Expansions or Reboot?

[anthony210]

Ive heard some rumors that the server is going to be rebooted back to 1999 after Velious is complete. Is this true?

Also just curious what the plans are for the server once Velious has been out for some time and people start getting bored? I loved Classic to Velious as much as anyone else but after your 100th run at NToV or Sleepers your gonna get bored, especially when you cant even improve your character anymore because AA's arent even out.

[Wigglepoo]

Personally, I'd like to see new content after Velious is done ala SoD, only more in line with how original progression could have been had the powers that be not sold their soul to the devil.

[whitebandit]

DUDE stfu =p eq to velious is amazing dont give them any ideas about no reboot

[Wigglepoo]

Yessir! Yessir! Right away sir! S'ing tfu, as per instructions. :D

[Zasc]

Interesting, assuming it is reboot, how many new players will want to join once velious is out, knowing that their char will shortly be deleted?

I am not for or against it by any means, but this is a pretty big flaw with that system. Once Velious (or even Kunark) is released, players wont want to play knowing that an impending player wipe is coming. Most likely those players will just wait.

Need to keep players coming in other wise the server will end up with 50 people due to attrition.

[Tsuken]

Its a nice idea, but I'd do it like this:

The server continues the timeline until Luclin would have been released.
On that day a 2nd p1999 server is set up, starting from vanilla EQ again, also following the original timeline.

So everyone can still continue playing on this server, but can also start all over again on another server, together with everyone else.

[whitebandit]

Nice Addition Zasc.. i would agree.. we definitely want to keep server population higher (See extending manastone drops and guise of deception to a reasonable value)

[Korjyrin]

At some point there will need to be a decision as to whether or not the server should continue the path of live, or while continuing the path of live, make modifications to what should of been, rather than what it turned out to be. If that even makes sense..

If these rumors are true, for a character wipe that is, then more than likely I will stop playing once announced, and donations to the server will no longer be in my best interest.

Just my two cents.

-Korjyra

[guineapig]

As stated by others, you can't in your right mind announce a character wipe a year (or more) in advance. I'm already hesitant to do extremely long drawn out quests and camps due to the time sink. If I was told it will all go poof on X date I would probably go about things much differently.

I did have one thought though which is totally out there but hear me out.
If the devs decided that they want to go further but not piss off the classic loyalists, what they could do is set up a second server (that has Luclin enabled) and offer character transfers to those that want to go further. This could be done when all of Velious has been completed. All parties would be kept happy this way. Luclin fans would go to the other server if they so desire and those that hated Luclin can stay put or be reset or whatever.

Now I'm under the impression that the devs all hated Luclin and what it stood for, so I wouldn't count on this idea ever happening.... but who knows.


Personally, I'm just having lots of fun and am not too concerned with the devs decisions anymore. It's their sandbox and they will do what they want and/or what they feel is best. I’m just enjoying the ride.

[anthony210]

Id imagine running two servers could be quite costly and not to mention we probably dont have enough of a population to fill two servers with enough people.

Wasnt the main issue with Luclin the nexus and bazaar? Could Shadows of Luclin not be released without those two zones? Or just add the Nexus zone with no ports and the only way to get to the moon will be via druid/wizard port.

IMO I did not have that big of a problem with SoL and the Nexus ports. Sure it made ports obsolete somewhat but it was only from certain zones. IE anyone on Antonica had to run to NK to get to a Nexus Spire so there was still a bit of travel time as well as waiting the 15 minutes for the port there.

I really did enjoy raiding in luclin, sure there was some time sinks such as keying for Emp and keying for VT but when you finally got that VT key and started raiding there it felt like you really accomplished something as a guild.

Also AA's really made it so you could further your character a lot more than just hitting level 60.

A wipe of characters is about the worst thing I can think of. Just ask yourself if you would want to restart at Lvl 1 with no expansions after playing for the 2 years or more it might take to finish Velious. Would you even keep playing knowing the server was going to get wiped? I am all for nostalgia but I really cant see myself starting over at lvl 1 with no expansions just to do everything all over again. The reason I am doing it now is because I havent done it for 10 years.

[Rogean]

The server will stop at velious. At that point we may consider opening a second server starting from the beginning again, but this is still a while away (2 years atleast).

[anthony210]

So there will be no chance of even discussing the server going past Velious? I guess I will enjoy the ride but I can tell you right now that it will get boring eventually.

Its a long way down the road but I like to think about the future before I put a lot of time into my character.

[Rogean]

I'm not saying it won't be discussed, but its unlikely that we will decide to continue past it.

[Zasc]

If a wipe is in fact decided upon once velious has been flogged to death, i would suggest a way of retaining some of the player base may be to allow them to keep a lvl 50 character (or maybe even a lvl 30 character or something?) or something once the wipe occurs. There really needs to be some incentive.

yes, it would unbalance the game to hell once the wipe occurs, but at least all of those players (us) who are getting wiped have a better chance of staying.

From what i can see, if the wipe occurs noone is going to want to reroll and do it again. They will already have had their nice trip down memory lane and wont be feeling so masochistic a second time around.

[Zasc]

A wipe of characters is about the worst thing I can think of.

This is something i dont want to think of at this point.

The server is fantastic and everything is great at present. But personally if i got wind of some sort of wipe i would probably instantly quit. This is mainly due to me feeling like there is little point in continueing.

I get this same feeling in other MMOs when a new expansion is announced. Why bother continueing to raid/improve your character/equipment when all of the items you are raiding for are going to be replaced and worth nothing briefly after the release of the expansion. This is an instant motivation killer and mood killer for me personally.

[Rogean]

I never said a wipe would occur, and I would be against that. I said we may open up a second, new server, to start from the beginning again.

[Zasc]

I never said a wipe would occur, and I would be against that. I said we may open up a second, new server, to start from the beginning again.

That is great news :)

Thanks for clarifying Rogean. And once again thanks for the server. Most of us appreciate it ... while you guys tough it out and mop up the shit.

Not enough credit is given.

[Tsuken]

I never said a wipe would occur, and I would be against that. I said we may open up a second, new server, to start from the beginning again.
Sweet, that's what I think would be the best as well. No character wipe. And like you said, if there is a new server it would still be 2 years away.

I think the project will be popular enough by then to have enough population for a 2nd server.

I've been trying to inform people about it here and there, like on old Everquest videos. I think people who used to play just need to know about it and they'll at least give it a try.

[Somekid123]

How about we try to make it to Kunark, before we worry about whats going to happen in two years?

[Ghesta]

How about we try to make it to Kunark, before we worry about whats going to happen in two years?

What kind of nonsensical thoughts are these?
Pffft.

[mokfarg]

I love the fact that one MMO will come to a static stop. The longer these MMOs continue to go they always become ruined. I have never seen a great MMO continue to grow into something better. EQ imploded after Velious, WoW was ruined in Burning Crusade, Star Wars Galaxy .. well everyone knows when that one was destroyed, and Dark Age of Camelot .. well you get the picture.

A MMO coming to a content stop is great, you can relax and play, not worrying about getting behind, you can make alts. The Devs could hold special events with no permanent impact to the great EQ trilogy. The game doesn't have to expand to keep going. EQ already takes a long time to level, why make the gap further and further for new players?

[mokfarg]

I never said a wipe would occur, and I would be against that. I said we may open up a second, new server, to start from the beginning again.

I think Rogean's answer is the best one possible. Good to hear!

[utenan]

There are ways to make the game fun without adding expansions and increasing the level cap, or having aa's (any sort of grind), after you hit the new max lvl and get whatever aa's, your left in the same position, hopefully after so long the devs can create some content that adds more fun (that lasts) to classic eq, that doesn't necessarily make a new grind (if this is even possible), just gotta be creative (I am not : / )

[Modal]

I'm in favor of a wipe a while after Velious. A lot of new people are going to join during Kunark and Velious who might not otherwise get the to-50 classic run, and we are all here for that classic progression, after all. I'd have no problem giving up planar gear and dragon drops to do the whole thing again. It's the journey that's fun, not the destination.

[blanks77]

I'm also in favor of a wipe. I have to agree its the journey that's fun. Once all the content has been played, I would sacrifice my character and gear to start over again. Gives me a chance to level a different class without being a twink.

[siinge]

i as well as a mass of other players would quit playing if a wipe ever occured

putting hundereds of days into playing and progressing your char to have it poof makes people feel ill, most that are up for a wipe are still lving here and have yet to put any time sinks in

obviously this server will not last forever but knowing a future wipe would prob cause alot of us to find something else to do with our free time

most of us will be making alts when future xpansions are released due to other races classes being avilable, there will be a new influx of players always as more people hear about the server

let the rest of us enjoy our uber gear

[President]

The fact this is even being discussed at LEAST 1 1/2 years before it would even be considered is beyond me. Seriously guys, go do something else.

[Brad_mo123]

Well hopefully when/if the server is released it will be 99% classic clone, with the ui, old skeleton models and etc. just like eqclassic.org talked about.

[Gwence]

For anyone that likes to raid or is of a raiding mentality, Velious is gonna suck. The content will be killed within the first 2-3 weeks (all of it) And it will be completely farmed for the next 1-2 months (maybe 3 months) And then that point will come where everyone will be looking at each other wondering.......what now?

You should keep an open mind about continuing the eq timeline past Velious, to discard it NOW like 2 years before the fact is pretty ignorant. I find it hard to believe people will not want to open Luclin and subsequent expansions when the time comes.

[President]

For anyone that likes to raid or is of a raiding mentality, Velious is gonna suck. The content will be killed within the first 2-3 weeks (all of it) And it will be completely farmed for the next 1-2 months (maybe 3 months) And then that point will come where everyone will be looking at each other wondering.......what now?

You should keep an open mind about continuing the eq timeline past Velious, to discard it NOW like 2 years before the fact is pretty ignorant. I find it hard to believe people will not want to open Luclin and subsequent expansions when the time comes.

I think someone is forgetting about the three different factions and huge faction grind.

[whitebandit]

Personally I loved eq-velious, and i enjoyed alot of luclin, ecspecially beastlords. but i do think from there that nothing good came from eq.. except MAYBE loy, but thats a very big maybe..

