So what's there to do in Velious anyway?

[Flamewraith]

All I ever hear is this big hype for Velious, and I can see why considering current content might be stale for those that have been here from the beginning, but what's so special about velious anyway? I came into eq right at the launch of Luclin, so all the knowledge I have of velious are a couple of zones that I hunted in for a level or two. To my knowledge it doesn't add any levels.... If that's the case what is Velious other than a gear hunt?

[xious]

One of my most precious memories from EQ was the event for the "ring war".

This video doesn't do it any justice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoMogwxgw-0

[Shivilian]

All I ever hear is this big hype for Velious, and I can see why considering current content might be stale for those that have been here from the beginning, but what's so special about velious anyway? I came into eq right at the launch of Luclin, so all the knowledge I have of velious are a couple of zones that I hunted in for a level or two. To my knowledge it doesn't add any levels.... If that's the case what is Velious other than a gear hunt?


With that attitude, you probably wont have much fun when Velious hits.

Velious was a great expansion when it was released. It added a certain epic feel to the game. The nostalgia and rekindling of old memories are where the value mainly lies.

[t0lkien]

Velious was the pinnacle of classic EverQuest. Luclin pretty much shat on all that. If you liked and preferred Luclin, you're not going to like Velious much.

[Flamewraith]

With that attitude, you probably wont have much fun when Velious hits.

Velious was a great expansion when it was released. It added a certain epic feel to the game. The nostalgia and rekindling of old memories are where the value mainly lies.

I didn't mean to say it with an attitude, much more with a tone of curiosity. I see how it looked coming out, but what I really wanted to know was what features it has. For instance I like how it adds Kerafyrm as an unkillable boss, that just boils my blood that they made something impossible, but I respect it as well. I just wanted to know what else there is to do since leveling isn't a key aspect like in Kunark.

[Flamewraith]

Velious was the pinnacle of classic EverQuest. Luclin pretty much shat on all that. If you liked and preferred Luclin, you're not going to like Velious much.

I do like Luclin, but I say that because it was all that I knew, I watched my friends and parents play classic EQ from day 1 but I never had the time to ctually get into myself until Luclin launched.

[Barkingturtle]

Rangers get panic animal.

[Flamewraith]

Rangers get panic animal.

Lol, better start rolling out the red carpet for the worst class in the game for two xpacs in a row. It's almost a shame that we won't see Luclin, if I remember correctly that's when rangers get mean as shit with AA's.

[canibiss420]

velious added more dragons. nerds love dragons

[Flamewraith]

velious added more dragons. nerds love dragons

Dragons are interesting. On doing some research about siding with the dragons I looked into their "city" and the bitch looks like a death maze. Do you actually need to traverse that thing to get the quests that their faction offers? If so I think I'll take my chances with the dwarves.

[t0lkien]

Velious has loads of new gear that ramps up logically and forms a sort of pre-requisite acquisition tunnel to higher content, a fantastic setting and story/lore, and serious raid targets. There are meaningful faction choices (giants or dwarves) which directly affect available gear/items/encounters, and it's really a guild competition paradise. It contains possibly the most epic quest ever implemented - the Coldain Ring War - and just so many fantastic areas it's impossible to describe. You have to play it. I started EQ right at the beginning of Velious and it took me a long time just to get high enough level to visit it, let alone raid there. It's the best MMO expansion I've ever played through (and no doubt there is a bit of nostagia attached to that, but not much). If you like classic EQ as it is on p99 now, you'll love it. If you don't really, you probably won't.

[Hobie819]

Velious was the first expansion designed for the high level game. Every zone was created for lvl 20+. No new races or classes came with it. There were no gimmicks with the expansion (as with the cat people of Luclin). Quests were incredibly involving, such as the shawl and ring. When you stepped onto Velious, it felt as if you were a part of the storyline of EQ. Plenty of new zones, outdoor and indoor. Honestly, the storyline of Velious was the best storyline in EQ. The first three continents had storyline but it didn't really involve you. For instance, you never find out in game why Erudin was created, or why the hole was created. It's just there. Kunark is fun but again, we never really feel like we are part of that storyline. Velious made you feel as if you were a part of the storyline - made you want to learn about your environment. It made you decide between factions, as mentioned above, and the storyline associated with that faction.

Velious added a lot of new content. The content that was added was obviously well thought out with (as far as I remember at least) few glitches. It's also the last expansion where it felt like you were adventuring. After Velious was Luclin, where if you wanted to get anywhere in the world all you had to do was get to a spire.

That's my take on why Velious was awesome.

[t0lkien]

^^ and this. p99 is not going past Velious. All these reasons are why that is so. It was the last great part of classic EverQuest; it didn't break anything, but rather enhanced and added to what had gone before. There are just so many parts of it to look forward to.

[Flamewraith]

So why so much hate on Luclin? I admit the whole easy transport thing was not in the spirit of EQ, but I thought the AA's were a great idea, and I have to say that I enjoyed playing a Vahshir BL.

[Itap]

Because Luclin character models suck ass.

[t0lkien]

Luclin broke the game on several fundamental levels. I agree parts of it were good, but the first time someone linked a pair of +120hp legs in trade, I knew the glory days were past. AA's also broke the game (Fading Memories for example on the Bard fundamentally changed and trivialized aspects of the class; dumping aggro was a Monk's main ability and it gave a better version to Bards i.e. it simultaneously messed up two classes). It set precedents of class and gear and system changes that were impossible to undo. Mudflation in every area of the game - items, stats, money, general class power - took over. Insta-ports undermined the porting classes and took value away from all movement abilities. The Bazaar removed the gloriously chaotic, community driven EC tunnel cluster. It completely blurred and overwhelmed what had made the game great.

Also, it suddenly introduced psuedo sci-fi elements into what had been a purely High Fantasy game previously. It was an ugly addition thematically, and it was obvious to me at the time that it had been designed by people who no longer understood what they were doing, or why their game had been awesome. It felt as if it had been designed to keep people playing rather than extend and enrich the world.

Also, the new models/animations.

[Kope]

Most of the expansion is based off of a 2 1/2 way war. Giants are the evil guys trouncing on everyone. Dragons are kinda the neutral guys depending on which side of lore you side with. Dwarves are the underdog good guys.

You kill giants and you get dwarf and dragon faction.

You kill dwarves or Dragons and you get giant faction.

There are other factions as well but this is the main premise behind the story of the expansion. YOU get to choose which side you align with.

The outdoor dungeons are HUGE and a lot of diversity of mobs.

The dungeons are incredible (Dragon necropolis anyone?)

You have to pick up an item from each of the teleports to be able to BE teleported there.

Go through some smaller dungeons/zones and you get to Kael - the giant city. Past kael is Wakening lands, a jungle like area where there is a dragon guarding the teleporter. In the middle-ish part of WL is a tree which leads you to the Plane of Growth, hippy land of Tunare that's a pain in the butt but cool at the same time.

Past WL is Skyshrine the dragon city and as you have said deathmaze if you are not aligned with dragons.

Then you get to the high end of the expansion - Cobalt scar (basically a beach with ledge above, the beach has otter people and a dragon that swims in the waters). Past that you swim into the water and in a side cave randomly leads you to the Sirens Grotto which is kinda a crazy zone that you have to get through to get to...

Western Wastes. A huge outdoor snow zone that is literally FILLED with dragons...and a woolly mammoth?

From Western Wastes you get to the 2 higher end raid dungeons (not counting Velk's Labyrinth) 1) dragon necropolis which is awesome for groups and 2) TOV which is the high end raid dungeon. At the end of ToV is an odd zone you can find that's a half secret called Plane of Mischief.

The expansion really gave you the power to experience it how you wanted. You had choices, and your choices altered how the main factions acted towards you. Want an easy way to get to WL? Go giant faction. Want to get through skyshrine easily? Go dragon faction. Want both? Have fun grinding faction multiple times.

You have the power to do what you want, the game doesn't force you to play any single way.

...Sorry I think I just got nostalgia all over the forums.

[SCB]

Haters gonna hate but there isn't a zone in classic EQ that's as cool as Ssra Temple, imo. Everything to do with Akhevans aside from actually fighting Akhevans was awesome, also, but I've always been a sucker for interesting bad guys/schisms.

Luclin has a bad rep in these parts that I think it doesn't totally deserve. If you go play in the neighbor kid's basement, you can't get mad that he wants to play what he wants to play, but I think it honestly gets more hate than it deserves.

Velious excites me for one reason over any other - factions that really define your character and your playstyle. The factions really gave you the sense that the world existed before you and would survive if you never came back. There is very little I enjoy as much as an immersive world in any game, and Velious delivers that more than any other MMO I've played, IMO, even prior/later EQ expansions. Edit: Dragon Necropolis is also cool as can be.

[Shivilian]

I didn't mean to say it with an attitude, much more with a tone of curiosity. I see how it looked coming out, but what I really wanted to know was what features it has. For instance I like how it adds Kerafyrm as an unkillable boss, that just boils my blood that they made something impossible, but I respect it as well. I just wanted to know what else there is to do since leveling isn't a key aspect like in Kunark.

I also didn't mean to say that you had an attitude :) only that you cannot look at Velious as just a gear hunt. Or expect there to be a lot of changes. Because there wasn't. The Scars of Velious expansion introduced immersion at a level never seen before. While they certainly did add gear, Lore, fantastical zones (if you can look past low resolution textures, even today they should allow a certain level of awe when exploring them), Epic quest lines that require a lot of time and effort in all areas of everquest... the list goes on. They added something for everyone. You can complete most of these epic quest lines (ring war comes to mind) without a huge "poopsock" guild. Back in the day, if you were ready to start the ring war... all you did was advertise when and where you were going to start it and people came. It was just something for everyone to get involved with, regardless of guild ties.

All levels and play styles had something to do with Velious. It was just, fun and filled with stuff to check out.

[Shivilian]

Haters gonna hate but there isn't a zone in classic EQ that's as cool as Ssra Temple, imo. Everything to do with Akhevans aside from actually fighting Akhevans was awesome, also, but I've always been a sucker for interesting bad guys/schisms.

Luclin has a bad rep in these parts that I think it doesn't totally deserve. If you go play in the neighbor kid's basement, you can't get mad that he wants to play what he wants to play, but I think it honestly gets more hate than it deserves.

Velious excites me for one reason over any other - factions that really define your character and your playstyle. The factions really gave you the sense that the world existed before you and would survive if you never came back. There is very little I enjoy as much as an immersive world in any game, and Velious delivers that more than any other MMO I've played, IMO, even prior/later EQ expansions. Edit: Dragon Necropolis is also cool as can be.

I agree with one exception... AA points. The invention of AA points was the start of the downfall in my opinion. I loved Luclin and SSra temple for sure. However, they bottlenecked the hell out of Xevra or whatever the end raid zone is in Luclin. If they removed the end zone and the AA points. I would totally get into Luclin again for sure.

[Aaron]

This thread gave me a partial.

[Dirtnap]

It has never been stated that Luclin would not come out on P99.

Nilbog has stated that there will never be cats on the moon, but that just means Vah Shir could be re-envisioned as Kerra in custom content. The custom content would most likely utilize Luclin zones. Thus Luclin would technically come to P99.

[t0lkien]

It has never been stated that Luclin would not come out on P99.

Nilbog has stated that there will never be cats on the moon, but that just means Vah Shir could be re-envisioned as Kerra in custom content. The custom content would most likely utilize Luclin zones. Thus Luclin would technically come to P99.

From the p99 "About the Server" section:

Project 1999 started development in 2008, and was released in October of 2009. The mission of the project is to create the classic feeling that many had during the early days of Everquest during those time periods, starting with Classic content and releasing the other expansions and content on a similar timeline that was experienced on Live. The server will stop at Velious, at which point many options will be considered, including possible custom content that will maintain the spirit of the game, and/or an additional new server starting over at Pre-Kunark.

[Kope]

Rogean has also directly said that he's open to custom content after Velious has been out a while...or was that Nilbog?

[t0lkien]

I can't heeeear you *lalalalalalalalalalala*...

Actually, by then I'd almost be ready to start over on a new server, depending upon how the "custom content" affected the rest of the game.

[Dirtnap]

From the p99 "About the Server" section:
The server will stop at Velious, at which point many options will be considered, including possible custom content that will maintain the spirit of the game, and/or an additional new server starting over at Pre-Kunark.

The rest of the sentence that you didn't bold is exactly what I said.

EDIT: I should have been clearer. There will never be cats on the moon, but it doesn't mean there won't be cats at all.

[Lojik]

I just thought the storyline for Velious was awesome with Dragons v. Giants. Also seemed like there were a lot more zones where travel is treacherous. Choosing factions was also pretty cool.

[Kika Maslyaka]

what Rogean meant to say was that instead of "cats on the moon", there will be
"Frogs on the Moon", followed by "Cats of Power", followed by "Lost Drakkin of Nectulos",etc ;)

[utenan]

Luclin broke the game on several fundamental levels. I agree parts of it were good, but the first time someone linked a pair of +120hp legs in trade, I knew the glory days were past. AA's also broke the game (Fading Memories for example on the Bard fundamentally changed and trivialized aspects of the class; dumping aggro was a Monk's main ability and it gave a better version to Bards i.e. it simultaneously messed up two classes). It set precedents of class and gear and system changes that were impossible to undo. Mudflation in every area of the game - items, stats, money, general class power - took over. Insta-ports undermined the porting classes and took value away from all movement abilities. The Bazaar removed the gloriously chaotic, community driven EC tunnel cluster. It completely blurred and overwhelmed what had made the game great.

Also, it suddenly introduced psuedo sci-fi elements into what had been a purely High Fantasy game previously. It was an ugly addition thematically, and it was obvious to me at the time that it had been designed by people who no longer understood what they were doing, or why their game had been awesome. It felt as if it had been designed to keep people playing rather than extend and enrich the world.

