[EQ1] Operation Old School

[Tuco]

Objective:
Recreate the original EQ1 gaming experience by organizing a team of players who casually level only together in older areas with no power-leveling, twinking or any other form of outside assistance.

Operation Status:
We're rocking old school Everquest hard now. Meet up at PoK on Saturdays at 12pm EST if you want to join us in a session. On Thursday evening we typically have secondary sessions for people who aren't the max level.

Process:
We will meet at the specified time at a specified place and organize ourselves into groups. In the event that we have more than 6 people I will assign multiple leaders and have them go where they please. At first we can try having a full group leveling together, and if it's too easy, we can break into smaller groups. We will play together until we decide to stop. At that point I will decide what the new 'maximum level is' and post it, along with the next leveling area we'll go to. I'll probably also post SS's of our experience with getting me a phat bronze bracer.

Between leveling sessions, each player is responsible for ensuring they are at the maximum level, have all their inventory organized, are in the next meeting area and are ready to level some more. Most of us have a very limited time to play, and I do not intend to wait around while you run your short butt to take a boat from Kaladim to Karana. In my raiding past I have been a stickler for starting raids on time, and while I'm not going to be a power-hungry jerk about it, I'm also not going to wait for you.

If you miss a session or are joining up after we've started, you can simply get a character to the appropriate level (Twink/plvl if you want to even) and then just arrive at one of our sessions. Gear may be an issue, but try to dress in something similar to what we have for that level. Just because one of our warriors got a steel bracer last week doesn't mean you can jump to his level and get a full suit of steel. Be smart about it, and don't get pissed when we ask you to start stripping your twinked gear. Best bet is to come undergeared and then gear up with us.

Rules During Sessions:
(I apologize for the length, but I am used to making rules that are difficult to exploit. If you have common sense, just don't do anything that you couldn't do back in the day, or receive outside help.)

Outside of sessions you can do whatever you want. The idea is to show up at the next session with the same loot/power/level you left the last session at.

1. Do not level beyond the specified maximum level, killing mobs to catch up (if you died/missed out/otherwise are below maximum level etc) is perfectly fine. Working tradeskills, selling your inventory to vendors, getting spells, moving your character etc are acceptable. Just don't go beyond the maximum level.
2. While playing with the group, do not equip gear that you did not loot yourself, buy with money from an NPC vendor you did not receive while grouping with us, or didn't receive as a result of a quest that you performed. Do not use gear you bought from another player (even with money gotten from the group).
2.1 Do not equip gear that was not existent during the first few years of EQ, unless the group agrees that it's ok. I don't know what the hell is out there these days, and I don't want to 'gimp' this project by some queer new drop in befallen that is the equivalent to a crazy alien weapon or something. I want to stick to gear with similar power to what we could've gotten at that level in the original game.
2.2 Do not use any crafted gear.
2.3 You can use gear gotten outside of sessions, but only if it came from a mob that was at the maximum level of our group or below. Also, you cannot get gear from mobs we plan on killing as a single group but haven't (The Shin Lord in Guk, for example, is off limits, as is the Warden, and any mob in areas we haven't been in that we plan to go to, like Najena)
2.4 You can use quested gear gotten outside of sessions, but only if the quests doesn't involve killing a mob above the maximum level. The same rules from 2.3 apply to 2.4. You can't use quested items from mobs we haven't killed yet and plan on killing.
3. If another player above our level buffs you, click it off.
4. Do not allow an outside player to help us with corpse recoveries.
5. Two boxing is allowed as long as both characters follow the rules, and the player isn't slowing the group down due to two boxing.
6. No veteran rewards or any other type of ability that was not present during Velious. AA's, trading card game card rewards etc.
7. No magicians (Magicians are too powerful in the lower levels and would not only trivialize the content, but would also make melee obsolete).\

Banned Items:
These items are not to be used during sessions:

Blackened Alloy Bastard Sword
Blackened Alloy Long Sword
Iksar Berserker Club

Server:
We're on The Combine server.