[Talgurin]

The way people continue to discuss a "wipe" even after Rogean said there's not going to be one, and the fact some people actually support the idea of having a char that you've put years of work into being destroyed against your will, makes me fear for the sanity of some of the people on this server.

The solution is a second server + enhanced GM events on main server. New, GM controlled or implemented creatures to hunt down on a frequent basis, with interesting storylines. Would be fun for players, fun for GMs.

[Hasbinbad]

The solution is a second server + enhanced GM events on main server. New, GM controlled or implemented creatures to hunt down on a frequent basis, with interesting storylines. Would be fun for players, fun for GMs.
And we could have unicorns and fairies in qeynos and make it so that the gnolls have bard songs and nagafen will fly over the land and make sure that the balance is achieved and then we can have new sparkle armor that makes everyone invulnerable and then everyone can solo and get all the gear and I want a pony.

[guineapig]

And we could have unicorns and fairies in qeynos and make it so that the gnolls have bard songs and nagafen will fly over the land and make sure that the balance is achieved and then we can have new sparkle armor that makes everyone invulnerable and then everyone can solo and get all the gear and I want a pony.

You can't have the pony, you've already been told! :p

[Gwence]

Faction grind is a minimal grind at best, you can just hit boss mobs for huge faction hits. You can go back and forth between the 3 factions pretty fast if you need to.

[Makeda]

The server will stop at velious. At that point we may consider opening a second server starting from the beginning again, but this is still a while away (2 years atleast).

http://www.buddy-icons.info/img/smile/2007.gif

[Xaquin]

wow, it's bad that I don't even remember the third faction

Dwarfs, Giants and ????

[Morfnblorsh]

...Dragons...

[Malrubius]

For anyone that likes to raid or is of a raiding mentality, Velious is gonna suck. The content will be killed within the first 2-3 weeks (all of it) And it will be completely farmed for the next 1-2 months (maybe 3 months) And then that point will come where everyone will be looking at each other wondering.......what now?

You should keep an open mind about continuing the eq timeline past Velious, to discard it NOW like 2 years before the fact is pretty ignorant. I find it hard to believe people will not want to open Luclin and subsequent expansions when the time comes.

I don't want this to come across as flamey, since I really am just curious. But why would someone who feels this way play on the one server whose stated goal is to stop at Velious?

[Trimm]

Who wants to level alts to 52 with me and farm Naggy/Vox?

[Makeda]

I just would like a Velious Game with Luclin models on :)
Anyone thing this is possible ?

[guineapig]

Oh boy, you opened the wrong can of worms..

/em ducks for cover

[Makeda]

I'm not a boy !

[The Situation]

I just would like a Velious Game with Luclin models on :)
Anyone thing this is possible ?

I'll make it simple: no.

[Makeda]

It's a pity.

[Trimm]

I just would like a Velious Game with Luclin models on :)
Anyone thing this is possible ?

I know it's been brought up a dozen times before, and I don't want to get too off topic, but I just can't understand how people actually prefer the luclin models. What is it about them? The goofy proportions? The awful facial expressions? Terrible hairstyles? Horrific run and attack animations?

I know its all a matter of opinion, but for me EQ was at it's absolute best with old models and velious armor textures enabled.

[Makeda]

Yes it's for all of that :D

In fact I started to play just before Luclin so I played much time with this models on.

(sorry for my bad english).

[guineapig]

I just would like a Velious Game with Luclin models on :)
Anyone thing this is possible ?

Just to clarify, I personally don't find any issue with what sort of models anybody sees on their end. It doesn't effect me one bit and there are some Luclin models I enjoyed as well.

It's just a sore subject on the forums that causes heated debate for what ever reason. Long story short, while it's true that nobody else would see what models you have turned on (I use the new models for elementals for example, I like to know what direction they are facing), it's also not a simple fix as it requires Luclin to be enabled. And since Luclin is not enabled they can't simply add the models. At least that's how the story goes.

Also the term oh boy is just a phrase, I wasn't specifically referring to you as a boy: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Etymology-Meaning-Words-1474/2008/6/origin-phrase-4.htm :)

[Makeda]

Ok thank you very much :)

[Gwence]

I don't want this to come across as flamey, since I really am just curious. But why would someone who feels this way play on the one server whose stated goal is to stop at Velious?

Because it still beats eqlive, its free, and I enjoy the game. Im just saying when their's a verifiable end in sight, the closer you get to it the more perspectives people have (right now) are going to change.

In any case, this is all huge speculation at this point, the server may never release Velious or Kunark for that matter.

[Fawqueue]

Right now this question is going to get you shot for heresy. With the "we hate everything beyond velious" mantra from us classic guys it's like asknig if we should add nipples to the batsuit in the next movie..again. We've seen it turn out badly once before. However, I think when velious is getting tired and played out, the same Luclin/PoP witch hunters are probably going to give a little and you'll hear "Alright, lets do it..but lets make some changes so it's less like live and more like our vision of how it should have gone down". And maybe that's the right way to go. In this grand experiment that is Project 1999, maybe the next step in the evolution should be to see how the game could have been. Or maybe we'll get lazy and just say "Okay, but only to PoP and that's it!". There's a lot of fun plot twists in our future, that's for sure!

[mokfarg]

Right now this question is going to get you shot for heresy. With the "we hate everything beyond velious" mantra from us classic guys it's like asknig if we should add nipples to the batsuit in the next movie..again. We've seen it turn out badly once before. However, I think when velious is getting tired and played out, the same Luclin/PoP witch hunters are probably going to give a little and you'll hear "Alright, lets do it..but lets make some changes so it's less like live and more like our vision of how it should have gone down". And maybe that's the right way to go. In this grand experiment that is Project 1999, maybe the next step in the evolution should be to see how the game could have been. Or maybe we'll get lazy and just say "Okay, but only to PoP and that's it!". There's a lot of fun plot twists in our future, that's for sure!

That is okay if they do decide to go that route but I will not be playing at that point. I disliked everything about SOL and PoP. I hated the awful lore, the teleporting books, PoK, going to the Moon, Cats, Beastlord, it was just awful awful awful. I would prefer it to come to a stop, no more changes. Sure some people will move on but others will join and others will make alts. I played a game called Rubies of Eventide for about 5 years with NO changes whatsoever .. many people did.

I game doesn't have to keep changing to stay alive. Actually when a game continues to grow (look at the big ball of crap EQ live is now) it discourages new people from joining. If it is static, more people will get to try out the great EQ trilogy, we need to not be thinking of just us. Just because we get to the end and finish everything doesn't mean everyone joining the server has. Let people grow tired and move on, let new people be the new top players. That was Rubies of Eventide and then the people that got bored and quit also keep coming back when they are ready for more.

[Makeda]

+ 1000 mokfarg ^^

[Dac321]

Right now this question is going to get you shot for heresy. With the "we hate everything beyond velious" mantra from us classic guys it's like asknig if we should add nipples to the batsuit in the next movie..again. We've seen it turn out badly once before. However, I think when velious is getting tired and played out, the same Luclin/PoP witch hunters are probably going to give a little and you'll hear "Alright, lets do it..but lets make some changes so it's less like live and more like our vision of how it should have gone down". And maybe that's the right way to go. In this grand experiment that is Project 1999, maybe the next step in the evolution should be to see how the game could have been. Or maybe we'll get lazy and just say "Okay, but only to PoP and that's it!". There's a lot of fun plot twists in our future, that's for sure!

You are on to something... I myself love classic content. I did play all the way to Faydark or whatever.. As most of us have played content outside of classic we know EverQuest's strong points, and weaknesses..
After Velious I don't mind progessing. However, we the people, and the Devs need to determine what ruined the game post Velious. IMO it was the fact that SOE wanted to make the game softer. (Portals, Bazaar, etc) I noticed what keeps this game(classic) afloat is the community. What SOE did was apply these so called "benefits" to the game which ended up backfiring, the servers continued to lose population; so they had to continue adding patches and ideas to compinsate the lack of population, which in turn kept making the community worse. I'd like to express what I thought hurt EQ a few list of expansions.

Luclin
PROBLEM: Having a desigated area to sell merchandise which caused the community to decline because the patch allowed people to sell merchandise and not have to be communicating with the buyer. This made negociating difficult and caused prices to inflate. 2) Nexus portal, stole the thunder from the wizards

Pro: The AA concept was good IMO, it allowed each character to benefit their mains in different ways. (Improvement idea: Limit the amount of AAs you can earn so players need to think before spending, this will give each glass a variety, and a make players more unique. Also only allow Wizards to port to Luclin. This would give Wizards the upperhand and create a demand for them)

Planes of Power
PROBLEM: The expansion clearly known for the destruction of EverQuest. The idea of using a portal to locate to different areas of the world DESTROYS the community. This expansion caused wizards and druids to go out of business. They are great in a group however they were known for being the easiest ways of transportation. As SOE progressed with each expansion they made the game easier for soloing and less grouping.
(Improvement idea: Sure, have the different planes, however make them only available at certain levels, remove PoK... a grand central area may put a damper and remove the general population out of Norrath's classic grounds.)

These are just two expansions that listed the problems. Of course LDoN was released and, an instant will ruin any MMO. When LDoN is next on the expansion list, keep the content, just dont allow the zones to be instants.

Your thoughts and opinions?

[Malrubius]

Every other server out there, live and emu, goes beyond Velious. Anyone who wants to play beyond Velious has LOTS of options. No problem with that.

What is so wrong with ONE server (maybe someday even 2 or 3!) stopping at Velious, which the majority of players agree was the last GREAT expansion to Everquest?

My guess is that if this server ever DID jump the shark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark) (which I am confident that it won't), then another server would crop up. Again it would have the goal of stopping at Velious. Would people then go join that server and lobby for it, too, to go beyond Velious?

Why isn't it OKAY for one classic server to exist?

[Rogean]

I'm actually of the opinion that Planes of Power was one of the best EQ Expansions. But regardless, this is a "Classic" server, with the intention of stopping at Velious. If you want to play Planes of Power, you can play PEQ.

[Trimm]

But regardless, this is a "Classic" server, with the intention of stopping at Velious.

This has been the server's intention since day 1. Why are people trying to change this? If you don't want to play Classic - Velious only, why did you make a character here?