Also, the new models/animations.

^ This is why Luclin gets a bad rep ( because it deserves it! )

[mtb tripper]

Cant wait for velious

[mtb tripper]

heres you a little bit of nostalgia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnDiB9liJMM

[Kope]

heres you a little bit of nostalgia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnDiB9liJMM

That's such a horrible trailer :(.

At 40 seconds in you're clearly in Firiona Vie as well...

I like the video of the guy running around on his own in Velious more myself. I forget what that one's called.

*edit* found it. EQ1 - Velious in 5 mins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJKI1rLXNlw

This makes me more nostalgic than the actual trailer.

[t0lkien]

Gosh, that second one brings back memories. I still have all those zones completely memorized.

[NachtMystium]

That's such a horrible trailer :(.

At 40 seconds in you're clearly in Firiona Vie as well...

I like the video of the guy running around on his own in Velious more myself. I forget what that one's called.

*edit* found it. EQ1 - Velious in 5 mins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJKI1rLXNlw

This makes me more nostalgic than the actual trailer.

Was just about to post that link. Just watching this I can just feel how I'm gonna be addicted all over again when Velious comes out. hnnggghhhhh

[webrunner5]

You better like snow, and ice, and wind howling, because half the zones look like you are in the ice age. :eek: But it is a great expansion.

[falkun]

Fading Memories for example on the Bard fundamentally changed and trivialized aspects of the class; dumping aggro was a Monk's main ability and it gave a better version to Bards i.e. it simultaneously messed up two classes

Monks should NOT have been the primary pullers, FD as a mechanic was never intended to provide split pulling, but it worked out that way.

http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/FD.php
http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/Fading_Memories.php

If you think FM did not have its drawbacks, you're wrong. FM costs 900 mana, for a class that cannot make any use of mana regen spells or items (remember when AA shipped with Luclin, FT still did not function for bards), and bard meditate skill is stuck at 1. Also, at 60 I have ~1400 mana, I couldn't even FM twice. The only bards who could would be TMO bards with BIS, and even most of them couldn't FM twice. That may change a bit with Velious and then Luclin loot, but with the slow mana regen, you aren't FMing for group exping much.

While some AAs definitely broke the game (think mana burn), Fading Memories was a tool given to return a class to its rightful place as supreme puller as the need for resists waned. Throughout classic, monks went from being a DPS class to being DPS, puller, and tank. Other classes rightfully got pissed off as monks overshadowed them on every aspect of the game. Monk CC was better than enchanters and bards, monk tanking was better than non-defensive warriors and strictly better than knights, and monk DPS damn near rivaled rogues. See this thread (http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=43914) about how OP monks were in Velious.

[fastboy21]

Its not true that everyone who loves luclin will hate velious.

The main difference, imo, is that up until luclin came out EQ expansions (Kunark and Velious) added to the existing world. By that I mean that they did not replace the old content and zones with new content and new zones.

Once Luclin came out there was very little reason to continue to play in the old world. There were some reasons (epic farming was still needed, some exp zones were still packed and AA breathed new life into the max lvl exp'ing game, some raid targets, etc.), but largely you could have replaced the entire game experience by playing only on luclin. The old zones were beginning to fade from common use in the game. This gap between existing content and new expansion only got wider and wider with each expansion.

Personally, I liked Luclin. The raids, the new zones, the AA, etc. What I didn't realize was killing the game until later is that they should have been enriching the existing world---not abandoning old zones and making them obsolete to make room for new content. The paradigm of expansion, progress, loot, progress, loot, etc...killed a beautiful world.

[t0lkien]

Monks should NOT have been the primary pullers, FD as a mechanic was never intended to provide split pulling, but it worked out that way.

http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/FD.php
http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/Fading_Memories.php

If you think FM did not have its drawbacks, you're wrong. FM costs 900 mana, for a class that cannot make any use of mana regen spells or items (remember when AA shipped with Luclin, FT still did not function for bards), and bard meditate skill is stuck at 1. Also, at 60 I have ~1400 mana, I couldn't even FM twice. The only bards who could would be TMO bards with BIS, and even most of them couldn't FM twice. That may change a bit with Velious and then Luclin loot, but with the slow mana regen, you aren't FMing for group exping much.

While some AAs definitely broke the game (think mana burn), Fading Memories was a tool given to return a class to its rightful place as supreme puller as the need for resists waned. Throughout classic, monks went from being a DPS class to being DPS, puller, and tank. Other classes rightfully got pissed off as monks overshadowed them on every aspect of the game. Monk CC was better than enchanters and bards, monk tanking was better than non-defensive warriors and strictly better than knights, and monk DPS damn near rivaled rogues. See this thread (http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=43914) about how OP monks were in Velious.


Well, that's actually a matter of debate. Thott championed Bards as main pullers because he was a Bard and loved pulling. Thott was pretty entitled about things a lot of the time, and just because he thought it didn't make it so. He was bit full of himself actually, though a great Bard and a great advocate for our class. But he was a player, not a dev, and his opinion was as subjective as anyone else's.

I'm not aware of pulling being a design mandate of the Bard class from Verant's point of view (though I'd be happy to see links disproving me). Bards played as non-pullers were fine - I did mainly that all through Velious and Luclin. That piece of hyperbole Thott wrote about Monk FD ability is a bit of a wank. He was just put out that his favourite role had been usurped by another class IMO. It was sour grapes on his behalf more than an objective assessment of class power. I could write an equally damning piece of fiction about Bards and FM.

Instead of FM and other AA's like it, Bard AA's should have brought their lack of general power into balance with the other classes (Thott wrote a great post about that elsewhere). That's my opinion though, and what I would have done.

I thought monks were fine in Velious though a bit too DPS heavy. I personally would have improved the animations though :) There is no way they could replace tanks in raid situations and made great pullers in a way Bards never could (even with FM).

[heartbrand]

Ill always love luclin because it gave us the ability to continue to meaningfully progress our characters 24/7, made it easier for new people to catch up because there were always groups, led to more zones being used etc. If there were AA's server pop would be four digits constantly and red would be around 300 ( equivalent of like 2000 blue ).

[diplo]

PALUDAL CAVERNS FTW!

[RevengeofGio]

Luclin just felt weird to play.... like they were stretching to find something useful for us to do so we'd keep playing/paying.

That being said AA's were a mixed bag. It fixed some classes and broke others.

[heartbrand]

Luclin wasn't perfect but it was the lead up to my favorite MMORPG expac of all time PoP.

[Wotsirb401]

Velious adds Arch Lich! My Necro can sit around EC like a BAMF

[freakyuno]

I'm not aware of pulling being a design mandate of the Bard class from Verant's point of view (though I'd be happy to see links disproving me).

Verant actually never intended people to "pull" at all, and "split pulling" ended up being a function of a broken internal system to reset mobs on player death. Over the evolution of the game it became a valid strategy and they endorsed it and started to design around it, but "pulling" was never part of the original design or the intent of any class to perform.

[Tecmos Deception]

After reading what HB had to say about Luclin, I actually have decided that I would probably love it ON P99. I hated it on live. It was what made me quit for the first time, and what started the trend that kept pushing me to quit until I gave up on live for good.

As a casual player on live, I wasn't max level when luclin hit, I had crappy gear, I hadn't explored all of classic/kunark or much of velious. But suddenly the zones that I loved and wanted to keep spending time in were emptying out, and the places I knew to get gear/money weren't worth it anymore, etc.

Here I've already worn out the current content in just about every way imaginable though, and if we spend a year or more in Velious I'm sure I'll feel the same way about it. Not sure about the rest of p99's population though /shrug

[Tecmos Deception]

Verant actually never intended people to "pull" at all, and "split pulling" ended up being a function of a broken internal system to reset mobs on player death. Over the evolution of the game it became a valid strategy and they endorsed it and started to design around it, but "pulling" was never part of the original design or the intent of any class to perform.

Hence EQ2 mobs being tied together and being unkiteable and crap?

Why the hell did they create the lull spells if they never intended people to pull/split though? Harmony, lull, etc. Just to pass by mobs without the use of invis/ivu? That seems unlikely.

[heartbrand]

I don't play on blue, but on red we have lots of people max level who only log on for raids / occasional pvp skirmishes, there's just no other reason to be online there's nothing else to do. This makes it a ghost town for new players who come, no groups, empty zones, etc. If there were AA's suddenly everyone's online again grinding out AA's, groups are plentiful, newbs don't feel like everything is a ghost town, there's more PVP since there's more people online, higher pop begets even higher pop, etc.

I am very much in the camp that Velious doesn't give much to the non-raider to do camp, since unlike on Live where many of us weren't even level 50 when Velious came out, the majority of the playerbase here is already capped out, instantly making irrelevant / obsolete a great portion of Velious. What do VP / Planar / Kunark geared chars need with most of the stuff from CC / Velk / ToFS, etc.? Even a lot of the skyshrine / kael armor are only slight upgrades over end game Kunark gear, and a lot of NToV shit is garbage. Maybe I'm completely off base, but I foresee NToV being full cleared week one, if not day one, and everything being farm status rather quickly. This is not the case in Luclin where the difficulty gap is much greater, you have the grind of bane weapons for Seru / Emp, and the key grind to VT, etc, and completely not the case in PoP where there's a meaningful progression from PoD / PoJ to PoV / PoS on to HoH / BoT / RZ to Sol Ro Tower to Plane of Fire to other Elemental planes to PoT, and then you have GoD that also has a deep and difficult, meaningful progression. I really think Velious is going to be on farm mode day one here with the exception of ST which obviously requires keys, but the difficulty of ST from what I vaguely recall is below that of NToV anyway. You have AoW in Velious but if you guys can straight up tank the Bee queen who currently puts out more DPS than the AoW, than you can do AoW as well.

[Wotsirb401]

It would take more than a year to be tired of Velious gear, unless you play way too much

[fastboy21]

Hence EQ2 mobs being tied together and being unkiteable and crap?

Why the hell did they create the lull spells if they never intended people to pull/split though? Harmony, lull, etc. Just to pass by mobs without the use of invis/ivu? That seems unlikely.

You have to remember that EQ was very very new when it came out. It wasn't like the difference between WoW and Rift.

The way players used their abilities wasn't pre-defined by roles they were expecting to have from other games they had previously played. The sand-box mentality of the designers (though they weren't using the term sand-box yet) gave players the opportunity to individually and as a community define how they were "supposed" to be playing and what their abilities were "supposed" to do.

The above poster is right that they realized what the lull line could be used for single pulls, but I don't think they knew all the implications of the effect yet on game play when they put it in.

[fadetree]

I liked luclin, if for nothing else than finally some ranger love. SSRA was a very cool zone as well...lots of good stuff in luclin. PoP was a great expansion, but I don't want P99 to go there...it just really finalized the end of the game I knew for me. After PoP, it was a different game. Still pretty good, but not the same.

[Tecmos Deception]

I think there is a lot to be said of playing EQ for the sake of playing EQ. Just because CC doesn't offer upgrades to a level 60 doesn't mean that level 60 isn't going to have a hell of a good time for many hours /played on an alt in that zone.

Also, I think the "errybody has a 60!" thing is quite an exaggeration. http://p1999pop.dmsimard.com/db/Levels ... 5500+ characters seen on the server and fewer than 300 of them are 60s, even though we have a bare minimum of 800-900 different actual players on the server every single night. 3/4 of the characters on the server are sub-50!

[falkun]

Heartbrand, I don't think there are enough players on Red to clear NToV, kill AoW, and the like. It took Red how many weeks from their first foray into VP until they had cleared the zone? And that was with mobs with 32khps. Ya, you'll be in NToV and ST faster because you have far fewer people to key, but you'll also get far less done because you have far fewer people keyed/playing.

[Tecmos Deception]

Besides, it's not like having AAs on red would help "new players" at all anyway. So there are more 60s on red grinding AAs. How is it you figure that will help "newbs" in in the 1-40 zones feel like the server is thriving?

[heartbrand]

Heartbrand, I don't think there are enough players on Red to clear NToV, kill AoW, and the like. It took Red how many weeks from their first foray into VP until they had cleared the zone? And that was with mobs with 32khps. Ya, you'll be in NToV and ST faster because you have far fewer people to key, but you'll also get far less done because you have far fewer people keyed/playing.

Red cleared PD / Silverwing / Xygoz with 19~ people day one of entering VP. We full clear VP with 28-30.

[heartbrand]

Besides, it's not like having AAs on red would help "new players" at all anyway. So there are more 60s on red grinding AAs. How is it you figure that will help "newbs" in in the 1-40 zones feel like the server is thriving?

Pop begets pop. When you see the server with double digits, no one wants to roll there. When it hits 200+ etc., you start thinking oh this server has picked up again let me roll here, and because of this multiple people are now rolling up, more newbs in zones, more people who got burnt out @ high 40's low 50's due to groupage issues etc. It's called momentum.

[Alarti0001]

I don't play on blue, but on red we have lots of people max level who only log on for raids / occasional pvp skirmishes, there's just no other reason to be online there's nothing else to do. This makes it a ghost town for new players who come, no groups, empty zones, etc. If there were AA's suddenly everyone's online again grinding out AA's, groups are plentiful, newbs don't feel like everything is a ghost town, there's more PVP since there's more people online, higher pop begets even higher pop, etc.

I really think Velious is going to be on farm mode day one here with the exception of ST which obviously requires keys, but the difficulty of ST from what I vaguely recall is below that of NToV anyway. You have AoW in Velious but if you guys can straight up tank the Bee queen who currently puts out more DPS than the AoW, than you can do AoW as well.

Tanking Bee queen for a matter of seconds does not in any way equal tanking a flurrying AoW for minutes. 32khp vs what? a millionish?

