Shadows of Luclin Your opinion?

[mostbitter]

What I remember most about luclin was that it changed a game which used to have tons of people all over it to one that had all its players in one place.

[Radiskull]

I feel that, contrary to popular belief, two things killed EQ.

1) Instances. This means LDoN, not Luclin or PoP. While PoP and Luclin may have been where people started to point fingers, the mass exodus didn't start until after LDoN, GoD, etc.

2) World of Warcraft. The rise in popularity of an easymode, do everything on your own MMORPG attracted millions upon millions of people. EQ decided to alienate their original player base and try to do what WoW had already done, hence the implementation of instances. The problem with this, is that WoW was already doing it, and doing it much better on a much bigger scale.

Did people dislike the bazaar? Obviously. Did people dislike translocators and PoK books? No question. These weren't back breaking features, they were merely the beginning of the end. They were the start of an easier EQ. It was still a pain in the ass to go from Kaladim to Lake of Ill Omen. Just not an hour time-sink pain in the ass. Anyone who pretends the corpse run from Firiona Vie after dying in Sol B at efreeti or FGs is fun, and what makes EQ fun is masochistic. The fact is, EQ was getting bigger and bigger. If easier means of transportation weren't provided, you'd have continents off of Odus and Faydwer. You would be taking boats to take boats to take boats to get where you wanted to level. You'd have to come home after working 10 hours, only to escape in to a video game where all you'd do all night is take boats for that night and hope that tomorrow you can get your mindless grind on after begging someone to bind you!

I understand that people didn't like Luclin and PoP. I understand why. I just hope you all understand that some sort of change was inevitable. The books made an immersive, amazingly large fantasy world seem much smaller. But, the books didn't kill EQ, time did. Over exposure did. It'll lead to the end here, just as it led to the end there. How long can top end raid guilds really enjoy this raid scene? It's much more grotesque to me then PoK books. Good day, sirs.

[Atmas]

Like others have said Luclin was a mixed bag. As a caster, speicifically a Wizard I liked a lot of it.

Pros IMO

1. AAs really made certain classes shine (particiuarly Wizards and Rangers) and was a pretty cool way to advance your character.
2. Ssra was an awesome zone
3. The loot had a lot of really cool clickies
4. Horses where a nice addition that still felt very fantasy
5. Caster gear! Seriously needed after the velious expansion was so melee based

Cons IMO

1. VT was a terrible raiding zone
2. PvP was broken in several ways. I think 2hbash was a game breaker

I think a lot of people didn't like Cats but I didnt play one and I didnt mind. A lot of people complain about spires but in truth they only went a handful of places and had a wait time. I made way more money as a Wizard TLCing people who wanted to be various locations quickly and were hanging out in the bazaar.

People seem to be getting confused, there were no instant teleportation books in Luclin. Those books came in with PoP.

[Vohl]

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

Luclin was dumb because it took away too much from the tolkein-esque fantasy world that EQ was built on.

Agree 100%.

The world in this expansion was not the EQ that everyone knew and loved. Vah Shir were questionable. Whacky zones filled with whacky mobs and item drops with nonsense names certainly lacked appeal. Ssra was admittedly cool. VT, the CandyLand zone of the expansion, had incredibly good loot, and was a challenge to raid, but suffered from the same issues as nearly everything else in this expansion.

[Sslaesha]

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

2) World of Warcraft. The rise in popularity of an easymode, do everything on your own MMORPG attracted millions upon millions of people. EQ decided to alienate their original player base and try to do what WoW had already done, hence the implementation of instances. The problem with this, is that WoW was already doing it, and doing it much better on a much bigger scale.

Lololololol! Everquest introduced instances with LDoN in 2003. World of Warcraft came out in 2004, derp?

[Kika Maslyaka]

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

This is one of the best posts I've seen in a while. It was well thought out and explained really well. The only thing I would have added is that this was the result of Sony taking over. Brad McQuaid and his team (Verant) were basically a small section within 989 studios and operated mainly on their own. It's Brad McQuaids vision of EverQuest that we experience as ''Classic EQ''. When Sony began stepping in, things started to change, and it started feeling less like Classic EQ the more Sony's decisions influenced it.

Incorrect.
Brad McQuaids and his team were in charge of the Vision, all way trough Luclin and PoP. Blame him. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

As much as people like to blame Luclin, PoP, LDON, etc for fall of eq, until the day WoW was released, EQ only kept growing its numbers. The day WoW came out, EQ numbers have fallen 50% overnight.

