ReExperience EverQuest / REEQ Think Tank

[Godhand]

I was going to post this in the Server discussion forum but I didn't want to get this mingled in with servers that are actually up and available right now. If this needs to be moved somewhere else then whatever.

I want to get some discussion and perhaps interest going for a server I've been quietly working on the past few months.

The goal of REEQ is to emulate the launch of EverQuest with knowledge I've obtained in the 10 years EverQuest has been released. The goal is to not give a 100% classic feel, but to release a quality MMO. The server will begin with classic zones only and progress until Velious. Past Velious I will not release anymore expansions, but I may release "custom expansions" of a few zones at a time.

Basically, everything will be the same but different. It's custom EQ but at the same time it's not. Basically look at this server as EverQuest Leaf Green. I'm taking the original game and improving it the best I can. I'll try to patch "problems" with classic EQ as I see fit, for example more weapon options so you don't go from wielding a Fine Steel Long Sword to a Short Sword of the Ykesha. Some spells may be changed, quests may be changed, etc. Knowledge of the original game will be beneficial but at the same time there will be a lot of new spawns and things to learn.

The largest change will be with raids. I'm throwing out the asstacular "tank this mob until it death touches you" encounters and actually putting in scripts and interesting abilities on ALL raid mobs. IF I can get a large enough community, what I would really like to see is 2-3 raid guilds with some guilds being able to do some content while others being able to do other. That will basically show me that I've succeeded. I'm really trying to put in a large variety of types of events to test a wide gamut of raiding expertise. More on this later.

A lot of new raiding encounters will be added to classic, with some extras in Kunark, while Velious mostly has enough raiding options. Here is an example of what I'm talking about:

Mayong Mistmoore will be attackable in his castle. His event consists of him "turning into" vampire bats at certain %s. Everytime he respawns as himself he gains new and fun abilities.

The Planes are mostly completely reworked. Minis are interesting and itemized, not DT machines that drop a fire emerald if you kill them. Fear minis have abilities that synergize with each other and require a bit of thinking to find the "work around" to their AEs. Hate minis are some really difficulty and interesting encounters that I'm pretty excited about people perhaps going up against someday.

Basically, if you're a raider or just an EQ fan at heart you should really enjoy this server. I've got maybe 85% of the classic raid encounters completely scripted with the vast majority of that 15% being Plane of Sky. I'm really excited about Plane of Sky as the final raid zone of Classic. Finally you'll be able to experience this zone in an enjoyable manner.

Something I mentioned about with the "wide variety of raid encounters." I'm currently tossing around in my head with what the community would and would not enjoy. Personally, I'm a big fan of PVP. My major question is whether zone-wide pvp in certain raid zones would be supported. For example, Temple of Solusek Ro has been turned into a sort of Ring-like raid event. I think it'd be great to add PVP to the zone, making it so that guilds who excel at PVP would be able to complete this encounter.

Anyways, this is now my thread to talk about my server. Any questions / comments / concerns should be posted. I'm not even promising that this server will ever reach the light of day, but it really is amazing how much work you can get done every day when you're unemployed ;)

[blackdragonsdg]

A few things I would like to see on a server like this is to really return things to the way they were like setting the old world spells back to the way they were at the release of Velious. SOE changed the spells some where along the way and really screwed them up. Both levels to acquire the spells as well as the mana to effect ratio needs to be returned to normal instead of the garbage that it is now on live server.

Old world zones like Rathe Mountains need to be restored to there original state as well. When SOE redid the spawns in that zone I was pissed for a long time as it was one of my favorite zones to camp in the mid thirties.

The usage of coin needs to be altered because going from finding 2cp at level 5 to finding 5pp at level 55 sucked. Combine that with only having a couple of mobs in the game that dropped more made things near impossible as a new player as most were in there 50's before they got rid of the banded armor they were using. While it is unlikely that any sort of economy will take hold on any emu server the need for money can still be used. One of my friends suggested to me to create custom merchants where you could buy higher end armor, grant it at a cost but still it would be better than having to have 50-70 of your closest friends help you kill a mob for the chance at something decent.

