Let it be known -- Luclin? Cats ont he Moon? Secretly cool all along.

[Xer0]

I'm big into horror, particularly lovecraft-inspired movies. But I've never really delved into actual lovecraft novels/novellas until recently. And wouldn't you know it? While discussing some of the lesser known stuff with my friend, it has come to my attention that there was a Lovecraft story in which it is revealed that cats (from saturn) secretly travel to and inhabit the dark side of Earth's moon. When she told me this my jaw dropped and I started asking all kinds of questions-- and you know the first one was "were there also snake people inhis stories? Would you believe me if she told me that yes,t here were in fact serpentine humanoids.

So my point is that the weird nonsense you all hate so much? Was largely inspired by by one of the most unique and influential horror authors of all time.

So there you have it. Luclin is cool. Can we have a bazaar, and guild tags *under* player names now?

[DeliciousHalflings]

While that's genuinely interesting information to someone like me who's also a horror fanatic but never really read much...just because it's Lovecraft doesn't make it good. Space cats on the moon sounds pretty stupid however it's presented. The Shissar stuff was fuckin cool, though, even if Ssra was a fucking nightmare to raid.

Also note, Lovecraft did a LOT of drugs. Like more coke than Diggle did steroids back in the day. Dude was destined to write at least a couple shitters. They can't all be Cthulu.

[Gustoo]

There are cool things about luclin it just ruins eq.

It would be cool if they allowed your character to be cloned and launched on a space shuttle to the moon one way ticket so people could take their max velious toons and mess around

But it has no business on a server where the rest of the game is supposed to stay relevant.

Centi long swords drop from like decaying skeletons on the moon the entire itemization is wack

[Fammaden]

Yeah as much as people shit on "cats on the moon" its not the setting but the design decisions that doomed it.

[Gustoo]

B fine as a stand-alone game vah shir only. How many of you have leveled a toon 1-60 luclin only? Probably some but certainly not me.

[DeliciousHalflings]

B fine as a stand-alone game vah shir only. How many of you have leveled a toon 1-60 luclin only? Probably some but certainly not me.

It's not fun. Terrible zone layouts.

[Ooloo]

I mainly just hated the engine overhaul, suddenly every luclin zone looked completely different from every classic zone with the blurry far-away textures that fade into greater detail as you get closer. I wasn't crazy about all the wacky sci-fi alien shit, but it would at least be cool to see luclin zones built in the same art style as classic.

The models were obviously dog shit too. Like hey guys let's up the polygon count and in exchange make all the animations look terrible and have everyone use the same obvious generic skeleton for everything! No more ogres and trolls sitting on their butts, everyone now sits on their knees! This is better!

[socialist]

Still a boring expansion. I played through it on the latest TLP, having not otherwise done Luclin since back on live, and it was just as dull and off-putting as I remember. Keying for the raids is really tedious, the only decent XP zone is Grieg's End with its three different mobs repeated throughout the entire zone, and VT is such a dull, unenjoyable raid. Ssra has some interesting fights but all the mobs and bosses in the zone are visually identical, just one snake dude after another. Oh, and beastlord is a really bad class until after PoP. Paragon is nice and all, but the rest of what the class offers is straight trash during Luclin.

[Gustoo]

I agree strongly about the degraded art style. I think that goes without saying. Too bad about zone layout. I had a good time day one going deep cave exploring on my ranger, but exploring is always fun till you realize what it really is and I never dug that deep.

[A Knight]

I think for me, to enjoy a Mmorpg, I need nerdy components to believe the world is real. Like traveling. I wanted to believe in Luclin. I think for me, as soon as traveling is taken from the game, I lose all interest in every other part of the game. You need one thing to feel the other.

Other things such as, the destruction of Velious unique armor, Freeport and Nektulos Forest, just seemed a bit over the top.

I could also have been a kid in school that couldn't get 60 in a couple of days, so maybe I still just haven't beat classic yet. I've never had a level 60, but it seems like high level EQ might get boring in comparison to lower levels.

If I had beaten classic Everquest forever, to where I'm bashing my head in the wall for new content, I could see me enjoying Luclin. Heck, I could see me enjoying Luclin anyway. But classic will be more important for me, currently.

[Supa6four]

I'm the rare person who actually enjoyed luclin to pop. Some of the graphic overhauls were cringe however there were many great things about it.. kunark and velious will always be that sweet spot for me and my high-school years that no game has ever compared to.