[Dac321]

I agree that the server should remain classic. But, what in your guys' opinion constitutes as classic? There are many reasons. In my opinion it wasnt just the content alone that made classic, classic. It was the community. I have nothing wrong with progression. But, I do when it starts to interfere with the economy/community within the game.

[anthony210]

Luclin is a pretty old expansion. I could dub it classic as well. Classic is a point of view.

When I hear people talk about classic EQ I think about EQ before items got nuts like they are on live today with +3000 hp and mana etc.

[Aeolwind]

I've honestly pondered this question myself many, many times. I would definitely want to maintain a Velious cap server, but fixing some of Sony's screw ups like AA inflation, discriminatory content, & POK would be fun.

[faenyar]

I hated everything after velious. Kunark was the best expansion, IMO. Velious was a kick in the nuts to enchanters, but it was superbly done with an awesome backstory and very well thought out faction balances, item upgrades, graphics upgrades, etc. and I liked it quite a bit despite the groin kick.

Everything after that went straight to hell.

[anthony210]

Perhaps create a second server that will progress past Velious and allow people to transfer to it. This way people that want to raid or experiance expansions past luclin can do it without starting over and people who want to remain in classic can do so as well.

[Trimm]

I'll always consider Release -> Velious the 'classic' era.

With the release of Luclin you added too much 'stuff' (content?). The Bazaar & Nexus, a new class, a new race, horses, AA abilities, new graphics engine, UI Interface and of course the dreaded player models. Don't get me wrong, these aren't necessarily bad additions, but it just seemed to be the expansion that set EQ on a different course. While I still spent most of my time in Kunark/Velious, I didn't mind the Luclin expansion. I really enjoyed PoP's style of tiered content. After PoP the game seemed to run out of original ideas and became dull and unplayable.

I'm sure many would disagree, but thats just my take on the Classic vs. Live argument.

[xblade724]

This would happen years for now. Wait til then and ask again later lol. Many of you probably will not even still be playing by then :-P

[Heckler]

How about when Velious is reached, continue to add zones that are connected ONLY to old school zones. I.E. Sol C, etc. That way to the newcomers, the world still feels classic, but has a few twists.

[Makeda]

I hated everything after velious. Kunark was the best expansion, IMO. Velious was a kick in the nuts to enchanters, but it was superbly done with an awesome backstory and very well thought out faction balances, item upgrades, graphics upgrades, etc. and I liked it quite a bit despite the groin kick.

Everything after that went straight to hell.

Agree :)

[Gwence]

pop was an awesome expansion, as was luclin. Only expansion that I didnt like in eq was depths of darkhollow, and only because demiplane of blood is the gayest zone ever.

[Ronnie555]

how long until Kunark comes out, assuming they follow the classic schedule?

[L2Phantom]

Perhaps create a second server that will progress past Velious and allow people to transfer to it. This way people that want to raid or experiance expansions past luclin can do it without starting over and people who want to remain in classic can do so as well.

I love this idea. If people ever got tired of playing just in the trilogy era, they could transfer to maybe a PoP capped server since a lot of people liked the raiding aspect of that expansion.

[Crone]

You all assume there are enough people to make 2 servers. I'd much rather have a server stuck on Velious, with 500+ people during peak times, than 2 servers, each with half that.

Edit: Oh, and where would the extra Dev power come from? Takes more to run 2 servers than just 1.

[dali_lb]

Perhaps create a second server that will progress past Velious and allow people to transfer to it. This way people that want to raid or experiance expansions past luclin can do it without starting over and people who want to remain in classic can do so as well.

I think this would be a great idea too. It would most likely also move some of the raid guilds that is maxed out on loot from Kunark and Velius and are are hugging the spawns from upcomming guilds that werent in top 10. and making more room on the "Classic" P1999.

I still think that should this happen they should modify SoL and PoP.
I have no problem with PoK or Bazaar being in, but just remove all the port stones to old world from PoK. Luclin is still a menace to get around in pre PoP with just Druid and Wizard ports

[km2783]

Two. Years. Away. Minimum.

Discussion is great, but I think it's a bit early to worry about.

[Bumamgar]

Yeah, it's a long way off, so nothing to really worry about right now.

However, as I posted in other threads, I'd love to see this server continue to progress past Velious to PoP, but with a modified Luclin that has Bazaar functions disabled, and a modified PoK where the books don't work (other than to get to PoTranq, of course).

[Mmohunter]

Two. Years. Away. Minimum.

Discussion is great, but I think it's a bit early to worry about.



I agree, why not focus on your time invested now, and what you'll be doing tomorrow in game. Who knows, maybe some of us will get bored by mid Kunark. If any of you remember lvl 54 like I do, I'll be wanting to shoot someone IRL by that time.

[Skaff]

I always felt that the "classic" era was kind of broken up into two different sections. The first being the release->kunark-> velious collection and the second being luclin->POP. Regardless of your opinions on luclin or POP and how they changed the world, content after that was greatly different.

I personally loved POP and the content that came with it. I loved running around the planes and showing the gods up.

[Byokii]

I'm actually of the opinion that Planes of Power was one of the best EQ Expansions.

I agree, I could spend years on this expansion and still be content. I think even with a few years raiding PoTime (with a full 72) not everyone would have every item they wanted.

I know most will disagree on this point...
I actually liked Gates of Discord. Most people saw it as a let down, but the transition from the lootzone of PoTime to the kick in the groin of GoD raids was very fun. The fact that it wasn't free loot, the events seemed more complex, and progression took a lot of time. (Most guilds didn't beat uqua until level 70 was released, and then it was still hard). GoD didn't have any easy ports, it didn't have any graveyards. By far it resembled a lot of the hardships from classic.

IMO what truly killed EQ is the Guild hall and Guild lobby. Why talk to anyone if you can go in your Guild Hall and port to the raid location you needed to get to. Why ask for buffs when you can AFK in the Guild Lobby and soak up MGBs. Why ask a necro to come summon/EE rez you when you can summon your corpse. That took the game to an all time low.

I just found this server, and I will enjoy the few hours a week I can spend on here a week. It would be sad if this server stops at Velious due to fears of what SOE did. This is a privately run server, it can be altered and progress... Keep the classic mechanics, leave the easy-mode stuff out of the game, but continue with adding content (but not at the rate that Live did) 2 years per expansion would be nice. It would allow everyone to get to a good place. Additionally it would allow time to analyze the next expansion and make any modifications that need to be done to fit it into the classic feeling. If that content can't be adapted to the classic feel it should be skipped.

[Fawqueue]

I think it goes both ways. There's an arguement against a reboot that newer players might be deterred from joining, knowing that they'll never catch up before it's wiped. However, I think it's equally plausible that a new player would be encouraged to start, knowing that very soon everything will be wiped clean again and they'll be on an equal footing with the guy that's been playing for the past three years. I also don't see them starting a 2nd server unless the population on this one just explodes and we hit the thousands of player mark. Otherwise, you'll split the healthy (but not huge in the grand scheme) population we enjoy now and both servers will seem quiett in comparison.

That being said, the classic experience has been a blast again, and honestly...if I had to choose between continuing on to Luclin and beyond, a reboot, or 2nd server...I think I'd choose the reboot. If I'm still here in a few years when velious is done I will have had a chance to re-live a great time in online gaming. It was an unforgettable experience the first time around, and this walk down memory lane has been amazing. I think I'd want the guy who discovers this server in two years to be able to have the same experience I had. I'm not selfish, I don't need this to be about me. I get to enjoy the ride for a few years, then I think it should be done, reset, and start over for the next group of gamers. There's hundreds of thousands of EQers out there that have yet to stumble onto our little project.

[Ceridain]

I agree, why not focus on your time invested now, and what you'll be doing tomorrow in game. Who knows, maybe some of us will get bored by mid Kunark. If any of you remember lvl 54 like I do, I'll be wanting to shoot someone IRL by that time.

^ The lvl I quit =(

[BlackBellamy]

Luclin killed EQ for me back in the day and it will kill P1999 for me as well. Well, it won't since we're not going past Velious.

The only and I mean the ONLY thing that I enjoyed out of any post-Velious expansion was the bit where you got to roll a froglok.

[Bumamgar]

Luclin killed EQ for me back in the day and it will kill P1999 for me as well. Well, it won't since we're not going past Velious.

The only and I mean the ONLY thing that I enjoyed out of any post-Velious expansion was the bit where you got to roll a froglok.

What about Luclin 'killed' EQ for you? I'm just curious...

[Byokii]

What about Luclin 'killed' EQ for you? I'm just curious...

I am curious about this also. People seem to say that Luclin killed the game. I do not understand. To me Omens of war killed the game. It was a really bad raid progression expansion, the group content blew. We were farming RSS with in weeks of launch.

IMO if this server was to progress past Velious it would need to be strategic and different than live. There is no need to increase the level caps. Just add the content and tune it accordingly.

It baffles me that everyone says "Luclin ruined the game" but they can not state what about Luclin ruined it. Was it the bazaar/nexus. Was it the poor management of the game as a whole... server crashes, bugs, etc?

[Landis]

It baffles me that everyone says "Luclin ruined the game" but they can not state what about Luclin ruined it.
- new graphics were terrible
- the moon (seriously, killed a lot of lore)
- bazaar
- instant traveling
- lolcats as a playable race

[Kerrik]

I'm one of the apparent minority that liked something about pretty much all of the expansions (Legacy of Ykesha is the one I had the least use for). What finally drove me to quit EQ after 9 years was first the fact that so many of my friends had left that it was getting hard to regularly find people to group with (far too many people were boxing/running mercs and weren't looking to group much) and second the fact that Sony was introducing a micropayment system where you could buy items/advantages in-game with real world money. Yeah, the store had crappy items initially, but I strongly believe that no one should ever gain any advantage or bonus (be it better gear or extra experience, etc.) simply because they opened their wallet more than the next player.

If the consensus once Velious is open is to stop, that's fine. If the P99 admins and community decides to continue after Velious (either following the original Luclin+ progression or modifying it to remove the parts that many people dislike, like easy travel through PoK) I'd be fine with that as well. But that's really an issue for down the road, after Velious is out for a while and people had had the chance to explore the zones, do the quests, etc.

