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This hint is really only for iTunes, and I found it in September 2004 Issue. It was submitted by an anonymous user. Are you somewhat disappointed with the output from iTunes? If so, you might try using the equalizer (Command-2, or the third button from right at the bottom of the main window) to modify the output levels at various frequencies.

There are a number of pre-defined settings, but the MacFormat tip contained a different set of suggested levels. Open the equalizer, and from the pop-up menu, select 'Make Preset.' Call it 'Perfect,' because it is, and set the following levels, from left to right (skip the Preamp section): db +3, +6, +9, +7, +6, +5, +7, +9, +11, +8 db The image to the left shows about what it should look like when you're done.

Make sure you check the 'On' box to activate the equalizer, too. These settings produce absolutely the best balance I've ever heard. My home computer speakers are ablaze with sound now. robg adds: I realize that there's no such thing as a 'perfect' equalizer setting, hence the use of quotes in the title. I further realize that the use of any equalizer setting other than 'flat' means that you're no longer listening to the music as recorded on the master.

However, due to the varying quality of computer speakers, signal loss due to MP3/AAC encoding, and non-ideal speaker setups, you might find that your music does sound better to you using a non-flat equalizer setting. I've been using the above settings for a week or so now, and I must say that my music now sounds better - it may be less 'true' to the original, but it sounds better to my admittedly untrained ear. And that's what counts. Let the flaming begin:). November 2004 update: If you're interested in the operation of the iTunes equalizer in general, methodshop.com has a, written by Rich Tozzoli, Senior Editor of Surround Professional Magazine, that explains each of the sliders in detail.

It also offers some good general advice on the use of the equalizer. This article is linked on our links pages, but I thought it worth a mention here, too. If you're really serious about improving the sound quality of your iTunes playback through less-than-ideal laptop or monitor speakers, invest in the VolumeLogic plugin from Octiv. The sound quality improvements are astounding, especially during soft passages, on my Titanium Powerbook. I disable the plugin when I connect my laptop to my stereo (sorry, no Airport Express yet) so I can hear the music as the artist intended. I have no connection to Octiv whatsoever, aside from being a very satisfied user. Here's a link:.

Whilst this EQ curve gives a pretty good loudness boost I still have to put in my vote for VolumeLogic, an amazing piece of software and well worth the money. I had to switch it off to test this EQ setting and everything just sounds so flat without it. I personally listen to most music with VolumeLogic's 'Reggae' setting because I like my highs and lows, but they have similar presets to iTunes for different kinds of music plus a 'General' preset for everything. I also use iVolume instead of Sound Check, it uses a better algorithm for level checking and lets you transfer results to the iPod too. It is quite a bit slower than Sound Check though. I used this equalizer setting on all the songs in my library for awhile because I really liked it, but then after awhile, I decided to mess with the settings again. I came up with the idea to make personal settings for songs.

I listened to one song and moved the equalizer knobs around until I thought the song's sound quality was at its best. I did this with almost every song, but a lot of songs in my library are similar in style, so I just used one setting on those. Oh, and name all the presets you make with the name of the song you are playing. I tried to post this as a hint last week, but in my failed submission, I mentioned this parent hint and robg told me to post my failed submission as a comment.:) Cheers, rob! - -brita.

'I did this with almost every song, but a lot of songs in my library are similar in style, so I just used one setting on those.' I'm a sound engineer by trade, and I just wanted to point out that you might have used more time than necessary by naming a preset for each of your songs. Albums are mastered with a very expensive set of speakers and given an EQ 'preset' before they are pressed to CD for shipping. Your goal should be to make the whole album sound as good on your own speakers as you can. There is no reason to try and adjust the iTunes EQ for each song on the same album.

Instead, try and pick your favorite song (which is almost certainly the one you've listened to the most, and are the most aurally familiar with) and make a preset for that one. Apply that 'album' preset to each song on the record, and you'll find that presto!, you've re-created the hyper-expensive mastering environment that your artist used to finalize their music before shipping it to you. Now you can sit back and listen to the entire album just as the artist and mastering engineer intended it to be heard. Using this EQ approach, you will begin to pick out slight variations between the songs that indicate the taste of the producer and the artist which you may not have realized before. Happy listening! - Joel Farris 'and that's the way it oughta be!'

'This is a top to a, you know, what we use on stage, but it's very, very special because if you can see, the numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board.' 'And most of these amps go up to ten. Does that mean it's.

Is it any louder?' 'Well, it's one louder, isn't it?

It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here. All the way up. All the way up. All the way up.

You're on ten on your guitar.where can you go from there? 'I don't know.' What we do is if we need that extra.push over the cliff.you know what we do?'

'Put it up to eleven.' 'Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number, and make that a little louder?' 'long silence.These go to eleven!' I realize it's not very Mac OS X, but here is the windows equivalent: var iTunesApp = WScript.CreateObject('iTunes.Application');iTunesApp.CurrentEQPreset.band1 = -3;iTunesApp.CurrentEQPreset.band2 = 0;iTunesApp.CurrentEQPreset.band3 = 3;iTunesApp.CurrentEQPreset.band4 = 1;iTunesApp.CurrentEQPreset.band5 = 0;iTunesApp.CurrentEQPreset.band6 = -1;iTunesApp.CurrentEQPreset.band7 = 1;iTunesApp.CurrentEQPreset.band8 = 3;iTunesApp.CurrentEQPreset.band9 = 6;iTunesApp.CurrentEQPreset.band10 = 5;iTunesApp.CurrentEQPreset.Preamp = 0;. As someone who used to own a recording studio, I'd like to make a couple of comments. First off, the poster who mentioned that this setting makes everythign louder is right. The downside is that this may put some stuff over the top and you'll get distortion.

If you do use a settine that makes everything louder, use the preamp slider to bring the overall volume back down. Second, on the subject of some bands recording their songs 'at a higher volume', you really can't. All forms of digital audio have a maximum number that any sound can be, and you can't go above that.

What you can do, is compress the sound so more of it will be up there. Unfortunately overusing this makes everything sound terrible, and produces 'ear fatigue'. It's like instead of eating a nice meal followed by a nice dessert, you have a gallon of chocolate ice cream every time. Finally, our ears get used to different EQ settings. This is why some guys have the bass all the way up and the loudness engaged on their stereo.

To someone with a set of ears, this sounds terrible, but they are used to it. If you want better sound, I recommend encoding the signal at a higher bit rate and using superior encoders. After that, I'd just adjust the hardware EQ slightly on the stereo if needed. This is an old thread, and probably won't be seen, but: On analog tape and most mixers, pushing the levels hard not only brings in distortion, but by the very nature of distortion, compression/limiting as well.

Plus in the early 90's the Waves L1 was available to quite a lot of studios to do digital mastering and squash the heck out of things. Most likely when you hear people saying that they recorded it louder, the are confused and mean it was made louder in mastering - which as bakalite mentioned is done via compression/limiting. As an audio engineer and producer with 18 years of experience in the field working in some of the 'finest studios in the world', I'm confident in saying that this approach is backwards. Equalizers in both the analog and digital realm do subtractive filtering far better than additive filtering. When pulling the EQ down you are not creating the additive comb-filtering necessary to boost frequencies that do not already exist, so using this kind of approach is leaves more of the original audio intact and does not add as many artifacts to the signal. Of course an FFT digital EQ can overcome this (which is why the Weiss products are so expensive but popular), but iTunes most certainly does not hog the processor by using FFT algorithms for it's EQ. What would be more appropriate, and also avoid unnecessary distortion, is to do all of those adjustments subtractively, then making up the gain difference with the slider at the left.

This is why the slider on the left exists, in case you were wondering. Like this (-8, -5, -2, -4, -5, -6, -4, -2, 0, -3), if my math is correct. Then just boost the overall gain at the left to make up the difference. I'm not suggesting this will sound 'better' to you, but it will certainly be a cleaner way to use the EQ. Unless my eyes deceive me at this 'early' hour, I actually got the math right the first time and my 'negative' setting is true to the original.

