Luclin

[heartbrand]

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

Luclin on P99 is a moot point as the server will begin hemorrhaging players a few months after Velious comes out. You see, what each expansion after Kunark does is this: if you don't raid, you're nothing. This is doubly important on this extremely top-heavy server where nobody is content to simply see the sights and be level 43 for months. The wonder and magic of Everquest is long gone and people want to do what they didn't get to do as kids a dozen years ago. Unfortunately, Velious introduces the concept of full separation between normal and hardcore players.

In Classic and Kunark, almost no gear is notrade. Epics, the odd quest item, a few raid pieces and then VP gear, everything else is droppable. Almost all of the best gear in the game is tradeable and you don't strictly have to be in the top guild to get it. You can become an "accomplished player" by trading, by knowing the right people, by RMTing or scamming (hey, it counts for the purpose of this discussion) and any other way you can imagine getting a fungi, Cobalt BP, tstaff, CoF and whatever else is considered top items in the game.

Not so in Velious. Suddenly every piece of "BiS" is from NToV or similar. In fact, the top three best items for each slot will usually be notrade raid drops, and anything less will be considered low-level crap. The gear you can get as a non-raider is suddenly laughable and you are nobody if you don't raid. As we all know, raiding on P99 is tantamount to selling your soul to the devil, and there's a gigantic divide between the TMOish crowd and the rest of the server. With everyone realizing that there's no way for their characters to be comparatively decked out without that unrealistic requirment of becoming the 1%, the whole experience will feel tainted and people will stop playing as this feeling sinks in and comes to permeate the server.

This did not happen back in the day because 1) people didn't know better, 2) the vast majority were satisfied with being unambitious nobodies, and 3) there were tons of servers and you could always find a raid guild somewhere if you wanted, the entire endgame concept was not utterly monopolized by one or two highly exclusive guilds. People await Velious like it'll be some great coming of age for this server, but nobody seems to realize what it did to Everquest and how poorly it fits this server and the way it differs from the great old backintheday. There will never be a question of whether or not to implement Luclin on P99 because there will be less than 100 players left by then.

This is a great post and 100% accurate. Many of the zones in velious that were so popular back in the day are now meaningless because of the surplus of superior items in existence here / everyone at max level cap / knowledge of where to get the best stuff. You either raid or do shit in Velious, and one of the most exciting parts for the non-raiders, the Shawl quest, is now pretty shitty here because the 8th shawl will never be implemented. I do disagree about every expansion being like this however, Planes of Power implemented a lot of cool gear for non-raiders like Ornate armor, it brought a lot of good tradeskill made stuff into the game, had groupable tasks etc.

[Elmarnieh]

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

Luclin on P99 is a moot point as the server will begin hemorrhaging players a few months after Velious comes out. You see, what each expansion after Kunark does is this: if you don't raid, you're nothing. This is doubly important on this extremely top-heavy server where nobody is content to simply see the sights and be level 43 for months. The wonder and magic of Everquest is long gone and people want to do what they didn't get to do as kids a dozen years ago. Unfortunately, Velious introduces the concept of full separation between normal and hardcore players.

In Classic and Kunark, almost no gear is notrade. Epics, the odd quest item, a few raid pieces and then VP gear, everything else is droppable. Almost all of the best gear in the game is tradeable and you don't strictly have to be in the top guild to get it. You can become an "accomplished player" by trading, by knowing the right people, by RMTing or scamming (hey, it counts for the purpose of this discussion) and any other way you can imagine getting a fungi, Cobalt BP, tstaff, CoF and whatever else is considered top items in the game.

Not so in Velious. Suddenly every piece of "BiS" is from NToV or similar. In fact, the top three best items for each slot will usually be notrade raid drops, and anything less will be considered low-level crap. The gear you can get as a non-raider is suddenly laughable and you are nobody if you don't raid. As we all know, raiding on P99 is tantamount to selling your soul to the devil, and there's a gigantic divide between the TMOish crowd and the rest of the server. With everyone realizing that there's no way for their characters to be comparatively decked out without that unrealistic requirment of becoming the 1%, the whole experience will feel tainted and people will stop playing as this feeling sinks in and comes to permeate the server.

