Koadic's Endless Intellect

[Aerar]

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

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

You prefer afk bots that will set the market value? I hate that then its not an auction, at least with EC you can make offers and trades - Bazaar makes it just afk for plat

[Atmas]

pasi, I love your post.

I think Velious was a good addition after Kunark but it did very little for meaningful progression for a lot of caster classes. Infact I would go so far as to say most true casters kind of take a substantial hit on raid usefulness.

[Aerar]

To be fair we arent even at Velius yet so Luclin if it was even ever considered should be years away

[jpetrick]

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

You prefer afk bots that will set the market value? I hate that then its not an auction, at least with EC you can make offers and trades - Bazaar makes it just afk for plat

I don't have all day to sit in the tunnel looking for an item. I would rather pay more and have the convenience of being able to hit the bazaar for 5 minutes get what I want then resume playing. I used to always send a pm over an item as well, sometimes the person would be there and be willing to cut a little off.
Also I can sit there and afk to sell my bags. Do you know how boring it is to sit in the tunnel selling handmade bags? Answer: incredibly.

[Vohl]

Ssra was the one thing about Luclin that I liked. The rest of it was alien and either plotless or unappealing.

[rixardion]

There are quite a few well thought out posts that are actually on the side of Luclin being a good expansion, and while I thought I was in the minority here, it seems that many share my feelings.

I have complete confidence that we all know the things that truly ruined the game, the reasons we aren't playing live today, so I believe any type of implementation would be the best that it could be. Any change that would help balance or would deter inevitable over powering would most certainly be made to curb such things from happening. We have seen the future, we have an enormous advantage when deciding what truly "broke" aspects of the game or the game as a whole!

[Arteker]

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

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.

luclin fixed alot of stuff for players but was rushed to fast . aas where a great idea bazaar , helped. people with no time or interest to deal with resellers .

[Erasong]

i never understood the hate for cats on the moon but the acceptance of dogs in the earth ( kobolds ), or lizards in the ruins oh wait but not THOSE lizards in the ruins.. these other cooler lizards in these other ruins no one has discovered yet.

[kaev]

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

i never understood the hate for cats on the moon but the acceptance of dogs in the earth ( kobolds ), or lizards in the ruins oh wait but not THOSE lizards in the ruins.. these other cooler lizards in these other ruins no one has discovered yet.

I suspect that it's not so much hate for cats in the moon as utter disdain for the players who swoon over cats in the moon.

Like everything else in EQ, it's never the horrible decisions the devs made, it's never your own incompetence or unrealistic expectations or willingness to turn a blind eye to the stupid shit your friends/guildmates pull, it's all those other damned nimrods and assholes you have to share the world with that drive most of the emotional reactions. If only those people* weren't ruining everything this would be great!

[*] substitute <TMO> / asians / euros / racists / highschoolers / unemployed trailertrash / twinkers / PLers / two-boxers / uberguilders / carebears / pvpers / bards / druids / necros / whateverthefuckelse

[Xelris]

I want to see this server get all the way to PoP (eventually). I loved PoP.

You'd have to pretty much nuke and repave Plane of Knowledge, but other than that it was a really fun expansion on the raid, lore and group scene.

Luclin wasn't that bad at all. Echoing most of the sentiments of people above me, I'd be fine with the expanded content.

Hell, make it so Dreadlands is the only way in and kill the portals if you're that afraid of it hurting Druids and Wizards. Exile the Bazaar, Burn Shar-Vahl, get rid of horses, remove the need for new models, whatever you need to do to preserve the game, but more content is nearly always beneficial for the game... especially because it gives casual guilds a progression path and things to do in earlier expansions while keeping competetive guilds busy in other crap.