"Classic" feeling shifting?

[Loke]

I've always secretly hoped that after velious gets stale here that the Devs would take on Luclin, but not in a "true to live" fashion. My opinion of Luclin has always been that it was a decent raid expansion, that didn't trivialize aspects of the game like PoP did, and that it's major fault was wasted potential. They could have done so much more with quests and faction in places like Katta and Seru. Even the lore supports the idea of warring factions like velious. Tying it back to Kunark and the original exodus to Luclin had potential too - although I am generally wary about altering old zones. That isn't even considering the Vah'shir, which I'm not a huge fan of, but they are a playable race that could definitely make the faction story better with 4 players (Katta, Seru, nexus/SH, Vah'shir).

Another cool thing that seemed new and unique to Luclin that they could have done more with was that zone that shifted what mobs were spawned depending on what players were killing (tenebrous mtns maybe? I never spent much time there). With faction wars and zones in between cities, dynamic zones that change based on the factions that controlled them and tied into armor quests or something would have been cool.

Really, aside from the wasted potential, the only thing really horrible about Luclin was beast lords. I'm probably biased since I primarily played a monk, but BLs were OP, unimaginative , and poorly implemented. Oh, and the graphics update was meh, but that was optional so not really a deal breaker. Even nexus wasn't that bad since 9 times out of 10, a Druid or wizard is still way faster for transportation.

Plz Nilbog, after a well deserved break once velious is done, give a shot at making Luclin the expansion it should have been.

[Sirken]

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

I still think EQ1 without the classic planes (Sky, Hate, Fear) would be a great server in itself if it never progressed past classic.

Realistically speaking, Velious and Kunark have very little content that reminds me of the style of content in the original release. When you found an item with stats in pre-Kunark, you either had to farm for days or go to Lower Guk/Nagafen's Lair - and even then, the two major dungeons felt out of place realistically speaking from a content perspective.

Prior to those dungeons, you had to farm all over the world to get your drops and gear as opposed to just two dungeons on the same continent. There was virtually no point in the many merchant-sold weaponry or classic crafted after getting a SSoY or one of the many other visible armor slot drops in both of those zones.

Maybe I just hold the newbie experience in high regards, but I still think it's a bit silly to have Mithril BPs dropping in Nagafen's Lair around the same time you'd probably make enough plat to make Fine Plate armor.

It's almost like two different developers had designed half of the content. It's weird. I really don't know how to explain it other than 80% of the content gets invalidated with Kunark, and there's so much of it in the game prior that gets overlooked.

well said

[Bodybagger]

Indeed^... I would play the hell out of full classic as I never got to and always felt rather alone in the world with Kunark out and everyone flocking to those zones for gear and higher xp and such

[iruinedyourday]

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

There's one thing asking someone to group, exping or questing with someone.

It's another dealing with:

"That earring for 5k, lol man that's a piece of crap, I'll give you 3k"
"Aww 5k, I really only have 2765 plat, can ya do that?"
"Hey I'll take that earring for 500" - 2 min later - "WTS earring 700"

The same people who hated PoK books are the ones who didn't play porters. I play a 60 druid and 52 wizard. I'm almost never /role on either of them. I get request for pickups in Emerald Jungle or Unrest occasionally. I politely say nope, I'm busy. Most people understand and say thanks anyways. Cool. But sometimes you get the dude offering you 30 plat for the port and complaining when you don't feel compelled to travel 15min across Norrath to port them for less than a hill Giants worth of platinum.

Also PoK book complaining is the dumbest thing in the world on this server. People REGULARLY ask for a port from WC to Lavastorm or EC to SRo. It's 2 fucking zones. Run. But heaven forbid you could click a book and travel yourself. Instead you want to inconvenience someone else, spend their mana and time and quite often not pay them for it.

Don't get me wrong, I do port people, almost never accept plat, and SoW them on their way. The general population of this server however feels entitled to these services and in the same breath they ask for a port with, they will criticizes the very features that unburdened players like myself from providing them.

I don't have any issues porting friends or guildmates. However the "interaction" you refer to from getting a port from a random guy is basically non existent. 95%+ of my ports involve these tells:

"Can I get a port from X to Y"
"Thanks"

Occasionally:

"Sorry corpse run otherwise I'd donate"
Or
"You sure you don't want plat"

Often:

"Can I get a INSERT BUFFS HERE?"

