EQ LUCLIN (Alpha)
 

https://i.ibb.co/BLM4sQg/EQ-Luclin-Art.png

This is not something that will be ready anytime soon, but I am definately making progress. Little by little, one day at a time. I thought maybe I could throw this up for discussion and maybe get a sneak preview myself of constructive feedback from players.

I don't know how many people out there liked, or hated the Luclin expansion when it came out, but it was my own preference for an era that I enjoyed the most. I am not someone who would dwell on chasing down that 'classic' feeling that doesn't exist anymore, but I liked Luclin because of what it had to offer when it was released, especially the mounts. I imagine many of you, like me, have your own little pet peeves about Sony did,(or didn't do) to the game. Some think Luclin was the end of a good game, others, like myself, think PoP added too much damage to the enjoyment. Each one of us just want to play the game we love, no matter what era that might be. I have no interest in trying to clone the era 110 percent, or for that matter, re-invent the wheel. But I am putting a lot of effort into 'emulating' the game I played.

Aside from much of the common, general game mechanics that I've dealt with, all doors and zone points port to their intended era related destinations, including the removal of all pok books. With a few exceptions, many of the older versions of classic zones are actively used where possible, but some are not, for practical reasons. Most of the boating is garbage, so it seemed more logical to work with the gnomes. I'm undecided, but thinking of putting them on a short, pop/depop timer. All druid and wizard port spells,(and any other kind of era related porting) have been adjusted for older zone use.

Starting with character creations,(got rid of frogs, drakkins and berserkers), adjusted the start zones and starting items. I didn't include the discord tome, (like project 99 does with new toons), but the priest gives a player one anyways, if desired. I also created a custom charm item, which will be given to new toons (for a limited time). One for casters and one for melee. Hybrids will be given the melee charm by default, with an option to swap it out once.

Moving on to the dreaded removal of unwanted content is still an ongoing process, but I've tackled a bunch of the easier junk, so far. The entire aug system has been disabled, including the removal of all aug baths and augmentation tags on items. Other item tags,(such as placeable, ornamentation, etc.) have been taken off as well. Everything to do with LDoN is gone(along with the magus's). Shadowrest and the task system have been disabled with all npc's removed. All tribute toons have been ejected from the game. The list of what's done so far could go on, but there is still much to do in it's alpha stage. I'm on the longest stretch right now with mobs, loottables and items. Sifting through some of the classic mobs, I was suprised to find nothing out of it's era, in the loottable.

But as I said, it's not intended to be 110% era accurate. There will be a few light sprinkles of a customized touch to it, without climbing on to that 'QoL train' which commonly gets thrown off track. The server will not go any further than the Luclin expansion, regardless of it's acceptance, (or lack of). It is being built to welcome the RoF2 client, but if Titanium is anyone's flavour, it will work too. Eventually, I'll be setting up a website, with forums and discord channel. I've also been looking at promising options for dedicated hosting in a data center.

Love the idea.
 

I personally was a fan of Luclin and look forward to hearing more about your server. Let me know if there is anything you need help on. I'd be glad to get involved.

~Wind

Thank You. But right now, everything is being done offline, until the beta launch which doesn't have a designated date(yet). I'm putting a cheesy little forum together, on that 'free' proboards site. Just something temporary to use for now. Everything else that will cost, like website, etc., I didn't want to inherit that until things are closer to being live.

Decided to get a cheap domain for $5 just to point it to the temporary forums at proboards. I even splurged to get rid of banner ads on those forums. http://eqluclin.info

Might be looking at May 3-5 weekend pre-beta test run, just for that weekend and see how some things go.

Thanks to great advice from Straps on some good data hosting, looks like I will be going with a full beta launch on May 16th. I don't want to put the server in any kind of position that prompts a character wipe, so I am planning ahead for that. I will be setting up a discord channel this week, since it seems to be the in thing now for discussion.

I apologize for mentioning the plans for a discord channel before, but decided to wait until closer to launch, so I have no distractions from priority tasks right now.
After 8 long months on a bumpy road and some unexpected issues resolved, we can finally confirm a definate launch for July 4th. I had a friend casually helping out with collecting data resources which was a blessing for the project.
The effort put into this server was never intended to be 100% Luclin accurate. Just close to home with the use of a modern client. But here's a brief summary of the road map that got us here.

• Server was built around the RoF2 client, crafted to remain locked at Luclin era.
• Rulesets are made legit with single box, per IP account and no use of MQ.
• Character creations and starting items are tuned for the era.(No Gloomingdeep)
• Where possible, older zone versions in place, including bazaar, lavastorm, etc.
• Highpasshold is being used, but the NPC's have been taken back to Highpass era.
• All zone points and most doors have been edited and tested for functionality.
• Objective content past the Luclin era, including zones and PoK books, is wiped.
• Over 90,000 (out of era) items and 50,000 NPC's removed from the database.
• Some NPC spawns, timers or loot may not be era-expected, but awareness is ongoing.
• Pathing and aggro issues have had a lot of focus put into them.(not perfect yet)
• We're not going to bother tackling the broken boats. The dock gnomes will suffice.
• With 1000's of quest scripts being audited, this is a work, still in progress.
• Era dialog in the scripts is not as much of a priority as ensuring they work.
• There will never be any scribers for spells, skills or AA vendors, etc.
• Other than two custom NPC's in the Nexus, there will be no modern QoL for Luclin.
• One NPC is for corpse summoning, and the other for SoW and one minor skin buff.(No Temp).
• After launch, one of two GM's will be active 70% of the time to deal with issues.

There is many Emu servers that go beyond the Luclin expansion, there is no reason for this one to follow. This is the reason I chose to delete everything irrelevant from the database completely, instead of just disabling it. Everything in place for this server is written in stone. Non-negotiable, without compromise. Server is not intended just for leveling experience. There is much more to the game than that.
With all due respect, I need to point out, EQ Luclin was not being built around the personal lives of the player community. The QoL you need, (or want) is at home, not on this server. If there is little interest in this server, then we live with it, but I started it all with only one main focus. Luclin, or bust!

will there be spell files and stuff to grab before the launch date?

Yes, that will all be setup for July 1st on a website.

I know this is a lot to ask, would you be willing to share the DB you are working on? I am not looking to take your work and publish it. I have been looking for a PoP/SoL DB for a while now since I want to create/mess around in my own internal LAN server.

mostly I am trying to lock off expansions past SoL/PoP, remove races/classes and bring back older zones like Bazaar n such