Hey how's it going? I currently play p99, but as I'm sure some of you have heard, or even know it's a bit of a toxic environment as well as not going anywhere after Velious. I played EQ back in the day and got to PoP...even though I loved PoP i was burnt out and quit playing about midway through PoP. I was on the Quellious server and in a pretty good guild which reached PoT. Anyway I'd like to see Luclin and PoP again. Couple questions. -Is there a decent grouping environment on AK, i'm sure not so much in the beginning of the server but looks like your population is growing. -Are there any major differences from say, p99, or EQ back in the day when PoP came out? I've read in your wiki that EQmac is more quirky than PC eq, but noticeably so? -So to my understanding Luclin zones, as far as Vah Shir go, are open, and PoK is open…will the server move to all Luclin zones for raiding…same question for PoP?
Welcome! You should definitely play here. - Early grouping is harder than later on but the ability to 3box alleviates that. - Differences to p99 will mostly be drops/spawn related. Epics here are not the same as they are on p99, they are updated. - Yes Luclin will eventually be completely released as will PoP. Devs work on one expansion at a time and Velious is coming next month. Shar Vahl, Nexus, Bazaar, PoK are only open for convenience reasons and so people can make the characters they want to make.
Most players box 2 or 3 characters though there is a leveling guild that you might find luck with some groups. If you stick to the high ZEM zones experience is very good. There is lots of differences so I'm not going to list them all. If you are into it get onto the discord chat or voice chat and ask some questions. Hope to see ya!
Awesome, thanks for quick responses, epics are updated as in a lot of the bottlenecks were taken out or changed? Is XP similar to old school or is it better/updated, or were you just referring to the ZEM bonuses in dungeons?
Server wide flat 20% exp bonus. Epics updated meaning, triggered venril/faydedar/ragefire etc. Versions of the quests you would find on Allakhazam.
the 20% exp bonus is something AK server had so they put it in here. There's also no class xp penalties, but racial penalty/bonus is in.
You will find leveling and acquiring gear much easier on this server. Lots more room, can box up to 3, friendlier people. Cheers
Most of all, the community here is great and the Devs are incredible at recreating the EQ (Classic-PoP era) that we all know and love. I never played on AK, but played many years on Live, and I've not found any of the AK quirks to be an issue at all. Regarding epics, bottlenecks are definitely still there - Phinny seemed to drop only wizzy wand for about a month with a number of bards and mages trying for drops - but the population is at a great level to allow you to get the drops you need, with a little patience and perhaps a little help. Regarding leveling...I've just hit 60 with my 3-box crew and I'll saw, I would have loved to group more along the way, but once I hit 50, there were a number of groups - mostly guild groups, also - in Seb, KC, HS and other ideal spots. With Velious opening soon, I imagine there will be a good bit of group age available 50+ as folks work to farm drops for quests, armor and just rep in general. Honestly, with a decent 2 or 3-box crew, 1-50 goes very quickly if you stick with the ZEMs because of the server wide 20%. Of course, if you choose to go all Iksar, you'll feel it. Anyway, it's a great place. I hope you'll give it a shot.
Oh and having PoK available makes a world of difference vs the gameplay on p99. There are still places that take forever to get to, and always will be - TD I'm looking at you - but PoK stones/books are a huge quality of life improvement...not to mention the spell vendors, GMs, etc.
The Devs here go way above and beyond, making for an even better experience than I had in any EQ environment. The tools, the genuine care for the community, their passion for this game combined with some pretty incredible attention to detail to code makes it an extremely pleasant experience. The people here are equally passionate about maintaining a mature, healthy community. It's a solid place to enjoy a legacy game in the best way imaginable, no matter how much or how little time you have to play.
