Adding the Planes of Power in to the original trilogy

[guineapig]

The dream expansion thread made me think of this:

So this is all completely hypothetical of course.
I just wanted to see if I could place all the Planes of Power zones (besides Knowledge and Tranquility) in to the original trilogy in a way that would make sense.

This is what I came up with for zone connections:
(UPDATED 5/13/11)
Lavastorm/SolC
* Doomfire, the Burning Lands
- Solusek Ro's Tower


Ogguk (possibly a port from Arena?)
* Drunder, Fortress of Zek (Plane of Tactics)

Qeynos Catacombs, A'Kanon or (Innhotule)
* Plane of Disease
- Ruins of Lxanvom (Crypt of Decay)

Steamfont
* Plane of Innovation

Halas
* Plane of Justice

Plane of Fear
* Plane of Nightmare
- Lair of Terris Thule

Plane of Air
* Plane of Sky
- Eryslai, the Kingdom of Wind

North or South Karana
* Plane of Storms (possible druid port?)
- Torden, the Bastion of Thunder

Plane of Hate
Plane of Torment (reason being that Saryrn is most closely tied to Innoruuk)

Lower Guk (live side)
* Plane of Valor
- Halls of Honor
-*- Temple of Marr

Kedge Keep
* Reef of Coirnav (yes, I know Prexus is not directly related to the plane of water.)

Lake Rathetier
* Vegarlson, the Earthen Badlands
- Ragrax, Stronghold of the Twelve

The Hole
* Plane of Time A
- Plane of Time B

on the fence:
Plane of Knowledge: would not be in the game unless it was somewhere real f'ing hard to get to like through the Tower of Frozen Shadow Mirror.
I think if it just had a single zone in zone out like that and no portals/books to anywhere else then it would be okay.
(In my original draft PoK wasn't even listed... I just added the idea based on posts below)

For the zones that are located in cities: The location of the zone in would always be the corresponding race's Cleric or Shaman guild hall. (Possibly an alter of some sort or what have you.)

This adds a little bit of challenge because obviously you will have members of the raid party that would be KoS in these cities which would further add to the importance of factions in the game. (Alternately you could just invis through the zone every time.)
Also, this creates new life for old cities.

Note that while Kunark and velious zones will be all the rage for the next couple of years, thereby lowering the classic zone populations, the introduction of this version of PoP will reignite the need for travel in the old world zones. There will be multiple options open for low level players and no matter where they go there will be some high level players hanging around as well. This is something that we never see in EQ now, except in PoK on live (or EC tunnel in the case of this server.) Instead of creating one main hub , many cities will have people in them and therefor resons for low and high level players alike to revisit.

I would go as far as to say that most of the things that were added to PoK should be added to the old world cities (and Cabalis) instead.
(Druid and Wizard ports should never be useless in my vision! ;) )

For the Planes that are located within the older planes (Fear, Hate, Sky, Growth) zoning in to the next zone would be a one way ticket. This makes it not possible to use this zone line as an easy way to clear agro and jump right back in. Also the zone line to the second Plane would be somewhat deep in the zone, requiring you to clear your way to torment from Hate (unless the zone was already cleared). Whether or not you need to have killed Inny to be flagged for Torment remains in question (I could care less either way).

I’m on the fence about where to put Plane of Time so I just figured The Sleepers Tomb being the end game in Velious would be appropriate. ( EDIT: Someone suggested leaving out PoT all together... not a horrible idea. )

Level cap increased to 65 with PoP
AA's (if implemented) are capped per level and you can never get them all. You have to specialize.
Re-specialization is an option via a semi-complex quest.
Minimum level requirement (if the zone is even implemented) to enter PoK (somewhere between 46 and 60).

Feel free to add your own opinions and ideas.
(Can you tell I’m bored at work?)


EDIT: Thanks for all that added ideas. I still prefer the use of starting city shaman and cleric guilds for the portals that lead to major deities but there is definitely something to be said for keeping raids from having to zone through a town. So I added both. (Personally, I really like the idea of keeping factions an integral part of the game, something that PoP kind of ruined.)

[Nedala]

So cool. i would have loved Pop if it was that way.

[Aeolwind]

Give mages the ports to the elemental planes.

Disease = Innothule
War = Arena
Valor = Rathe Mtn
Justice = HHK
Innovation = Steamfont
Storms = EK
Underfoot = Hole

Lock the rest. No point in time, as the story will be DRASTICALLY changed here.

I'd prob add POK, Wiz port only, quest hub. Stones down to Norrath, but none up and the plane is unbindable.

[frefaln]

Nice list, although it seems a little strange to go from Qeynos anything to Plane of Disease. I guess you're thinking of the plague rats or whatever dwells down there?

It also seems like Kithicor should have an entry to one of the PoP planes, or at worst, a physical entry to Plane of Hate to align with the lore. Talk about a challenge, try getting everyone zoned in, buffed up, and prepared before nightfall :)

[guineapig]

Worshippers of Bertox are found In the Qeynos Aqueducts as well as in Akanon.

I choose Qeynos because Akanon was already covered.

To my knowledge, Trolls aren't big Bertox worshippers.

[guineapig]

Give mages the ports to the elemental planes.


Not a terrible idea as long as it doesn't mess up the whole "class balance" thing :p.


I'd prob add POK, Wiz port only, quest hub. Stones down to Norrath, but none up and the plane is unbindable.

This is interesting. Once you are up there is is certainly much easier to get to an exp group or whatever. But a huge bummer if the group bails before you get there or someone decides to just play tricks on you.

I have a feeling it would still end up being too much of a hub for players, and everyone would just level a wizard alt to whatever level you need for the port.

[scecie]

Excellent idea. Implementing the Planes of Power without breaking the game would be epic indeed. Keeping the gods the end all and be all would rock, however down with the PoT storyline altogether. What crap.

[Nagash]

You can leave a PoK tp spell to wizards but I would say access to PoK should also be made via stones but one stone per continent (max) in a remote location (aka, not one at the front door of avery city rather more like one at the bottom of the lake in Dagnor's Cauldron for Faydark for example or even better, add one pot to the pot room in Timorous Deep to get there).

Kind regards,

Nagash

[whitebandit]

this does all seem pretty interesting haha... I would be willing to play it that is for sure, I enjoyed a lot of the planes of power.

I do like the idea of the mages only getting the Elemental planes ports, Even Druids might be able to get some planar ports to like Growth and BOT maybe..

[scecie]

Even Druids might be able to get some planar ports to like Growth and BOT maybe..


Growth will be as it was since it is pre-POP.

[Excision Rottun]

He probably meant storms.

[Eyry]

+1 for this idea, nice job

[guineapig]

I will update the OP with some of the other good ideas people have added!

[Aeolwind]

Not a terrible idea as long as it doesn't mess up the whole "class balance" thing :p.



This is interesting. Once you are up there is is certainly much easier to get to an exp group or whatever. But a huge bummer if the group bails before you get there or someone decides to just play tricks on you.

I have a feeling it would still end up being too much of a hub for players, and everyone would just level a wizard alt to whatever level you need for the port.

Woops, I forgot to mention the stone is 1000p each to port to Knowledge.

[Icecometus]

I think just making PoK 46 plus would help a lot.

[Overcast]

Ogguk (possibly a port from Arena?)
* Drunder, Fortress of Zek (Plane of Tactics)


Kael.
Makes sense.

They should def all 'make sense' as to why/how they exist there.

My post on the other thread.. I would have had the idea that all of the PoP zones would be a bit 'difficult' to get to. As to more 'conceal' their presence, although some other areas make sense too. Putting them near cities - while maybe not 100% on the 'difficult' concept - would indeed give life to out of the way cities.

Like Aeol said too - ports make a lotta sense.

[Dersk]

I recall reading about one of the mirrors at the top of ToFS being unused, and people speculating that it could be involved in the then upcoming PoP expansion. I always thought access to something called "plane of knowledge" would have been appropriately found in the three libraries located in Erudin, Neriak, and Felwithe.

That still wouldn't alter how PoP was mired with problems with spell level limits, how it destroyed zones like karnor's and seb, how PoK said goodbye to the notion of spells and tradeskill materials not being universally available all in one location, introduced bard fade, had one of (if not the) worst flagging systems at launch, and a few other things that pissed me off that I can't recall at the moment.

The destruction of the continuity of Norrath was just the hardest to ignore.

[Overcast]

I recall reading about one of the mirrors at the top of ToFS being unused, and people speculating that it could be involved in the then upcoming PoP expansion. I always thought access to something called "plane of knowledge" would have been appropriately found in the three libraries located in Erudin, Neriak, and Felwithe.

That still wouldn't alter how PoP was mired with problems with spell level limits, how it destroyed zones like karnor's and seb, how PoK said goodbye to the notion of spells and tradeskill materials not being universally available all in one location, introduced bard fade, had one of (if not the) worst flagging systems at launch, and a few other things that pissed me off that I can't recall at the moment.

The destruction of the continuity of Norrath was just the hardest to ignore.

Cool ideas.

The other thing, IMHO that needs fixed is PoP keying - it could simply be taking out the 'boss' in it's 'child' plane... eq: Kill Inny for the key to PoN.

The library idea - just what I was thinking too. Just an extension of existing libraries. Where to put it? That might be a hard call... It should be accessible to all factions, for the most part. If you can't port in or out of it - it wouldn't become a 'gathering spot' - I think anytime a zone connects 'multiple' distant regions - it's going to become a 'hub' and kill the old cities - well maybe not so much if you *have* to go through the old city first.

Yeah - ToFS maybe.. not like that would become much of a 'hub'.. :) It would need to be more like Skyshine, an out of the way necessity.

Put it at the bottom of Seb - for kicks.

Kunark wasn't too bad, because there were only two cities - on opposite sides with opposite factions and well Cabilis, but only Iksar was welcome right? Without mass faction work, lol.

I think... maybe with tweaks after the charm of the 1st three starts to get 'old' - maybe the other expansions could be 'tuned' to WHAT THEY SHOULD have been to fit into the 'vision'.

To be honest, I think if VI wouldn't have sold out to Sony, kept hard core on the 'vision' - EQ would be much better than it is now. And I bet half of us would still be there, lol.

The whole beauty is at a 'point' - say whatever's past Luclin, another server could progress right behind it, starting with classic.

[mixxit]

don't forget the plane of music!

[Dersk]

The whole beauty is at a 'point' - say whatever's past Luclin, another server could progress right behind it, starting with classic.

My idea for a classic EQlive server was not only to be pre-luclin, but to allow free server transfers off of that server onto others so people wouldn't have to abandon a character to see the newer content. People that wanted to stay forever in the content they enjoyed would be able to. I just reminded myself how much I hate SOE hah.

[Critical Error]

Only thing I dont like is that you need a wizzy to get to any planes. One of the best things about the planes was that they were great leveling zones. Groups just couldnt functions if the only way in or out was wizard/gate. Raids could still work as those usually come packed with plenty of rez, but lots of groups dont have rez.

I hate having to run everywhere, but Id hate if I couldnt run anywhere. If anything, these should be clicky in and clicky out ports at certain locations. Sure it would mean that ZL would be safe (how horrible, a place where you can solo trash in relative safety), but at least we would be able to use the zones for more than a raid or two that wont even touch half the zone (ex. was there much to do in PoDis outside the castle in terms of raiding? No, most of the zone was leveling grounds).

[Willis]

Would all this include having AAs brought into the game?

I'd really like to have some AAs... they were a significant addition to classes. I really enjoyed my character once I had gotten like 60-100AAs

[Icecometus]

Personally I would like to see some custom content designed by the Dev team.

[guineapig]

All very good points. This is basically just my imagination playing around with an expansion I enjoyed while leaving out the parts that I felt hurt the original content.

AA's are a toughy. They definitely helped define a character but they became an endless way to level up further. In my vision there would be a cap to how many AA's a character could get each level, starting at say 50. The level cap would still go to 65 with the PoP zones, however you would never be able to get all the AA's available.

In other words you would have to select a path you wanted to put your character on and specialize. Sure a way to respec could be added to the game but I would make it some sort of involved process so you wouldn't simply be able to respecialize your AA's from one day to the next.

As far as ports being necessary goes, I think a nice balance between some zones being port only while others being available without ports would mix it up a little and keep certain planes only optimal for raiding while others could be used for group and solo content.

Totally forgot about the Tower of Frozen Shadow mirror. That would be a nice alternative to the otherwize wizard only port to PoK. And the level 46 requirement for PoK is not a horrible idea but it starts a slippery slope because eventually everyone would start parking their mains there. I would rather see the minimum level at 60 or not at all.

[nicemace]

AA's are good imo, i prefer wasting my time progressing my main instead of making endless number of lvl 50 alts.

yes i have too much free time.

[guineapig]

Edited the OP.

Added ToFS idea and AA's (but with a capped limit per level).

Added some other notes.

[Gandite]

How many classic god models are there? For example I know Solusek Ro has a classic model and is in the game, but he never made an appearance.

Can/would a GM be willing to answer this question? What other gods have an old classic model that could possibly be used if ever planar content was to be created?

[Aeolwind]

Inno, CT, Sol, Erollisi, Tribunal, RZ, Bristlebane, Tunare, Sol Ro.

[Humwawa]

Innoruuk wouldn't allow a link to the Plane of Torment in his home plane.

Saryrn was held by a pact with the dark Elder Gods, but Innoruuk is an extremely suspicious deity. You'd be better off placing the portal to Saryrn's plane nearest the place where she ascended to Godhood - Freeport.

According to Lore, Saryrn was a woman who was blessed with striking beauty, but harbored a deep jealous streak. Erollisi Marr tried to temper her envious heart by promising her a pure, perfect love with a Paladin of Mithaniel. Unfortunately, Saryrn was true to her nature and grew mad with distrust - she turned her simple, idyllic cottage in the outskirts of Freeport into a torture chamber where her husband was only the first of her countless victims.

That cottage would be the perfect place to open a rift to the Planes of Pain. To be nerdy (nerdier) about it, imagine the residual energies left behind in that place, after thousands and thousands of victims were tortured there, where Saryrn embodied the concept of cruelty and suffering to the point where she was capable of divine apotheosis? That's a sinkhole of evil, right there.

[Qaedain]

Wizard ports for everything.

[darkblade717]

Excellent idea. Implementing the Planes of Power without breaking the game would be epic indeed. Keeping the gods the end all and be all would rock, however down with the PoT storyline altogether. What crap.

It wasn't the structure that broke the game, it was the itemization. Even around Luclin all of the old zones and Kunark zones were dead, and Nexus was used as a hub zone.

[Zigo]

How will players become geared for the content that lies in POP with out luclin to suppliment? Even full NTOV / HoT gear wont cut it against some of the basic material in PoP

I love the idea, but this aspect certainly needs to be considered.

[fuji]

The dream expansion thread made me think of this:

So this is all completely hypothetical of course.
I just wanted to see if I could place all the Planes of Power zones (besides Knowledge and Tranquility) in to the original trilogy in a way that would make sense.

This is what I came up with for zone connections:



on the fence:
Plane of Knowledge: no PoK books at all and have it be a wizard port
OR
have 1 portal per continent and make them far away from any starting city.
Tower of Frozen Shadow: Possible alternate route to PoK


For the zones that are located in cities: The location of the zone in would always be the corresponding race's Cleric or Shaman guild hall. (Possibly an alter of some sort or what have you.)

This adds a little bit of challenge because obviously you will have members of the raid party that would be KoS in these cities which would further add to the importance of factions in the game. (Alternately you could just invis through the zone every time.)
Also, this creates new life for old cities.

Note that while Kunark and velious zones will be all the rage for the next couple of years, thereby lowering the classic zone populations, the introduction of this version of PoP will reignite the need for travel in the old world zones. There will be multiple options open for low level players and no matter where they go there will be some high level players hanging around as well. This is something that we never see in EQ now, except in PoK on live (or EC tunnel in the case of this server.) Instead of creating one main hub , many cities will have people in them and therefor resons for low an dhigh level players alike to revisit.

I would go as far as to say that most of the things that were added to PoK should be added to the old world cities (and Cabalis) instead.
(Druid and Wizard ports will never be useless in my vision! ;) )

For the Planes that are located within the older planes (Fear, Hate, Sky, Growth) zoning in to the next zone would be a one way ticket. This makes it not possible to use this zone line as an easy way to clear agro and jump right back in. Also the zone line to the second Plane would be somewhat deep in the zone, requiring you to clear your way to torment from Hate (unless the zone was already cleared). Whether or not you need to have killed Inny to be flagged for Torment remains in question (I could care less either way).

I’m on the fence about where to put Plane of Time so I just figured The Sleepers Tomb being the end game in Velious would be appropriate. ( EDIT: Someone suggested leaving out PoT all together... not a horrible idea. )

Level cap increased to 65 with PoP
AA's (if implemented) are capped per level and you can never get them all. You have to specialize.
Respecialization is an option via a semi-complex quest.
Minimum level requirement (if the zone is even implemented) to enter PoK (somewhere between 46 and 60).

Feel free to add your own opinions and ideas.
(Can you tell I’m bored at work?)


EDIT: Thanks for all that added ideas. I still prefer the use of starting city shaman and cleric guilds for the portals that lead to major deities but there is definitely something to be said for keeping raids from having to zone through a town. So I added both

No No NO. It is all shit after velious with AA, new skins and shitty ideas for new mobs. I like your effort but at the same time I want to say GTFO if you spread anymore post Velious propaganda.

[Fahn]

I like this Idea but several things to keep in mind.

PoT and PoK need to not exist for various reasons. One of those is; they were safe zones, absolutely nothing was even possible to get to kos there.

Also one thing you are not considering is itemization. If you do keep the current itemization, it will be really hard to break into. But once broken, old world content becomes trivial.

And if you change the itemization then you have to look at each encounter and change that. Spells aas, Lots of work there.

But /shrug after enough years of Velious, maybe this would be appealing. I did LOVE the raiding of PoP.

[zenoo]

Luclin and PoK ruined the game, I dont see how this can be avoided while implementing some of the good raid zones. No post velious is why this server caught my attention.

[mmiles8]

No post velious is why this server caught my attention.

Yeah, a lot of folks came here on this premise. I'd most likely get a meh feel about it and lose interest in the project.

[guineapig]

Innoruuk wouldn't allow a link to the Plane of Torment in his home plane.

Saryrn was held by a pact with the dark Elder Gods, but Innoruuk is an extremely suspicious deity. You'd be better off placing the portal to Saryrn's plane nearest the place where she ascended to Godhood - Freeport.

According to Lore, Saryrn was a woman who was blessed with striking beauty, but harbored a deep jealous streak. Erollisi Marr tried to temper her envious heart by promising her a pure, perfect love with a Paladin of Mithaniel. Unfortunately, Saryrn was true to her nature and grew mad with distrust - she turned her simple, idyllic cottage in the outskirts of Freeport into a torture chamber where her husband was only the first of her countless victims.

That cottage would be the perfect place to open a rift to the Planes of Pain. To be nerdy (nerdier) about it, imagine the residual energies left behind in that place, after thousands and thousands of victims were tortured there, where Saryrn embodied the concept of cruelty and suffering to the point where she was capable of divine apotheosis? That's a sinkhole of evil, right there.

Wow, this is good!