This did not happen back in the day because 1) people didn't know better, 2) the vast majority were satisfied with being unambitious nobodies, and 3) there were tons of servers and you could always find a raid guild somewhere if you wanted, the entire endgame concept was not utterly monopolized by one or two highly exclusive guilds. People await Velious like it'll be some great coming of age for this server, but nobody seems to realize what it did to Everquest and how poorly it fits this server and the way it differs from the great old backintheday. There will never be a question of whether or not to implement Luclin on P99 because there will be less than 100 players left by then.

This concern is easily rectified by changing the nodrop flag on some pieces to bring them more in line with kunark no drop ratios. NTOV or Sleepers can be the same as VP - almost all no drop and the rest can be droppable. But I'd say nodrop really occurred in Luclin after all Horn of Hssagra and other raid mobs did have very valuable dropable pieces.

[Tasslehofp99]

This is how I view luclin:

One author starts writing a series of fictional novels, they are very successful. This author would be verant interactive/989, with their work being classic eq through velious.

Then another author comes along (soe) and says you know what, good work, but its not making nearly as much money AS IT COULD. SO the new author begins writing a new book starting where the last one left off, seemingly without researching the things that made the original authors work so good. They probably figured, fuck it...we are sony, we know what gamers want and basically raped the original authors work because they were so disconnected from it.


Or something...idk I'm fucking tired.

[senna]

Please no custom content

as soon as custom content hits p99 it turns into another EZ server, and the everquest feels go right out the window.

I'd rather have no luclin than a custom frankenstein luclin

[Brimacombe]

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

Please no custom content

as soon as custom content hits p99 it turns into another EZ server, and the everquest feels go right out the window.

I'd rather have no luclin than a custom frankenstein luclin

This.

[Clark]

Luclin is for sure a top 3 expansion. One of my favorites. Hope to see it here someday.

[VincentVolaju]

I wouldnt mind Luclin, mostly for AAs, gives you something to keep working for, your character is never really "finished" with AAs, its awesome. However, tbh Id prob wouldnt enjoy p99 anymore if there was a bazaar, it killed all buying/selling/trading. Thats one reason why I always come back here, cause I could sit in EC tunnel for hours just making money by buying low, selling high. You just cant do that in any other MMO anymore. Now a days everything just caters to impatient ppl or casuals, which isnt so much of a bad thing, considering now a days theres more casual "gamers", then there is hcore. But trading is how I met a good 50% of the people I know in EQ, some ppl prefer the "I have 100pp, and I want to buy item for 100 off this player made vendor", other people prefer the "I have 100pp, and I want to turn it into 150pp".

Honestly, I think it be pretty cool if they stopped at Velious, but then later down the road just activated AAs. Dont know what that would do to balancing all the classic content, but it would def. give people more of a reason to continue playing and progressing their characters. I dont think people would get bored so easily.

[Tenlaar]

I think it would actually be pretty cool to have a server keep going through Luclin, even to PoP, with all things "classic" except for about a 25% reduction in item stats across the board for Luclin/PoP gear. Add a little more challenge in this time around. Custom does not have to mean easier.

[rafaone]

Please no custom content

as soon as custom content hits p99 it turns into another EZ server, and the everquest feels go right out the window.

I'd rather have no luclin than a custom frankenstein luclin

+1

Besides that, I liked Luclin and hope we can get to there someday here, even if some features like Bazaar or Paludal have to be fixed (Fixed but NO custom content).

[myriverse]

Grinding was never that important to me. In the 4 years I played live, I only just managed to attain level 60 with one character. By then, there were already AAs, and I wasn't too interested. The social aspect of the game and just "walking the Earth" is what I liked (and I stress the word "walking"--all of those teleporters? Ptooey!). Luclin making Norrath seem small just added to the fun I had. It was great to stare at Norrath in the sky from Luclin.

I liked Luclin more than Velious. Velious just seemed like more of the same, and there was just too much ice. Velks, Ring Wars, and Kael were all I really liked about Velious (well, I think I had one good experience in the Tower of Frozen Shadow once...). I think I even liked LDoN more.