[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.