[guineapig]

No No NO. It is all shit after velious with AA, new skins and shitty ideas for new mobs. I like your effort but at the same time I want to say GTFO if you spread anymore post Velious propaganda.

This is a completely hypothetical thread I created to entertain myself with. I'm not making the fucking game.
I also never said anything about changing skins, and what new mob ideas are you talking about?
You took my post completely the wrong way.


So no, you GTFO.

[guineapig]

I can see what you guys mean about itemization but to be honest I remember doing Plane of Innovation groups at level 46 and nobody in my groups were Luclin raid geared. (This is just an example.)

I respectfully disagree that you need all the Luclin raid gear in order to get by in PoP. Many later guilds passed up Luclin content and went straight to getting PoP flags first, my own guild included. We didn't start doing Luclin end game stuff till we were already teir 1 and teir 2 PoP flagged.

Obviously, if this were an issue and this was actually being made (which it isn't to my knowledge), itemization would be addressed before it was released. It would be custom content after all.

[gothmonk]

I like the idea, if there were no customizations to the original EQ zones. I think the best bet would maybe be to unlock PoT only. No PoK. Find some way to get people to PoT. A good group of 50s could easily handle the lower end PoP zones. If your tank can last a complete heal cast, you are good to go :) Can't? Get 2 clerics, lol.

[azeth]

can't expect the devs to slave on this server for no $, but i'd pretty much give anything to remove all aspects of Luclin and PoP *except the GREAT raid zones and just stick the zone entrances in old world content.

[guineapig]

can't expect the devs to slave on this server for no $, but i'd pretty much give anything to remove all aspects of Luclin and PoP *except the GREAT raid zones and just stick the zone entrances in old world content.

Agreed!


--------------------------

I would just like to reiterate to any that didn't understand the OP.

This thread is like fan fiction or fantasy football or whatever you want to call it.

I'm not a developer or a GM. I'm not asking to have this implemented in any way, nor would my word hold any weight if I did ask.
This is merely mindless world doodling at work... except I'm using words instead of a pen and a paper.

Feel free to share your ideas of how this could possibly be implemented in some fictional non-existent classic progression server. There have been so many good additions to my original idea already, I would like to see what else people can come up with.

Flaming the thread however, is just plain silly.

[Omnimorph]

Ssra temple was the only good thing about that goddamn hunk of rock. Take that and it'll be fun.

As for PoP... some of the raids were good, but alot of it was quite boring in all honesty. LF6M for PoStorm group. (6 because i don't wanna go to that shitty zone!)

[guineapig]

I didn't mind storm. If anything it was a bit easy and boring after a while. But honestly what zone isn't after a few days?


EDIT: I was thinking of BoT, not Storm.

I thought Storm was a bit of a schizophrenic design for sure.

[frefaln]

I didn't mind storm. If anything it was a bit easy and boring after a while. But honestly what zone isn't after a few days?

SolA, Mistmoore, Upper Guk, Lower Guk, Sebilis, Chardok, Kurns Tower, City of Mist, Crystal Caverns, Kael Drakkal, Tower of Frozen Shadow, Plane of Disease, Plane of Innovation, Plane of Tactics. I'm probably forgetting a few.

PoStorms and BoT were probably the only two zones in PoP that I thought were big 'ole stinkers. That's right, I said the S word.

[guineapig]

PoStorms and BoT were probably the only two zones in PoP that I thought were big 'ole stinkers. That's right, I said the S word.

Oh no you didn't!

Alright, I have to acquiesce. Compared to every zone you mentioned (any many others out there) PoStorm and BoT were pretty lame.

But anywho, I wouldn't leave out any zones in my fantasy expansion simply due to lack of imagination on the part of the designers. As long as they don't ruin the game leave them in there. The more variety in zones, the more play styles you can support and the more zones there are for people to group in. For example, both BoT and Storm offered up some decent charm targets for players.

[frefaln]

Oh I agree, I wouldn't want zones to be omitted based on lackluster design alone. They'd have to pose a pretty egregious threat to the integrity of the game itself, which is why the PoK discussions/ideas are so interesting to me.

And I agree w/ what you said just a bit ago, that this is all just fun to think about in hypothetical terms. Sadly, for those who missed out on the full PoP experience (I'm including myself in that group for I never made it to PoTime), we'll probably never get that second chance and that's okay. That was the big downside to PoP — once newer expansions rendered it obsolete it stood little chance of ever being revisited.

[guineapig]

And I agree w/ what you said just a bit ago, that this is all just fun to think about in hypothetical terms. Sadly, for those who missed out on the full PoP experience (I'm including myself in that group for I never made it to PoTime), we'll probably never get that second chance and that's okay. That was the big downside to PoP — once newer expansions rendered it obsolete it stood little chance of ever being revisited.

I hear ya man. I had to quit before my guild made it to Time. This was after LoY, LDoN and possibly Gates. Only went back once when the level cap was raised to 70 (Omens I think?) and that didn't last long. I was already so far behind on everything.

[maya]

it'll never happen.

guys, the world's gonna end in 2012. i read it in a youtube comment.

[guineapig]

it'll never happen.


What will never happen? Do you have an idea to share?

[firesyde424]

Rather than use the pok books, why not connect the combine spires to PoK instead of luclin and make the transport timers say every 30 minutes instead of every 15.

The EQ game world was made so much smaller by the instant travel the pok stones enabled. You could go almost anywhere in a few minutes as long as you were within range of a stone.

The world didn't become all that much smaller because of the combine spires. The longest trip I know of in the old world was the trip from Freeport to Qeynos. Even with bard speed it still took a half hour. Porting up to Luclin and using the spires didn't make the trip all that much faster and, depending on your luck with the portal timers, it could actually make it longer.

Also, if you do put PoK in, get rid of at least some of the spell vendors in the library and the guild masters. When PoK opened, you could get nearly any spell you needed. You didn't hafta go stand outside an evil/good city and bribe someone to go get the spell for you. It removed a good deal of the thought process that might have gone into a racial choice and instead, made racial choice more of a cosmetic issue than an issue of game mechanics. My cleric has been level 50 for better than two months and I still don't have a few spells simply because I'd hafta go to Neriak to get them.(my cleric is a High Elf.)

[frefaln]

^ I'd be on board with that! Or if not spires to PoK, perhaps directly to PoT? Wait, no, then there's no way to get back down. Okay, PoK it is then... ugh, I just hate the thought of everybody converging in PoK again. It just never felt natural, at least not compared to EC tunnel or Faymart (depending on server).

[guineapig]

I think the only way to really be able to enjoy PoP without ruining the game is to never implement PoK. Sad but true.

The moment you implement a neutral city with a bank everybody will go there, regardless of where it is or how hard it is to get to.

I might be into the idea of adding a Great Library somewhere out of the way on the continent of Kunark or Velious that would have some spells, quests and such (and be neutral by default like The temple of Solusek Ro). But I wouldn't put a bank or any portals there.

[frefaln]

I agree, and I don't understand why the original Devs never stopped themselves and thought, "Hmm, if we do this [PoK] we pretty much destroy the usefulness, charm, and novelty of the racial cities we created."

[guineapig]

I agree, and I don't understand why the original Devs never stopped themselves and thought, "Hmm, if we do this [PoK] we pretty much destroy the usefulness, charm, and novelty of the racial cities we created."

I think it's because at that point they aren't the same people that created the original content. Also they had to start cashing in on more accounts because they knew other games would be on the horizon that would cater to the casual gamer by default.

That's a sad reality. It doesn't really mater what a designer comes up with because the ideas still have to get okay-ed by the company that's financially backing the project. They are going to look for things like how commercially viable is this product. If the answer is that "the poopsockers will love how hardcore it is" then it probably wont make it to production.

Look at Nintendo. They purposely target their product at every market you can imagine. How many stay at home moms are playing video game on the Wii that never touched a gaming console before?

I don't like it one bit myself. But I do realize that no matter how many of us Everquest purists there are, we are still a minority in the gaming community.

This is why games like WoW were able to steal so many EQ players.
And this is why you have people playing that modern incarnation of EQ on live today.

Money helps to create.
Money helps to destroy.

[fuji]

This is a completely hypothetical thread I created to entertain myself with. I'm not making the fucking game.
I also never said anything about changing skins, and what new mob ideas are you talking about?
You took my post completely the wrong way.


So no, you GTFO.

Lawls, it must be hypothetical because no one is taking you seriously. p1999 is about keeping the game pure to the original trilogy and letting nothing after velious taint it. Maybe if you were a true die hard of the game and played since it was in beta you might understand.

So again, spread anymore post velious ideas and you can GTFO.

[frefaln]

^ Honestly man, what is your issue? I think this thread has been a lot of fun and I'm pretty sure nobody's sliding this across the table to a P99 Dev and saying "make it happen!"

We're not asking for anything, and it's not meant to be "taken seriously". Are you sure you know what hypothetical means?

[guineapig]

My guess is he doesn't. Everyone was having fun with the thread till some person comes along and says:

"HUR HUR, HYPOTHETICAL CONVERSATIONS ARE STUPID RAWR!!!"


So again, spread anymore post velious ideas and you can GTFO.

Did you happen to notice that even Aeolwind was playing along?

The only thing I would do differently about this topic is move it to off topic.
The thread has nothing to do with Project1999 fuji. I don't want to change the server in any way. Reread the original post maybe.

[Aadill]

The moment you implement a neutral city with a bank everybody will go there, regardless of where it is or how hard it is to get to.

Isn't Thurgadin dubious or better to all? Upon first coming to Velious, that is.

[guineapig]

Isn't Thurgadin dubious or better to all? Upon first coming to Velious, that is.

I think you are correct.

[SunDrake]

Interesting thread.

If you used the idea of placing the zones in old world locations [or access via portal] then the PoK/PoT issue is null. Like it ;)

Also, for those who are saying it would be difficult to work your way through PoP without Luclin.. maybe thats a good thing for your last expansion ever? Make it damn hard. :) [Not that it would be an issue anyway, they could tune encounters and items however they saw fit.]

[Humerox]

If this server went custom after Velious I would literally cream my jeans.

Personally...that's what I think it should do.

Destiny.

[guineapig]

I just found this post and figured it had some relevance to this thread. It had to do with zones that were never implemented or implemented much later on that were on the the classic-Kunark maps:

When I bought the Ruins of Kunark expansion back in the day, it came with a cloth map of Norrath. Looking at it, there's a ton of zones that they never made (some of which I believe are in some of the newer expansions, like the Gulf of Gunthak on Antonica and the Loping Plains on Faydwer). I'd probably stick with these, using the same graphics engine as Vanilla-Velious. Of course, some of these zones came out with other expansions, but following the previous sentence, here they are:

Faydwer:
Loping Plains
Wayunder Lake
Dragonscale Hills
Ranthok's Ridge
Elverain (sp? I'm looking at a smaller image from google) Lake
Hills of Shade (?)

Antonica:
The Northlands & The Hatchlands
The Nest
The Frigid Plains (which could possibly be the big open area of Everfrost Peaks, and the Newbie area from Halas to Blackburrow could be the western portion of the mountain range)
Winter's Deep (added to Misty Thicket)
Lake Neriuss
Jaggedpine Forest
Unkempt Woods (in the Jaggedpine that went live, there was a blocked tunnel across the river... possibly a route to the Unkempt Woods?)
Lifite (?) River**
Gulf of Gunthak
Broken Skull Rock (Gunthak Subzone, or Part of Gunthak)
Greenblood River, Dead Hills & The Den
Rujarkian Hills & The Serpents Spine* (I really would have liked to have seen this pre-LDoN. It seems to take up a pretty big area of southeast Antonica, and I think it would have been a nice place to level in the 30's, much like a Pre-Kunark version of The Overthere

Odus:
The Barren Coast & The Gulf of Urun
The W____ Deep (I can't read what the 2nd word is on this picture)

Kunark:
Lake of Dismay
Dragon's Drool

As you can see, there are a ton of zones that company had to work with before creating zones on the moon. Again, I would keep the same graphics engine. One thing I did like about WoW was that it was basically the same thing all over, as opposed to Live where it's the Original graphics engines, slightly updated for RoK and SoV, then a new one for Luclin, and getting gradually better as the expansions progressed, leaving gigantic difference between zones (i.e. revamped High Pass and East Karana). There's a ton of lore that can be found for each of these zones, I'm sure. If not, it wouldn't be that hard to come up with some.

*I'm aware that the Serpent's Spine runs along the Karanas, but it also shoots directly south next to the Rujarkian Hills, so I think the same thing could be done for it as the Karanas
**Much like the Serpent's Spine/Karanas situation, I would have liked to have seen this river implemented in the Oasis of Marr. The river branches off from the Serpent's Spine, and runs into the actual Oasis itself. I'd really only implement it for continuity purposes :D

Anyway. That's where I'd at least start with new content, which could easily last you to 65, if done correctly. That was fun, but there's my 2cp. Well... maybe 2pp

Some of these places might also be good logical staging grounds for some of the Planes of Power if one were to get real creative.

[Intricus]

Ok, I'm going to say this in the MOST HUMBLE way possible....

One can only imagine the only reason so many citizens of the Project 1999 community are actually in favor of this whole PoP thing, is beacuse the person suggesting it has a recognizable name, and has 2000+ posts.
And mage-only port? Really? REALLY? I really didn't think mages were already powerful enough, or had enough utility, or enough reasons for people to play one already.

P.S--You know, I have to just let the cat outta the bag...open Pandora's box. This is a CLASSIC server. If you want PoP, or custom PoP or any other expansions after Velious, Join the Dev team, and make a new server, if there isn't one like this already.
This is such an UTTERLY RIDICULOUS thread, and the irony of it all is if some nobody-casual player like myself, who has a job, who's name nobody recognizes, were to make a suggestion like this, everyone would have opinion and response I do, or worse. Thanks, come again.

[alexandervaccaro]

i thought PoP was an awesome expansion, had a classic-y feel (less PoK). if they can figure out a way to implement that without ruining our EQ, i'm all for it. I have no idea who guineapig is, nor did i realize he had 2000+ posts until you mentioned it. hmmmmm

[guineapig]

Ok, I'm going to say this in the MOST HUMBLE way possible....

One can only imagine the only reason so many citizens of the Project 1999 community are actually in favor of this whole PoP thing, is beacuse the person suggesting it has a recognizable name, and has 2000+ posts.
And mage-only port? Really? REALLY? I really didn't think mages were already powerful enough, or had enough utility, or enough reasons for people to play one already.

P.S--You know, I have to just let the cat outta the bag...open Pandora's box. This is a CLASSIC server. If you want PoP, or custom PoP or any other expansions after Velious, Join the Dev team, and make a new server, if there isn't one like this already.
This is such an UTTERLY RIDICULOUS thread, and the irony of it all is if some nobody-casual player like myself, who has a job, who's name nobody recognizes, were to make a suggestion like this, everyone would have opinion and response I do, or worse. Thanks, come again.

Do us a favor:
Read the first post then facepalm yourself please.

This thread is and has always been for fun... not unlike the bacon thread and the make up your own class thread. Lighten up. How is it that Aeolwind, a developer here on p99 can find enjoyment in a hypothetical thread like this yet you can't?

By the way... the mage only port idea came from Aeolwind, not me.

Think before you post.

[Humerox]

Great thread...I kinda view it as what could have happened had the game gone in the direction it should have, had it remained true to the spirit of the original design.

Plenty to think about...especially once P99 runs its course.

[Ocaevia]

I really like the idea.

[Lucrio40]

You know, This is an interesting idea the more I think about it. Making the encounters just as hard as they were or even a little harder and force people to do it with velious level gear. This could offer some real challenge, Kinda like how an expansion called "Planes of Power" should be.

[Hottbiscuits Dreadmuffin]

@guineapig: I remember that cloth map, and reading that list of zones gave me the craziest flashback! I had it pinned to my wall for the longest time, and as I loaded through zones I'd look at it and wonder, "Where the %^$@ is that in the game?!"

On the planes: I'm a big fan of duo/solo adventuring. I would love to be able to get to planes alone or with my duo partner. When Velious does come out, will the Plane of Mischief port still be available in The Great Divide? (was it The Great Divide? I know it was moved from the depths of a dragon cave to somewhere more easily accessible..)

I like the idea of stressing the importance of faction by placing the port stones/zones in cities.

Remaster PoP? I honestly am not a fan of the way any of the PoP zones looked. They were too cartooney and seemed poorly thought out. I would love to see these zones completely remastered, recreated with old school textures, a brand new layout, even new monsters and loot.

For instance, I was severely disappointed with the Plane of Disease. The zone was a huge, bland layout and had nothing interesting to look at. I felt it should have been more subtle at first; you zone in to a normal-ish forest, and find mobs like "a diseased rat" for only the first few feet... and then plagued bandits maybe, followed by disease festering corpses slathered in nastiness, and all the while you're trying to navigate through the forest and into a fallen city akin to Qeynos or Freeport where sludge covered floors might be traps into goo and corpses. The closer you got to Bertox, the more disgusting things would get.

Instead, we got, "WE'LL SUBSTITUTE TREES FOR GIANT HAIR! HARR HARR." A lobotomized five year old could have come up with a more creative zone than what Sony slopped together.

I understand creating whole new zones is a time intensive and specialized project, but since this is a hypothetical thread, I can put on my lollipop shoes and skate across a chocolate lake and draw up maps of what I thought the Planes of Power should have looked like.

[Myrkskog]

PoP without PoK would be awesome. When I hit level 60 and have done velious to death I'm either going to need more content(And this idea provides that with lots of already established zones, AA's and levels) or I will move on.

[Polixenes]

I like the idea of PoP zones being distributed far and wide, although I know very little of PoP, having done 3-4 pickup raids there and that's about it. I loved the Plane of Tranquility theme though and have it on my Ipod :)

Anyway, getting to my point, I would avoid having access at the bottom of dungeons due to the fact that the uber-raiders running in and out are going to disrupt anyone actually playing in the zone. They would either kill all the mobs they aggro or train everything from zone in to zone out because they are in too much of a rush to get to their destination. Either way disrupting the lower level groups. Bearing in mind especially that a 64 man raid will be coming and going in their 2s and 3s over the course of half an hour or more. That's a lot of disruption.

I experienced this kind of behaviour whilst hunting in The Grey. Players would sprint to the temple and back out again to Mons Letalis (iirc) with a train of every worm or golem or whatever they could find on the way. It never inconvenienced me, being outdoors, but imagine that happening whilst you are camping in Sebilis or Lower Guk? (Or Kedge/Hate which are actually suggested in the first post).

[bman8810]

Lawls, it must be hypothetical because no one is taking you seriously. p1999 is about keeping the game pure to the original trilogy and letting nothing after velious taint it. Maybe if you were a true die hard of the game and played since it was in beta you might understand.

So again, spread anymore post velious ideas and you can GTFO.

Ever heard of a thought experiment?

[Humwawa]

I remember this post from a year ago, and I approve of the idea.

(Edit - Okay, ALMOST a year.)

[wehrmacht]

Should start up a beta server to test all these additions then turn on full pvp (to work out all the bugs)

[ChairmanMauzer]

I love this idea. I'm not sure I'd have PoEarth be off Growth though. Maybe Rathe Mountains or The Hole.