I think day 1 Tormax and Statue will be dead, AoW not a chance. Sontalak and Dozekar is fairly dependent on which version they have(or if they have enough information about Doze 1.0 at all)
As far as NToV goes... the tough one is Vyemm, Vulak wasn't a challenge. Will see how we do with Aary i suppose.
Thats all with TMO though and I expect us to have ridiculous numbers.

However most of ST is easier than some of NToV

[heartbrand]

A lot will depend on resists, if they continue to let us pump our resists to 500 [gotta love having 500 FR vs Nexona], then Velious is going to be pretty trivial.

[FenninEQaddict]

I think there will be plenty of fun to go around and keep everyone occupied for a few years in Velious. Lets not jump ahead too far yet.

I wonder though with all the zones being CSR zones how the competition will be. Hopefully they will let us know a couple weeks prior to release so I can take vacation time for a week to enjoy the release.

[xCry0x]

Tanking Bee queen for a matter of seconds does not in any way equal tanking a flurrying AoW for minutes. 32khp vs what? a millionish?


A lot of truth in this... people underestimate ntov & AoW mobs were cleric mana actually becomes an issue due to length of the fights.

As to what I am looking forward to in velious.. just like original & kunark I am looking forward to learning the content from an adult perspective. I think I fall into the same category a lot of others here do, when I played originally I was 12/13/14 years old ish and I am constantly amazed now at my lack of understanding of the game.

My live experience of velious was basically sitting in velks lab leveling with scattered runs to kael to farm armor and a handful of tov armor farming runs mixed in... also lots of time spent with my computer removed from my room due to getting in trouble with parents =P Most of my velious raiding experience was as a spectator or tagging along with friends since I kept getting left behind every time i got grounded lol.

Luclin is where I quit and to echo what Tecmos said, the reason I didn't like those later expansions was because they emptied out the 'old world' content. Lguk, solb, seb all empty. It is something that happens in almost every mmo that exists long term and it sucks... it also leads to popularity of these 'classic' servers though. Maybe if I was a more advanced player when Luclin came out I would have enjoyed it more. I think the AA thing was one of the better mechanics for a game because I am the type of player that generally sticks to one char and maxes them out vs having 5 million alts. At the same time AA start to build a barrier where all of a sudden you could be a new lvl 60 but compared to a level 60 with 300 aa points you are a noob still. I also hated the bazaar.

[freakyuno]

I fairly clearly, remember week 2 Velious AoW raids, and running CH with spot healing chains for 10 to 12 minutes before everyone was out of mana and camp and succor calls started. DPS early in Velious is really low before farmed / geared out velious raid forces.

[radditsu]

North dragons do not have THAT many HPS. 100k-200k range. But most of them have pretty tame Ae's Except for Vyemm , aary, and a couple of the trio (one gflux, one disease). The rest are pretty standard AE cold /fire resists. In ST, everything besides 2 of the warders are pretty easy to deal with. If you can take Tormax, you can take the majority of ST. Sont is going to be a pain due to outdoors. I always remember outside fearing dragons wrecking raids much more than anything in NTOV.


Take paludal out and luclin was amazing. It really was not worth it to exp in any zone due to the mobs being so much harder/much more hitpoints, it was all gear farming. Paludal wrecked the newbie/first tier zones for exping. Luclin put hair on my balls and made my body ready for the planes of power.

[Halius]

Lol at that signature. Haven't seen that movie in a long time.

[radditsu]

Sine yo pitty on the runny kine.

[TarukShmaruk]

I liked that Velious added some crucial new spells, some great raid content (I never even saw NToV..), and great quests like the prayer shawl and the ring.

I remember grinding my way up to the 7th shawl and just how brutal that tradeskill grind was - mostly the tailoring and blacksmithing portions - and then my asshole puckering as I did that combine that can fail. (and I did have it fail once). Actually got my 8th shawl later on too.

As another poster said, Luclin sucked thematically more than anything else. I can forgive the shitty models that I can turn off, I can forgive mooncats, but the setting was atrocious and only further shat on by the awful Gates of Discord BDSM theme.

The raids were also super long and shitty - VT made me quit the game because after spending 8 hours in a VT raid I decided I didn't want to play EverQuest anymore.

That said, I actually liked the bazaar. Having to leave your character in game as a vendor was an interesting mechanic, and I think AA's were an absolute godsend for keeping people into the game. It really gave you something to do once you hit max level, and you were always gaining something even if it was just a tiny bit of AA xp.

I couldn't care less about the arguments that it just raised the cap from "max level character" to "max level character + X number of AAs". Getting Run 3, innate mana regen, stats, abilities, that was all super fun to me.

Luclin also had a ton of shitty zones that nobody ever did because the mobs were hard and the XP sucked. Scarlet Desert? The Grey? Katta Castellum? Twilight? GTFO.

I can't even think of an actual high level Luclin dungeon people did like OS or Velks Lab - can anyone tell me if there was one? Nobody touched Akheva Ruins/Griegs End/Ssra (except for key stuff and raiding)/etc on my server. FG only for AoE groups...

[freakyuno]

I liked that Velious added some crucial new spells, some great raid content (I never even saw NToV..), and great quests like the prayer shawl and the ring.

I remember grinding my way up to the 7th shawl and just how brutal that tradeskill grind was - mostly the tailoring and blacksmithing portions - and then my asshole puckering as I did that combine that can fail. (and I did have it fail once). Actually got my 8th shawl later on too.

As another poster said, Luclin sucked thematically more than anything else. I can forgive the shitty models that I can turn off, I can forgive mooncats, but the setting was atrocious and only further shat on by the awful Gates of Discord BDSM theme.

The raids were also super long and shitty - VT made me quit the game because after spending 8 hours in a VT raid I decided I didn't want to play EverQuest anymore.

That said, I actually liked the bazaar. Having to leave your character in game as a vendor was an interesting mechanic, and I think AA's were an absolute godsend for keeping people into the game. It really gave you something to do once you hit max level, and you were always gaining something even if it was just a tiny bit of AA xp.

I couldn't care less about the arguments that it just raised the cap from "max level character" to "max level character + X number of AAs". Getting Run 3, innate mana regen, stats, abilities, that was all super fun to me.

Luclin also had a ton of shitty zones that nobody ever did because the mobs were hard and the XP sucked. Scarlet Desert? The Grey? Katta Castellum? Twilight? GTFO.

I can't even think of an actual high level Luclin dungeon people did like OS or Velks Lab - can anyone tell me if there was one? Nobody touched Akheva Ruins/Griegs End/Ssra (except for key stuff and raiding)/etc on my server. FG only for AoE groups...

Haha, The Grey...a zone without air...wtf, lol.

If you didn't like raiding for 8 hours, you must never have been on a bad planes wipe in the classic days, and spent the next 18 hours solid attempting cr's

[Halius]

I liked the implementation of AAs as well, if they had been thought out a little better so they didn't break classes. It gave people something to do (as stated above) after obtaining the max level, other than raiding constantly. If it were me, I would have done Luclin, and PoP (which I actually somewhat liked) without all the teleportation and knowledge books and instead add portal spells to wizards and druids further making them useful in the travel department. They completely destroyed a druid/wizards usefulness when they implemented the books and scions. Also they bazaar would have to go, EC tunnel trading is so much more fun that running up to a PC character that isn't even there and clicking on them to browse their wares.

Edit: They also undermined the granduer of the world by implementing scions and books by making everything so easy to get to. Part of the epicness of EQ was traversing a massive world to get from point A to point B.

[freakyuno]

I liked the implementation of AAs as well, if they had been thought out a little better so they didn't break classes. It gave people something to do (as stated above) after obtaining the max level, other than raiding constantly. If it were me, I would have done Luclin, and PoP (which I actually somewhat liked) without all the teleportation and knowledge books and instead add portal spells to wizards and druids further making them useful in the travel department. They completely destroyed a druid/wizards usefulness when they implemented the books and scions. Also they bazaar would have to go, EC tunnel trading is so much more fun that running up to a PC character that isn't even there and clicking on them to browse their wares.

Before the Bazaar, most EC tunnel traders had become bots anyway running MQ scripts for buffs / sales...so it wasn't that much different. Not that I liked the Bazaar, nor did I like the books / scions, nor the town bind npcs.

[TarukShmaruk]

Haha, The Grey...a zone without air...wtf, lol.

If you didn't like raiding for 8 hours, you must never have been on a bad planes wipe in the classic days, and spent the next 18 hours solid attempting cr's

I was and I had.

But for some reason those didn't bore me the way VT did.

Maybe it's because Fear/Hate were cooler, maybe it's because the monsters were more interesting than some absurdly named Xi Fh Van Blu Diabo Zu trash mob that took an hour to kill - I don't know.

[Halius]

Before the Bazaar, most EC tunnel traders had become bots anyway running MQ scripts for buffs / sales...so it wasn't that much different. Not that I liked the Bazaar, nor did I like the books / scions, nor the town bind npcs.

True, although at least in EC it took someone sitting behind a computer to trade with you than just leaving your PC on overnight. Actual interaction is always better than nothing, it basically just added more NPC traders to the game without Sony having to create them.

[joppykid]

By far my favorite expansion. If you like adventuring, there are a lot of great zones for it. A lot of it is pretty dangerous too so it makes it even more fun. Velk's (post nerf), Thurgadin, CC, Royal Velium, Crusty Shell Armor, Velium!!!!! Whats not to love.

[Rezonation]

I can't even think of an actual high level Luclin dungeon people did like OS or Velks Lab - can anyone tell me if there was one? Nobody touched Akheva Ruins/Griegs End/Ssra (except for key stuff and raiding)/etc on my server. FG only for AoE groups...

Acrylia Caverns and The Deep are the only zones that even closely resembles either of those dungeons.

[spoils]

SSRA was a cool raid zone...but that's about it.

a million FUCK YOU's to VT shard farming...I'd do 4, but 10? yea fuck you verant.

[xCry0x]

True, although at least in EC it took someone sitting behind a computer to trade with you than just leaving your PC on overnight. Actual interaction is always better than nothing, it basically just added more NPC traders to the game without Sony having to create them.

I don't spend a ton of time in ec, and sometimes it can be frustrating trying to find something you need.

BUT

The mechanic of actually trading with people and negotiating prices/trades is fun when it works, even when it is for small amounts.

Wtb item x paying 10k
Ill sell you one for 11k
Nope 10k
wtb item x paying 10k
Fine fine fine fine 10k it is.
mm satisfaction =P

[heartbrand]

EC tunnel is great for sellers and awful for buyers

[Alarti0001]

SSRA was a cool raid zone...but that's about it.

a million FUCK YOU's to VT shard farming...I'd do 4, but 10? yea fuck you verant.

SSRA, Griegs, The DEEP(THO, Burrower Beast), all great raids.

[xCry0x]

EC tunnel is great for sellers and awful for buyers

Eh, it is great for people who are passively buying/selling.

If you are actively looking for something it is just like the real world where the person on the other end has more leverage over you since they know you want to do something.

You can sit in EC silently and buy items when you see someone desperately trying to sell it and then turn around and sell the item when you see someone desperately trying to buy it a few days later.

Or you can be one of the douche traders who ./spam ec constantly trying to sell shit way over value and at the same time trying to buy things way under value =P

[Gadwen]

Or you can be one of the douche traders who ./spam ec constantly trying to sell shit way over value and at the same time trying to buy things way under value =P

There are way too many people on this server who think they are being clever playing the tunnel game. At least the worst offenders usually vanish after the ban waves.

[Ele]

Usual EC banter:

seller WTS xxxx.
/t seller how much for xxxx?
/t buyer what are you paying?
/t seller how much are you asking?
/t buyer taking offers

/sigh

[xCry0x]

Usual EC banter:

seller WTS xxxx.
/t seller how much for xxxx?
/t buyer what are you paying?
/t seller how much are you asking?
/t buyer taking offers

/sigh

I usually end these conversations quickly by just quoting the 30 day price on wiki assuming it has some recently updated numbers =P

Have ended a few lowball/oversells by just saying, dude the 30 day average is ----- that is what I will pay/sell for.

[Gadwen]

Despite all the nostalgia centered around EC, i think the bazaar benefited everyone.

From people actually being willing to sell their low end items instead of vendoring, to sellers being forced to compete with a more realistic inventory of what was on the server...not just against the people who are online and actively selling.

Yeah, you didn't get to have those awesome immersive haggling convos with people all day...so sad.

[Halius]

Despite all the nostalgia centered around EC, i think the bazaar benefited everyone.

From people actually being willing to sell their low end items instead of vendoring, to sellers being forced to compete with a more realistic inventory of what was on the server...not just against the people who are online and actively selling.

Yeah, you didn't get to have those awesome immersive haggling convos with people all day...so sad.

I will say that it was nice to actually be able to find what you were looking for most of the time, and be able to compare pricing if more than one person was selling that item. But I remember quite a few times when I saved up for an item and I thought I had enough money for it and when I found it in the bazaar it was 100+pp more then I thought it would be. At that point, I wished I was in EC because I could send a tell to that person to see if they would drop the price or offer to give them the money and another item in trade. You would rarely get a reply from a bazaar trader if you wanted to offer a trade for an item. That part sucked, but I guess it is just a small detail.

[TarukShmaruk]

Despite all the nostalgia centered around EC, i think the bazaar benefited everyone.

From people actually being willing to sell their low end items instead of vendoring, to sellers being forced to compete with a more realistic inventory of what was on the server...not just against the people who are online and actively selling.

Yeah, you didn't get to have those awesome immersive haggling convos with people all day...so sad.

Absolutely.

The Bazaar allowed you to go AFK for the night while selling those runes/words/pages/sarnak blood/etc. that only a handful of people on the server wanted at that time but for them it was highly valued.

Fortunately I haven't run into the PITA haggling that I remember from live. Generally I'll cut the price from the 30 day average, someone will try to negotiate me further, I'll refuse because I already cut it, and I'll make the sale.

