Koadic's Endless Intellect

[Nuggie]

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

Luclin destroyed the game.

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

Not on my watch.

This.

[fadetree]

I liked Luclin ok, but it *was* the beginning of the massive dumbing down and mudflation of later EQ. I can live without it.

Modified luclin probably would be ok once custom stuff is started...for instance, turn PC down so its not a self PL spot. That and a few other changes would maybe go a long way towards reconciling luclin with classic. Luclin DID have some good stuff, some good encounters and mechanics. I do think AA's as they were then were a good idea. Plus, of course, rangers actually got a bit of help during luclin with AM/EQ aa's.

[uygi]

Nobody's saying any form of Luclin implementation would have to be authentic. While P99 aims to be as genuinely classic as possible, there are a lot of things on this server that are not classic both by developers' choice and for technical reasons, never mind how un-classic the playerbase is.

Custom post-Velious content could use any zones in the Titanium client, and I'm sure it's possible to build complete custom zones if there was a real will to do so. There are elements of Luclin that are totally reasonable, like the remnants of the Combine empire and the Shissar living in The Grey. If the cats on the moon are really the sticking point, just eliminate Shar Vahl and bridge the zone connections on either side of it. Don't want to add AAs? Might need to re-tune some content to not need them, but that's really not such a big deal.

[pasi]

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

Oh we do this so often. Oh well! If we're talking altered Luclin...

Modified repost, but:

Luclin ended up being a really solid expansion - it just sucked at first.

I'd go as far as to say the modrod change was the greatest change to raiding in EQ's history. If you have never raided Velious or Luclin before the change - you basically have magicians face a wall and throw 100s of modrods to the floor so the CHeal rotating clerics never go OOM as your DPS autoattacks whatever bad dude that can't possibly kill your tank getting CHealed every 2 seconds. Post rod change, everything got huge HP nerfs and modrods received a cooldown.

Bazaar > EC. I guess there's some people that enjoy the people aspect of EC, but I liked being able to PvP (arena in bazaar) while buying/selling. I enjoyed being able to leave a second account online selling stuff, but I'm someone who would rather play outside of EC.

The whole cats on the moon thing is overblown since Shar Vhal is way the fuck in the middle of no where. I think I went there twice over my entire course of EQ live.

The spires shrinked the world, but using them was still far less desirable than getting a port. It took up to 30 minutes to go from one limited destination to another.

Like every expansion, itemization was fucked at first, but ended up being great. The AC/HP/Mana difference between Luclin and Velious was very small, but the difference was focus effects, more available ATK gear, and more FT gear. Basically, gear became a lot more attractive for non-tanks. Up until focus effects, it really doesn't matter if your caster has 3k HP/mana or 5k HP/mana - your spells are the same. Same thing with melee DPS and non-weapons/haste.

The concept of elemental and bane damage is interesting, but never fully realized. Elemental damage was generally regarded as 1/3rd as effective as weapon damage; however, the aggro per swing of elemental damage is the same as weapon damage. In other words, they could have made proc-less weapons desirable by tanks but not DPS.

Luclin started to modernize raids. You started to see encounters that weren't just a hitbox with an AOE. I posted about this before, but I think the reason Velious encounters are so well received compared to the more complex Luclin encounters has to do with the NPC models being the same and the bleaker environment. If you're not sold on that idea, go look at how well Gates of Discord was received from an aesthetic standpoint.

SSra Temple was one of the better raid zones EQ ever put out. Every encounter there was quality with the exception of Xerkizh the Creator who was basically a Velious-era fight carried over.

I never did Acrylia 1.0 outside of the Ring of Fire and Burrower. Ring of Fire was an amazing fight when it actually worked. I think only Ring of Valor ever ended up doing Inner Acrylia. There was the whole Grimling War raid that never got done much until EQmac years later.

Vex Thal was a huge disappointment outside of the loot. I'll give this point up to the Luclin haters. So. much. trash. The zone was pretty, the loot was awesome, and blinding Eoms were hilarious, but still a piece of shit zone.

Toward the end of Velious, you started to see a return to groupable gear not being terrible with the revamp of Chardok. This continued in Luclin and probably culminated with the revamp of Cazic Thule. Cazic Thule post-revamp was fucking awesome as an exp zone. You got FT2 shoes from Tormax Head? Well, fuck you - I got me FT3 from the Sewers of motherfucking Cazic Thule.

AAs give people progression outside of gear (raiding). This brings people back to Sebilis, Howling Stones, Velks, etc. and returns some of the social aspect to the game. Toward the end of Velious, 60s just AFKd in Thurg/Kael and occasionally raided.

And for the first time in EQ's history, the developers tried to give a fuck about balance. Druids become ok again, rangers stop sucking, paladins get something to do on raids, mages stop being vending machines, necros become a real DPS class, wizards stop sucking in sustained fights, etc.

Luclin, fuck yeah.

[myxomatosii]

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

Seriously. Nexus added boats to and from NK, Tox, G Fay, GD and DL (15 minute interval ports). Yes, it made travel slightly easier, but it in no way made druid/wiz porting obsolete. That was PoK.

The best was when you got to the spires, sat down for your port. Oh cool its energizing, wait, why didn't I zone??


FUCK I FORGOT TO ASK FOR THE FUCKING GEM.

[uygi]

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

The best was when you got to the spires, sat down for your port. Oh cool its energizing, wait, why didn't I zone??


FUCK I FORGOT TO ASK FOR THE FUCKING GEM.

Sound pretty damn classic to me!

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

[Luclin analysis]
Luclin, fuck yeah.

I'm with you, the problems with Luclin weren't humongous. Some reasonable adjustments could make it what it needs to be to be the continuation of the P99 server. IMO on the day you release whatever-the-new-stuff-is post-Velious, start a fresh P99 blue server and have it run the full course classic the whole way, when it's done merge it onto the server with new content...

But some people are just gonna hate.

[fadetree]

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

...(excellent analysis)...
Luclin, fuck yeah.

With ya Pasi. Good writeup.

[Tenlaar]

I'll echo that Luclin, fuck yeah. And I don't care what anybody says, popping into the bazaar and searching for stuff is roughly 1000000% better than sitting in the damned EC tunnel all day just to not find the items you want.

[Cookiefist]

It seems to me Kunark - Velious - Luclin is pretty good balance of raid content for the amount of pop on this server to handle...

[jpetrick]

Things I enjoy: playing the game
Things I don't enjoy: Spamming EC. If we could just get the bazaar and nothing else from Luclin that would satisfy me