[michael799a]

thanks for post

[tocasia]

This is a very creative idea and it might be a good way to include that content if the devs want to do so way after Velious. As it is now though, I'm happy with the current planned progression of this server and I don't think the PoP zones are really needed.

[wehrmacht]

No PoP bosses and no PvP equals:

http://www.remnantofgod.org/images/alexjones.gif

[Rifter]

You guys are die hard classic and crucify anyone that suggest Luclin wasn't as complete shit as you say but are on board with adding access to a planar zone to nearly every city in the game?

That's almost as crazy as cats on the moon.

[wehrmacht]

You guys are die hard classic and crucify anyone that suggest Luclin wasn't as complete shit as you say but are on board with adding access to a planar zone to nearly every city in the game?

That's almost as crazy as cats on the moon.

You can blow through ToV pretty fast and people will want more stuff to do. Everyone hates Luclin though so adding PoP bosses/zones attached to old zones is the best option.

That also gives you AA's and lots of nice XP zones like PoV and BoT which pretty much quadruples the life of the server without actually having to add PoK or anything in Luclin.

[Dfn]

Safe zones kill PvP.

[wehrmacht]

If you actually read this thread, there isn't a PoK zone or PoTranquility.

[guineapig]

If you actually read this thread, there isn't a PoK zone or PoTranquility.


THIS!


You guys are die hard classic and crucify anyone that suggest Luclin wasn't as complete shit as you say but are on board with adding access to a planar zone to nearly every city in the game?

That's almost as crazy as cats on the moon.

If you read the ideas most of the zonelines are not located in cities. The ones that are would require a ton of faction work for many in order for raid members to safely traverse them.

And lastly, this is mostly fan fiction at this point. If you have ideas to add however, that would be great.

[Kika Maslyaka]

I can see what you guys mean about itemization but to be honest I remember doing Plane of Innovation groups at level 46 and nobody in my groups were Luclin raid geared. (This is just an example.)

I respectfully disagree that you need all the Luclin raid gear in order to get by in PoP. Many later guilds passed up Luclin content and went straight to getting PoP flags first, my own guild included. We didn't start doing Luclin end game stuff till we were already teir 1 and teir 2 PoP flagged.

Obviously, if this were an issue and this was actually being made (which it isn't to my knowledge), itemization would be addressed before it was released. It would be custom content after all.

PoP raids tier 1-3 are just tiny bit above NTOV difficulty. If you have been NTOV/ST geared, PoP 1-3 will be surely doable.

However the major block point is Ralos Zek (which is the final key to access the Elemental Planes) - you simply must have lots and lots of people in VT quality gear (which is BETTER than PoP 1-3, specially in near full sets) to beat RZ... Unless you can bring like 120+ people to a raid :D

[Truheart]

I love the idea of the mirror at the top of the Tower of Frozen Shadow taking you to a Plane. There was rampant rumor of this during Velious and several broken quest lines in the Tower that helped fuel the fire. One of the best zones in the game, imho.

[Bassracerx]

i cant imagine POP without luclin it just does not compute. at least with nexus and the lore of how they got there and evrything

[Dongshow]

Interested idea. Not sure why you wouldn't include POK POT in a non-pvp server.

guineapig I wanna be pals, can we do that?

[EvilMallet]

The true answer is to teleport anyone who is in PoK for more than 30 minutes into the middle of Cabillis naked and KoS

[guineapig]

The point of leaving out PoK would be to avoid a central zone that leads to everything else, making the world feel much smaller (which is did). Anyway, that seems to be the consensuses.

[Mcbard]

I loved PoP, but I really like the idea of keeping this server as completely classic as is possible and as was originally intended by the devs. I've said it in previous threads of this nature, but I like the idea of having a content locked time capsule of the original trilogy around.

I like the port ideas and stuff outlined in guinea's first post, but if I wanted to play PoP I think I would want to do it as it was intended by Sony rather than custom content. If I wanted custom content I would have played SoD, or some other random emulated server! Basically, I think what I would personally most like to see is the current server to remain unmolested and unmodified and stay as true to the original trilogy as possible, and perhaps another server opened somewhere far down the line where I can play with other expansions/content. I'm not sure I'll ever get bored of classic though, but raiding the planes again does sound appealing!!

[Rifter]

If you read the ideas most of the zonelines are not located in cities. The ones that are would require a ton of faction work for many in order for raid members to safely traverse them.

And lastly, this is mostly fan fiction at this point. If you have ideas to add however, that would be great.

6 of the planes in the OP are tied either directly to cities or zones directly off of them. Please don't misunderstand, I think this a great idea for a custom shard. For a shard recreating a live timeline I can't support this.

Now, I would much rather have this happen than the timeline to just flat out stop after Velious. Nothing would kill my interest in this server more than a dead end.

Granted, I am biased and won't try to hide the fact that I liked both classic era EQ AND Luclin onward to a certain point, but I am not going to get into the merits of that here as that the intention of your post.

[guineapig]

I stand corrected.
It's been so long I forgot the A or B options for some of those places.

Perhaps the city zone lines are a bit much. But that's how good ideas come about.

So alternate zonelines for the following, anyone?

Ogguk (possibly a port from Arena?)
* Drunder, Fortress of Zek (Plane of Tactics)

In hind-site I think Kael Drakkel would be an even better choice for Tactics, since there is actually a temple to Rallos Zek there.

Qeynos Catacombs, A'Kanon or (Innhotule)
* Plane of Disease (possible necro port?)
- Ruins of Lxanvom (Crypt of Decay)

Leaning towards the Qeynos Catacombs because it's the farthest location from a druid/wizard port. Also the catacombs are technically a dungeon. They are not the same zone as Qeynos North and South.

Akanon or Steamfont
* Plane of Innovation

I guess Steamfont makes more sense especially with how difficult it would be for ogres and trolls to crawl around in Akanon trying to make it to the portal.

Halas or High Keep
* Plane of Justice

Halas is actually more out of the way and more time consuming to get to then Highkeep (considering the Misty Thicket druid ring). Also High Keep doesn't give me a sense of anything even remotely resembling a religious area. The shaman guild in Halas on the other hand, or somewhere near it makes much more sense.


Plane of Hate
or
Freeport (location of Saryn's torturous death) thanks for the lore Humwawa!
* Plane of Nightmare
- Lair of Terris Thule
I still like the idea of Hate leading to another Plane but there is something to be said about using Saryn's actual in game lore. I guess if the portal was located beneath the city, "directly beneath where she died", that would be kind of fun.



Kaladim or Rathe Mountains
* Plane of Valor
- Halls of Honor
-*- Temple of Marr[/B]

Don't have a very strong opinion about either of these locations. Having that trio of zones sprout off of the Paladin guild hall makes sense of course but would love to hear other ideas.


Anyone? I know we have some real lore masters on the server!

[beaon]

Sorry if this was already mentioned. It makes sense to me for POK to be connected to Erudin. I didn't see Erudin used for anything else.

Also I agree that POK shouldn't have links to all of the zones it did.

[Littlegyno]

We need a Plane of Guineapig. Totally bros.

[guineapig]

Sorry if this was already mentioned. It makes sense to me for POK to be connected to Erudin. I didn't see Erudin used for anything else.

Also I agree that POK shouldn't have links to all of the zones it did.

I guess in theory the plane of knowledge wouldn't be too harmful if it didn't have connections to all those zones like it had on live. Just as a quest hub of sorts. However you would still end up with a zone where every class and race can roam and bank freely with absolutely no risk which would end up making it a hub anyway. In Velious factions were still very much important to the game. The decline started happening in Luclin when all these "neutral" cities became available.

I do agree that Erudin is not represented at all, but neither is Rivervale, Paineel, Cabalis, either of the elven cities, etc... The Hole might be a fun option if we wanted to have the continent of Odus represented but there really isn't much lore that would logically connect it to any particular plane.

Well, all that being said; you are right on in saying that if PoK was available, the Erudites should have something to do with gaining access to it.

[Littlegyno]

I guess in theory the plane of knowledge wouldn't be too harmful if it didn't have connections to all those zones like it had on live. Just as a quest hub of sorts. However you would still end up with a zone where every class and race can roam and bank freely with absolutely no risk which would end up making it a hub anyway. In Velious factions were still very much important to the game. The decline started happening in Luclin when all these "neutral" cities became available.

I do agree that Erudin is not represented at all, but neither is Rivervale, Paineel, Cabalis, either of the elven cities, etc... The Hole might be a fun option if we wanted to have the continent of Odus represented but there really isn't much lore that would logically connect it to any particular plane.

Well, all that being said; you are right on in saying that if PoK was available, the Erudites should have something to do with gaining access to it.

Plane of Earth entrance behind Master Yael. l2eq

[wehrmacht]

However the major block point is Ralos Zek (which is the final key to access the Elemental Planes) - you simply must have lots and lots of people in VT quality gear (which is BETTER than PoP 1-3, specially in near full sets) to beat RZ... Unless you can bring like 120+ people to a raid :D

No, you don't. Can get plenty of weapons from BoT like 41/31 2h for melee dps classes. Rallos zek already proc a huge AC debuff so there's not a whole lot of difference between a warrior in VT gear and a warrior in full Ornate molds tanking while in defensive.

I think I managed to get 1500 AC on warrior using only ornate + velious era gear on PEQ.

[Kika Maslyaka]

Plane of Earth entrance behind Master Yael. l2eq

technically that's entrance to Plane of Underfoot :p

[Littlegyno]

technically that's entrance to Plane of Underfoot :p

W/E that's bs. We all know it was originally plane of earth dog.

[Kika Maslyaka]

No, you don't. Can get plenty of weapons from BoT like 41/31 2h for melee dps classes. Rallos zek already proc a huge AC debuff so there's not a whole lot of difference between a warrior in VT gear and a warrior in full Ornate molds tanking while in defensive.

I think I managed to get 1500 AC on warrior using only ornate + velious era gear on PEQ.

this doesn't apply just to a warrior, but to entire raid force.
There is a tremendous difference in +hp and +mana between ornate geared caster and VT geared caster.
I had a full ornate druid on live, and Judgment set from VT was a HUGE upgrade for me when I got it.

[guineapig]

Plane of Earth entrance behind Master Yael. l2eq

And what can you tell me about him other than the fact that he's an earth elemental...

The creatures in the Hole are there because of Erudite magics more than likely. I don't know of any connection between the Erudites and The Rathe.

The Plane of Underfoot is not the same as Vegarlson, the Earthen Badlands.

[guineapig]

After doing some more research maybe Having the zone to the Plane of Earth be some sort of temple in teh Rathe Mountains or Lake Rathetier would make the most sense:

The battle in Plane of Earth was like no other in history and left the plane scarred from war forever. It is said that the skies themselves shook from the battles that took place in that war. Ogre legends claim that each of the thirteen peaks in the Rathe Mountains represent the war and the death of the thirteenth Rathe Council member by Murdunk's hand. Lake Rathetear is also said to be formed from the tears of the Rathe Council as they were beaten by Murdunk and his army.

source: http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/news_article.vm?id=50898&month=042008

The huge cave beneath the lake might be a nice spot to have the portal in.

Of course, like all the upper planes, a key quest of some sort from the lower planes would be in order.

[Orov]

What about adding horses? Not classic, but a part of Luclin I did like.

[falkun]

What about adding horses? Not classic, but a part of Luclin I did like.

Horses removed medding. They also required those god awful Luclin models.
/topic

[Anger]

RUINING my classic experience! Grrrr!!

Kidding. Not a bad idea!

[Kika Maslyaka]

Horses removed medding. They also required those god awful Luclin models.
/topic

considering at lev 30 you no longer required to stare into a book to med, think of this as next upgrade to casters - you no longer required to sit.
make horse require like lev 50+ to use.
And don't forget that horses don't work in dungeons.

as far as luclin models go, well you will be the one without a horse :p

[guineapig]

Well I don't know about horses. This thread is more about how you would fit the Planes of Power in to the original Everquest trilogy while avoiding Luclin and the Planes of Knowledge/Tranquility.

Since horses aren't for sale outside of those places anyway it's a moot point.

[Kika Maslyaka]

Well I don't know about horses. This thread is more about how you would fit the Planes of Power in to the original Everquest trilogy while avoiding Luclin and the Planes of Knowledge/Tranquility.

Since horses aren't for sale outside of those places anyway it's a moot point.

you do realize that you can place a horse merchant in umm.. Qeynos, in like 15 seconds? ;)

[Titanas]

All looks really good I just have to speak out against this...

"For the Planes that are located within the older planes (Fear, Hate, Sky, Growth) zoning in to the next zone would be a one way ticket. This makes it not possible to use this zone line as an easy way to clear agro and jump right back in. Also the zone line to the second Plane would be somewhat deep in the zone, requiring you to clear your way to torment from Hate (unless the zone was already cleared). Whether or not you need to have killed Inny to be flagged for Torment remains in question (I could care less either way)."

Specificly the bold letters. Please don't make people clear some one elses content. Some issues I have with flagging like that is back flagging. Back flagging Cock blocks the heck out of lower tier guilds. put a small quest in that requires 1 key per group, or makes a responable non loot droping boss for flagging individual players.

[Goryani]

You want to rape the best EQ product ever to protest Luclin? If you are going to significantly alter an expansion, change the inferior one, not the superior one. Changes required to fix the issues most commonly associated with Luclin seem far far far far easier than skipping it and rewriting PoP.

1. Create 4 different Nexus in 4 different locations on the moon so they can't be used as teleports to the old world.
2. Overhaul the bane weapon issues.
3. Rename Vah Shir to Kerran.

[Kika Maslyaka]

You want to rape the best EQ product ever to protest Luclin? If you are going to significantly alter an expansion, change the inferior one, not the superior one. Changes required to fix the issues most commonly associated with Luclin seem far far far far easier than skipping it and rewriting PoP.

1. Create 4 different Nexus in 4 different locations on the moon so they can't be used as teleports to the old world.
2. Overhaul the bane weapon issues.
3. Rename Vah Shir to Kerran.

1. good point. I would probably connect it like this: (Spires to cities)

NK Spire - Nexus
WC Spire - Sanctus Seru
Gfay Spire - Kata Castalion
Tox Spire - Shar Vahl

put in a quest which has to be completed before any of the Spires can be accessed

2. Bane weapons/quest are cool concept, but it should not reacquire month long component camping and 300+ TS skill just to kill one and only raid mob in existence that actually needs it.

So make more bane-needed raids, but make bane weapon significantly easier to obtain - best to make it an Augment so it can be inserted into any weapon you like

3. mmm except they don't really look like Kerrans... so to be consistent you would have to replace real Kerrans with vah shir model

[guineapig]

Changes required to fix the issues most commonly associated with Luclin seem far far far far easier than skipping it and rewriting PoP.

The idea wasn't to rewrite PoP at all actually. The only thing you would have to do is place the important NPCs that are in PoK and PoT in to the old world zones. When you think about it there were a ton of NPCs in those 2 zones that were just vendors, a bunch of guild masters and other redundancies, and some were just roaming around to make the place feel more alive. In other words many NPCs can be completely left out instead of being relocated.


1. Create 4 different Nexus in 4 different locations on the moon so they can't be used as teleports to the old world.
If you don't have the moon you don't need teleporters to it.

2. Overhaul the bane weapon issues.
If you don't have the creatures on the moon, you don't need bane weapons for them.

3. Rename Vah Shir to Kerran.
And you would still end up with cats on the moon.

-----------

Basically, the only reason I came up with the idea in the first place is because Nilbog and others hated Luclin all together. Since it's not my sandbox and I don't know the first thing about how to run a server why would I come up with an idea that would never see the light of day?

Of course even the idea in its current form will probably never see the light of day but it's fun to daydream.

Anyway, I still stand by the fact that by introducing Luclin you are introducing the Bazaar and cities that any race can roam around freely in by default which equals central hubs that everyone can congregate to with practically zero work or risk. This defeats the purpose of getting rid of the Plane of Knowledge. If you include places like Katta Castellum, Sanctus Seru, (and more importantly) Shadow Haven, The Bazaar and The Nexus then what's the point of leaving out PoK?


The lower level Luclin zones only serve to detract from all the lower level zones already available in Norrath. I highly doubt the server population would ever get so big that it would warrant adding those tons and tons of locations.

Basically the only reason Luclin worked was because The Nexus and those hub cities existed. Without them it's simply not convenient to adventure there.
The Nexus and those hub cities just so happen to be the cause of, what many agree, started the decline of Everquest.
On the flip side, The Planes of Power expansion was the epitome of MMO raiding and by simply changing the way you get to those zones you leave intact the original feel of Norrath. PoP was practically written as the last chapter of Everquest, where as Luclin felt like a major sidetrack.

Again these are all just my opinions and this thread is just a thought experiment. But it's one I put much thought into.

[Kika Maslyaka]

Anyway, I still stand by the fact that by introducing Luclin you are introducing the Bazaar and cities that any race can roam around freely in by default which equals central hubs that everyone can congregate to with practically zero work or risk. This defeats the purpose of getting rid of the Plane of Knowledge. If you include places like Katta Castellum, Sanctus Seru, (and more importantly) Shadow Haven, The Bazaar and The Nexus then what's the point of leaving out PoK?


The lower level Luclin zones only serve to detract from all the lower level zones already available in Norrath. I highly doubt the server population would ever get so big that it would warrant adding those tons and tons of locations.

you missing an important point here - if you going custom- this means you don't have just add a whole expansion "as is".
You don't want bazaar? - so block access to it - problem solved.

You don't want to create neutral faction hubs - put them on faction which has to be worked on. Seru btw is KOS to evil race/classes from the start

Don't want low end Luclin zones? Up their level ;)
seriously, customization probabilities are limitless - you can turn on or block ANY specific zone you want

[Bassracerx]

as far as the med-on-horse argument make it so you have to have your meditate skill to MAX to be able to meditate on them. also severely limit the amount of zones you actually can use your horse in.

[Bassracerx]

am i the only one who liked luclin? back when luclin came out it was so amazing! i think the killing point for luclin was that PoP came out like 6 or 7 months after luclin did wich wasent enough time for MOST average players to really explore luclin and besides nexus and bazaar and some of the low lvl zones nobody really went to luclin after PoP. its the forgotton expansion imo becasue pop was rushed as a businuss move for sony to make more money.

i think the best way to keep evrybody happy is to mirror the server over keeping evryone's characters for the people who dont want to progress past velius. and then release luclin on an alternate server that is a mirror or the p99 server.

[Vendar]

am i the only one who liked luclin?

just the thought of luclin, horses, char models, and the effing moon, make me want to quit eq all over again

[Bassracerx]

eq all over again?

[Bassracerx]

if all you want to do is raid the gods then why not have a way to do a quest to fight the god? the devs could implement a way for a quest to get your raid ported up to the plane? or in my opinion better have the devs bring the raid to the regular world? maybe even implement a way for two dieties to fight eachother with their armys like the frost giants vs the dwarves in the great divide? there would be different stuff dropped for different winners?

[Humwawa]

I guess if the portal was located beneath the city, "directly beneath where she died", that would be kind of fun.


Saryrn never actually died. Her commitment to causing suffering, her imagination and desire were so great, that she achieved divine apotheosis. She ascended, in other words.

I'm being even nerdier than before, I know. Don't care.

