So what happened in luclin-pop?

[eqravenprince]

Luclin Issues

The bazaar made the world seem less alive. AA's meant less people starting up alts which detracts new players since it was such a group dependent game, you needed a steady flow of alts. Took many years before Sony corrected the problem of having to solo your way to max level by adding Mercenaries and ridiculous gear that dropped off any mob in the game. And Luclin character graphics changes looked horrible. I realize that is subjective but just my opinion. Every character ran like they had a stick up their butt and just did not look as good.

PoP Isses

Ports everywhere, world suddenly felt very tiny. Low level characters would just port into PoK, get whatever high level buff and go to whatever continent wihin minutes. It just felt more like an arcade game, no immersion, no pride in your home town, no travel. It's a right of passage as a Erudite to have to take the boat to qeynos at level 1 for a lot of people and then wait even longer for a high level to show up to bind you. Or evil characters getting off the boat in Butcherblock trying to get to Crushbone without being killed by guards. None of that meant anything anymore. Oh and even more stupid raid content and bottlenecks slowing alts from being created on top of AAs, this killed new players from sticking to EQ, this was the death knell of EQ.

[Baldrek]

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

Luclin Issues

The bazaar made the world seem less alive. AA's meant less people starting up alts which detracts new players since it was such a group dependent game, you needed a steady flow of alts. Took many years before Sony corrected the problem of having to solo your way to max level by adding Mercenaries and ridiculous gear that dropped off any mob in the game. And Luclin character graphics changes looked horrible. I realize that is subjective but just my opinion. Every character ran like they had a stick up their butt and just did not look as good.

PoP Isses

Ports everywhere, world suddenly felt very tiny. Low level characters would just port into PoK, get whatever high level buff and go to whatever continent wihin minutes. It just felt more like an arcade game, no immersion, no pride in your home town, no travel. It's a right of passage as a Erudite to have to take the boat to qeynos at level 1 for a lot of people and then wait even longer for a high level to show up to bind you. Or evil characters getting off the boat in Butcherblock trying to get to Crushbone without being killed by guards. None of that meant anything anymore. Oh and even more stupid raid content and bottlenecks slowing alts from being created on top of AAs, this killed new players from sticking to EQ, this was the death knell of EQ.

This pretty much sums it up for me - well said!

[myriverse]

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

Luclin Issues

The bazaar made the world seem less alive. AA's meant less people starting up alts which detracts new players since it was such a group dependent game, you needed a steady flow of alts. Took many years before Sony corrected the problem of having to solo your way to max level by adding Mercenaries and ridiculous gear that dropped off any mob in the game. And Luclin character graphics changes looked horrible. I realize that is subjective but just my opinion. Every character ran like they had a stick up their butt and just did not look as good.

PoP Isses

Ports everywhere, world suddenly felt very tiny. Low level characters would just port into PoK, get whatever high level buff and go to whatever continent wihin minutes. It just felt more like an arcade game, no immersion, no pride in your home town, no travel. It's a right of passage as a Erudite to have to take the boat to qeynos at level 1 for a lot of people and then wait even longer for a high level to show up to bind you. Or evil characters getting off the boat in Butcherblock trying to get to Crushbone without being killed by guards. None of that meant anything anymore. Oh and even more stupid raid content and bottlenecks slowing alts from being created on top of AAs, this killed new players from sticking to EQ, this was the death knell of EQ.

A good 90% of the people I played with during those times did not have alts that mattered. There were so many people playing that groups were never hard to come by.

As for ports, the world needed to feel tiny because it had actually become unwieldy gargantuan. Without those ports available, it would have been hell.

[Qwinny]

VT keys man, VT keys.

[Tewaz]

I love this old argument!
Luclin brought a HUGE new continent with a ton of content, a new race, a new class, and a whole new way to advance your max level character. Tons of high level zones, tons of raids, awesome new models if you wanted them, etc.
I liked that you could port out by Wiz spire. I would still use a Dru/Wiz because it was faster, but if you were stuck in NK with no one available, at least you had an option.
New zones were super fun. Alien and not as D&D like, but really creative, fun and MASSIVE.
AA argument has been gone through already.
PoP book/PoK ruined things, true, but the Nexus is a great middle ground. I would say add Luclin without the Bazaar, then add PoP without PoK and make the entrance to PoT somewhere crazy like WL or WW.

[Daldaen]

I've always disliked the argument against Luclin being that the Nexus ruined the game. For me, it was quite to the contrary. It made the game feel more alive and magical. The spires interacted with the world in a very magnificient way the first time you see it.

It hardly impacted the porting business. You could travel from one of 5 destinations to the Nexus and then from the Nexus to one of those same 5 locations. The ports functioned on a 15 minute recast, so if you were traveling from A to B you needed to wait 0-15 minutes (7.5 average) and another 15 minutes in the Nexus to send you into your final destination. Many times you could damn near run there in that time span.

I actually really liked the PoK books as well because it meant the world was at your finger tips. Many times players would reject group invites because they're in Unrest and traveling to Sol A is a time commitment that would consume their entire play time that day. Whereas once PoK books came out you could easily travel between dungeon zones on your own, and attend groups wherever.

[snead]

The Bad:
1. horses needed new models

The Good:
1. raids were amazing (you killed fucking massive gods and shit how bad ass is that?)
2. aa's meant you could continue to play your main (i don't like alts)
3. plane of tranquility music (some of the best in the game and what i fell asleep to)
4. PoP specific zones were so pretty and fun to explore.
5. item loot made fucking sense and wasn't a bunch of bullshit (no wisdom on warrior only boots)
6. dyes (i can finally match or look bad ass while i kill shit)
7. Helm model off (not sure if this was added then but fuck it needs to be added here for style and rp purposes)
8. Cool looking items BoWar, jtb, etc.

[Dillian]

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

The Bad:
1. horses needed new models

The Good:
1. raids were amazing (you killed fucking massive gods and shit how bad ass is that?)
2. aa's meant you could continue to play your main (i don't like alts)
3. plane of tranquility music (some of the best in the game and what i fell asleep to)
4. PoP specific zones were so pretty and fun to explore.
5. item loot made fucking sense and wasn't a bunch of bullshit (no wisdom on warrior only boots)
6. dyes (i can finally match or look bad ass while i kill shit)
7. Helm model off (not sure if this was added then but fuck it needs to be added here for style and rp purposes)
8. Cool looking items BoWar, jtb, etc.

I might be wrong but i thought dyes came out with the LoY expansion.

[snead]

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

I might be wrong but i thought dyes came out with the LoY expansion.

i think you're correct. along with shared banking and other quality of life upgrades. that whole time period was so fast i forget what each expansion offered.

[Ele]

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

I've always disliked the argument against Luclin being that the Nexus ruined the game. For me, it was quite to the contrary. It made the game feel more alive and magical. The spires interacted with the world in a very magnificient way the first time you see it.

It hardly impacted the porting business. You could travel from one of 5 destinations to the Nexus and then from the Nexus to one of those same 5 locations. The ports functioned on a 15 minute recast, so if you were traveling from A to B you needed to wait 0-15 minutes (7.5 average) and another 15 minutes in the Nexus to send you into your final destination. Many times you could damn near run there in that time span.

To that point, the Spires/Nexus up to and shortly after Luclin's release had a sweet live GM event surrounding them.