So what happened in luclin-pop?

[Josa]

Yep, portal Books were the worst part. Basically people just ported to the best places to quickly level and ignore 80% of the world. That and the bazaar made most human to human interaction unnecessary. I really liked the newbie armor quests, since they filled the first levels with purpose.

[Brontus]

The answer to the future of P1999 is to intelligently expand. Take the good things from Shadows of Luclin, the Planes of Power and Legacy of Ykesha and remove the bad things.

For example, here's what could be removed:

-horrible Luclin character models
-bazaar
-Plane of Knowledge book portals

Problem solved.

There's an old saying: don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Now if people want to continue to play the current server frozen (no pun intended) at Scars of Velious then let them. Let those that want P1999 and progress further play on a new server that expands. This way everyone is happy.

I appreciate that the developers and admins of P1999 want the purity of "classic EQ". I think that's a noble and worthwhile aspiration. However, I believe that classic look and feel can be maintained with this approach.

[fastboy21]

Nothing super new to add to a 15 year old conversation...

I'd say, in hindsight, that Luclin/PoP in some ways were the verdict of the decision the devs committed to taking the game: EQ became about pushing the end game content and emphasizing raid forces that needed to devote their existence to gearing up through tiered levels of available gear before moving on to the next rung of content...

Its true that Velious was also like this, but in Velious there was still a spirit of EQ that existed for most of the server that the game was about more than just replacing armor_piece_1 with armor_piece_2 ad infinum. The community was still exploring the game and enjoying the world.

Don't get me wrong, the raid content in those expansions (lucin and pop) was fun...it was what the raiders who had wet their teeth in kunark and velious had wanted EQ to be. The devs gave it to them. And the content was epic, better designed, and fun.

The tipping point, however, was crossed. And the mudflation geni was unleashed forever from its bottle. In hindsight, EQ should have stay small and focused on enhancing the world that already existed, i.e. "Sandbox" style mmo.

Luclin is actually my favorite expansion to play in...but it was entirely absorbed in raiding. Guild groups took on new meaning as you needed to group off raid time to build AA points, farm key bits, etc. It was the beginning of EQ just being about my guild and the raid schedule...instead of about the world we were in.

[fadetree]

I think PoP would be the perfect stopping point, maybe with some surgery to remove the easy travel and a few other things. But if I had to pick and choose, I'd say that AA should be implemented, as it was when first released. Obviously, part of my interest in that is the Ranger archery fix, but that's not the only reason, there's lots more in thread and Daldaen especially did a good job explaining.

Unless you've played a Ranger to a high level you probably don't understand what it's like to have your favorite class and playstyle essentially broken. That AA stuff finally made Rangers what they were supposed to be all along, without turning them OP.

[Josa]

I do wonder if they can't go past velious because of their agreement with daybreak. It would be cool just to add the best bits and pieces of the expansion as they can, without adding the community killing parts. Honestly though, if they complete the velious cycle, then start a fresh server to repeat it, like 3 year seasons, I think it would be best for everyone, since pixelquest would be moderated by the knowledge that everything will be gone by this or that date. People would just play the game for fun and a lot of the silly drama world die out imo.

[maskedmelon]

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

Lost Dungeons of Norrath was best Norrath.

I will concede that I had fun with that expansion. Though that is where I stopped.

[mr_jon3s]

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

getting your vex thal key and ssra keys, two horrible bottle necks id rather never have to endure again, compound with the sheer amount of 60s on this server trying for it.. terrible

VP key is worse.

[fastboy21]

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

VP key is worse.

I have always wondered why so many people are quick to hate on luclin for the vex thal key bits.

In many ways, kunark (VP -- bits and trak kill) was waaaay worse. and yet, kunark is hardly ever bemoaned as an expansion for this.