[Goryani]

The idea wasn't to rewrite PoP at all actually. The only thing you would have to do is place the important NPCs that are in PoK and PoT in to the old world zones.

Rewriting PoP will be required to make it enjoyable without Luclin or PoK/PoT (maybe if you allow 2 boxed druids/wizards specifically for the new multi-hour long travel requirements...).

If you don't have the moon you don't need teleporters to it.

If you don't have the creatures on the moon, you don't need bane weapons for them.

And you would still end up with cats on the moon.

Bad argument is bad argument. Skipping an expansion due to disliked elements means Project1999 wouldn't exist.

Anyway, I still stand by the fact that by introducing Luclin you are introducing the Bazaar and cities that any race can roam around freely in by default which equals central hubs that everyone can congregate to with practically zero work or risk. This defeats the purpose of getting rid of the Plane of Knowledge. If you include places like Katta Castellum, Sanctus Seru, (and more importantly) Shadow Haven, The Bazaar and The Nexus then what's the point of leaving out PoK?

I don't understand this reason at all. Players create central hubs even if game designers don't. A central hub more convenient to all players makes all players happier. Less time wasted per day equates to days of /played time saved.

The debate over EC-NFP-GFay establishes the central hub that everyone congregates. EC wins because it is equidistant from good banks, evil banks, low level zones, mid level zones, original EQ high level zones, boats, and wizard/druid port locations. EC won because it has the least amount of time wasted and player hatred.

If you want a certain race/class/deity combo to have to work at faction, then make them work at faction in PoK/Shadowhaven/Bazaar/wherever. Place original EQ/Kunark NPCs and factions throughout the various sections of those cities (but expect a major backlash from players because arbitrary time sinks suck - hello bane weapons and travel time).

The lower level Luclin zones only serve to detract from all the lower level zones already available in Norrath. I highly doubt the server population would ever get so big that it would warrant adding those tons and tons of locations.

How many say the same things about Kunark outdoor zones? Aside from loot and easing overcrowding issues, they are as useless. So are the Karanas and the Deserts of Ro.

Basically the only reason Luclin worked was because The Nexus and those hub cities existed. Without them it's simply not convenient to adventure there.
If Luclin won't work without hub cities, how will PoP work without them? See above for the multi-hour travel time from zone to zone. Lavastorm to Plane of Growth for a pick up group... North Karana to Kaladim...

The Nexus and those hub cities just so happen to be the cause of, what many agree, started the decline of Everquest.

I don't know of anyone who dislikes hub cities yet liked the contentious issues of Luclin and PoP (grueling expansion schedule, AA grind, keys/flags, mudflation, new lore, etc). Hub cities get included to make a list look bigger and more menacing but no one will bother creating a list where hub cities is the number one flaw. Such a game will literally be perfect.

[Vendar]

just the thought of luclin, horses, char models, and the effing moon, make me want to eq all over again

fawk.

make me want to quit* eq all over again

[moklianne]

am i the only one who liked luclin? back when luclin came out it was so amazing!

I liked it aswell. It wasn't my favorite, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if the lore was weak.

Having to wait 15 minutes (or whatever it was) for a port up and then some more time to port down to another continent didn't hinge on the porting classes, IMO. It was done well. You still had to run a few zones to where you had to go. PoK clicky books were horrible. You were essentially 3 zones away from everything in game.

On the PoK NPC relocation, are you serious? do you know how much effort would be involved in relocating ALL of those NPC's? You're talking hundreds and hundreds of quests that need to be thought out to make sure they still have the original intent (can all classes get to those places now, etc).

[Kika Maslyaka]

I significant note here: enabling ANY of the PoP zones AUTOMATICALLY enables Luclin Models :D
Beware of screenshots :D

[EvilMallet]

The only Luclin model I liked was Iksar and male Gnomes >.>

[letsdance]

am i the only one who liked luclin?
i liked luclin alot, especially AAexp. the real problem with luclin was the endless boring quest for emp key. and what i didn't like either was high-end buffs with 3+ hours duration.

[Kika Maslyaka]

I going to make a personal list of Luclin Cons and Pros:

Pros:

-Significant upgrade to environment graphics - new amazing design zones like Ssra, TV, Seru, Kata, Deep
-New player models! :D ok not all of them as great as they could be, but mostly better and more realistic that they were before. Exceptions probably the shorties - they never were very different to begin with, but now they totally indistinguishable :confused:
-Most of the new npc models are very cool - Gorgons, Shissar, fungoid fiends
-Vah Shir ;) Ok given that players (myself included) were asking for Kerrans to be made playable, but oh well ;)
-Beastlords - just awesome ;)
-Horses!
-new weapon models

Cons:

-Nexus and Hubs (factionless Shadow Heaven) - could have been done better rather than all out access (thought PoK was way worse)
-Some silly looking mobs: netherian 'aliens', rockhoppers (cartoony looking dinos)
-unequal zone range progression - many redundant areas
-despite massive new high def textures, still poor outdoor zone design - barely any landmark features (just like the old world)
-pain in the arse Seru/VT key progression, which requires ton of individual farming which is totally pointless time-sink (same goes for bane weapon quest which has to be for just a single mob in netire expansion)

Uncertainty:
-AAs - interesting concept in theory but poor implementation in a form of endless grinding. I would design this better

overall i would give Luclin 8/10 ;)

[FireEmblem86]

-Beastlords - just awesome ;)
-Iksar Beastlords - Even more awesome

FYP.

[Goryani]

My own list of Luclin pros and cons.

Pros:

Tradeskills - Misty Thicket Picnic (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=12802), Earring of the Solstice (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=12456), and more
Focus Effects - not all items get focus effects retroactively
Burrower event
Ring of Fire
Fungus Grove caller events
oodles of mini-raid targets - Rumblecrush, Zelnithak, etc
custom UIs - Moot point considering the Titanium client, but still a postitive
Bazaar - So much stuff is less valuable than the time lost trying to sell said stuff. The Bazaar gives value to those items, the sellers wanting to sell the items and the buyers looking to buy the items.


Cons:

The best parts of Luclin weren't designed for the NToV crowd.
The pinnacle of Luclin was a massive letdown compared to the mobs/events/raids/design leading up to the pinnacle. The climb was better than the view from the top. For a lot of players, the climb happened in Velious, not Luclin.
Bazaar had the bass ackwards design of staying logged into the game but unable to play your character.

[Polixenes]

My own list of Luclin pros and cons.



I would add:

Con: Paludal Caverns' huge +exp modifier trivialised all other leveling content from L4 to ~L23 (Or you can call it a pro if you are into powerleveling)

Pro: squishing Grimlings never got old for me

[TanDemain]

+1 for this idea, nice job

[ithaqua]

potime ports are in game behind p4 gods, just one way portals to the gods homeplanes,
make those dump you in potimea from the other direction instead of linking time to sleepers
also, aren't dwarves brelladins? marr paladins would be freeport and guk frogs, right?
airplane is veeshan's place, not really related to pop plane of air
prexus (ie, kedge keep) isn't involved in powater either -.-
and finally, why put the rathe zone in tunareland?

[guineapig]

potime ports are in game behind p4 gods, just one way portals to the gods homeplanes,
make those dump you in potimea from the other direction instead of linking time to sleepers
also, aren't dwarves brelladins? marr paladins would be freeport and guk frogs, right?
airplane is veeshan's place, not really related to pop plane of air
prexus (ie, kedge keep) isn't involved in powater either -.-
and finally, why put the rathe zone in tunareland?

You should work on the editing but you bring up some valid points.

The live side of Lower Guk might be a good place for the Plane of valor zoneline, can't believe I overlooked that.

Plane of Earth just kind of made sense to be accesable from the Plane of Nature. I realize there is no relation between the two deities but the Rathe council don't really have any relation to anyone.

That being said, since I posted that idea I have done some more lore research and have found that Lake Rathetear would be the ideal place for the portal to the Plane of Earth.

I still stand by Plane of Air and Sky being tied together. There is, in my opinion, no better place to put the "kingdom of wind" zone-in.

As far as the Plane of water goes. I realize that Coirnav is the physical avatar of the Triumvirate of Water (Tarew, Eci and Povar) and that Prexus rules the Plane of the Deep. I guess I just left it to assumption that there there should be some relation between the gods of power and the elemental gods. Perhaps a bit of a stretch but I can't think of a better place as a zone-in for the Reef of Coirnav.

[guineapig]

Keep those ideas coming!

[Harm]

I strongly dislike increasing the level cap to 65. If this was done it needs to be done in a way that keeps the old dungeons relevant and not trivialized like they will be at level 65. I would suggest rebalancing the PoP encounters to level 60. Every time people leveled up in EQ1, old dungeons got left behind. Every time they didn't increase levels for a new expansion, the old dungeons were kept in use as a gearing tool for the new ones, which is a good thing. The additional AAs and gear will bring with it plenty of new power to the players as it is.

[Deathrydar]

I strongly dislike increasing the level cap to 65. If this was done it needs to be done in a way that keeps the old dungeons relevant and not trivialized like they will be at level 65. I would suggest rebalancing the PoP encounters to level 60. Every time people leveled up in EQ1, old dungeons got left behind. Every time they didn't increase levels for a new expansion, the old dungeons were kept in use as a gearing tool for the new ones, which is a good thing. The additional AAs and gear will bring with it plenty of new power to the players as it is.

This is important to me as well! It's sad when games are not scaled correctly and older content has absolutely no meaning anymore.

Look what happened to WoW after the Burning Crusade expansion. MC, BWL, Ony, AQ, NAXX, all of those dungeons could very well have been deleted from the game, and no one would have noticed because no one was ever going to go into them ever again!

Game scaling is important, and in my opinion, one of the reasons why games go sour after a couple expansions. There is a way to do this, it just has to be done right!

[guineapig]

I strongly dislike increasing the level cap to 65. If this was done it needs to be done in a way that keeps the old dungeons relevant and not trivialized like they will be at level 65. I would suggest rebalancing the PoP encounters to level 60. Every time people leveled up in EQ1, old dungeons got left behind. Every time they didn't increase levels for a new expansion, the old dungeons were kept in use as a gearing tool for the new ones, which is a good thing. The additional AAs and gear will bring with it plenty of new power to the players as it is.

This is fairly sound logic. There is also a school of thought however, that having a nice spread of dungeon levels means that you can level up inside one without having to deal with higher level players ganging every mob from you, but then again by the end of Velious there will already be plenty of dungeons to choose from. for 50-60.

I guess my main issue with not increasing the level cap to 65 in this little theoretical discussion is the shear amount of coding work that would have to be involved with completely changing every single PoP zone, every AA ability, every piece of gear, etc. We're talking about a bit of cuting and pasting of zonelines and moving some NPCs out of PoK. What you're talking about is a complete overhaul of all PoP items and mechanics (since the expansion took the level cap increase in to account for nearly everything). That could take a very long time to basically customize an entire expansion. The play-testing and tuning alone could take many months and tons of man hours.

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand what you're saying and agree with you to a certain extent.

[falkun]

I'd almost want to go the other way: Tune it so the 1st tier planes are tuned for L58-60 characters instead of L46+, and then tune everything else for 60+, with the EPs tuned up to 65. Also, this may have already been the way things were done, and without Luclin gear, there may not be that much of an issue for tuning. As guineapig said, by the time Velious is stale there will be plenty of content for 50-60. What would extend the life of this "custom PoP" would be making it more like raid zones in the beginning and throughout the expansion.

Ya, some people will blow through levels shirking gear until max level, but this will allow guilds to progress from original planes to Kunark to Velious to PoP in a more linear fashion I feel.

/discuss

[Kika Maslyaka]

trivialization didn't started with PoP - it started with Kunark.
It was Kunark that made half of the game obsolite.
It was with Kunark that lev 35 mobs started droping items than in classic droped from 50+ mobs
Verant should have kept the progression identical to vanila expansion and only put better items on mobs in 50-60 range
With velious it got even worse
So level cap itself has no effect on trivialization - loot distribution does
In this sence PoP was the best expansion ever, cuase it was mostly 60+ content and didn't step on on previosu expansion toes as much as Luclin and Kunark did

And yes this happens in each and every MOO that makes loot in each next expansion even more accesseable than in the previous one - its a market thing to get casual players to pay for something they don't really need

[Odeseus]

For the sake of the sheer amount of work involved, I'd keep the levels as is. My big question to those who do not want the level incease: Are those 5 levels going to be so bad? I mean, Kunark added 10 levels and no one is leaving angry rants about how it is killing off the old world.

I'd get behind this project, but we're still talking literal years and years down the road. Nice to think about but I wouldn't go nuts over it til at least Velious is out :rolleyes:

[guineapig]

I'd get behind this project, but we're still talking literal years and years down the road. Nice to think about but I wouldn't go nuts over it til at least Velious is out :rolleyes:

Yeah totally.

My only goal is to farm you guys for opinions and ideas and eventually make a map of Norrath with all these ideas in place. So far people have provided some great lore that has definitely corrected me and/or swayed my decision on certain zone location options.

The way I see it is, if this idea really gets fine tuned, written up and archived, anyone in the emu community could eventually implement this, be it this server or some other one.

But yes, these are just ideas... a brain exercise, nothing more.

[Rifter]

The level cap has to go up at some point. Kunark, Velious, Luclin, all capped at 60. I thought that was crazy at the time, at least Luclin introduced AAs. Part of the reason I love MMOs is the "carrot on a stick" mentality. You are never done advancing your character for long.

[guineapig]

So a little more on lore. I was trying to find out a little more on how the PoP storyline begins and it's all quite wordy and pretty vague at certain points. Basically I was trying to find out if there was any point to all the planes being accessible from the Plane of Tranquility instead of the old world zones:

http://everquestlore.wikia.com/wiki/The_Planes_of_Power,_Part_II

Basically, the only relevant part is at the very end:

"Now go and prepare. Soon the morning mists will lift to reveal the portals to a new age. The Age of Balance is nearly upon us."

With this, the elder walks from the large room and allows it to return to being an infirmary for the casualties of the new age.

The Book and the Pedestal

The night slowly pulls its face from Norrath, leaving only the dewy residue of its dark kiss. Creatures scurry to find a shady resting place to wait out the day, and the inhabitants of all the cities of man awaken. It will be hours yet before these cities become fully aware of their newest landmarks, the portals in the form of stone pedestals that litter the face of Norrath’s landscape.

Most days begin, fade, and end, all part of the slow blur that makes up the common life. Sometimes a clear path will present itself and lead its follower astray from that common life. This path comes to its traveler in a variety of forms: the magic in a child's first book; the promise of a couple’s first glance; the hero's first step into the dank mouth of some forgotten cave. All these things can break the blurry cycle of the day and yield adventure.

This morning will present to the citizens a new path, a path in the form of a portal--a path that will forever change their lives.

Basically you can keep all the lore and just drop the dumb part about pedestals with books on them, which I always felt was a cheap and cheesy solution to get everyone to start using PoK as a hub. It never made any sense. So just leave those 2 paragraphs out of the lore and voila!

[Kika Maslyaka]

you can keep Pok in with following adjustments:
-req level 46 to enter
-make its citizens to start off KOS to everyone, at like -2000 points :D
And then those who really want that as hub - they will have shit load of factioning to do =)
-keep the books that lead to PoK, but remove those that go down to Norath :D (hence ist accessable from anywhere, but cannot be used as a transporatation system anymore)

[guineapig]

you can keep Pok in with following adjustments:
-req level 46 to enter
-make its citizens to start off KOS to everyone, at like -2000 points :D
And then those who really want that as hub - they will have shit load of factioning to do =)
-keep the books that lead to PoK, but remove those that go down to Norath :D (hence ist accessable from anywhere, but cannot be used as a transporatation system anymore)


So a zone that doesn't help with transportation and the NPCs (which can't be killed) are all KoS?
Make it easy to get to but impossible to leave unless there happens to be a druid or wizard there?
(A wizard or druid that wasn't already killed by the tons of invincible roaming KoS NPCs that is).
That sounds like a really bad idea, just my opinion. Makes more sense for it to simply not exist.

[Kika Maslyaka]

So a zone that doesn't help with transportation and the NPCs (which can't be killed) are all KoS?
Make it easy to get to but impossible to leave unless there happens to be a druid or wizard there?
(A wizard or druid that wasn't already killed by the tons of invincible roaming KoS NPCs that is).
That sounds like a really bad idea, just my opinion. Makes more sense for it to simply not exist.

why npcs can't be killed???
just cuase its a set as non combat zone?
you do know it takes about 3 seconds to remove that flag?
this is still will be quest zone, you just have to work on your faction - think about this as new Kael.
And there are gate potions sold on vendor :)

[guineapig]

Okay good point, you could make therm killable. Which would then make it another exp zone.

Is there any real reason you want to keep the zone in though?
If all the planes are spread out all over Norrath and there are no portals leading out of PoK then what would the reason for the zones existence be?

Also having potions sold on a vendor that's KoS to you doesn't really help. Or do you intend on having beta neurtal NPCs in there as well?

There actually aren't that many quest NPCs in PoK when you think about it. Most are simply vendors, guild masters or wandering NPCs simply placed there to make the zone feel more alive. Easier to place the quest NPS in to existing cities. If you want a faction grind you got plenty since you will most likely need to be gaining city factions in order to do these quests or at least walk around safely.

Also, you then have to implement a new faction to the game and what will you kill to gain faction there? Is there a way to loose faction? Implement a series of quests that also gain faction? Just tag all this on to mobs and quests that already exist in the game?

I'm not trying to shoot your idea down. I just want to understand what your reasoning behind the idea is.

[Kika Maslyaka]

ok.
-first of all gate potions are sold on regular NPCs vendors all over the world
all the classic planes do not thave any easy exit out of them neither - why should this one?
-you can keep conection to plane of Tranquility for example - or make a conection to anywhere you think is appropriate (you can even keep portals down, but they will only trigger if say your faction with Pok is at Ally level)
-you can design and add any quests you like
-you can make it a raid a zone
-you can set it to be an opposing faction to anything you like (another plane most liekely), or it can be faction only gained via quests - put quests npcs in different location on Norath (emisaries of new tanaan, non kos) who will send you to other planes to kill things, collect quest items, and grant faction with PoK in return

yeah its a lot of work. and Yes, its a lot easier to simply cross it out it and forget about it.
I am just use to different way of thinking (as a custom sever dev) - no zone shall go to waste ;)
Honestly, i don't care what you do with it - I am simply giving you alternative ideas ;)

[Deathrydar]

All I have to say is: No to the books!!!

[guineapig]

yeah its a lot of work. and Yes, its a lot easier to simply cross it out it and forget about it.
I am just use to different way of thinking (as a custom sever dev) - no zone shall go to waste ;)
Honestly, i don't care what you do with it - I am simply giving you alternative ideas ;)

Okay well when you put it like this. I could think of plenty of way to use the zone just to take advantage of the geography provided.
Completely unrelated to relocating the Planes to where they should have been, my first thought would be to turn PoK into a team based PVP zone. Would be ideal for capture the flag for example.


All I have to say is: No to the books!!!

No worries, no books :)

[Smoo]

That would be amazing!! it would take out the PoK books which would make it really interesting! I'm all for this!

