Shadows of Luclin Your opinion?

[nickrocks]

Hello! im sorry if there was a post about this before but i didnt see one. I was wondering why most people think that this expansion was the "beginning of the end?" I was only 2 or 3 when everquest came out and i didnt start gaming til age 6 around 2003. So i never really experience everquest in its glory days. I tried the game on the live servers but i really think the game is better on these servers. So yea the question is why was this expansion so controversial?

[joetheman]

I dont know. I thought everything was great up to PoK. The books were so nice to have because druids are not always avaliable to port, plus some are buttholes about it. Everythign after the PoK expansion ruined the game in my opinion.

As for Shadows of Luclin, some people think going to the moon ruined the story of the game. Some people think playing a cat as a race is stupid and ruined the game. Some people think the beastlord class ruined the game. Those are the only reasons ive heard, but I really like Luclin because it enhanced graphics, created the Beastlord and created a Bazaar instead of a tunnel.

[Mardur]

The beastlord class was fine.

The lore was pretty bad. A lot of people don't like the idea of going to the moon in a fantasy MMO. And the fact that the playable race were ridiculous catpeople.

Most felt the new character models were terrible. I never played with 'em and was thankful I was a shaman so I didn't need a horse.

The Bazaar, while convenient, ruined the social aspect of trading. The teleportation system was just the beginning of the instant travel of PoP.

Many didn't like having such a daunting amount of AA to grind after sitting on their character progression at 60 for so long. On the flip side, Paludal Caverns had too high a ZEM and drained the old world newbie dungeons dry.

The content was very hit or miss. The best part of this expansion was Ssra Temple which was an amazing raid zone where they got everything right. Lord Inquisitor Seru on the other hand took forever to prepare for, and the fight itself was mega long and somewhat boring.

And then at the end of Ssra Temple, one of the most amazing raid zone in EQ, you reached Vex Thal which was complete and utter shit.

It's a mixed bag. I personally think the expansion was decent for AA and Ssra alone. But they fucked a lot up. It was the first expansion that wasn't completely solid and pretty much anyone had a gripe with some aspect of it. If you weren't a high end raider, you missed the good content. If you were a high end raider, you had to deal with the shit pile that was VT.

Also the best Luclin zones such as Acrylia Caverns were criminally underutilized.

[Huddaan]

I hated the books, made the world a lot smaller. It made you not have to rely on help from others to travel great distances. I hated the Bazaar.. Hated the Bazaar! You lost a huge part of what EQ was when Bazaar came out. Instead of spending hours socializing and bargaining, you just threw prices up on a vendor and would be done with it. EQ is a game made where you had to socialize to survive and thrive in it. This was the beginning where you didn't have to rely so much on others. That is my opinion. I miss my Beastlord!!

[Palemoon]

I liked Shadows of Luclin overall, except for one thing:

It was the begining of the end not for EQ in general..but of EQ PvP.

I think the big turning point when EQ changed was Planes of Power. I like Planes of Power except for one single zone.... Plane of Knowledge. Those lame teleportation books and the one stop shopping of PoK destroyed the feel of the entire rest of the world.

IF they implement Shadows of Luclin here, I would really like to see the two safe zones (Nexus and Bazar) not be safe, even it if means a useless bazar. Safe zones are BS on a red server.

And beastlord was a good class and meshed well with "classic" EQ. I would like to see beastlords introduced after Velious here, even if the rest of Shadows of Luclin is not.

[hrafn]

And beastlord was a good class and meshed well with "classic" EQ. I would like to see beastlords introduced after Velious here, even if the rest of Shadows of Luclin is not.

[Mardur]

Yeah, Luclin was also terrible for PvP.

However it was the first expansion where they really started to get class balance right.

[joetheman]

So let me get this straight, you would rather waste hours bargaining than purchase an item from a vendor? The whole point is to just purchase the item, if you want to bargain than send a tell to the dude. Without a universal chat, it is kind of hard to ask people if they have the item you want, and the bazaar helped with that.

As for luclin graphics, they are 10X better than the current. Right now our characters look like blocky minecraft people. You have like 5 different options to change their face/hair (not seperately). It was a step in the right direction.

[Zadrian]

It lessened the need for people to interact. Essentially the beginning of the WoW era.

Bazaar and no need to use anyone's help to get around. (PoP kinda made wizards and druids less useful outside of groups)

[joetheman]

People still used Wizards and Druids for ports. Its just the fact is fact: Druids and Wizards dont always want to port people around, especially not for free. It was helpful for people who needed to travel and didnt want to sit on their ass begging people to port them. Sounds reasonable to me.

[Huddaan]

Yes, I would much rather spend an hour or two socializing with an entire zone trying to buy something for the best price instead of following a magic line to a vendor and having to pay what they have listed. Most vendors were afk, there was no socializing. Also, while waiting for items, you get me meet and talk with many people. You get to make friends, share stories, and just have a good time. I love the EC tunnel, although I wish it was in NFP, but you can have a good time there buffing newbs and handing out free stuff to them. They get all excited.. Good times.

[Dumesh Uhl'Belk]

People still used Wizards and Druids for ports. Its just the fact is fact: Druids and Wizards dont always want to port people around, especially not for free. It was helpful for people who needed to travel and didnt want to sit on their ass begging people to port them. Sounds reasonable to me.Unless you're talking about Plane of Hate or Plane of Sky, there is no where in the game you can't walk to. Get off your ass and walk if there are no porters available. If you think walking is too painful, maybe you should have played a porting class or made more friends who can port.

Multiplayer games are not very multiplayer when everyone can do everything without interacting with anyone else.

[Yukahwa]

Joetheman - no they didn't. Barely.

Luclin made PVP suck thats for sure. Pop really did.. LDON broke the donkeys back

[joetheman]

Thats too bad for PvP, never really played it. As for "the magical line" that leads you to a vendor, im pretty sure that wasnt out until later expansions. Bazaar does let you interact with people and people do auction out bargains. Im not saying I dont like classic because I do, im just saying Luclin was nothing but an improvement.

[Rhaj]

Thats too bad for PvP, never really played it. As for "the magical line" that leads you to a vendor, im pretty sure that wasnt out until later expansions. Bazaar does let you interact with people and people do auction out bargains. Im not saying I dont like classic because I do, im just saying Luclin was nothing but an improvement.

You like easy travel and easy selling but you like classic.

Gotcha!

[DorcasSilverthreads]

I thought there were some cool atmospheric zones in Luclin. Huge sprawling pointless places that just give me that 'wow' feeling when I walk through them. Places that had the really wide open feel of classic zones - places that felt like they weren't just there to feed your character mobs, quests and xp. PoP destroyed that for me - the places were soulless raid/grind theme parks.

I never experienced travel and trade before the bazaar and nexus because I started in the Luclin era. But if people who've played classic say there was MORE socialising and coperation before it, I can believe it, and those aspects of the game were what made EQ, even after Luclin, so I can see why it annoyed people when they arrived.