The top things that P99 players struggle with / complain about when coming over here: Boxing - it's a good thing when controlled (like it is here with a 3 box limit, plus 1 account flagged as a trader account for Bazaar purposes) and not some guy in his basement automating 24 toons or automating an entire guilds CH chain, or wizard deathsquads, etc. UI Changes - No Scroll Wheel to 3rd person No cycle PC/NPC hotkey. You need to learn how to use F8, /Assist and just plain old clicking more efficiently especially on a CC class. No raw mana value displayed in inventory window Only 1 hotbar with 10 hotkeys (though you have 10 pages of said hotbar, you get used to cycling between them when you have a few AAs you need to click) No /hidecorpses looted. Get used to looting and deleting no drop quest items when farming through content. /hidecorpses all does work. Lack of Group Game - This isn't to say you are unlikely to get any groups at all. But it is very common to find Unrest, Mistmoore and City of Mist completely devoid of players in prime time. Zones like Sebilis, Chardok and Howling Stones will usually have 2 or 3 boxing crews roaming around though. Many of which will invite you, though don't be surprised if that Chardok crew is camping a very specific item and AFKing inbetween spawns etc. Economy - Though the server is certainly smaller, the ability to run a 4th toon solely for Bazaar purposes means there usually are 10-20 people selling stuff in Baz at a time. Unfortunately since the server isn't as old and the group game isn't as common, a lot of mid tier gear just doesn't get sold. People box for the pieces and pick a new camp when they've got most of what they need. Bazaar - People on P99 love to complain about Bazaar killing player transactions... I love Bazaar. Don't have to deal with lowballers, hagglers, or resellers. You set your own prices and get paid or you value things and buy items. Never on P99 did I have a meaningful player-on-player experience from selling in EC. It was mostly just tells "I'll offer you 75% of that" or "it isn't worth that" or "I'll trade you these 5 inferior items". Focus Effects - Gear has the Luclin focus effects already, though there is probably going to be a revamp to make them more correct compared to AK, they work for the most part already. This makes hearing a faster WAY more interesting and fun than P99. Getting gear that reduces mana cost by 10% or you cast spells 15% faster or heal or Nuke for 20% more, etc. As an example Obulus Death Shroud is probably one of the most valuable non-raid drops because it is mana preservation on all spells up to 60.
Above posters have already mentioned a lot. Aside from the obvious older client (more true to the era), 3-box limit, and smaller community, I'd like to highlight two of my favorite things about TAKP. *The devs. They are truly awesome. Very quick to get fixes in, helpful crew all, and accessible. Putting out lots of content, created lots of web tools, and Torven's research confirms "feels right" to "thousands of hours of logs prove this is right." *The community. I'm glad 3-boxing was set as the limit because of the way it has fostered relations among players. We have a mature playerbase that isn't going to poopsock or lawyer you around - we have better things to do with our time. We enjoy EQ, we enjoy meeting new people, and it is the most friendly online gaming crew I've come across. This is good reason to play TAKP, too. New players in need of plat, do a BumQuest - do small errands for Bum and you'll earn enough to get some gear!
The Devs are something I certainly forgot to mention. On P99, there are bug posts that extend years and years, or thinks that got broken that stay broken for months. I think P99 just doesn't have the developers beyond Nilbog anymore and I'm guessing he doesn't have the time to address stuff. Whereas here if you find something "wrong", often times it will be fixed and in patch by the end of the day - assuming it's a simple database change like a wrong drop or wrong max hit etc. I use "wrong" to mention that he goal of this server is to emulate Al'Kabor. So the evidence you're looking for to prove that something is incorrect is ideally logs or screenshots or fraps from Al'Kabor, if that isn't available aim for posts/screenshots from the 2002/early 2003 era of EQLive as that's when the code split off for Al'Kabor.
Even the code fixes are done so quickly it's remarkable. The grav flux crash 'quest' and resulting fix was pretty epic. The devs and community are my draw as well. There are groups to be had while leveling if you advertise in the serverwide ooc and send some tells to folks. I'd say over half the time I look to group up I can find at least 1 other person that wants to.