[Shadey]

THink this is a terrible idea skipping EQ's best expac Luclin. And POK came from PoP not Luclin. The bazaar came from Luclin (though it was not used till during PoP) and the spires teleporting to the continents. LOL And I'm sure there are those that will flame over my opinion but it is just that. My opinion. :)

What i'd love to see is the later expac's put in without the huge bump in exp they came with. Keep it difficult to lvl/AA. Including the best. Luclin. :D

[Harm]

Gear inflation isn't nearly the problem that level inflation is. Because to get the new gear you have to get the previous gear. Its a natural progression that keeps old dungeons and raids in use. Leveling doesn't have that requirement as long as there's a blue mob you can kill.

Now its somewhat diluted of course by non-raid gear from the new expansion eclipsing low-level raid gear from the old expansion even without increasing levels. But that is far better and more natural than non-raid gear from five levels higher.

The "But Kunark increased the level cap by 10" argument only proves my point. Vox and Naggy were completely trivialized after the level cap increase, and well before everyone even hit 60. The only reason people went there was for easy haste and 100% bags for minimal effort, the rest of the gear was throwaway. Verant then cludged in some viability and challenge with the level 53 cap to engage those two dragons and the epic quest drops.

So 1) Even Verant realized at the time they needed to act to keep the old raids viable, and 2) It very convincingly illustrates what happens to old raid encounters when the level cap increases. If there's any loot that's still good they get farmed as soon as the content respawns without any challenge at all, if there's no loot worth having it will be completely ignored by everyone. If a classic + PoP zones server increases the level cap to 65, there will be no one doing anything but those PoP zones, and the best zones in the game will be going to waste.

[Kika Maslyaka]

ah but this is because Verant/Soe failed to create a proper chain of progression
They kept lowering the difficulty threshold for loot, with each next expansion - this what caused "ghost zones" to appear.
Kunark 1-50 zones had BETTER loot, than same difficulty classic zones
Velious 30-60 zones had better loot than Kunark zones of same range
Luclin 1-60 zones had better loot than all previous content in same range
and this trend continues till today

The ONLY way to preserve old zones value is to make sure than new released content doesn't give you better things for less effort, or, alternatively ONLy keep adding new zones in a higher level range.

Think about it like this:
Classic world had zones lev 1-50
now Kunark would ONLY have zones 50-60
Velious would ONLY have zones 60-70
Luclin would ONLY have zones 70-80
etc

This way, your all time favorite Crushbone/Unrest/Guk NEVER gets obsolete, cause there are no substitutes for that level range

This of course make bad marketing for the game company, since none of the low level people will buy any of the expansion - that why you have what you have today

Such things like required level and attuneable items make another great contribution to stopping mudflation, since they continuously take items out of server economy

[guineapig]

Most PoP gear had a minimum level requirement anyway and you had to be 46 before entering the teir 1 zones. Nobody is mentioning that.


Less talk of mudflation, more talk of lore!


How would you guys go about the discovery of the first portals? (Justice, Disease, Innovation, Nightmare).

Who would make the most sense to spill the beans? Which deity or character would have the most to gain by showing mortals the way to the planes of power and influence?

[Izzni]

If you increase the level cap you might want to make the planes easier to get into. 60 to 65 everyone leveled in the planes, and if it takes effort to get in there people will glob to the most accessible plane and ignore the others except for raiding.

[guineapig]

If you increase the level cap you might want to make the planes easier to get into. 60 to 65 everyone leveled in the planes, and if it takes effort to get in there people will glob to the most accessible plane and ignore the others except for raiding.

I did not find this to be the case on live. The big raid guild went out of their way to get flagged to teir 2 as soon as possible to avoid competition. And by the time smaller guilds got flagged to teir 2, the big guilds were already in teir 3, etc.
Even on this server our guild had all of our active members keyed to Seb in the first couple of days and most of us have been keyed to howling stones for a couple of weeks now.

As long as there are zones to be unlocked, there will be players actively attempting to unlock them. Besides, having 4 46+ zones to start with is huge and teir 2 really isn't that difficult to get to which already doubles the available zones to 8. Considering the population of emu servers it would seem like this is plenty. And lets keep in mind were talking like at least a year after Velious.

ANYWAY:


Less talk of mudflation, more talk of lore!

How would you guys go about the discovery of the first portals? (Justice, Disease, Innovation, Nightmare).

Who would make the most sense to spill the beans? Which deity or character would have the most to gain by showing mortals the way to the planes of power and influence?

[Kika Maslyaka]

Zeborux - since he is imprisoned there and wants to get out :)

[Mountaineer]

Definately need to figure something out how to do this. Whether level cap stays at 60 and events are re-balanced according to or what. And maybe have the POK port system based on NPCs that are on a faction? And you cant use the NPCs to port to the different places unless you have the proper faction, which is ubtained by unlocked/flagging for certain zones or tiers of PoP (which prevents everyone and their alts from hopping all over the place).

[Tpyo]

I think it might be interesting to make "The Hole" some sort of gateway to the planes. There was a HUGE magical war there that blew an enormous hole into Norrath. Where better place to have the fabric of space/time torn open than there? Probably the perfect place to step into the planes.

I imagine that in the hole, planar rifts might open up and for a short time (30-60 minutes) players can go through and enter the respective plane.

--------------------------------------------

Further, I am personally on the Luclin fan-boat. I still consider Classic, Kunark, and Velious to be uber, but I did like some of the things Luclin brought to the table (Vah Shir were not among them). Grieg's End, Ssra, heck, even beastlords!

Perhaps the spires could all teleport to Luclin at some time, however, rather than every 15-30 minutes for each spire, perhaps each spire is attuned to Luclin for a week.

For example, from May 8th - 14th the Toxxulia spires are attuned, and every interval of time (30 minutes perhaps) they lead to Luclin. Then, May 15th - 21st the NK spires are attuned, and later May 22nd - 28th the Gfay Spires attune... etc... and cycle through.

Further, make Shadowhaven and the bazaar more of a fallen and deteriorated city... not unlike Sebilis. The Nexus would be a small safe area surrounded by plenty of danger. Shar Vahl could be a raid zone too!

[guineapig]

I've thought about using the Hole as a location for one of the portals... Considering what happened there, maybe the Plane of Time entrance would make the most sense? You know, that whole tear in the time space continuum jargon that always shows up in sci-fi.

I don't personally like the thought of it leading to every planar zone for a couple of reasons.

1.) Level 46 players are going to have a hell of a time making it through that dungeon by themselves.
2.) It would basically turn Toxulia Forest into the Plane of Knowledge. Think about it.
a.)Beta neutral vendor that buys and sells to everyone.
b.)Druid port location
c.) good/neutral aligned city with bank 1 zone away
d.) evil aligned city with bank 1 zone away

You're basically defeating the purpose of spreading the planes out by giving every level 46+ player 1 zone to hang out in for all their needs. I don't think anybody wants that.

------------------------------------
I'm standing firm about avoiding Luclin. It's completely unnecessary for the purposes of implementing the PoP storyline and if you have to completely customize zones and NPCs in order to keep them from ruining old world content then it's easier to just leave it out. See the previous comments regarding Luclin gear and mudflation. PoP gear for the most part doesn't effect any player below level 46. I enjoyed the expansion when it came out but it just doesn't fit into the idea of preserving the classic feel of EQ at all.
------------------------------------


Zeborux - since he is imprisoned there and wants to get out :)

duh... thanks. Yes that would be the simplest (and most obvious) solution. :o

[Mountaineer]

Luclin sucks and adds nothing to EQ except AAs, which are meh!

POP is the best!

[Shadey]

Luclin sucks and adds nothing to EQ except AAs, which are meh!

POP is the best!

WRONG! Luclin was the best and most thought out expac and brought many great advancements to the game. ALL the zones were great. It had content for every level of char from 1 to 60 to AWESOME raids.

[Shadey]

I've thought about using the Hole as a location for one of the portals... Considering what happened there, maybe the Plane of Time entrance would make the most sense? You know, that whole tear in the time space continuum jargon that always shows up in sci-fi.

I don't personally like the thought of it leading to every planar zone for a couple of reasons.

1.) Level 46 players are going to have a hell of a time making it through that dungeon by themselves.
2.) It would basically turn Toxulia Forest into the Plane of Knowledge. Think about it.
a.)Beta neutral vendor that buys and sells to everyone.
b.)Druid port location
c.) good/neutral aligned city with bank 1 zone away
d.) evil aligned city with bank 1 zone away

You're basically defeating the purpose of spreading the planes out by giving every level 46+ player 1 zone to hang out in for all their needs. I don't think anybody wants that.

------------------------------------
I'm standing firm about avoiding Luclin. It's completely unnecessary for the purposes of implementing the PoP storyline and if you have to completely customize zones and NPCs in order to keep them from ruining old world content then it's easier to just leave it out. See the previous comments regarding Luclin gear and mudflation. PoP gear for the most part doesn't effect any player below level 46. I enjoyed the expansion when it came out but it just doesn't fit into the idea of preserving the classic feel of EQ at all.
------------------------------------




duh... thanks. Yes that would be the simplest (and most obvious) solution. :o

Skipping the Best expac in the game is stupid. LOL There will be nothing gained by doing so and would be very stupid to skip content designed to push you to the next lvl above Velious. PoP is largely just a raiding expac where luclin had both 1-60 content for all players and AWESOME raids. Doesn't make sense.

And if you want to preserve old world zones then kill the Pop zones that are 46-60. Thats the same Idea your having here with Luclin. Because it had great 1-60 zones "boggle". Then you get your raid zones while preserving old world content. :D

And to me that feels like you just want to tell people where to xp. Because you want to keep xp'ing there EVERYONE should. WRONG!

IMO Follow the timeline of expac's or DON'T DO IT AT ALL! Stop at velious.

[Dumesh Uhl'Belk]

Luclin had great potential, but ultimately it was a bomb in my eyes, and I would definitely mark it as the beginning of the end in terms of gameplay and story elements that I enjoyed.

How I would remake Luclin to make it fit classic EQ...

1. It's not on the moon, it's another continent on the far side of Norrath. These are already known to exist form the globes in Skyfire.

2. No aliens, netherbians are gone, 4 arms are gone, grimlings are reflavored as a different kind of gnome/goblin hybrid or something, or just replaced with an existing race.

3. The sky in all outdoor zones is replaced with the standard Norrath sky.

4. NO NEW CHARACTER MODELS.

5. Kitty city is still Kitty city, but they are Kerrans, and Kerrans are now playable... include lore about their ancestors flight from Erudite persecution.

6. Massively expand the backstory and faction dynamics between Katta and Seru, re-write a stronger tie in to the lost Combine empire. Velious style armor and or weapon quests with the opposite city as a raid/xp zone in the style of Skyshrine vs Kael Drakkel.

7. reflavor thought horrors as being servants of Cazic and/or Terris Thule, possible entry point for plane of torment if we wanted to go farther...

8. No bazaar

9. No automatic portals from old world

10. borrow another zone to connect to Shadow Haven that has docks and run a boat from there to stonebrunt mountains... and release warrens + stonebrunt

11. not entirely certain what I would do with Vex Thal yet.

[burnsai]

Dumesh that is everything that I wish Sony would understand and do.. make it ala carte.. because some of this stuff was good.. but so much sucked.. I like your ideas alot.
Luclin was definately where I finally was able to shake the EQ fever and come out of my trance..I quit not long after.. I only have been back now for 3 months..

[Shadey]

Updated Char models were awesome! No more square heads and bodies. YAY!

I'd leave the cats like they are. Don't like the Kerrans any better then the Vah Shir prob less as they look like funky starwars wookie (spelling) rejects with cat heads.

Don't mind the idea of another continent though.

Bazaar was there but not implemented for use (seen this on a number of threads and number of times here). Guess you all don't remember that. EC was alive and flowing during ALL of luclin. LOL

Leave the raid content as is. Why mess up something that is GREAT already. VT was a great raid zone, just time consuming.

the rest isn't so bad and wouldn't destroy the expac. (IF all zones are still there and connected in the same way).

Oh and I don't think the spires were a big deal. It added a little convenience for those that didn't have a way to be ported around or didn't want to pay for ports. While not giving access to every single zone in the game (there were only one on each continent). And thats if you waited for the spire to take you up and then again to take you back down. Not much different then the boat ride imo in terms of time spent.

[Kika Maslyaka]

Luclin had great potential, but ultimately it was a bomb in my eyes, and I would definitely mark it as the beginning of the end in terms of gameplay and story elements that I enjoyed.

How I would remake Luclin to make it fit classic EQ...

1. It's not on the moon, it's another continent on the far side of Norrath. These are already known to exist form the globes in Skyfire.

2. No aliens, netherbians are gone, 4 arms are gone, grimlings are reflavored as a different kind of gnome/goblin hybrid or something, or just replaced with an existing race.

3. The sky in all outdoor zones is replaced with the standard Norrath sky.

4. NO NEW CHARACTER MODELS.

5. Kitty city is still Kitty city, but they are Kerrans, and Kerrans are now playable... include lore about their ancestors flight from Erudite persecution.

6. Massively expand the backstory and faction dynamics between Katta and Seru, re-write a stronger tie in to the lost Combine empire. Velious style armor and or weapon quests with the opposite city as a raid/xp zone in the style of Skyshrine vs Kael Drakkel.

7. reflavor thought horrors as being servants of Cazic and/or Terris Thule, possible entry point for plane of torment if we wanted to go farther...

8. No bazaar

9. No automatic portals from old world

10. borrow another zone to connect to Shadow Haven that has docks and run a boat from there to stonebrunt mountains... and release warrens + stonebrunt

11. not entirely certain what I would do with Vex Thal yet.

3 problems:

1.the sun doesn't move in Luclin zones - will have hard time explaining that if its another continent
2. no luclin models is non enforceable - once expansion is enabled, anyone can activate them
3 kerran models - its impossible to just force them onto players, unless you use a perl script to keep them under illusion effect all the time- they also won't have any armor textures. On other hand, there are dumb down vah shir models in style with old ugly models ;)

[guineapig]

Skipping the Best expac in the game is stupid. LOL There will be nothing gained by doing so and would be very stupid to skip content designed to push you to the next lvl above Velious. PoP is largely just a raiding expac where luclin had both 1-60 content for all players and AWESOME raids. Doesn't make sense.

I respect your opinion but it is just that, an opinion like mine.

It's widely escepted that Luclin eliminated the need for any gear that came before it at all levels more so than any expansion before it. Even people that love Luclin can admit this.
Hell, my Planar robe from the Plane of Hate is still better for an enchanter than all but a couple robes in all of Kunark. Just tossing that in there as an example. The Planes of Power actually does not do this at all for the first nearly 50 levels.

The point of my idea was a way to wrap everything up once people have done everything there is to do in the classic trilogy. Were talking 4-5 years post server launch. It will give the guilds some breathing room from each other. People will be able to more or less raid to their hearts content and challenge themselves with some really great encounters and trials.

The storyline in PoP was perfect for an ending to the original Everquest.
How many people who have been here since 2009 are going to care about having new newbi zones that far down the line. People are going to have three or four level 60 raid geared characters by this point and countless other alts already twinked to the gills. Does anyone really need to start farming twink gear all over again at that point? Does anyone want to stay level 60 at that point? If you add Luclin to the mix before increasing the level cap (at the current rate of expansion on this server) you will end up with with such a topheavy server that I can't even imagine what that will mean for the raid scene. Leveling up becomes tedious. I'm a complete and total alt nut and even I can admit to that.

And yes, this is just my opinion, but the Luclin debate has been around on this server since like November of 2009



IMO Follow the timeline of expac's or DON'T DO IT AT ALL! Stop at velious.

More than likely Velious will be the end of this particular server so you don't have to worry too much about it. I don't have any more sway with the developers than you do. :)

[Shadey]

With the installment of Luclin you have two things. A new race and a new class. So like Kunark you will have a bunch of new chars being created as new mains or alts. With that big push of lower lvl chars you will then see lots of new lower level play. End of story.

If you want to make this into what eq1 ended up being which is all raiding and no lower to mid lvl play then implement PoP first.

What is seams to me is those that want to hold everyone else back because they don't want people in the newer low-mid lvl zones of Luclin. Well seams selfish to me. What I find funny about that is during luclin and beyond we still went to older expac zones for exp and some gear as well. And once the newness of Luclin wore off you found many groups going on in velious, kunark and orig eq zones.

And as I've said before its one of the best expacs they designed. It has something for everyone casual player and raider alike. Of all levels.

Now what I did see with PoP which is counter what everyone seams to want is that with it came the push to be 65 or you were not getting groups because that is where everyone was at. Either in the high end zones or raiding. So that does not do the general population good either.

And yes this is my opinion of course and that of MANY people I know that played live with me.

[Shadey]

Now to address something that will be a huge problem with skipping Luclin.

NO player geared with the best that Velious has to offer will be able to survive a PoP raid encounter in a normal raid setting. No guild will be able to do this without throwing massive amounts of people at the mobs (i'd say 150+ in raid).

The only way to accomplish this will be to dumb down the encounters to a point where its not PoP anymore.

[Kika Maslyaka]

well, with fully NTOV and ST geared raid, specially some of that amazing gear dropping off Boss of NTOV - Vulak`Aerr - you CAN do PoP tiers 1-3 - my guild did them on live

but you will NEVER make it past RZ without Ssra/VT gear

[Shadey]

well, with fully NTOV and ST geared raid, specially some of that amazing gear dropping off Boss of NTOV - Vulak`Aerr - you CAN do PoP tiers 1-3 - my guild did them on live

but you will NEVER make it past RZ without Ssra/VT gear

Aye. I was thinking past the beginning easy mobs. should have specified. :)

Still the point is skipping some content is fine sure. Skipping an entire expac will not work unless you dumb things down.

I knew of a few guilds that skipped VT entirely and just farmed SSRA and zone bosses and then moved to PoP. Now i'm not saying leave VT out as they did have a hard time of it a bit till they got more of the new PoP gear farmed from the lower tiers. VT is a great zone.

[semadurgun27]

Nice share boss...

[falkun]

Aye. I was thinking past the beginning easy mobs. should have specified. :)

Still the point is skipping some content is fine sure. Skipping an entire expac will not work unless you dumb things down.

I knew of a few guilds that skipped VT entirely and just farmed SSRA and zone bosses and then moved to PoP. Now i'm not saying leave VT out as they did have a hard time of it a bit till they got more of the new PoP gear farmed from the lower tiers. VT is a great zone.

You can skip from Velious to PoP. If guilds get decked out in max Velious gear prior to PoP, they will stomp on the first 2 tiers. Then they will settle into Tier3 for a while gearing up on ornate patterns before making the push into T4 (Elemental planes). A gear block is almost a good thing, hell, take a look at the velious armor tiers. Most guilds will generally start out on the inferior dwarf armor before moving to dragon and finally to giant (I think that's the right order). Now the top guilds might have the gear to be able to skip the dwarf tier, but they will have to decide between the giant and dragon armors. This will be a good thing as not everyone will be fighting for the same raid content (which isn't instanced). This gear discrepancy will filter guilds to different bosses.

