Looking for a server.

[dubbtherogue]

I haven't been around for a while, but I'm considering playing a little again.

What I'm basically looking for is a friendly server community where playing just ONE character is a viable option. I know I can technically play just one character on any server, but the truth is that 90% of the time the solo player sits around LFG far more often than is enjoyable. Yes, I'm capable of boxing with the best of them, as anyone that knows me can attest to, but it just isn't my preferred style of play. I'm looking for an EQEmu in which I can interact with others more freely and regularly. I'm looking for teamwork, and not just when it comes down to raiding uber_mob_42. A place where people group because they want to, not just when they need a few more able bodies to take down baddies for phat lewtz.

I know of servers -- good servers even -- with IP limits. Still, they are set to 3-4 and folks tend to branch off with their mini multiboxed armies and slip into antisocial mode. And in the past I've either eventually wound up with my own army just to 'get in the game,' or started looking for another server.

Any servers out there that limit IP connections to 1-2? Any servers that truly feel they have a friendly community? A server where OOC flame wars are refreshingly absent? I don't want to be immersed in the poo-flinging "lolz pwnage" juvenile mentality that seems so common. I'm not here to offend anyone if your server fits this description, it just isn't for me personally.

I know I might be chasing a unicorn here, but a man's gotta try, right? Does such a server exist? Am I asking for too much? Thanks in advance for any responses.

[dubbtherogue]

And I really meant to put this in the server discussion forum. :|
Sorry. If anyone wants to move it, I'd be grateful.

[KingMort]

Hey there, Raid Addicts sounds like it would be a great fix for your needs.. It's mostly dedicated to raiding but there is also tons of alternate progression. Trade skills, Quests, Solo / Group content.. There are plenty of guilds to associate with as well..

King Mortenson
www.raidaddicts.org

[backman_66]

www.shardsofdalaya.com

[Decai]

Having played on Shards of Dalaya, I would only recomend that server if you want a totally screwy resist system, a hot air ballon inflated economy, and the inability to make the money to buy anything until your 60+. The only redeeming factor to that server is the treasure maps, those are the only real fun. Other than that, its kinda lame. I would try Stormhaven or the Grand Creation.

[backman_66]

I'm just recommending a mature place with a healthy population supply at all times. It's one of the best servers to find people to play and group with. The server has been around for just about 5 years now IIRC and it's solid as a rock. The game is more difficult than live if you want more of a challenge. If you're into raiding, the raid cap is 18 players (3 groups), which means each person plays a pivotal role and is important for the raids. There is several raid zones fully populated and several raiding guilds.

[miotch]

Originally Posted by backman_66

I'm just recommending a mature place with a healthy population supply at all times. It's one of the best servers to find people to play and group with. The server has been around for just about 5 years now IIRC and it's solid as a rock. The game is more difficult than live if you want more of a challenge. If you're into raiding, the raid cap is 18 players (3 groups), which means each person plays a pivotal role and is important for the raids. There is several raid zones fully populated and several raiding guilds.

And run by a jerk

[trevius]

Be nice, please. Even though they aren't affiliated with, and don't participate in the EQEmu project, it is still against the rules to flame people in any way here. I don't even know who runs SoD, but no matter what their attitude is, I am sure they have put a good deal of work into their server. That at least deserves some respect and common decency, IMO.

[miotch]

Originally Posted by trevius

Be nice, please. Even though they aren't affiliated with, and don't participate in the EQEmu project, it is still against the rules to flame people in any way here. I don't even know who runs SoD, but no matter what their attitude is, I am sure they have put a good deal of work into their server. That at least deserves some respect and common decency, IMO.

I didn't flame i promise

[Decai]

Actually, never had any problems with the people that admin/dev SoD. However, they refuse to implement a bazaar type deal for buying/selling, forcing you to tediously scroll through all 200+ vendors to compare prices on the one item you want. Since most people don't want to do that, they buy it at the first price they come to, which is usually grossly inflated. Money is practically impossible to get in any amount until you're 60+, and even then its damn hard. The resist system is all CHA based, and since you can't really afford any kind of gear until 60+, leveling is a pain for casting classed because your spells are resisted, and your mana regen takes a half hour. I would stick with one of the Emu servers, Grand Creation or Stormhaven.