Just my opinion however but your server sounds interesting and I would be willing to try it out once it goes live.

[Godhand]

As far as "returning things to the way they were at classic" zones will for the most part be gone over with a fine-tooth comb and anything that I don't want in the zone will be removed. I'll also be adding mobs such as named that were never on live as I see fit. Some mobs I've even kept in and reworked (such as The Chilling Terror in Permafrost, which is now a Vox raid miniboss because I liked the name).

[LumieX]

hey man thats real cool and I've actually always dreamed of doing the same thing, except on an even bigger scale than you probably in that I was gonna re-envision each class from the ground up practically and rework the entire item tables and rework tradeskills and alter several game mechanics like the resist system and ac system and how stats affect your character etc since I have really good ideas as to how these systems should work

itll be kinda like shards of dalaya except with pvp

Also, having played EQ pvp for about 8 years, I'd really like to make this into more of a pvp server and I've come up with an insane amount of good ideas for pvp over the years in terms of how to encourage it properly and how to balance it to near perfection

I've wanted to set it up so that there is two teams, good and evil and have the towns set up strategically so that one team doesn't have a better positional advantage over important zones than the other team. I thought it would be cool as a pvp server to make it so that you can raid eachothers cities/kings and then eventually eachothers planes/gods

Mayong Mistmoore will be attackable in his castle. His event consists of him "turning into" vampire bats at certain %s. Everytime he respawns as himself he gains new and fun abilities.

The Planes are mostly completely reworked. Minis are interesting and itemized, not DT machines that drop a fire emerald if you kill them. Fear minis have abilities that synergize with each other and require a bit of thinking to find the "work around" to their AEs. Hate minis are some really difficulty and interesting encounters that I'm pretty excited about people perhaps going up against someday.


definitely things I've thought of and can't believe were never put in live...it wasn't until velious that more interesting raid encounters were put in and I really liked luclin raids(not VT though, but ssra was incredible)

I figure we've all beaten a lot of EQ since it's creation so why do people insist on playing the same game over again and demand they get #summon commands and 6x exp gains and stuff...you'd think you'd want it to be even more challenging the next time around, not easier

this is why I always thought it would be cool to completely redo EQ and make it even more brutally unforgiving then it was before and really push people to the limits of their skill but do it in a way where you can't just zerg the shit out of everything to win(altho im not opposed to there being SOME zergable encounters)

I personally think a really well done server could draw a great deal of attention, even from people who thought they'd never play the game ever again

[Godhand]

The game will not be customized to the point of SoD. It's taken a TEAM of devlopers years to get it to the way it is now, and I don't have that kind of time. There's also a lot of changes there that I don't like at all. I also don't want to compete directly with a server that has 500+ active players.

The game will not be completely PVP. Again, it's just not the crowd I'm developing for, I also don't want to compete with the 500+ active players of VZTZ. If you want full PVP, play there.

PVP raid zones is an idea I'm considering though, and will most likely implement into at least one zone. So say Temple of Solusek Ro is a PVP zone, if you're guild A and you excel at PVP, you'll most likely be able to win that encounter and keeping a lock on gear that Guild B cannot obtain.

I'm not going to "re-envision" each class because it's not necessary. Yes I'm going to go through spells and tweak them a bit but that's about it. Tradeskills will also be made more important but that's not a top priority right now.

[Traul]

Sounds like a fun idea. =)

[Godhand]

Here is what I have complete so far. I have a few random zones like Qeynos Hills all set up with some added nameds and such, but this is what we have so far for raids. If I don't mention that something's not complete, then it is.

Kedge Keep: Undertow and Mistress Seasiren are minis (fully scripted) and Phinigel Autropos is the boss. Working on loot.


???: A raid event that wasn't in classic is scripted. Not giving out any information on where it is.

Lake Rathetear: Kraken is scripted.

The Hole: Master Yael is scripted. I've begun work on The Hole a bit, it will be the highest exp zone in the game and extremely lengthy and difficult. Groups will be able to gain a lot of levels here but they have to be really good. Plane of Underfoot behind Yael is planned and will most likely require something interesting to enter.