[Dumesh Uhl'Belk]

3 problems:

1.the sun doesn't move in Luclin zones - will have hard time explaining that if its another continent
2. no luclin models is non enforceable - once expansion is enabled, anyone can activate them
3 kerran models - its impossible to just force them onto players, unless you use a perl script to keep them under illusion effect all the time- they also won't have any armor textures. On other hand, there are dumb down vah shir models in style with old ugly models ;)

1. See number 3 in my list.

2. True enough, this list ended up being an odd hybrid of "what I would have done" + "what might could be done with the emu"

3. see #2. Although I imagine the model could be put in the global file and textures could be created by the community and shared.

[Dumesh Uhl'Belk]

Updated Char models were awesome! No more square heads and bodies. YAY!Matter of opinion certainly. There are many of us that disagree. Also, it marks a clear line of departure from the classic look.

I'd leave the cats like they are. Don't like the Kerrans any better then the Vah Shir prob less as they look like funky starwars wookie (spelling) rejects with cat heads.again, matter of taste. I prefer the classic look and a tighter integration with classic lore.

Don't mind the idea of another continent though. Room for agreement after all.

Bazaar was there but not implemented for use (seen this on a number of threads and number of times here). Guess you all don't remember that. EC was alive and flowing during ALL of luclin. LOL Yes, it took a while, but the bazaar did go live about 3 months before PoP was released. In any event, I don't want it.

Leave the raid content as is. Why mess up something that is GREAT already. VT was a great raid zone, just time consuming. I liked many of the raid encounters in Luclin, especially Ssra temple. However, I was approaching this more from a desire to revamp the lore to avoid aliens and anything that looked too divergent from original Norrathian biology. Shissar are cool. Xin Thall Centiens, Netherbians, and Ahkevans are all a bit weird.

the rest isn't so bad and wouldn't destroy the expac. (IF all zones are still there and connected in the same way). Mostly, i suppose if I went through it with a fine tooth comb, there might be one or two alterations I'd make to make sure it seemed like a continent with some subterranean areas and not the moon.

Oh and I don't think the spires were a big deal. It added a little convenience for those that didn't have a way to be ported around or didn't want to pay for ports. While not giving access to every single zone in the game (there were only one on each continent). And thats if you waited for the spire to take you up and then again to take you back down. Not much different then the boat ride imo in terms of time spent.Sorry man, I'm big on in-game geography. I love for things that are far away to be... far away. I much prefer boat access. There would still be the port spells to the nexus, and the other port spots, was it scarlet desert and where else? anyway, I'd add combine portal and druid circle art assets to those zones to unify the theme and reason for ports existing in the first place.

[Jave]

Luclin had great potential, but ultimately it was a bomb in my eyes, and I would definitely mark it as the beginning of the end in terms of gameplay and story elements that I enjoyed.

How I would remake Luclin to make it fit classic EQ...

1. It's not on the moon, it's another continent on the far side of Norrath. These are already known to exist form the globes in Skyfire.

2. No aliens, netherbians are gone, 4 arms are gone, grimlings are reflavored as a different kind of gnome/goblin hybrid or something, or just replaced with an existing race.

3. The sky in all outdoor zones is replaced with the standard Norrath sky.

4. NO NEW CHARACTER MODELS.

5. Kitty city is still Kitty city, but they are Kerrans, and Kerrans are now playable... include lore about their ancestors flight from Erudite persecution.

6. Massively expand the backstory and faction dynamics between Katta and Seru, re-write a stronger tie in to the lost Combine empire. Velious style armor and or weapon quests with the opposite city as a raid/xp zone in the style of Skyshrine vs Kael Drakkel.

7. reflavor thought horrors as being servants of Cazic and/or Terris Thule, possible entry point for plane of torment if we wanted to go farther...

8. No bazaar

9. No automatic portals from old world

10. borrow another zone to connect to Shadow Haven that has docks and run a boat from there to stonebrunt mountains... and release warrens + stonebrunt

11. not entirely certain what I would do with Vex Thal yet.

Good ideas but HOLY COW. Talk about massive expectations from our VOLUNTEER dev team. That would take YEARS and many thousands of hours to do all that. Lets take your ideas and simplify them a bit:D

EDIT: I couldn't stand Luclin anyway. I vote skip it.

[Shadey]

Matter of opinion certainly. There are many of us that disagree. Also, it marks a clear line of departure from the classic look.

For me and many others Luclin is considered classic and prior to the ruining of EQ by SOE. and the Char models were part of that. And yes is a matter of opinion. :D

[/QUOTE]again, matter of taste. I prefer the classic look and a tighter integration with classic lore.[/QUOTE]

Had no problem with the lore change for the most part. Was mostly speaking to the funky looking wookies with cat heads idea. Which was bad IMO. And i'm sure others would agree.

[/QUOTE]Yes, it took a while, but the bazaar did go live about 3 months before PoP was released. In any event, I don't want it.[/QUOTE]

I stand corrected. It was right before PoP was released. Looked up the patch history and verified. I could swear it was with or after PoP though. heh.

[/QUOTE] I liked many of the raid encounters in Luclin, especially Ssra temple. However, I was approaching this more from a desire to revamp the lore to avoid aliens and anything that looked too divergent from original Norrathian biology. Shissar are cool. Xin Thall Centiens, Netherbians, and Ahkevans are all a bit weird.[/QUOTE]

Same could be said about other mobs in what you consider classic that are not classic D&D type monsters. Though these were a bit more weird yes. heh. But I they fit well into what the xpac was, based on the moon above Norath.

[Kika Maslyaka]

1. See number 3 in my list.

2. True enough, this list ended up being an odd hybrid of "what I would have done" + "what might could be done with the emu"

3. see #2. Although I imagine the model could be put in the global file and textures could be created by the community and shared.

1 - not going to work - sky textures have NOTHING to do with day/night changes. You can put any sky texture you like - the SUN WILL NOT MOVE - the zones will be perma locked into a specific time of day - its hard coded into a client

3. well you could replicate kerra model on top of a vah shir model - but this change would be totaly voluntary, as you can't force players to use it ;)

[Deathrydar]

Updated Char models were awesome! No more square heads and bodies. YAY!

OMG! BLASPHEMY! :mad:
I'll take the old character models over the new ones ANY DAY!!!

[falkun]

Updated Char models were awesome! No more square heads and bodies. YAY!

No. Just no.

I don't want all the small races to look more like each other than they already do.
I don't want all the elves to have this wierd stance where they put all their weight on their back leg all the time.

I want my male high elf paladins and clerics to keep their awesome chainmail skirt around their plate greaves.

I want my high elf paladins and clerics to keep their roman style helmets instead of that tomahawk BS.

I don't want my elves running around like bowlegged retards.

I don't need more reflection off of erudite foreheads.

I don't want two-handers to start coming down from over the head, keep the swing over the shoulder.

I want 2H-piercing weapons to still be used by TWO hands.

I don't want wood elf models to go from being slender to having these puffed out chests everytime they put on a plate BP.

I'm sure there's more, but that's what I can think of for now.

[Shadey]

No. Just no.

I don't want all the small races to look more like each other than they already do.
I don't want all the elves to have this wierd stance where they put all their weight on their back leg all the time.

I want my male high elf paladins and clerics to keep their awesome chainmail skirt around their plate greaves.

I want my high elf paladins and clerics to keep their roman style helmets instead of that tomahawk BS.

I don't want my elves running around like bowlegged retards.

I don't need more reflection off of erudite foreheads.

I don't want two-handers to start coming down from over the head, keep the swing over the shoulder.

I want 2H-piercing weapons to still be used by TWO hands.

I don't want wood elf models to go from being slender to having these puffed out chests everytime they put on a plate BP.

I'm sure there's more, but that's what I can think of for now.

Thanks for the detail. LOL Some of this I can agree with some not. Mostly the actions things with the weapons. As far as the models are concerned I liked them all and could tell small races from others easily. LOL

[Deathrydar]

I don't need more reflection off of erudite foreheads.

Pfft! What this game needs is more erudite forehead reflection!
I got a fever! And the only cure is more erudite forehead reflection.

Anyway....Back when I played SoD, the ability to have the newer character models was there but a lot of people (like me) chose not to play with them on because we liked the older models better. :o

[falkun]

Pfft! What this game needs is more erudite forehead reflection!
I got a fever! And the only cure is more erudite forehead reflection.

Anyway....all of this is your opinion! I know a lot of people that share it, and I know a lot of people that disagree with it. Back when I played SoD, the ability to have the newer character models was there but a lot of people (like me) chose not to play with them on because we liked the older models better. :o

My largest problem with the models was that they were required to use horses. My pally got his AA mount and that's when I *had* to change from my awesome classic model to that PoS Luclin High Elf. I enjoyed my horse, but the rest of it made me sad.

To be fair, I liked a *few* of the models, mostly the barbarians. They did do well with those male/female models. But why did they have to butcher Male HIEs??

[guineapig]

My thread has been pooped on.

[Kika Maslyaka]

No. Just no.

I don't want all the small races to look more like each other than they already do.
I don't want all the elves to have this wierd stance where they put all their weight on their back leg all the time.

I want my male high elf paladins and clerics to keep their awesome chainmail skirt around their plate greaves.

I want my high elf paladins and clerics to keep their roman style helmets instead of that tomahawk BS.

I don't want my elves running around like bowlegged retards.

I don't need more reflection off of erudite foreheads.

I don't want two-handers to start coming down from over the head, keep the swing over the shoulder.

I want 2H-piercing weapons to still be used by TWO hands.

I don't want wood elf models to go from being slender to having these puffed out chests everytime they put on a plate BP.

I'm sure there's more, but that's what I can think of for now.

you do realize that models are client side controlled ;)
you, personaly, never have to switch. But at least 40% of players will

[Shadey]

you do realize that models are client side controlled ;)
you, personaly, never have to switch. But at least 40% of players will

I'd imagine that will be much higher then 40%. prob 70%+

[falkun]

My thread has been pooped on.

Sorry, I will go back on topic.

I know you edited your first post to reflect changes recently, but you still list PoTime as located in the Sleeper's tomb. The culmination of PoP has nothing to do with the Sleeper. I agree with your other post (http://www.project1999.org/forums/showpost.php?p=288806&postcount=161) that I think PoTime would better fit in around the Hole in Paineel. If anyone can find the "plane of all planes", it would be through a tear during a magical battle fought by the erudites. They have always been touted as the race with the highest magical affinity.

How would you guys go about the discovery of the first portals? (Justice, Disease, Innovation, Nightmare).

Who would make the most sense to spill the beans? Which deity or character would have the most to gain by showing mortals the way to the planes of power and influence?

Not that I know that much about erudite lore, but assuming PoTime does get moved to the hole, why not put a scholarly erudite as the "initiator" (anyone know one individual?) that would want to explore this planar rip?

He shouldn't be an inherently evil doer, just an inquisitive researcher. This would keep with the theme of the excluded PoK.

Side note: Browsing over the Wiz epic, there are no notable erudites in there for a leader. Maybe the erudite wizard GM? How about the leader of Erudin?

This plane of time investigator could then send out this new faction trying to discern a way for a mortal to pass through this rip. This faction would have small camps (or even single person) of informants throughout the planes and possibly at their entrances. When a planar boss dies, instead of instituting the nebulous "planar projections" to hail for your flag, you interact with the "head <investigator faction> agent" for that zone. As a players soul slowly becomes attuned to all the frequencies of the planes they would eventually be able to safely enter the rip in Paineel and enter the PoTime. This would also create the faction that would work for the turn in of Ornate and Elemental armors (*1). This isn't as complicated as Velious, but it would be a lot of custom work while Velious already has the plan laid out.

You could also have some interesting interaction between this investigating faction and the local sham/cleric guilds around planes. Maybe the local denizens do not like the outsiders questioning their god's nearby presence/plane. Maybe as you figure out the secrets of a plane (read: progress through it by killing bosses/minibosses/otherwise earning flags), you help this investigating faction smooth over relations with the locals. One area I could see this working is in PoJustice (which I believe you want at the Halas Shaman Guild). As you earn the different PoJ trial flags, you could improve your faction with the Halas Shaman, maybe even to the point where an Ogre, Troll, or Iksar shaman could buy spells there. Ya, the rest of Halas may still hate the Ogre/Troll/Iksar, but they wouldn't have to go across the continent to buy spells anymore.

Let me mull this over, see if I can find anything else to add to it (and if anyone else wants to take this idea and run, feel free).

(*1) Edit: As I think about this, this would provide a HUGE boon in importance of toxxulia forest wizard port. Put the ornate/elemental armor turn in people in Erudin. Evil erudites will have a much easier time leaving the continent with all the high levels taxing on/off the island for turnins. And this will make Odus important prior to PoTime.

[guineapig]

I know you edited your first post to reflect changes recently, but you still list PoTime as located in the Sleeper's tomb. The culmination of PoP has nothing to do with the Sleeper. I agree with your other post (http://www.project1999.org/forums/showpost.php?p=288806&postcount=161) that I think PoTime would better fit in around the Hole in Paineel. If anyone can find the "plane of all planes", it would be through a tear during a magical battle fought by the erudites. They have always been touted as the race with the highest magical affinity.

Nice catch. Edited the OP again.

I do agree with you. Originially I just figured Sleepers Tomb because it was kind of the original "end game" of EQ in a sense so I figured it would be appropriate. But I totally agree with your line of thinking regarding The Hole and the Erudites.

And I guess this would be the location of the zoneline:

http://common.allakhazam.com/images/i/d/id5074.png

[falkun]

I have to admit, I wasn't seeing PoTime as a zone at the bottom of the Hole. With the "planar tear due to the battle of Paineel", I feel that PoTime should be closer to the actual battle. I'm thinking something like the Live version of PoDisease where you just FALL in. You zone into Paineel, and instead of avoiding the MASSIVE HOLE IN ODUS, you dive right in. Either you are attuned and you zone properly, or you are not and well...we all know what happens when planar discontinuities occur (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyaLZHiJJnE).

[guineapig]

Brilliant. So technically the zoneline to PoTime would be from Paineel and NOT The Hole, correct?

I'm assuming by doing this via a PoTime flag the player would still be able to visit The Hole by using the door.

[falkun]

From my memory, the only way to get into the hole safely WAS to either have the key for the rock or that wierd duck/stand swimming thing you could do. That would be unaffected. From the map of Paineel (http://www.eqmacwiki.com/eqatlas/images/paineelin.jpg), after zoning in from Toxx, you would just fall into "The Pit" on the south side of the cliff there, instead of going to the East for the newbie area/The Hole. That hole would be where the "PoTime Planar rift/tear" would be located. You simply fall into it.

[guineapig]

Right, that's what I figured you meant.

But technically jumping down would zone you in to the Hole as well, albeit dead. So I assume the game treats it as 2 seperate zone-lines in which case there is no complex coding required.

[falkun]

By complex coding I was thinking of the "interested erudite faction" (I really should come up with a name). Coding how local guilds interact with your flagging through their precious god's zone. Coding dynamic interactions between the IEF (see above) and the local guilds (I guess I'm thinking of WoW's phasing (God I hated that, so I should probably stamp out that idea now)).

Also would have to create and place the NPCs for this IEF, as well as changing the coding replacing planar projections with specific individuals in the IEF for flagging purposes.

Stuff like that. I really am not a game designer, so I have no idea how this is all accomplished behind the scenes.

[falkun]

There is an issue with adding PoP zones to home cities instead of locations away from home cities. Everyone agrees that PoK - a central hub that allows you to get to all the old zones and the new zones swiftly - was a bad idea. The problem is that a form of PoK existed in classic and still does on this server: the TD Firepots.

Yes, binders will have to keep their TD firepot bind (which is useless in Velious) for an expansion cycle, but they will be rewarded in their efforts when PoP is released attached to the old world.

However, I think the problem here is not the PoP zone locations, you have done great work in spreading them out appropriately. The problem is in the existence and the (albiet removed/nerfed) bindable nature of the firepots in TD. If the pots are to be left in, I feel everyone should not be allowed to bind there, and if you are currently bound there, you will find your bind spot moved. You can still use the Firepots, but you have to run there like everyone else.

[falkun]

Since this topic came up again, I linked this post to that discussion. Also, now that I'm revisiting this topic some months later, I think you should relocate planes so you do not have to go through Classic planes to get to Powers planes.

The reasons for this:
PoNightmare is a T1 zone, and those L51ish can EXP in that plane. Why make a great plane inaccessible by requiring a raid force to get through it (who would want to raid Fear just to get to an EXP zone in PoN). Alternatives like PoJ, PoI, and PoD would be so much easier to get to for EXPing.

Also, putting PoAir at the top of PoSky would suck. You are basically requiring anyone that wants to do PoAir to maintain key corpses for Isle1-7, that's a pain in the ass of a task.

Finally, requiring port stones (for Hate/Sky) to get to Air and Torment is an added hoop when PoStorms, Valor, and possibly even CoDecay (T2, like Torment) are better exp zones on the same tier and PoEarth, Fire, and Water are easier to access than Air would be. Air would literally be one of the hardest zones to get to in the game due to the stone + keys required.

I would suggest:

Cazic Thule
* Plane of Nightmare
- Lair of Terris Thule

West Freeport Arcane Scientists Guild Hall (FP Caster Guild Hall)
* Eryslai, the Kingdom of Wind

Neriak Third Gate - Temple of Innoruuk
* Plane of Torment

[Kabilos]

I think the only way to really be able to enjoy PoP without ruining the game is to never implement PoK. Sad but true.

The moment you implement a neutral city with a bank everybody will go there, regardless of where it is or how hard it is to get to.

I might be into the idea of adding a Great Library somewhere out of the way on the continent of Kunark or Velious that would have some spells, quests and such (and be neutral by default like The temple of Solusek Ro). But I wouldn't put a bank or any portals there.

Like connecting the Library to the Dragon Shrine or Kael Drakkal? 2 factions, everyone would be going to when they do the custom armor quests..

No bank near either of those that I can distinctly remember, and they're quite out of the way depending on where you put the connection device.

maybe..just spitballing here.

[stormlord]

Give more bind points to casters and melee.

I -never- understood why they didn't just give us more bind points. It would have been funner to determine where we go than to be herded like sheep. Then you could use gate potions to travel around. You'd want to put some thought into where your binds are, of course. That's the whole idea. For example, if you can only have two binds, then you want to cover as much space as possible while giving yourself as much room as you can. Since you can end up in many different places in the world, you really have to think about where you bind.

Part of the fun is figuring out where to bind. Soulbinders removed a lot of the fun because you weren't really thinking a whole lot about WHERE in the zone. In fact, if it were me, I would have given all the players the ability to bind themselves. And there's the problem that there're SO MANY ZONES. How do you move around in a timely way? Their solution was to give us luclin spires and pok books. But those took a lot of the thought out of it. I prefer systems where players are in more control of things than this. More player-run than developer-run.

Something similar happened in Vanguard. They added a kind of builtin teleport system. IMHO, it was a mistake. One of the best travle systems I've seen was in UO. In that system, you could use recall and mark spells on runes to travel around. You could have bags of these runes set to any location in the whole world. You could literally BE THE TRAVEL SYSTEM. It was kind of fun to figure out how to be an efficient traveller. It opened up the whole world, not just sections of it that're sanctioned by the developers for 'increased use'.

EQ just ran out of money and enthusiasm. The non-linear things just evaporated. It's despairing. The game got run down and too predictable. They couldn't afford to do the more complex things.

