The Pinnacle of Everquest (In your opinion)

[Buhbuh]

PoP was by far the most immersive in raid content, strategy, etc. For PvE, it was amazing.

I'm a PvP guy, so when safe zones came in, I felt like it kind of hurt the essence of no safety. I'm of two minds though. Being able to actually afk in game was a nice thing, and the bazaar was pretty cool. It made the access to wares just way easier.

Some of the AA's made certain classes outrageous in PvP, though. Rangers with endless quiver and AM3 were gods, popped people for 900's non crit.

Ssra was an excellent zone, though.

[Itap]

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

PoP.

/thread

Lol, before opening this thread, I knew 2 things;

1. Daldaen would be the first to post.

2. He was going to say PoP.

[stormlord]

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

This. LDoN was great to have a good-old classic dungeon crawl where you generally don't know where you are going or the camps/named etc. Felt more explorish, until you learned each of the 5 maps per 5 areas.

I really don't get the hate on instancing, see every raid dispute and camp dispute ever. People on the internet don't play nice.

Well come on dudebro not everybody has to be the same. I don't like instancing, so you going to hang me? However, listen to me, I agree with you that LDONs were more explorish because they were lightly random - which also puts everyone on more equal footing. LDON's were also tailored for a single group, as opposed to the more chaotic situation where a dungeon is designed for 50+ people of varying level trying to do 6+ groups, even as some of them are soloing or doing god knows what. And of course not having to fight for spawns was popularly liked. This is why instances became so popular. They were the answer to the problems apparently plaguing the open world.

Hear me out. I can't tell you exactly why instancing turned/turns me off. I think it's because it feels so controlled. The open world is more unplanned, mostly because designers can't know for sure what other players are going to do. Players are the ultimate AI who'll use every tool available to manipulate the world and other players. Designers on their best days can only do so much to clamp down on what players do. And here is where the beauty occurs! In all this unplanned mess magic happens, and the magic happens because of the mystery of the human mind which still continues to defy complete explanation. Yes, other players can hurt us either through mechanics or words or their actions, but they can also inspire us and give us some of the most memorable moments we'll ever experience. And those moments will be completely unique to us. They were not created by designers. No money was spent. These magical moments occur on their own.

I just prefer to play in the open world. To ahve the chance to see someoen else when I'm adventuring. I want that possibility, even if I have to pay for it by experiencing some negative things. Note that as soon as a game adds instancing, more and more players will use it and the open world becomes less populated. Players get hooked on instancing because there's less adversity. Soon, the game designers will abandon the open world and spend their resources on instancing. This is why I do not trust even small amounts of instancing in an open world.

If 98 MMO's all have instancing, I want at least 2 which do not have any. I don't care if 50 of them have only a small amount of instancing. I want 1 or 2 which don't have any at all.

[Doors]

Velious was the best for me imo but PoP was easily their pinnacle.

[Gustoo]

Pre Kunark is the best by far. The content was balanced and meaningful at all levels. I can now solo boss mobs like arch magus and frenzied ghoul as a cleric at level 60. That is in kunark era. Previous high end items like SSOY becoming garbage and amazing zones like Lower Guk being sidelined means that the new expansions are basically dumb, despite the things they bring to the table.

Overall game balance and correct playability is best pre-kunark.

If expansions, then velious by far is the best, because luclin and future expansions damage as much good old content as they create, and for PVP in particular, the bazaar really trashed the game.

POP broke the game with insta-port books, basically destroying community and the large world travel experience, and the dependence on nice druids and wizards to travel quickly.

For me, the less expansions the better, but Velious by far is the last good expansion, because at least kunark is still viable and it doesn't really do much to degrade the already degraded original game content. With Luclin, majority of leveling was done on the moon where absurd EXP bonuses and centralized PC really made the real everquest world a ghost town.

If P99 goes beyond Velious, it should be with custom content to create a more unified and meaningful game experience, rather than just leaving old content in the dust.