I'm glad it sounds good to your ear, but perhaps I missed the opportunity to make a larger more philosophical point about audio filtering in my original post. And that is, if it sounds right to you then it is right. If the bass seems a bit low on your system, boost it! Everyone's system is going to sound different because of the kind of computer you have (audio circuitry), how old it is (speaker wear and tear), placement of the computer (acoustics and angle of speaker to ear), use of external speakers (dramatically different bass/treble response), kind of OS and Audio App (they inject their own EQ curve usually), and of course the EQ curve of your ears (young ears are usually much flatter than old ears). There are so many things going on that keep the 'flat' output from being 'flat' that you're already starting at a disadvantage. I just wanted to point out that there is a 'right' and 'wrong' way to use EQ from an audiophile standpoint. Keep in mind that when I mix a track that you listen to on the radio, the radio station is destroying the original EQ curve by using multiband processing in order for their station to appear the 'loudest' in their market.

Because as we all know louder is better:) So there is no absolute or golden rule to EQ curves. It is right when it sounds right! Best, TC - Rick wrote: HelloMy name is Rick and I saw your post. What a great EQ setting. But I'm just wondering about the math. EQ setting: -8, -5, -2, -4, -5, -6, -4, -2, 0, -3 The original EQ setting give was. +3, +6, +9, +7, +6, +5, +7, +9, +11, +8 Didn't you reverse the order as well as subtract from it?

I'm confused. Because your mistake, if in fact it was a mistakesounds great. The bass is pretty low, which kinda disappoints me, but other than that it sounds clean like you said.

So now my question is. How did this work out? ThanksRick. Since I didn't want to pay the dual price of volume logic, I am using the iTunes EQ with the subtractive settings.

For convenience, I've modified the above script and guessed with the preamp setting though it seemed better at 6 than 12 and using the above logic, it should be greater than zero. Copy and paste the following into a Script Editor window and press Run: tell application 'iTunes' tell EQ preset 1 - the Manual setting which you can then save set band 1 to -8 set band 2 to -5 set band 3 to -3 set band 4 to -4 set band 5 to -5 set band 6 to -6 set band 7 to -4 set band 8 to -2 set band 9 to 0 set band 10 to -3 set preamp to 6 - A guess on my part end tellend tell - Pecos Bill.

I currently have +8,+2,0,+2, +2, -2, -7, -6, -1, +2 for classical. This seems to make the sound tighter than the 'flat' preset. I came up with these numbers after I had the idea of isolating each band by putting two bands to the left and two bands to the right at -12, with all others at 0.

Then I would adjust the isolated band until the sound was a little below an unnatural sound. Then I took the average of all settings (+4.4) and lowered everything by 4 to get an average around 0. What is a good method for adjusting each band? Looking at my settings, I certainly wonder if I may have 'misheard' 2K and 4K, since they're set so low.

I currently have +8,+2,0,+2, +2, -2, -7, -6, -1, +2 for classical. This seems to make the sound tighter than the 'flat' preset. I created these settings on MacBook Pro and they seem to sound pretty good on Nano (gen 2) with Shure E3c (which are 'flat'). I came up with these numbers after I had the idea of isolating each band by putting two bands to the left and two bands to the right at -12, with all others at 0. Then I would adjust the isolated band until the sound was a little below an unnatural sound. Then I took the average of all settings (+4.4) and lowered everything by 4 to get an average around 0. What is a good method for adjusting each band?

Looking at my settings, I certainly wonder if I may have 'misheard' 2K and 4K, since they're set so low. Make sure you deselect 'Meters' as they really hog cpu cycles. Also, keep the VolumeLogic window closed whenever possible.

On my Titanium Powerbook, I use the 'General' genre preset (I have a very ecclectic iTunes library of nearly 15,000 songs), with 'Drive' set all the way to the right and 'Bass Boost' set all the way to the left. A couple other important things to remember: 1) Keep the iTunes volume all the way up, and control the actual listening level either with the VolumeLogic 'Volume' slider or with the sound output system preference (as I do via the keyboard's volume keys).

2) Turn the iTunes equalizer off. 3) Turn iTunes 'Sound Enhancer' off. 4) Turn iTunes 'Sound Check' off. Again, I disable VolumeLogic altogether when I connect my computer to my stereo, but these settings work great either with my laptop's built-in speakers, or the cheap ones built into an external monitor. I'm pretty sure that VolumeLogic is accomplishing much the same thing as the SRS WOW Thing mentioned in another post.

There's some good technical information about VolumeLogic's signal processing at the Octiv website. You're no longer listening to the music as recorded on the master. Maybe it's closer. Even fairly expensive speakers may not reproduce different pitches equally loudly. Typical 'computer' speakers costing less than $200 certainly don't. Smaller speakers simply cannot reproduce very low frequencies well. However, it's likely a waste of effort to try to boost the bass volume, since the speakers will just wuff.

Speakers also have trouble with the higher frequencies that you especially boost; here you have some hope to recover the original sound. Bear in mind that a lot of the limitations of low-bitrate tunes - ie, the distortion of 128kb/s or lower MP3's - show up in the frequencies that you're boosting. Your settings COULD make these worse. Another post mentions overall loudness as 'impossible to boost.' Unfortunately, some engineers boost the average sound level by allowing the occasional peaks to go over the maximum that can be encoded; these are 'clipped' to the maximum value that the (CD, or whatever) format allows. In the process, you get substantial distortion. Some listeners who like a 'loud' sound will prefer this sound, even though it is less true to the sound that was actually on the 'master' before the disk was cut with this stunt.

Most non-rock musicians will cringe, but yes, some CD's are intentionally distributed this way. 'wuff' is one of the best words ever. Completely accurate, too. It's ironic that people whose equipment is of high enough quality (price) to properly reproduce the frequencies most wished to be boosted, tend to be those people who have the least desire for SRS WOW or bowled EQ obstructing the clarity of the music they want to listen to. But, hey, the whole point is to get something that sounds good.

If you like the sound of the EQ setting described here, that's a good thing. If you don't like it, you can make your own setting, or even do without EQ. If it sounds good, go with it. That's what counts. (Disclaimer: I say all of this as a budding audiophile who dropped $300 on headphones and an amplifier last month.:). The proper way to set EQ curves is keeping everything balanced around 0. You should never boost any bands as high as this.

So the 500 Hz slider would be at zero, with the others the same ratio higher and lower. Really all you are doing is making it louder, and for most people louder sounds better. I've been using several of my own EQ curves for years. It's a shame that they don't copy over to the iPod though. On my iPod I usually use R&B or Jazz. R&B can get too boomy and make my ear pods clip. A somewhat little known fact is that by setting your iPod's EQ to flat, it will honor the EQ setting from iTunes.

So how ever you set a song's EQ (from the preset list) that's what you will get. My big gripe with the built in EQ curves are they are too exaggerated!

They are very gimmicky. Good EQ curves are far more subtle. Another point is don't get hung up on if you use EQ you are not hearing the song the way it was mastered.

If you don't use EQ you might not be hearing it the right way either! The correct way is to use a noise generator and a hand held spectrum analyzer to EQ your system for flat response in your listening environment. Speakers do not have perfectly flat response and neither does the amp or playback device.

After you do that, you are hearing things as they were mastered. And you might still not like it!

Everyone hears differently. Being a musician for the past 36 years has left my hearing slightly worse then when I started! So I need more high end.

EQ is our friend!:) - - G4/466, 1 GB, Mac OS X 10.3.5. Everyone hears differently. Being a musician for the past 36 years has left my hearing slightly worse then when I started! So I need more high end. EQ is our friend!:) Exactly. After 23 years of playing drums, and a lot of that time having the bass player's amp to my left, I can't stand listening to music unless I can also feel the low end. My EQs usually have a steep low end, depending on the system.

And all those cymbals took a small toll on my high end, so the other end of the EQ is steep too. The rest of it gets tuned to the system/room. While this hint probably got a bunch of people to actually mess with the iTunes EQ, and there were good explanations of how boost causes distortion, I wouldn't really call it an OS X Hint.