Games need to move more towards player-run kinds of worlds. They're smarter and funner. I never enjoy bad breath developer to be pushing me around and leading me like a dog. It's patronizing. And not fun.

[Felwithemagi]

Thread necro. Implement a bazaar/AH, as per Luclin. Despite it's implementation of having to stay afk and logged in, it was the single best feature post classic. Hands down. Remove all the portals, neutral cities, AA's, mounts, and the subsequent whining in this thread about such and such. That one feature added the most benefit and game improvement over any other.

[Darwoth]

sounds pretty non classic and therefore shitty.

[Daldaen]

PoP was the best expansion in EQ. If it could be made usable without the gear inflation holy shitballs would that have been awesome (tuning down gear, AOE's / spells of mobs, level and DPS/mitigation of mobs would be a HUGE feat though).

[falkun]

I disagree. IMO the Bazaar was one of the -worst- features implemented with Luclin. Even AAs, had they been given a cap and not a "who has more time to obtain them", were better than the Bazaar.

[RiffDaemon]

I disagree. IMO the Bazaar was one of the -worst- features implemented with Luclin.

Yep! Implementing the Bazaar also equates to drying up the EC tunnel.

Though, what would be interesting would be to somehow make the EC tunnel a "stall" so that players could setup Trader in there. Eh, maybe not.

[Pomaikai]

The Emperor and VT were some of the most fun I've ever had raiding. Figure out a way to get them into your grand scheme.

[Nirgon]

Look, this is how the game should have went. It shoulda skipped Luclin and gone to PoP which was great. PoK was bad, but entrances to the planes were great. That said, I'd stick to keeping your project classic and only up to Velious.

[falkun]

The problem with Luclin was all of the leveling content that made the old world irrelevant. Paludal caverns single handedly emptied out Crushbone, LOIO, UGuk, Unrest, etc., and that was just the beginning.

The best part about Luclin was Ssra temple, that whole dungeon was a great EXP and raid location, but VT had a harder key grind than VP, and then the trash was a pain and the bosses were easy (Thott's Luclin Uber Content (http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/luclincontent.php) post).

The good thing about Velious and PoP is that they did not rewrite the low-level game. Velious didn't have content for players sub-L35, and PoP did not contain content for players sub-L46. If they could make Luclin not have content for players under L40-50, then it might have worked out better. Also, while the new rings in Luclin were good, VT needs to work on the balance of trash-vs-bosses.

[porigromus]

I really hope they don't butcher this wonderful classic game they have by adding in crap from the expansions past Velious. That crap doesn't fit in and was the reason most of us quit the first go around.

I have also seen servers add custom zones and rename, attach them to other zones before. This always ends up to be weird misplaced mismatched zones that doesn't make sense. I hope nothing comes of this thread for the sake of everyone who has been wanting classic trilogy.

They could do alot of stuff after Velious that doesn't damage the wonderful game like custom AAs, tweak classes the way they want, play around with game mechanics, script fun events that don't permanently affect the world.

To give an example of a scripted event, evil and good races would have to collect items (maybe bonechips?) and turn in to launch an attack of giants (dragon?) on an opposing city. This is what I think would be cool.

[porigromus]

Another idea would to be after Velious has been been out for quite some time is to restart the server but with a heritage item from your end level character. What if the server restarted but you received a neat item that had nice stats that increased as you leveled and had a clicky. This item also was named for an example Sword of %T. The %T was pulled from you end level characters name.

Only top level characters would receive this no drop on their decedents. This way you have an easier time leveling this time due to the time you put in previously. Just and idea, probably hard to implement. :)

[stormlord]

The problem with Luclin was all of the leveling content that made the old world irrelevant. Paludal caverns single handedly emptied out Crushbone, LOIO, UGuk, Unrest, etc., and that was just the beginning.

The best part about Luclin was Ssra temple, that whole dungeon was a great EXP and raid location, but VT had a harder key grind than VP, and then the trash was a pain and the bosses were easy (Thott's Luclin Uber Content (http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/luclincontent.php) post).

The good thing about Velious and PoP is that they did not rewrite the low-level game. Velious didn't have content for players sub-L35, and PoP did not contain content for players sub-L46. If they could make Luclin not have content for players under L40-50, then it might have worked out better. Also, while the new rings in Luclin were good, VT needs to work on the balance of trash-vs-bosses.
I like your points.

But here's the thing you missed or did not include in your post...

The population during luclin-era was much more top-heavy than it was in 1999. This means more of the players were at the higher levels. So this means, of course, that there would not be enough low level players to form groups in zones, such as: Crushbone, LOIO, UGuk, Unrest, Blackburrow, West Karana, East Karana, Highpass, etc. The population in that range had effectively shrunk. So they made a new race and added low level zones. They bolstered the item rewards and experience to encourage low level players to buy the expansion and play in those zones. This prevented the problem of there being too few low level players to form groups. Later on, a few years later, they added experience bonuses to a dozen or so zones in periodic fashion. This did the same thing that luclin did, but at a much later time. TSS also did this. The tutorial zone is another example. Another benefit this had was that they could update the models, quests, etc, while ignoring the previous expansions. For example, luclin-era models for NPCs were higher-poly than previous expansions. Another example are the quests which used the new quest interface in TSS. Quests in previous expansions still were keyword based. They probably couldn't afford to update all previous expansions, so they focused on the latest expansion.

All of this becomes clearer if you look at mmocharts.com. The estimates on EQ population show that the RATE of incoming players into the game fell consistently every year from 1999 and on. While the population DID increase, it's the rate that tells you how many new players are coming into the game. This is important because without new players it's harder to form groups. And with so many of the existing players being high level and far away, the world felt increasingly empty for a new player and less meaningful. When you factor into this equation the NUMBER of zones, which was always increasing, the population spread became dangerously thin.

You see, they could not leave the game as it was. That was not an option. They had to make a choice that addressed these problems. It was HOW they did it that matters, NOT that they did something. Whether you or others here choose to believe it or not, many of the choices the sony team made WERE appropriate. Were they the MOST appropriate? Well, that depends on your opinion. If it were me, I would have looked ahead and (hopefully) saw this before it happened. I think what I'd do is, with each new expansion, I'd increase player innate damage/mitigation, thusly increasing their power in old content, while at the same time tuning the new expansion to this increased damage/mitigation. What this would effectively do is increase the value of old content by making it easier while retaining the value of the expansion by giving high level players somewhere to go. This would allow players to more easily solo old content and to acquire old items. But the key thing is: it would not increase player power via the latest expansion content. There would have to be other benefits to encourage low level players to buy the expansion that do NOT replace old content and leave it abandoned.

One example of how sony addressed this (and i disagree with) are the boomerang and omm instance missions they added just previous and with the introduction of Underfoot. Essentially, it was far superior to do an omm or a boomerang (uf mission) than it was to actually go out into SOD and adventure. Why? For one, your items and aa's and level had no effect on the omm/boom mission. Second, you didn't even play your own class. Third, you did not lose experience upon death and you only lose a few minutes (at most). Fourth, the omm missions were conveniently placed directly in pok, within sight of the bank. You were encouraged to stay there. Fifth, the money and experience and items sealed the deal. SOD, by comparison, was brutal and painful and empty. Broadly, this pattern has repeated itself for years and years. This is how sony does things. And I am qualified to comment on it because I did the OMM missions for a few months. It's a bittersweet memory. While I liked it for some things, like the ability to play an enchanter for a short while and to play in the older (seemingly more non-linear) zones, these things I state here are resoundingly more important in my mind.

My choice WOULD mudflate things. Old items would become increasingly low value (with each new expansion) because players would be so innately powerful. There would be an over-abundance of old world items. Players would mow down old things. But players would still need items. One way to address this particular issue is to have more no drop items or to have items that are EXPLICITLY changed/rewarded while adventuring. One idea is to have a system where you combine your current weapon with a weapon you looted to get something better. You want SOME items to be bought from other players, but you don't want players to be buying from other players so much that old content becomes meaningless to anybody adventuring in it.

Ideally, old content would change and upgrade itself with time. The best thing I can think of is a zone that dynamically decreases/increases its mob population and item/experience rewards in response to the number of players in the zone. I would also probably decrease rewards if a player is in a place after a set period of time - encourage them to move to a new area. Generally, I'm an anti-camp kind of person. I don't think games should reward players that do the same thing over and over. But this is something I didn't have to put here.

It does not require much thought to figure out why they did what they did. This post here is just a refresher. In fact, mudflation is a trait shared by most, if not all MMORPGs. I've made many posts about this topic here and everywhere. My memory, right now, is not as clear as I'd like it to be. But maybe with some time I will make another post about muflation and how we should go about resolving its problems.

[Palemoon]

Both Luclin and Planes of Power can be very much in the spirit of "classic EQ" with a few minor tweaks.

Consisting of:

ZEM adjustments that don't lead to the "everyone xp in Paudula caverns and Plane of Valor" syndrome. I.E. ZEM's that reflect the true nature/danger of a zone.

And....

Nuking the Bazzar, Plane of Knowledge and Plane of Tranquility from orbit, with fire.

Stick the relevent quest NPC's elsewhere, and the zonelines to the various planes of power elsewhere.

as an aside, Al'kabor to this day has not completed nor seen all content in the first five expansions. There are still things that are new, like 7th hammer, inner acrylia, and of course Plane of Time has not been broken into yet. Many "server firsts" have just been done in the last year actually.

Luclin and Planes of Power add years of content to a "classic" everqeust. Its just a shame Plane of Knowlege is part of that package, the one true and only flaw with the first 5 expansions in my opinion.

When this server gets to velious..what then? I'd seriously recommend the next expansion, minus the "evil non classic elements" like bazzar. Ditto for PoP.

[Softcore PK]

The Nexus would need to be pvp enabled, and I don't like how the teleporting to/from luclin worked..

And a lot of people seem to be against the idea of luclin altogether, for the simple fact that it gets to be too sci fi.

[Palemoon]

Nexus spires (back on the world) were pvp magnets back on SZ. I agree with making the actual nexus non safe zone (no zone should be a safe zone).

I know people trash on Luclin, but as someone who has spent a lot of time in luclin and raiding in luclin, I think it gets a bad rap. People compare it to velious and sure its gonna look bad. But Luclin has some pretty sweet zones with good atmosphere (namely most of the underground ones).

Luclin added a much needed "Underdark" to Everquest.

I can't comment on anything past planes of power. I vaugely remember some of the Legacy of Yekesha zones. When they added "evil frogs" and put them in the same noobie village as the good frogs, I knew EQ became a monty hall adventure.

Luclin and Planes of Power "can" be implemented in a way that respects the classic EQ vibe.

[Mardur]

When they added "evil frogs" and put them in the same noobie village as the good frogs, I knew EQ became a monty hall adventure.

What are you talking about? The playable Froglok race was "good" and followed their creator Mithaniel Marr. Their starting town originally was Grobb.

[Palemoon]

What are you talking about? The playable Froglok race was "good" and followed their creator Mithaniel Marr. Their starting town originally was Grobb.

Yeah it sort of made sense then diddint it? But then, later, they decided "some frogs are evil!" and let them worship Innoruk and be SK's and Necros.

[Mithaniel Marr]

What are you talking about? The playable Froglok race was "good" and followed their creator Mithaniel Marr. Their starting town originally was Grobb.

Thats right, my frogs are a good lot.

[Softcore PK]

I hope they add froglok race :P

[Smedy]

just stay away from the red99 we ain't want no soe shit over there pals

[Diggles]

moderator said a bad word D:

[porigromus]

Both Luclin and Planes of Power can be very much in the spirit of "classic EQ" with a few minor tweaks.

Consisting of:

ZEM adjustments that don't lead to the "everyone xp in Paudula caverns and Plane of Valor" syndrome. I.E. ZEM's that reflect the true nature/danger of a zone.

And....

Nuking the Bazzar, Plane of Knowledge and Plane of Tranquility from orbit, with fire.

Stick the relevent quest NPC's elsewhere, and the zonelines to the various planes of power elsewhere.

as an aside, Al'kabor to this day has not completed nor seen all content in the first five expansions. There are still things that are new, like 7th hammer, inner acrylia, and of course Plane of Time has not been broken into yet. Many "server firsts" have just been done in the last year actually.

Luclin and Planes of Power add years of content to a "classic" everqeust. Its just a shame Plane of Knowlege is part of that package, the one true and only flaw with the first 5 expansions in my opinion.

When this server gets to velious..what then? I'd seriously recommend the next expansion, minus the "evil non classic elements" like bazzar. Ditto for PoP.


There is already a version of EQ that goes to PoP, EQ Mac. Go there and play, why ruin the uniqueness of this great classic trilogy experience? You can't get this experience anywhere else, that is why people are here.

[stormlord]

just stay away from the red99 we ain't want no soe shit over there pals
Well, soe had their hands all over EQ by mid 2000. So regardless of what people want to think, this server is going to be touched by them (probably already has been) since we'll go up to late 2001. And another thing is that there're many things to disagree with that VERANT did, as well. But sony has a big part.

My last post covered a lot of the things I would want to talk about. I think the most important thing is that they HAD to do something. How they did it is what has caused so much grief over the years. But many people here in these forums don't understand that something had to be done. They wrongly think that sony could just sit back and do nothing and everything would work smoothly. They don't understand the reasoning.

If sony could produce expansions that do not, in sum, destroy old content, then I think my trust in them could be restored. I stuck with EQ in shifts of time from tis very beginning to 2010. In those years, I learned to not trust them. I think that they turned their attention away from EQ to other games. And, most importantly, they did not make a strong low level game. There're many ways to level up players, but the choices that were made in EQ1 were consistently shallow ones. They worked, no doubt, but they had no spirit, whatsoever.

In review, here're some of the choices I did not like:
1) Defiant gear replacing old items that you might loot or quest for.
2) Old Man Mckenzie and Boomerang instance missions replacing entire expansions.
3) Boost low level players via the latest expansion content.
4) Inconsistency between old zones and new zones being so obvious: gfx, mechanics, interfaces, etc.

The hows and whys are already answered. It's the character of what they did I disagree with. They did not have a harmonious vision for the game. They simply piled on the newest and shiniest and then they dismissed the rest. They created division. The fixes were without substance. It was shameless and bittersweet.

What they did reminds me of what businesses often do. They clean the slate. They lay off everyone who put their heart and soul into it. Then they bring in some people from asia. The new asian manager rules with an iron will. He sees the world in numbers, but is very efficient and that's how he became so successful in his line of work. What happened behind the scenes in the offices and the meetings eventually bled into the game itself. So things in the game were layed off. New things from somewhere else took their place. They saw the world in numbers, but they were efficient. The changes ruled with an iron will. Don't look back. The past is gone.

[Kika Maslyaka]

yeah Stormlord is right, this is how and why thigns went that way.

The only way to preserve old content, is not to add better zones that compete with old ones. But they did it starting with Kunark - it gave you all new 1-50 content all over and it was better than the old world. AND it had a convenient hub city right in the middle of the continent, with any level zone just 1-2 zone lines away. Velious was a bit better, it only added competing zones from 35+, and was mostly high end/raid oriented. Then Luclin repeated Kunark pattern to even greater degree. PoP again followed velious approach etc.

The way I would do it, when adding new expansions:
-if I am adding new races/starting town, only add for that specific race newbie zones, and then merge them into existing world - think how WoW added Burning Crusade - Blood Elves and Dranei got personal 1-20 newbie zones, but rest of expansion zones were strictly 60+, so NONE of the old world content 20-60 has suffered from mudflation.

Another inherited problem with old EQ - too many starting zones - people already scattered around the world way to much, yet places where you actually go to XP, quickly run out of play room.

For example Qeynos-Blackburrow-Everfrost was a good combo. 2 newbie zones connect to a teen zone, where 2 races meet up. Bb was however painful small for all those people. West Karana on other hand was a gigantic waste of a land, it was same range as BB, but hardly anyone ever went there other than for medium pelts, and bandit farm.

Faydwer was badly designed on other hand: they stuck 3 starting zones onto tiny island, 2 of which were right next of each other, and only a single teen level dungeon (CB) even smaller than Blackburrow

Some of the problems, specially zone devaluations, EQ suffered from, lie in their inherited design, that wasn't thought through very well in the beginning

[Pomaikai]

The problem with Luclin was all of the leveling content that made the old world irrelevant. Paludal caverns single handedly emptied out Crushbone, LOIO, UGuk, Unrest, etc., and that was just the beginning.

The best part about Luclin was Ssra temple, that whole dungeon was a great EXP and raid location, but VT had a harder key grind than VP, and then the trash was a pain and the bosses were easy (Thott's Luclin Uber Content (http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/luclincontent.php) post).

The good thing about Velious and PoP is that they did not rewrite the low-level game. Velious didn't have content for players sub-L35, and PoP did not contain content for players sub-L46. If they could make Luclin not have content for players under L40-50, then it might have worked out better. Also, while the new rings in Luclin were good, VT needs to work on the balance of trash-vs-bosses.
But that will always happen in any game that expands unless you expand the population dramatically. People will go to where the shiniest new toys and the biggest carrots can be found. If you don't increase population to fill the empty zones caused by the older population moving to the new zones, then you'll have empty zones.

The only other choice you have is to revamp the old zones and make them on par loot/exp wise with the newer content. Well, that does partially defeat the point, work, and expense of creating the new content, but it could and was later done to some of the classic EQ zones and dungeons. Eventually people get through the old content.

At some point a large enough portion of the population has "beat" the old content and becomes bored and restless. If you are a company which is making money off of subscriptions, then the last thing you want is for that bored and restless population to go elsewhere and give their $$$ to another company. So you have to design new content for them. That content needs to offer enough of a reward to spend plowing through it, so the carrots need to be made larger than the ones from previous content.

So the population goes to where the bigger carrots are. The loot from the older content becomes worth less and so the new population becomes better equipped to deal with the content, and as more new content loot becomes available, it starts to trickle down to the new players. It just keeps growing and growing. Each new expansion increases the effect.

Kunark did this to an extent, and Velious will do it more. There just isn't any getting away from this. Eventually the population on this server will get bored with the content that they have already "beat", and unless Rogean adds more content, they will leave for other games or servers. So unless Rogean can continue to add new players to make up for the loss of population, it will come down to expand or die. It's the exact some dilema that Verant and then SOE faced, just on a smaller scale and without actual $$$ and jobs at stake.

Rogean does have one advantage that SOE didn't have, and that's hindsight. He can restructure and redesign the world however he sees fit. He can connect zones anyway he sees fit, can leave out zones, and he can mess with the transportation systems. He can selectively add in features, skills, spells, etc without having to enable an entire expansion. For instance, I'm pretty certain that Rogean could add in the Mount system (horses, etc) without having to enable the entire expansion that they came in. So he could in fact create a whole new EQ with it's own progression, look, and feel so as to not break things about the game that he likes.

But let's talk about one important thing in EQ that was always at issue for people with limited play time... Travel time. Yes, I understand that the feeling of being in this HUGE and interactive world was part of the appeal, but for people who only have an hour or three to play at a time, spending 30 minutes or more tied up into travel time just to be able to play, especially with the ban on boxing so people can't create their own porting system, is that you start to lose the casual players who get frustrated that they are wasting all of their play time just trying to get places. So the Spires and Mounts were created, followed by PoK and the Stones. Rogean has the power and opportunity to fix travel, but in ways that don't break the feel of how big the world is. Well, at least attempt to anyways.