[Mcbard]

I didn't like the concept of the expansion at all. Cats on the moon, little ugly ass aliens everywhere, and the interaction needed to play the game (travel/buy/sell) was diminished slightly. I can't remember when the "luclin" ui was introduced but that also upset me at the time.

I think the large, fantasy themed zones of classic EverQuest were lost and done away with during Luclin. The world started to get less connected as the content left norrath. Velious/Kunark were connected via boats in actual ocean zones whereas to access PoP/Luclin there was just sort of one "hub" zone you magically transported to in order to access the rest of the expansion. I didn't really like that aspect of the expansion as it was a disconnect for me. The single biggest problem though is that I can't recall there being a single dragon in the entire expansion. Just cats, snakes, and aliens. Really unfortunate.

I enjoyed AA's a lot and think that character development beyond reaching max level was a great call.

[knottyb0y]

Luclin like Planes of Power were an odd mix of awesome and terrible. I don't think either expansion killed Everquest, but they took away some things that made classic Everquest strong, but over all added a lot of good. I wish I had the power to implement those two expansions in the way I think would be the most beneficial to the game.

Starting with Luclin
Keep: AA's, More Raiding Zones, Interesting Raid Encounters, More hunting zones for levels 40-60, Beastlords

Problem: Vah Shir: New races don't inherently suck. Now placing them on the moon was a little far fetched.
Solution: Place the Vah Shir on Odus, connect either their city to the continent somehow, or add them to the cats already on odus.

Problem: Player models were kinda crappy (particularly animations).
Solution: use the low rez cat models and get rid of horses *shrug*

Problem: Nexus (safe zone). Really I would argue the spires allowing players to teleport to gfay, nk, toxx, dreadlands and Great Divide wasn't that bad. These ports only occurred every 15 minutes but they did allow players to have a wider range of ability to group without destroying the port trade. Ala, my guildmates want me to group in Seb, but i'm in Velious. I can get there in about 30minutes. I would still have a lot of running to do, but the point is to allow people to get together faster imo.

Solution: Nexus shouldn't be a safe zone (for pvp). Sprinkle in the lore to make it NOT part of the moon. Also really made these giant spires all over the world a lot cooler imo.

Problem: Bazaar. The bazaar initially is not a terrible idea. It was a couple expansions later when it was "optimized" that it got funky. Initially it was a zone, where just like EC where people could stand around and trade. It had nuetral bankers and a lot of tradeskill merchants. No auto merchant mode, no finder, just a big zone that was easy to get to for people to trade.
Solution: Keep bazaar in 1.0 form. nuetral hub, no find, no PC merchant, filled with tradeskill merchants.

Problem: Expansion is on the moon.
Solution: This is the hardest one. A lot of sprinkled "fan lore" and some zone connection reassigning would be the ideal solution. Or if that's too much work (I can only imagine how many quests would have to be worked with). At least connect all the Luclin zones as a new continent, or some weird underground expansion from Odus or something. This is the hardest part of adapting this expansion.

Planes of Power
Keep: Amazing Tiered Raiding System that actually didn't (at low teirs) invalidate Velious or Luclin Raids), Keep level 65, keep more AAs, more leveling zones

Problem: Plane of Knowledge and books
Solution 1: Remove the Plane of Knowledge, and sprinkle all the planar zones throughout the oldworld.

Solution 2: remove the books and give it an entry system similar to the Nexus (15 minute interval spire 1 per continent, or just add some zone entry connected to an old world area (odus library or felwithe library might be decent though that holds faction problems).


Basically we almost all acknowledge that AAs, Beastlords, and More Raiding Space is not a bad thing. You don't want to shrink the world too much, because the glue of everquest is socialization

[Atmas]

I think GoD killed EQ more than any other expansion. As strange as mobs looked and were named in SoL it was nothing compared to GoD. Ridiculous looking and named mobs and horribly uncreative encounters, spells, and zones.

It's kind of a shame cause I played some OoW and that was actually not terrible.

I still think with the exception of the books PoP was awesome. Awesome Lore, fun progression with a sense of accomplishment, useful AAs, sweet spells, and a nice conculsion (maybe too nice).

[ziggyholiday]

Originally Posted by knottyb0y [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Problem: Bazaar. The bazaar initially is not a terrible idea. It was a couple expansions later when it was "optimized" that it got funky. Initially it was a zone, where just like EC where people could stand around and trade. It had nuetral bankers and a lot of tradeskill merchants. No auto merchant mode, no finder, just a big zone that was easy to get to for people to trade.

^^ Bazaar didn't go autotrader mode until PoP or just before PoP as I recall.