Which is your Fav. Exp? Kunark or Velious

[Loke]

So this has been done to death, but I'm bored so I'm going to post why I picked Velious.

The major factor that I like about Velious is the departure from the 32k HP cap. Raid mobs having hundreds of thousands of HP revolutionized raiding. Prior to that, strategy took a back seat to numbers. While I'm sure we all know guilds who still "zerged" in Velious, Velious "zerging" wasn't the same... saying someone zerged Velious was more of a back-handed comment saying "we did it with less".

Furthermore, I liked the notion of "raid zones." Kael, Sleepers, and ToV each having numerous raid encounters was something that Kunark didn't really match (maybe chardok royals?). The numerous mob progression style raid that ToV offered was a great idea (I guess Sky was similar, but ToV was unarguably better).

The encounters themselves took on a new form too. I'd say Luclin took this a step further, but in Velious we saw mobs using a more wide variety of AEs and abilities. Many mobs had scripts or pre-fight requirements, which wasn't widely used prior to Velious (again, I think Luclin took this a step further, which really made those encounters enjoyable imo).

As far as zones go, I really liked a lot of the dungeons in Kunark. I think arguably Kunark has the best collection of dungeons in any expansion. Velious can't really match Chardok, HS, Seb... even the lower level ones like Dalnir and Kaesora were great. I don't think CC, Velks, SG, etc, can really match those so I won't even try to argue that. However, Plane of Mischief is arguably the most inventive and unique zone in the game, so I have to give Velious credit for that.

Faction faction faction. This is one of the biggies imo. The role faction played in Velious gave it a feel that I never got in Kunark. In a nerdy, immersion sense, you almost felt like you were a member of whatever race you were allied with and the opposing factions were your enemy. This especially played in during quests or events like the 10th ring war and such where you were acting as a solider of thurgadin... I don't really know how to word what I'm thinking, but anyone who played in Velious knows what I'm saying.

This next one is kind of controversial and I'm sure a lot of you hate this aspect, but I loved it. Velious caused a noticeable gap between the casual and hard-core player. Not just in the raider v. non-raider sense either. Obviously those raiding NToV and Sleepers were going to be the best geared. However, even a hard-core player in a mid-level guild would vastly out-gear a player who only solo'd or was in a very casual guild. While a large raid force of L60s would net the best gear, a small 1 or 2 group force of hard-core players could still accomplish quite a bit and distance themselves gear wise from the casual player. Some people hated this, but I liked how if you put in more work, you could see a much more noticeable differences than in previous expansions.

I also liked velious because it didn't trivialize Kunark all that much. Many items from Kunark were still among the best items in the game. Basically, there were still a number of reasons to go to Kunark. In fact, I remember Kunark still being the main continent for exp (aside from velks) as many people though Velious mobs for the most part were more difficult, thus slower exp. The fact that it didn't make Kunark content obsolete is one of it's biggest strengths imo.

I'm sure I'm missing some, but now I'm bored of writing this, so yea...

Cliffs: tl;dr? Fuck off then.

[Shannacore]

I never played Kunark or Velious, booooo. Or Classic, for that matter.

[jilena]

I never raided either so Kunark was by far more fun for general use.

[Jenks]

Kunark > Luclin > Velious

[Malavan]

Kunark was my favorite, though a lot of the dungeons weren't used very much. Sebilis and Karnor's both occupied me for a huge amount of time. There was also a nice variation in outdoor zones (not just white)

Velious i remember grinding faction and farming some kinda armor turn-in gems. That and fighting dragons that were walking down hallways that were way too big for them to turn around in.

[Nedala]

I loved both of them, almost equal. Sebillis was my favorite dungeon; karnor was nice too. But i voted for velious: Ringwar,Kael, ToV, Dragons, Sleepers tomb, the whole faction/gear thing....i love velious [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Bones]

Kunark has always been the favorite.
I picked velious however, because that was when I really got into the raid scene, and loved it.

[calaxa]

Kunark introduced one of the best dungeons around (Sebilis). However, it also brought us the nightmare train of KC. It moved the auction area of EC tunnels to LOIO. It brought us 10 extra levels to grind and a new race appearing where everyone made iksar monks and necros, epics and useful clicky armor. However the major problem of Kunark.....still overcrowded and overly camped (Trakanon anyone?).

Velious brought us rotating faction wars (Coldain, Tormax, CoV). Gave us the nasty slippery ledges of Velks complete with traps. The script that was supposed to be impossible to work (awaken and kill the Sleeper). But best of all, it gave us the amazing drops of NToV. It finally gave us enough room to breathe despite the drama of NToV rotations, who was FiF for Tormax/Vindi/AoW, getting eaten by Woushi at WL port in, etc.

[Nedala]

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

It moved the auction area of EC tunnels to LOIO.

on SolRo the auction area was still Kelethin; even when velious came. Bazaar finally killed it [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The script that was supposed to be impossible to work (awaken and kill the Sleeper).

He was killed i dont remember the server.

[calaxa]

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

on SolRo the auction area was still Kelethin; even when velious came. Bazaar finally killed it [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]


He was killed i dont remember the server.

It was rumored not to work (probably because the Developers hadn't finished writing the script for it), and the GMs prevented what would have been the first success of it on RZ. SOE probably didn't expect it to happen as quickly as it did and depopped the zone. He has supposedly been killed on all servers on live now except for Ak'Anon (Mac Server)


Here's one person's account of it:
http://www.albrandes.com/skden/articles/sleeper.asp