Really? I personally liked all the expansions through POP. But I would especially look forward to Velious & Luclin. However the charm of this server, for the time being, is in traversing Norrath and conquering the old world zones with the limitations of the Classic era; something I never was able to truly appreciate before.

Luclin ruins all. From the insane XP of PC to the Bazaar destroying EC tunnel to stupid looking models and horses.

++

luclin/PoP minus PoK (and maybe the nexus), the bazaar, and the stupid models would be nice imo

oh and horses were sorta dumb i guess, but not horrible

AAs were awesome, as were caster focus effects

To answer the OP:

Focus effects were added later in the game, at a point after Velious which is were this server is currently scheduled to stop adding content. In other words if things go as planned items will never have focus effects here. The reason you see effects on old items when looking at some sources is because on live they were added retroactively when focus was added to the game.

As far a Luclin goes. I enjoyed it, sure it had its downsides with VT being mind numbingly boring, but things like AAs that really gave casters some real end game toon development were awesome. Ssra and a lot of other zones were fun too. Mounts and some interesting clickies on gear added more dimensions to the game. Velious for example is terribly itemized for casters but still a good expansion.

IMO too many people get way to bent out of shape about cats on the moon or whatever. I know a lot of people are on this server because they liked the game up until only Velious, but a lot are here because they appreciate the level of effort put into authenticity and it is the best option. I enjoyed the game through PoP and would love to see the server go that far, but its not my call.

Cats on the moon, talking lizards in the desert - whatever. Lore/canon content isn't terribly concerning.

Luclin, however, was a fail of an expansion overall and I would be dismayed to see it once again stifling the greatness that was/will be Velious.

Are you sure you'll still feel the same way after 4 years of farming Velious?

IMO the best solution would be to take the original P99 server and add either fully custom content or release Luclin (probably in chunks) in modified form to maintain the spirit of classic EQ. Different devs have suggested that there might be new custom content after the P99 timeline was completed.

Even if Velious released today we'd still be about a year from the end of P99 timeline.

One thing a lot of people don't seem to understand, though, is that SOE took over EQ during Velious era, and a lot of the late Velious changes were really part of the same meta design shift that took EQ through Luclin and PoP.

Yes, I'm sure.

I outright quit during Luclin on live, and would sadly do the same if I had to deal with it again on P99.

8 years of expansions and "improvements" did nothing to change my mind. 4 years of Velious seems like a luxury compared to what EQ became after Luclin warped the essence of the game I grew up playing.