Re: noise generator and spectrum analyzer I made an effort at doing that a couple of years ago. With a pink noise.wav file, the built-in mic on my PowerBook, and the spectrum analyzer in Amadeus. It turned out pretty well, actually.

On my desktop Mac I looped the pink noise in iTunes. On my PowerBook I watched the real-time spectrum analyzer and adjusted the iTunes EQ until all the frequency bands were about the same (ignoring the extreme upper and lower frequencies where the built-in mic was obviously not registering).

Once the pink noise looked good in the analyzer I did some listening tests to fine-tune the EQ settings - since holding a PowerBook in front of my speakers wasn't quite the same as using a genuine calibrated mic. At that point I had a good EQ preset that made the system sound much better.

The next step would be to combine my baseline preset with the official Apple EQ presets. I thought I'd just dig into com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist and add & subtract from each band as necessary to create calibrated 'Rock/Pop/Loudness/etc.'

The EQ property list is kinda scary lookin' though, and I never got around to trying anything with AppleScript - but after it was calibrated I didn't really use the other presets anyway. It seems like the easiest way to incorporate a baseline speaker calibration into the other presets, short of an actual hardware EQ, would be to loop through all the standard presets with AppleScript and create new, calibrated versions.

If I could work out the proper syntax for 'make new EQ preset' I'd be good to go. I thought I'd just dig into com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist and add & subtract from each band as necessary to create calibrated 'Rock/Pop/Loudness/etc.'

The EQ property list is kinda scary lookin' though, and I never got around to trying anything with AppleScript - but after it was calibrated I didn't really use the other presets anyway After I noticed that there is an eq settings plist on the iPod, I thought this would be a great application for some adventurous programer/developer out there. Write an app that would allow modifying the iPod's EQ presets, with some type of GUI, like an EQ. I haven't really made any tests to see if the iPod can actually copy custom EQ curves from iTunes, but I haven't found any documentation that says it can.

I haven't done any of this in a while, but I always thought you were supposed to use white noise for calibration. White noise has an equal distribution of frequencies, while pink noise has a low pass curve and therefore has less high frequencies. It's warmer, so it's pink.:) Regarding iPod battery life. Yes, this is true.

Using the EQ shortens your battery life. But I can't listen to my iPod without EQ! Gotta hear that bass! (I'm a bass player):) - - G4/466, 1 GB, Mac OS X 10.3.5. If all you want to do is equalize away the inherent problem resonances in your speakers, you can do it by hand.

Make a sound file in Audacity with about a second's worth of sine wave for each iTunes EQ band. Save it as an AIFF file, import it into iTunes (still as AIFF, not mp3 or AAC), set playback to repeat, and hit Play.

Open up the EQ window, and reduce the sliders where you hear peaks in the sound. Don't boost anything - you'll greatly increase the risk of distortion. If you're setting this up for your laptop, cut the bass as well, because those tiny speakers can't afford to be overworked trying to play frequencies that sound best through subs 8' or larger. You can set up different EQ curves for the speakers you have on your desktop, your headphones & earphones, and anything else. Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to export the settings to my iPod (I've read EVERYTHING posted so far, and nothing works). My iBook-specific EQ has these cuts: 32 Hz -9dB; 64 Hz -3; 500 Hz -9; 4 KHz -5; 8 KHz -3; 16 KHz -1. Another curve, for my Apple earbuds, came out like this: 2 KHz -2; 4 KHz -6; 8 KHz -4.

VolumeLogic does work extremely well, but with music containing a wide dynamic range (large-scale symphonic stuff, for example), the softs are louder than they should be. But, for general listening, iespecially/i on tiny underpowered speakers like those on your laptop, it's very, very good. There's no such thing as 'perfect'. Each song will have (probably) been processed by an EQ. Some bands seem to increase the bass for the crap-speaker market, so it actually sounds bad on good speakers. And if your speakers are tinny, then you're probably using a laptop, and tiny speakers are impossible to get good sound out of (even eMac speakers leave a lot to be desired).

I have spent billions of hours tweaking my EQ, and have around 25 right now (for headphones, eMac speakers, and my two pairs through a 160-watt amp). I blast the room at night (the walls seem to be reasonably soundproof) to tweak my EQ. I use a few reference songs, which hopefully are mixed properly (i.e. Made for 'perfect' speakers). Why it seems to sound better is you're pushing up the treble. Let's use my eMac speakers as a reference.

It doesn't really have enough 'deep bass' (Gravity of Love). It should dip more around 250-500 Hz (eMac resonance ish, Torn). 8K is too high, so esses sound loud (Torn).

16K is a little too low. It doesn't quite compensate enough for bad midtones. It drops the bass sweep, too (Atomic Dance Explosion), though only big speakers can reproduce it properly. For the most part, you can compensate for bad speakers by turning everything down, and basically listening to one band at a time. 32 is really low bass. 64 is decent bass. 125 is cheap bass (the kind you get with 'bass boost', the volume turned up, and crap speakers).

200 and 500 are midtones, 1K and 2K are 'tinny', 4K is treble-ish, 8K is esses, and most of the high hat, and 16K is the rest of the high hat. Then, you just turn down the bands which sound like your crappy laptop speakers (or crappy 'multimedia' speakers). In college (abck in the late '70s) I bought a radio shack eq for about $100 (thats about $300 today). We played some good and bad music at a friends place that had some very good speakers.

When we got to the album - 'Live Bootleg' by Aeorsmith, I was amazed. The album, for me, was junk. But, with an equalizer we could find sounds and items in the background we had nedver heard before. On a live track we could hear the people walking on stage.

It was fun to listen to - for a change. Can a equalizer make an album good - NO. But add one to a decent/OK system and it can 'compensate' for many defects in the system and room. It is about he room more than the system. Set your equalizer for what you want to hear/can hear and not what someone thinks is right.

As someone who has been playing with sound equipment since he was 12, I must say this article looks like something I would have written when I was 11. There is no such thing a a 'perfect' equalizer setting, as everybody has said before me but it can't just be stated enough.

The only, single, unique purpose of an equalizer should be to compensate for the imperfect response curve of the sound installation. A perfect speaker produces the perfect sound with all sliders of the equalizer set to 0dB. If your actual speaker plays a 125Hz tone 3dB more silent, you should set the 125Hz slider to +3dB, or set all other sliders to -3dB and leave the 125Hz at 0dB.

The problem is that you need professional equipment to measure the deviations of your actual speakers from the ideal speaker. Plus, many speakers deviate so badly from the ideal speaker that even at the most extreme settings the equalizer can't correct them, or distortion kicks in. Plus, the equalizer is only approximative. A parametric equalizer would be required for a much more accurate correction. So the only thing you can do with the equalizer, is try to make your music sound as good as possible within all these limitations.

If you consistently hear some frequencies louder than others on all songs, try to find that frequency and tune its slider down. The use for a loudness compensator as found on many amplifiers, is to compensate for the fact that the frequency response curve of the human ear changes with amplitude.

Roughly spoken, the sensitivity for bass and trebles decreases with decreasing amplitude. Therefore a loudness control will boost bass & treble at low volumes. Unfortunately this involves is so much approximation and guess-work that the end result is probably not what it should be. To hear the music as it should sound - assuming you're using perfect speakers - you should play it at the same volume as was used during the recording, without any loudness compensation.

But on most crappy consumer products, turning on loudness will indeed improve the sound quality, if only because the loudness compensation often corresponds pretty well with the deficiencies of the crappy speakers. In general, though, equalization and loudness are completely different things. For my iBook speakers, after many, many attempts, I found the following setting to improve the sound without distorting it too much.

Of course the extreme boost at 125Hz causes distortion with some songs, but I had to do this to avoid losing too much of the already scarce volume. The speakers are crappy anyway, so a little extra distortion is no big deal. Preamp: -3.5dB (you can decrease this to reduce the distortion, or boost it if you don't mind the distortion).