Shit isn't interacting with me at all. You interact more with the guy at the liquor store or the woman at the grocery store scanning your items.

PS - Yes, I am salty of that argument consistently being made on these boards. No one gives a shit about talking to their porter, they just want their port.

Obviously what we need is buff books.

[kaev]

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

I still think EQ1 without the classic planes (Sky, Hate, Fear) would be a great server in itself if it never progressed past classic.

Realistically speaking, Velious and Kunark have very little content that reminds me of the style of content in the original release. When you found an item with stats in pre-Kunark, you either had to farm for days or go to Lower Guk/Nagafen's Lair - and even then, the two major dungeons felt out of place realistically speaking from a content perspective.

Prior to those dungeons, you had to farm all over the world to get your drops and gear as opposed to just two dungeons on the same continent. There was virtually no point in the many merchant-sold weaponry or classic crafted after getting a SSoY or one of the many other visible armor slot drops in both of those zones.

Maybe I just hold the newbie experience in high regards, but I still think it's a bit silly to have Mithril BPs dropping in Nagafen's Lair around the same time you'd probably make enough plat to make Fine Plate armor.

It's almost like two different developers had designed half of the content. It's weird. I really don't know how to explain it other than 80% of the content gets invalidated with Kunark, and there's so much of it in the game prior that gets overlooked.

Agreed. It definitely felt like there were two competing visions of content. In vision one character advancement is a struggle, in vision two character advancement just happens because you're logged in. In vision one druids and necros were nerfed, rogues and shamans were left broken, and the MOTD warned that there would be no GM help if you couldn't recover your corpse from the feet of a dragon before it decayed. In vision two early raid guilds had L20 alts in full planar armor (before the level minimum was put in game) and Kunark release utterly devalued pretty much every droppable classic two-hander within hours (Mithril Two-Hander held value can't recall another that did.)

[Bumamgar]

Kaev: The L20 alts in full planar was due to the simple fact that the devs had no idea what the playerbase would figure out and actually do in game that they simply hadn't thought of. Monks FD pulling is another such mechanic that was unplanned by the devs.

Those things weren't by design, but simply due to inexperience with dealing with a community of thousands of people who would think of things in a different way than the dev team itself considered them.

[iruinedyourday]

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

Kaev: The L20 alts in full planar was due to the simple fact that the devs had no idea what the playerbase would figure out and actually do in game that they simply hadn't thought of. Monks FD pulling is another such mechanic that was unplanned by the devs.

Those things weren't by design, but simply due to inexperience with dealing with a community of thousands of people who would think of things in a different way than the dev team itself considered them.

hell twisting was emergent gameplay.. kiteing.. most of what we do in eq is emergent

[Wenuven]

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

I'd go for a truly classic PoP server. It existed on Al'Kabor and I was able to play there for a year. Definitely best year of EQing I've done. Easily.

Seconded on this. I'd sell my soul for a decent PoP server. Sadly I don't expect I will see one in any reasonable time where I am likely to play. =/ Unless SoE decides to launch a replacement for Al'Kabor as was briefly rumored after the shutdown.

[Mandalore93]

I feel that the perspectives of Luclin and PoP are almost one hundred percent based on nostalgia. Everyone says they hated those expansions...yet live's population continued to climb after PoP for a few years if I recall correctly. People complain about the Luclin Spires, PoK books, and Bazaar. But in truth for their time they were brilliant game mechanics that were light years ahead of their competitors. As someone who really didn't start playing the game until after Luclin released I can say with complete sincerity that the low level game was pretty severely depleted by the time even I had started playing. My grandfather and I duoed for the most part and unless we were in very popular zones such as Crushbone we wouldn't see a soul for days. It wasn't until we started approaching 45 (with level cap of 65) that we began to see other players regularly.

[Grubbz]

pop was hands down the best expansion to any mmo ever. the raiding scene was amazing, casual guilds had targets like xanamech, hedge event and even PoD mini's and the hardcore guilds keep doing what they did best which was the elemental planes and plane of time.

the biggest thing that killed pop for me is when sony allowed an item to drop that would grant users the plane of time flag, this just ruined the progression of the entire expansion, seriously wtf sony......

p99 definitely wouldent have a poopsocking issue with raid targets because there is no way in hell any 1 guild on this server can perma lock down the what 40+ gods and demi gods that come with the pop expansion?

tldr, pop best expansion.