Or someone is selling, I'll buy at the lowest point of the average, and we'll meet somewhere in between. Maybe it's because we're all adults now but I haven't run into too much douchery.

[Swish]

You don't really need the bazaar here as long as you're equipped with a bit of savvy and determination to track an item down.

ahungry.com/eqauctions (http://ahungry.com/eqauctions) - search it, find the seller, get the item.

[Dirtnap]

I will say that it was nice to actually be able to find what you were looking for most of the time, and be able to compare pricing if more than one person was selling that item. But I remember quite a few times when I saved up for an item and I thought I had enough money for it and when I found it in the bazaar it was 100+pp more then I thought it would be. At that point, I wished I was in EC because I could send a tell to that person to see if they would drop the price or offer to give them the money and another item in trade. You would rarely get a reply from a bazaar trader if you wanted to offer a trade for an item. That part sucked, but I guess it is just a small detail.

I like when people talk about haggling being one of the biggest draws to Classic EQ. I can never seem to get anyone to haggle with me at all. "How much for [insert item here]?"
"500pp"
Lowball as a starting offer expecting to haggle "How about 350?"
And never get a tell back. =(
And then the other way around.
"WTS [insert item here]"
"How much for [item]?"
Start with a highball amount expecting to haggle "700pp?"
And never get a tell back. =(

1/5ish people will actually haggle. Everyone else looks up the highest selling price of the item on the wiki and sells it STRICTLY at that price.

[myriverse]

Apart from being on the moon, Luclin really wasn't all that scifi. It was just as fantasy as Norrath, just with a different paint job. And I seriously question the sight of those who didn't like Luclin's paint job. But to each their own.

Only three zones of Velious that I liked: Velk's, Tower of Frozen Shadow, and Great Divide for the Ring War (and Thurgadin for the beer). The giants and dragons can bite me. I really never cared. It was tedious, surrounded by too much white. I remember being tremendously grateful for Luclin and something else to do.

[TarukShmaruk]

Apart from being on the moon, Luclin really wasn't all that scifi. It was just as fantasy as Norrath, just with a different paint job. And I seriously question the sight of those who didn't like Luclin's paint job. But to each their own.

Only three zones of Velious that I liked: Velk's, Tower of Frozen Shadow, and Great Divide for the Ring War (and Thurgadin for the beer). The giants and dragons can bite me. I really never cared. It was tedious, surrounded by too much white. I remember being tremendously grateful for Luclin and something else to do.

Really? You question the sight of people that didn't like these absurdities?

Aliens
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/scenery/akheva-burrower.jpg

More aliens
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/scenery/netherbian-drones.jpg

[t0lkien]

Luclin was game breaking and ugly - visually and thematically. It had some good parts, but overall it was a negative. I loved SSrae as well. The path to VT was soul destroyingly tough, but simultaneously created some of the best online gaming moments of my life (not VT itself). Some of the items were also awesome - the Bard singing bonus gem which could be soloed if you were really smart about it; the insta-click invisibility cloak, and so many others. AA's were a good idea badly implemented and not thought through or understood, and completely messed up what went before them in class development. The Bazaar was a useful abomination that ritually slaughtered the quaint ingame economy and trade game, and preempted the AH and the RMAH. If you like all that, nice, you now have 100+ MMOs that are reskinned versions of the same game to play. Go to town.

Classic EQ, however, is a breath of fresh air compared to the mess Luclin+ created and which WoW logically engorged with mass market mediocrity, and which the entire industry aped mindlessly, rushing with drool flying from their mouths at the thought of the delicious gravy train that would follow....

And so now here we are playing a 14 year old game on a private server because everything else is fucking awful. GG Luclin.

[Halius]

Luclin was game breaking and ugly - visually and thematically. It had some good parts, but overall it was a negative. I loved SSrae as well. The path to VT was soul destroyingly tough, but simultaneously created some of the best online gaming moments of my life (not VT itself). Some of the items were also awesome - the Bard singing bonus gem which could be soloed if you were really smart about it; the insta-click invisibility cloak, and so many others. AA's were a good idea badly implemented and not thought through or understood, and completely messed up what went before them in class development. The Bazaar was a useful abomination that ritually slaughtered the quaint ingame economy and trade game, and preempted the AH and the RMAH... If you like all that, nice, you now have 100+ MMOs that are reskinned versions of the same game to play. Go to town.

Classic EQ, however, is a breath of fresh air compared to the mess Luclin+ created and which WoW logically engorged with mass market mediocrity, and which the entire industry aped mindlessly, rushing with drool flying from their mouths at the thought of the delicious gravy train that would follow....

And so now here we are playing a 14 year old game on a private server because everything else is fucking awful. GG Luclin.

^^ *Massive Audience Applause* Bravo sir, bravo.

[Turp_SmokinPurp]

The server will stop at Velious, at which point many options will be considered, including possible custom content that will maintain the spirit of the game, and/or an additional new server starting over at Pre-Kunark.
Example: after velious is out for a while, Open up like Veksar in lake of ill omen an customize it or something like ( i think its built for level 70s anyway so would be a nice challenge for 60s) or could revamp it, that would be cool. Still waiting for part 1 though, VELIOUS~

[Phats]

Luclin was game breaking and ugly - visually and thematically. It had some good parts, but overall it was a negative. I loved SSrae as well. The path to VT was soul destroyingly tough, but simultaneously created some of the best online gaming moments of my life (not VT itself). Some of the items were also awesome - the Bard singing bonus gem which could be soloed if you were really smart about it; the insta-click invisibility cloak, and so many others. AA's were a good idea badly implemented and not thought through or understood, and completely messed up what went before them in class development. The Bazaar was a useful abomination that ritually slaughtered the quaint ingame economy and trade game, and preempted the AH and the RMAH. If you like all that, nice, you now have 100+ MMOs that are reskinned versions of the same game to play. Go to town.

Classic EQ, however, is a breath of fresh air compared to the mess Luclin+ created and which WoW logically engorged with mass market mediocrity, and which the entire industry aped mindlessly, rushing with drool flying from their mouths at the thought of the delicious gravy train that would follow....

And so now here we are playing a 14 year old game on a private server because everything else is fucking awful. GG Luclin.

QFT lock thread

[Clark]

I love Velious, but Luclin was the best.

[Yuda]

Great post t0lkien.

Is it possible for anything to appeal to the mass market without being mediocre, not necessarily relating to games, but that's what I had in mind.

[Swish]

I love Velious, but Luclin was the best.

(+) New playable race
(+) New playable class
(+) Some decent raid content
(+) New places to level
(+) Easier to travel around for non-porter classes.

(-) The bazaar kills the EC atmosphere.

...I'd take it if it was being offered.

[Pyrion]

Easy travel kills EQ atmospherer as well.

[Swish]

Easy travel kills EQ atmospherer as well.

If everyone was using the boats I'd agree... but the few times I have sat at any dock for a boat recently I'm usually the only one there, unless it's in Oasis.

The server has dozens of porters on at any given time, not hard to find one. People are shortcutting anyway so not sure what problem there'd be in using the Nexus to travel around for those who can't afford druid/wizard ports.

[t0lkien]

If everyone was using the boats I'd agree... but the few times I have sat at any dock for a boat recently I'm usually the only one there, unless it's in Oasis.

The server has dozens of porters on at any given time, not hard to find one. People are shortcutting anyway so not sure what problem there'd be in using the Nexus to travel around for those who can't afford druid/wizard ports.

Core class abilities being taken away from them and given to the open world reduces both the class, the community, the economy, and the ultimately the whole game. The same thing happened with mounts, and with so many other things post Luclin.

If you make a game easier, you make it less rewarding. You can't have one without the other. In the end you are really talking about different games - which is fine. But they are different games. And there are hundreds of those games already. Why do you want another one?

P.S. Getting ported by another player, or gathering the resources together to buy/make a potion to port empowers the systems that allow it. Clicking on a port stone does nothing except circumnavigate the game systems already there. It's counter-intuitive and damaging to value of the things in place already. If you want instant porting, level up a porting class, or the tradeskill that makes the potions, or acquire one of items that allows porting on a cooldown. Bam, you just played the game.

[myriverse]

Core class abilities being taken away from them and given to the open world reduces both the class, the community, the economy, and the ultimately the whole game. The same thing happened with mounts, and with so many other things post Luclin.
Everyone having easy access to ports enhanced the community feel of the game by making it easier for people to interact. Sure, teleporting is a core class ability, but it's not a very important one. Even before the easy access to ports, I seldom ever asked anyone for a port. In raid situations, ports tended to be provided. Otherwise, I took the boat or walked. So, it wasn't really hurting a single thing at all.

If you make a game easier, you make it less rewarding. You can't have one without the other. In the end you are really talking about different games - which is fine. But they are different games. And there are hundreds of those games already. Why do you want another one?
True, but teleports do not qualify as affecting game difficulty.

What teleports did was take a horrible, needless, disgusting timesink and throw it in the trash. Good freaking riddance. And this was even more true as the world had become more than twice as big as originally planned.

[Furinex]

I love exploration and immersion. Free ports for everyone breaks this for me. Why choose a travelish class if everyone can do it? I play a druid, I like being able to get around easily, cart friends all over the place and what have you. Do I still use the boat? Hell yes I do. I love the boat. I might be the only one who thinks like that but, I think the boats are a great feature, they make things seem epic in terms of travel. I remember the first time I took the boat from Faydwer to Freeport. I dont think I'll ever forget it, it just felt like... well an adventure! Even at higher levels, I still find myself exploring places I've never been to, places I've avoided on live for a long time, and opening myself up to more options. This has shown me gratification with Travel to and from. The idea of exploring my way around dungeons, or even open areas gives me a thrill. Although, Being able to zip right out is a great thing too. Its also nice to be able to Evacuate groups. Ive gotten re-invited to groups over and over again due to my fast reaction with Evacs. I generally have good timing. The interaction my class has given me with the server is one of the highest I could ask for. Even if it is getting bombarded with tells for ports, I have made quite a few powerful allies just by going out of my way to use my EQ-given abilities to help someone. Later, this will come to fruition, and it will be paid back I'm sure.

[fadetree]

Luclin was game breaking and ugly - visually and thematically. It had some good parts, but overall it was a negative. I loved SSrae as well. The path to VT was soul destroyingly tough, but simultaneously created some of the best online gaming moments of my life (not VT itself). Some of the items were also awesome - the Bard singing bonus gem which could be soloed if you were really smart about it; the insta-click invisibility cloak, and so many others. AA's were a good idea badly implemented and not thought through or understood, and completely messed up what went before them in class development. The Bazaar was a useful abomination that ritually slaughtered the quaint ingame economy and trade game, and preempted the AH and the RMAH. If you like all that, nice, you now have 100+ MMOs that are reskinned versions of the same game to play. Go to town.

Classic EQ, however, is a breath of fresh air compared to the mess Luclin+ created and which WoW logically engorged with mass market mediocrity, and which the entire industry aped mindlessly, rushing with drool flying from their mouths at the thought of the delicious gravy train that would follow....

And so now here we are playing a 14 year old game on a private server because everything else is fucking awful. GG Luclin.

QFT!

[Thulack]

I love exploration and immersion. Free ports for everyone breaks this for me. Why choose a travelish class if everyone can do it? I play a druid, I like being able to get around easily, cart friends all over the place and what have you. Do I still use the boat? Hell yes I do. I love the boat. I might be the only one who thinks like that but, I think the boats are a great feature, they make things seem epic in terms of travel. I remember the first time I took the boat from Faydwer to Freeport. I dont think I'll ever forget it, it just felt like... well an adventure! Even at higher levels, I still find myself exploring places I've never been to, places I've avoided on live for a long time, and opening myself up to more options. This has shown me gratification with Travel to and from. The idea of exploring my way around dungeons, or even open areas gives me a thrill. Although, Being able to zip right out is a great thing too. Its also nice to be able to Evacuate groups. Ive gotten re-invited to groups over and over again due to my fast reaction with Evacs. I generally have good timing. The interaction my class has given me with the server is one of the highest I could ask for. Even if it is getting bombarded with tells for ports, I have made quite a few powerful allies just by going out of my way to use my EQ-given abilities to help someone. Later, this will come to fruition, and it will be paid back I'm sure.

Taking the boat is a timesink. No real other way to put it.

[webrunner5]

I liked Luclin and PoP also. I liked the Beastlord class a lot. And the teleports were a godsend to evil melee classes. Running back 5 zones when you died was not my idea of a lot of fun 5 times or more a day. By the time Luclin came out hardly anyone played a Druid or a Wizard anyways. Nobody wanted either one in a group. Hell they don't want them now. After PoP the game went to hell. I still play a little bit on live but not much. I have a few level 90's charactors. One Monk with over 3,600 AA's. Talk about some time put into a toon.

And yeah I have a lot of plat and gear but I also still take the boats a lot on here. Neat stuff. And still run 5 zones at times to get to a new place to solo. But I am retired and have the time.

[Gadwen]

Travel is as trivial as you make it in EQ....even into the PoP era.

I don't understand how paying for a port and/or using sow and levitate to run through a zone and face absolutely no danger is so immersive and challenging to people. Or is it just the 3 line covo that you have with the wiz/druid that's porting you that really makes the experience amazing?

[t0lkien]

True, but teleports do not qualify as affecting game difficulty.

What teleports did was take a horrible, needless, disgusting timesink and throw it in the trash. Good freaking riddance. And this was even more true as the world had become more than twice as big as originally planned.

But this is clearly not true. It's all linked together. By making teleportation trivial you made the world smaller, reduced the value of two classes, reduced the value of a tradeskill and the items that needed to be farmed to supply it, reduced the value of the carefully designed and limited port items (the OT Hammer for example). This directly affects player interaction, the economy, the feel of the entire world. If this wasn't true you wouldn't be for them - it made your gameplay easier. Transport is not a timesink. The time it takes forms a baseline for the value of the things that reduce that time. All sorts of gameplay feed off that.