So while it might not be "classic", P1999 could become the game we always wanted EQ to stay/become, because as the old saying goes... Hindsight is always the best sight.

[Kika Maslyaka]

on the subject of mounts: the only thing required for the mounts, is to have new models enabled. Then you can sell mounts in Qeynos, rather than in bazaar.
This applies to both, horses and drogmors - you don't even need to enable LoY to get drogs, only Luclin (for models).
For more advance mounts like nightmare steed, warhorses, chimeras, draconic kirins etc, you need to use SoF+ client

[Softcore PK]

The devs aren't going to want to include luclin models.

[Pomaikai]

The devs aren't going to want to include luclin models.

They just weren't THAT bad. It's one of those things where you weigh the pro's vs con's. Personally, the pro's of mounts (Speed of travel and medding.) outweigh the con's of how a select few races look.

[Softcore PK]

Mounts made my bardspeed on live less cool and unique :(

[stormlord]

But that will always happen in any game that expands unless you expand the population dramatically. People will go to where the shiniest new toys and the biggest carrots can be found. If you don't increase population to fill the empty zones caused by the older population moving to the new zones, then you'll have empty zones.

The only other choice you have is to revamp the old zones and make them on par loot/exp wise with the newer content. Well, that does partially defeat the point, work, and expense of creating the new content, but it could and was later done to some of the classic EQ zones and dungeons. Eventually people get through the old content.

At some point a large enough portion of the population has "beat" the old content and becomes bored and restless. If you are a company which is making money off of subscriptions, then the last thing you want is for that bored and restless population to go elsewhere and give their $$$ to another company. So you have to design new content for them. That content needs to offer enough of a reward to spend plowing through it, so the carrots need to be made larger than the ones from previous content.

So the population goes to where the bigger carrots are. The loot from the older content becomes worth less and so the new population becomes better equipped to deal with the content, and as more new content loot becomes available, it starts to trickle down to the new players. It just keeps growing and growing. Each new expansion increases the effect.

Kunark did this to an extent, and Velious will do it more. There just isn't any getting away from this. Eventually the population on this server will get bored with the content that they have already "beat", and unless Rogean adds more content, they will leave for other games or servers. So unless Rogean can continue to add new players to make up for the loss of population, it will come down to expand or die. It's the exact some dilema that Verant and then SOE faced, just on a smaller scale and without actual $$$ and jobs at stake.

Rogean does have one advantage that SOE didn't have, and that's hindsight. He can restructure and redesign the world however he sees fit. He can connect zones anyway he sees fit, can leave out zones, and he can mess with the transportation systems. He can selectively add in features, skills, spells, etc without having to enable an entire expansion. For instance, I'm pretty certain that Rogean could add in the Mount system (horses, etc) without having to enable the entire expansion that they came in. So he could in fact create a whole new EQ with it's own progression, look, and feel so as to not break things about the game that he likes.

But let's talk about one important thing in EQ that was always at issue for people with limited play time... Travel time. Yes, I understand that the feeling of being in this HUGE and interactive world was part of the appeal, but for people who only have an hour or three to play at a time, spending 30 minutes or more tied up into travel time just to be able to play, especially with the ban on boxing so people can't create their own porting system, is that you start to lose the casual players who get frustrated that they are wasting all of their play time just trying to get places. So the Spires and Mounts were created, followed by PoK and the Stones. Rogean has the power and opportunity to fix travel, but in ways that don't break the feel of how big the world is. Well, at least attempt to anyways.

So while it might not be "classic", P1999 could become the game we always wanted EQ to stay/become, because as the old saying goes... Hindsight is always the best sight.
HOW mudflation happens is not written in stone, as you make it appear to be.

Mudflation, far as we know, IS. At its core, causes of mudflation can be diverse. But the most predominant trait is that of attrition. Essentially, as people gain knowledge and resources, old things start to lose value. But anything that results in a decrease in value is, essentially, mudflation. Foe example, if I increase your stats and you kill faster, you'll be able to acquire more knives than before. More knives means that their value has decreased. It's like magic, eh? Mudflation can also be as simple as a bug or imbalance.

What caused these sequence of events in EQ?

Well, when you examine the history, it boils down to changes in population.

Essentially, with less and less people in the lower levels, forming groups becomes harder and harder. This causes much grief. This is before any expansions have ever been released, keep in mind.

So what do you do to relieve this pressure? New players and low level players are complaining that they can't find groups. Higher level players are leaving because they've already created a few alts and have grown bored.

What do you do?

There're a trillion trillion ways to approach this problem, not one or two.

First of all, you need some new content for the high level players. New content can be a change to the old content or it can be completely new. This isn't an option, it's a requirement. Most players are not going to be satisfied rerolling alts into infinity. They want NEW things. Now, how you add NEW things is what's really going to distinguish you from someone else. In player-driven worlds, players are the main creators of content. In developer-run worlds, developers are the primary creators. This is aside from the fact that you can change current content or create entirely new content. But no matter what, SOMETHING has to change.

(yes, even doing the same things in eq can produce new circumstances, but for most people, new circumstances just aren't enough to keep them interested. and the few new things they learn about hte game aren't enough either. bottom line, NEW means reaching the threshold where most players are satisfied.)

How do you address the problem with low levels and new players? As you may recall, continued top-heaviness has made the low level areas feel more empty. The rate of incoming players is decreasing with time, as well. They haven't yet added another expansion which would further spread players thin. With more time, to be sure, the game would also grow old and less attractive to others, but for now, the game is young(ish).

When the game was initially developed, they had a target population size in mind. For example, consider Blackburrow, home of the Sabertooths. When they built this thing, they were keeping track of what they expected player populations to be. They told the map designers what they wanted in terms of its size and rewards. They did this for each zone.

The problem is that EQ is not dynamic in its handling of zone size and rewards with respect to player populations. If the initial estimates for player population are off then the whole system starts to break down. And that's what's happening now. There're just not enough players in each of the lower level zones to keep everyone satisfied. So what do we do?

History is our best example. We can see what sony did. They made an expansion and added extra powerful items to it. These items, in turn, would get traded to lower level players and boost their performance. Another thing they would do is make bonus-experience zones like Paludal Caverns. They also would periodically change the core game mechanics to ease the burden on players. This would have the effect of increasing the solo-ability of low levels. They also changed the experience curve, among other things.

My argument in my two previous posts in this thread are that sony favored the idea of boosting the performance of lower levels via the latest expansion content too much. Perhaps it was their way of selling expansions. But, more than likely, it was just their preference for addressing this problem. If you look at the entire history of this game and other sony games, you see a consistent pattern where they dismiss older things in favor of the new. The problem with this is that many players do not like it, me included.

I could give you a million examples. One thing that stands out in my mind is that I hadn't seen a lot of the older content. So how is it that sony suddenly decides I have been there and would just be bored if I had to go there again? Who are they to say where I should go or where I've been? Much of the things they did to the game gave me no choice. It was not inclusive. I did not show up in their meeting room and voice my agreement or disapproval. They simply threw it on me, as any developer would. I mean, I accepted the license agreement when I started the game so I fully expect them to ignore me when they change things, but...

If you like the way things went then we can agree to disagree.

But if all we ever do is live in the present moment then we will never learn better. We have to look at the past and examine it closely so we can learn lessons. I refuse to be dragged down this road like a dog and told what to think or do by others. I am not going to repeat the past 12 years with sony in the hands of someone else, if I can help it. I am in this to win, one way or another, my own way. Patronizing developers can shove it.

[Pomaikai]

But see, it doesn't have to go down the same road that SOE took it. Rogean can do this like Chinese takeout. A little from column A, some from column B, and a helping from column C. He can create the world, the links between the various zones, moon, and planes any way he sees fit. He doesn't have to turn on the exp bonus for Paludal, or any other zone. He can revamp the old content using the newer high level versions of it that were later released, or even just parts of it. He can change the loot tables. He can adjust the loot. He can add in some Luclin zones, but tone down the power of the items. The possibilities are limited only by his imagination, the amount of time he has to devote to this, and the willingness of the playerbase to accept his vision. I just think that it's possible to expand beyond Velious while still retaining the "feel" of classic EQ. We don't have to maintain the look completely, and we don't have to exactly mirror SOE's decisions and timeline to the letter. I mean seriously, SOE did NOT release quests, content, or items broken on purpose. Someone just screwed up. There is zero reason that content on P1999 should be released broken on purpose. If something was fixed, or hell if Rogean can figure out how to fix something that SOE never got around to fixing, then by all means that content should be released bug free. Because that IS what Verant and SOE wanted and intended. They wanted stuff to work correctly, right from the start. They just didn't succeed in accomplishing their intended vision/task.

[Snaggles]

I'm a newbie to this shard but...

If we pick and choose content at our "greater" discretion, how can it still be called Project 1999? Isn't the intent to emulate the original game and the only two expansions worth their weight?

It's fairly obvious Sony had their heads up there asses with every expansion post Velious. Whatever good they accomplished was ridden with greater issues left unresolved. I still think just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Just my worthless .02 cents. Don't let my nostalgia (or how I remember it) ruin your fun though! :)

[Korisek]

Why not, after Velious, just release the new classes and non-Drakken races that came in the later expansions?

Berserkers and beastlords were fun. Frogloks and Vah Shir offered a chance to play the original classes in different ways.

Hell, if the server admins want to, they could try turning another already-existing non-playable race in the game into a playable race, like gnolls, kobolds, or orcs. With the kobolds, you could repurpose the Warrens, attach that to a different area of Odus, and make it a newbie town/zone.

Addendum: I know that flies in the face of the Project 1999 ideal, but I do know the devs are also thinking about custom content for the game after Velious. Well-integrated custom races might garner the server some internet props. Also I want to be the gnoll shadowknight.

[Pomaikai]

I see it more as the desire to hew to the ideals of the original design and vision of EQ that began to disappear with the introduction of Luclin. It's not like everything post Velious sucked. Some of it was fantastic. It's just that some of it helped destroy the continuity and original "feel" of them game.

[noffo]

Don't go past Velious. You have to draw a line somewhere, and that should be the line. If you do anymore, it won't be classic EQ no matter how you try to add the additional content.

I understand where people are coming from. Some of the content in later expansions were good, but there are other servers where you can play the content. You can even have your own private server and experience it there.

But for here, please keep it to the original trilogy. This is the closest thing to the original I've been able to find.

[Atmas]

Don't go past Velious. You have to draw a line somewhere, and that should be the line. If you do anymore, it won't be classic EQ no matter how you try to add the additional content.

I understand where people are coming from. Some of the content in later expansions were good, but there are other servers where you can play the content. You can even have your own private server and experience it there.

But for here, please keep it to the original trilogy. This is the closest thing to the original I've been able to find.

The classic trilogy was awesome but at some point people are going to get tired of doing the same content with no possible future content to gear up for.

If it was up to me (I certainly understand that is not) I would just keep doing expansions until people stop playing. For me the end point would probably be PoP.

[Vondra]

The classic trilogy was awesome but at some point people are going to get tired of doing the same content with no possible future content to gear up for.

If it was up to me (I certainly understand that is not) I would just keep doing expansions until people stop playing. For me the end point would probably be PoP.

That's what I think I'd prefer too. Go ahead and just keep doing the expansions normally. It takes a while to get them together anyway, longer than the original timeline.

Once we pass Velious (I assume it'll be quite a while yet until we get Velious anyway) then add on a year or more before the next expansion is ready...then a fresh server would open anyway from what I'm hearing.

I would also be for a straightforward wipe as well...18-24 months after we get Velious or something.


In reality though, custom content or original progression, I'm fairly sure that once that new server does open once Velious gets stale, most people are going to switch to it anyway...along with some new people too I'm sure.

[xblade724]

Make PoK a timed zone. Make up some bullshit like you can't breathe, or the gods only permit limited visits from mortals or banishes you somewhere

[Kabilos]

I would also be for a straightforward wipe as well...18-24 months after we get Velious

I'd be happy as a pig in crap if they did this. Just to the point where stuff starts to get stale.

Or if they wanted to launch another 99 say GREEN Project 1999 yeah I'd leave and go there in a heartbeat.

Don't get me wrong, Red is doing the same thing right now but I'm not all up on the pvp. It was fun for a while, but after getting ganked by a group at a vendor multiple times, I said fk it.

[Rhaj]

I would love a server wipe.

[xblade724]

Gotta do something with rathe mountains -- you know that corner with all the bright blue runes and such that no one ever figured out what's supposed to be there

[Kasilis]

how about... Adding the Gates of Discord in to the original trilogy

/discuss

[Lindalind]

I truly,truly hope nothing like POP gets introduced into this game.There are plenty of live and Emu servers with all of the Luclin and on zones you could ever want.
It gives me a bad feeling even when there is even talk about it.

[Celedor]

You have to draw a line somewhere...

Why?

Note that I'm not saying that the devs have to keep adding stuff, it's up to them of course. But no one *has* to draw a line.

[Mcbard]

Why?

Note that I'm not saying that the devs have to keep adding stuff, it's up to them of course. But no one *has* to draw a line.

Because we came to this server under the idea that the line was already in place. A lot of us have no interest in playing on Bobs custom everquest box #2349234. We enjoy that this servers mission is/was to create a classic-velious as accurate as possible timelined server. I take great satisfaction whenever I hear something from Nilbog attune to "Cats on the moon? Not on my watch." I would go somewhere else if I wanted to play anything but classic EverQuest.

On the otherside of your question I see no reason a line shouldn't be drawn, if that's what the developers wish. Clear cut goals and a mission for the server is great for development. It gives it a direction and boundaries to operate within.

[Versus]

Because we came to this server under the idea that the line was already in place. A lot of us have no interest in playing on Bobs custom everquest box #2349234. We enjoy that this servers mission is/was to create a classic-velious as accurate as possible timelined server. I take great satisfaction whenever I hear something from Nilbog attune to "Cats on the moon? Not on my watch." I would go somewhere else if I wanted to play anything but classic EverQuest.

On the otherside of your question I see no reason a line shouldn't be drawn, if that's what the developers wish. Clear cut goals and a mission for the server is great for development. It gives it a direction and boundaries to operate within.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU AND YOURS MCBARD.!

[Celedor]

Sure, I have no problem with the devs drawing a line and ending it at Velious, although I personally would prefer that a bit more be added. The post I was quoting stated that "you have to draw a line somewhere, and <Velious> should be the line."

I was questioning the idea of them *having* to draw a line *somewhere*, not the devs choosing to draw a line at Velious (such as to set for project goals, meet player desireability, or simply the devs getting bored).

[Lindalind]

But that will always happen in any game that expands unless you expand the population dramatically. People will go to where the shiniest new toys and the biggest carrots can be found. If you don't increase population to fill the empty zones caused by the older population moving to the new zones, then you'll have empty zones.

The only other choice you have is to revamp the old zones and make them on par loot/exp wise with the newer content. Well, that does partially defeat the point, work, and expense of creating the new content, but it could and was later done to some of the classic EQ zones and dungeons. Eventually people get through the old content.

At some point a large enough portion of the population has "beat" the old content and becomes bored and restless. If you are a company which is making money off of subscriptions, then the last thing you want is for that bored and restless population to go elsewhere and give their $$$ to another company. So you have to design new content for them. That content needs to offer enough of a reward to spend plowing through it, so the carrots need to be made larger than the ones from previous content.

So the population goes to where the bigger carrots are. The loot from the older content becomes worth less and so the new population becomes better equipped to deal with the content, and as more new content loot becomes available, it starts to trickle down to the new players. It just keeps growing and growing. Each new expansion increases the effect.

Kunark did this to an extent, and Velious will do it more. There just isn't any getting away from this. Eventually the population on this server will get bored with the content that they have already "beat", and unless Rogean adds more content, they will leave for other games or servers. So unless Rogean can continue to add new players to make up for the loss of population, it will come down to expand or die. It's the exact some dilema that Verant and then SOE faced, just on a smaller scale and without actual $$$ and jobs at stake.

Rogean does have one advantage that SOE didn't have, and that's hindsight. He can restructure and redesign the world however he sees fit. He can connect zones anyway he sees fit, can leave out zones, and he can mess with the transportation systems. He can selectively add in features, skills, spells, etc without having to enable an entire expansion. For instance, I'm pretty certain that Rogean could add in the Mount system (horses, etc) without having to enable the entire expansion that they came in. So he could in fact create a whole new EQ with it's own progression, look, and feel so as to not break things about the game that he likes.

But let's talk about one important thing in EQ that was always at issue for people with limited play time... Travel time. Yes, I understand that the feeling of being in this HUGE and interactive world was part of the appeal, but for people who only have an hour or three to play at a time, spending 30 minutes or more tied up into travel time just to be able to play, especially with the ban on boxing so people can't create their own porting system, is that you start to lose the casual players who get frustrated that they are wasting all of their play time just trying to get places. So the Spires and Mounts were created, followed by PoK and the Stones. Rogean has the power and opportunity to fix travel, but in ways that don't break the feel of how big the world is. Well, at least attempt to anyways.

So while it might not be "classic", P1999 could become the game we always wanted EQ to stay/become, because as the old saying goes... Hindsight is always the best sight.


One of the points of classic is the boat rides,the druid ports etc and you are missing that it seems.
Getting the boats to be a little more solid would be good, but if not so be it.
They went to a ton of effort and still are to make it very similar to classic even if it is harder and takes longer.All of the expansions too EQ didn't save it from the players getting bored and leaving.
I wish there was an answer to the top heaviness but there isn't and as EQ showed adding expansions isn't the answer either.
There still is the sleeper with full regen to beat for instance though and it would probably take the entire server to do it if it could be done at all.
On Project1999 that isn't entirely out of the question,the whole server.
It will be interesting to see if the AOW can be beaten without zerging .
Of people who play on EMU servers project1999 seems to be doing
comparatively well.
For people who want horses and books to get around there are tons of servers with them.
I tried several of them and got very bored quickly,they are just too easy.
Here I really really don't want my character to die, on the other servers big deal, the experience can be made up easily .
Might as well be playing the sims.
Project1999 is already the game a lot of us want eq to be thanks,just not the game you want it to be

[Mcbard]

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU AND YOURS MCBARD.!

Eh I stayed up at school and have just been doing homework for 3 days now. Haven't even had time to play any LoL. Enjoy your weekend, I hope you got a 4 day one! =p

[Mardur]

All you people saying that there are alternative classic Luclin/PoP servers are delusional. There are none. Stop making up bullshit to push your agenda.

[Lindalind]

All you people saying that there are alternative classic Luclin/PoP servers are delusional. There are none. Stop making up bullshit to push your agenda.

There is no such thing as a Luclin/POP Classic EQ.
And kindly quit with the pushing agenda crap.
The thread is pushing an agenda and being answered no more no less.
If you want PoP/Luclin,horses and a walk in the park game there are plenty of servers out there for you,thats it.

[Mardur]

If you want PoP/Luclin,horses and a walk in the park game there are plenty of servers out there for you,thats it.

You're doing that same bullshit I just called you out on. No, there isn't. Not one.

(There's EQ Mac, if you own a Mac, which I don't, and it's extremely buggy and has no support staff, so that doesn't count.)