Would PoP be considered classic if it was released before Luclin?

[86753o9]

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

Well oiled? I quit because the entire game didn't feel like one cohesive world any longer. The game no longer felt like a wonderful fantasy world, rather a mix matched graphics, cobbled together pile of do, with books, PoK, Bazaar, Sci -Fi theme, cats on a moon, ball of crap. It was no longer built as a wonderful immersive world to pull you in, rather built for convenience as a monster killing factory.

Well said.

[Bumamgar]

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

Everything you said is wrong... how is that possible without trying?

I disagree. Luclin and PoP were great expansions for a variety of reasons.

Luclin:

• AA rather than level boost was an excellent idea. Not only did AA give players a way to increase their character's power, it also gave a bit of customization control to the player other than exclusively via gear. Pre-Luclin, there were few options for customization. Sure, people may have had some variety in gear, but there really wasn't that much variety at the high end. Character customization is a good thing.
• Multiple key quests with gating mobs for end-game content. While there is some of this in Kunark and Velious (VP key in Kunark, Sleeper's key in Velious) they aren't nearly as comprehensive as Luclin with the Emperor and VT key quests. Heck, the keyed zone in Velious isn't even considered the 'end-game' zone, but rather a side trek for some nice toys. NToV is the end-game zone and can be accessed without any keying at all.
• Tiered raid content. This trend really started with Velious, but Luclin takes it even further, with a fairly clear progression between open-zone raid mobs -> Ssra named -> Vex Thal

PoP:

• Tiered content taken to it's logical conclusion, with only a few zones available initially, requiring personal flagging (via PoJ Trials) to access Tier 2 and then a combination of key quests and flagging to unlock later zones. Before the addition of level based access (a bad move, imho) there was a real sense of achievement when unlocking access to a new zone.
• New tradeskill items breathed new life into the market, providing several items that were of use even to raid-geared characters.
• Tiered quest armor. Ornate vs Elemental armor gave players a way to obtain decent gear without raiding, or raiders a chance to fill in a few slots that were lacking due to bad luck on drops. However, Ornate wasn't good enough to completely negate old content.
• Pickup raid scene blossomed. For a variety of reasons, but largely due to the need for backflagging, the PoP era was a pickup raider / casual raider's dream expansion. Given the effort required and itemization of the tier 1 - 2 content in PoP, end-game guilds generally had no desire to monopolize this content. They did, however, need to flag new recruits and absentee members, so the PoP era saw a large number of open access, pickup raids on pre-elemental content. Also, given the amount of content available in PoP and the time investment required to farm elemental armor and key for things like PoEarth-B, end-game raiders were often kept busy enough in PoP that Luclin and Velious targets opened up to lower tier guilds and pickup raids as well.

[Danth]

I agree with Mandalore's statement that Luclin and Planes of Power are mechanically superior to the earlier expansions. However, I still enjoy the earlier expansions more; improved mechanics don't necessarily equate to more fun. The later expansions had faults of their own that for some players (such as myself) more than cancel out any gains from the mechanical and technological improvements.

Danth

[webrunner5]

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

I agree with Mandalore's statement that Luclin and Planes of Power are mechanically superior to the earlier expansions. However, I still enjoy the earlier expansions more; improved mechanics don't necessarily equate to more fun. The later expansions had faults of their own that for some players (such as myself) more than cancel out any gains from the mechanical and technological improvements.

Danth

I think we can all agree to your statement on here or we would not be playing P1999 lol. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But some people get, got bored doing the same old thing and wanted new content, and Luclin and Pop had it in Spades. It is just like here, some people have 10 alts or more now, and a lot have even moved to Red because of Kunark being out like going on 4 years now.

So you can't just lump everyone into one group and say you are right and they are wrong and vice versa. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Missingo]

Beastlords were a great class but Luclin overall was meh for me. Wish we had beastlords on here (yeah I know its not classic, shaddup)

[Mahande]

The thing that killed the community aspect of the game was boxing, not POK. POK was just a nice tool for getting around fast without relying on a druid or wizard, you still needed to group with people and interact with them to kill things and gain xp. With the introduction of boxing (Started in Velious btw), EQ started down a slippery slope of becoming a solo game, even at the high end of raiding. If this server were to add luclin under the current IP stipulations, the only thing that would significantly change is that adding the Bazaar would make EC a thing of the past and lets face it, none of us would miss it. Nowhere can you fill your ignore list full of undercutting asshats faster than in EC. I for one welcome it.

Oh and btw, Luclin was complete already when Sony bought EQ at the very least in scope and design, the coding just needed to be finished. The only thing Sony added were the Luclin models for the toons which we all hated.

[86753o9]

So people left live and came to p1999 to get away from boxing. Riiiight.

[Bumamgar]

boxing, mercs and instancing... yes [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Daldaen]

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

boxing, mercs and instancing... yes [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Defiant armor, shitty itemization, and the way in which lots of content was made useless too quickly were far more contributory to me coming here.

Boxing - Fantastic. Less fantastic with free accounts. But playing a single character in this era is soooo boring. Being a CH cleric in a chain for 10minures isn't the most thrilling thing ever.

Now instead imagine you can play a Rogue, Ranger and Cleric. You are CHing every so often on the cleric, backstabbing on the Rogue and casting spells / kicking / shooting arrows on your ranger. You interact way more with the game and that activity makes playing more fun.

Mercs - Really just a product of low population and too linear of quest-play. This is one of the greatest downfalls of modern EQ. Too often people want to complete a series of quests in a zone. The problem is if you don't start/finish with the same people you end up having to repeat steps you've done or only have half-finished series which yield minimal reward. It's very difficult to find someone needing the same quests/steps as you unless you plan to play with that person.

Instances - Again, fantastic. See any camp dispute or raid environment here as to why. You should have to stare at a wall for 16 hours or sit on a camp for 7 hours to experience certain content. That's dumb. Instances allowed all types of raiders to experience content and it started to become those who are skilled succeed rather than those who are unemployed. Which is a good thing IMO.

Player interaction, blah blah blah. No one wants to interact with me when they request a port. They just don't want to travel 30 minutes across the world.

[Sinder]

luclin sucked... we are still discovering contents and then OH HEY we are on the moon! sounds like a tales of the Blode episode. also the bazaar sucked.

If you wanna get rid of PoK just make the spires port to PoTraq with a level check. I thought PoP was pretty great and without AA it would make it even harder... aka more fun. the gear would be a pretty huge step from Velious to PoP without the focuses and stat increases O_O.

seems a good way to end the game by killing the Gods of the game