I agree with the comment that it was the first expansion that wasn't completely solid, and was when certain negative trends started. I can see that while theres good content in Luclin, the destructive aspects might outweight it - partly the bazaar and nexus but also in terms of gear inflation and making old zones obselete.

I'm excited about experiencing pre-Luclin EQ anyhow!

[Humerox]

I hated the moon, cat-people, the bazaar, PoK, insta-travel, raid mobs that just took too long to kill and no real strat...

little aliens that made that god-awful racket...zones the size of Alaska

Ssra was cool, tho.

[achtung]

AE blind, zomg

[Kika Maslyaka]

I hated the moon, cat-people, the bazaar, PoK, insta-travel, raid mobs that just took too long to kill and no real strat...

little aliens that made that god-awful racket...zones the size of Alaska

Ssra was cool, tho.


sounds exactly like a typical classic raid encounter :D

re - zone size - have you seen WK or DL?
Gigantic emptiness is a trademark of a "classic" Verant design - their outdoor zones nearly always devout of any landmarks. To compare - see Antonika in EQ2 - a MARVEL to behold, a single zone, yet feels like an entire world with so many different things in it.

raiding was ultra dull until they finally invented raid scripts with PoP

Luclin was generally GOOD expansion with a few weaknesses:

-cats on the moon was somewhat out of EQ theme - they should have started them in Kerra Isle
-alien looking mobs were too sci-fi, and rockhoppers were too cartoonish, but rest of new mobs were amazingly high quality models
-VT key grind was beyond INSANE

PoP was overall a GREAT expansion, which put new life and meaning into raiding, with only significant weakness being instant-travel books. (Luclin spires that only worked once in 15 min were actually ok)

[Trelaboon]

Pros:
*Beastlords - I loved this class, it was literally the class that I wanted to play from day one, but didn't exist. I wish they would find some way to implement this class into P1999.

*AA's - I also loved knowing that once I was level 65, there was more to the game than just raiding. That's the thing I continue to hate about WoW; once you're max level, all there is to do, is gear grind.

*Rangers and Wizards - Finally these classes started to show their own power and they both became great classes that everyone loved to play. It's a shame to me now, that Rangers will never really become what they should become: An awesome archer that sometimes relies on his swords for survival, but prefers his bow over all else.


Cons:
* Travel - Travel in Luclin started being dumbed down and really took away the enormity of the world we were visiting. Something about spending an hour running from 1 location to another made you feel accomplished, and made you feel like you were adventuring through something special, apart from other video games. This seemed real!

*Zones - The zones honestly were terrible, I loved the previous things I mentioned in Luclin, yet I HATED the zones in the entire expansion. I hated all of the zones, including the bazaar.

*ARENA - I hated the Bazaar, but I thought it was awesome having such an easily accessible arena at all times. I would love to see something like this added, without adding the Bazaar in whole.

Summary:
In conclusion, i'd say I really didn't like the expansion as a whole. In fact, i'd rather not see it ever implemented. What I would however like to see, is the Beastlords and AA's added on a smaller scale. Add Beastlords, and give out AA's but somehow modify them to work from 50-60 and scale them accordingly. This is what i'd like to see added, but never the actual expansion, if I had to pick and chose between the two, i'd rather see nothing implemented than the entire expansion. Just my personal opinion!

[Mardur]

raiding was ultra dull until they finally invented raid scripts with PoP

You mean in Luclin? Ring of Fire or Burrower Parasite ring a bell?

Luclin raiding was absolutely solid until Vex Thal, which was the biggest disappointment ever implemented into EverQuest.

[feste]

seriously taking the spires took about as long as boats.

in all honesty the game was still fun up to and including ldon when i left the game. I think wow was the beginning of the end for eq lol.

[Mountaineer]

PoP still had the best raiding tier system of any raiding game ever! I'll donate $2,000 to the server (in 5 years when we would theoretically make it that far lol) if they open a classic PoP on this server!

[valithteezee]

I had ALOT oof fun with the luclin expansion playing on Tallon Zek. It was kind of the beginning of the end of an era though, and then POP was the last nail in the coffin.

Adding things like the Bazaar is like adding WALMART to a small-knit community and expecting mom-and-pop shops to stay in business. It kills off the small things we all liked, like trading in EC tunnel, auctioning for ports, etc..

[raptorak]

Adding things like the Bazaar is like adding WALMART to a small-knit community and expecting mom-and-pop shops to stay in business. It kills off the small things we all liked, like trading in EC tunnel, auctioning for ports, etc..

/end thread.

I found Luclin alienating and bizarre.

[Humerox]

I found Luclin alienating and bizarre.

i see wut u did there.

[Eternal-Elf]

Eh if you put the lore leading thre aside. Luclin did add a COMPLETELY unique line of monsters, and zones to explore. cat people sucked, beastlord was awesome, graphics on the zones and such were nice.....Don't remember vex thal very much.

Eh

[Ele]

Cabbage Earrings!

[Darwoth]

was probably fine on the carebear servers but it ruined the pvp servers.

the AA's and new spells completely destroyed any semblance of skill based pvp in eq.

the bazaar was a safezone and this is where 90% of the server could be found as a result, sitting afk in a safezone.

[Aesop]

luclin seems like it would be a pretty cool standalone expansion eh?

[Kevlar]

Luclin was dumb because it took away too much from the tolkein-esque fantasy world that EQ was built on.

Planes of power brought the game back a little bit because it focused more on something you would expect out of a mature game setting, something that had been done in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons years earlier, Ultra high level Players challenging their deities.

POP books ruined the feel for the size of the world a lot more than the luclin spires did, but cats on the moon was just a ridiculous concept that really f%6ked up the fantasy setting. Something I would expect out of a Japanime game geared to 12 year olds, not something that was trying to pass itself off as a heroic D&D style game.

[Kika Maslyaka]

You mean in Luclin? Ring of Fire or Burrower Parasite ring a bell?

Luclin raiding was absolutely solid until Vex Thal, which was the biggest disappointment ever implemented into EverQuest.

those were the exceptions.
But everything before Luclin was strictly tank and spank.
Yes, I too was surprised that after such interesting events like Burrower, and non trivial adds handling system with Emperor of Ssra, the VT, including top expansion raid (ATH), will just go back to tank and spank again.

[Rainflush]

More like "Sewage of Pukelin".

No thanks!

[Crug]

I liked it for the most part, had a lot of fun leveling my troll SK through Paludal and twinking him with the Bazaar.

[Kyrus]

Luclin is when I quit playing EQ. I just couldn't accept the whole moon theme, with cats living on it...it just didn't mesh well with the rest of the game, imo.

[Nyrod]

Scars of Velious best expansion EVAR

/thread

[Sslaesha]

The beastlord class was fine.

The lore was pretty bad. A lot of people don't like the idea of going to the moon in a fantasy MMO. And the fact that the playable race were ridiculous catpeople.

Most felt the new character models were terrible. I never played with 'em and was thankful I was a shaman so I didn't need a horse.

The Bazaar, while convenient, ruined the social aspect of trading. The teleportation system was just the beginning of the instant travel of PoP.

