My Opinion on EQ expansions.

[Taminy]

Originally Posted by Reiker [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Luclin gets slighted because it was the first expansion that introduced good AND bad elements. The bad:

* Ridiculously horrible player models
* Poorly implemented centralized market

Agreed. Luclin BEFORE the bazaar was great.

Originally Posted by Reiker [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

* "We're going to the moon!" is goofy
* Playable cat people are goofy
* Boring / redundant zone design

Meh. I'd call this neutral rather than bad. I never played a Vah Shir either (not a furry here).

Originally Posted by Reiker [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

* Instant travel (but imo still enough of a pain in the ass to not be that bad)

I thought was ok. Like you said instant travel but still enough of a pain to not be that bad. I still usually just looked around for a port because it could be 30ish minutes by the time you used Nexus to ghetto port and even then there were only what, like 6 locations? Maybe 4? I just remember NK, Gfay, DL, and GD. PoK books can die in a fire.

Originally Posted by Reiker [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

* Vex Thal is a piece of shit, perpetually unfinished end raid zone
* Paludal was too good for its level range, emptying classic exp zones

Yeah - but to be honest I never used Paludal. More regarding Vex Thal, I thought emp cockblocking was ridiculous, even though I wasn't in a bleeding edge guild at the time especially when I saw screenshots of that one guild using 3 ogres and a coh bot (ogres to block the door for other guilds, coh bot to coh in guildmates). And yes I know cockblocking happened in every expansion.

Originally Posted by Reiker [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

* AAs (somehow some people think these are bad) really fleshed out classes, added all kinds of new gameplay elements, and gave something to exp for at max besides death buffer

I remember hearing about AAs from another player before I read about them. Apparently they were going to be about "customizing" your character is what he said. I think this would have been better - and don't kill me here people but something more along the lines of arms vs fury vs prot warrior (at least that you would have to experience for). I think AAs done that way might have been better, but instead it was just how many AAs can you gather and make sure you min/max everything out.

Originally Posted by Reiker [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

* Awesome dungeons that were criminally underused like Acrylia Caverns

I liked that zone and got to do the worm boss there before they revamped the zone with ring events.

Originally Posted by Reiker [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

* The first raid encounters that were completely epic, hardcore events (Ssra, Seru, Ring of Fire, even lower bosses like Shei had very unique elements)

Agreed except I thought ring events were stupid.

Originally Posted by Reiker [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

* EQ really began to step up its scripted event game with not only raids but zones such as Hollowshade, which was always changing based on the race wars there.

That's one zone I wish I had taken my alts to. I only remember running through it on a high level character and thought it was cool.

[Dominick]

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[Reiker]

Originally Posted by Kender [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You're all wrong. ToV was the best zone ever.

Not sure who you're disagreeing with, no one had mentioned ToV before you. Obviously ToV is badass and everyone loved it.

[Reiker]

Originally Posted by Taminy [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I remember hearing about AAs from another player before I read about them. Apparently they were going to be about "customizing" your character is what he said. I think this would have been better - and don't kill me here people but something more along the lines of arms vs fury vs prot warrior (at least that you would have to experience for). I think AAs done that way might have been better, but instead it was just how many AAs can you gather and make sure you min/max everything out.

I'm actually kind of glad that AAs were implemented as just a way to progress your character instead of specialize it. EQ has no room for class specialization. What would the advantage of a DPS warrior be over a monk or a rogue? Why would a cleric ever want to specialize in anything besides healing? WoW has a serious problem when it comes to this. You have certain classes like Paladins and Druids that are insanely flexible and can fit into a myriad of roles easily by respeccing, and then you have classes like Rogue who are way too one-dimensional. Rogues have 3 spec lines built around doing damage while a Druid can tank, heal, nuke, or melee dps. They're stuck. They could turn one of the Rogue lines into a "tank" spec based on evasion, but how would you balance it vs. Warriors, Druids, and Paladins? They would create raid bosses that hit ridiculously hard and required a Rogue evasion tank, sort of how Warlocks were required to tank certain bosses. It's superficial depth. It's like "oh cool I can respec my Warlock and tank one of the phases of this boss" but then you think of it and it's like "ok, so... what the fuck was the point of that?"

It's a huge can of worms that I'm glad EQ never got involved in. If you're going to have a base class + specialization system, you can only have like 3 or 4 base classes max before everything becomes retardedly redundant.

[yt2005]

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[Kender]

Originally Posted by Reiker [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Not sure who you're disagreeing with, no one had mentioned ToV before you. Obviously ToV is badass and everyone loved it.

exactly. everyone was saying this or that zone was the best but noone had mentioned ToV. That's why everyone was wrong 8)

[Harrison]

Plane of Mischief is the best zone in the game, all expansions.

[Reiker]

Classic was more like

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[Lich]

Originally Posted by yt2005 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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pic 4 actually looks fun. you hating on p99? jk

[Noselacri]

I found it really funny how some of the later expansions (especially GoD) seemed to literally be randomly generated. Zone and mob names looked like they were procured by slamming a keyboard with one's reproductive organs, and the content was so bland and impersonal that I couldn't force myself to care about it at all. This was the turning point when expansions started to become truly horrendous; everything between Velious and GoD was merely disappointing, but afterwards it became insultingly bad.