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Classic Research

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Revision as of 16:28, 28 December 2022 by Loramin (Talk | contribs)

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The founders of Project 1999 have built it on the premise that it should be as "classic" (ie. as true to how the game was in 1999-2001) as possible. They've done a tremendous job, and the project is incredibly close to the classic game.

However, there are still a small number of issues (many of which are noted on the Non-Classic Compendium) which remain unclassic. In order to correct these issues, Nilbog and the other developers require evidence of how things used to work during the classic time period.

Contents

How to do (Good) Classic Research

TO DO: Perhaps a classic researcher could put some basic suggestions here?

Existing Classic Research

Many P99 players have done extensive research already, so instead of re-inventing the wheel it's best to start by looking at what already exists. The most comprehensive source of such research is the P99 Bug Forums, but that source is a bit ... chaotic, so the Classic Research Reference page strives to organize it.

Modern (But Still Useful) Research Sources

  • Allakhazam - great data on zones/items/npcs/etc. but generally a poor source for classic research because most of their data was updated after the classic period. However, sometimes classic-era comments (or post-classic comments that still reference classic things) can be found on it. Also sometimes knowledge of how an NPC worked after the classic period can be useful in understanding (eg. to make sense of confusing comments that might reference the old or new version of something)
  • Lucy - Allakhazam's separate spell and item effect database; another poor site for classic research, but a very good one for modern EQ data; this makes it perfect for data which hasn't changed much since classic (eg. the Buff Lines page was compiled largely from Lucy data)
  • Magelo another very good site for modern EQ, but has limited classic data

Wayback Machine (ie. Web) Sources

The Wayback Machine, from the Internet Archive, is an amazing tool that lets us see versions of EQ websites captured back in 1999-2001.

Also, sometimes later captures are useful as well; when new EQ content came out, it could take months or years for knowledge of it to get into these sites, so sometimes captures from 2002+ still have useful classic info that isn't in earlier captures.

  • Allakhazam - the Wayback version of Allakhazam is a lot less detailed than the modern one, but it *only* has classic info
  • EQ Atlas - this site is the source of most wiki maps, but it also has some articles and a forum where people discuss things like the locations of classic NPCs
  • EQ Traders - THE classic source for tradeskill info
  • Caster's Realm was an extremely popular classic EQ site, and it had both a main site and a separate forum site:
    • NOTE: Unfortunately on both sites the earliest (ie. in-classic-era) archives are incomplete, and often only have links without the content of those links. Thus, it may be necessary to look at slightly later (Luclin-era) archives to see the content.

Usenet

Usenet was a pre-web forum system, that people still used to discuss EQ (even though Usenet was somewhat antiquated by then).

  • alt.games.everquest an archive of a (Usenet?) message group for EverQuest, which includes messages from the classic era (and can be searched)

Caiu's Links

A great collection of links from classic researcher Caiu. TODO: Merge them with the rest of this page.

Dumping some stuff I've come across over the years

Decompiles of classic clients: https://github.com/mackal/EQMechanics/wiki

Spell Research: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EeluzL5gFvIhj2OJIhmK_zSjuudRnrOB http://www.oocities.org/xymarra/Spells/SpellLists.html Duration formula Looking for a pre or Luclin release spdat!

Better patch history: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9w2lZ-BZM3lUWJUZGVZVXFzT1E
(Editor: Our wiki's Patch Notes page is pretty good also, as it draws from multiple sources. TODO: Someone should check that that page isn't missing anything that's in the above link.)

Torven's archives: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9w2lZ-BZM3ld0lTNnZXTDlQcFk

ShowEQ scrape circa 2001: http://web.archive.org/web/20021129210131/http://www.geocities.com/ficticiousname9/

p1999 server changelog: soon!
Old mana calculator https://web.archive.org/web/20011120045312if_/http://www.everquest.com.tw:80/download/utility/MCalc12a.exe

Missing links to EQ developer corner forum:

EQClassic source code: I've been asked not to distribute this by an EQClassic dev so nvm! Still getting this together there is the actual old source and then the EQMac implementation. When this is done should have all the files/links to setup the old source. The old source is able to be booted and you can login and admire the old UI, not painlessly however getting everything to work is gonna be an exercise in persistence. Link to NAS' repository for all this https://newagesoldier.com/EQClassic/

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