored with EQ if they had only the group game left and they would stop playing.
You don't need to keep trying to feel out whether I raid or group. I do both. I've beaten all current raids and group content. I'm speaking from a position of experience here, and also one of honesty. I'm kind of surprised the points I've brought up didn't make that clear to you just by what they were. But that said, now we get to the crux of it. You are willing to sacrifice greatness for convenience. If you don't "need" a healer and can just use a merc, then a healer isn't great. It's just by definition. When something is great, you're gonna want that in every group you do. For EoK, I "needed" a real tank, but I didn't "need" a real healer. They were nice to have, but if someone popped a tank merc, I knew that group was going to suck. When I did underfoot, I had: -real cleric -real warrior -real berserker -real enchanter -real rogue -real shaman/sometimes bard. for many of the progression missions that I did. And you know what? It was fantastic. swap any of them for a merc, now it's less of an experience. But fast forward to now. When healers don't play the game much because people can just use mercs and have been for years, now it becomes harder to get a healer. Stupidly harder. Plus, as stated, it matters less. The cleric I did the first 2-3 zones worth of progression with in EoK is a really solid cleric for raiding, but I could tell as soon as it was group content that the guy wasn't "in" for this. He let the tank die like 7 times while he was off finding collectibles. There was no pride in it. The guy just naturally at this point is phased out by group content because of mercs. There have generally been no challenges that require a cleric in group content. The class is underprivileged, and I could see it in the way he was playing vs on raids. No one wants to bring that stuff up since it might make the situation worse, but it sucks to see that. I did some other EoK missions with mercs to heal, and it seemed to work just fine. But I'd easily say just take mercs out of the game, and then over time being a healer will be more of a point of pride in groups instead of feeling like "hey can you guys drag me through this content?" which is the vibe I get out of 80% of healers nowadays in group content (outside of adps, which generally they are on point about).
EQ live, progression servers and the p99 and similar emulation servers are all pretty different gameplay experiences. My preference is EQ live, but I don't begrudge or truly disagree with anyone who has a different preference. As to purity between TLP and p99, a cursory look at the differences between the two will bring you to a pretty obvious conclusion, p99 is much closer to what we remember in EQ. Does that mean it's a better gameplay experience? You decide for yourself.
If you want to know why someone is saying something then you should ask the person who is saying it. No one else can speak for him.
I think I can sum it up well with this: The people playing on P99 are the same kids that play League. Most weren't born or were too young to play when Kunark or Velious were out originally - these kid's do like challenge in their games and P99 is hard. They're the same kid's that bark at you for playing sniper (It's perceived every sniper sucks for some reason in OW) in Overwatch and then quit out when you lead the the team in kills and help seal the win despite your ignoring their leet infoz. Many of these same kid's play on EQ's Progression style servers as well don't get me wrong - they're part of why it's annoying AF to play on Progression style servers. All the know-it-all smart mouth drivel you see at any given moment in general that's so nauseating you want to cut yourself. None of these kid's were spanked growing up - so in short - just ignore them. Their opinion should have no bearing on anything, ever.
This is an excellent statement on how EQ used to be. I remember those days. That was when the game was EverCrack. But time passes and the game has changed. I like the current EQ. I miss the old EQ. Both are good games. The progression servers try to be the old EQ. I don't know how well they do it, as I barely have time for playing modern EQ. The death of old EQ began with World of Warcraft and EQ 2. SOE decided to stop investing in EQ (and spent our money on dozens of other games, which all failed) and to move EQ toward WoW style gaming. I mourn for the EQ that could have been if they had reinvested the money and talent back into EQ instead of always the next hot game. But EQ still is great.
I totally agree Underfoot was the last great expansion. Not quite what you said, but that's how I feel.
There's and old saying, "You can never go home". This is very true, I don't care which TLP, live or p99 server you play on, you will never be able to have that same experience you had the first time around. Original EQ was great, but so is current EQ.
I'm a minority in this, but vanilla EQ was pretty terrible, especially as a warrior. EQ didn't really start getting good until Velious. Recent expansions haven't been all that great (I loved RoF), but at least they require some ability to do things. Vanilla EQ was mindless and overly simplistic to the point of boredom. Plus the ridiculous penalties like corpse runs and losing gear when dying were just annoyances. The days of Vanilla EQ are long gone. Good riddance.
