Thoughts on luclin?

[Swish]

Putting it out there then. After Velious... how would you guys have expanded EQ? What should SOE have done?

[Origin]

Yes. Release it asap.

[Nydosa]

I posted this is another forum, but I still think that making the world feel more round would be an awesome change.

What if Luclin were an island between Odus and Faydwer? I always found it a little silly that there was no trade route in that direction, whether it be another continent or just an ocean.

1) Beastlords could certainly be balanced to be more old-world (Pets default to low level on zoning, and beef-up with buff. Also, no haste spell at 60!)
2) Luclin-zones would need a lot of terrible models removed (ones that animate worse than a fish out of water)
3) Odus really needs some love as a continent, and it could be a great way to add more content over there.
4) NO Vah-Shir, but Kerrans are a very underutilized civilization that could replace them throughout Luclin.
5) No teleporting, bazaar, and removal of Norrath in the sky would all be required as well

I wonder how hard it would be to even replace some of the Luclin zone textures with old-world textures... might look terrible, but maybe I'll mess with it. Not even sure that'd fly here, but at least some new content to look forward to!

[BahamutDF]

Originally Posted by Swish [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Putting it out there then. After Velious... how would you guys have expanded EQ? What should SOE have done?

The idea of PoP being released as zones branching off of fitting zones in pre-existing Norrath is fantastic. It would have been a cold day in hell before I released a zone like PoK in a game like Everquest. Unless it was just this cool flavor zone that conferred no real benefit.

[Byrjun]

Originally Posted by Roth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What I'm asking is, does luclin ruin everquest? This is just a thought I had driving home because tbh I do miss some of luclin, I just wanted to hear the reasons why.

Kunark and Velious was really just more of the same classic EQ.

Luclin tried to change things up a lot, and it either succeeded very well or failed very hard. AAs were great, Ssra was one of the best raid dungeons in EQ, there were some really good quests / spell designs.

But from a design perspective I thought the zones were incredibly boring, and the vah shir race was kinda lame.

They tried to speed up leveling to 60 so people could get into end game and AAs, which meant everyone moved to boring places like Paludal and away from the cool classic dungeons. And this was relatively easy, considering the portal system. It wasn't better than druid/wizard ports, but it was usually a bit more convenient. The same could be said of the bazaar, it shifted the game away from player to player interaction for the sake of convenience.

And then there was the whole design philosophy, which went way wrong. Everything took so much time, by increasing raid mob HP, decreasing the amount of player DPS, requiring ridiculous amounts of keying, or in the worst cases (Lord Inquisitor Seru), all three.

So if I could change some things...

Keep AAs, they were a great way to progress and diversify classes even further. However, I would stagger their release more than Luclin did since they trivialized the fuck out of Velious content. All those tanking and healing and other AAs all at once made Velious raid encounters a joke that any guild could do.

Increase Luclin portal times to go off about as often as boats arrive at docks.

No playable Vah Shir. I don't care much about Beastlords, but neither did anyone else so maybe buff them a bit somehow if they are implemented.

Overall, Ssra was great but some of the loot was a bit off (did we really need like 8 SK/Paladin weapons?). Maybe improve some of the encounters like XTC and Arch Lich, somehow I feel like those encounters were supposed to be more difficult than they ended up being. Cursed, High Priest, and Ssra were some of the best raid encounters in EQ, and keying was alright except getting an entire raid guild the piece from Emp Portal was a bit tedious.

Get rid of bane weapons, or at least make them much easier to complete.

No Luclin models. No horses.

Sanctus Seru was a really cool zone that no one used because it was pointless besides keying for LIS. I'd revamp it to make it a fun place to exp. Also, fuck the LIS key quest. And fuck LIS in general, dude was awesome but his fight was stupid.

