Project 1999 - Why do people seem to hate luclin so much?

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- - Why do people seem to hate luclin so much? (/forums/showthread.php?t=188595)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daldaen (Post 1856274)

Which were?

Still most content required groups.
Still all raid mobs required raids
Still much of the best gear was the result of quests
Still if you want to group you go to a zone where grouping occurs and LFG
Still if you want loot someone has to kill the mob and sell it to you or you have to kill it yourself

I don't see any deviation from "classic" in Luclin or PoP. The main deviation I would cite is the lessened importance of race/faction in those expansions. Which is based on lore. These people on Luclin, they don't know much of the people from Antonica, Faydwer or Odus so they are friendly to all, or in many cases they are apprehensive. In the Plane of Knowledge they have transcended the infighting among races as a greater threat looms (the gods themselves) and the unity of all the mortals of Norrath is required to meet this new threat. So even that is acceptable.

Race had a large importance with the stat bonus and innate bonuses early on, read every thread min/maxers make on these forums. Come PoP however, those bonuses are mostly irrelevant, which was a good development because people who started way back when didn't know anything about stat differences etc. It allowed everyone to get on an even field despite their original stat allocation or character creation. Where as a dark elf warrior is at a sizable stat disadvantage to a barbarian or ogre in vanilla.

Quote:

Originally Posted by maskedmelon (Post 1848978)

There are several reasons SoL is a departure from Classic Everquest:

1. Setting - the game changes from adventures in slaying dragons and orcs to battling aliens in outer space.
2. Community - introduction of the nexus/bazaar was the beginning of unraveling of the Classic Everquest community. The world expansion also furthers dilution of the player population.
3. Mechanics - the alternate advancement system was a radical departure from original EQ game design. While it has it's merits, it would ultimate trivialize a vast amount of content on a locked server like this one.

SoL was not classic Everquest. It was a departure from it. Some people do not consider Velious or Kunark classic for their roles (albeit to a much lesser extent) in some of the above (expanded world, changed mechanics, etc.), but most just view the tweaks in those expansions as a fleshing out of the original design.

I think I would be most appropriate to refer to Luclin as the beginning of the end. It set in process a set of design philosophies that ultimately transformed classic EQ into something different. On it's own, it is closer in design to the original trilogy than subsequent expansions were to the original trilogy, but the original trilogy was obviously more uniform with itself than Luclin was with it.

Incrementalism makes it difficult to establish cut offs because each person values things differently from the next. In the case of classic EQ I make that cut-off based on clearly identifiable change. Personally, I would prefer just vanilla and Kunark because Velious radically alterred end game, placing too much emphasis on it. Of course Kunark increased level cap and added a new mechanic (disciplines), but otherwise largely let be the way we played the game.

In the end preference can't really be reasoned with. I like what I like because I like it and you like what you like because you like it. We can come up with all sorts of reasons why, but ultimately those reasons only make sense to those with shared preferences ^^

Quote:

Originally Posted by Itap (Post 1856168)

If you can't see how going from fighting dragons on middle-earth to warping to the moon to fight aliens is, in essence, the downfall of Everquest lore, I can't help you.

It has nothing to do with the Vah Shir. It has everything to do with classic EverQuest Lore.

I mean, really?

The Vah Shir were excommunicated from their homeland and sent to the moon of Luclin by Erudites, but are tolerant of all races and religions? Not even a little grudge?

So in actuality, the Erudites are not the oppressed race, but it is the Vah Shir.

SoE should have given a portion of Odus back to the Vah Shir in future expansions, as an apology for teleporting them off of Norrath.

So warping to planes is ok, but warping to a moon is not ok. Fighting cthulhu-like squid-men in a burning plane ruled over by a . . . giant . . . thing is ok, but not a humanoid cat race on the moon? Floating islands lorded by genies and bird men is ok, but not temples with snake men? Lizard men temples are ok, but not snake men. Got it.

Mental gymnastics.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Itap (Post 1856168)

If you can't see how going from fighting dragons on middle-earth to warping to the moon to fight aliens is, in essence, the downfall of Everquest lore, I can't help you.