[Bumamgar]

- new graphics were terrible
- the moon (seriously, killed a lot of lore)
- bazaar
- instant traveling
- lolcats as a playable race

You mean new player models I assume, when you say new graphics? Those were optional, so to each their own eh? I personally liked some of them and disliked others. (New ogre is definitely an improvement, imho).

I agree with you regarding the bazaar and instant travel. Although the Nexus based travel isn't anywhere near as bad as PoK. At least with the nexus you often had to wait 10 minutes for the port up to the nexus, and then wait another 10 minutes for the port back down, and it was only between four main locations so there was still a lot of travel required after using the nexus. Basically it was a way to avoid boats.

As for the lore, I never really paid attention to that. To me it was no different than Kunark or Velious (new continents with strange creatures on them). As far as I am concerned, it might as well have been just another continent.

I fail to see how Vah Shir are any worse than Iksar? I mean really, catlike humanoids or lizardlike humanoids.. both are fairly lame conceptually.

What I don't see are any complaints about the CONTENT of the expansion, or AAs, or horses. I know I personally thought AAs added a lot to the game, and I definitely enjoyed the various zones and raid content that were part of Luclin. Ssra temple was a very well-designed zone, and although Vex Thal was a bit of a grind-fest, it was (once fixed) still a great raid zone.

Personally I'm not that big a fan of mounts, but I know a lot of people liked them.

[Byokii]

- new graphics were terrible
- the moon (seriously, killed a lot of lore)
- bazaar
- instant traveling
- lolcats as a playable race

graphics is kind of a personal preference thing.
The cats are dumb. They aren't present anywhere else prior to luclin, and their animations were annoying as hell.
The bazaar and instant traveling can be scrapped.

Would most people be more comfortable omitting Luclin and just stepping onwards to PoP....

With my prefered play style I only play one character, and I like to experience the final boss fights... I know I would get bored if Velious was the end all... People would quit after a few years if Velious was all there was.

It just seems that the community is smart enough to talk out what ruined EQ Live, and correct those issues. Velious may be years away on this server, and may be in for years after that. That gives us, as a community, time to talk over how to proceed. If properly planned, scoped, and designed to acceptable standards of the majority of the community it will be a success. If it is released as SOE released these bad expansions... it would be a flop.

I work as a Software Quality Assurance Engineer. When my company has to produce something for a client with little planning time and development time it is always a rough testing and release cycle, and then after that there are many change requests. When we have the foresight and time to plan projects 8mos prior to release the releases go a lot smoother. This is mainly due to planning, if the project is talked about and designed before development happens then the developer can produce the expected product.

TL;DR:
Basically, we know what we don't like about Luclin+, but what do we actually like? What stories, content, game mechanics fit in the design and feel of EQ-Classic.

[Mordachai]

As a ranger main, I can easily say that AA's were my favorite part of Luclin, but I really enjoyed the majority of the expansion. Nexus ports really are not much different than the translocators we have now, but I would really be ok with the nexus spires not working, and leaving it to wizards (and druids if decided..) I don't see a need for the bazaar though.

I liked going in sanctus seru and trying to sabotage them for the katta folks, I really enjoyed the tradeskill recipes and the further expansion of tradeskill-related quests.

Same thing with PoP, I really enjoyed the raid content that was introduced. The odds of me ever being able to reach it in P99 are slim to none, but it was still very well done. The only thing in my opinion that hurt the community with PoP was PoK travel, I would be strongly against that, the planes should be hard to get to, just like Hate and Sky.

[Kerrik]

re: PoK travel. As I mentioned to Bum last night, I thought it might be interesting for an emu to try a modified version of PoP where you can use the books to travel from locations around Norrath to PoK (and from there to the other PoP planes) but when you left PoK to return to Norrath you were always returned to the same location that you left. If you leave Qeynos to travel to the planes, you return to Qeynos when you leave the planes. If you want to go to Velious, you would have to travel across the world or pay a Druid/Wizard to transport you. From Velious you might travel to PoK from the Great Divide to join your guild or friends in the Planes, but this time when you returned you'd go back to the Great Divide, not Qeynos. Thus PoK isn't a subway for all of Norrath, but it can still be a meeting place and a jumping off point for just the PoP expansion.

With the large group of dedicated fans of EQ on this server, I'm sure we can come up with solutions to most of the things that annoyed us about how Sony advanced EQ, while retaining the things we agree worked. That said, it would not be "classic", and I can respect the fact that there are going to be people that won't agree with even those solutions. Ultimately Rogean, Nilbog and the other developers will have to decide what to do when the time comes. I will support whatever their decision is at that time.

[BlackBellamy]

What about Luclin 'killed' EQ for you? I'm just curious...

Hated even the idea of playing on a moon. Like what, we ran out of room on the planet itself?

New race was awful. Meow meow meow.

Beastlord class added nothing to the game. Didn't think we need another hybrid or a pet class.

Bazaar inflated prices.

Nexus was the beginning of the end for non-trivial travel.

New graphics made me physically sick.

Time sinks. Time sinks. Time sinks.



Now a lot of these are purely personal preferences and everyone can argue back and forth. But these are what did it for me. It was the beginning of the end. The first major dumbing-down of the system I enjoyed. Maybe dumbing-down is not the correct phrase, I don't know, some things certainly got more complex, but in the end Luclin felt like a slap in the face.

Luclin made it very very easy for me to get into Dark Age of Camelot.

[Zithax]

Personally, I'd like to see new content after Velious is done ala SoD, only more in line with how original progression could have been had the powers that be not sold their soul to the devil.

this

[lumin]

re: PoK travel. As I mentioned to Bum last night, I thought it might be interesting for an emu to try a modified version of PoP where you can use the books to travel from locations around Norrath to PoK (and from there to the other PoP planes) but when you left PoK to return to Norrath you were always returned to the same location that you left. If you leave Qeynos to travel to the planes, you return to Qeynos when you leave the planes. If you want to go to Velious, you would have to travel across the world or pay a Druid/Wizard to transport you. From Velious you might travel to PoK from the Great Divide to join your guild or friends in the Planes, but this time when you returned you'd go back to the Great Divide, not Qeynos. Thus PoK isn't a subway for all of Norrath, but it can still be a meeting place and a jumping off point for just the PoP expansion.


Good idea, but I don't know if I totally agree with it. What will happen is that new level 1 players will start the game, port to PoK, and then have their high level friend port them to wherever they like. In fact, I could see Druids and Wizards becoming powerfully unbalanced just by hanging around PoK getting paid for porting players around the world.

I think PoK should have no port stones, books at all and magic porting spells should be disabled here. But there should be an easy way from each starting city to get there to chit chat with other players and learn stuff, but not be able to zone out to other locations. The Plane of Knowledge should be just that: a place to learn things about the game from NPCs and experienced players. Players should only be able to port to each individual plane via spell,stone, or book and disable zoning completely from PoK.

If you give the players a meet-up "zone-able hub" of any kind you seriously damage the idea of having to travel great, epic, distances to meet up with one another.

[Biotodd]

Continue through PoP then reboot

[Malrubius]

"Expansions or Reboot?"

Expansions - they are stopping at Velious.

Reboot - they won't reboot the server although they may spin off a new one.

[Byokii]

I think PoK should have no port stones, books at all and magic porting spells should be disabled here. But there should be an easy way from each starting city to get there to chit chat with other players and learn stuff, but not be able to zone out to other locations. The Plane of Knowledge should be just that: a place to learn things about the game from NPCs and experienced players. Players should only be able to port to each individual plane via spell,stone, or book and disable zoning completely from PoK.

If you give the players a meet-up "zone-able hub" of any kind you seriously damage the idea of having to travel great, epic, distances to meet up with one another.

I think PoK should not exist at all, or if it does make it a quest turn in zone for Storyline only. No merchants, no banks. No reason to go there other than doing your quests. Do not make it accessable via standard cities. You would have to access it via the PoTranq and that is it. Wizards/druids would be able to port to PoTranq. There would be no zone out of PoTranq, you would need to gate to get out of the planes.

[Kerrik]

Lumin makes a great point. I started to type up another idea in response, but realised that we're definitely getting way off on a tangent here, since any fix would get away from the server's intentions to be true to classic EQ. At this point it's just way too early to discuss it since it's not going to even be an issue for a couple years, and the server admin team is still officially planning to stop at Velious.

Only after Velious is out on P99 and people have had plenty of time to enjoy everything up to that point will it be the right time to address this. The admins may prefer to stop at Velious as planned, they may decide to continue opening standard EQ expansions (either at a reduced rate, or the same as live) or they may agree to consider some customization.

But I'd rather not see people get excited (or upset) over any one of these choices now since it's so far out. And it's kinda unfair to Rogean, Nilbog and the other P99 team members to be bugging them about issues like that now when they have so much on their plate already.

[Omnimorph]

I think PoK should not exist at all, or if it does make it a quest turn in zone for Storyline only. No merchants, no banks. No reason to go there other than doing your quests. Do not make it accessable via standard cities. You would have to access it via the PoTranq and that is it. Wizards/druids would be able to port to PoTranq. There would be no zone out of PoTranq, you would need to gate to get out of the planes.

Omnimorph likes this idea. Hell, they should have had all the planes just be port up places like sky and hate :p

[PhilPhans]

While i enjoyed PoP. PoP to me is the one that broke EQ. It basically elminated the need for port spells. The itemization for the first time was 2x the amount of hp/mana from the previous expansions. The Exp factor in PoP zones made all other zones in the game worthless to exp in. you basically invalidated the previous expansions original-luclin.

btw i still play on Live today and have seen the rate in which Gear stats have gotten out of whack. It started in PoP.

[BuzWeaver]

As stated by others, you can't in your right mind announce a character wipe a year (or more) in advance. I'm already hesitant to do extremely long drawn out quests and camps due to the time sink. If I was told it will all go poof on X date I would probably go about things much differently.

I did have one thought though which is totally out there but hear me out.
If the devs decided that they want to go further but not piss off the classic loyalists, what they could do is set up a second server (that has Luclin enabled) and offer character transfers to those that want to go further. This could be done when all of Velious has been completed. All parties would be kept happy this way. Luclin fans would go to the other server if they so desire and those that hated Luclin can stay put or be reset or whatever.

Now I'm under the impression that the devs all hated Luclin and what it stood for, so I wouldn't count on this idea ever happening.... but who knows.


