Quote:
Originally Posted by Taminy
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Not that PoP raiding was bad (it was excellent) but there were other problems besides just the books.
-There were no factions at all in the expansion and whether you were a good or evil race had no meaning at all.
-Excessive AAs. The ones in Luclin were enough to clearly define all classes.
-Flagging/keying system
|
1. Faction I agree and disagree. On the agreeing hand, it adds depth to the game and makes the choices your character makes matter. On the other hand... Your characters are adventuring into the planes to kill the gods themselves. If anything merits the putting aside of race and deity affiliation, it is the daunting challenge of fighting actual gods in their planes of existence. Sort of silly that killing your own God didn't have any bearing though I will agree. Though CT and Inny followers kill them already, all the time in classic/Kunark/Velious.
2. Nah. The PoP AAs added so much depth to the game. They were class defining. There were the general stat/resist/TS ones sure. I could live without those (though mastering all TSes was neat). The class ones though were great. Each class got atleast one solid AA that have them more utility, power or roles in a raid and group setting that was unique to their class.
3. Flagging system I had a love-hate relationship for. On one hand it was an epic quest for both your character and your guild. Knocking off each God on your path to the Elemental and eventually Time planes was awesome. It had two failure, both more or less fixed later on.
Firstly, it was WAYYY too restrictive to start. A few months in they removed this restriction by adding in level barriers to certain planes (CoD,PoV,PoS,PoTorment at 55, HoH, BoT at 62). I'd say Tactics and Solusek Ro both warranted being added to the 62 level limit as well. Keeping EPs and Time locked.
Secondly, it was very unforgiving. The Saryrn cycle was the most brutal. Missing Grummus meant the Carprin key wouldn't stick (even after the level barriers were added). Missing Carprin meant you couldn't click down to Bertox. Missing either Bertox or Terris meant the Keeper of Souls and Saryrn flags wouldn't stick. Etc. Etc. It was mainly because the story line doesn't make sense if you do it out of order, but for purposes of flagging you should've been able to get flags whenever so long as you could zone in.
EPs were a great idea though, atleast all of them except PoAir 1.0. They gave elite-cutting edge raiders a playground to get the best exp, the best groupable drops, the best tradeskill drops and access to the final pieces of some long-chain quests. As well as some solid raids to farm + the 4 elemental gods (some of the best, mechanically speaking, raids to grace EQ).
VP in Kunark, ST in Velious and VT in Luclin all were crappy cause they were raid only. EPs allowed some exclusivity to them while also allowing groups to occur there.
Tl;dr - PoP best expansion ever.