Many didn't like having such a daunting amount of AA to grind after sitting on their character progression at 60 for so long. On the flip side, Paludal Caverns had too high a ZEM and drained the old world newbie dungeons dry.

The content was very hit or miss. The best part of this expansion was Ssra Temple which was an amazing raid zone where they got everything right. Lord Inquisitor Seru on the other hand took forever to prepare for, and the fight itself was mega long and somewhat boring.

And then at the end of Ssra Temple, one of the most amazing raid zone in EQ, you reached Vex Thal which was complete and utter shit.

It's a mixed bag. I personally think the expansion was decent for AA and Ssra alone. But they fucked a lot up. It was the first expansion that wasn't completely solid and pretty much anyone had a gripe with some aspect of it. If you weren't a high end raider, you missed the good content. If you were a high end raider, you had to deal with the shit pile that was VT.

Also the best Luclin zones such as Acrylia Caverns were criminally underutilized.

This is one of the best posts I've seen in a while. It was well thought out and explained really well. The only thing I would have added is that this was the result of Sony taking over. Brad McQuaid and his team (Verant) were basically a small section within 989 studios and operated mainly on their own. It's Brad McQuaids vision of EverQuest that we experience as ''Classic EQ''. When Sony began stepping in, things started to change, and it started feeling less like Classic EQ the more Sony's decisions influenced it.

[Kimja]

Ssra was a great raid zone! I think VT was meant to be easy because of the grind it took to get the key. Kind of a "loot reward" for working up to it. Instead, it just pissed people off.

I quit PoP after we downed Quarm. But I had a blast working up to him, and enjoyed the status of being an "Elemental Guild"

[Ryndar]

I think the downfall started when they released GoD before OoW. But, I quit playing at DoN and went to WoW.

[Muaar]

My favorite expansion. Best zones. Vex Thal was amazing.

[mostbitter]

What I remember most about luclin was that it changed a game which used to have tons of people all over it to one that had all its players in one place.

[Radiskull]

I feel that, contrary to popular belief, two things killed EQ.

1) Instances. This means LDoN, not Luclin or PoP. While PoP and Luclin may have been where people started to point fingers, the mass exodus didn't start until after LDoN, GoD, etc.

2) World of Warcraft. The rise in popularity of an easymode, do everything on your own MMORPG attracted millions upon millions of people. EQ decided to alienate their original player base and try to do what WoW had already done, hence the implementation of instances. The problem with this, is that WoW was already doing it, and doing it much better on a much bigger scale.

Did people dislike the bazaar? Obviously. Did people dislike translocators and PoK books? No question. These weren't back breaking features, they were merely the beginning of the end. They were the start of an easier EQ. It was still a pain in the ass to go from Kaladim to Lake of Ill Omen. Just not an hour time-sink pain in the ass. Anyone who pretends the corpse run from Firiona Vie after dying in Sol B at efreeti or FGs is fun, and what makes EQ fun is masochistic. The fact is, EQ was getting bigger and bigger. If easier means of transportation weren't provided, you'd have continents off of Odus and Faydwer. You would be taking boats to take boats to take boats to get where you wanted to level. You'd have to come home after working 10 hours, only to escape in to a video game where all you'd do all night is take boats for that night and hope that tomorrow you can get your mindless grind on after begging someone to bind you!

I understand that people didn't like Luclin and PoP. I understand why. I just hope you all understand that some sort of change was inevitable. The books made an immersive, amazingly large fantasy world seem much smaller. But, the books didn't kill EQ, time did. Over exposure did. It'll lead to the end here, just as it led to the end there. How long can top end raid guilds really enjoy this raid scene? It's much more grotesque to me then PoK books. Good day, sirs.

[Atmas]

Like others have said Luclin was a mixed bag. As a caster, speicifically a Wizard I liked a lot of it.

Pros IMO

AAs really made certain classes shine (particiuarly Wizards and Rangers) and was a pretty cool way to advance your character.
Ssra was an awesome zone
The loot had a lot of really cool clickies
Horses where a nice addition that still felt very fantasy
Caster gear! Seriously needed after the velious expansion was so melee based


Cons IMO

VT was a terrible raiding zone
PvP was broken in several ways. I think 2hbash was a game breaker


I think a lot of people didn't like Cats but I didnt play one and I didnt mind. A lot of people complain about spires but in truth they only went a handful of places and had a wait time. I made way more money as a Wizard TLCing people who wanted to be various locations quickly and were hanging out in the bazaar.

People seem to be getting confused, there were no instant teleportation books in Luclin. Those books came in with PoP.

[Vohl]

Luclin was dumb because it took away too much from the tolkein-esque fantasy world that EQ was built on.

Agree 100%.

The world in this expansion was not the EQ that everyone knew and loved. Vah Shir were questionable. Whacky zones filled with whacky mobs and item drops with nonsense names certainly lacked appeal. Ssra was admittedly cool. VT, the CandyLand zone of the expansion, had incredibly good loot, and was a challenge to raid, but suffered from the same issues as nearly everything else in this expansion.

[Sslaesha]

2) World of Warcraft. The rise in popularity of an easymode, do everything on your own MMORPG attracted millions upon millions of people. EQ decided to alienate their original player base and try to do what WoW had already done, hence the implementation of instances. The problem with this, is that WoW was already doing it, and doing it much better on a much bigger scale.

Lololololol! Everquest introduced instances with LDoN in 2003. World of Warcraft came out in 2004, derp?

[Kika Maslyaka]

This is one of the best posts I've seen in a while. It was well thought out and explained really well. The only thing I would have added is that this was the result of Sony taking over. Brad McQuaid and his team (Verant) were basically a small section within 989 studios and operated mainly on their own. It's Brad McQuaids vision of EverQuest that we experience as ''Classic EQ''. When Sony began stepping in, things started to change, and it started feeling less like Classic EQ the more Sony's decisions influenced it.

Incorrect.
Brad McQuaids and his team were in charge of the Vision, all way trough Luclin and PoP. Blame him. :D

As much as people like to blame Luclin, PoP, LDON, etc for fall of eq, until the day WoW was released, EQ only kept growing its numbers. The day WoW came out, EQ numbers have fallen 50% overnight.

[Mcbard]

I didn't like the concept of the expansion at all. Cats on the moon, little ugly ass aliens everywhere, and the interaction needed to play the game (travel/buy/sell) was diminished slightly. I can't remember when the "luclin" ui was introduced but that also upset me at the time.

I think the large, fantasy themed zones of classic EverQuest were lost and done away with during Luclin. The world started to get less connected as the content left norrath. Velious/Kunark were connected via boats in actual ocean zones whereas to access PoP/Luclin there was just sort of one "hub" zone you magically transported to in order to access the rest of the expansion. I didn't really like that aspect of the expansion as it was a disconnect for me. The single biggest problem though is that I can't recall there being a single dragon in the entire expansion. Just cats, snakes, and aliens. Really unfortunate.

I enjoyed AA's a lot and think that character development beyond reaching max level was a great call.

