Would PoP be considered classic if it was released before Luclin?

[Bumamgar]

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

Everything you said is wrong... how is that possible without trying?

I disagree. Luclin and PoP were great expansions for a variety of reasons.

Luclin:

• AA rather than level boost was an excellent idea. Not only did AA give players a way to increase their character's power, it also gave a bit of customization control to the player other than exclusively via gear. Pre-Luclin, there were few options for customization. Sure, people may have had some variety in gear, but there really wasn't that much variety at the high end. Character customization is a good thing.
• Multiple key quests with gating mobs for end-game content. While there is some of this in Kunark and Velious (VP key in Kunark, Sleeper's key in Velious) they aren't nearly as comprehensive as Luclin with the Emperor and VT key quests. Heck, the keyed zone in Velious isn't even considered the 'end-game' zone, but rather a side trek for some nice toys. NToV is the end-game zone and can be accessed without any keying at all.
• Tiered raid content. This trend really started with Velious, but Luclin takes it even further, with a fairly clear progression between open-zone raid mobs -> Ssra named -> Vex Thal

PoP:

• Tiered content taken to it's logical conclusion, with only a few zones available initially, requiring personal flagging (via PoJ Trials) to access Tier 2 and then a combination of key quests and flagging to unlock later zones. Before the addition of level based access (a bad move, imho) there was a real sense of achievement when unlocking access to a new zone.
• New tradeskill items breathed new life into the market, providing several items that were of use even to raid-geared characters.
• Tiered quest armor. Ornate vs Elemental armor gave players a way to obtain decent gear without raiding, or raiders a chance to fill in a few slots that were lacking due to bad luck on drops. However, Ornate wasn't good enough to completely negate old content.
• Pickup raid scene blossomed. For a variety of reasons, but largely due to the need for backflagging, the PoP era was a pickup raider / casual raider's dream expansion. Given the effort required and itemization of the tier 1 - 2 content in PoP, end-game guilds generally had no desire to monopolize this content. They did, however, need to flag new recruits and absentee members, so the PoP era saw a large number of open access, pickup raids on pre-elemental content. Also, given the amount of content available in PoP and the time investment required to farm elemental armor and key for things like PoEarth-B, end-game raiders were often kept busy enough in PoP that Luclin and Velious targets opened up to lower tier guilds and pickup raids as well.