[Shin Noir]

Unfortunately p99 decided to go entirely closed source, (meaning all the server software, quests, database changes are not available). it spent a year+ working on establishing the most meticulous changes (most of which are not very well documented anywhere without heavy timemachine surfing and patch notes before p99), not to mention it did a lot of internal revamps to things such as combat to ensure a classic experience. This puts any p99-clone at a disadvantage at the start.

The new classic EQ servers are ones that are based on latest PEQ which is not focused on any classic feel with how combat, fizzle rates, spell resists, spell progression and logic among many, many other aspects are determined, as well as PEQ is focused on the OOW expansion, which Velious to OOW a lot of older content was revised in many different ways.

Because P99 is closed source, most of these folks are likely either a) doing the changes to be classic themselves or b) using a baseline that turns the PEQ baseline to a classic-like feel.

This means that trying to compare any non-p99 server to p99 is going to have plenty of oversights or inconsistencies and frankly, will always be that way unless p99 goes open source and people base their code on it. (or someone grounds up all the effort of p99 again and releases it and it is adapted for all classic servers)

p99 was a huge undertaking and it's popularity attracted many to ensure it retains a professional classic live-like experience that others servers won't be able to accomplish.

So if you are more concerned with being the closest to classic "correct", p99 will win.

Bonuses to NOT picking p99 would include things like typically better support to modern clients, maps, typically better EXP rate (p99 is actually worse EXP than live ever was), being able to outrun most NPCs without SoW (p99 sped up NPCs to unnatural levels to increase difficulty), among tons of little things everywhere including the higher probability of having custom quality of life things

My opinion, I played EQ during kunark/velious/luclin/pop era, and I feel most have rose colored glasses on how good it truly was back then... Sure, it has certain aspects everyone of course miss, especially the social community. (again, something anything non-p99 is going to lack: being able to pick up a group very easily), I personally like having little things to spice up life (custom non-legit changes) and make some of the silly history mistakes of EQ cleaned up a bit.