[knottyb0y]

Luclin like Planes of Power were an odd mix of awesome and terrible. I don't think either expansion killed Everquest, but they took away some things that made classic Everquest strong, but over all added a lot of good. I wish I had the power to implement those two expansions in the way I think would be the most beneficial to the game.

Starting with Luclin
Keep: AA's, More Raiding Zones, Interesting Raid Encounters, More hunting zones for levels 40-60, Beastlords

Problem: Vah Shir: New races don't inherently suck. Now placing them on the moon was a little far fetched.
Solution: Place the Vah Shir on Odus, connect either their city to the continent somehow, or add them to the cats already on odus.

Problem: Player models were kinda crappy (particularly animations).
Solution: use the low rez cat models and get rid of horses *shrug*

Problem: Nexus (safe zone). Really I would argue the spires allowing players to teleport to gfay, nk, toxx, dreadlands and Great Divide wasn't that bad. These ports only occurred every 15 minutes but they did allow players to have a wider range of ability to group without destroying the port trade. Ala, my guildmates want me to group in Seb, but i'm in Velious. I can get there in about 30minutes. I would still have a lot of running to do, but the point is to allow people to get together faster imo.

Solution: Nexus shouldn't be a safe zone (for pvp). Sprinkle in the lore to make it NOT part of the moon. Also really made these giant spires all over the world a lot cooler imo.

Problem: Bazaar. The bazaar initially is not a terrible idea. It was a couple expansions later when it was "optimized" that it got funky. Initially it was a zone, where just like EC where people could stand around and trade. It had nuetral bankers and a lot of tradeskill merchants. No auto merchant mode, no finder, just a big zone that was easy to get to for people to trade.
Solution: Keep bazaar in 1.0 form. nuetral hub, no find, no PC merchant, filled with tradeskill merchants.

Problem: Expansion is on the moon.
Solution: This is the hardest one. A lot of sprinkled "fan lore" and some zone connection reassigning would be the ideal solution. Or if that's too much work (I can only imagine how many quests would have to be worked with). At least connect all the Luclin zones as a new continent, or some weird underground expansion from Odus or something. This is the hardest part of adapting this expansion.

Planes of Power
Keep: Amazing Tiered Raiding System that actually didn't (at low teirs) invalidate Velious or Luclin Raids), Keep level 65, keep more AAs, more leveling zones

Problem: Plane of Knowledge and books
Solution 1: Remove the Plane of Knowledge, and sprinkle all the planar zones throughout the oldworld.

Solution 2: remove the books and give it an entry system similar to the Nexus (15 minute interval spire 1 per continent, or just add some zone entry connected to an old world area (odus library or felwithe library might be decent though that holds faction problems).


Basically we almost all acknowledge that AAs, Beastlords, and More Raiding Space is not a bad thing. You don't want to shrink the world too much, because the glue of everquest is socialization

[Atmas]

I think GoD killed EQ more than any other expansion. As strange as mobs looked and were named in SoL it was nothing compared to GoD. Ridiculous looking and named mobs and horribly uncreative encounters, spells, and zones.

It's kind of a shame cause I played some OoW and that was actually not terrible.

I still think with the exception of the books PoP was awesome. Awesome Lore, fun progression with a sense of accomplishment, useful AAs, sweet spells, and a nice conculsion (maybe too nice).

[ziggyholiday]

Problem: Bazaar. The bazaar initially is not a terrible idea. It was a couple expansions later when it was "optimized" that it got funky. Initially it was a zone, where just like EC where people could stand around and trade. It had nuetral bankers and a lot of tradeskill merchants. No auto merchant mode, no finder, just a big zone that was easy to get to for people to trade.


^^ Bazaar didn't go autotrader mode until PoP or just before PoP as I recall.

[beentheredonethat]

Velious came out and some parts of it were all right, but than they completely made classic irrelevant after level 35 so I hated that. Near gear made classic obsolete, new factions also completely ruined faction/religion differences that made classic quite fun.

Every expansion after Velious felt like it was horribly done, made it too large of the world, trivialized more content, etc...

[Lagaidh]

I know it's mentioned, but the Bazaar ruined the original feel for me. I looked forward to weekends in EC hawking the items I'd collected during the week.

Having to interact to make trades forced a certain level of social interaction and some cooperation, even upon soloers.

While this may seem like a slice of the overall game, to many, it's an important slice. Once you could enlist the code to buy and sell on your behalf there was a segment of interaction gone. Then, in the sake of convenience, more and more of the same type of thing occurred.

I am reminded of the interface for finding instance groups in World of Warcraft: you don't even have to form a group. The code does it for you from all LFG folks. To me it's the same thing: letting the code perform a social interaction for you in the name of convenience.

If this keeps escalating, you're no longer playing an MMO in spirit at some point.

[Brut]

I'd say luclin stunk because it was so damned different. First we got goblins, giants, dragons, imps and orcs and whatever. Basic fantasy lore stuff. Then we suddenly jump into a particularly crappy episode of Star Trek.

The lore also seemed like it was a bad fanfic. Like someone read about the Combine Empires and Shissar and then just said "oh wish these guys were still ingame... maybe they could all be chilling up in the moon!".

And the few zones outside nexus/bazaar that I actually glanced at were horrible. Large open cave zone A, large open cave zone B, large grassland A, large grassland B, large desert A, large desert B, etc etc. Oh and that Grief Benedictus zone that seemed to be nothing but a chain of identical rooms with completely random monsters in it. Put any of these next to places like Velketor's Labyrinth or ToFS and they look absolutely abysmal (altho velious had it's share of utter lameness, coughSkyshrinecough). Maybe it's just that I hate the newer graphics they introduced in luclin, be it the zones or the characters, which looked so much different from what we had before, like a whole different game.

[Palemoon]

I think you mean Griegs End, and that was one of the better zones in Luclin.

Mobs would randomly turn you into different monsters, and you'd hear tons of strange audio files like children crying, insane laughter, etc.

I dunno, felt like you were being drawn into Greigs nightmare.

Also the Deep was kinda neat as a zone.. huge illusionary bridge and falling to your death in a chasam..

There was only one big crime in Luclin, and that was the Cat People. They did not belong up there at all, should of just turned Kerra Island into a noob city for the cats, Odus could of used the extra fleshing out anyways.

Acryllia Caverns was pretty unique too, just recently we have dropped some bosses in Acryllia Caverns and done some ring events there that have not been done on any server, ever (as soon after PoP timeframe that zone was redone and all those old rings and items/npcs were changed). Pretty hard ring events at that, think Corinav of Water type hard, we have no idea how lvl 60's were supposed to do them. Maybe with a 90 man zerg.

Point is.. Luclin seemed like "crap" because it came right after the masterpiece that was Velious. Truth is, it was not that bad at all.

Im telling you all, it was PLANE OF KNOWLEDGE that was the true turning point in EQ. The book of classic EQ was closed the moment PoK opened up. I think this EMU would be perfect if it went up to Planes of Power, minus plane of knowlege. Just have the book in Nexus teleport you straight to Plane of Tranquility and call it a day.