Vex Thal: This zone was a fucking mess. The key quest was awful, so increase the drop rate on all that shit. Now, cut the HP on all the mobs by at least half. Then give the raid mobs interesting abilities so it didn't feel like you were fighting the same gimp boss over and over again. Seriously, this shit was a huge let down after the awesomeness that was the Emp Ssra fight. It's like VT was thrown together in 10 minutes and never play tested because they needed an end-game raid zone (pretty common in EQ actually, but this was the biggest stinker). This is what really ruined the expansion for me.

A good example of the "loot problem" in Luclin was the several events in Acrylia Caverns that were really hard but really fun. The problem is that no one did them because the loot was shit compared to the difficulty. VT geared guilds were wiping on this stuff for glorified ntov loot. The Ring of Fire was so difficult they eventually removed it from the game, yet it dropped items like this:

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

And finally, like Sanctus Seru, make the zones interesting. How many people have interesting stories from Marus Seru, The Scarlet Desert, Echo Caverns, Grimling Forest, Hollowshade Moor, etc? No one - and a similar amount of people most likely never went to these zones unless they were doing their VT key or had to get to a connecting zone. I've seen these zones used well on custom servers - they can be fun, but the biggest disconnect between Velious and Luclin was how uninteresting and dead the world felt. Comparing those two expansions in that regard is like night and day.

[koros]

I like Luclin a lot. It definitely started to change EQ a lot, but classes were more balanced during it than most other parts of classic eq.

It definitely had it's problems - a lot of boring/useless zones, shitty model overhaul, timesink key quests, ridiculous mob AC and obviously unfinished content.

Every class in Luclin was half-decent. Casters finally got gear upgrades that mattered. AAs fleshed out classes pretty nicely. There was plenty of grinding to do at max level. Single group "raid" content (burrower). Cool (in theory) scripts that drastically modified zones for a time. Ring wars, cool quests, etc.

Also, I liked the lore. Vampires, faction power struggles, a continuation of the storyline of race that enslaved the Iksar, mysterious two faced citizens of Katta, etc. Velious faction wars were fun, but damn were they "generic" giant vs dragon/dwarf. I don't get the hatred for cat people, but no one bats an eye over frogloks or lizard people.

[Nydosa]

Originally Posted by koros [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I don't get the hatred for cat people, but no one bats an eye over frogloks or lizard people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PGTuTiyEXw

a) They have no rotational turning animation
b) They run like they crapped their pants
c) They attack like they're toasting someone and and then their hand rolls back like a dropped tape measure
d) Like all Luclin-models, they have more in common with Gargoyles when sitting than the fidgeting old-world models
e) They're locked in a permanent kung-fu stance for no reason
f) Those who liked the old-world models are stuck seeing these god-awful models running around, compounded by the fact they're named Kitty Pawpaw

Frogloks are not a whole lot better, but at least most people get sick of the hopping after a while...heh.

Iksars were at least animated similarly to the old-world models, and were done as right as an animal-man model could be.

[koros]

Originally Posted by Nydosa [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PGTuTiyEXw

a) They have no rotational turning animation
b) They run like they crapped their pants
c) They attack like they're toasting someone and and then their hand rolls back like a dropped tape measure
d) Like all Luclin-models, they have more in common with Gargoyles when sitting than the fidgeting old-world models
e) They're locked in a permanent kung-fu stance for no reason
f) Those who liked the old-world models are stuck seeing these god-awful models running around, compounded by the fact they're named Kitty Pawpaw

Frogloks are not a whole lot better, but at least most people get sick of the hopping after a while...heh.

Iksars were at least animated similarly to the old-world models, and were done as right as a animal-man model could be.

Fair enough. But that's more a byproduct of the models being shit. Also you're spot on with the name thing.

[Dakidd4990]

Am I the only person who's favorite era of EQ was PoP and OoW?

[Lisset]

I thought Luclin was a 50/50 expansion, half good half bad.

I liked the nexus because there were only 4 places to go and you still had to wait.

I actually liked the bazaar, but could take it or leave it.

I LOVED aa.

I liked horses too.

On the other hand, hated the new zones, race and class.