32Hz: -12dB (those speakers can't reach this frequency anyway) 64Hz: +6dB (idem, but this is just to keep the curve a little smooth) 125Hz:+12dB 250Hz: +1dB 500Hz: -5dB 1kHz: -3dB 2kHz: 0dB 4kHz: -1dB 8kHz: +1dB 16kHz: +3dB. I have been in the high end audio business for 27 years and what you have done is a common misconception people have about volume and eq settings. Remember this amp goes to 11.

The EQ settings are all at least +3db. This is increasing volume as well as eq. Everything sounds better louder and that is what you have done. What you need to do is keep the levels as much above as below 0Db. When you switch between eq'd and not eq'd the volume should be the same. If your speakers have 20watt amps that is as loud it will ever be, regardless of your eq settings. I've been using it for over twenty years - only with all frequencies dropped about three notches and the pre-amp boosted almost one.

It's a general setting that works for all music if you don't have a spectrum analyzer to check room acoustics. An EQ's purpose is to add or remove frequency to attempt to get a flat response from the environment, not from the speakers.

I have always wondered why EQ manufacturers don't include a California Smile pre-set when DJ's and sound engineers for bands have relied on it for years. This preset causing peaking in a lot of my music. It cranks these frequencies too much. Just listen to a part in your music when there is already a lot going on-with the preset, it crackles.

Without it, it hits like it's supposed to and doesn't peak. It sounds 'better', only because it's just making things louder, while leaving the bass down enough to not totally overdue it. Try starting out at flat and compensating just enough to make up for how crappy your speakers are, you'll have much better results.

The mastering of music has enough limiting going on already, you shouldn't need to crank up the frequencies like this. Also, every set of speakers and every single song (at the least every album) is going to need a different EQ to sound great. Just blowing everything out is not the way to make all of your music sound great.

For the past 6 months I have had the unique privilege to go back in time and experience the magic of the original. This is thanks to who are a group of dedicated EQ enthusiasts who set up servers that emulate the original Norrath as we knew it in classic EverQuest. Currently the P1999 version of Norrath includes the original EverQuest and the first two expansions: Ruins of Kunark, and Scars of Velious. Being able to transport yourself back to the original unsullied EverQuest offers one a rare glimpse into the gold standard of how a MMORPG should be designed and produced. Every MMO that has come after owes everything to the majesty and the genius of EQ. Without EQ there would be no World of Warcraft and its legion of imitators. Sadly, the graphically inferior, convenience laden, anti-social, single-player friendly EverQuest of today run by Daybreak Games bears little resemblance to classic EQ circa 1999-2001.

With the release of the third EQ expansion Shadows of Luclin, SOE began the process of systematically eradicating the magic of the EverQuest franchise by introducing misguided features that offered players more convenience. Additionally SOE replaced the stylized fantasy player avatars with horrifically bad artwork which further eroded the charm of the original EQ. The road to ruin for EQ did not end there. Subsequent expansions such as The Planes of Power introduced portals in the Plane of Knowledge that shrank the size of the world and eroded class interdependency which had the unintended consequences of making the two classes that offered teleportation almost useless. The EverQuest of today is a mere shadow of it’s former glorious self.

Thankfully there is a way we can go back to Kansas and experience the awe, the magic and the wonder of Norrath once again. To this day, the only way to experience EQ with 99% fidelity and authenticity is to log on to Project 1999 and sample the fantastic world of Norrath they way it was meant to be. Over the last few years, the free to play Project 1999 has thousands of players and has a vibrant, passionate community of players that is unequalled today in the current MMO universe. What a player will experience in P1999 is a combination of classic EverQuest, how the P1999 staff has managed to recreate EverQuest and how the players interact with each other. After playing on the P1999 blue server for about 6 months, what follows is my review of the entire experience. The Good Classic EverQuest Despite its flaws, the original EQ is as perfect as a MMORPG has ever been and P1999 has managed to bring it all back in all its classic and hardcore glory. With P1999 you get to see that EQ had all of the elements which make for an outstanding MMO:.

Challenge. Consequences. Class interdependence.

Experience based Advancement There is very little for me to say about EverQuest that I have not already said in previous articles over the years. So instead let’s look at the P1999 version of EQ.

The Joy of Social Interaction One of the biggest accomplishments of the original EverQuest was that it popularized the idea of interactive and cooperative entertainment. Previous to EQ, RPG video games were largely single-player affairs or they were text based MUDS with no graphics. SOE/Verant changed everything and brought us a 3D fantasy world and managed to synthesize a winning formula that drew people in and required player cooperation that produced deep social interaction.

For a few brief years EverQuest blazed a trail of innovation and pushed the genre forward. It did not last. Since the release of World of Warcraft, the MMORPG genre has slouched back to the starkness and emptiness of the single player video game.

As the storytellers took over the helm, the importance of social interaction in virtual worlds has been marginalized and forgotten. Blizzard Entertainment forgot that the most fundamental foundation of MMORPGs is that they are all about people. People are everywhere in P1999 as they were in the original EverQuest. P1999 is a breath of fresh emancipated air where players are all together instead of being prisoners in the loneliness of instanced dungeons. If you want to experience a thriving and living fantasy virtual world where you can actually talk to other players, group with them, make friends for life then P1999 is your MMORPG. The Players P1999 has attracted and perhaps produced the highest caliber of players that I have ever seen in any MMO. The world of Norrath is so severe and unforgiving that every player must master his class in order to survive and progress.

Not only is mastering the intricacies of every class important, the player must also effectively master their role in a group. Social skills are also a must as players with good social skills are invited back and those who are rude and/or selfish loot whores are rarely invited back into groups.

Naturally, P1999 has its share of bad apples but for the most part the player community is light years better than the community you will find in popular MMORPGs such as Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. Great MMOs produce great players. The converse is also true, produce. The Community Most of the people that I have met in P1999 have been friendly, kind and thoughtful. This is reminiscent of the kind of community that I remembered back in 1999-2004. So not only do good MMORPGs produce good players, they seem to attract good people too.

Players help other players on P1999 and often newbies players are given assistance by experienced players such as items, money, buffs, assistance and advice. No matter where you go there is the possibility of meeting someone interesting who may end up being a friend for life.

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The low level player you buff on your way to a dungeon may in fact have a high level main who recognizes your kindness and helps you in the future. The high level of social interaction in P1999’s Norrath is a classic example of the genius of the human trait of reciprocity. East Commons Tunnel Long before the convenience driven “features” like The Bazaar in EQ and the Auction House in World of Warcraft ruined the dynamics of player to player buying and selling, the East Commons tunnel in the original EQ was the one zone where everyone would come to sell and buy with each other. Somewhat centrally situated in Norrath, it was originally designed as a tunnel to connect the Commonlands with the desert of Ro, it slowly evolved into a player auction zone. The meta game of buying and selling in EQ, remains to this day one of the highlights of emergent social interaction for any MMORPG. To be in East Commons just to see the items for sale is one of the most treasured moments I have experienced in P1999 so far. To see chat come alive once again with buyers and sellers without the banality and immaturity of Trade Chat in WoW highlights the vast difference between the MMORPGs of today and the ones of yesterday.

The Staff The virtual homage to Norrath would not be possible without the management and staff. The unpaid staff of P1999 need to be commended for all of the hard work they have expended over the years to bringing the classic EverQuest experience back to the public.

Behind the staff members that have Twitch.tv streams and post on the forums, there are the unsung heroes of P1999 such as coders and others that are volunteering their precious free time to in keeping P1999 up to date and running. We really can’t thank them enough for their service to the community. The Project 1999 Wiki Every day I find myself researching something on the. No drama here, no toxicity, no CSRs, no fanboys. What you get here is pure 100% useful info that is essential to the returning EQ player who wants to learn more Norrath. The P1999 Wiki is an indispensable part of the P1999 experience and I highly recommend it! Patches One interesting part of the P1999 experience is that you can see how EverQuest evolved via patches to fix problems and add new content.

P1999 emulates all of the patches in a chronological order just as they were released by SOE/Verant. Recently, they introduced a patch that removed all of the hybrid class experience penalties. This has caused a welcome influx of hybrid classes such as paladins, shadow knights and rangers who are needed as tanks.