[PabloEdvardo]

luclin is significantly better as a TLP experience than it was on Live

you get the revamped classic zones along with luclin so at least it ties the visual change into the world a tiny bit more

you also move past the content really fast (in like 2-3 months) so the excessive grind of luclin (AA XP and VT raiding) is quickly replaced with PoP

meanwhile you get to experience a bunch of new class abilities and changes

something I didn't really appreciate about Luclin/PoP back in era that I appreciate a bit more now on TLP is how EQ continued to significantly evolve the game.

arbitrarily stopping at velious kind of gives a false sense that the game was "the best" in that era, but there are many changes they introduced later over the years, whether bug fixes or small QOL, that was clearly a better design decision -- they just didn't have the time to do it earlier

[jolanar]

I think for me, to enjoy a Mmorpg, I need nerdy components to believe the world is real. Like traveling. I wanted to believe in Luclin. I think for me, as soon as traveling is taken from the game, I lose all interest in every other part of the game. You need one thing to feel the other.


How does Luclin remove travel? How is waiting on a spire any different than waiting on a boat? Especially on a server where Dial a Port exists.

[Xer0]

So you take boats, rather than hit up dial a port for getting around??I think for me, to enjoy a Mmorpg, I need nerdy components to believe the world is real. Like traveling. I wanted to believe in Luclin. I think for me, as soon as traveling is taken from the game, I lose all interest in every other part of the game. You need one thing to feel the other.

Other things such as, the destruction of Velious unique armor, Freeport and Nektulos Forest, just seemed a bit over the top.

I could also have been a kid in school that couldn't get 60 in a couple of days, so maybe I still just haven't beat classic yet. I've never had a level 60, but it seems like high level EQ might get boring in comparison to lower levels.

If I had beaten classic Everquest forever, to where I'm bashing my head in the wall for new content, I could see me enjoying Luclin. Heck, I could see me enjoying Luclin anyway. But classic will be more important for me, currently.

[A Knight]

I don't always have money for Dial port on all my characters.

Isn't the boat longer than waiting for a spire? Even if it isn't, it still seems like something artificial was added to the world with a spire.

When it's either a boat, or the request of someone's spell they earned to port you, it feels more real.

The first thing I want in a Mmorpg, is to feel like I'm in a real world. Even if those components are dumb or silly.

[Trexller]

yeah boats can be like a real long wait if you just missed it, like one of em is 40 min round trip.
luclin spires are 15 min timers, PoK books can be 10 minutes away running!

frankly I'd just rather type #zone sebilis and get to the frog slaying right away.

[sajbert]

Luclin models are ass, especially by today’s standards.

Beastlord was a fun class. I’d almost consider playing live just to play one. Almost.

Bazaar ruins trading. Then again with discord and online logging tools it doesn’t matter as much.

Nexus was a terrible hub. Ports aren’t bad but they do make the world feel smaller and devaluate porters. Probably best left out.

Luclin zones didn’t do much for me.

AA’s were great!

[Gustoo]

arbitrarily stopping at velious kind of gives a false sense that the game was "the best" in that era, but there are many changes they introduced later over the years, whether bug fixes or small QOL, that was clearly a better design decision -- they just didn't have the time to do it earlier

The game was best in original form when Monks had virtually no gear.

However if any expansions are gunna be accepted, velious is a clear cut off for when the whole game fell apart and all the old zones fell to total irrelevance and everything got wack.

No one is saying that later expansions didn’t add anything we liked.

[sajbert]

The game was best in original form when Monks had virtually no gear.

However if any expansions are gunna be accepted, velious is a clear cut off for when the whole game fell apart and all the old zones fell to total irrelevance and everything got wack.

No one is saying that later expansions didn’t add anything we liked.

I don’t think that’s true. Luclin didn’t overwrite all the previous content, unlike how PoP did.

I still would like to see each progression server roll onto a shared Luclin server. It would give players something to do with their old characters and give old servers their own purpose and reason for being. I think it’s sort of poetic too to leave the world that you played on and meet up on the moon. Sleeper wakening sends everyone to the moon.

[Gustoo]

One way trip to moon server would be cool.

But no, luclin breaks the world. From bazaar to ports to gear availability.

AAs are fun but, too much power

[DeliciousHalflings]

arbitrarily stopping at velious kind of gives a false sense that the game was "the best" in that era, but there are many changes they introduced later over the years, whether bug fixes or small QOL, that was clearly a better design decision -- they just didn't have the time to do it earlier

It's not arbitrary. It's when story stopped being centered around Norrarh, and switches focus to Luclin, essentially rendering old-world content obsolete, with very few item exceptions.

