Pretty much sums up my opinion on EQ expansions. I did play through off and on till SoD though...

You anti-bazaar facists deserved to be rounded up, AEed to death, rezed, and AEed again. Then have trolls perform lewd acts with your bodies as they get corpse camped. For serious.

I do miss the raging zelniaks aggroing from a mile away, but the nexus spires are a zonekiller

So I do admit I enjoyed EQ live through PoP. However, this server will be Velious with the possibility of custom content should the devs enjoy themselves.

What I found fascinating about classic through PoP was that after defeating Quarm to release Zebuxoruk from his prison, Druzzil Ro materializes to basically shun the raid force. She then decides to turn back time to before Zeb was released, and in effect created an alternate dimension. This allowed for the lore of future expansions. I feel the chaos began in the alternate universe of the future expansions. I did stop playing after PoP, and enjoyed my experience.

Anyway, wanted to share one of my favorite tidbits of lore from what I believe was the pinnacle of EQ live.

I liked parts of probably 18-19 expansions, but that doesn't mean I liked the game through them. For me ultra-fun game ended after SoV. However, I think the biggest part of that is that I'm not an end-game player (in nearly any game).

The most fun for me is always the first 25% of levels/power. As such the introduction of easy ports irrevocably altered the dynamic and feel of the game beyond interest, as does twinking, easy availability of rare or upper power gear, etc. A lot of that I can simply choose not to participate in, but easy ports destabilizes the whole thing because others can use them (or in PvP situations where gear discrepancy matters greatly).

It's not that I don't play the high levels...I've had a lvl 60+ everything in the game with many into the 80s. It's just that the things that focus on that content are less interesting to me than things that focus on low levels or the entire game experience as a whole.

Were I a millionaire super-programmer I would remake EQ ground up cherry picking only the advancements I enjoyed while maintaining the general feel of classic. But I'm not, and never will be, so I'll settle for P99 which is as close as anything will ever get to perfect for me (at least unless/until they do a wipe or spin-off fresh progression server).

You guys always talk about P1999 as if it has Velious. Maybe in another year, if you're lucky.

Lmao