[Malev]

Luclin (good)

1. Raid zones
2. AA

Luclin (bad)

1. Safe zones ruined pvp servers
2. Bazaar too away some of the social aspects
3. Every new expansion resulted in the leveling zones for old ones being obsolete
4. Mobs were for the most part really uninspired
5. Lots of guilds suffered player loss due to the keying process (I liked it mind you, lots of guildies working together, and less committed guilds dying)
6. Cats on the moon? ugh, terrible idea.

[valithteezee]

Luclin (good)


1. Raid zones
2. AA

Luclin (bad)

1. Safe zones ruined pvp servers
2. Bazaar too away some of the social aspects
3. Every new expansion resulted in the leveling zones for old ones being obsolete
4. Mobs were for the most part really uninspired
5. Lots of guilds suffered player loss due to the keying process (I liked it mind you, lots of guildies working together, and less committed guilds dying)
6. Cats on the moon? ugh, terrible idea.


In regards to #3 I'm not sure how that's avoidable. I always think that if they took existing content and added adjacent zones that might solve some of the problem. Like for instance, if they made an entrance in Kaladim to an entire "underground" continent that was only accessible through kaladim then I could see how old zones would remain populated. But it seems sooner or later they would have ran out of idea's eventually and old zones would have started to become desolate. I think like all things you reach a climax and then spiral down;velious/luclin was the zenith for EQ and then they started running out of good content.

[Malev]

In regards to #3 I'm not sure how that's avoidable. I always think that if they took existing content and added adjacent zones that might solve some of the problem. Like for instance, if they made an entrance in Kaladim to an entire "underground" continent that was only accessible through kaladim then I could see how old zones would remain populated. But it seems sooner or later they would have ran out of idea's eventually and old zones would have started to become desolate. I think like all things you reach a climax and then spiral down;velious/luclin was the zenith for EQ and then they started running out of good content.

Well the real issue seemed to be that new continents had higher zone exp modifiers, like they figured people were buying them just to level. I just hate the idea of everyone crowding into one zone per level range because it's has higher exp and the loot drops have stats that are 10/20 levels ahead of the oldworld stuff.

[Kope]

And beastlord was a good class and meshed well with "classic" EQ. I would like to see beastlords introduced after Velious here, even if the rest of Shadows of Luclin is not.

This. Love the class :D

[Yukahwa]

Yeah..Malev said it. Super EXP modifiers and drops that made uber oldworld gear look like poo made all old world irrelevant and pointless beyond like level 10.

I did like spelunking on day one and getting mad lost but that was just because it was fun exploring new zones.

All of the expansions are fun but Luclin and beyond really made everquest as a whole a bad game. I think regular pre kunark classic is the best honestly.

[Kope]

PoP still had the best raiding tier system of any raiding game ever! I'll donate $2,000 to the server (in 5 years when we would theoretically make it that far lol) if they open a classic PoP on this server!

Aren't there 2 emu servers around PoP? PEQ goes to PoP/GoD right? And Titan is around the same? I've never played on them myself so i don't know how they actually are :(.

[Autotune]

I just want the Frogs. screw the moon.

[nickrocks]

I was thinking once most people do all the raid content on these current expansions on P1999 what else can we do? i was thinking we could put the best of each expansion into the game at the same time line. (so if this server is still running in like 10 years we would get Underfoot) but leave the bad things. idk like in Luclin remove the Bazaar but keep the good raids? Cus think of it on this server once we get all the best gear and defeat every boss where do we go from there?

[Kevlar]

Cus think of it on this server once we get all the best gear and defeat every boss where do we go from there?

The Old Republic?

[Ennoia]

-Cats on the Moon was one of the worst concepts I have ever seen for a PC race.

-Snakes on the moon was meh, though it did follow continuity with Kunark.

-I really liked the tiered raiding concept with having to get the Emp key, then needing a piece off of Emp for VT.

-Twink items and really good droppable gear were a little too abundant.

-Bazaar killed a huge social aspect of the game. Nexus and it's areas in general were just dumb and were an unneeded timesink when the major spires could have just acted like a translocator to get to another one.

All in all....SoL was pretty bad.

[Ennoia]

I just want the Frogs. screw the moon.

Legacy of Ykesha...by far the absolute WORST expansion ever released for any MMO.

[Mardur]

Not sure how someone could possibly dislike Grieg's End, it was easily one of the best zones in Luclin. I hate boring copy/paste style dungeons, but the multiple generic looking hall/room feel of Grieg's End was the point. It was a crazy weird zone where players/mobs turned into random things, and full of creepy ass sounds. One of the most atmospheric and dark zones in EQ. It was also one of the most underutilized zones in Luclin so unfortunately not many got to see it except for spending 5 seconds inside after training from Dawnshroud.

Of couse eventually it was revamped and made into a hot zone / loot pinata and everything that was awesome about the zone was removed. I'm sorry if that's the version of Grieg's End any of you saw :(.

[Mardur]

Legacy of Ykesha...by far the absolute WORST expansion ever released for any MMO.

This is true, the only EQ expansion that actually implemented more bad changes than good ones. The only thing worth going to Ykesha for was some of the (extremely) few good new spells like Blood of Nadox.

Not worth maps, dyes, and all the other game-killing things that was in LoY. Even charms were dumb as hell. Camp a mob for hours for an extra 50 hp only on days that Bertoxxulous bathes.

Most people blame Luclin or PoP, but this expansion was single-handedly the beginning of the end for EverQuest. Yes, PoK travel was bad. But LoY was completely a WoW damage control expansion. Get lost? Here's maps. Don't like your purple hate armor? Dye it black or red like everyone else and destroy the integrity of item design. Don't want to wait to buy Torpor/Aegolism/Your Class's Ultra Rare Uber Spell? Go spend a couple hours in LoY to get a newbie version. Can't get a Blade of Carnage? Go camp the level 30 mob that drops a hate proc sword. Et cetera... this was also around the time that Sony was experimenting with instancing with Plane of Time, and embraced it fully with the next expansion (Lost Dungeons of Norrath which was the 2nd worst EQ expansion of all time).

[Autotune]

Legacy of Ykesha...by far the absolute WORST expansion ever released for any MMO.

I don't want the expansion. I just want the frogs.


Gimme frogs.

[Mardur]

Not to mention kicking trolls out of Grobb was duuuumb. And they didn't even get that right, there was a troll prisoner near the bank with like 10 hp that would give max exp every kill. Exploited the shit out of that for hours until the servers came down for an emergency hot fix right after LoY launch.

So the best thing about LoY was an exp exploit in Grobb that existed for like 6 hours :)

To be honest, LoY was the first MMO expansion available via direct download... which was great. Unfortunately none of the positives of LoY were really content/gameplay related.

[Autotune]

Not to mention kicking trolls out of Grobb was duuuumb. And they didn't even get that right, there was a troll prisoner near the bank with like 10 hp that would give max exp every kill. Exploited the shit out of that for hours until the servers came down for an emergency hot fix right after LoY launch.