Personally, I'm just having lots of fun and am not too concerned with the devs decisions anymore. It's their sandbox and they will do what they want and/or what they feel is best. I’m just enjoying the ride.

I certainly like the latter idea of allowing a server transfer. It would be a bit discouraging to think that the efforts you put into your character would only result in a reset later. Like you the game is enjoyable and I hope that 'purest' mentality doesn't override common sense.

[Byokii]

I certainly like the latter idea of allowing a server transfer. It would be a bit discouraging to think that the efforts you put into your character would only result in a reset later. Like you the game is enjoyable and I hope that 'purest' mentality doesn't override common sense.

I am agree, if classic is going to stop at Velious, and there would be another server that would go beyond Velious I wouldn't mind transferring (when I completed the Velious era). The reason this thread interests me so is I want to have the foresight to know what will happen to all the time I have spent. I have a full time job and a 16 month old son so my time is a premium. I can not play like an 18 year old college student any more... If there will be a wipe that eradicates all my efforts I will quit now. If the server is going to stop at Velious and there will be no more content after that I will play accordingly. If there is a chance of future expansions after Velious I will make sure that I am prepared for those expansions, and not have a ton of loose ends when they come out that will divide my time.

[stormlord]

While i enjoyed PoP. PoP to me is the one that broke EQ. It basically elminated the need for port spells. The itemization for the first time was 2x the amount of hp/mana from the previous expansions. The Exp factor in PoP zones made all other zones in the game worthless to exp in. you basically invalidated the previous expansions original-luclin.

btw i still play on Live today and have seen the rate in which Gear stats have gotten out of whack. It started in PoP.

Some people say it started with Kunark. For example why would a monk play anything other than a lizard? Why would you experience in a classic zone when you can experience in a kunark zone and get more money and better loot? Etc.

It's not the presence of mudflation that was the distinction, it was the rate of mudflation that increased as the years went by that defined what happened. It was as though they were so desperate to sell expansions that they made them too important to pass up. So any player that didn't buy them played at a disadvantage. Many of the expansions didn't just add content, they replaced content. For example, if it increased the cap by 5 levels, it didn't just add content for those levels, it added content for the previous 20 or more. And this led to people leaving old zones and giving people that empty feeling inside. The kind of feeling you have when you're being dragged down a road on the back by a rope. Eventually, they just -forgot- about old content.

And to be honest, if new content was all that mattered, I wouldn't be playing here in the zones that I've played in. I don't think i'll ever get too sick of it. I still don't know everything about them either. Some people make the mistake of assuming that just because you've played in a zone that this somehow means you've seen and experienced everything and new content is the final solution. I'm not at issue with that contention, rather I disagree with the assertion that old content is old! It's not old unless you know everything about it. I don't, so it's not old! Thus, that's why I feel like I'm being dragged behind a truck.

I feel like I am over the barrel on the live servers and have no choice about what happens. That feeling isn't as strong here. The air is better. It ain't perfect and I need breaks. And I'll probably play on hte live servers again sometime, but that doesn't change the fact that the air is dirtier on live. Live is like disneyland or something. Or Ronald McDonald. I get tired of it. I think the larger thing is that it's just old and hard to change. I like EQ2 and Vanguard. But this game, as we know it here, is so different from live that it's like a separate game almost. Time hasn't got rid of that. It's not old until it's OLD.

[ulrich]

If you want expansions past velious than you don't understand what all the classic everquest fans have wanted for years and years. EVERY OTHER SERVER has those expansions just play on one of them.

People wanting a wipe are just people that are jealous of others getting mana stones or whatever items before they could get them. If they had the items they wouldn't want a wipe.

Read the faq. It has great info about this server " The best server in the world!!!!! ImO"

[Malrubius]

If you want expansions past velious than you don't understand what all the classic everquest fans have wanted for years and years. EVERY OTHER SERVER has those expansions just play on one of them.

^this. Why can't there be one (and only one) EQ server in the world that only goes through Velious, without people lobbying for it to open up the later expansions.

Let's say that happens (which it won't), and then someone else creates a classic-to-Velious only server. Will you join THAT server next, and start asking for IT to go beyond Velious also?

Sorry if this is flamey - I don't really intend it to be like that. I just don't understand why this keeps coming up. They aren't going past Velious already. :p

[Senadin]

Yeah because all the folks who raid are gona be content to keep raiding the same content over and over and over?

I know if i happen to raid i wont like it.

Let's face it no server can exist without some sort of advancement. At one point folks will get tired of it if there is no new content.

If you think that's not true, just try to restrict yourself to a certain level and a certain zone. Eventually you will want to see and do more. That's just human nature and that's how we are. It is what makes us human, without that desire to do more, to be something greater we would never have explored other countries, never tried to sail around the world or go to the moon or beyond.

It's as true in life as it is true in a MMO.

Being stuck in Velious might be fun for a while but eventually folks will be tired and want more.

[Malrubius]

Yeah because all the folks who raid are gona be content to keep raiding the same content over and over and over?

I know if i happen to raid i wont like it.

Let's face it no server can exist without some sort of advancement. At one point folks will get tired of it if there is no new content.

If you think that's not true, just try to restrict yourself to a certain level and a certain zone. Eventually you will want to see and do more. That's just human nature and that's how we are. It is what makes us human, without that desire to do more, to be something greater we would never have explored other countries, never tried to sail around the world or go to the moon or beyond.

It's as true in life as it is true in a MMO.

Being stuck in Velious might be fun for a while but eventually folks will be tired and want more.

I understand that - I really do. I know people who feel this way and are on Live, and they just don't understand why I am playing here. That's totally cool.

I just don't understand why you would be here if you feel that way. I'm sorry, but as the devs have stated over and over, this server is stopping at Velious. I'm not sure if it's denial or just daydreaming or what.

Again I really am just curious. Why would you play here if you KNOW that are going to get bored? All other servers go past Velious, so you have lots and lots of better options that have lots and lots and lots of expansions.

[Senadin]

I am here plain and simple because this server has the most population.

Because it is the server i believe that is closer to the start and therefore i can grow with the server and even tho i started much later than anyone else, i can still catch up.

I am here because even tho the devs have said they will stop at Velious i dont believe they will actually do it. It isnt a matter of me not trusting them but rather the fact that (i believe) they will do what the player base will more than likely want. I dont believe folks will want it to stay at Velious.

Having said that, i am enjoying myself and if i become bored because they *happen* to keep their word and stay at Velious then eventually i will quit plain and simple. Not because i would personally support a Luclin expansion that i am not allowed to be here! heck i donated 50$ to support them mere days after i joined and i am still only level 15. So it has to count for something? I'll enjoy the game as long as i can and if it becomes boring i'll quit. I am aware of the parameters set for the servers and tho they arent what i would do, i accept them. If they change, i'll advise and deal with it then.

Until then, is it ok with anyone if i play here? :p;):D

[yt2005]

The server will stop at velious. At that point we may consider opening a second server starting from the beginning again, but this is still a while away (2 years atleast).

Wait so what happens when that server hits the end of its line? Open up a third?

Yes, I must plan for this happenstance 4 years in advance, even though all manners of possibilities exist in terms of what may happen in that time.

[Malrubius]

I am here plain and simple because this server has the most population.

Because it is the server i believe that is closer to the start and therefore i can grow with the server and even tho i started much later than anyone else, i can still catch up.

I am here because even tho the devs have said they will stop at Velious i dont believe they will actually do it. It isnt a matter of me not trusting them but rather the fact that (i believe) they will do what the player base will more than likely want. I dont believe folks will want it to stay at Velious.

Having said that, i am enjoying myself and if i become bored because they *happen* to keep their word and stay at Velious then eventually i will quit plain and simple. Not because i would personally support a Luclin expansion that i am not allowed to be here! heck i donated 50$ to support them mere days after i joined and i am still only level 15. So it has to count for something? I'll enjoy the game as long as i can and if it becomes boring i'll quit. I am aware of the parameters set for the servers and tho they arent what i would do, i accept them. If they change, i'll advise and deal with it then.

Until then, is it ok with anyone if i play here? :p;):D

Hey if you want to be here, more power to you. The more the merrier as far as I'm concerned. :D

I do think you are mistaken in your belief that the player base will want to continue opening expansions. And even *IF* a very vocal minority were asking for more expansions to be opened -- I am completely confident Rogean, Nilbog, and co. understand that that is what happened on Live. And it's why most of us are here, and not on Live.

Anyway, best of luck to you and have fun!

[PhilPhans]

Rogean still plays on live :)

[nilbog]

Nilbog most certainly doesn't. You are safe.

[Haish]

Why Debate, the world is going to end in 2010, enjoy Kunark, and maybe Velious!

[Kerrik]

Why Debate, the world is going to end in 2010, enjoy Kunark, and maybe Velious!

Bah! I thought the end was due in 2012? I was planning a big party for that December to celebrate the Armageddon.

[PhilPhans]

Nilbog most certainly doesn't. You are safe.

both games to me are fine. They are just vastly diff at this point. I really do appreciate all the work you guys have done on this fine server.

[Shawk]

I have noticed on this server that a lot of the people seem hell bent on getting highest level as fast as possible and playing endgame, that is 10% of this game, if you honestly cannot see that the journey was the game, then you won't be here much longer. If this server caters to you people bitching for more content, it will be the death of the server.

When Velious is released the main focus should be balancing and GM events to keep people interested, that is it..

Crazy how many of you have no fucking clue what classic is.

[goodle]

I have noticed on this server that a lot of the people seem hell bent on getting highest level as fast as possible and playing endgame, that is 10% of this game, if you honestly cannot see that the journey was the game, then you won't be here much longer. If this server caters to you people bitching for more content, it will be the death of the server.

When Velious is released the main focus should be balancing and GM events to keep people interested, that is it..

Crazy how many of you have no fucking clue what classic is.

Don't wana hate Shawk but you come off as the lvl 12 Ranger who can't find a group and is angry at all the other people soloing and leveling faster then you. People wana get high level so they can have the freedom to do whatever they want, that is the power that comes with it. Just because you love playing for an hour or so a day doesn't mean the rest of us do.