[jolanar]

It's not arbitrary. It's when story stopped being centered around Norrarh, and switches focus to Luclin, essentially rendering old-world content obsolete, with very few item exceptions.

Eh you can make the same argument about Velious making Classic content/items useless outside of a handful of exceptions.

[A Knight]

In Kunark at least they attempted, by removing Rubicite.

And in Velious, max gear was no drop, making Deepwater class armor still an efficient purchase.

Don't get me wrong, I think making things No drop, can be used when it's right. Just make sure someone doesn't leave the switch on, to where everything is no drop. /shrugs just my opinion. I don't mind if my noob ghoulbane gets replaced, just at the right time.

[loramin]

It's when story stopped being centered around Norrarh, and switches focus to Luclin, essentially rendering old-world content obsolete, with very few item exceptions.

Well, in Verant's defense, they tried making a Norath-focused expansion, with items that didn't disrupt existing content, in-between Luclin and PoP:

https://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/object/499/499697/683351.jpg

It was ... not exactly well-received (although I was one of the few weirdos who actually liked it).

[A Knight]

Superior Fine plate Breastplate

Not No drop

80ac 150hp 50 mana, 10 to all stats,
20 to all resists except magic

Effect: Summon late to boat at Kaladim docks.

[Ravager]

Luclin had too many polygons. Triangle trees are where it's at.

[Coridan]

Well, in Verant's defense, they tried making a Norath-focused expansion, with items that didn't disrupt existing content, in-between Luclin and PoP:

https://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/object/499/499697/683351.jpg

It was ... not exactly well-received (although I was one of the few weirdos who actually liked it).

Would have been fine if they didn't screw over Trolls. They should have put a new Froglok city in Kunark instead

[jolanar]

I really don't see how it being the moon makes it functionally any different at all from a different continent.

If anything Luclin lore is more closely connected to Antonica/Odus than Velious is connected to the rest of Norrath.

Well, in Verant's defense, they tried making a Norath-focused expansion, with items that didn't disrupt existing content, in-between Luclin and PoP

LoY came out after PoP. I think you could say LDoN also fits the same criteria of being Norrath focused.

[loramin]

LoY came out after PoP. I think you could say LDoN also fits the same criteria of being Norrath focused.

Whoops, it's been too long. That makes the expansion make even less sense.

I agree re: LDON though, as it was North focused, and augments didn't invalidate old gear.

[DeliciousHalflings]

I really don't see how it being the moon makes it functionally any different at all from a different continent.

If anything Luclin lore is more closely connected to Antonica/Odus than Velious is connected to the rest of Norrath.

We don't talk about LDoN/LoY

LoY came out after PoP. I think you could say LDoN also fits the same criteria of being Norrath focused.

[Jimjam]

Ldon and Loy were awesome. Very well played by the majority of players. Noisy raiders dissed the expacs cos they didn’t include massive time sync op gear to keep them busy and wanna be raiders just parroted those opinions to seem elite.

The reality is gunthak and dulak were always buzzing and everyone knowa the 30s/40s are some of the best levels in eq.

Grab your soulsipper from the caves, quest stoicism and have fun on a mid level shaman!

[Gustoo]

True based on what everyone still playing rallos zek at the time was up to.

Cuz I was still wandering around faydwer looking for people with shiney gear.

When LDON came out it was the end of item loot because of augments and that was my last twink and basically I stopped logging. I dunno if I have stuff on there still. I know I logged on once to see the combined zek server but I don’t remember.

[Zuranthium]

Eh you can make the same argument about Velious making Classic content/items useless outside of a handful of exceptions.

Classic era zones are the best place to level still in Velious era, and several areas are good for cash farming.

Kunark has a mix of exp/loot.

And then Velious is best item drops, worst exp.

There are many imbalances and things I wish had been different of course, but Luclin is a bigger jump in the wrong direction.

[ithaqua]

Ldon and Loy were awesome. Very well played by the majority of players. Noisy raiders dissed the expacs cos they didn’t include massive time sync op gear to keep them busy and wanna be raiders just parroted those opinions to seem elite.

The reality is gunthak and dulak were always buzzing and everyone knowa the 30s/40s are some of the best levels in eq.

Grab your soulsipper from the caves, quest stoicism and have fun on a mid level shaman!

Blood of nadox was great for higher shamans too! The loy raids were pretty fun, just not aimed for the time crowd, the ldon raids were a bit buggy but the biggest problem problem was the drop from 72 man raids to 36 man raids, 35ac aug for the plats tanks though... hard to beat that loot )