Luclin

[fastboy21]

Porting isn't instant travel unless you are a Druid or wizard IMO.

[Gadwen]

I had a ton of fun in Luclin and PoP era on Live. in hindsight yes, I enjoyed the classic era more...but a large part of that has nothing to do with the mechanics of the game itself. But when Luclin came out I don't remember thinking that the game was being destroyed, in fact I liked a lot of the features it brought to the game. Yeah the whole moon thing is kinda dumb and it could have used a little more time on the drawing board...but what stage of EQ couldn't have used a little extra dev time or a little more testing etc? But overall I enjoyed myself during Luclin, it never once prompted to me to write a dissertation on the downfall of EQ.

[Splorf22]

I'm told most people either think Velious or PoP was the high point of EQ. I'm curious why people hated whatever expac came after PoP (I quite on Live just after Kunark, so all these expacs are new to me)

[pasi]

Originally Posted by Splorf22 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm told most people either think Velious or PoP was the high point of EQ. I'm curious why people hated whatever expac came after PoP (I quite on Live just after Kunark, so all these expacs are new to me)

The first expansion after PoP was a cash grab for armor dye, charms, and bank slots.
The next expansion after PoP was predominately a grouping expansion that was incredibly casual friendly. The raids for it were ridiculously difficult for the rewards though.

The first 'true expansion' after PoP was Gates of Discord which most people attribute to the death of the game. Gates of Discord was intended for and tuned for level 70 characters, but the level cap was still 65. IMO, it was the first time in EQ that the game was actually difficult (and by difficult, I don't just mean very punishing for stupid mistakes like EQ up to then was).

Gates had awesome encounter design, but the content was completely overtuned and I think the expansion had only 6 or 7 different NPC models. Every zone also looked the same.

To give you a rough idea of how difficult the expansion was at release - take Uqua 1.0. For starters, the entire zone had an unresistable permanent AOE that reduced your base stats to 100ish. This was only blockable by archetype-equippable items that dropped 1 per trash mob. Each trash mob quadded for 3000 (what 72man raid bosses in the previous expansion hit for. This was in an era where top end warriors were 10k HP with the zone debuff. Every death in the zone spawned another trash mob that quadded for 3k. Now, you could single pull trash, but pulling was complicated in that mobs were spawned off traps rather than static spawns. The entire zone had a timer so you had to move at a certain pace. As time went on, NPCs got more ATK, HP, Armor, Resists, etc. And that's all before the first bosses of the zone.

Now, I'm sure people who never experienced it like the increased difficulty, but the game was bleeding subs and WoW was in beta at this time. The majority of the playerbase was basically confined to a few really shitty instances simply because they didn't have the gear to progress. If you look back at this time, you'll see most of the 'old uber' guilds died off around this time and there was a changing of the guard of top dog guilds.

Kinda sucked that Omens of War was such a great expansion since the damage from Gates had already been done.

[August]

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

The first expansion after PoP was a cash grab for armor dye, charms, and bank slots.
The next expansion after PoP was predominately a grouping expansion that was incredibly casual friendly. The raids for it were ridiculously difficult for the rewards though.

The first 'true expansion' after PoP was Gates of Discord which most people attribute to the death of the game. Gates of Discord was intended for and tuned for level 70 characters, but the level cap was still 65. IMO, it was the first time in EQ that the game was actually difficult (and by difficult, I don't just mean very punishing for stupid mistakes like EQ up to then was).

Gates had awesome encounter design, but the content was completely overtuned and I think the expansion had only 6 or 7 different NPC models. Every zone also looked the same.

To give you a rough idea of how difficult the expansion was at release - take Uqua 1.0. For starters, the entire zone had an unresistable permanent AOE that reduced your base stats to 100ish. This was only blockable by archetype-equippable items that dropped 1 per trash mob. Each trash mob quadded for 3000 (what 72man raid bosses in the previous expansion hit for. This was in an era where top end warriors were 10k HP with the zone debuff. Every death in the zone spawned another trash mob that quadded for 3k. Now, you could single pull trash, but pulling was complicated in that mobs were spawned off traps rather than static spawns. The entire zone had a timer so you had to move at a certain pace. As time went on, NPCs got more ATK, HP, Armor, Resists, etc. And that's all before the first bosses of the zone.