[Loccochris]

I have played SoD and PEQ and imo PEQ is much better. Having a GF, job searching as a recent computer science graduate, I don't have that much free time and the transition into PEQ is so easy.

Things I hated about SoD:

1) No Bazaar, their trade system is as frustrating as running EQ on an old school PC using punch cards.

2) Money.... Ok this is a huge problem, you get enough for spells true and what not but beyond this it is as people say, expect to be poor till higher levels.

3) Spell resist system, they use a check vs CHA to see if your spell is resisted, making CHA the most important stat for casters even over INT/WIS. Beyond this they have a weird specialization system where you spec into different things depending on caster/melee. Either way expect about 20% or higher of your spells to not be resisted by the mobs resists, or fizzled, but rather just plain phail because of this CHA check. Next thing they will do is a check vs CHA to see if you don't accidentally drop your weapon as you melee (would only even the score out).

4) Knowledge of world, yes they have all their quests listed (very small compared to eqemu's) on their wiki, but beyond this they drastically changed most of the zones so expect to have to "find" places to level and what not. EQ is not a hard game if you know the knowledge needed to do whatever it is you are interested in aka level areas, money spots, tradeskilling. You can't read the 100's of webpages on EQ cause they wont help you one bit for this server.

5) Traveling is done moronically there. You have a "pok" system called mansion of portals, which is confusing in its own right having 2 floors, but beyond this the zone randomly casts nasty as hell debuffs on you as you walk through it. I can understand if you wait 6 minutes then hit idlers so they don't just sit up there but I was getting hit by some really nasty DOT's and debuffs just trying to run straight to the portal I needed.

6) Boxing on this server is virtually impossible. I tried to dual box and everytime I had to zone I had a 50/50 chance of one of the toons going LD. On PEQ I can 5x box for hours without any going LD through dozens of zoning screens.

Things I like about PEQ:

1) Levels seem to go by fast as it is about 1.5 x normal live exp.

2) Gear/Money is easy to attain even at low levels. Many players simply sell gear to vendors in PoK for a few plat. When I started here I simply ran the vendor chain and bought everything people sold to either use or resell in bazaar. It isn't uncommon to get some nice gear off vendors that you can resell for a few kpp. (price to buy these items is low usually less then 50pp from vendor). Noticed that money drop on low level mobs feels higher. In crushbone for example the cents were dropping upwards of over 1 pp each in cash so by the time you hit level 10 you could easily have over a hundred plat just from looting cash. This doesn't last to higher levels but it feels like a cash boost off lower level mobs for sure and surely helps new players.

3) Bazaar is live like and great.

4) You can see a list of the hundreds of quests completed with direct links to how to do them from allah. It is live like and you CAN use outside websites to research.

5) NPC buffbots in PoK so no longer do you have to shout for a KEI or temp, just pay an npc and get buffed. A command to teleport every 15 minutes to any zone makes travel pretty easy but not abused.


Just my opinion anyways. The only thing that SoD has over PEQ is a better mob pathing scheme (follows paths, uses doors/stairs), though this leads to pathing exploits that ranged toons can utilize that you don't get on PEQ where the mob just comes straight at you.

[backman_66]

well just to clarify, spells have their own resist checks depending on the spell, and your CHA adds a modifier to that. it's not 100% CHA-based. having a lot of CHA is actually useful in SoD. I will admit that resists are more common, but the server is meant to be more difficult than your ez-pz standard EQ.

I suppose you could say SoD is for more hardcore people. I was not really aware of the money situation because I leveld my characters probably 3 years ago so I don't remember much. You don't really get much good gear until you are 65 and can farm for plat, or until you start raiding. As people will say, level 65 is just the beginning.