So the best thing about LoY was an exp exploit in Grobb that existed for like 6 hours :)

To be honest, LoY was the first MMO expansion available via direct download... which was great. Unfortunately none of the positives of LoY were really content/gameplay related.

Yeah I didn't like trolls getting kicked out of Grobb either.

I'd rather just get Frogs, don't care if they start out in OoT fresh off a slave boat. Long as I could play one.


also <3 amelinda every time she turns me into one :)

[Cujoy]

I seem to remember one thing about Luclin, that was it was the most buggy launch of the expansions. I seem to remember hot patch after hot patch after hot patch. I think that pretty much killed it for me. But On the plus side I agree with whoever brought up rangers and wizards coming into their own during this time. But more importantly there were some worn effects from high end items I found pretty desirable. Other than that the whole expansion was pretty forgettable if you ask me.

[valithteezee]

I remember we tried killing some of the boss mobs in Griegs End and ended up wiping at like 5%. Some of the lewts thre were pretty good, but overall is seemed like the zone wasn't really utilized like it should have been. I agree though it was a pretty creepy zone, very unique feel to it.

[Sslaesha]

Yeah I didn't like trolls getting kicked out of Grobb either.

I'd rather just get Frogs, don't care if they start out in OoT fresh off a slave boat. Long as I could play one.


also <3 amelinda every time she turns me into one :)

I'm pretty sure Amelinda is the best, ever... period

[Bazia]

Not sure how someone could possibly dislike Grieg's End, it was easily one of the best zones in Luclin. I hate boring copy/paste style dungeons, but the multiple generic looking hall/room feel of Grieg's End was the point. It was a crazy weird zone where players/mobs turned into random things, and full of creepy ass sounds. One of the most atmospheric and dark zones in EQ. It was also one of the most underutilized zones in Luclin so unfortunately not many got to see it except for spending 5 seconds inside after training from Dawnshroud.

Of couse eventually it was revamped and made into a hot zone / loot pinata and everything that was awesome about the zone was removed. I'm sorry if that's the version of Grieg's End any of you saw :(.

Are you quitting p99 emu because you twinked that ERU SK with 60K and then they announced that they weren't going to copy blue server toons on to the red99 beta?

Weaksauce :(

[Athosblack]

I like this thread.

[insertname]

Here's a though, just nix the cats & zones - period. Keep BL & AA, .DLL kill the new models like was done with maps and spell sets however, easier said then done I'm sure.

What would be ideal to keep Velious the top tier content and such, though perhaps cherry picking zones like original Grieg's End, Ssra ECT.

On an off note, there was one zone I pretty much lived in on my BL, it was one where you had three faction vying for control. You as the PC would be the facilitator and have to help defend (or was it attack I forget). I did the whole thing multiple times and had a blast.. sided with all three factions (that took work) and it was actually some of the best fun I had in EQ - cause and effect... an impact in / on the game world and watching the NPC faction wars was fun :) I forget the name... Owls where a faction I think...and some goblin things - kind of fuzzy - this was a long time ago... Because of the play time in this zone is why I have such fond memories of my Barb BL.

[Lagaidh]

Here's a though, just nix the cats & zones - period. Keep BL & AA, .DLL kill the new models like was done with maps and spell sets however, easier said then done I'm sure.

What would be ideal to keep Velious the top tier content and such, though perhaps cherry picking zones like original Grieg's End, Ssra ECT.

On an off note, there was one zone I pretty much lived in on my BL, it was one where you had three faction vying for control. You as the PC would be the facilitator and have to help defend (or was it attack I forget). I did the whole thing multiple times and had a blast.. sided with all three factions (that took work) and it was actually some of the best fun I had in EQ - cause and effect... an impact in / on the game world and watching the NPC faction wars was fun :) I forget the name... Owls where a faction I think...and some goblin things - kind of fuzzy - this was a long time ago... Because of the play time in this zone is why I have such fond memories of my Barb BL.

Oh every smith that tried to get through the low 200s of skill knew that zone very well. The Owlbear, Grimling, Sonic wolf war in (I think) Grimling Mountains. Gotdayum those shadowscream armor components being no drop. You'd be farming the Owlbear item and hope to hell that you could head off the attack from the grimlings or wolves. Then if you zoned in and the grimlings were up you'd have to wait for the right attack party to spawn and head over. Ugh.

I.
Hated.
That.

But I was simultaneously pleased with the zone event scripting. It went on ad infinitum.

[Lagaidh]

Legacy of Ykesha...by far the absolute WORST expansion ever released for any MMO.

I swear. I rarely visited any of LoYkesha. It really was horrible.

[Kope]

I swear. I rarely visited any of LoYkesha. It really was horrible.

LDoN and LoY were both pretty damn poor...pretty equal imo :(

Luclin definitely had some good points to it though. PoP was a pretty good expansion as well, the game should have basically ended at PoP.

[Lagaidh]

LDoN and LoY were both pretty damn poor...pretty equal imo :(

Luclin definitely had some good points to it though. PoP was a pretty good expansion as well, the game should have basically ended at PoP.

I thought LDoN had some good concepts. At the time I wasn't in an uber guild or a real raiding guild. The idea of something instanced was welcomed by my group of regulars. I also didn't mind the alternate currency system introduced: getting so many shards per instance and then buying from the vendor for decent items.

LDoN was a casual-player-catered expansion and that alone would have made it unpopular to many. I have to confess, I could have taken LDoN or left it.

Nowadays, I hate alternate currencies in MMOs. If an NPC vendor sells something, make it buyable with the land's currency. It's a shortcut at solving the content-by-expansion problem. Instead of spending the time to design a new system that fits into the existing world, or updating the existing world to support a new subsystem, you can lock content to itself! Meh. I might vote for it if I were on the dev team and had major time constraints, but I'd feel dirty about it.

[Charball]

The AA in SoL were the best thing out of that expansion. As for the kitties on the moon and the lore being all strange...so what? It's a fantasy game, if the developers wanted Pugs on Pluto then go for it. The raiding in SoL was great, SSra temple was a blast and had some really great loot. If SoL were to ever come out on p99 it would have to be with out the bazaar because that truly did end trading as we knew and loved it. I also think the bazaar is what lead to the never ending inflation of all prices. Lets get back to the AA: As I walk through EC tunnel right now I see a bunch of warriors/bard/SKs etc all wearing the same top tier gear and they pretty much do all the same dmg. AA led to a whole new level of customization, where if you worked really hard then you got a good payoff. I loved the grind for AA because, like most MMOs, once you have the best gear and the max level, there's nothing left to do but become a sad lonely trader in EC trying to make as much money as possible for your endless twinks. That fucking sucks. Alternate Advancement gave max level characters something to do.

tldr - I'm down with SoL for the AA and the zones....bazaar excluded.

[Kevlar]

I thought LDoN had some good concepts. At the time I wasn't in an uber guild or a real raiding guild. The idea of something instanced was welcomed by my group of regulars. I also didn't mind the alternate currency system introduced: getting so many shards per instance and then buying from the vendor for decent items.