The Bad In totality 90% of my experiences with Project 1999 have been very positive. The remaining 10% have been somewhat neutral to bad. EverQuest certainly had flaws which are still evident in P1999 today. I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention them: Classic EverQuest Classic EverQuest was not without its faults, problems and annoyances. A few come to mind. There are the inexplicable problems such as being aggroed by monsters while you are sitting inside an inn or a hut, or being stripped of all your buffs when you zone at low health come to mind.

Arbitrarily short resurrection times and having to re-memorize all of your spells after the ignominy of dying is a bit onerous as well. Desolate and Unfinished Zones Quite often as I travel vast environs of Norrath I see areas that have few NPCs which makes them feel unfinished and barren. West Karana is the epitome of this with a lot of areas in the zone that are empty with few points of interest.

Every zone should have some kind of dungeon that acts as a magnet and social hub for players. Without a dungeon to attract adventurers, zones can feel like “fly over country” — empty and pointless. Some of the newbie starting zones seem to have far fewer mobs in them then was the case of the original which makes for an uneven starting experience for some races compared to others. Another problem is that much of Norrath is difficult to access with a paucity of transportation destination wizard spires and druid rings. It’s inexplicable how SOE/Verant forgot to include druid rings for the west coast of Antonica in locations such as Surefall Glade to serve the area around the city of Qeynos. The Discrepancy Between Fatigue and Mana During combat, there’s a real bias that favors melee classes over casting class.

Melee classes can melee forever without any kind of fatigue penalty while casting class are limited to: 1) their mana pool and 2) their mana regen rate. One thing that really annoys me is the glacial and excruciating pace of mana regen. Without an enchanter buff like Breeze or Clarity or a bard song that restores mana, it’s difficult to play a casting class properly and the result is that you spend 90% of your time as a caster sitting doing nothing and 5% of your time buffing and casting during combat. Without mana, even melee classes are affected as they don’t get the haste buffs, heals, direct damage output and other support abilities from casters. A group without a support class is seriously gimped and disadvantaged in EverQuest. Health regeneration is equally glacial and draconian.

Obviously MMOs like WoW took things to the extreme and have created gameplay so frenetic and fast paced that there is almost no downtime whatsoever with the main casualty being a complete lack of time for socialization. However, EQ really takes things to the extreme and who gets penalized the most are not the high level players who have no problems getting mana buffs, it’s the lower level players who suffer the most. For example: the meditate skill is one skill that increases your mana regeneration and it is offered as a skill for the following: level 4 for casters, 8 for healers and 12 for melee hybrids. Bards I firmly believe in the notion of emergent gameplay where players are allowed to develop independent and “non-intended” strategies in order to survive and thrive. However, there are very rare cases that players can be playing in a manner that negatively impacts the enjoyment of other players.

Once such class is the bard class. The technique that many bards use to level is called “swarm kiting”.

This is when a bard runs faster than the mobs and use a mana free damage song on a multitude of mobs chasing her. Using this system bards can kill scores of mobs at the same time which gives them a lot of loot and experience. Bards who swarm kite are the scourge of P1999 and universally despised by the players. Hatred of the bard class is so intense that many players simply refuse to group with them or even port them. You can see them swarm kiting in almost every zone.

They are monopolizing mobs which is against both the official EverQuest and P1999 terms of use. I spoke to a bard about this, yes he considers himself a “real” bard unlike the fake bards who swarm kite — his words, not mine. The bard class was designed to be a group friendly support class, not a solo class that can swarm kite every mob in any zone. SOE should have clamped down on this years ago and curtailed this disruptive and overpowered ability but afraid of the nerd rage from existing bards, they failed to do so. Power Leveled Twinks Eventually you’ll see a sad sight: the power leveling of twinks. Power leveling is fine when others are not impacted, but when you start of others it’s wrong and a blight upon the lands of Norrath.

Scarce Loot, Poor Itemization and Skewed Risk vs. Reward There really is a scarcity of loot in EverQuest for lower levels.

I must have spent weeks with my characters in the Blackburrow dungeon — one of the finest dungeons SOE/Verant ever produced — and all I saw was one Studded Leather Collar. If you were really lucky you’d get an that has agility. The tragic reality of loot dissemination in EverQuest classic is that most players end up farming platinum and then buying their loot in the EC tunnel from other players who are either farmers or who no longer need it. The main reason for this is because in most cases useful loot only drops from named mobs who are farmed 24/7. Is it too much to ask that players should be able to acquire gear from level appropriate content? Even SOE/Verant realized they screwed up with this and within a few months of the release of EQ they created an entire quest zone called the for the purpose of giving every class (except druids and a few others) a way to quest for weapons and armor free from the arduous task of camping and farming named mobs.

The problem is that this solution involved camping non-named mobs which also have insanely low drop rates. It is a real shame that many of the dungeons in EQ go unused because of the skewed risk versus reward ratio. Dungeons such as Runnyeye and Bellfan are practically empty due to poor design that offers bad rewards (the lack of good loot) and the high risk of dying. Poor Dungeon Design: Keys, Keys and More Keys For some reason, the designers of EverQuest were obsessed with the idea of keys. Even low level dungeons like Befallen and Najena require the user to obtain keys from mobs inside which unlock doors that guard even more advanced levels. Even worse is in dungeons like Befallen you must have the key on your cursor to open doors if you are fleeing to the zone line. Both of these requirements create unnecessary obstacles for players and in effect force players to hunt in areas with less risk leaving these dungeons practically empty.

Not only do you need keys within many dungeons in EQ, in higher level dungeons often you need a key to just to enter. Dungeons like Charisis, Old Sebilis and Veeshan’s Peak require complex key quests just to enter. This philosophy was continued in almost every other expansion that came after Velious. Requiring players to obtain keys is a Draconian and artificial time sink that unnecessarily punishes players, locks them out of content and turns dungeons into death traps. While there is value to making some loot exclusive which confers a sense of earned status to players and keeps them striving for more, the designers of EQ got a little carried away with this. I am not completely opposed to keys.

I think they may be useful to open up areas for temporary optional content where players are seeking additional challenges. Dungeons in EQ are hard enough without requiring players to obtain keys. Cramped Dungeons Many of the dungeons in EQ were virtual deathtraps filled with cramped, claustrophobic, small hallways and lots of aggressive mobs which made trains and player death a regular occurrence. Contrast this with the expansive nature of the outdoor, non-dungeons and you can see why that many players started to forsake dungeons and instead gravitated to the outdoor areas. To remedy this SOE/Verant created something called a zone experience modifier (ZEM). They used this incentive to give players more experience for adventuring in certain dungeons that they deemed to have more of a risk.

To this day in P1999, evidence of SOE/Verant’s poor dungeon is present as dungeons like Cazic Thule, Befallen and Runnyeye are consistently empty. The undeniable fact of dungeon quality is that players vote with their feet. Scarcity of Loot After playing modern MMORPGs where loot seems to drop from the heavens like candy, the lack of loot available to players in the original EverQuest seems heartless and mean-spirited.

While I can definitely see the advantage of leveraging scarcity as a design concept, the lack of meaningful loot upgrades for players beyond rusty swords and patchwork armor is a disgrace. I have multiple characters in their 20’s and I can think of 5 useable items of loot that have dropped between them over a course of hundreds of hours of play.

The only way to realistically gear yourself up is to make platinum and then buy your gear from professional farmers via the /auction channel in EC tunnel. Imagine what P1999 would be like if player could only equip the gear we have actually fought for and looted? Is this were the case, most of my characters would be using bronze and maybe fine steel weapons, ringmail, and patchwork/cloth at best. It would be a completely different MMORPG experience than it is now on P1999 blue server that is been around for 6 years and has a glut of loot. Artificial scarcity of gear was a big problem in the original EQ and a major design flaw. At least the EQ devs tried to mitigate this with more random drops in subsequent expansions. I always thought SOE/Verant should have had instituted one lore item per character rule (not as harsh as the “trivial loot code” introduced on the role-playing servers) to prevent farming from becoming an industry with poopsocking players.