Class "balance" in EQ is not just about combat power. It's about utility, and situational usefulness. Casters tend to be lower on the direct power scale, but are high on the usefulness scale. What one class lacks, another provides. That's the point of class design. Which choice you make depends upon the experience you want. When you dilute those differences you dilute the gameplay and the fun, and the depth of the overall game. Asymmetrical gameplay is difficult to get right, but it creates enormous synchronicity and emergence.

As I said, what you are asking for is a different game - and that's fine (and is what EQ Live became). But there are already hundreds of games like that. Why are you in classic EQ if that's what you want? You are arguing for things that work powerfully against the experience that classic EQ creates. Don't you think that's a bit ironic? Maybe you don't want what you think you do - which is what I think is true of so many gamers in general. They argue for all these changes, and then when they get them they complain that the game is no longer much fun.

Actually, that's pretty much a life lesson right there.

[skacat]

Mentioning Luclin anywhere near here should be a bannable offense. Luclin is not EQ. Honestly, the game was over way before that anyway. It's probably hard to remember that even the Kunark expansion was basically awful. Kunark had absolutely none of the charm or cohesion of the original world, and Allakhazam and the like ruined any chance of people exploring shit for themselves. Everyone went running to forums to get info like a bunch of pissy pants little bitches looking for a game genie cheat code instead of just playing the damn game. No one would give a fuck about Kunark if it weren't for the loot you could pick up there, which was completely unbalanced. boohoo not enough pixels to get for my toon. roll another one or go the fuck outside. The original zones had ten times more style than what they shat upon us with Kunark. And the Iksar didn't fit at all, looked like they were from a completely different game. The original game didn't contain enough level 50 content for the number of players, and thats the only reason anyone gave a shit. The gear they came out with basically ruined the game and made previously epic shit a joke. Honestly they should've left the whole continent lost and just started rolling out more Planes earlier. Velious had more potential but the game had long rotted by then. Lamezords from fuck knows where had long since come and formed a megatron of internet scrub bitches the likes of which id never seen and descended on every corner of EQ 'min/max'ing and cybering in the corners of kelethin for p and rmt and turned the whole place into a cesspool long since. Games ruined, mystery is gone, its never coming back, shits done.

[Gadwen]

Mentioning Luclin anywhere near here should be a bannable offense. Luclin is not EQ. Honestly, the game was over way before that anyway. It's probably hard to remember that even the Kunark expansion was basically awful. Kunark had absolutely none of the charm or cohesion of the original world, and Allakhazam and the like ruined any chance of people exploring shit for themselves. Everyone went running to forums to get info like a bunch of pissy pants little bitches looking for a game genie cheat code instead of just playing the damn game. No one would give a fuck about Kunark if it weren't for the loot you could pick up there, which was completely unbalanced. boohoo not enough pixels to get for my toon. roll another one or go the fuck outside. The original zones had ten times more style than what they shat upon us with Kunark. And the Iksar didn't fit at all, looked like they were from a completely different game. The original game didn't contain enough level 50 content for the number of players, and thats the only reason anyone gave a shit. The gear they came out with basically ruined the game and made previously epic shit a joke. Honestly they should've left the whole continent lost and just started rolling out more Planes earlier. Velious had more potential but the game had long rotted by then. Lamezords from fuck knows where had long since come and formed a megatron of internet scrub bitches the likes of which id never seen and descended on every corner of EQ 'min/max'ing and cybering in the corners of kelethin for p and rmt and turned the whole place into a cesspool long since. Games ruined, mystery is gone, its never coming back, shits done.

Tell SOE that the game was over before Luclin, they didn't see their peak subs until the PoP era. Unfortunately game devs don't base a games value on the quality of each individuals experience, they base it on sub numbers and sales.

[spoils]

Mentioning Luclin anywhere near here should be a bannable offense. Luclin is not EQ. Honestly, the game was over way before that anyway. It's probably hard to remember that even the Kunark expansion was basically awful. Kunark had absolutely none of the charm or cohesion of the original world, and Allakhazam and the like ruined any chance of people exploring shit for themselves. Everyone went running to forums to get info like a bunch of pissy pants little bitches looking for a game genie cheat code instead of just playing the damn game. No one would give a fuck about Kunark if it weren't for the loot you could pick up there, which was completely unbalanced. boohoo not enough pixels to get for my toon. roll another one or go the fuck outside. The original zones had ten times more style than what they shat upon us with Kunark. And the Iksar didn't fit at all, looked like they were from a completely different game. The original game didn't contain enough level 50 content for the number of players, and thats the only reason anyone gave a shit. The gear they came out with basically ruined the game and made previously epic shit a joke. Honestly they should've left the whole continent lost and just started rolling out more Planes earlier. Velious had more potential but the game had long rotted by then. Lamezords from fuck knows where had long since come and formed a megatron of internet scrub bitches the likes of which id never seen and descended on every corner of EQ 'min/max'ing and cybering in the corners of kelethin for p and rmt and turned the whole place into a cesspool long since. Games ruined, mystery is gone, its never coming back, shits done.

Ladies and gentlemen...this guy is mad.

[heartbrand]

I thought GoD had the best music of any expac, each song fit its zone perfectly, it made eq hard as fuck, just getting through natimbi or w/e that second zone was called was hard as fuck, gl if a dog saw invis and got you. Also the aug quest was amazing even if it was incredibly difficult to do. It was also the only expac in eq history where the final boss didn't die before the next expac, underfoot was close to this.

[porigromus]

Travel is as trivial as you make it in EQ....even into the PoP era.

I don't understand how paying for a port and/or using sow and levitate to run through a zone and face absolutely no danger is so immersive and challenging to people. Or is it just the 3 line covo that you have with the wiz/druid that's porting you that really makes the experience amazing?

It is the way they did it. Books you click on sitting around the world that teleport you to some big floating city in the sky? Books lined up and down the walls? It was cheap, ugly, and a quick fix that didn't mesh well with the original wonderful world.

[porigromus]

Mentioning Luclin anywhere near here should be a bannable offense. Luclin is not EQ. Honestly, the game was over way before that anyway. It's probably hard to remember that even the Kunark expansion was basically awful. Kunark had absolutely none of the charm or cohesion of the original world, and Allakhazam and the like ruined any chance of people exploring shit for themselves. Everyone went running to forums to get info like a bunch of pissy pants little bitches looking for a game genie cheat code instead of just playing the damn game. No one would give a fuck about Kunark if it weren't for the loot you could pick up there, which was completely unbalanced. boohoo not enough pixels to get for my toon. roll another one or go the fuck outside. The original zones had ten times more style than what they shat upon us with Kunark. And the Iksar didn't fit at all, looked like they were from a completely different game. The original game didn't contain enough level 50 content for the number of players, and thats the only reason anyone gave a shit. The gear they came out with basically ruined the game and made previously epic shit a joke. Honestly they should've left the whole continent lost and just started rolling out more Planes earlier. Velious had more potential but the game had long rotted by then. Lamezords from fuck knows where had long since come and formed a megatron of internet scrub bitches the likes of which id never seen and descended on every corner of EQ 'min/max'ing and cybering in the corners of kelethin for p and rmt and turned the whole place into a cesspool long since. Games ruined, mystery is gone, its never coming back, shits done.

I have to admit I liked the original game without expansions but a lot will disagree. I felt it was better then too. I would like a permanent server without any expansions but that isn't going to happen.

[heartbrand]

Man I feel like some or people's eq nostalgia is like high school nostalgia. You think back to all those good times like getting handies at the movie theatre and shit while forgetting all the times you were getting blue balled.

[falkun]

It was also the only expac in eq history where the final boss didn't die before the next expac, underfoot was close to this.

That's because the whole expansion was over-tuned for L70 characters while the max level remained at 65, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gates_of_Discord#Controversy. I'd hardly call that a positive for the expansion.

[heartbrand]

For 90% of the player base it made the game awful for them, for me I absolutely loved the challenge, matter of preference.

[Gadwen]

It is the way they did it. Books you click on sitting around the world that teleport you to some big floating city in the sky? Books lined up and down the walls? It was cheap, ugly, and a quick fix that didn't mesh well with the original wonderful world.

But nothing stopped you from running right past that book and traveling on foot.

You can trivialize your travels even in classic. Like i said before, porting and running with a sow/lev isn't exactly a challenging or immersive experience.

[heartbrand]

Gotta love the ever immersing numlock alt tab

[TarukShmaruk]

Everyone having easy access to ports enhanced the community feel of the game by making it easier for people to interact. Sure, teleporting is a core class ability, but it's not a very important one. Even before the easy access to ports, I seldom ever asked anyone for a port. In raid situations, ports tended to be provided. Otherwise, I took the boat or walked. So, it wasn't really hurting a single thing at all.


True, but teleports do not qualify as affecting game difficulty.

What teleports did was take a horrible, needless, disgusting timesink and throw it in the trash. Good freaking riddance. And this was even more true as the world had become more than twice as big as originally planned.

I feel like you're incapable of understanding the concept of making things too easy and the detriment it has on the game.

I can extrapolate your argument to anything. Let's make leveling take 1/2 the time "what the new leveling rates did was take a horrible, needless, and disgusting timesink and throw it in the trash. good freaking riddance. and this was even more true as the level cap had become more than twice the original level cap"

Yeah, PoK books were convenient. We all used them. It still ruined the game. In many ways just like flying mounts did a lot of damage to WoW's world, or how the LFG queue killed the sense of server community (despite being a popular feature).

Now I don't think anyone would argue that an EQ warrior was a bit of a shitty experience - no real abilities, no utility, etc. Obviously a modern re-imagining of EQ1 would have to bring some quality of life improvements while still maintaining the original core concepts - and this would probably include some kind of faster travel options (non -sow running was stupid slow) and probably giving every class a hearthstone type ability.

[Vexenu]

It's mindboggling to me that someone can sit here and advocate for insta-ports on a classic server with the argument that they're just "convenient" and that adding them doesn't remove "anything important" from the game experience. These are the same arguments behind every disastrous change to the game that has made it unrecognizable from its original design.

Also, saying that ports are "not a class defining" ability for Wizards and Druids is one of the most ludicrous things I've ever heard said about this game. Imagine if there was an NPC in every zone in the game that you could drag your corpse to and get a rez after handing the NPC some plat. That would certainly be convenient, wouldn't it? Definitely. It sure as fuck wouldn't be Everquest, though.

[Millburn]

But nothing stopped you from running right past that book and traveling on foot.

You can trivialize your travels even in classic. Like i said before, porting and running with a sow/lev isn't exactly a challenging or immersive experience.

You can also get up 6 hours before work and walk there every day instead of using your car. We don't though (for the most part) and because of that to a degree our small town communities are more spread out across our regions. It's all fine and dandy to say it's all on the individual not to do something but opportunity cost is a real thing.

[Gadwen]

You can also get up 6 hours before work and walk there every day instead of using your car. We don't though (for the most part) and because of that to a degree our small town communities are more spread out across our regions. It's all fine and dandy to say it's all on the individual not to do something but opportunity cost is a real thing.

When the opportunity you are looking for is non-trivial methods of traveling not using the books sounds like fantastic plan.

How you experience this game is up to you. You can trivialize the entire game in its current state if you are so inclined, and many players do.

[Atmas]

Missed a few pages in the middle of this thread but I am going to mention incase no one else has, the books did not come out with Luclin. They came with PoP. I wasn't really a fan of them being a wizard, they cut into my translocation revenues. However, I didn't mind PoP as a whole and I didn't mind the Nexus scions and ports that I think came with Luclin. Those ports were only every 15 minutes and depending on where you wanted to go it could take up to 30 minutes just to get the closest ports and then run more.

The thing about the books is it killed a lot of interaction as far as talking with people to get ports. Also making travel that easy for anyone really makes the world feel smaller. One of the things I really hated about EQ2 was that everything was just a bell click away.

Quick recap of other thread items. I think AA's were awesome. They gave you a reason to play a character more and let you advance your character in interesting ways. I don't think they broke any classes, just cause they allowed bards to do pulling doesn't mean that monks no longer did. Also a group of wizards manaburning mobs that were 2 expansions old was not a big deal. You could form a high end tank and spank group to kill Kunark mobs. Manaburn was not practical for progression Luclin or even Velious mobs. Ssra was awesome, VT was boring as hell but loot was nice. I liked a lot of the ideas of the zones like the Grey, didn't really have strong feelings about the cats.

[Hobie819]

For everyone saying it was a time sink - what isn't a time sink in classic? Leveling is a HUGE time sink but we don't advocate for that to be easier. Tradeskills? Huge time sink. Selling in EC? huge time sink. Taking ports out of the game because it was a "huge time sink" justifies you to play another game because if one thing is removed for being a time sink, every time sink should be removed.

Time sinks are meant to take a lot of time for a reward. Take the time to level tradeskills? You can make cool things. Take the time to level? you can be mower powerful and see more aspects of the game. Take the time to run or port? You can get to somewhere to explore, or level your character.

Like it or not, classic EQ revolves around everything being a time sink. It is one of the major complaints about the newer MMORPG's - everything is too easy.

You can't have it both ways - if you want the game to remain challenging, you cannot remove the time-sinks. If you want it to be trivialized, you may as well play WoW or any other number of MMORPG's on the market.

[heartbrand]

I don't get what some people wanted from EQ. There were books so that they could filter you into the new content. Did people want the game to just remain the classic zones with a zone addition here and there connected to the old world?

[Dirtnap]

I don't get what some people wanted from EQ. There were books so that they could filter you into the new content. Did people want the game to just remain the classic zones with a zone addition here and there connected to the old world?