[anthony210]

I have noticed on this server that a lot of the people seem hell bent on getting highest level as fast as possible and playing endgame, that is 10% of this game, if you honestly cannot see that the journey was the game, then you won't be here much longer. If this server caters to you people bitching for more content, it will be the death of the server.

When Velious is released the main focus should be balancing and GM events to keep people interested, that is it..

Crazy how many of you have no fucking clue what classic is.

With the amount of time between expansions people are going to get bored. If you started playing in October when the server launched you could be a totally casual player and have 2 lvl 50s by now. I see it happening already and we are still many months away from Kunark.

You wanna know what will happen at Velious? Your eventually gonna get bored of eather doing nothing, or raiding the same content over and over. Then most will quit. And if you think "rebooting" the server is going to do any good you got another thing coming. The vocal minority might say they will be cool with starting all over but the majority will not be cool with it.

The reason I created this thread was to figure out if there was a plan. I dont care what the plan is but it would be nice to have an idea before we devote time into our characters. I dont want to be playing a couple years from now only to have an announcement made that they are rebooting the server and everyones characters are getting deleted.

[wingo62]

Then..we gona lose characters??

[Secrets]

Then..we gona lose characters??

No. The plan is to not lose characters and keep P1999 what it's supposed to be. A classic server.

Classic is up to Velious by community terms. It's when EQ was in its peak. Luclin is not considered classic and will not be included in our server. What happens with a lack of content? Well, there's plenty of other servers in the community that offer higher levels of content, and if you wanted to play them, then you should be playing them instead of playing here. I'd like to see people happy, and if this isn't the type of game you like, then it's not the game you should be playing. To keep playing something you don't like is sadistic in a way.

[nicemace]

No. The plan is to not lose characters and keep P1999 what it's supposed to be. A classic server.

Classic is up to Velious by community terms. It's when EQ was in its peak. Luclin is not considered classic and will not be included in our server. What happens with a lack of content? Well, there's plenty of other servers in the community that offer higher levels of content, and if you wanted to play them, then you should be playing them instead of playing here. I'd like to see people happy, and if this isn't the type of game you like, then it's not the game you should be playing. To keep playing something you don't like is sadistic in a way.

its not that it is not liked.. it just seems... pointless i guess, to just let the population stagnate due to old content and nothing for anyone to do.

i wanna stay out of this convo as its pretty silly to discuss something so long away :P

[Aprio]

its not that it is not liked.. it just seems... pointless i guess, to just let the raiding population stagnate due to old content and nothing for raiders to do.

i wanna stay out of this convo as its pretty silly to discuss something so long away :P

Fixed that for you buddy

[anthony210]

Fixed that for you buddy

Its not just the raiding population. Its everyone. Even casual players will get bored of grouping in Velks Lab, or leveling that 27th alt to 60.

Secrets I understand what your saying but unfortunatly your wrong there are no servers currently with enough population that go up until PoP. P99 and PEQ are the only two servers that mimic what live EQ was and that have enough population to play on.

[Shawk]

Don't wana hate Shawk but you come off as the lvl 12 Ranger who can't find a group and is angry at all the other people soloing and leveling faster then you. People wana get high level so they can have the freedom to do whatever they want, that is the power that comes with it. Just because you love playing for an hour or so a day doesn't mean the rest of us do.

I'm level 27, I play a good 5-6 hours a day, I have no real desire to get to level 50, I love low level, My play time is probably higher then yours.

Now seeing how were assuming, let me assume something of you, you're a level 50 who is stuck in endgame content bored out of your skull because you rushed threw every level only because some part of you thinks that level 50 will fix all the problems in your pathetic existence? Just a hunch.

[Shawk]

You wanna know what will happen at Velious? Your eventually gonna get bored of eather doing nothing, or raiding the same content over and over. Then most will quit.



I like how you make assumptions like they're fact.

You wanna know what will happen at Velious? You don't know.. neither do I, so stop creating bullshit and play the game.

If this server goes off the, "classic," trail, Which it won't, then half its population would be gone. If your crazy ass assumptions actually fall threw then a server boot after a year or two of velious would suffice.. BETTER would be is if the server dies, it dies.. if no one wants to play classic EQ anymore, then leave the game.

The issue with the live version was it catered to the masses, they all wanted new content so they gave them new content and left the old, better, content in the dust. Like I said before, if you want something to keep everyone happy then do GM or Guild events, if you really are that bored of the game you honestly shouldn't play it.

[Shawk]

No. The plan is to not lose characters and keep P1999 what it's supposed to be. A classic server.

Classic is up to Velious by community terms. It's when EQ was in its peak. Luclin is not considered classic and will not be included in our server. What happens with a lack of content? Well, there's plenty of other servers in the community that offer higher levels of content, and if you wanted to play them, then you should be playing them instead of playing here. I'd like to see people happy, and if this isn't the type of game you like, then it's not the game you should be playing. To keep playing something you don't like is sadistic in a way.

This should be /threadpwnedandlocked

[Malrubius]

You have ruined your own lands - you will not ruin mine.

[anthony210]

I like how you make assumptions like they're fact.

You wanna know what will happen at Velious? You don't know.. neither do I, so stop creating bullshit and play the game.

If this server goes off the, "classic," trail, Which it won't, then half its population would be gone. If your crazy ass assumptions actually fall threw then a server boot after a year or two of velious would suffice.. BETTER would be is if the server dies, it dies.. if no one wants to play classic EQ anymore, then leave the game.

The issue with the live version was it catered to the masses, they all wanted new content so they gave them new content and left the old, better, content in the dust. Like I said before, if you want something to keep everyone happy then do GM or Guild events, if you really are that bored of the game you honestly shouldn't play it.

The issue with live was NOT new content. It was the way they added new content. Such as Bazaar, Nexus ports, PoK, etc. Most of the stuff in Luclin and PoP was enjoyed by all it was the dumbing down of the game that pissed everyone off in the end.

[lumin]

The solution to this problem is so simple I don't even know why we have to continue discussing it:

1. Update Project 1999 to Scars of Velious and stop (aka stick to the plan).
2. Start a *new* server that keeps the same hardcore mechanics, but continues to add new expansion content.

Done.
Everybody's happy.
End of story.

[Byokii]

The solution to this problem is so simple I don't even know why we have to continue discussing it:

1. Update Project 1999 to Scars of Velious and stop (aka stick to the plan).
2. Start a *new* server that keeps the same hardcore mechanics, but continues to add new expansion content.

Done.
Everybody's happy.
End of story.

It sounds like the simplest solution... but I would not say that it is easy. That would be twice the maintenance and work for the admins.... It would also split the player base...

[Stanlei]

bump

Make it PvP!

[Nedala]

And pls enable 2box, luclin models, pvp, frogloks, vah shirs, berserkers, custom content, RMT and all the other retarded ideas! will you? kthx!

[Messianic]

And pls enable 2box, luclin models, pvp, frogloks, vah shirs, berserkers, custom content, RMT and all the other retarded ideas! will you? kthx!

omg /thread

Oh, you were joking...oops

[yaeger]

Luclin zones without baz/nexus/spires would be the bomb-diggity yo. AAs went a long way towards balancing the classes.

[Ploppy]

Didn't they add a class balance patch before AA's came out. Here is how my fuzzy memory has it. For a very long time before SOE bought EQ they would always say they could not balance any classes because it was hard wired into the code. After Sony took over they rebalanced the classes from their original settings. This is when Rogues became more useful. I don't know which setting Project1999 runs though. Is it pre-patched classes before they fixed things like original out of the box EQ or is it post SOE? Paladins especially were shockingly weak. I remember those patches came in waves. Like they fixed rangers one time, then wizards the next and so on.

[ShivanAngel]

Personally for me, luclin was my favorite expansion hands down, with velios being my second favorite.

It gave you TONS of stuff to do, made travel a tad bit easier. Im sorry but i have gone 20-30 minutes looking for a port and not getting one before i said screw it and ran.

The bazaar i agree wasnt the best idea they had.

However the AA system, giving you something to do at max level, as well as the luclin raids were AMAZING. This might be my opinion because it was the pinnacle of my EQ raiding career. However the zones and raids were awesome!

[Acillatem]

I started to play on this server becuz for ME, the Classic experience was Classic/Kunark/Velious. So it sounded like a great idea.

HOWEVER - now that I have time invested in my character and I'm realizing how much BETTER this server is compared to Live, I'm starting to look at Velious as *shit....now what?*.

I like this community, I like the server, and I even like the Devs/GMs and how they handle things here.

Ya, it's 2 years from now, and who knows what will happen between now and then. But I think the issue is - some people grow attached to their toons and would like to know there are "options" out there OTHER than "start an alt, play another server".

I think the reason why so many people are attached to the whole Velious cut off is becuz most people agree that Luclin is where the game started to change for the worse, and PoP is what killed it.

If there was a way to implement Luclin/PoP with custom features that follow a more "classic" atmosphere - would those same people still be anti-Luclin/PoP?

THAT'S the question people should ask themselves:

If you had the opportunity to right the wrongs in Luclin/PoP - would you implement those expansions on this server?

People who say "No becuz it's not CLASSIC" are treating the discussion as if everyone else is a toddler and they are a parent ("becuz I said so!").

Many people consider Classic thru PoP to be "Classic".

The reason why PoP would be a good cutoff is because it is a HUGE timesink that would take a long time to break thru. Kunark/Velious content will easily be trivialized - just like it is now - and certain mobs/zones will be poopsocked - just like it is now.

[ShivanAngel]

I honestly dont think luclin trivialized travel that much, I still used druids and wizards all the time.

First if you werent lucky you had to wait a good 10-15 minutes to get ported up. Then you had to wait a good 10-15 minutes to get ported back down to wherever you wanted to go. Also the only places, iirc, that you could go with luclin ports were GFAY, NK, Nektulos and DL.

Bazaar really hurt the community aspect of the game, so if that isnt in there I wouldnt be that upset lol.

Also why a lot of people state they hate it is lore reasons... CATS ON THE MOON LOLOLOL sony you dumbass etc etc.... Personally I think luclin added some great zones, and imo the beastlord is a really fun class.

Also Luclin introduced the single greatest thing to ever grace the game..... KEI!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Engraverwilliam]

my two copper: Wipe = me gone :-)
why would anyone want a wipe?