Campers and Farmers One of the sad realities of P1999 is that almost every named mob that drops rare gear is pretty much perma camped on this server. From dungeon mobs to outdoor random mobs this is the case. It seems that every zone in P1999 has an anonymous high level player camping and farming a rare item that was intended for lower to mid-level players. Whether it’s Hadden or Pyzin in the low level Qeynos Hills who both drop items that sell for thousands of platinum it’s maddening to see these players monopolizing and farming content that was made for lower level players.

The artificial scarcity of loot has created a high level of deconstruction and demystification with regard to mob spawn times has subsequently taken all of the mystery out of EverQuest and turned Norrath into FarmQuest and CampQuest. Kunark Released in April of 2000, the Ruins of Kunark was the first EQ expansion. It feels rushed and unfinished.

I noticed a lack of assets throughout the expansion — especially a lack of variety in the buildings and structures. The sarnak fort in the Lake of Ill Omen seems bleak and bereft of the kind of props and flavor that one would expect was evidence in the original EQ. Much of the artwork lacks cohesion and harmony with existing EQ artwork. Some of the NPC models are just plain ugly and look awkward.

For example: there’s the gangly and biologically implausible look of the skinny Sarnak; then there’s the ridiculous looking goblins of Kunark who look nothing like their cousins in Antonica and Faydwer. Another problem with Kunark is that vendors are scarce to non-existent putting undue hardships on players who want to sell and buy food and drink. I never really like Kunark mainly because it was so inaccessible and lacked much of the high fantasy charm of the original EverQuest. Getting to Kunark is undeniably problematic. There are a confusing system of shuttles and boats that one must figure out to get to the continent of Kunark. Some of the boats are fraught with technical issues and players are often left swimming in vast ocean of The Timorous Deep zone and succumb to a watery death with hours of corpse retrieval to look forward to.

Another glaring oversight is that there is one druid ring and one wizard spire in the entire expansion. This forces low to medium level players to have to run from the Dreadlands to their zone which again imposes undue and unnecessary hardships on players.

Both The Overthere and Firiona Vie zones should have had wizard and druid spires. The Grind and Lack of a Dynamic World Once you hit level 30 EverQuest starts to feel grindy. Even though by this time you are hooked, doing the same content for levels and days quickly becomes monotonous.

This is for two reasons: 1) there is no dynamic content that would make zones fresh 2) each dungeon has such a wide spectrum of mob levels that players have no choice but coalesce in the same camp spots according to their level. With the exception of dynamic events that started to surface in the Velious expansion with the Coldain Ring War, there is no dynamic content whatsoever in the original EverQuest. Initially each zone seems mysterious and full of life, eventually you get to learn the spawn times and patrol routes of the various NPCs and it all becomes a bit tired and predictable. The only dynamic thing that happened was when GMs and Guides would run events which were generally seen as welcome diversions by the players. So far after months of playing all I have seen is one dynamic event which was run on Halloween.

It wasn’t even anything to do with Halloween or the undead and was essentially a treasure hunt with crappy rewards that was universally panned by the players who made the effort to attend. The lack of dynamic content is one of the major flaws in EQ and to this day it has not been fully realized and leveraged in the MMORPG genre as a whole. Good Versus Evil Inequities Throughout Norrath there is a distinct disadvantage to playing an “evil” or dubious race, class or worshipping an “evil” deity.

Evil races are killed on sight almost everywhere and have trouble finding vendors, trainers and bankers. The good outpost in Kunark has class trainers but the evil outpost in The Overthere has none. Evil races are killed constantly by NPCs like Rinna Lightshadow — a level 60 NPC in East Commons that is impossible to kill and exists for no other reason than to kill hapless evil players who make the mistake of walking past her hut.

While I agree that evil races and classes should not be able to walk up and down the streets of cities like Qeynos and Felwithe unharmed, they should at least enjoy some kind of advantage to compensate for the hardships involved in choosing evil. Undercon Mobs One of the things I hated about EQ is the nefarious and shameful practice of making mobs who appear to be a particular level but have the stats of much higher level mobs. Is one such mob.

One of the smugglers in Highpass Hold is another. The world of Norrath is full of these nasty bastards courtesy of mean-spirited and sadistic developers who included these mobs for no other purpose but to kill unsuspecting players. This kind of practice is dishonest and it’s a violation of trust. If an NPC is considered by a player then it should behave according to the consider data which the player sees.

All I can say is that I hope some of these game designers are no longer in the video game industry. Spell Problems EverQuest had one of the most advanced and thoughtful spell systems of any RPG I have ever seen. If the customer service situation continues to deteriorate I believe that Daybreak Games should step in and insist that the P1999 management staff their servers with appropriate levels of properly trained CSRs.

After all, P1999 are standing on the shoulders of giants and trading on the good name of EverQuest which came about because of the hard work and dedication of hundreds of people over the span of 16 years. The key to dealing with customer service on P1999 is to pretend that it does not exist. Expect nothing and you’ll never be disappointed. The Chill of Censorship in the Air The reality of human nature is that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings who amass power have an unfortunate tendency to want to keep power at all costs. Throughout history, the reality of the human experience is that democracy and freedom are tiny grains of sand in the desert of tyranny. Virtual worlds like P1999 are no different.

The fear of retribution from P1999 staffers — even though it may be just a perceived fear — is palpable. Many players are afraid to speak out and voice their concerns on the forums.

Even the main sub-Reddit for P1999 which is apparently moderated by members of the most powerful P1999 guild there is the lingering impression that censorship that favors the management of P1999 is going on. Players are rightly afraid that they will be banned or lose their play account courtesy of overzealous and over worked CSRs who see any kind of complaints as undue hostility directed at them. Case in point: the most proflic P1999 Everquest Twitch.tv streamer named from P1999 just one week after interviewing Guide Moregan/GreenGrocer on his stream. This person has probably done more to get the word out to the gaming community about P1999 than anyone yet he was removed from the server in a Stalinist like purge. Nobody wants to lose their account everything they have worked for for years just for voicing their opinion.

I understand what it’s like to be a forum admin and I empathize with the P1999 staff who feel that they are under siege. It can overwhelm you.

It’s very tempting to take the easy way out dismiss player concerns or to silence them by banning them. To this day being a community manager for a MMO is one of the most stressful careers in the video game industry and it has a high burnout rate, so it should be no surprise to those that take on such duties. Player Dissent is Classic EverQuest We should also not forget that EQ players were very passionate and vocal during the classic years of EverQuest.

MMORPGS like EverQuest essentially invented the notion of video game player activism where players would hold the game developer accountable for their actions and inactions. You want classic EQ?

You got classic EQ: the good, the bad and the ugly. The P1999 staff needs to realize that player activism and even Guides is all part of the classic EQ experience.

The crux of the problem is that because P1999 is a volunteer project and free to play — this means that the normal rules of the customer/vendor relationship do not exist. In this case the vendor — which is the P1999 staff — have no economic incentive to provide excellent customer service to the player. In the real world, if a vendor fails to deliver a good or service to a paying customer, there are legal remedies which the customer can pursue. In the virtual world of P1999 these checks and balances do not exist and the staff do not have to be accountable and can behave as despots banning anyone whom they wish and for whatever justification they can concoct. Likewise in the real world, when there is a monopoly, the customer has no choice. Clearly, there is nothing in the MMORPG world like P1999 and if you don’t like it you can either quit or stay and put up with it. This leaves the dedicated P1999 player with very little choice.

During the course of writing this article I have started to hear troubling rumors that some threads on the P1999 Reddit forums have also been deleted. When players can feel they can no longer speak out and have no venue where they can air their unvarnished opinions free from retribution and retaliation you have a deteriorating situation that is not good for future of P1999. If this dysfunction continues to grow unchecked I believe that Daybreak Games who owns the EverQuest intellectual property will have to step in and demand that the problems be corrected. Some Thoughts About Entitlement Anytime there are player complaints on the forums about various issues on P1999, invariably some of the staff and their sycophantic fanboy supporters in the player community immediately respond that the players feel they are entitled. Since P1999 is a free service, their logic is that anyone who dares to make any kind of complaint is being ungrateful toward the volunteer staff because of a sense of entitlement.

