Why do people seem to hate luclin so much?

[tizznyres]

Somewhere during Luclin's development is when an important part of the core development / design team left Verant / SoE, and it really showed. Because of this Luclin deviated quite far from the game's original vision, and the later expansions continued down that route.

Nexus ruined the idea of travel meaning something, made the existing world feel much smaller, and made travel through old-world zones completely trivial. It didn't entirely ruin, but certainly damaged the player interaction of finding ports and helping other players by giving them ports, thus killing one of the greatest aspects of Druids and Wizards.

Nexus (bazaar) also ruined trading by removing almost all of the individual effort and player interaction required to be a successful trader. All but killed EC / Gfay / North Freeport trade-hubbing in a single fell swoop. A huge amount of my time played during classic EverQuest was wheeling and dealing in Gfay (the trade hub on Xegony) and in EC on Fennin Ro. To see those zones become almost completely barren within days of Luclin was a massive disappointment for me.

Mounts, while potentially a neat feature and improvement to the game were done in such a way as to require many players to use them, and as such, use the Luclin character models.

The Luclin character models were higher polycount with higher resolution textures, but lacked almost all of the 'character' and charm of old-world models. Myself and many of my friends at the time hated them, and turning them off on P99 was one of the first things I did when I started.

Kerran race and Beastlord class I could go either way on.

AA's were a great improvement to the late-game and end-game, hands down my personal favorite feature, and something I felt EQ needed for a long time before that... Something to spend time on at lvl 50/60 that wasn't raiding the game's very limited raid content.

All-in-all, I would not say I hated luclin, nor did any of my friends at the time, rather it represented the beginning of the end of what was our obsession for 3+ years. I played several months into Luclin and enjoyed a lot of the time grinding AA's and raiding Ssra / keying for VT. I never personally made it into VT raiding, as I quit before it was really doable on Xegony.

[Lojik]

I hate the way its pronounced

[Lady Julae]

Originally Posted by mr_jon3s [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

...

Alternate abilities made it so alot of classes were useful and gave you a reason to keep playing your main even after you hit 60.

The bazaar ...
<SNIP>

...bane weapons and lucid shards were a pain in the ass. Also the raid targets had a bunch of hp.

Basically this, especially #2.

Also AA's made a lot of classes also cookie-cutter, as raid leaders would require you to have a certain amount of AA's in a specific skill to raid with them - leading to a player's character not being unique at all, but like all the rest of the people on the server.

[Jimjam]

Sadly most devs learnt to treat emergent gameplay as unintended exploit and nerf it!

[Tann]

Luclin models were meh, zones were meh, raids were meh (except Gregg's End, that was crackers), xpac as a whole was meh.

It went from a good - great - meh - great (Kunark - Velious - Luclin - PoP), that's personally why I dislike thinking about Luclin and its shiny new character models.

[Daldaen]

Luclin had fantastic raid events. People like to just point out Vex Thal. While it is a raid zone, it was hardly the only raid in the expansion.

Shei in AR is probably the best event from Luclin. Had death adds to punish zerging, had timed spawns to encourage CC, had mix of unmezzable and unslowable mobs so you had to off tank with knights some types and mez other types, had a mana drain to encourage correct positioning, had a death touch to put a timer on the event and encourage tank swaps.

Emperor, High Priest, Creator, Cursed and Arch Lich in Ssra all were fantastic as well.

LIS was neat because of banes.

The Deep's Thought Horror Overfiend event was sweet too. As were the Acrylia Cavern Ring events.

Umbrella Planes offered a nice selection of casual raid targets.

Vex Thal's events were largely boring but pulling was fun in there.

Luclin also added the ability to have multiple chat boxes and item linking (some of you would quit if we went back to a single box and no item linking like Velious had...). This is probably my favorite thing about the Luclin hate. People will cry all day at you over how horrible the expansion was. But the second you most a bug post to remove a Luclin addition they cry even harder because that addition is really nice.

Yes, EC Died. But that's for the best. NO one likes dealing with resellers, used car salesmen or bro-dudes who tell you the item you're selling isn't worth close to what you're asking. People are greedy and not having to deal with them directly when it comes to money in game was a fantastic change. Never did I make a trade deal where I was extremely pleased with the interaction... Only pleased with the item I ended up with. Buying from someone at T1 or in Bazaar was irrelevant.

[Tann]

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

Yes, EC Died. But that's for the best.

QTF

Being able to quickly zone into the Bazaar and search for the item(s) I wanted and get out asap was great. It's like shopping by yourself vs. shopping with your gf/wife, one takes 5min, the other takes 5 hours.

[Lady Julae]

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

QTF

Being able to quickly zone into the Bazaar and search for the item(s) I wanted and get out asap was great. It's like shopping by yourself vs. shopping with your gf/wife, one takes 5min, the other takes 5 hours.

EC shopping only took 5 hours IF you shopped like a girl. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Tann]

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

EC shopping only took 5 hours IF you shopped like a girl. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you don't mind the rats getting fatter then sure do a quick in and out.

[dafier]

Personally I loved everything about Luclin. Well, almost.

Bazaar = WAY better to deal with. Yes, no interaction but who wants to send a /tell along with 20 others who want the same item only to either 1, go without a response, 2, get a stupid response like 'T1 9 million pp'.

Bazaar, the seller gets what they want without dealing with /tells and the buyer has the chance to run over, buy, and be done with it without hassle.

AAs: I thought they were a nice addition to the single dynamic of just leveling. They added small perks and bonuses that helped.

Mounts: Blah imo....

SSRA and other level 60 added content was spectacular. Vex Thal = crazy awesome. You had to be ELITE to get all the shards.

The main problem with that expansion imo, it wasn't out long enough. People were doing VT/SSRA well in to PoP because they missed out.

Last: I DO believe that Luclin killed classic EQ. SoE DID cater to the whiners. At the same time, they were trying to evolve with the times....I think PoP killed it for me due to several factors but mainly for turning the Mage Epic pet in to a worthless item for what was the most important thing a Mage could have in game.

In comparison, it would be the same as taking IC away from wizards in the Kunark time frame of EQ.

When you take away bread and butter that wasn't easy to obtain in the first place, it turns stuff stupid.