Hi guys...

[jmbluff]

So i'm thinking about starting SoD again but just now I found out about something called Project 1999. Now I hope I don't receive any blast from this or offend anybody but it's only piqued my curiosity. I was wondering if anybody had any information on what sets SoD apart, why I should stay on course with SoD, and why P99 is as some people call it a "Steaming Pile of Dog Shit". Also, was wondering if any major developments have been made over the past... 4?5? years. If SoD's population issues have been resolved in any way or if there's a larger player base than 200 at any given time. Also why is SoD not listed on EQEmu? Which I also just learned about via this forums. I liked SoD alot 4-5 years ago and it's a great thing to dump hours into between work, life, dogs, etc. However, P99s population is exponentially higher and if I were to return to SoD it would be with a new character and i've read several posts in these forums complaining about lower end grouping etc and there being nobody to play with up until 65 or so....

I'll wrap this up with a
TL;DR

Thinking about playing eq again.
Between SoD&P99 differences?
Is SoD still good/better?

 

[Ezie3205]

I never played past 20 on P99. I like boxing and played the fuck out of Vanilla EQ (all the way to GoD or OoW) so that server is a whole lot of been there done that. Also, there seemed like there was nothing in that game. I keep hearing that they are going to go up to Velious which might actually interest me.

SoD is so packed full of content you would have to invest your whole career as one character and never see it all. The populations is obviously lower but its steady and there are more improvements on the drawing board for the next year and beyond that will probably stimulate growth.

Currently, I think the official explanation is that SoD is out of date but I guess depending who you talk to about the why we arent on the EMU site changes the reason why. I have heard everything from: SoD requires too many personal files and it goes against EMU's listing policy to P99's leader wont let it up there because he doesnt want to have the population taken from p99.

 

[Pecannius]

I think of SoD as a server that takes EQ and takes out a lot of the annoying things and makes them better. The lore is interesting and completely revamped from regular EQ. The endgame is much more vast and than a P99 time game, leaving a lot of things to do if you stick around.

With the added development and enhancements Sod does have its fair share of bugs and annoying stuff which can be intimidating and annoying at the start.

Here are some things that are good for new players:
-Recently added / fixed newbie quests: http://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/threads/new-newbie-quest-bug-thread.28209/
-Adept mobs (mobs with a max level engage, so like little raid targets for lower level poeple): http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Adepts
-Interesting and in-depth lore.
-New 2.5 is under development, a HUGE thing for SoD. It will *hopefully* have a number of bug fixes that annoy the current playerbase as well as give more control to the devs to do things they can't do in the current client. No time set on its release date, as the programmers don't have salaries or anything but from the 2.5 forum thread it's getting "close". http://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/forums/sod-2-5-beta.64/
-A great community of people that want to help noobies. The ooc channel is global so you can throw out questions, and you're automatically placed in a newbie guild with people who want to help out newer people.

From what I understand, SoD is not on the EQEMU list because it's modded too heavily. Honestly, these changes make it way better (personal preference). It is quite unfortunate that EQEmu doesn't have a section for modded EQ servers, because from that, I'm pretty sure SoD is the best one in this category by far.

I don't think you can really compare P99 and SoD because they seek to accomplish different things. A lot of SoD is based off of regular EQ (classes, most spells, zone files etc) but SoD makes the game a lot more interesting and vast.

 

[Daffie]

I left p99 because the raid scene is not only horrible in many ways, but I found many of the players to be abrasive. Not all players are bad, but there were enough to make me not like the server.

Due to the limited, toxic, and broken end game there, I found myself with one choice for progression on my character. Sit and camp/track raid mobs for literally days with my guild because these mobs are killed within minutes of spawning. Re-spawn for there raid mobs is something like 5 to 7 days and there are only a dozen or so raid mobs.

P99 has two things going for it. It has a higher population, and it tries to mimic old eq as closely as possible (many times to a fault...no in game maps for example.)

SoD has a much more vast post leveling experience, a much nicer player base, and tons more lore/content.