MMOBugs Emulator Server Ideas

[Fry]

Hey Bugs,

The idea has come up again about creating a MMOBugs EverQuest server. We have done this before, and I think at one stage we had around 70 accounts online, but it died pretty fast. Pretty much we just ran a generic EverQuest world, allowed active hacks, gave out all discipline/spells for free, and gave out free uber armor/weapons on venders. I enjoyed it, but the challenge died pretty fast.

Zipp has been running an EQ server for quite awhile now with his bot idea, allowing active hacks, and creating custom content. The only downsides I had with the server was being from Australia, the bots somehow lagged me to hell in any raid situation. I couldn't make it through luclin because of it, but people plowed through the server content within days. Other than that it was a very awesome server.

For a MMOBugs server, we would like to look for long term ideas. Something that you could see yourself playing for fun for years, so it would have to be somewhat challenging.

I would love to do a P1999 server that allowed boxing and most MQ2 features (Warping would be up for debate), but the work involved is insane. I know there was a team trying to clone EQMac before it was shut down, I'm fairly sure there work was never finished, so that could be an option for all content up to PoP.

I have also had the idea of trying to do a DOTA clone in EQ. Have one side human guards, that sends wave after wave of guards down 3 lanes, and on other side have orcs sending them down other lanes. You'd pick pre-made heros, and battle other heros to see who can take out the others fortress first. I could see something like that being fun, but would be a huge undertaking.

I'd love to know ideas on what sort of server the community would think they would enjoy as I am very tempted to start putting my free time into an EQ emulator server.

 

[Cr4zyb4rd]

I can see myself working on something like this. I'd much rather a '99 type thing, with automation allowed/encouraged.. outright giving everything away seems to make the whole thing pointless. What Zipp has going sounds pretty good, haven't had a chance to check it out yet.

I'd definitely like to see/play with custom content: dota-style scripts, being able to adjust the level spread on old content, those types of things.

 

[Rasmussenn]

I played on Zipp's server for quite a while, till real life got in the way. I also played on the MMO server while EQ Live was down back when SoE was hacked.

I'd love to play on a server that was a combination of Zipp's and P1999 that was MMO/MQ2 tolerant with some custom content. I like the bot concept on Zipp's server. It allows you to progress through content at your own pace, without always having to rely on others. And later, with some friends, to tackle what would otherwise be raid content. But the P1999 progression pace has it's appeal as well in that you can't beat the entire content in 10 days or less.

Would be great to see a combination of the 2 with as much content/expansions as an EMU server can handle so that there's some kind of time sink involved without the bottlenecks posed by the live progression servers

 

[tiki]

Id love to see this happen, im currently playing on zipps but the bot lag is killing me with the 6 toons 5 bots that I was running, now I mdown to 3 real 5 bots and it isn't as bad.

 

[Dogstar]

I would need to learn a lot about emulators and I would hate losing all the work put into my current toons but . . .there are a few things that could make this very attractive to me (I wish EQ allowed this on at least one server)

1) MQ2 use being Ok including some active hacks, especially warp
2) Mercs allowed in raids; that would allow you to play around in at least some old school raid content; maybe even some newer stuff
3) a chanty merc or easy to use bot; the biggest challenge I have on group tasks etc. is adds. Having an auto or semi-auto crowd control function would facilitate a lot of things.

My 2 cents.

 

[Yoda007]

I disagree with handing out any items, buff bots, even teleport bots. If you want the server to have any longevity you cannot have these things, it just makes things too easy.

Make it similar to Zipp's server - legit, but detune raid mobs for the population base (maybe start with 1grp ?)

 

[Nicedreamsbt]

A eq dota Style Game Would be a cool project. I have been learning 3ds max And zbrush why i have no real Internet.

 

[SiegeTank]

Would be great fun and I like the idea of allowing enough boxing and automated play to enable experiencing raid content "solo" or with only a few RL players. But I do think adding too much super-powered abilities, like warp, is going to greatly diminish the working life of the server as people burn thru content and get tired of it being so easy to do.

It's like turning on "god mode" in games like Half-Life... 2 hours later, game over lol.

 

[Lorekeeper]

If anyone remembers I loved the server until it died out, I agree with not giving out armors or spells, I believe these things should be much much much more difficult to obtain, I also think Augments should be beyond rare, and weight reduction bags should be just as rare! I enjoyed everquest when there was something to grind for, when you got "chippy" because you know the item you have is rare. Now its pointless, its handed to you.

Active hacks should be fine, but the game for items, and rares should be extremely difficult if you do allow hacks. Oh, and a leaderboard is a win.

 

[KennyNinja]

Well challenging is the key, raids got so automated lately, feels like theres no challenge at all. I remember EQ raids like qvic (i was in triton and we were the firsts serverwide to beat uqua and enter there) that feeling to beat the hardest raid is awesome, that depends on each player otherwiser its a wipe. There are a plenty of ways to make it challenging from solo stuff to raid stuff.

Either way doesnt mean it would attract players, not everyone is hardcore. The server has no value as it starts, people need to taste before actually consuming it.

The main question is, what attracts you to eq other than anygame? simplicity? mechanics? and go from there.

 

[devestator]

I would love a box friendly, limited MQ2 allowed classic style server (perhaps even going to PoP eventually but I'd like to see only original, maybe original + kunark + velious initially). But the amount of work to build the database for such a server would be pretty intense from my understanding. And just from trying to research stuff while playing on P99 it can be a pain to find accurate information pertaining to the era.

Also, the problem is getting a population. One of the things that makes P99 successful is it has a large enough population to recreate a classic EQ server feel with multiple raid guilds, an abundance of items farmed, groups being findable. If you only had a population of 20 to 60 people, that stuff isn't going to happen. Unless those 20 to 60 people all happened to be extremely like minded, had the same amount of playtime, and had the same exact goals anyway...

I like playing on P99 but their no boxing rule really annoys me. I two boxed as early as late 99, a few months after picking up the game, so being limited to one character on that server just feels weird lol. I started three boxing some in 2001 / 2002, and found out about MQ in 2003 which made boxing so much easier

If such a server were made though, I could see limiting it to only 2, maybe 3 boxing (but I think 3 boxing is pushing it). You don't want people with box armies going around soloing everything. And for that I understand P99 for not allowing boxing.

As for MQ2 on such a server, it'd have to be pretty limited. And I also think you are going to have a problem getting a large scale population on it if it's publicly known MQ2 is used on it. It's almost like saying if you play on this server you should be using MQ2, if not you are missing out.

Limited to perhaps a map, and the ability to automate things with macros. Perhaps even have it only allow automation for a certain amount of time each day. Like after 8 hours per day of automated crafting, or something, it would kick the bots off the server (not ban them, just kick them offline). Would probably be pretty easy to tie that in with an mmobugs compile to say when something is being automated, but other compiles might be a different story. Unless you required any compile that was used on a server to have a plugin capable of detecting it. I also think non instanced completely afk xp gain should be limited or possibly disallowed entirely.

Don't get me wrong, I support and use MQ2 on live servers myself to do all of these things for as much time as possible. But if we are talking about a server that we'd actually want to see successful, and to enjoy for the game, I can understand where moderation needs to be done on it.