[heartbrand]

Brad is the same guy who lied to the playerbase saying things like "paladin epic is in game" when it actually wasn't, "alchemy is working pals" when it wasn't coded yet, etc. etc. Did you guys not see the debacle that was Vanguard? Did everyone here forget about how awful Luclin was? Do people here really forget all the bugs that existed in classic EQ that Brad simply refused to admit? What about the awful imbalances that existed? Remember how druids and shamans couldn't get groups in classic (where there were long lists for every camp so you couldn't just go lol go solo newb cuz everything was camped) because they had no ability to heal end game? It took until velious to finally give them somewhat of a heal for them to be able to help. The aggro issues with rangers / rogues, rangers being fucking useless, monks being gods until Luclin, hybrid EXP penalty, etc., etc. I guess some people think the class imbalance was an amazing feature of classic EQ and love it, but those of us who played back then remember how awful this was and how lolworthy it was to see the 10000+ post threads with everyone agreeing how awful many of these things were and "The Vision" being mentioned over and over again, only to in almost every single instance have The Vision ultimately be over turned by more competent game designers.

Velious wasn't the pinnacle of EQ because Monks were imbalanced gods, it was because of a compelling storyline, different faction options with differing risk v reward, great itemization, immersive quests etc. People here keep confusing the awesome features this game had such as the interdependence classes had upon one another, the social aspect of the game, the immersive qualities, etc., etc., with the annoyances, imbalances, etc, and want to somehow claim these same very broken features that people rightfully moaned and bitched about back in 2000 are somehow amazing classic aspects now. Get real.

People, well most people, aren't here on Project 1999 because they think back with fond memories of that great hybrid exp penalty or the awful classic UI, not having a compass, item links not existing, etc., they come here because the gameplay from Classic - Velious was a shit load of fun, and EverQuest with it's non-instancing, contested raid targets, smallish world where people rely upon one another, important reputations etc., is immersive as fuck.


Edit: Here's a typical post from allakhazam about the effect of hybrid penalties back then:

1) Hybrid classes had the largest penalties of any group. It was rated at about 50-60%(Far above the originally list 25%) and the hybrid penalty also ended up extending to anyone the hybrid was GROUPED with. Once this became common knowledge hybrids couldn't get groups and people stopped playing them till they removed the penalty. They said they had to actually CREATE experience to compensate for the penalty actually meaning you got more experience for a kill to make up for the penalty so as to balance it out to being no penalty(that's about how they explained it at the time).

Sounds kind of similar to how hybrids are treated here.