LDoN was a casual-player-catered expansion and that alone would have made it unpopular to many. I have to confess, I could have taken LDoN or left it.

Nowadays, I hate alternate currencies in MMOs. If an NPC vendor sells something, make it buyable with the land's currency. It's a shortcut at solving the content-by-expansion problem. Instead of spending the time to design a new system that fits into the existing world, or updating the existing world to support a new subsystem, you can lock content to itself! Meh. I might vote for it if I were on the dev team and had major time constraints, but I'd feel dirty about it.

LDON put the nail in the coffin though because it killed competitve raiding. People complain about poopsocking, but really competition is what drove EQ. The scarcity of rare spawns and boss mobs made EQ about as competitive as you can get in a non-pvp centric game.

Alternate currency and item slots really kill it for me too. Its like taking that proverbial carrot and slicing it up into sixteen different pieces and hanging them all out on the end of a stick. Nothing but extra timesinks. I'd rather camp drops for different colors than have to try to fill up a bunch of gem slots in my underwear.

[Orov]

Why was Luclin bad?

Cats on the moon.

/thread

[Lagaidh]

LDON put the nail in the coffin though because it killed competitve raiding. People complain about poopsocking, but really competition is what drove EQ. The scarcity of rare spawns and boss mobs made EQ about as competitive as you can get in a non-pvp centric game.

I could understand that perspective from an end game raider, but I always felt like that was the loudest minority. Makes sense, the creme rose to the top, had more personally invest and so made the most noise where content was concerned.

Given only p99 as an example, could you really blame a single game provider at all for taking the dispute of raids out of their daily work?

I certainly don't.

[Savard18]

It is very rare to find someone who thinks Velious was terrible. It still may be the single best expansion ever for any MMO - at least for those who experienced it and raided during that time.

You can't go from something that dominant to Luclin. You have an expansion that goes from the fantasy/D&D feel of Dragons, Giants, Dwarfs, and Gods to Cats, Aliens, and Snake people.

EQ was a hard game, Velious was a hard expansion, which is what made it so great. Luclin was what changed the game.

Luclin

Travel:
Nobody is arguing that the Nexus made things easier, cause obviously it did, but making things easier was the beginning of the end for classic EQ. Horses also killed the need for SoW and jboots. This was the start of easy travel in EQ.
My grade: Done differently might have been better, but overall - F.

Bazaar:
Not much else can be said, they should have made the bazaar have NPCs to sell your items for you, everyone was afk anyway. Trading was made easier and more impersonal.
My Grade: F

Zones, Content:
Some decent zones, and some ok ideas, but overall the Moon theme was a horrible idea. The monsters were silly and had tons of HP. Getting your key was death. Raiding scripts were different and not terrible, the bosses themselves were kinda boring. Mentioned in another post, PC killed most old world areas 8-20.
My Grade: D-


Race:
Cats are dumb, but it wasn't game breaking.
My Grade: C

Class:
Beastlords might have been a fun class to play, but they actually are a worthless class. They bring nothing new to the table that another class doesn't already have covered. Filler class, easy to play. From what I hear they are still worthless for raiding on Live.
My grade: F

AAs:
Needed for raiders and powergamers - and it created a gap between casual gamers and the rest. This was a good idea until each expansion had 20000 AAs per class. Not everyone enjoys grinding like that.
My grade: (Luclin Only) A

Overall I give the Expansion an F, which is much better than some of the newer ones that could have easily gotten a Z.

PoP was better than Luclin due to them returning to the killing off Gods thing, even thou PoK crushed old school travel for good and made the game 10x easier. LDoN and LoY on the other hand.... yikes. Not good.

[Lagaidh]

I liked AAs I admit. It allowed me to fix my base AGI and get things I thought should have always been available like 2-handed bash (I was always and forever will be a bluebie).

The downside to them, from my perspective, were the AA requirements that raid guilds ended up having. On one hand you could say, yes, AA gave more to do to the maxxed. On the other hand, you ended up in the same boat: you'd get all the AAs worth having, and require anyone you raided with to have done the same.

There will always be a difficult task in MMOs of bringing both the hardcore and casual populations to the same game and trying to give each group the content they crave at their own paces.

What I never understood about live EQ was: why did they cater more to the hardcore? It was obvious after Wow launched that the hardcore were the minority. I have at different times been both kind of player and enjoyed each mode of play. I'd still take casual over hardcore. I guess that's why I always bristled when the hardcore side had one more "required" thing to do to stay maxxed: key, AA, piece of gear, augments.

Oh yeah. I fucking hated augments.

[Mardur]

Are you quitting p99 emu because you twinked that ERU SK with 60K and then they announced that they weren't going to copy blue server toons on to the red99 beta?

Weaksauce :(

I didn't even know they decided to not allow character copies. I just realized that EQ is still boring to me.

Might pop in on red99 to check things out though.

No point in really putting time into anything when I've got military service lined up.

[Atmas]

I liked AAs I admit. It allowed me to fix my base AGI and get things I thought should have always been available like 2-handed bash (I was always and forever will be a bluebie).

The downside to them, from my perspective, were the AA requirements that raid guilds ended up having. On one hand you could say, yes, AA gave more to do to the maxxed. On the other hand, you ended up in the same boat: you'd get all the AAs worth having, and require anyone you raided with to have done the same.

There will always be a difficult task in MMOs of bringing both the hardcore and casual populations to the same game and trying to give each group the content they crave at their own paces.

What I never understood about live EQ was: why did they cater more to the hardcore? It was obvious after Wow launched that the hardcore were the minority. I have at different times been both kind of player and enjoyed each mode of play. I'd still take casual over hardcore. I guess that's why I always bristled when the hardcore side had one more "required" thing to do to stay maxxed: key, AA, piece of gear, augments.

Oh yeah. I fucking hated augments.

First and foremost, f 2hbash (PvP caster).

AAs were awesome because they were a good way to improve your character without having to rely on RNG for loot. From a business perspective it gives something for the people at end game something to do.

I think you cater to the hardcore because in the end they will be the ones who keep playing and the ones you are more in danger of losing because they have run out of things to do. A lot of people dislike WoW because it is so easy mode, and quite often major accomplishments are trivial weeks later by changes, or even when they are performed by lack of difficulty.

I also hated augments. Getting better gear and tossing the old stuff was classic and AAs you would always keep the benefit of as you got new ones. Augments were just too much for me when they were introduced. I quit before really having to worry about them.

[TheBlob]

Well as someone said earlier in the thread it is obviously inevitable that at some point everyone will have equip from Sleeper's Tomb or NToV (or whatever the highest zone in velious is), and we will need new content.

Now I agree that Luclin killed interactions with bazaar, began killing travel with nexus, and that most of the zones sucked bad, the vah shir and beastlords werent that awesome and the mobs were ugly as hell.

But I agree too that the AAs and ssra temple were awesome. A point that wasn't mentioned about AAs is that they permitted you to stay level 52 if you wanted to kill Nagafen or Lady Vox at some point. Now, if you are level 52 and want to kill them, you have to stop exping or else you're gonna bust the level cap.

