The Pinnacle of Everquest (In your opinion)

[stormlord]

This was tough. My gut reaction is to vote "Everquest" without any expansions because there was no mudflation yet. The original game feels very coherent. It continued to feel very coherent until Luclin. Of course, Kunark started the mudflation, so it progressed with every expansion.

And yet I felt the urge to vote for "Planes of Power". Why? Because of these things:
1. Easy teleportation between the noob cities and various other zones - important for grouping at all level ranges, and is a great accessibility feature for people who want it
2. You're battling the Gods; a concluding coherent end to the game
3. No instances yet; not until Lost Dungeons of Norrath
4. A wide variety of raid content; some of it mudflated, but still lots of viable raiding
5. The classic zones are still used; no Mines of Gloomingdeep or Crescent Reach yet
6. No overtuned GOD and no weird stuff like Omens of War

One of the downsides of POP is the epics were less meaningful because of mudflation. The 1.5 was introduced with OOW. And yet epics still had some meaingful uses; not a complete loss.

Now if we're talking about the modern EQ, I'd say it'd be ideal if every expansion before The Serpents Spine (introduced Crescent Reach and the Drakkin) were cut away and the rest was modified so epics and everything else could be done in the newer content. I also think creating new Epics in the spirit of the old - yet without the camping - would be bullseye. I really do not understand why they abandoned them. Epics were a integral part of progressing your class and attaining status amongst your peers. The use a bunch of excuses to explain why they stopped making them, and yet the truth is they just didn't want to invest as much in Everquest as the used to. This is just a sad truth. Much of that money went to other games and ones in development.

In my mind, these're the best sequences in Everquest's life
1. Original
2. Up until Planes of Power
3. The Serpents Spine and after (with some modifications in an ideal world)

Thankfully, I was able to play p1999 before Kunark was launched, so i got to expeirence some of that AGAIN. Yes, I experienced it in 1999. I vowed to not level past 15-24 which I faithfully adhered to. I still think that's the most coherent and least mudflated experience.

Keep in mind hte modern EQ is VERY mudflated. Everything before the current expansion is USELESS. That's not how it used to be. Older raids (from several expansions previous) were routinely played. Teh game had a lot more content back then and felt more vibrant. It mainly felt vibrant because I think they invested more resources into it and because it was still new to us.

[sox7d]

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

Armor dye was interesting, the extra bank slots were ok, and the 'few neat zones' sucked. LoY wasn't even close to PoP in terms of storyplay, raiding, or spell changes.

The only part I didn't like about PoP was how useless ports became. Kind of took from the social atmosphere a hefty amount of player to player interaction.

Dyes ruined armor prestige, maps ruined muh immersion, bank slots were convenient but I kind of like bullshit in my MMORPGs. But I LOVED the LoY zones. Fucking dulaks harbor was horrifying and the secret underground fishperson cult was straight out of Lovecraft's "Shadow of Innsmouth."

[Beebo11]

I believe the reason PoP is such a fond memory for most, including myself, is that the population of Everquest was booming. PoP on this server would just not work. The only place you would ever find anyone would be PoK. Not to mention Luclin would have to be a thing as well. P99 would turn to a desolate wasteland. The population is perfect for what we have.

But, staying on topic. The first 2 years of PoP were great.

[Nagash]

PoP, that's when I felt the game had the best balance (mage pets were useful, any tank could tank bosses, druids and shamans could heal, etc).

[iruinedyourday]

Pre-kunark is the best EQ hands down.. Seriously just look at any of it, look at HHK, look at Castle Mistmoore, look at Lower Guk.. a city of end game frogs under the feet of lost club wielding trolls looking for their diaper wearing corpses floating in the bubbling swamp.

Look at Rathe mountains, the mysterious named creatures like petrifin.. look at lavastorm mountains, two dragons, in love and separated by fire and ice.

look at the once great Najina, with its trampled doors and festering corpses hanging from hooks in the endless prisons guarded by dark elf wizards studding the dark arts, visit the foreign quarter of Nerriak and see the ogres trying to make a go of it selling jewlry to the narcissistic elves at Shiny Tings, pop in for a drink at the bar by the lake in the commons, see the leatherfoot raider spies swimming by the windows at the waterline.

look at Qyenos, the clock towers, the NPC dwarves that hang out at the bars and get in fights with the other patrons by the docs. Look at the karanas, the majestically great farmer filled karanas.