It could finish off some of the uncompletable quests from the classic game, give meaning to random items that are good for nothing, and a host of other things. Personally the best would be Classic game, and then open up the dungeons to deeper exploration and add more richness to original content. You can imagine someone found a random hole and was able to go further into Guk and find more mysteries. Ideally, all content should remain relevant. The fact that in classic an SSOY is one of the best 1hs weapons, and in Kunark it is vendor fodder makes it apparent that the expansions were not done the way they should have been.

[squarez]

PoP ? you guys are gross

[fastboy21]

i'm honestly torn on this question. PoP era was the most fun and most immersed (I mean real life time dedicated to a game) that I've ever been online.

PoP was awesome...it was the height of big guild raiding. in that sense, it was the culmination of "progression style bring 70 of your best friends" raid content and it felt truly truly epic.

the problem was that it wasn't sustainable. and when they tried to up the ante on EQ again in OoW and GoD they fell so flat on their face that the game started to implode.

If nothing else, it is very interesting that so many folks are picking PoP---on a classic emu server.

[heartbrand]

I don't know why people say PoP killed community. You had tons of people gathered in PoK and PoT, tons of groups in all the new zones, pickup raids, huge guilds for 72 man raiding, trade skills that mattered, tons of tradable gear and a great economy (ornate armor anyone?), difficult grouper content (BoT bosses), and the best raids. Also had the coolest zones and coolest music (sol ro tower / poearth / potime some of my favs). I don't remember once thinking to myself "man that nektulos pok book is ruining my immersion." Prolly cuz I was balls deep in the new content.

[heartbrand]

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

Pre Kunark is the best by far. The content was balanced and meaningful at all levels. I can now solo boss mobs like arch magus and frenzied ghoul as a cleric at level 60. That is in kunark era. Previous high end items like SSOY becoming garbage and amazing zones like Lower Guk being sidelined means that the new expansions are basically dumb, despite the things they bring to the table.

Overall game balance and correct playability is best pre-kunark.

If expansions, then velious by far is the best, because luclin and future expansions damage as much good old content as they create, and for PVP in particular, the bazaar really trashed the game.

POP broke the game with insta-port books, basically destroying community and the large world travel experience, and the dependence on nice druids and wizards to travel quickly.

For me, the less expansions the better, but Velious by far is the last good expansion, because at least kunark is still viable and it doesn't really do much to degrade the already degraded original game content. With Luclin, majority of leveling was done on the moon where absurd EXP bonuses and centralized PC really made the real everquest world a ghost town.

If P99 goes beyond Velious, it should be with custom content to create a more unified and meaningful game experience, rather than just leaving old content in the dust.

It could finish off some of the uncompletable quests from the classic game, give meaning to random items that are good for nothing, and a host of other things. Personally the best would be Classic game, and then open up the dungeons to deeper exploration and add more richness to original content. You can imagine someone found a random hole and was able to go further into Guk and find more mysteries. Ideally, all content should remain relevant. The fact that in classic an SSOY is one of the best 1hs weapons, and in Kunark it is vendor fodder makes it apparent that the expansions were not done the way they should have been.

Couldn't disagree more. Pre Kunark itemization is terrible. Trade skills are worthless, most named mobs drop crap that no one uses, sol ro temple quests offer awful items with dumb stats for the most part, poorly itemized planar items, etc. Only a couple of item camps end up being worthwhile, for the most part all located in lower guk, leaving most zones completely pointless.

[iruinedyourday]

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

Couldn't disagree more. Pre Kunark itemization is terrible. Trade skills are worthless, most named mobs drop crap that no one uses, sol ro temple quests offer awful items with dumb stats for the most part, poorly itemized planar items, etc. Only a couple of item camps end up being worthwhile, for the most part all located in lower guk, leaving most zones completely pointless.

dude there is nothing terrible about pre-kunark itimization!!! [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Wearing leather the first time you fought nagafin was normal, and AWESOME

the first time I saw someone witht a cof it was like, the most amazing thing ever.

it was a world of mortals on the quest for adventure!

anything past velious and it became a world of gods.