As a related question, I don't know anything about programming and such, but how hard would it be for devs to implement new contents (zones, mobs, quests), using old-world graphics (for example a lowest guk or a sol C)?

As said before, the problem with new expansions is that they take the gameplay too far away from the old world, thus leaving the old faction systems useless. It would be cool to see new zones, but in the old world.

[Mardur]

I thought LDoN had some good concepts. At the time I wasn't in an uber guild or a real raiding guild. The idea of something instanced was welcomed by my group of regulars. I also didn't mind the alternate currency system introduced: getting so many shards per instance and then buying from the vendor for decent items.

LDoN was a casual-player-catered expansion and that alone would have made it unpopular to many. I have to confess, I could have taken LDoN or left it.

Nowadays, I hate alternate currencies in MMOs. If an NPC vendor sells something, make it buyable with the land's currency. It's a shortcut at solving the content-by-expansion problem. Instead of spending the time to design a new system that fits into the existing world, or updating the existing world to support a new subsystem, you can lock content to itself! Meh. I might vote for it if I were on the dev team and had major time constraints, but I'd feel dirty about it.

There were so many things wrong with LDON.

First of all, the raids. I understand this was a "casual-aimed" expansion (considering GoD was up next...) but the raid instances were a waste of development time considering they were buggy, difficult, and had terrible rewards.

Augments were mostly bad. The biggest problem was that now all of a sudden regardless of if you're the most casual or the most hardcore raider, you needed another 20+ items to flesh out your character. And your ONLY option of getting them were LDON instances. A few expansions later augments became abundant enough that they weren't a big deal, but this was almost as bad of an addition as charms were in LoY.

What this meant was countless hours grinding Miragul's Menagerie for AC and hate proc augs. No point in even implementing the other dungeons when this was the only one most people saw. And this was a major problem, if you had a spell or something in an "unpopular" instance... well, you're mostly screwed until you beg and plead for people in your guild to waste 40 hours in Mistmoore or whatever. Not to mention Miragul's was the worst considering every dungeon was a migraine-inducing white, especially the spider one with all the cobwebs. Yet the very few nice items in this expansion were all conveniently located in one dungeon. Turned my love for Everfrost into boiling hatred.

And then the design of the dungeons. Some douchebag designed some generic hallways and rooms and copy / pasted for awhile until the expansion was done. This was the beginning of lousy, uninspired "hey we're in another room that looks exactly like the last 20" dungeon design. Crawling a dungeon became more about how quickly you could run through it and gtfo for points to run it again, than actual "crawling."

Finally, this expansion was paradise for MQers. You can cheat to your heart's content in your own little box that no one ever had a chance to come across. Not to mention how ridiculously fast you could accumulate LDON points and phat lewtz with a map and /warp. Get instance, zone in, /who named, /warp named, kill, loot, exit, repeat. You didn't even have to wait on spawn timers anymore.

This became even more fun when they added that one random instance zone in GoD (I think) that never expired and was full of non-aggro melee mobs. The zone had no loot, nothing. Most people didn't even know it existed. It's like it was implemented specifically for people to run MQ scripts to AFK level.

[Savard18]

This became even more fun when they added that one random instance zone in GoD (I think) that never expired and was full of non-aggro melee mobs. The zone had no loot, nothing. Most people didn't even know it existed. It's like it was implemented specifically for people to run MQ scripts to AFK level.

I remember this zone. You are right, it was was built as a test zone for people who wanted pure experience, nothing more. I believe it was one of those instanced sewers in GoD, I can't remember the name - not that it matters, you can't pronounce any zone names in GoD anyway.

I bet a good 90% of the EQ population did not know there were more than 1 instance group zone in GoD.

[Thulack]

Personally i still enjoy current day EQ content. Its all the whiny ass crybabies that wants things made easier for them that made me quit playing.

[Vondra]

AAs are fun when you're getting them but it shits all over new players who have no one to group with since you aren't making alts but grinding AA on max chars instead...so they leave.

And that would go double for an emu server where people are trying to relive a classic experience of grouping in all those newbie areas again. If I came to the server as a lowbie and I couldn't find many people to play with, I would have left.

[Falisaty]

Im telling you all, it was PLANE OF KNOWLEDGE that was the true turning point in EQ. The book of classic EQ was closed the moment PoK opened up. I think this EMU would be perfect if it went up to Planes of Power, minus plane of knowlege. Just have the book in Nexus teleport you straight to Plane of Tranquility and call it a day.

This should happen to keep the server alive implament luclin and pop but dont put PoK and have the book in nexus port you to potranq.... Best idea ever

[Noser]

I think Luclin is quite salvageable as a classic expansion. Just disable the bazaar/spires and replace them with something more 'classic.'

Ssra wasn't the only good raid zone. The Umbral Plains was a hoot to pull and clear, imo. The Deep with the invisible bridge leading to Thought Horror. Grieg's End with the crazy maze of illusion casting mobs leading to Grieg Veneficus. I'll go as far to say that it was my favorite raid expansion ever. Not to mention the much needed AA's for class balancing and dungeon grinding in your downtime.

[Kevlar]

I think Luclin is quite salvageable as a classic expansion. Just disable the bazaar/spires and replace them with something more 'classic.'

Ssra wasn't the only good raid zone. The Umbral Plains was a hoot to pull and clear, imo. The Deep with the invisible bridge leading to Thought Horror. Grieg's End with the crazy maze of illusion casting mobs leading to Grieg Veneficus. I'll go as far to say that it was my favorite raid expansion ever. Not to mention the much needed AA's for class balancing and dungeon grinding in your downtime.

Favorite raid expansion ever? Most of the raid zones were horrible, falling thru the map was common with all the gravity flux and the "newer" graphics.

Emp Ssra was fun and Ssra temple was an awesome zone, but nothing like Kael Drakkel, NToV, Plane of Mischief. Not even a fun group zone like Velketors. Just dumb space camels and big rock guys. Although Seru did look cool in his full plate. Wish they had that armor in game. Loved giving his sword to pets.

[Nirgon]

This is an obvious troll post.

[mokfarg]

This should happen to keep the server alive implament luclin and pop but dont put PoK and have the book in nexus port you to potranq.... Best idea ever

Plenty of crap out there past Velious. This is the ONLY true classic server in existence. Please don't take that from us. If someone wants this garbage they can go play on other emus or SOEs Mac server

[beentheredonethat]

i personally thought it was one of the worst expansions this game had.

[Zigfreed]

Some Luclin things were cool: that giant worm event in the deep, the grey, the layout of ssra, Fungus Grove and even AA's were "good".

Many things were permanently scarring: Keying up entire raid forces for emperor ssra (which included the keys as well as getting Bane weapons), then discovering that VT keys were an even huger rectal probing. Plus do you remember that it took a solid half hour to 45 minutes of constant beating on them to kill many raid targets? So deathly boring.

[Smyd]

I think the Luclin concept was awesome and I enjoyed pretty much every zone it had to offer... cool expansion :D