Qeynos hills, visit the forest city of Surefall Glade, where you can begin a quest delivering mail as a bard across the world of norrath.

That wonder of what is on any of the myrad of islands you pass by as you travel to the mainland city of Freeport to begin your adventures as an elf or a dwarf.

The dark thermagotists in Befallen, the lizards of Cazic Thule trying to summon the dark lord for thier bidding, the snow capped Everfrost peeks where Karg Ice bear wanders...

It is endless, the depth and detail of pre-kunark EQ.. it was about your imagination and for exploration.. it wasn't about gameplay and min maxing or pixels.. it was a magical time.

Classic EQ pre kunark is by far the best EQ ever created.

As if you needed all that, when all you need is to just look at this SS.

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[Colgate]

kunark had the best PvP balance imo

[iruinedyourday]

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

kunark had the best PvP balance imo

haha I disagree, once again prekunark! Fears, charms and full DD damage was way more gnarly :P and hilarious

[Vexenu]

Voted Kunark for the combination of aesthetic, itemization, lore, scope, "feel" (subjective) and coherence/fit with the game and its previous expansions (in this case, vanilla EQ).

Aesthetic - Kunark has great art and design throughout its zones. It feels like a lost continent, different enough from the old world to feel new and exotic, but not unrecognizably Everquest.

Itemization - Items became more powerful, varied and interesting, but not to the extent that old world items became worthless (with the exception of weapons: Kunark weapons unarguably shit all over pretty much everything from the old world).

Lore - The lore behind the Iksar, Sarnaks, Venril Sathir, the dragons and Kunark in general is very cool.

Scope - Kunark has zones supporting levels 1 - 60, with a variety of terrains (i.e. swamps, mountains, snow, lakes, numerous dungeons, etc...) In this regard it resembles classic much more than subsequent expansions.

Feel - This might be too subjective to even articulate, but I like the feel of being in Kunark zones. There's a sort of frontier feel, like the land is not quite conquered. EQ's version of the Wild West, perhaps. Contrast Kunark's Cabilis (an ancient city fallen into disrepair), Outpost and Firiona Vie (both small outposts/colonies) with the well-settled permanent cities of the old world. And the adventuring zones as well feel more "wild" and unsettled.

Coherence/Fit - Kunark didn't change a ton of core mechanics with the game, and naturally and logically fit into the game from a design and lore standpoint (i.e. a lost continent makes more sense than going to the fucking moon).

I should point out that I think Kunark enjoys an unfair advantage simply by virtue of being the first expansion. All of the ideas that went into it would be the freshest and could address the most pressing flaws of the vanilla game, it had pretty much the same dev team and artists, and the feel of original Everquest could still be easily preserved.

[Larkverdin]

I know I'm not alone in having this be a close race. I voted for PoP personally, the scope of what it allowed us to do as players was amazing. For me it was the culmination of everything we had done before, every enemy we had fought. After bringing down the Gods, everything else paled in comparison, which is of course the reason I quit playing on a regular basis after PoP ended.

[Buriedpast]

The fact GoD is in the poll, but not Omens of War?

OoW was the best expansion released since velious.

It had excellent group and casual play, real accessible progression for armour and epics for casuals, and an extremely well scaling couple of dungeons and XP zones.

Raid wise OoW was a game changer from anything prior in EQ. It had the mystery of old EQ feel where you felt scared and alone, an excellently designed raid scene with properly intelligent trials etc. A tiered access system that worked wonderfully and a SHITLOAD of 6 man content to be done. Endgame raiding was sensational with a trash kill to boss dungeon (anguish), properly difficult strategic fights (not just 1 round AoW style shit) and proper risk v reward with very little patching needed or changing loots.

GoD by comparison was an absolute fuckup and should never have been released.

Omens of War, and the beginning days of velious and mid-late luclin were the three times I loved the game the most. Exploring velious zones, those crazy races through Ssra temple, and late night MPG trial runs in pugs...epic