Loot distribution:
The group will decide on each piece of loot, in case of a disagreement we'll vote, in case of a tie the group leader will decide. People who whine about losing a roll on a gnoll hide lariat will be publicly humiliated on this forum.

Group organization:
I will organize my group at the beginning of the night, and other people will organize their own group. It might be necessary for me to have people switch their groups around in groups are imbalanced (two healers in one group, zero in another etc), but largely each group will have the power to do as they please.

Ventrilo:
Vent isn't required, but I suggest people use it. I understand the reasons people don't want to use it, but if I can I probably won't invite people into my personal group who don't use it.

Here's the info for our vent (Thanks IncognitoGamer):
IP: 69.12.30.131
Port: 2390

For rules on vent, try not to annoy people with too much talking, and do as your group leader instructs you to do. If he tells you to shut up, do so. If you're the leader and the group collectively tells you to shut up, do so.

[Tuco]

Broccoli - N/A
Caewin - ?
Crass - Zarcath
Dallien - ?
Darmak - ?
Daryaen - Daryaen
Demethius - Laedrun
Drakzon/Darkon - Drakzon
Einar - Taelus
Jusforj - Jusforj
Lawso - N/A
Leetelf - N/A
Lendarios - Lendarios
Luth - N/A
Indower - ?
Irontune - Tuco
Kraid - Moowcow Milkblaster
Krazz - Madruk
Marckemarck - Marck
Prova/Qycum - ?
Raga/Nagoura - Ogun Nagoura
Rubix - crrimson death
Sarod/Sarode/Sarodo - ?
Sarille - ?
Spoike - ?
Squishem/Boodah - Vishnu
Tarem - ?
Thingeth - gremlinz273
Thorpe - Thorpe
Wren - ?
Zanez - ?
Zimph - Zimphultron

[Tuco]

Session 1 - BlackBurrow

We had a pretty good turnout for our first session, higher than I was expecting. We had 22 people at 5pm and around 28 people total throughout the night. We had a mad exp dash as soon as the clock ticked 5, with the whole newbie farm of Northern Qeynos full of beetle, gnoll and even some ogre corpses. Raids were gathered to ensure Qeynos' safety from Fippy, nobel Clikniks, and even a zombie. After about an hour of this we trickled into Qeynos Hills and fought our way towards our night's destination: BlackBurrow. A few angry grizzly bears thwarted our advance, but we eventually entered the gaping maw that is the entrance of BlackBurrow. We formed three groups and quickly stepped on each other's largely naked and rust bearing toes, so one group escaped to Crushbone while the other two groups humbled themselves in the BlackBurrow maze. We ended the exciting night after several corpse recoveries deep in the heart of BlackBurrow.

[Tuco]

Session 2: Crushbone

We had another good turnout for the second session, alot of people from Sunday and a few new faces. We had 4 fairly even groups for the east coasters and I believe two groups for the west coasters. The east coast group started at 7pm EST sharp, and my group quickly took on reds galore at the footsteps of the Emporer's castle. I spent much of the night stealing from Prova, training the other groups, and running big circles with giant Orcs chasing me as the rest of my group killed them one by one.

At 9:30pm EST we gathered in Darish's room as a 22man raid and overpowered their forces in anticipation of killing the emporer. All the mobs were deep red as far as the eye could see, and it took the entire force of the raid to keep everyone up. After clearing the path I gave the order to Squishem to bring us the man himself. Squishem did not fail in his task and we quickly engaged Crush, fighting a glorious battle filled with rusty weapons and naked bodies. It was reminiscent of 300, where brave men gathered to fight orcs with rusty weapons and naked bodies!

In the end, we reigned victorious, and Indower was blessed with a dwarven ringmail tunic after winning a tie-break roll against Caewin!

We also have a temporary guild now, until the GM responds to our petition for Rickshaw Bandits!