Nagafen's Lair King Tranix and Warlord Skarlon are mini bosses while Lord Nagafen is the boss. I haven't worked on this zone yet.

Permafrost Keep:The Chilling Terror along with Fjora the Ice Witch are mini bosses, with Lady Vox as the boss. I have Lady Vox partly scripted, apart from that, nothing.

Mistmoore Castle Mayong Mistmoore is scripted and I really like this encounter.

Plane of Hate: Five minis: Ashenbone Broodmaster, Corrupter of Life, Grandmaster R'Tal, Abhorrence, Maestro of Rancor. All are scripted and difficult. Plane of Hate is designed to be a slow methodical crawl with difficult but controllable mobs. Each mini tests a completel different raid aspect (Grandmaster requires on the ball tanks, Corrupter of Life requires on the ball healers, you'll want to bring your DPS to Abhorrence, and Maestro will just straight up annoy the hell out of you). And of course Innoruuk is done too. You can enter Plane of Hate from Oasis, no porter required.

Plane of Fear: Five minis: Sor'Yoth, Dracoliche, Fright, Dread, and Terror. Fear is the complete opposite of Hate. The break-in is absolute chaos. The mobs themselves are weak but you'll have tons. I expect Fear to be beaten before Hate as once you have broken in, it's a bit easier. Sor'Yoth is a named Amygdalan in the tower, and has a single ability that will test your tanks. The three golems are... interesting. I don't want to give too much away, but I'm really curious if anyone will figure out the "trick" to these. They can be beaten without the "trick" but once the "trick" is discovered they'll be straight up farm status. Cazic Thule is here too!

Temple of Solusek Ro: I put in a bunch of mid-level quests in Highpass and turned Temple of Solusek Ro into a raid zone. The best way to explain it really is to use Coirnav. It's sort of a ring-style event where you're against a timer, so things will get real sloppy due to rushing. This even really tests how well your guild works under pressure (and how well geared you are, of course). Tazgar of Solusek and Lord Searfire are minis, Solusek Ro is the boss.

Plane of Sky: Ok, mobs are, minis: Guardian of Thunder, Overseer of Air, Protector of Sky, Gorgalosk, Keeper of Souls, The Spiroc Lord, Bazzt Zzzt, Sister of the Spire, Eye of Veeshan (boss). This is the hardest and longest raid zone in classic. It's completely revamped and what's taking most of my time right now. Guardian of Thunder is the first mob I've scripted and is extremely simple but any raid is guaranteed to die a few times figuring it out. Eye of Veeshan is also done, and just completely nuts. I'll probably have to tune it down once people start attempting it, but we'll see. The zone will get more and more difficult as you progress from island to island and there's no death touch. Just tons and tons of different types of abilities and encounters to test every facet of your raid force. Like Fear and Hate, Plane of Sky will offer a full set of visible gear for every class. Each piece is quested (1 no drop loot + 3 trash droppable loots). Each boss drops a particular type of no drop quest item (Guardian of Thunder bracers, Sister of the Spire BPs, etc). Eye of Veeshan drops what I can describe as 0.5 epic weapons for each class. There is sort of a quest to "power up" each weapon to add effects, but it's sort of hard to describe how that works. Basically there's 4 different effects that can be placed on each weapon, so when you turn the weapon in with a certain item you'll get the weapon back with that desired effect. Just believe me that Plane of Sky will be MUCH more rewarding and will make MUCH more sense than live.

[Traul]

This is so similar to the server I've always dreamed of creating it's scary. I can't wait!

Can you give any rough eta?

[Godhand]

Not even close to an eta, it's just a pet project at this point. Just trying to get some discussion / ideas flowing.

[eqtest4]

your server sounds awesome, hope to see it come to life some day

Here's some ideas:

The weapons in Paw have always annoyed me. They seem under powered compared to the level required to obtain. Maybe beef up the damage/delay ratio of some of the weapons here.