Barrier Peaks! One of the best old school D&D modules of all time. Spaceship, aliens, robots. 100% pure awesomeness. If you don't see it, you're beyond help.

Dammit... now I'm hungry for a froghemoth! That's behemoth frog... or is it frog behemoth...

I really loved Luclin and PoP. I understand and respect if Project 99 does not want to implement it into their classic server since classic is fun too, but on the other hand I think it would be a good idea maybe to set up a P99 team 2 or something to have a PoP server. I wonder what would happen if DayBreak decides to open a direct PoP server with no progression, how many people would go to it. I've lost a lot of trust in EQ live, and I doubt that would ever happen, but im pretty sure that would lower the P99 population (for better or for worse).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rangerboy (Post 1856470)

If PoP is the sweet spot for you, I would suggest checking out TakProject (macemu).

Quote:

Originally Posted by gildor (Post 1853889)

I find it funny that so many people mention bazaar ruining interaction, when as it stands with the wiki and auction trackers..it is essentially a bazaar without having a trader mode on..very little interaction..

Player A: What are you asking for X item?
Player B: Wiki has it at Y price
Player A: Ok

...how is that different..shrug

The difference is that you at least still have to talk to someone in order to buy something from them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by maskedmelon (Post 1856336)

Incrementalism makes it difficult to establish cut offs because each person values things differently from the next. In the case of classic EQ I make that cut-off based on clearly identifiable change. Personally, I would prefer just vanilla and Kunark because Velious radically alterred end game, placing too much emphasis on it. Of course Kunark increased level cap and added a new mechanic (disciplines), but otherwise largely let be the way we played the game.

This I think hits the nail on the head, the gameplay changes of Luclin were a natural response to the change in priorities that happened during Velious. As players became more concerned with raiding and less concerned

Quote:

Originally Posted by maskedmelon (Post 1856336)

...
Personally, I would prefer just vanilla and Kunark because Velious radically alterred end game, placing too much emphasis on it. Of course Kunark increased level cap and added a new mechanic (disciplines), but otherwise largely let be the way we played the game.
...

Completely agree. All of my RL & in-game friends from original EQ, except for one die-hard roleplayer, were gone within a couple months of Velious release. It was the emphasis on the raid game in the content design that chased them off.

Original EQ was a casual gamer's paradise. At release, there was only Naggy and Vox. The planes were not obvious as the harbingers of doom that they were, at the time they were reservations to keep the self-proclaimed ubers away from normal decent human beings.

Kunark was allright. The dungeon bosses of Kunark were in the style of Vox & Naggy, Kunark's overland dragons were an extension of the concept of original EQ's zone sweepers like the EC griffins and NK's Grimfeather, and VP was just another plane to keep the epeen-obsessed occupied someplace away from the sane population.

Then the brakes came off with Velious.

Once you've gone Velious you're not :classic: anymore. The emphasis on interesting bits of lore and minor quests and storylines for low level characters and roleplayers is gone with Velious. Everything is about mechanical loot acquisition. Storylines & lore drive nothing, they are pasted on afterthoughts in the style of the shittiest of the epic quest storylines from Kunark.

Even so I'm having fun. Done lots of things I didn't do the first time around on live. Looking forward to doing plenty more stuff that's new to me in coming years of Velious.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taryth (Post 1856337)

Warping to a plane where a certain god or demi-god rules is aligned with classic EverQuest lore. Warping to outer space like we're on a NASA mission is quite the stretch for a D&D type MMO.

That Expansion seems so forced, everything from Lore, Zones, Mobs, character models, and the list goes on. Don't you remember when SoL was released, that half the raid zones and quests were broken or unfinished.

Also, I was being a little facetious with my OP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by maskedmelon (Post 1856336)

Wasnt SoV the last expansion that Verant did completely? IIRC Sony took over right before SoL was released(well before it was ready to be released) So alot of the change in direction and the mechanics in the game along with the rushed releases were due to an almost complete overhaul of the team working on the project.

Anyone who questions how incomplete SoL was on release need only look at archived threads about VT, AC, and other zones, mechanics, and encounters that were broken or unfinished some of which I am sure you would still find broken today.