The lore on Live is pretty cool if you actually learn the vast amount of it that there is now. There were a lot of symbols and the like in classic that were never explained, but could be found in many locations across the world. They have explained an immense amount of the mysteries of classic EQ with pretty interesting lore.

Sure it kind of split off to be a bit more sci-fi than fantasy, but I feel like all fantasy must eventually become sci-fi. Its not like technology just stops progressing, even in magical settings.

EDIT: Gnomes will forever keep tinkering new inventions, so Norrath would eventually have television, radio, the internet, youtube, and various other modern tech. Go figure, Gnomes already has us beat with robots.

[xCry0x]

Everyone is bitching about the book room when the firepots in TD are more or less the same mechanic.

It is actually funny to think that Sony added it, decided it was bad, nerfed it, then added it again a few years later.

[heartbrand]

Here's the thing, everyone's entitled to their own definition of fun or what not, to me, a lot of the stuff people call "fun" from classic EQ was really me sitting being unable to play the game such as: waiting on long lists for a spot in a group that was camping 3-5 mobs every 30 minutes in guk or sol b, waiting for a port for 30 + minutes, sitting in gfay for hours to try to sell a single item, etc., etc.

[Gadwen]

For everyone saying it was a time sink - what isn't a time sink in classic? Leveling is a HUGE time sink but we don't advocate for that to be easier. Tradeskills? Huge time sink. Selling in EC? huge time sink. Taking ports out of the game because it was a "huge time sink" justifies you to play another game because if one thing is removed for being a time sink, every time sink should be removed.

Time sinks are meant to take a lot of time for a reward. Take the time to level tradeskills? You can make cool things. Take the time to level? you can be mower powerful and see more aspects of the game. Take the time to run or port? You can get to somewhere to explore, or level your character.

Like it or not, classic EQ revolves around everything being a time sink. It is one of the major complaints about the newer MMORPG's - everything is too easy.

You can't have it both ways - if you want the game to remain challenging, you cannot remove the time-sinks. If you want it to be trivialized, you may as well play WoW or any other number of MMORPG's on the market.

Taking the boat is a time sink. Getting a port is a means to avoid that time sink.

PLing and twinking are means of avoiding the time sink of leveling and camping gear.

Players worked their asses off trying to figure out ways to avoid time sinks and tedious aspects of gameplay, and they still do it today on this server. Look at how many people buy characters to avoid leveling them, or buy PLs to avoid the grind, or roll twinks with a fungi and Cof so they dominate everything they encounter for 45-55 levels. When it comes down to it, most people want it easy. SOE watched how players behaved and they were successful when they made the changes that made the game easier...it brought more people in.

Don't get me wrong, I love classic EQ and I would rather be here than anywhere else. The changes luclin and PoP brought to game were embraced by more people than classic EQ was, and observing the average player is where they got most of their ideas.

[heartbrand]

I dunno I loved PoP because there was just so much fucking stuff to do, tradeskills finally mattered, there was a logical progression, you felt epic each time you keyed yourself to the next tier, itemization actually finally made sense, there for the first time in an expac was a path of itemization for the non-raider [ornate armor] and the raider [elemental gear], etc., etc. You had raids that could be done with PUGs like PoD / Terris, etc., and then content that needed epic sized force, 72, to do. The music was great, the graphics were great, the lore was great, there were really good quests with good rewards, you could unlock progression through raid content or through groupable quests, etc., etc., I thought it was best expac in the history of MMORPG's to be honest other than the "ending" with Druzzil Ro.

[Samoht]

tradeskills didn't matter any more in POP than they did in luclin, and probably less than velius in either expansion

[heartbrand]

You had for the first time gear that was on par with raid quality loot that could be made

[TarukShmaruk]

Taking the boat is a time sink. Getting a port is a means to avoid that time sink.

PLing and twinking are means of avoiding the time sink of leveling and camping gear.

Players worked their asses off trying to figure out ways to avoid time sinks and tedious aspects of gameplay, and they still do it today on this server. Look at how many people buy characters to avoid leveling them, or buy PLs to avoid the grind, or roll twinks with a fungi and Cof so they dominate everything they encounter for 45-55 levels. When it comes down to it, most people want it easy. SOE watched how players behaved and they were successful when they made the changes that made the game easier...it brought more people in.

Don't get me wrong, I love classic EQ and I would rather be here than anywhere else. The changes luclin and PoP brought to game were embraced by more people than classic EQ was, and observing the average player is where they got most of their ideas.

EQ was top dog and MMOs were gaining popularity. It's inaccurate to claim that luclin/pop-era popularity was because of luclin changes.

That said, I loved everything about PoP except the books.

And whoever said they wanted books to funnel people into new content - that's a ridiculous claim - PoP was for high levels only. There was no new content to be had for anyone under level 40.


Look at how many people buy characters to avoid leveling them, or buy PLs to avoid the grind, or roll twinks with a fungi and Cof so they dominate everything they encounter for 45-55 levels. When it comes down to it, most people want it easy. SOE watched how players behaved and they were successful when they made the changes that made the game easier...it brought more people in.

People twink because it's fun and it's within the game mechanics. People enjoy being able to game the system - that doesn't mean the population wants to be able to walk up to an NPC and hail them for +50 levels. There are servers like that and do you know what their population is?

The point of all this discussion is that the there has to be a balance around the innate hedonism of gamers for the good of the game. Just because I want the ability to rez myself (or not lose XP), to fly everywhere, and to reduce all downtime doesn't mean it's good for the game.

[Droog007]

I saw a post once where Rogean was musing about how to add PoP-era content without adding PoK...

discuss.

[heartbrand]

I saw a post once where Rogean was musing about how to add PoP-era content without adding PoK...

discuss.

I saw that and then I saw a Nilbog post not too long ago that said custom content would never be implemented on these servers and that if it was to be added in, it would be on a completely new box.

[Gadwen]

EQ was top dog and MMOs were gaining popularity. It's inaccurate to claim that luclin/pop-era popularity was because of luclin changes.

That said, I loved everything about PoP except the books.

And whoever said they wanted books to funnel people into new content - that's a ridiculous claim - PoP was for high levels only. There was no new content to be had for anyone under level 40.




People twink because it's fun and it's within the game mechanics. People enjoy being able to game the system - that doesn't mean the population wants to be able to walk up to an NPC and hail them for +50 levels. There are servers like that and do you know what their population is?

The point of all this discussion is that the there has to be a balance around the innate hedonism of gamers for the good of the game. Just because I want the ability to rez myself (or not lose XP), to fly everywhere, and to reduce all downtime doesn't mean it's good for the game.


Yes you are right that MMOs had been gaining popularity, but Luclin had been out for almost 2 years, PoP almost a full year when EQ hit its peak of subs, by that point in time it was a very different game than classic for quite a while. It would a inaccurate to claim that it had nothing to do with it and was just the effects of the genre getting more popular.

And I'm not sure where having easier travel or levels going a bit faster translates into instant level 50 with one hail. But players do everything they can to make the game easier for themselves, devs have watched this behavior for years and are catering to it. I agree, there is a good point of balance, but like I said before..a games value is not based on each individual players experiences. It's how many subs they get, how many micro transactions they perform and...most MMO players want easy games.

[Halius]

I saw a post once where Rogean was musing about how to add PoP-era content without adding PoK...

discuss.

This could be good once the Velious content becomes stale a long way down the road. I enjoyed most of the planes groups I had when I played during the PoP era, it actually wasn't too bad (I was never a fan of Luclin though). To add the PoP zones or in other words more planes to the game I would say one of two things could happen.

1. You could make PoK, just make it accessible only through druid/wizard porting and then that zone connects to all the planes. I know that would take a huge revamp of the PoK zone but it would make it so that the zone only connects you to the new planes and not to every zone, and would also make it so that the druids/wizards porting ability is still needed.

2. You could avoid PoK completely and tie the zone-ins to the new planes to existing zones, possibly even have to clear through an old plane such as PoH to get to PoD or something like that. Again it would require some tweaking, and possible nerfing to make it doable for level 60 chars (unless the up the cap to 65), but they wouldn't have to re-do any of the actual content in the PoP zones, just the levels of the mobs.

Anyways those are my thoughts.

[TarukShmaruk]

And I'm not sure where having easier travel or levels going a bit faster translates into instant level 50 with one hail. But players do everything they can to make the game easier for themselves, devs have watched this behavior for years and are catering to it.

Again I don't think you see the flaw in your thinking.

Devs could cater to what players do by making everything have less hp, hit for less damage, players gain twice as much XP, etc. etc. etc.

We are discussing things that are detrimental to the game as a whole despite being popular features. Again I point to the damage LFD/LFR has done to WoW server communities, the damage flying mounts did to travel in WoW, the PoK stones to travel (and the Nexus) to the EQ world, the damage PC did to the rest of the zones in the game 1-20, etc

[heartbrand]

Again I don't think you see the flaw in your thinking.

Devs could cater to what players do by making everything have less hp, hit for less damage, players gain twice as much XP, etc. etc. etc.

We are discussing things that are detrimental to the game as a whole despite being popular features. Again I point to the damage LFD/LFR has done to WoW server communities, the damage flying mounts did to travel in WoW, the PoK stones to travel (and the Nexus) to the EQ world, the damage PC did to the rest of the zones in the game 1-20, etc

What is this massive damage books did? The entire point was to filter everyone into the new content. I really don't get it. Were you hanging out in Lower Guk during PoP killing the same frogloks you were in 1999? LDoN gave me instant groups instead of waiting around for 3 hours on a list somewhere to maybe possibly get the chance @ some exp. It gave me the shot @ getting loot via the point system so I always felt like I was progressing, but did it in a way that required that very large amount of time that EQ is famous for. It gave me hard modes to challenge me, etc. I don't get it, some people think sitting in Guk killing 5 mobs an hour was the pinnacle of EverQuest or something.

[TarukShmaruk]

What is this massive damage books did? The entire point was to filter everyone into the new content. I really don't get it. Were you hanging out in Lower Guk during PoP killing the same frogloks you were in 1999? LDoN gave me instant groups instead of waiting around for 3 hours on a list somewhere to maybe possibly get the chance @ some exp. It gave me the shot @ getting loot via the point system so I always felt like I was progressing, but did it in a way that required that very large amount of time that EQ is famous for. It gave me hard modes to challenge me, etc. I don't get it, some people think sitting in Guk killing 5 mobs an hour was the pinnacle of EverQuest or something.

Huh? How did the books funnel people into new content? PoP was 46+.

What it did was enable every race/class to bind in PoK and have near instant access to any part of the world.

Yeah, it was nice for my alts, but it also killed part of the 'soul' of the game. If you don't see how negating travel and druid/wizard ports completely did that, then there's no point in this conversation.

I don't know why I have to keep repeating myself here - these are features we all used, the point is being able to acknowledge the detrimental impacts on the game they had.

[fadetree]

What is this massive damage books did? The entire point was to filter everyone into the new content. I really don't get it. Were you hanging out in Lower Guk during PoP killing the same frogloks you were in 1999? LDoN gave me instant groups instead of waiting around for 3 hours on a list somewhere to maybe possibly get the chance @ some exp. It gave me the shot @ getting loot via the point system so I always felt like I was progressing, but did it in a way that required that very large amount of time that EQ is famous for. It gave me hard modes to challenge me, etc. I don't get it, some people think sitting in Guk killing 5 mobs an hour was the pinnacle of EverQuest or something.

You're conflating the ability to have new content with traveling via the PoK books. They could have had the new content without the PoK books. The PoK books were put in because people were whining about travel time. Again, consistently giving the players what they whine for will eventually ruin the game. The heart of the game, any game, is created by the difficulties.

[heartbrand]

I was 60 when PoP came out and hadn't set foot in the old world in ages tbh so it had absolutely zero impact on me. I guess if you started playing EQ then I could see your point.

[Thulack]

tradeskills didn't matter any more in POP than they did in luclin, and probably less than velius in either expansion

PoTC quest in Luclin made tradeskills relevant. ALOT of PoP tradeskilled items were wanted especially PoP bows. and there are tradeskilled items in Velious other then shawl that make them worth it. Not sure what your post point was but tradeskills are very relevant all through EQ.

[heartbrand]

ITT, much like every EQ Nostalgia thread on rerolled, is people equating timesinks with difficulty. Timesinks aren't difficult. Did you love VT because it had all dem trash mobs you had to spend hours and hours clearing, sure was "difficult" amirite? No, it was fucking awful. I'd much rather spend hours banging my head against the wall on a difficult raid mob as I try to figure out the encounter than do so against trivial trash mobs just to get to the raid mob. I guess it's a matter of preference. I like to play games to actually get to play. Travel was always trivial to me in classic, but I was a caster who could bind, apart from the sporadic trip to town to sell all my l33t gearz, I was always in a dungeon or what not, it's not like I was taking 3 hour strolls through the karanas erryday

[heartbrand]

Why do people seek teleports to begin with instead of just walking there or taking the boat? Because traveling is boring as fuck after the first time you do it. Yes, it's cool the first time you see the zones and you feel immersed, and then every time after you're like wtf wtb port asap.

[porigromus]

But nothing stopped you from running right past that book and traveling on foot.

You can trivialize your travels even in classic. Like i said before, porting and running with a sow/lev isn't exactly a challenging or immersive experience.

I don't think you get it. I do not care to play a game if the game feels in-cohesive, sloppy, mismatched graphics, poorly imagined/implemented. I play for the ENTIRE experience. I don't care to be a part of a game world that feels rushed, ugly, and just a cobbled together mess.

I wouldn't go to the pool to enjoy myself if I had to swim around the turds. I will go to a pool without turds floating around.

[TarukShmaruk]

Why do people seek teleports to begin with instead of just walking there or taking the boat? Because traveling is boring as fuck after the first time you do it. Yes, it's cool the first time you see the zones and you feel immersed, and then every time after you're like wtf wtb port asap.

