What does velious actually add?

[noleriand]

#openthedoor2020 what do the spell vendors know?!

PoP was a return to Norrath but the whole "it was all a dream" ending does a lot to deflate its story. Where's that hidden city of Zebuxoruk the manual hinted at so long ago?

Luclin as an optional add-on tho, I dunno. Between classic and PoP it seems like the least optional expansion, what with mounts changing casting (catch your med tick while casting omg!) and the Bazaar siphoning all commerce to it and free afk intercontinental (technically, interplanetary because that's how silly Luclin is) travel becoming a thing. Probably other stuff too, but that's just off the top of my head. Oh, and AA's! Luclin may have been 33% of the expansions at that point, but I don't think its nuts to say you were missing out on closer to 50% of what was available overall - much higher tier than say, missing out on Warrens.

Oh and about things that Velious adds, I know it turned out to be a lore dead-end until like 2007 but the whole threat of a draconic apocalypse heralded by Kerafyrm was at least kinda interesting! And it fit with a game whose manual has a bunch of dragon lore in it but is a little light on shadow entities.

As much as I rail on it, if I were making my own expansive world I would steal heavily from Luclin, I'd just try to make it feel like a thing that everything else was leading up to, rather than the kind of weird, spectacular tangent it felt like. Set up, pay off and all that jazz.