[eqravenprince]

I don't want to say Luclin sucks, but it certainly doesn't hold a spot in my nostalgic heart. I left EQ around that time to go play DAoC, so I never was heavily vested in it. Secondly, when I came back to try out Luclin, I hated the Luclin character models.

While this is probably an unpopular opinion, I think the downfall of EQ started with Kunark, it provided super easy outdoor zones with tons of mobs to support many many groups to level from 1-50. I realize it's possible to level 1-50 in outdoor zones in classic EQ, but by the time you get into your mid 20's there isn't a lot to choose from for outdoor zones. But you have several dungeons to choose from.

Anyhow, that's my two copper.

[excalis]

I think they should make some other servers (if none already out there) to satisfy those that want Luclin and beyond. It is that simple, this server is for those who want to play up to Velious.

When I first started here and saw a mage pet with the Luclin model I disabled that ASAP, I did not want to see any hint of anything past Velious if it could be helped. I don't want AA, travel books, bazaar, or anything else that wreaks of something other than what this server was meant to offer.

No likey? Petition for another server to meet your needs, if people get bored, run out of things to do here, move on. If the server population dies or dwindles, leave it up for others who get curious and would like to give it a try.

Uber guild burned through all the content? Great, take a break and let smaller ones give it a try. Lets keep the idea behind the server alive and leave it be.

[yaeger]

I don't want to say Luclin sucks, but it certainly doesn't hold a spot in my nostalgic heart. I left EQ around that time to go play DAoC, so I never was heavily vested in it. Secondly, when I came back to try out Luclin, I hated the Luclin character models.

While this is probably an unpopular opinion, I think the downfall of EQ started with Kunark, it provided super easy outdoor zones with tons of mobs to support many many groups to level from 1-50. I realize it's possible to level 1-50 in outdoor zones in classic EQ, but by the time you get into your mid 20's there isn't a lot to choose from for outdoor zones. But you have several dungeons to choose from.

Anyhow, that's my two copper.

I'd have to respectfully disagree with you there.

The Golden Age of EQ was probably Velious/Luclin/PoP.

Class balance was nearly perfect but each class had their respective strengths and weaknesses still. There was stuff to do once you hit max level outside of raids. Group dungeons were the best they've ever been.

Classic class balance is fooked. The standard on P1999 is to play a mage/necro/druid to easy-level to 50, farm, and gear out/PL your 'main' class. It's rare to see a group of 50's hanging out in Lguk.

WTF?

[eqravenprince]

I'd have to respectfully disagree with you there.

The Golden Age of EQ was probably Velious/Luclin/PoP.

Class balance was nearly perfect but each class had their respective strengths and weaknesses still. There was stuff to do once you hit max level outside of raids. Group dungeons were the best they've ever been.

Classic class balance is fooked. The standard on P1999 is to play a mage/necro/druid to easy-level to 50, farm, and gear out/PL your 'main' class. It's rare to see a group of 50's hanging out in Lguk.

WTF?

It's cool, we can disagree. Personally I never hit max level when it was max level, and I certainly never came close to doing everything in game. I can't even imagine having the time to do all that. And yes I was in full groups of level 50's doing Lguk before Luclin was released. And as far as my casual opinion is concerned, nothing beats Crystal Caverns and Befallen for dungeon design. But that's me speaking through nostalgic colored glasses.

[Ploppy]

Velious and down is perfect! Don't change a thing.

[Badmartigan]

Classic/Kunark/Velious.. is a TON of content and exploration and questing / work to be had..

you guys are getting way ahead of your selves talking about this now... these threads should be instead about what crazy things your going to try in kunark once it hits!

[ShivanAngel]

Duo the king in sebilis for 2 fungis that will be in a twink kit!

[Wizerud]

Ideal server visions are like assholes but this would be mine. Classic thru PoP, no bazaar, no PoK (just have a clicky stone to PoT where the zone in to bazaar was), no Nexus Scions - still need a wiz/dru to port to Nexus.

Question is do you open everything up on day one or do it on a timeline? If the latter is it really fair on the admins to commit to a 4+ years server? I dunno.

[Ploppy]

Will Veeshen's Peak be available? It's all a jumbled mess in my poor old brain, but wasn't that released later on as part of original Kunark as well? Or was it already in Kunark and the revamp is what I am remembering.

[guineapig]

Will Veeshen's Peak be available? It's all a jumbled mess in my poor old brain, but wasn't that released later on as part of original Kunark as well? Or was it already in Kunark and the revamp is what I am remembering.

You WILL see VP on this server, yes.

[Ploppy]

Fantastic! Thanks for the reply

[Alcandre]

id like someone to explain their reasoning behind hating nexus scions so much. how is waiting 10ish minutes(usually with several other people also waiting, talk to them for your social aspect) so much worse than sending a person a tell for a port then saying thanks and giving them some money.

[ShivanAngel]

Supposedly it stepped on druids and wizards toes to much to be able to port to the different nexus scion zones without them. Which IMO wasnt a big deal since to port from say Gfay to toxx oyu had to wait up to 15 minutes for the Gfay scion, then wait up to 15 minutes to get ported back down from the nexus....

[Engraverwilliam]

to me the way to go would have been to just have the one set of spires in the nexus and some druid rings in one of the zones on luclin and just add the scrolls for the porting classes. oh and F the PoN!

[ShivanAngel]

why hate the Plane of Nightmares, I loved hobgoblins...

[Tananthalas]

My proudest moment in Luclin was soloing the GD Nexus Scion (she didn't summon) with my ranger. Loved killing that bitch.

[Ploppy]

What about class epics? I believe they were a kunark era patch as well or was it Velious era?

[Wizerud]

Scheduled to be implemented on the same timeline as classic, some 5 (?) months after kunark release afaik.

[Solarstorm]

Just an idea - let's have the Devs create their own expansion pass Velious. Thats the answer IMHO. Everyone that played EQ in the classic days wishes that EQ live would have never went off in left field with 18 expansions and all of the problems. The new expansion would have that classic feel and lore we all love. It don't have to be a big expansion, just creative and fun for everyone. Think about the rumors we all heard back in the day- fishing out armor in OOT that fell from the plane of sky? Lochness Monster Boss in Lake Rath? It would gain a lot of interest in the community figuring out things that are unsolved. Lets create the classic expansion we never got.

[Dr4z3r]

Just an idea - let's have the Devs create their own expansion pass Velious.

Better start hittin' that donation button...

[Messianic]

Just an idea - let's have the Devs create their own expansion pass Velious. Thats the answer IMHO. Everyone that played EQ in the classic days wishes that EQ live would have never went off in left field with 18 expansions and all of the problems. The new expansion would have that classic feel and lore we all love. It don't have to be a big expansion, just creative and fun for everyone. Think about the rumors we all heard back in the day- fishing out armor in OOT that fell from the plane of sky? Lochness Monster Boss in Lake Rath? It would gain a lot of interest in the community figuring out things that are unsolved. Lets create the classic expansion we never got.

Mechanical Dragon in Ak'Anon.

[Maneuk]

I understood the angst of the playerbase. I also understood, sort of, the purists and the IT guys and what was done with luclin and Verant and Sony. Honestly I liked Verant- what little I could garner from my interaction with them. But then again, I kinda liked Luclin. Think of it, we still needed porters and who is so jacked up that they need to make a business of porting? when grouping and questing and raiding gets you the uber gear you need. The bazaar was to get rid of your excess,mostly for tradeskillers, really, or the mysterious lore items. The pricey weapons were nice to look at but anyone feeling inadequate for lack of a certain thing I think has the wrong mind-set. Oh, do not get me wrong, it is nice to ooh- and ahh and think of maybe someday, getting to the place where those things are, but in the meantime that does not prevent the fun.

I liked Luclin from a player standpoint because it - even without the bazaar- allowed "good" players to interact with "evil" players peacibly. It was the one small place where you could group with them without shame or embarrasement. And the questing and fights were nice, too. (especially the vampyres and the Mento's commercial-like eerieness of Santus Seru)

Personally, the spires saved some time, and waiting a few minutes did not bother me, after all, when I found a good group and we were on at the same times regularly? waiting for a boat was fun- we would fish! The druid would tie lures and we would ogle at them. I would skin the bones for fishbone darts to give the Troll SK, and the cleric would bake them up when he had a chance, sometimes the troll ate the fish raw.

and the spires let you in general places that were not safe, which also made them good. I went to Velious "accidentally" and got ripped to shreds by wolves. The art in Luclin was pretty good, time-sinks aside. And honestly, if the time sink's could be tweeked a little it should be ok.

Did any of you activate the ports in Paineel? I was able to get a like minded couple of groups together to try to- did not suceed for the fastness of expansions coming out and the need for new new new. when liclin came out it allowed some of the later starters to catch up a bit I felt. And perhaps was one of the later staters.

[Maneuk]

and It's pronounced "Loose-Lin" intuitively, it sounds better. 'Luck-lin" is just..just, I can't even express. Like SvenGali, and not SvenJali for you Seinfeld fans.

[Morlaeth]

lol if a server wipe happened, i'd quit now.

[Kraftwerk]

and It's pronounced "Loose-Lin" intuitively, it sounds better. 'Luck-lin" is just..just, I can't even express. Like SvenGali, and not SvenJali for you Seinfeld fans.

Wrong on both counts.

Everyone knows your supposed to say "Luke-Lynn"

[Tork]

Wrong again:

/ʃɪt/

[Zarniwooop]

I think it would be great to have this server stop at Velious and stay there. People would come and go and I assume the population would fall over time, but what I love most about this server, is that its a living snapshot of the greatest time I've ever had in my life playing a game and ever will. I like to think that 8 years from now it will still be here and I can come back and play EQ as it was when I loved it. Its so hard to find this in live EQ anymore.

A second server (years from now) that went up through pop and stopped, but was HEAVILY modified (as one of the server mods said earlier) to take out a lot of the things many people hated would be awesome. I personally loved Luclin (largely because of ssra temple raids and the fact that it and the end of velious were my first raiding experiences) and Planes of Power was hugely enjoyable (for me).

For the record however, EQ was still growing all the way up through mid-2004. I don't remember the exact date of the beginning of the decline, but I assume its roughly when people ran into GoD and WoW released. So, no, EQ didn't go into decline at all during Luclin and PoP. This is all beside the point however.

