This is a guide for Project 1999 (p99), the EverQuest emulated server.

I noticed that some people in the game are able to turn a target’s name into an item link. It turns out google wasn’t much help in figuring out how to do this, so I decided to write a guide on this mechanic and get in on the target linking fun!

As most people know, the “%T” variable inserts your current target into the chat. Macros like “incoming %T” or “healing %T” are very basic and can be spammed, especially in groups and raids. However, I want the target name to appear in a different color as an item link, to separate it from the rest of the macro text. The end result looks pretty cool and ends up helping everyone out with readability.

First create your macro in game. The macro I’ll be working with is titled “demo” and has the following text:

Hello there, my target is > %T

At this point the %t variable is working in the macro, however I don’t see the target as a link in the chat. I need to log out of the game and modify the macro file manually on the system to do this.

Navigate to your p99 installation directory in Windows explorer. Mine is located at:

C:\EverQuest_p99

Here, I search for my in-game character’s name to pull up the “<character name>_project1999.ini” file. My character’s name is Taxious so I’ll be editing this file:

C:\EverQuest_p99\Taxious_project1999.ini

Open this file with your favorite text editor, I use Notepad++. Search within the text for the macro name, or any part of it. I named this macro “demo” in game, so I search for that and fine the associated lines of text.

Find whatever line of your macro you want the target link in. I will be modifying this line in the screenshot above:

Page3Button6Line1=’Hello there, my target is %T

This is where things get interesting. To create this “hack” in-game, I must insert what is called a control character into the macro. These characters behave how a document is controlled and have no visual representation that I can show on this blog post. However, they can be copy pasted. The quote below has the control characters necessary to turn my macro text into an item link in game.

Page3Button6Line1=’Hello there, my target is > 00B43A00000000000000000000000000000000038D197 %T

If you copy all of the text in the quote above, and paste it into a blank notepad, you may see something like this. I say “may” because these characters are represented in all text applications differently, and sometimes, not at all. This is how they look in Notepad++.

I adjust my macro for Taxious accordingly:

Then when this macro is used in game, it produces the following.

The item ID used in the macro “00B43A00000000000000000000000000000000038D197” is the game identifier for Fairy Wing. I was unable to find a list of all the EQ item codes, but if someone has them I’d be interested to see it.