Rare random drops in places like Befallen, Crushbone, Kerra Ridge: a level appropriate magic weapon with a simple proc

Add a leader to each city that is raidable and drops appropriate gear

Do more with the Karanas. I always felt that this was too empty, also, who's coming here at level 10 to exp? nobody

[Godhand]

I'm going to be evening out itemization so people progress a little more evenly. Like I said, I played a warrior in classic who literally went from a fine steel long sword to a shortsword of the ykesha. It made no sense that Crushbone had some really nice loot while Blackburrow had nothing really. Zones like Blackburrow and Paw will definitely have more nameds and loot added. Kerra Ridge will definitely be utilized, but I can't really say how right now.

There will definitely be lots of new nameds and loots to discover as you're leveling up to 50, and then tons of interesting and difficult raid mobs.

[LumieX]

I wasn't saying you should make it a pvp server I was just talking mostly...

you've got a lot of good ideas and many very similar if not exactly the same things I've thought about like lots of mini's being way too easy/brainless and have zero cool abilities and itemization being terrible

I also hated how a lot of items had completely retarded stats, most notably the planar gear...like intel classes getting wisdom and vice versa and all sorts of dumb stuff...like a few classes bracers are amazing while others are totally worthless in comparison, i seriously can't even believe they did that intentionally

I've also always hated crappy the resist system worked and how many opportunities were missed to add in more interesting abilities to random mobs

like I've always felt that if you wanted to exp in solA/B that you'd need to gear up in FR gear in whatever way possible to even stand a chance in those zones and even then they should still be tuff, but virtually undoable without at least the most basic set of available fire resist gear thats obviously obtainable outside of said zones through jewelry, mobs/nameds in lavastorm and perhaps nejana or whatever

Same with Lguk, I hated the fact that you were fighting tons of undead rotting disgusting diseased mobs and you could easily poison/disease them and they didn't have any disease/poison abilities...didn't make sense. You should need a real good set of poison/disease resist gear to even stand a chance of fighting there and a couple of people who can cure.

it's kinda reminiscent of zelda and old school rpg's where you needed a specific item to go to a specific dungeon where you could then get cooler/better items/upgrades etc and explore a new part of the game world

Currently how the resist system works is garbage imo...like on a vox or naggy raid, you either have enough cold resist to virtually resist the AE every time or you get hit for full every time...there doesn't seem to be much of an inbetween and everything seems to be very hit or miss. I think it should be very difficult to frequently fully resist any spell and that it should be on a more partial resist system, sorta how like AC works with damage by mitigating what would have been the potential initial incoming damage. I also don't think level should ever come into play when determining spell resists(or melee too for that matter)

http://www.eqemulator.net/forums/showthread.php?t=28478

I made a post about how I think it should work and I definitely think it would make a great deal more sense and allow for a bit more versatility with your mobs special abilities and how each players spells affect mobs so that theres more of a middle ground


Another major issue I have with classic EQ is the matter between melee's and casters. As it stands, casters gain far less from each individual piece of gear then a melee does and most gear needs to be relentlessly sought after for months as a melee where as casters can buy virtually all of their spells. I always thought casters should only get a very few select spells from vendors and should have to either quest or sweep dungeons in order to obtain the rune words needed and the rune words should be kept secret and you should need to seek out the books/lore/npc's in game which reveal what the rune words mean and how to combine them to create powerful undiscovered spells.

Adding focus effects to items wasn't a bad start to making items more necessary for casters to be powerful. I loved how back in the day you needed to kill vox and naggy for the rune words required to make ice comet but then as always they dumbed it down and came out with the staff of the wheel quest so every average joe could get ice comet.

[Godhand]

Focus effects are reworked here. They're not based on level. Improved Damage I is a 5% increase to all spells, II is 10%, III is 15%, etc.

In classic REEQ, the only gear that has focus effects is Plane of Sky class sets. Veeshan's Peak will have level II focus effects, etc.

Strength, Dexterity, and Agility will be much more useful. A rogue will seek a +5 str item the same as an int caster will seek a +5 int item.

There will be no research and currently each class a high end spell drop from Plane of Hate / Fear. I'm not against questing for high end spells and there may be some in Kunark and Velious, but its a lot more easier to just have the spell drop directly than to have the components drop and then needed to be turned in. Although I do understand it makes it a lot more interesting to have to discover what components are needed and where the quest is at, etc. It's just more work to code the quests, really.