I think that in general, whichever expansion was your 4th or 5th is when the game started to decline for you. I started just before Luclin in 2001 so for me, the one that started to break my back was Gates of Discord. People that started at release, hated Luclin or Pop (or both).

The one unforgivable thing PoP did was make the world smaller. If we could keep planes of power without portal stones, I'd be pretty happy.

Anyways, like people said, this is YEARS away. Kunark is still probably half a year away! That gives me time to roll up another alt! Its already been stated this one almost certainly won't be wiped so no worries.

[warrioman]

I'm one of the apparent minority that liked something about pretty much all of the expansions (Legacy of Ykesha is the one I had the least use for). What finally drove me to quit EQ after 9 years was first the fact that so many of my friends had left that it was getting hard to regularly find people to group with (far too many people were boxing/running mercs and weren't looking to group much) and second the fact that Sony was introducing a micropayment system where you could buy items/advantages in-game with real world money. Yeah, the store had crappy items initially, but I strongly believe that no one should ever gain any advantage or bonus (be it better gear or extra experience, etc.) simply because they opened their wallet more than the next player.

If the consensus once Velious is open is to stop, that's fine. If the P99 admins and community decides to continue after Velious (either following the original Luclin+ progression or modifying it to remove the parts that many people dislike, like easy travel through PoK) I'd be fine with that as well. But that's really an issue for down the road, after Velious is out for a while and people had had the chance to explore the zones, do the quests, etc.

It's actually ironic that players in the US believe that the whole micro-payment idea is wrong. Video games are played for fun/satisfaction. If having a certain item/more plat makes the game more fun to a player then why is it wrong that they get those items by paying real money for it. It's like paying for content. If you think about it, it's actually strange that US player are in support of an equal-pay system (subscription-based). "Earning" gear/plat could be seen as work - don't people work in real life too? Why can't goods and services in the real world be traded for goods and services in a game world. It's free trade, straight up.

[ShivanAngel]

I kind of agree with the micro transaction thing...

I make XX an hour.

I could spend 15 hours farming the item, or spend less than one hour at work and just buy it.

However, A lot of the enjoyment i get out of the game is camping items and farming some named mobs.

Where do you draw the line... Im sure some people wouldnt be to happy if they spent hours upon hours of raiding to get their gear, and someone was able to get it in 5 minutes just by giving the company a CC number.

Im not one of those people that gets annoyed by people that have the same gear as me, regardless of how they get it. However there are LOTS of people that for some reason, rage when people have the same/equivilant gear as them that didnt put in the same amount of time. Apparently earning that gear by spending hours in one zone means something to them.

Funny thing is you could make the armor neon pink, be called I suck at the game and buy it with RM vambraces, and people would still rage about it.

[Zarniwooop]

Micro-transactions are a divisive issue.

For people that want to play casually, or pay to skip certain game elements they deem to be not a challenge but just work, its a great thing. For those that feel that it completely removes any sense of epic accomplishment to be able to buy your way through the game, its !@#%.

I enjoy micro-transactions in DDO, because I only play that one day a week tops with old friends and have no time or inclination to really get into the game. Any other game I'm really into, micro transactions either cause me to lose interest or quit outright.

[mgellan]

Just an idea - let's have the Devs create their own expansion pass Velious. Thats the answer IMHO. Everyone that played EQ in the classic days wishes that EQ live would have never went off in left field with 18 expansions and all of the problems. The new expansion would have that classic feel and lore we all love. It don't have to be a big expansion, just creative and fun for everyone. Think about the rumors we all heard back in the day- fishing out armor in OOT that fell from the plane of sky? Lochness Monster Boss in Lake Rath? It would gain a lot of interest in the community figuring out things that are unsolved. Lets create the classic expansion we never got.

YES! Absolutely this! They have what, 22 post-Velious expansions worth of zones, graphics, mobs etc etc? If you are bored and waiting for Kunark then spend some time productively then start looking at Live zones and figuring out how to piece them together info additional zones for an Everquest expansion done right. I'm sure the Devs would consider proposals for same, either as a direction for P99 or a post-P99 server. Discuss.

Regards,
Mg

[Zarniwooop]

The above post will never, ever happen.

This is a classic server.

I'd personally be okay with them going up through luclin or even pop if it was modified to remove the ports, but custom content is out pretty much.

[Doeboy]

i think after velious when the content is drained and they allow boxing and the population is 100 they should allow ogre bards.

[stormlord]

Micro-transactions are a divisive issue.

For people that want to play casually, or pay to skip certain game elements they deem to be not a challenge but just work, its a great thing. For those that feel that it completely removes any sense of epic accomplishment to be able to buy your way through the game, its !@#%.

I enjoy micro-transactions in DDO, because I only play that one day a week tops with old friends and have no time or inclination to really get into the game. Any other game I'm really into, micro transactions either cause me to lose interest or quit outright.

I've been playing DDO too. I was playing Entropia Universe too. The micro-transaction thing gets on my nerves. Why? Because there's no cap. Nothing stops them from overdoing the whole thing. There's no government regulation of it. The companies can just rip you off and run away with your money. Either they need to cap what you can pay per month or the government needs to regulate them to keep things balanced. That's what usually happens with casinos. I support it because the line between a good game with good content and a slot machine is not always clear. Once that line is crossed in the direction of a slot machine it's simply exploitation.

Why is it exploitation to get someone hooked on a slot machine, you say? Or to oversell a product or to have someone pay $1000 for a haircut? Or to exploit people who have poor genetics or self-esteem? It's the difference between an engaging well written book and methamphetamine. While one can get 'addicted' to reading epic books, it's not the same as getting hooked on a substance or simplistic action. A well written book takes you on a journey, requires you to read well and concentrate, encourages you to improve your reading skills, gives good writers a job and spurs creativity. A shot of crack is like throwing your money away. This my opinion, of course. Someone who is out to exploit a consumer doens't care about making a high quality product that inspires. If they could sell dirt at outrageous prices that's what they'll do. If we don't stop them...

Games are always balanced at the edge of the cliff. They're very close to being slot machines. If you start letting companies do whatever they want they'll sure enough find a way to exploit people completely.

Am I naive for thinking games should be creative, inspiring master-pieces? I don't want dirt. No thank you.

Now, assuming games aren't dirt and have high quality elements, there's another issue. Humans have evolved to a certain set of conditions for many thousands of years. In essence, we're addicted to living. Our brain rewards our efforts with shots of dopamine and other neurotransmitters. We get addicted to the reward and attempt to repeat the whole process in our day to day lives. Thankfully, this addiction produces real tangible results that allow our species to reproduce and survive on this planet. Addiction to living is so subtle it happens in the background. I have no doubt that games are already latching onto this natural brain neuro-system and feeding it synthetic information (via the computer monitor/keyboard/mouse/etc). So instead of working and playing in the real world, getting exercise for your body, having children, making the world turn, gamers will be increasingly connected to their computer and living, working and playing on their computers in completely fictitious worlds. This would be exploitation. Probably not everyone is equally susceptible, though. Game companies and gamers are probably mutually involved in this "conspiracy" to sustain the artificial input/feedback loop.

But it's easier to make a crappy ADDICTIVE game than to make a fictitious reality. So I think that we're more likely to see slot machine games than high quality worlds that hijack our evolutionary traits.

***********************

Reboot or expansion? No idea. I don't even care. That's years away. For all I know, I'll be dead.

[Lagaidh]

You mean new player models I assume, when you say new graphics? Those were optional, so to each their own eh? I personally liked some of them and disliked others. (New ogre is definitely an improvement, imho).

I agree with you regarding the bazaar and instant travel. Although the Nexus based travel isn't anywhere near as bad as PoK. At least with the nexus you often had to wait 10 minutes for the port up to the nexus, and then wait another 10 minutes for the port back down, and it was only between four main locations so there was still a lot of travel required after using the nexus. Basically it was a way to avoid boats.

As for the lore, I never really paid attention to that. To me it was no different than Kunark or Velious (new continents with strange creatures on them). As far as I am concerned, it might as well have been just another continent.

I fail to see how Vah Shir are any worse than Iksar? I mean really, catlike humanoids or lizardlike humanoids.. both are fairly lame conceptually.

What I don't see are any complaints about the CONTENT of the expansion, or AAs, or horses. I know I personally thought AAs added a lot to the game, and I definitely enjoyed the various zones and raid content that were part of Luclin. Ssra temple was a very well-designed zone, and although Vex Thal was a bit of a grind-fest, it was (once fixed) still a great raid zone.

Personally I'm not that big a fan of mounts, but I know a lot of people liked them.

I know I'm way late to the thread, but you answer your own question to a degree. For me, Luclin started the decline of EQ:

- Bazaar: No more haggling or sale-skill. This was the first feature introduced to the game whose sole purpose was to reduce player interaction for one of the core parts of EQ; namely, the player-driven economy that was such a draw. People forget how proud Verant and then SoE was of the player driven economy. It was a proving point that the game world was truly alive.

- AAs: I see both sides of this coin, but at one time, these ended up like being a Manastone in vanilla EQ. You didn't have a certain AA? Fuck you. You're not raiding with us. Even if AAs could be acquired by anybody, unlike the Manastone, in the early days, many players wasted AAs on crap that was of no benefit. The "maps" of best AAs per class were not made yet. XP is, was and will be precious. It's what we bleed when we die.

For me it was killing a big social aspect of the game (bartering) combined with what would be a specific set of requirements to keep up with the Joneses (AA) that started killing EQ for me.

I personally would hang on through DoN as an active player and sporadically for another two expansions. I swear I would become IRL sad when I'd go through the EC tunnel later on.

Imagine my joy at finding p99.

[Taluvill]

They would have to remove a lot more than just ports to make luclin/pop enjoyable.

- Bazaar
- AA's?
- Scions and the Nexus entirely
- PoK entirely? Just make a PoTranquility book somewhere else?
- BST's OP as shit?

Maybe we should start a thread about all the shit we can pile into an original post that we would hate to see post velious, or just what we hated about luclin/pop.

[anthony210]

I actually think AA's will be good if added post Velious. Something to do besides raiding and playing alts.

[Kassel]

The first set of AA's where not bad, either was the nexus