Sure, or sometimes I don't want to wait around for someone who's porting, so I just hop on the boat.

What it does do is make sure that when I go to Kunark I stay in Kunark for a while - especially when I was in my 20s and 30s.

But, let's talk about stuff from Luclin/PoP that was awesome.

Focus effects anyone? These changed the game for leveling a caster, added tons of value to older drops that had focus effects, and were simply awesome.

[heartbrand]

Everything that made EQ "difficult" was either a timesink or an error/oversight by the dev team who had no clue wtf they were doing combined with the fact the internet was still in it's infancy. The "difficulty" you people are seeking will never ever be recreated. While part of me smiles when I think about how I used to sit on the bridge in South Karana for 2 + hours waiting for my spot in the Treant group to open up, I'm also glad I'll never have to do that again, + not able to ever have the time to do that again.

[heartbrand]

Sure, or sometimes I don't want to wait around for someone who's porting, so I just hop on the boat.

What it does do is make sure that when I go to Kunark I stay in Kunark for a while - especially when I was in my 20s and 30s.

But, let's talk about stuff from Luclin/PoP that was awesome.

Focus effects anyone? These changed the game for leveling a caster, added tons of value to older drops that had focus effects, and were simply awesome.

Focus effects were awesome and finally gave meaningful item progression to casters.

[Gadwen]

I don't think you get it. I do not care to play a game if the game feels in-cohesive, sloppy, mismatched graphics, poorly imagined/implemented. I play for the ENTIRE experience. I don't care to be a part of a game world that feels rushed, ugly, and just a cobbled together mess.

I wouldn't go to the pool to enjoy myself if I had to swim around the turds. I will go to a pool without turds floating around.

So you were forced to use the books. Tell us about it...did it hurt?

[heartbrand]

EQ was @ it's peak during PoP, it died because 1) WoW came out and 2) 72 man raids being reduced to 54 man raids 3) GoD raping everyone who wasn't in a cutting edge end game guild with full plane of time gear, aka 95% of their sub base

[porigromus]

ITT, much like every EQ Nostalgia thread on rerolled, is people equating timesinks with difficulty. Timesinks aren't difficult. Did you love VT because it had all dem trash mobs you had to spend hours and hours clearing, sure was "difficult" amirite? No, it was fucking awful. I'd much rather spend hours banging my head against the wall on a difficult raid mob as I try to figure out the encounter than do so against trivial trash mobs just to get to the raid mob. I guess it's a matter of preference. I like to play games to actually get to play. Travel was always trivial to me in classic, but I was a caster who could bind, apart from the sporadic trip to town to sell all my l33t gearz, I was always in a dungeon or what not, it's not like I was taking 3 hour strolls through the karanas erryday

The reason this this server is so popular, the most popular among all the emulated servers is because it doesn't go to Luclin and beyond. People want this game when it was a cohesive fun fantasy world.

I don't play games just to advance, I play because they are a fantastic world to be a part of and everything feels like the developer put their heart into it. You sound like you may play for different reasons. I had a friend that didn't care anything about what they put in the game as long as he could advance and get better gear.

They could have made an expansion named "Poop King" and all you did was click on a book that ports you to some room where you kill bosses that fling poo at you and if it dropped better loot than what he had, he would be happy.

Basically what EQ became a stupid loot vending machine. The game world didn't matter, the cohesive feel didn't matter, didn't matter if it was a sloppy cobbled together mess with different years of graphics everywhere.

As long as you can teleport in to kill the poop king and he drops a new belt better than yours, there you go.

[Samoht]

You had for the first time gear that was on par with raid quality loot that could be made

the quested armour (ornate/elemental) required rings/swatches created by blacksmiths/tailors, yes. but that blacksmith/tailor didn't have to be you

PoTC quest in Luclin made tradeskills relevant.

likewise, you didn't have to craft your own items for cabbage. just stuff you bought off bazaar just like pop.

there are tradeskilled items in Velious other then shawl that make them worth it.

the difference is, you had to make most of your own items for the thurg quests. i remember we MQed into the first ring so we didn't fail making the blankets, but after that both lines of quests meant making your own stuff.

Not sure what your post point was but tradeskills are very relevant all through EQ.

i think it was GoD (maybe it was OoW?) with the player enhanced socketed gems that actually made tradeskills relevant. none of the armour crafted up until then was best-in-slot or didn't have end-game raid upgrades, but every piece of armour needed socketed gems.

[porigromus]

So you were forced to use the books. Tell us about it...did it hurt?

No I wasn't, I quit the game. I didn't care to be a part of it anymore. I was more interested in playing a game that was built with a vision of a cohesive fantasy world. I felt the additions starting with Luclin were threw in without any thought, merely for convenience.

I quit when the game started to feel sloppy.

[nilbog]

... people equating timesinks with difficulty. Timesinks aren't difficult.

RL is a timesink which a lot of people have trouble playing. Timesinks can certainly be difficult as time itself is one of the only things you can't purchase.

Did you love VT because it had all dem trash mobs you had to spend hours and hours clearing, sure was "difficult" amirite? No, it was fucking awful. I'd much rather spend hours banging my head against the wall on a difficult raid mob as I try to figure out the encounter than do so against trivial trash mobs just to get to the raid mob. A good aspect of a sandbox environment is that no one made you go to VT. If you want to waste your time, then you go right ahead.

I guess it's a matter of preference. I like to play games to actually get to play. This philosophy was what originally separated pre-wow mmorpg players from console gamers.

EQ was @ it's peak during PoP, it died because 1) WoW came out and 2) 72 man raids being reduced to 54 man raids 3) GoD raping everyone who wasn't in a cutting edge end game guild with full plane of time gear, aka 95% of their sub base

EQ was at its peak during PoP because cheap computers could be purchased at your local Walmart and broadband internet was available to everyone. There are a lot of people, including myself, which saw it (PoP) as a bellowing swan song for EQ. I played the WoW beta when it was released in 2004. It was fully released in December, shortly after EQ released Omens of War in September. Wow was a better game at release than the last expansions leading up to Omens of War and EQ2 at release.

[TarukShmaruk]

the quested armour (ornate/elemental) required rings/swatches created by blacksmiths/tailors, yes. but that blacksmith/tailor didn't have to be you



likewise, you didn't have to craft your own items for cabbage. just stuff you bought off bazaar just like pop.



the difference is, you had to make most of your own items for the thurg quests. i remember we MQed into the first ring so we didn't fail making the blankets, but after that both lines of quests meant making your own stuff.



i think it was GoD (maybe it was OoW?) with the player enhanced socketed gems that actually made tradeskills relevant. none of the armour crafted up until then was best-in-slot or didn't have end-game raid upgrades, but every piece of armour needed socketed gems.

Actually IIRC there was an entire line of really good crafted stuff in PoP which wasn't the quest armors.

Unfortunately it required drops from the elemental planes so you basically had to be a raid guild anyway. But it still made tradeskills a lot more relevant.

http://www.eqtraders.com/recipes/recipe_page.php?article=131&rsa=Smithing&sb=item&sub=pplate&menustr=080100160040

There we go. It was actually pretty cool - you had to craft an emblem to make a type of armor (storms, water, fire, whatever) but that emblem was always returned to you once you had it. It was kind of a 'license' to craft a particular item.

edit: Also the content itself of PoP was quite good. People loved going to the plane of decay, valor, halls of honor, or finally getting RZTW down so you had access to the 4 elemental planes (of which PoFire was an excellent leveling zone...the others were pretty much raid only I think). The bosses were cool and it was a welcome change from the aliens of the moon

[heartbrand]

It's one of those things where people are free to disagree. No right or wrong for what makes one person enjoy a game and another dislike it, :) . My feeling with PoP is, if you were in a cutting edge guild you had a lot of fun, if you weren't you were prolly cock blocked from 50% of the content and hated it.

[TarukShmaruk]

Also Beastlords were a cool class.

Never could get into Berserkers though - they seemed pretty stupid to me.

[heartbrand]

Berserkers sucked until much later in EQ when AA's finally gave them a role

[Gadwen]

ITT, much like every EQ Nostalgia thread on rerolled, is people equating timesinks with difficulty. Timesinks aren't difficult. Did you love VT because it had all dem trash mobs you had to spend hours and hours clearing, sure was "difficult" amirite? No, it was fucking awful. I'd much rather spend hours banging my head against the wall on a difficult raid mob as I try to figure out the encounter than do so against trivial trash mobs just to get to the raid mob. I guess it's a matter of preference. I like to play games to actually get to play. Travel was always trivial to me in classic, but I was a caster who could bind, apart from the sporadic trip to town to sell all my l33t gearz, I was always in a dungeon or what not, it's not like I was taking 3 hour strolls through the karanas erryday

You also have to keep in mind that a lot of old EQ players literally grew up in this game. Their social life was everquest, their fun after school was everquest, their best friends were in everquest and for some...their sex life was in everquest.

It's like going back to your little home town and seeing all the changes that have taken place, nobody likes it. But you just have to accept that the changes were made for a reason, are simply unavoidable, and the majority of times it was with the intent of benefiting people...and actually did benefit people.

I played EQ from classic through GoD on and off. Nothing ever "ruined" the game for me, I just got bored of it and went to do something else.

[Atmas]

EQ was at its peak during PoP because cheap computers could be purchased at your local Walmart and broadband internet was available to everyone. There are a lot of people, including myself, which saw it (PoP) as a bellowing swan song for EQ.

I recall when PoP came out walking into a Best Buy and seeing videos of it playing as the display for new computers. This was the time when I felt like broad band was really starting to proliferate to more than just tech-savy house holds and PCs were on the front page of advertisements because Megahurtz were doubling every week.

I personally think PoP was a pinnacle because content was fun, good character progression opportunities, and high fantasy lore. The problem is after you have slain the Gods what else do you do in a fantasy game? GoD was terrible, both content and planning wise.

[TarukShmaruk]

I recall when PoP came out walking into a Best Buy and seeing videos of it playing as the display for new computers. This was the time when I felt like broad band was really starting to proliferate to more than just tech-savy house holds and PCs were on the front page of advertisements because Megahurtz were doubling every week.

I personally think PoP was a pinnacle because content was fun, good character progression opportunities, and high fantasy lore. The problem is after you have slain the Gods what else do you do in a fantasy game? GoD was terrible, both content and planning wise.

Thematically it was about as good as me just taking a shit and smearing it on a wall and saying "there's your concept art"

[Atmas]

Edit: judging from other posts I will assume you mean GoD and totally agree.

Everything was bland, ugly, and looked the same. Looked like all architecture was a cut and paste job. Mobs looked like bad sci-fi creatures.

[Thulack]

PoP's Tier raiding system was the best expansion raiding there ever was in EQ. Simple as that. After playing live for 13 years i can tell you alot of people would shit bricks at the mechanics and attention to detail needed to raid in current EQ. I know 95% of you hate instancing but it let so many people see different zones and enjoy the game more then if they were stuck trying to raid like they do here.

[Thulack]

Edit: judging from other posts I will assume you mean GoD and totally agree.

Everything was bland, ugly, and looked the same. Looked like all architecture was a cut and paste job. Mobs looked like bad sci-fi creatures.

You playing the wrong game then if graphics means anything to you.

[heartbrand]

PoP's Tier raiding system was the best expansion raiding there ever was in EQ. Simple as that. After playing live for 13 years i can tell you alot of people would shit bricks at the mechanics and attention to detail needed to raid in current EQ. I know 95% of you hate instancing but it let so many people see different zones and enjoy the game more then if they were stuck trying to raid like they do here.

[TarukShmaruk]

You playing the wrong game then if graphics means anything to you.

Graphics don't need to be high quality for them to have a great art direction.

[Gwence]

not sure people think there are instant ports in luclin

there are 4 spots you can port to from nexus on a 15-20 min cycle, pretty similar to waiting for a boat

then you would have to run from those locations if you had another destination


aka people still look for ports in luclin on a large scale

velious is only a great expansion if you like to raid alot, otherwise it's a pretty dull expansion with not very much for the casual player to accomplish.

also bazaar is about 1000x better than ec tunnel

whereas the opposite is actually true for luclin, the casual player has much more benefit in that expansion with aa's and a ton of stuff that can be accomplished solo or within a group and it beefs your character up to go back and do some velious stuff that you might not have been able to without the aa's.

likewise the raid scene in luclin is absolutely brutal (personally I loved it) but for alot of people, they simply can't handle it and burn out or quit or whatever and it carried over into PoP with the flagging system (another amazing mechanic) which was just too much work for many people.

Ranking EQ expansions is easy - just go backwards.
1) PoP - by far
2) Luclin - because of AA's
3) Velious - beside AA's it's the same as luclin for the most part.
2) Kunark - horrible expansion

[Atmas]

You playing the wrong game then if graphics means anything to you.

I'm not talking about high polygon count artwork or something, I'm talking about older zones having very distinct areas and changes in terrain, versus everything looking as spartan as a giant stone office building.

[heartbrand]

not sure people think there are instant ports in luclin

there are 4 spots you can port to from nexus on a 15-20 min cycle, pretty similar to waiting for a boat

then you would have to run from those locations if you had another destination


aka people still look for ports in luclin on a large scale

velious is only a great expansion if you like to raid alot, otherwise it's a pretty dull expansion with not very much for the casual player to accomplish.

also bazaar is about 1000x better than ec tunnel

whereas the opposite is actually true for luclin, the casual player has much more benefit in that expansion with aa's and a ton of stuff that can be accomplished solo or within a group and it beefs your character up to go back and do some velious stuff that you might not have been able to without the aa's.

likewise the raid scene in luclin is absolutely brutal (personally I loved it) but for alot of people, they simply can't handle it and burn out or quit or whatever and it carried over into PoP with the flagging system (another amazing mechanic) which was just too much work for many people.