While some players may feel a sense of entitlement there are other players who just want to improve P1999 and they can be unfairly targeted by this false and fallacious argument if they dare to lodge a complaint and criticize the actions/inactions of the staff. Another reality is that I wager most P1999 players would gladly pay a monthly fee to play classic EverQuest. If such a server was a available then the entire entitlement argument would be rendered null and void. I just do not understand why Daybreak Games is not offering players the authentic classic EQ experience on special servers.

I and others would be gone from P1999 in a heartbeat if such a service was made available. Players are not really feeling entitled, rather they have expectations that a server that offers a classic EverQuest experience will be staffed with professional and competent people. The only sense of entitlement I have seen is the attitude of some of the staff who exhibit a martyr complex and feel entitled to be immune from accountability due to their volunteer status. Some feel that just because they are volunteering their services that nobody should ever dare complain or criticize them.

Beware the Toxic Forums I recommend that all players stay away from the forums especially the Rants and Flames section where trolls run wild and guild versus guild drama is on full display. Some areas of the forums are toxic wasteland dominated by a mere handful of players who post 90% of the forum posts. Some of the vilest trolls and slobbering sycophants of MMO humanity have assembled here that make the FoH forum participants look like saints.

Learn to use the vBulletin ignore feature. Why are the No Live Events on P1999? You would think that a volunteer project like P1999 would have a constant stream of live events and GM quests going on.

As mentioned previously, the only live event I have ever heard of was the recent Halloween event. The original EQ had a robust series of live GM events going on most every evening. P1999 has nothing in comparison. P1999 claims to be “classic EverQuest” but this is one area where they have completely missed the mark. This is a direct result of upper management’s apathy with regard to failure to recruit qualified volunteer CSRs to staff the servers. Guide Moregan recently claimed that there were 600+ pending guide applications for P1999 — clearly there are ample volunteers to run quests. Sadly, the desire and the will from management is not there.

Having daily GM events would be one way to create some good public relations for P1999 to counteract the recent negative publicity surrounding the CSR problems. Closing Thoughts on the Double Edged Sword of EverQuest I wanted to close my article on P1999 with some reflections that don’t fit well with the good, the bad and the ugly theme. EverQuest is a double-edged sword cornucopia of features and issues that have been occupying the minds of many of us who have followed this venerable and inscrutable MMORPG over the years. Many things in EQ are both loved and hated by the players. Here are a few of my final observations. The P1999 Endgame: Law of the Jungle and Freedom The P1999 endgame is not without controversy. Due to a limited supply of raid targets that spawn on weekly intervals, there is not enough high end content for all raiding guilds.

This is a problem that endlessly plagued the original EverQuest. I have not experienced this myself due to the fact that my characters are low level but it is a big problem on P1999 nonetheless. Like the alpha lion that kills all its male competition, the powerful guilds who are at the top of the food chain run the show on P1999. They take whatever they can for themselves and leave the scraps for the rest of us.

Most of the players in these guilds have multiple level 60 characters who are camped out at most raid spots ready to mobilize via the “bat phone” to take down raid mobs. So not only are their main characters getting the very best loot, so too are their alts which is unfairly keeping other lesser guilds from accessing any raid content and advancing their characters. Many of these guild members are also perma camping dungeons and NPCs that drop some of the most powerful items in the game.

In reality the only way for a player to obtain these items is to cough up thousands of plat to buy them in the EC tunnel. This has created a mindset where many players have resorted to farming NPC guards so they can sell their loot to amass platinum to fund their purchases. Obviously this kind of disparity between players is causing a lot of drama and intrigue on the P1999 blue server. Without drama and inequity that causes it, fantasy virtual worlds would be dull and predictable. At least in EverQuest there are winners and losers unlike in MMOs like WoW where a sense of socialist entitlement is promoted via features like instancing.

The now ubiquitous instancing feature is probably one of the main culprits in why the MMORPG experience is a mere shadow of its former self. It has brought about a host of unintended consequences that has devalued the experience and as a result has laid waste to the genre. Balancing the usefulness of freedom that creates drama that makes a virtual fantasy world come alive with the need for players to have content to experience has proven to be one of the most challenging problems ever faced in MMORPG development. I have some ideas on how to fix the content problem further on in the article.

In the Norrath of P1999, progress is not assured. There are no guarantees. You are truly free to achieve whatever you want to achieve. You can blaze your own path and be a hero or villain and join other like-minded heroes and villains.

It is this pure and unrestricted freedom — that does not exist to this degree in the real world — that makes the true MMORPG one of the most unique forms of interactive entertainment in existence. The Highs and the Lows of EverQuest During my current sojourn in P1999’s Norrath it has become very apparent that the totality of the EverQuest experience is characterized by an unbalanced and unpredictable mix of highs and lows. It’s an awful feeling when a griffon in East Commonlands comes up from behind you at a speed faster than Spirt of the Wolf and kills you almost instantly. It’s also very frustrating not to be able to find a group or to find a raid target for your guild to kill. It’s easy to see how MMORPGS like World of Warcraft tried to “fix” these problems but by removing the pain, they also removed the degree of pure joy you feel when you do triumph. Pain and loss are powerful human emotions that the designers of the original EverQuest and the MUDS that came before them managed to leverage with great success. An entire article could be devoted to the importance of these emotions in MMORPG design.

The sense of serendipitous misfortune and frustration you feel in classic Norrath is contrasted with moments of sheer elation when you finally manage to find a well-oiled group and the experience starts to flow. Even better is the rare feeling you get when rare item drops and you win a roll. Victory only tastes sweet when defeat tastes bitter. In a way the magic of EQ is much like a virtual skinner box that keeps the player coming back so they can feel that sense of elation and glee again. Throughout it all you are not alone in P1999 version of EverQuest. You struggle with others.

It is those friendships that you make during that struggle to survive is where the true magic of EverQuest is forged. The Future of P1999 and the Fruit Fly Experiment When I was taking science class in high school, our teacher taught us about the fruit fly experiment where a few fruit flies and some rotting fruit were placed into a sealed jar. Eventually the fruit flies would keep breeding and exponentially grew their population to the point where they would all die due to a lack of oxygen and food. Since the management has stated that they will not take P1999 beyond the release of the third EQ expansion: Scars of Velious, I predict the same thing is going to happen to P1999. Every day more players on P1999 are reaching level 60 which nothing to look forward to except to progress their characters via gear acquisition which means there are more players that must compete for a static amount of high level content.

This scarcity of content — both non-raid and raid – is causing unnecessary conflict among guilds in P1999. In order for P1999 to survive they will most certainly need to add in more existing content from subsequent expansions. My advice would be to start selectively adding in new expansions that retain the spirit of classic EverQuest. Add the features that were good and subtract the features that were bad. Shadows of Luclin expansion with its wealth of new and revamped content, the beastlord class and the Alternate Advancement (AA) system should be added but without the awful new character models and without the bazaar.

Planes of Power expansion with it’s added 5 levels, new abilities, spells, AAs and zones should be added without the implementation of the books of knowledge instant teleports. Legacy of Ykesha expansion that offered content for mid-level players should be added as well. When players have nothing left to achieve or strive for the game is over. MMORPGs that fail to expand will most certainly enter into a death spiral. The choice for the management of P1999 is simple: expand or die.

Conclusion The mission statement and ongoing mantra of Project 1999 is the re-creation of the EverQuest experience must emulate all of the classic EverQuest features and content from the original EverQuest to anything released before the Shadows of Luclin (when things started to go wrong). The P1999 staff has done an excellent job in adhering to this lofty standard.

Players who log onto P1999 will indeed get to experience the magic of the original EverQuest free from the taint of the expansions that started to erode the franchise. As mentioned previously, the only area that P1999 EverQuest emulated experience disappoints is in the customer service department.

