The Sleeper Server is fantastic, and definitely worth checking out if you are looking for a user friendly, classic content EQ server. I have been playing on it for months and I am working really hard with the development team to fix bugs, test zones, troubleshoot, but most importantly to have fun. I have known the server developers for almost two years now. I started playing with them in P99. I met Kegs and Faerie on Mumble voice chat, and their welcoming personality, good sense of humor, and wonderful leadership qualities led me me joining and ranking up quickly in their guild.
Unfortunately, P99 was a disaster. I have a fully geared max level bard on it that I cannot touch. Something seriously wrong was going on with the development team there. Bugs were not being fixed, but rather being exploited, and endorsed by the devs. The server was only responsive to the desires of the elite guild who played like 13 year olds. I was never allowed to even SEE a dragon in P99, which was a serious shortcoming. What good is high-end content if there is a giant bully pushing you out of every zone? I used to have to deal with Sol B rather than raiding, and even there Inglorious Bastards had the gall to zerg the zone out of boredom, force us out, and even purposefully train us in some circumstances. I came to have fun with classic EQ, not to get poopsocked by children with bad manners and a strong sense of entitlement. My guild was eventually scapegoated for the problems with the the P99 server, and the P99 dev team used it as a distraction from the farce they were calling "friendly competition." Kegz' character was banned for no reason. He was developing The Sleeper Server and some of the tools that were running on his computer were conceived of as him cheating. But if anyone knew Kegz, cheating in p99 was not his priority, obviously, because he already had lost all interest in the middle school playground that P99 had become. Not to mention, we regularly witnessed IB and TR cheating by using ShowEQ on Shamans in Hate to check spawns. Kegz was set up as a straw man because he was developing something better than P99 and they knew it. The endless whining of P99 trolls should show you that they are butthurt and scared that The Sleeper is going to be more fun and more fair that P99, and that people wont put up with a serverwide monopoly. It's like playing Risk and your opponent starts off with all of the pieces. Unless you were a friend of Rogean's years ago, you could never get anywhere in that server.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the changes involving the .DLL's was unconscionable. Downloading P99 now is downright stupid, because it will essentially leave your computer wide open to the p99 dev team; people who have already demonstrated malicious intent and shadiness. If you use P99 it should be considered a security threat, and you should not have ANY sensitive information on your computer if you do. Even if the P99 dev team is not using the .DLL's maliciously, any numskull hacker could hijack the security exploits in the .DLLs and do whatever they wanted with them, and suddenly your identity is stolen because some punk thought it was a good idea to wrap his self-indulgent "security measures" on an ANCIENT GAME so far around your machine that he doesn't even know what it is doing.
All of the original coding and work that Kegz' has put in to the server to fix old P99 bugs and to make general gameplay fantastic. He even posts his work online for everyone to use and edit for their own servers! I have a lvl 40 Shaman, 50 Enchanter, 50 Necromancer, 55 Monk, and 55 Rogue, and using them in fun and interesting duos, or combinations when I am grouped makes EQ a lot more fast paced an exciting. Instead of strategizing with just one toon, you can duo with two anywhere, and a good EQ player will have the entire game unlocked for single player style (with no annoyingly overcamped areas!!) or for raiding with just two other friends. The players on The Sleeper are fun, intelligent, and the entire dev team is super cool. I will be playing The Sleeper when it launches, and I am very, very excited for it. Long awaited Velious content here we come!