Also, all classes will be able to obtain gear sets from Fear or Hate. For example, amygdalans in Fear and ashenbone drakes in Hate are on the same loot table, all drop full sets of Umbral armor, an SK weapon, and a high end spell (Life Leech, in this case). Every class will have a specific mob in each plane that drops their armor + a class weapon or spell, or both in the case of hybrids.

[Greinke]

This sounds like it could be fun. I hope it sees the light of day.

[Elysius]

I'll toss out a few questions.

1. Any plans for cash sinks? People always say an economy is impossible on EQEmu servers and I think that's completely untrue. Put in a significant plat sink and an economy will spring.

2. What will be the max level? 50 then 60?

3. Will AAs be included?

4. Why limit the focus effects to planar and above items?

[Hessie025]

Dude, That sounds kickass...I know something I really hated about EQ as it went on was the ability to go anywhere almost instantly...whatever those stupid books were I remember taking a lvl 3 to like a lvl 60 zone in a couple minutes which wouldn't be a problem if I had, had to walk there, but the problem is I just like....appeared there lol...it made me feel less adventurous...and eventually I just stopped..

[Quineloe]

I always thought that some of the mob levels in many dungeons were quite off. Running into level 1 mobs in BB or CB for example. Also these dungeons capped out quite low, it is easily possible to go to CB, only to outlevel the place in an hour with accelerated exp. 12-20 would probably work better than the 4-14 it is right now.

I'd love to play on your server too.

[Godhand]

1. Any plans for cash sinks? People always say an economy is impossible on EQEmu servers and I think that's completely untrue. Put in a significant plat sink and an economy will spring.
The economy should be pretty strong. There will be a lot more named mobs and drops, especially in dungeons. Blackburrow alone has at least 30 new droppable low end items. Tradeskills are being re-worked be a lot more effective. I think the majority of the playerbase will want to work on at least one tradeskill. They're pretty big money sinks themselves. Quests themselves can be pretty good cash sinks. Remember crafted armor and saving up for those gems?

2. What will be the max level? 50 then 60?
50 in classic. Possibly 55 in Kunark, then 60 in Velious, or just starting at 60 in Kunark. Still being worked out.

3. Will AAs be included?
I like AAs in live, I thought they were a good addition. But to answer the question, no, or not for a long time.

4. Why limit the focus effects to planar and above items?
The same reason that item haste will be a lot more limited. Item haste and focus effects are way, way more powerful than say +10 intelligence or strength. Items such as FBSS and CoF were way overpowered in classic EQ. Slow, gradual progression is what we're going for here. There's currently 4 haste items in Classic, 3 are raid items, with the most powerful being 27%. If you can get a mask with +5% mana preservation from Unrest you probably won't want the +15 int mask from Cazic Thule (just examples). We're trying to keep things as balanced as possible. No group items should be better than expansion-appropriate raid loot. So, the vast majority of "special effects" items (haste, focus, +atk, etc) are reserved for raid bosses since these effects are just way better than straight stats. This isn't to say that Kunark won't feature level I focus effects, but these will be very rare drops or quests. And in Kunark, raiders will be able to obtain level II focus effects (Veeshan's Peak).

Dude, That sounds kickass...I know something I really hated about EQ as it went on was the ability to go anywhere almost instantly...whatever those stupid books were I remember taking a lvl 3 to like a lvl 60 zone in a couple minutes which wouldn't be a problem if I had, had to walk there, but the problem is I just like....appeared there lol...it made me feel less adventurous...and eventually I just stopped..
Instant teleportation and soulbinders are gone. Please see your local druid or wizard.

I always thought that some of the mob levels in many dungeons were quite off. Running into level 1 mobs in BB or CB for example. Also these dungeons capped out quite low, it is easily possible to go to CB, only to outlevel the place in an hour with accelerated exp. 12-20 would probably work better than the 4-14 it is right now.

I'd love to play on your server too.
I agree. You should be able to get 1-50 in 3-4 dungeons max. The rate of exp will be a bit faster than PEQ and a bit slower than VZTZ if you're familiar with those servers.