Now, I'm sure people who never experienced it like the increased difficulty, but the game was bleeding subs and WoW was in beta at this time. The majority of the playerbase was basically confined to a few really shitty instances simply because they didn't have the gear to progress. If you look back at this time, you'll see most of the 'old uber' guilds died off around this time and there was a changing of the guard of top dog guilds.

Kinda sucked that Omens of War was such a great expansion since the damage from Gates had already been done.

We were typing at the same time -- but yes, exactly this. Couldn't remember the names of the damn zones, but I do remember just thinking this stuff was so overpowered it was unbelievable. My guild disbanded due to the increased difficulty and there really was a consolidation of guilds

[August]

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

The first expansion after PoP was a cash grab for armor dye, charms, and bank slots.
The next expansion after PoP was predominately a grouping expansion that was incredibly casual friendly. The raids for it were ridiculously difficult for the rewards though.

This was LoY and then LDoN? I remember doing the instance content (sand place, mistmoore-ish type place, etc) and then wondering why I was doing it - IIRC the rewards were like augments or like, sub-ornate level gear. My guild did the raids a couple of times and i remember thinking the only reason the gear was even close to worthwhile was multiple sockets for augments. I do remember there being something specific about charging an item - maybe a ranged slot? for those instanced dungeons. The expac was semi-fun.

[pasi]

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

This was LoY and then LDoN? I remember doing the instance content (sand place, mistmoore-ish type place, etc) and then wondering why I was doing it - IIRC the rewards were like augments or like, sub-ornate level gear. My guild did the raids a couple of times and i remember thinking the only reason the gear was even close to worthwhile was multiple sockets for augments. I do remember there being something specific about charging an item - maybe a ranged slot? for those instanced dungeons. The expac was semi-fun.

The LDoN gear was actually outstanding if you took the time to grind it or exploit kill # missions with a clay bracelet.

Originally, the armor could be hit with 3 40 HP augs so it was 100+40+40+40 which was at least on the HP level, equivalent to top-end raid stuff. Even after the nerf, you could get 140 HP stuff with slots for secondary stats/effects. The problem was if you were playing LDoN that hardcore to buy all this stuff, you might as well just raid.

Yes, more LDoN powered up your adventurer's stone which augmented your charm slot. The only charm slot worth a shit would have been the PoP progression one.

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

I remember a lot of talk going around during god /oow that you really couldnt complete god progession without oow gear. Maybe some guilds did it, i dont know for sure but i do know it was hard as fuxxx. These two expansions were almost released in the wrong order from what i remember, or thats atleast what a lot of the talk was.

Gates of Discord wasn't cleared until everything in Omens of War minus OMM and Arch Mage had also been killed. Even on the recent progression server with lots of overpowered stuff being left in the game from future expansions, I don't think Tacvi was fully cleared.

[mwatt]

(Quote taken from Pasi's post about G.O.D.)

"The majority of the playerbase was basically confined to a few really shitty instances simply because they didn't have the gear to progress. If you look back at this time, you'll see most of the 'old uber' guilds died off around this time and there was a changing of the guard of top dog guilds."

^ This, especially the italics (I added). This is what caused the "death" of the game: bifurcation of the player-base. The problem was initiated in PoP, with all the keying and locking of casuals out of many many zones that they helped pay for, and with all the loss of equipment that went hand in hand.

[August]

Originally Posted by Splorf22 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm told most people either think Velious or PoP was the high point of EQ. I'm curious why people hated whatever expac came after PoP (I quite on Live just after Kunark, so all these expacs are new to me)

It's because GoD was just god-awful and scaled horribly.

I was a time-geared tank and I remember dying horribly and being unable to take hits in the first instance I went into. I honestly don't remember that much because I pretty much quit after being so frustrated after a couple of months. I remember everything just hitting way too hard and multiple wipes. I can't even imagine what the 'casual' crowd must of thought as I was rocking probably 3/4 PoT gear the rest being elemental.

As to why people like Velious - I think that Luclin furthered the divide between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' in EQ. If you weren't max level you couldn't think about AAs. If you didn't have the time to get 270 AAs to be raid-capable then you got kicked out, etc. I think Original-Velious represents a certain class of people and I think Orginal-PoP represents that other class of people. Game died @ GoD for me.

[Acrux Bcrux]

I remember a lot of talk going around during god /oow that you really couldnt complete god progession without oow gear. Maybe some guilds did it, i dont know for sure but i do know it was hard as fuxxx. These two expansions were almost released in the wrong order from what i remember, or thats atleast what a lot of the talk was.