Due to the failure to adequately staff the P1999 servers, the CSR department seems like a virtual sweatshop where over-worked volunteers are in a state of constant flux and exhibit symptoms of tyranny, paranoia, and burnout. The sudden removal of Guide Moregan and his subsequent revelations is an embarrassing black eye for the upper management of P1999. Thankfully people like Moregan have come out of the shadows to cast sunlight on the dysfunction. I don’t want to leave readers with a gloomy impression of 1999.

If you forget about the CSR issues, the forums, the guild drama and some of the selfish players, you.can. have a wonderful time and lose yourself in the unique immersion that Norrath offers. To paraphrase Lead GM Sirken from a recent podcast, 99% of the P1999 players don’t care about internal staff issues, they just want to play classic EverQuest. However, when there are not enough CSRs answering petitions and it takes weeks if not months to get certain petitions addressed, then the dysfunction behind the scenes.is. ultimately impacting the enjoyment of the P1999 players.

There can be no doubt that the dynamics of a free to play, volunteer staffed community of players like P1999 are indeed very complex. Despite the problems of the CSR team, the entire staff of P1999 should be applauded and commended for doing a stellar job of bringing back the authentic EverQuest experience for the MMORPG community. The fact that people are flocking to a MMORPG that was created 15 years ago speaks volumes about the genius of the original EverQuest and the current woeful state of mindless, dumbed down MMOs that no longer offer dangerous, challenging and pulse pounding fantasy virtual worlds where you can experience real camaraderie, cooperation and friendship. Words really cannot describe the feeling you get when you are playing P1999. Being able to savor the classic EQ experience is a rare thrill that you just cannot get anywhere else.

I urge everyone to make the effort to join the P1999 community and see for yourself what the magic of the original EverQuest was all about. I have a few level 10(ish) characters on p1999. It was fun to play on! The issue for me is that the Daybreak TLP servers offer much of what I missed from EQ (class dependency, good people, etc.) AND a lot of the modern conveniences (loot windows, light instancing to make sure groups can hunt in similar areas, etc.) Sure, it’s not classic but it’s like having a classic car retrofitted with some modern conveniences such as airbags, GPS, antilock brakes (etc.) I will probably dip in and out of p1999 when I want the pure experience, but the TLP server also solves your fruitfly problem =). I have had a couple characters on P99 blue and red as well as helped run a guild and even GM’d a guild on P99.

The info given on high end content is exactly on point. These days all of the high end content is kept by the large guilds and if you want to participate, your pretty much going to need to join one of those guilds and listen for the “bat phone” to get anywhere. However I will say, that the forums, even with their toxicity have a great use.

It is a great place to find others looking to form groups. I was able to, relatively easily, form a static group that ended up lasting 6-8 months. In that time we played multiple characters and were able to level some of them up into the 40’s-50’s without much issue. Playing on Red99 (PVP server) allowed us to get to a lot of camps that are perma-camped on Blue99 (PVE server). I haven’t played much in awhile but I definitely started looking back at the server when the entire issue in CSR arose. Greengrocer was certainly one of the great CSR folks to have held the position in my time playing and finding out about his dismissal was upsetting.

I still hold a candle for P99 and will probably log on again in the near future since some of my other MMO’s need more work till I wanna put more time into them. In the end, P99 is the best classic EQ experience you will find on the internet and absolutely worth trying. Just found this. It’s well written and mostly accurate.

The number of staff members is very small. More staff would have added to the service players received, but as we have witnessed, it has also caused some very serious issues. Finding trustworthy volunteers is the biggest problem the project faces. While the emulator world is growing and the population is becoming more diverse, emulators are “illegal” and originally only attracted a certain type of player. Daybreak has given P99 the stamp of approval, but they are the only company I know to have done so and it is rather recent. The staff can not make a financial profit from the project. I am confident the project managers don’t profit, because I know them well and understand their vision and intentions.

For other volunteers, combine the temptation of financial gain with a lack of respect for an “illegal” project and the results (have been and) can be disastrous. Don’t champion past staff members (or streamers) without knowing all. You’re never going to know all, because those not “telling all” over the internet have respect for Everquest, Project 1999, the project managers, and know nothing good can come from that sort of communication. I am still friends with GG. I talk to him most everyday. No one is fault free in the entire situation. We are humans and we make mistakes.

The goal is to learn from them and move forward. I’ve moved on to a smaller emulator where I never intend to volunteer and I never intend to petition (P2002). Your comparison to the law enforcement phenomenon is accurate.

While I am normally a social person, I often box my characters alone and away from the Everquest players I have grown to dislike. There were a LOT of factors leading to my quitting staff. One included days long investigation and intervention to return gear / plat to a player that was stripped / cheated only to learn he was in the process of cheating someone else. I played on the server. I KNOW there are great people playing there, but when you deal with the worst of the worst day after day, it becomes too much for anyone. You have criticized the CSR staff heavily and I think that is unfair.

While I was never one to contact staff in Live Everquest, I heard many, many times the P99 staff response was faster and more favorable than Live Everquest. It is their (Nilbog and Rogean) project and it is very single focused – To create the most classic emulated Everquest server possible. If everyone stopped playing on the server today, the project would continue until Nilbog is satisfied his project is complete. We are lucky he has allowed us to enjoy it while he creates. Thanks for the informative post and your reflections in P1999.

You have helped to shed some light on what is really going on. Your insight is very thoughtful. In MMOs, GMs are really like police officers and detectives. Like their counterparts in law enforcement they end up taking a considerable amount of time dealing with a small minority of malicious players. After a while this tends to color their view of players and hardens them as I explained in the article. I have noticed that the GMs have stopped posting in recent months and the drama from the Guide Moregan affair has finally abated.

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This is good news. Has anything changed after he left? Have they added more guides?

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Are they running more GM events? I think the answer is no.

The P1999 management should have never allowed things to get out of hand in the fist place with Guide Moregan. As you said we all make mistakes. Both Guide Moregan and P1999 management should have settled their differences. I think P1999 missed a great opportunity to make things better with some reforms.

They should have been open about their failings. They should be more transparent and open to feedback.

They should be actively recruiting more guides. They should be empowering guides and giving them the authority to run GM events. SOE had outlets like this for GMs and Guides on EQ live with active RP and quest departments. That.was. classic EQ too. Things do not change on P1999 because the management is not accountable for the reasons I explained in the article. The buck stops with them.

What they offer is on a take it or leave it basis. Regarding the problem of finding honest and trustworthy guides, I don’t blame the CSRs, I blame management. Yes, finding honest guides takes work, somehow SOE did it and managed to run an official volunteer guide program with success.

Yes, we had some corrupt guides and even some corrupt GMs, but they were rare. Look at how professional the volunteer WoW emulated server Nostalrius was run. This should be the model for P1999. As a former Senior Guide on EQ live I have nothing but admiration and respect for the P1999 GMs and Guides. Guide Moregan pointed out that they are overworked and that’s why I felt empathy for him and found him credible.

My criticism of some of the CSR staff was based on the snarky and unprofessional tone of their forum posts. On EQ live, if GMs and Guides were never allowed to post on official forums.

SOE would fire you immediately if you ever did that. Thankfully they have stopped posting. I and many other P1999 players are deeply grateful that they created the most classic and authentic version of EverQuest. In many ways they have achieved this remarkable feat.

Yet, in many ways they have fallen short as I pointed out in the article. I would not have bothered to write this article if I did not care about P1999. I believed that Guide Moregan and yourself really cared a lot as well.

Both of you (and others) dedicated thousands of hours of time as guides working in the trenches. Both of you have my undying admiration and respect.

It’s too bad that both of you got chewed up by the system and spit out. I am glad you have found an EQ emulated server where you can be happy away from the drama. What this article says to me is what project 1999 needs to become better is a new server every now and then and maybe even closing servers that have too many lvl 60’s that cant do anything else but even without closing old servers new ones would attract people who are willing to start over and compete for the top spots. Unfortunately that idea probably isnt all that profitable from the company who own this’ standpoint so convincing them to do something like that even though it is good for the game would be tough to do.