I appreciate the interest / questions. :)

[multitasking]

This is actually one of the best ideas ive ever heard of on eqemu forums.. people either try to make it pure classic (which doesnt work with low population) or too easy (which people get bored of very quickly).. i like your inbetween approach with keeping certain classic aspects of the game but adding your own custom ideas.. that how you make a good server.. keep up the good work bro

[ChaosSlayerZ]

Taking out soulbinders is actualy bad idea.
I remember my melee days when I traveled on foot from Gfay to Erudine and spent next 3 HOURS /shouting /ooc /crying until someone showed up who was willing to bind me.
Caster IMHo had too much luxury on traveling around. If melees can't bind - neither should casters =P

[Godhand]

I'll keep soul binders up for consideration, but right now they've been removed.

Getting binds, sows, ports (etc) as a melee was part of the hardship of playing one of those classes and something I enjoyed as a community builder. Maybe I'm just a masochist.

[Elysius]

I'll keep soul binders up for consideration, but right now they've been removed.

Getting binds, sows, ports (etc) as a melee was part of the hardship of playing one of those classes and something I enjoyed as a community builder. Maybe I'm just a masochist.

To be honest, I think it should really depend on the server population. Yeah, back in the day it was a hardship but it was mitigated by the fact that if you were sitting in Kelethin you could very easily find another player to help you out.

It would be unreasonable to expect the population to be anywhere near as large as Live's was at the beginning. Maybe include Soulbinders as well as NPC teleporters at each spire that would teleport you for a fee, at least until the population picks up?

[ChaosSlayerZ]

well consider this- why should 2 clases out of 14 (wiz, druid) have a build-in cash generator working for them? The "economic" value of the class should never be balanced vs its "gameplay" value.

You should not be geting FREE ports only cuase you playing a wizard - you can have ability to access the travel spell, but then spell should come at STEEP reagent cost. There is a good reason why my friend's Sk was dead broke at lev 45, while my druid was siting on 60k cash at the same level (this is in 2001)

Please note- I do not actualy propose you do it this way - this is your server and you can paint sky green if you wish - I only speaking my mind out :cool:


It would be unreasonable to expect the population to be anywhere near as large as Live's was at the beginning. Maybe include Soulbinders as well as NPC teleporters at each spire that would teleport you for a fee, at least until the population picks up?


This is EXACTLY how I planing this for my server. All cities have soulbinders, and Spires have teleporters who teleport for a FEE - which is rather LARGE. And while druids/wizard have access to own ports- all ports requre reagent which is cost as much as the porters fee.
So no class has an economical bonus

[LumieX]

any updated info on this server?

[hyz0n]

I for one wouldn't suffer to see the Soul Binders and Teleporters disappear. I know it's not convenient to search this out, but it WAS the essence of the game for a long time.

There were times where I would be miserable as a wizard because I didn't have Clarity and it took 8 minutes to regenerate a full bar of mana. Or the times when I didn't have a res, and would have to run a country mile back to my body. Loving a druid camping nearby, because I hadn't camped Jboots yet, and needed a SoW to make my kiting easier. As a wizard, I sacrificed those wants / needs to have a standout bonus for transportation. I still to this day will remember the hours long trek I made from Erudin to Gfaydark at level 6 (before they changed Kithicor).

I think the main point would be to change the content in between travel points enough to intrigue an explorer to WANT to see what's in between, as opposed to it just being the same boring landscape (a eerily similar plight to a long commute to work.)

As a small rant, I dislike how the mentality in gaming today is that the gamer is empowered to whine about inconvenience to make the game easy to play.

As the gaming population and game market has increased, it seems like the push in gaming is to get the maximum amount of people playing and tons cash in your pockets versus created a quality game that is what it is regardless of how many people decide to play.

I hope the emulator world can be large enough to accommodate people who truly desire a tough challenge, and those who want Soulbinders, Teleports, 5xXp etc.

I'm really intrigued by your server idea. I'm almost always amused when work people do for free and/or enjoyment and it turns out a better product than what people do for pay.