The community is great. On P99, you want to avoid everyone you can, but you are forced into grouping with them. On TAKP, you have the option of 3-boxing but end up wanting to group with as many people as possible anyways. -Grouping: I'm fairly newish around here, having worked up to the 30's on 2 different 3-box crews. I've had groups with 4 different people in them a few times (with 2 boxes added to round it out). 2 different people each 3-boxing together is quite common even at the low levels. However, most people stick to high ZEM zones (such as Kurns, Unrest, HHK, etc.), and you'll be on your own for the most part if you want to venture outside of those. Thankfully 3-box is good enough for camping specific spawns you might want for quests/drops in the more empty areas. -A big difference from P99 is that TAKP uses an appropriate client for the era. The client here is actually a PoP client - this has both good and bad impact, some of which have been mentioned above, but it is era-accurate and not subject to arbitrary dev decisions. I personally find it nice to not have a ton of features shown in the client but unavailable when clicked on. It certainly adds to the proper feel of the game. -there were a number of differences between EQ-Mac and EQ-PC back in 2002 - the devs do seek to re-create the differences so that it is just like EQ-mac was, so there will be a few differences compared to what you remember from 2002. Most of what i've read seems to indicate these differences are pretty heavy in PoP raiding, but not so much outside of that. -To add one thing to the above responses regarding progression of expansions - this is not a time locked progression server. Just because we are in Kunark, soon Velious, does not mean that every aspect was recreated to be the same as Kunark/Velious was upon that expansion's launch. It is Kunark/Velious as it was during PoP. There aren't a ton of differences, but the differences are quite noticeable, such as having spell focus effects in Kunark. There are also low lvl noob-armor-quests for most class/race combos in the starting areas. It also causes a few oddities, like some luclin/PoP spells are currently available (where sold in classic/kunark/PoK), while other luclin/PoP spells are not available.
One other thing I thought of that is certainly worth mentioning that is a huge plus for this server: The number of web-tools you have access to that give you information or control which other servers haven't done in the past: Built in Magelo - This allows you to actually see your raw mana value when the client doesn't. So you can sort of track your gear upgrading. You can also look to others on the server for upgrade ideas. Spell Book Checker - Compares your characters currently scribed spell book versus the spell database. Let's you know which spells you don't have scribed. Very useful tool that removes any grunt work in either manually checking your spell book or checking your logs to see "did I ever get that spell". Character Account Mover - This tool is probably the most useful of them all. You have access to 10 in-game accounts. If you ever find yourself in a situation where say... You have your warrior and cleric on the same account and you decide you want to box those two, or you have your Druid and Beastlord and you decide your Beastlord needs to get lots of ports to complete some quest, with one simple tool you can move one of your characters from In-game Account A to In-game Account B. On Al'Kabor I made 2 Alts on my clerics account and as a result I could never Rez them. It got annoying at some points, this tool removes that issue entirely.
I love how we are all so passionate about this place that we keep posting all the reasons to join and OP has been radio silent for days. #TAKP4LIFE
Haha I've been hovering and reading. This has been some great information. And I really appreciate everyone's input. To be honest I've never boxed and it seems daunting to run 3 toons at once, but I do love soloing, Druid and Ench are my mains on 99 and I can't remember the last time I grouped. But boxing is a different story! I also saw someone mention there is newb armor quests in each city now? That sounds interesting, and that bum guy sounds awesome too, there used to be people on 99 that would do the same kind of thing but I haven't seen that in months.
Glad you're still hanging around! Here's a thread with up-to-date info on which Newbie armor quests are in and working. http://www.takproject.net/forums/index.php?threads/newbie-armor-quests-list.3951/
Oh, and don't let Bum fool you. He eats Gnomes. Anyone decent on the server tries to steer clear of him.
Newbie armor is a nice thing to exist. But being a Druid and enchanter, you really don't need any gear on those characters going through levels. You really won't notice the gear providing you much benefit. However they are quintessential EQ style quests. Do em if you want to do quests, but don't fret about not completing them for the minor stat upgrades by the time you out level the starting areas.
Don't get caught in a dark alley with these two while they are BROmancing it up with high fives. Two boxing isn't to bad to do. Three boxing isn't required to get ahead, just makes quality of life better while leving. You just have to use the right combo i.e. two classes that are made to solo and when they combine they form a Voltron-esque power duo
I enjoyed a cleric as a second box as my introduction to boxing back onAK, as it was relatively straight-forward and helped a lot in my ability to do quests as an otherwise solo rogue. It definitely takes some getting used to, but once you get the hang of boxing you wont look back.