[Merauk]

Session 3: Befallen

The first real difficult zone we encountered happened to be a whole lot of fun. The first two hours of the night were filled with trains, bad pathing and multi-group corpse recoveries in areas full of ghouls (We can't hit them without magical weapons). Quite a few people showed up, enough for four groups, and we found Befallen a little too crowded. (Powerleveling did ensue as two groups of half naked people were following my group around killing things as we killed them and got the XP). The last hour we emptied out of Befallen, with one group staying, another group killing Dervs in the Commonlands, and another group killing mobs in North Ro.

[Tuco]

Session 5: Warrens

Two groups entered Warrens, and one group stayed in Crushbone to coerce Dvinn, Darish and the Emporer into giving them maces and daggers. The two groups were enough to dominate the zone, taking everything out except the vile Muglewump. Near the end of the night we called in for reinforcements, now equipped with screaming maces (Well, one of them was) and ready to take out a frog. We wisely decided to jump in the water to fight the creature, just in case he had a knockback AE like Gazrilla in Zul'Farrak. Unfortunately none of the melee could actually swing at him successfully, but we still managed to push him over. We did this with 2 rangers, a shaman and a paladin healer btw.

[Tuco]

Session 5: Upper Guk

Tonight we hit the frogs. We had three groups and spread out at the Scryer, the idealist and the other group floated. Then at 3pm we all got together and went after the Shin Lord. Was a pretty easy fight.

[Digits]

Something important to realize is that Sony fucked up and made almost all mobs have universal hp and damage tables. This basically boils down to classic zones are balanced around well geared players, even classic ones. I made a monk decked out in great Velious era gear and I had a problem running through zones I was overleveled for and stacked healing mobs were impossible.

This could be a good thing, or a shitty thing, depending on what type of experience you are aiming for. Mobs are definitely more powerful to combat mudflation, and you may find yourself sitting in a more original EQ experience than you anticipated. Just a heads up.

[Bloodget]

Will be hard to manage totally overpowered spells casters didn't have back in the days. And can't avoid them, they were all updated. Your wizard will one shot what was a fair fight for a group before.

[Thorpe]

Combine is fine with me. I voted Monk since that's what I played back in the day but since we are all starting from scratch, it shouldn't be hard to learn a new class if we are short on one.

EDIT: I forgot to vote in the first part of the poll, but I'll be part of the first session.

[Ogun Nagoura]

How can I see what the present status is over the EQ servers? I used to play on Bristlebane and Xegony.

I'll be happy to play a gnome paladin/cleric, halfling druid, or iksar bst. Those are my favorites i played in the day. I don't play pure casters tho.

[kegkilla]

sounds like some fun.

[Braen]

You might consider the Test server.. All expansions are free and there is an exp bonus.. plus you can test buff yourself to 25 I believe.

[Ogun Nagoura]

Originally Posted by Braen

You might consider the Test server.. All expansions are free and there is an exp bonus.. plus you can test buff yourself to 25 I believe.

Braen, I am so tired of your good ideas, helpful advice, and considerate attitude. Fuck off.

[Incognitogamer]

Originally Posted by Tuco

VOIP:
I would like to have a VOIP system installed, but it won't be mandatory. I currently don't have a vent server available to me, so if anyone wants to offer theirs, then we can go ahead and do it. Perhaps we can organize groups based on who wants to have vent and who doesn't. The vent channel I'll be in will be expected to be relatively mature (and R rated unless people don't want that). I'm used to leading raids full of chatty Peurto Ricans, so I'm not afraid to tell people to shut the hell up. I realize that vent is not necessary to do 8 year old content, but if I'm going to be spending some time with a group of people I'd prefer to get to know them via vent rather than text.

If you guys need a vent let me know, mine is relatively empty and I'd have no problem giving some people here admin so they can create their own channels and whatnot.

It maxes at like 75 people too, so I doubt we'll run into any "too many people on it at one time" issues.