Ranking EQ expansions is easy - just go backwards.
1) PoP - by far
2) Luclin - because of AA's
3) Velious - beside AA's it's the same as luclin for the most part.
2) Kunark - horrible expansion

ur like my eq soulmate bro

[Thulack]

not sure people think there are instant ports in luclin

there are 4 spots you can port to from nexus on a 15-20 min cycle, pretty similar to waiting for a boat

then you would have to run from those locations if you had another destination


aka people still look for ports in luclin on a large scale

velious is only a great expansion if you like to raid alot, otherwise it's a pretty dull expansion with not very much for the casual player to accomplish.

also bazaar is about 1000x better than ec tunnel

whereas the opposite is actually true for luclin, the casual player has much more benefit in that expansion with aa's and a ton of stuff that can be accomplished solo or within a group and it beefs your character up to go back and do some velious stuff that you might not have been able to without the aa's.

likewise the raid scene in luclin is absolutely brutal (personally I loved it) but for alot of people, they simply can't handle it and burn out or quit or whatever and it carried over into PoP with the flagging system (another amazing mechanic) which was just too much work for many people.

Ranking EQ expansions is easy - just go backwards.
1) PoP - by far
2) Luclin - because of AA's
3) Velious - beside AA's it's the same as luclin for the most part.
2) Kunark - horrible expansion

3rd this

[TarukShmaruk]

Kunark a horrible expansion? Huh?

Kunark was a fantastic expansion to EQ vanilla.

-Raised level cap
-Melee disciplines
-Lots of new and mostly interesting zones. Skyfire was really cool, LOIO, TT, OT, Dreadlands,FM
-Lots of great dungeons - Karnors, OS, City of Mist, Howling Stones, Chardok
-WAY more raid targets - VS, Trakanon, 3 RoS dragons, VP (7 dragons?), Faydedar
-Epics which were wildly popular
-Iksar

[heartbrand]

Kunark has pretty shitty itemization, I.e class armor that minus the bp and greaves just about sucks across the board with a couple of clickie exceptions (but you still wouldn't wear it) a shortage of raid content that makes it all too easy to cock block everything, no quests to really speak of (not talking about epic quests which came later), annoying travel, etc.

[t0lkien]

I don't understand you guys - everything you are praising is the reason this servers exists i.e. to provide an alternative to all that and recreate the game before it was changed by it. If you are so in favour of all those additions, why are you playing classic EQ?

[Thulack]

I don't understand you guys - everything you are praising is the reason this servers exists i.e. to provide an alternative to all that and recreate the game before it was changed by it. If you are so in favour of all those additions, why are you playing classic EQ?

Cause there is nothing better out there. Just like any game there are things you like and things you would change. I'm all for alot of the changes that came to EQ over the years while i wasnt a fan of others.

[TarukShmaruk]

Kunark has pretty shitty itemization, I.e class armor that minus the bp and greaves just about sucks across the board with a couple of clickie exceptions (but you still wouldn't wear it) a shortage of raid content that makes it all too easy to cock block everything, no quests to really speak of (not talking about epic quests which came later), annoying travel, etc.

Most of those pieces dropped in a regular 5 man dungeon. Legs/BP were great. Rest of the good loot was in VP.

As for the rest of the itemization I don't know what you're talking about - we got the fungi tunic, tons of OP stuff that had to be removed, tons of great loot for twinking from OS/Karnors/CoM/Charasis

You say shortage of raid content but I count at least 12 raid bosses, not including epics and the Chardok royals/The Hole/etc targets, compared to what...5 from vanilla?

There may be a shortage here on p1999 but on live there were very few people actually doing this content and there wasn't much of a shortage then on most servers.

[heartbrand]

If there was a progression server with boxing and mq disabled I'd be there in a heart beat. That and velious.

[TarukShmaruk]

If there was a progression server with boxing and mq disabled I'd be there in a heart beat. That and velious.

Agreed.

I thought about Fippy but they're already on PoP or something.

[Dirtnap]

If there was a progression server with boxing and mq disabled I'd be there in a heart beat. That and velious.

I think there is a ton of people on the server who feel this way. Myself included.

[heartbrand]

They're much further along than pop I think they're on por. Itemization for casters sucked balls, you get some better robes and then what? Insignia protector? ORS? I have basically bis gear on my chanter and excluding VP loot / epic I think I have two Kunark items on. Yes melees get showered with loot but there's still no class armor progression like in planes, velious and basically every subsequent expac.

[heartbrand]

Someone needs to work on a progression server project that does that, I'll help fund it bros get to work! How far does the eq emulator data go to?

[TarukShmaruk]

They're much further along than pop I think they're on por. Itemization for casters sucked balls, you get some better robes and then what? Insignia protector? ORS? I have basically bis gear on my chanter and excluding VP loot / epic I think I have two Kunark items on. Yes melees get showered with loot but there's still no class armor progression like in planes, velious and basically every subsequent expac.

True but they considered the new spells as part of our itemization.

[JurisDictum]

This server's core philosophy is to recreate and preserve the EQ classic experience. Nevertheless, I'm clearly not the only one that would love to see this server eventually evolve into a full on progression server (stopping around PoP). It could ideally occur along side a Classic only server for all those that just want to stick with that content.
The fact that it takes so long for the expansions to get released on p99, is in some ways an asset. It allows everyone enough time to fully experience the content of each expansion and era. Afters a good 2 years of Velious content. I'm sure plenty of casual players would love to play Luclin, as would the dedicated raiders.
The reason people like me don't just "go play live," is because EQ is basically easier than classic WoW in its current state. Yes there is no other place to go for EQ classic. But there isn't exactly a viable server for PoP either.
Luclin and PoP respectively, offer near endless progression for even hardcore gamers. You won't see the dedicated crowed with 4+ maxed our characters...because it simply takes too long to get all the gear and AAs. With the necessary delay that takes place between expansions, more casual players will be much more prepared to tackle the expansion content than they were on live.
PoP did kill the 1-60 experience imo (and it was pretty hard to be a crap geared no AA'd 65 as well). But there are a lot of things that were also great about it. Such as:
More difficult raid content
Better class definition/balance
Better itemization
Better raid targets/rewards for more casual guilds
Platinum only gets you so far

[porigromus]

This server's core philosophy is to recreate and preserve the EQ classic experience. Nevertheless, I'm clearly not the only one that would love to see this server eventually evolve into a full on progression server (stopping around PoP). It could ideally occur along side a Classic only server for all those that just want to stick with that content.
The fact that it takes so long for the expansions to get released on p99, is in some ways an asset. It allows everyone enough time to fully experience the content of each expansion and era. Afters a good 2 years of Velious content. I'm sure plenty of casual players would love to play Luclin, as would the dedicated raiders.
The reason people like me don't just "go play live," is because EQ is basically easier than classic WoW in its current state. Yes there is no other place to go for EQ classic. But there isn't exactly a viable server for PoP either.
Luclin and PoP respectively, offer near endless progression for even hardcore gamers. You won't see the dedicated crowed with 4+ maxed our characters...because it simply takes too long to get all the gear and AAs. With the necessary delay that takes place between expansions, more casual players will be much more prepared to tackle the expansion content than they were on live.
PoP did kill the 1-60 experience imo (and it was pretty hard to be a crap geared no AA'd 65 as well). But there are a lot of things that were also great about it. Such as:
More difficult raid content
Better class definition/balance
Better itemization
Better raid targets/rewards for more casual guilds
Platinum only gets you so far

EQMAC

[Halius]

EQMAC

I was thinking the exact same thing when I read that post.

[Treefall]

EQMAC

Seriously people.

If you want cats and PoP there is an OFFICIAL, FREE SERVER.

Protip, you can run EQMac on your PC. That, or buy a capable Mac for like $100.

[Nalir]

This server's core philosophy is to recreate and preserve the EQ classic experience.

I agree!

Already level 4 here, so I have the right to speak...

Was it fun when Velious had arrived to spend a whole evening trying to get on the boat and wait 30 minutes for it? No. Was it fun to arrive there on a pvp server, slip past the enemies and get killed by some random druid? No. Was it fun to end the evening, and the next evening trying to get my corpse back, getting corpse camped forcing me to log off again? No. But did those aspects drag me to this server, even on blue? Yes.

Partly the bad things about Everquest classic is why we come to this server I guess. The rough and unforgiving parts about the game created a community which just was amazing.

I spent about two weeks trying to learn how to solo in Plane of Growth, lost two levels, simply because I was curious, and because in theory I could solo the mob which dropped a warrior breastplate for a guildy from Da Bashin' Iggles. Still took a half a week to get it for him when I finally understood how to succeed there. And what did my friends do for me? Skip sleep if needed if they could help me with an important item/quest/etc.

I disagree with people advocating making it easier for players by implementing things that seem fine, make it more fun and easier, but isn't that the Sony mindset?

Let's recover from death with all spells still memorized? With all gear still on? Let's allow maps since people who wants maps can still use a second screen?

The reason I play here is because this IS classic EQ, and that draws me to it. And probably many others. I don't look forward to making things easier and more comfortable, Sony tried that and turned it into a boring game worse than any other MMO out there.

*edit* I played Everquest live for a few months and even paid for it. Got a cleric up to max level within a month, tried to play a bard but all good things about them got changed, like not being able to start to start charm before charm wore off, to protect people from wasting mana, but they were bloody overpowered pullers. Monks were an urban legend, haven't seen a single one. Every player had all stats maxed, even a warrior had CHA maxed.

Pong is more fun than Everquest live atm. Or any mass market MMO. */edit*

[Thulack]

The thing with EQMAC is that it is already done. I mean there is nothing "new" that will be added. One of the nice things about here is that there is something to look forward to which is velious. I'm sure people would be much more likely not to start playing here if velious was out and completely done with rather then where it is now.

[Dirtnap]

The thing with EQMAC is that it is already done. I mean there is nothing "new" that will be added. One of the nice things about here is that there is something to look forward to which is velious. I'm sure people would be much more likely not to start playing here if velious was out and completely done with rather then where it is now.

Truth. I'll even go as far to say some people never bothered to jump in because its already so far into Kunark. Many people wanted CLASSIC no expansions, and if they came too late they missed it here.

[heartbrand]

EQMac sucks for a lot of reasons

[t0lkien]

Great post t0lkien.

Is it possible for anything to appeal to the mass market without being mediocre, not necessarily relating to games, but that's what I had in mind.

You know, this is a very good question, and I've thought about it *a lot*.

My answer is ... quality will almost always make it to mass market, but you can never create quality if mass market is your primary goal. That impetus short circuits the ethic that is required to produce quality. My one huge example (not surprisingly) is Lord of the Rings - the books now, not the movies; don't get me started. The music industry is also full of examples (see the fantastic documentary Searching for Sugarman for one). Tolkien wrote that trilogy over 30+ years as a work of love drawing upon his immensely deep, professor-level knowledge of linguistics and history and mythology acquired over a lifetime of study and interest. It was published by its original publisher under the belief it was going to lose money, but they published anyway because they believed it was a work of genius. You could hardly get a clearer contrast to the attitude of games publishers today. And look at what LoTR has done. We are here on this board discussing EQ only because of Tolkien's seminal work. RPG's would not exist without it.

I would also say that classic EQ similarly was a work of integrity and passion, and Luclin and beyond was the brute child of publisher greed. The reason that the MMO industry exists at all is directly due to classic EverQuest. Vanilla WoW was a carbon copy of EverQuest and some of Ultima Online, but polished and executed beautifully to make it accessible. I always said the absolute best thing Blizzard did for MMOs was WoW's original UI design. It was inspired, and took the impenetrable mess that was the EQ UI (including all the console command madness) around the start of Velious and made the game and its mechanics immediately intuitive for absolute beginners. That is (was) Blizzard's talent. The art style was also inspired in that it played to the strengths of both their engine and one of the biggest technical challenges of the genre (low poly, HD textures), but that's a bigger discussion.

So all that to say, yes it can. But as soon as anything hits mass market it has also already inevitably been turned into the creative equivalent of a slutty crack whore. For visual reference see any Michael Bay (or Peter Jackson and that awful script destroying wife of his) movie.

For genuinely creative, artistic people, I would say the motivation for success always has a negative effect upon their work. This would be a very long post if I went into any examples, but they are all over the music, movie, art, and book publishing industries. There is a reason patrons existed around the time of the Renaissance, and that the world is still in awe of the art that period of history produced.

In the specific instance of the games industry, I will say this: money currently runs the industry; it didn't start off that way. When money runs anything, it destroys it. Games need to get back to the place where inspired people who love what they are making can get into the position to make what they love again because they love it. That cannot happen while self-important, incompetent, unethical, fiscally brutal mercenary dicks in suits call all the shots. It's changing, but the change will be slow and uneven, and full of missteps and outright mistakes (for reference see anything F2P the sole purpose of which is to make money).

[lawll]

EQMAC

EQMAC is also a boxing heaven, you have about 100-250 people on at a time and almost every does a 2-3 box so do the math. Well unless like the whole boxing and playing alone thing that is.

[Messianic]

EQMAC = tiny community.

That's why I would actually like this server to recreate Luclin. It won't happen, I know, but I still would prefer it. I'll go on record and say releasing Luclin in the distant future after Velious is long completed won't harm p99's numbers at all.

[fadetree]

I agree. I'd like to see luclin.

[Sollix]

I'm looking forward to collecting dwarf heads in Great Divide and aligning with the Giants. They're a lively bunch!

[TarukShmaruk]

I agree. I'd like to see luclin.

Same but it doesn't matter.

It's what the staff once. That said its also their prerogative to change their minds 2 years after Velious is released.

[porigromus]

EQMAC = tiny community.

That's why I would actually like this server to recreate Luclin. It won't happen, I know, but I still would prefer it. I'll go on record and say releasing Luclin in the distant future after Velious is long completed won't harm p99's numbers at all.

Maybe EQmac has lower numbers because of the expac its up to