Btw I'm not arguing, just giving my opinions on what I think about SoD. PEQ Grand Creation is a fun server too. I just like nearly completely custom content. Although I will admit the buying / selling system is terrible.... *shudder*

[kiirdiir]

I thought I would share my thoughts on SoD while using some of Loccochris' quotes:

Originally Posted by Loccochris

Things I hated about SoD:

1) No Bazaar, their trade system is as frustrating as running EQ on an old school PC using punch cards.

Agreed. I did tradeskills and I had several accounts full of characters to keep my goods on the market. It was very limiting and time-consuming, but that system is better than nothing at all.

Originally Posted by Loccochris

2) Money.... Ok this is a huge problem, you get enough for spells true and what not but beyond this it is as people say, expect to be poor till higher levels.

I did not notice a money issue.

Originally Posted by Loccochris

3) Spell resist system, they use a check vs CHA to see if your spell is resisted, making CHA the most important stat for casters even over INT/WIS. Beyond this they have a weird specialization system where you spec into different things depending on caster/melee. Either way expect about 20% or higher of your spells to not be resisted by the mobs resists, or fizzled, but rather just plain phail because of this CHA check. Next thing they will do is a check vs CHA to see if you don't accidentally drop your weapon as you melee (would only even the score out).

This is important to note before you roll a caster on SoD. But not only that, the resists there are just horrible anyway: I would see several (in a row) fire nukes being completely resisted on ice giants and other ice npcs. It was to the point where it was simply not worth my mage's time to bother nuking (instead I would heal the pet). Then again, I do not see any server that has resists really well done with partial resists and the like (imho). They were really finicky (read: foolishly stubborn (pardon the tone)) about their class balance.

Originally Posted by Loccochris

4) Knowledge of world, yes they have all their quests listed (very small compared to eqemu's) on their wiki, but beyond this they drastically changed most of the zones so expect to have to "find" places to level and what not. EQ is not a hard game if you know the knowledge needed to do whatever it is you are interested in aka level areas, money spots, tradeskilling. You can't read the 100's of webpages on EQ cause they wont help you one bit for this server.

One man's garbage is another man's treasure. I enjoyed the adventure, immersion, and custom content.

Originally Posted by Loccochris

5) Traveling is done moronically there. You have a "pok" system called mansion of portals, which is confusing in its own right having 2 floors, but beyond this the zone randomly casts nasty as hell debuffs on you as you walk through it. I can understand if you wait 6 minutes then hit idlers so they don't just sit up there but I was getting hit by some really nasty DOT's and debuffs just trying to run straight to the portal I needed.

You could always run or find a port. This was placed in to be an option method of travel with some "risk" such as losing a buff or being snared. I would rather have this than nothing, but I did like the rune(?) system they had previously.

Originally Posted by Loccochris

6) Boxing on this server is virtually impossible. I tried to dual box and everytime I had to zone I had a 50/50 chance of one of the toons going LD. On PEQ I can 5x box for hours without any going LD through dozens of zoning screens.

As with any server, having characters on individual accounts helps. What I really hated was the bug where if you remained in a zone for over an hour, you would become a sort of ghost-link-dead. (They ever fix this?)

All of that said, SoD is great for a legit long-term custom server choice, but their dev(s) could learn a lot from what EQEmu and PEQ are doing these days. I felt they should listen to their player-base a little better. (And Wiz is not a jerk. No more than the rest of us, anyway.)

[Irreverent]

Or there is always the solo route....The Irreverent really only needs 1 character! haha Just something different if you don't like raid/group requirements.

[dubbtherogue]

Trev runs a great server that I've played extensively. Just not what I'm looking for at this stage. And I'm pretty sure the IP limit is 4 on SH, unless it's changed since I last checked.

PEQ is another great server that I've played quite a bit. Probably the closest to what I'd be interested in out of the servers I'm familiar with.

Raid Addicts is unique and interesting. I've played there a little in the past but never got into the groove. Maybe I'll give it another try at some point. Thanks for the suggestion, Mort.

I am not looking to solo (or multibox), as outlined in my original post. But thank you.

Never tried SoD, but I'm just not going to go outside of the LS here. Still, thank you for the suggestion.



Any other suggestions that anyone feels might match what I outlined in the original post?