"Classic" feeling shifting?

[Master Roshi]

Just be thankful you have your item links and current UI modding capabilities.

Everything else is no.

[Taminy]

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

Well said. PoP was the expansion that ruined the game for me, because it was so near perfection, books were really the only true flaw. PoP was too good, every xpac after was clear to be a massive disappointment, as it was. Raiding done perfect!

Not that PoP raiding was bad (it was excellent) but there were other problems besides just the books.

-There were no factions at all in the expansion and whether you were a good or evil race had no meaning at all.

-Excessive AAs. The ones in Luclin were enough to clearly define all classes.

-Flagging/keying system

[Daldaen]

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

Not that PoP raiding was bad (it was excellent) but there were other problems besides just the books.

-There were no factions at all in the expansion and whether you were a good or evil race had no meaning at all.

-Excessive AAs. The ones in Luclin were enough to clearly define all classes.

-Flagging/keying system

1. Faction I agree and disagree. On the agreeing hand, it adds depth to the game and makes the choices your character makes matter. On the other hand... Your characters are adventuring into the planes to kill the gods themselves. If anything merits the putting aside of race and deity affiliation, it is the daunting challenge of fighting actual gods in their planes of existence. Sort of silly that killing your own God didn't have any bearing though I will agree. Though CT and Inny followers kill them already, all the time in classic/Kunark/Velious.

2. Nah. The PoP AAs added so much depth to the game. They were class defining. There were the general stat/resist/TS ones sure. I could live without those (though mastering all TSes was neat). The class ones though were great. Each class got atleast one solid AA that have them more utility, power or roles in a raid and group setting that was unique to their class.

3. Flagging system I had a love-hate relationship for. On one hand it was an epic quest for both your character and your guild. Knocking off each God on your path to the Elemental and eventually Time planes was awesome. It had two failure, both more or less fixed later on.

Firstly, it was WAYYY too restrictive to start. A few months in they removed this restriction by adding in level barriers to certain planes (CoD,PoV,PoS,PoTorment at 55, HoH, BoT at 62). I'd say Tactics and Solusek Ro both warranted being added to the 62 level limit as well. Keeping EPs and Time locked.

Secondly, it was very unforgiving. The Saryrn cycle was the most brutal. Missing Grummus meant the Carprin key wouldn't stick (even after the level barriers were added). Missing Carprin meant you couldn't click down to Bertox. Missing either Bertox or Terris meant the Keeper of Souls and Saryrn flags wouldn't stick. Etc. Etc. It was mainly because the story line doesn't make sense if you do it out of order, but for purposes of flagging you should've been able to get flags whenever so long as you could zone in.

EPs were a great idea though, atleast all of them except PoAir 1.0. They gave elite-cutting edge raiders a playground to get the best exp, the best groupable drops, the best tradeskill drops and access to the final pieces of some long-chain quests. As well as some solid raids to farm + the 4 elemental gods (some of the best, mechanically speaking, raids to grace EQ).

VP in Kunark, ST in Velious and VT in Luclin all were crappy cause they were raid only. EPs allowed some exclusivity to them while also allowing groups to occur there.

Tl;dr - PoP best expansion ever.

[Fountree]

I think the original poster is just reflecting on the fact that there doesn't seem to be a whole lot to do that's fresh after 5 years on blue. The rolling nature of content in the original game of EQ (You were beyond PoP at the 5 year mark) kept things interesting until the post-PoP period where its universally agreed that shit got stupid.

I've expressed this opinion several times in the past, but what a lot of the "classic" nazis forget is that in the process of microscopically adjusting every gameplay feature to adhere as close to the original as possible, you have a blue server that is becoming more and more unbalanced due to item saturation, lvl 60 saturation, chardok AE etc. You also have people who would really like to keep playing who become burnt out by doing the same raids and/or camps over and over again, 100s or 1000s of times. An important part of PVE EQ is to progress your character (and also guild as a team)... and if you have nothing to progress onward to, there's little left to do. Some people have kept on playing because they enjoy the little things like Sebilis grinding and the complexity of EQ's group and raid based gameplay, but everything has its breaking point where its like...-_- *sigh* I suppose I'll cut my P99 time.

Saying all that, I'm certainly one of those folks who supports the mechanical and gameplay changes happening now in the hopes that a new, fresh and balanced blue server would eventually be released that follows an accurate timeline, with classic features like /guildwar implemented and perhaps gamebreaking things like chardok AE, item recharging, and epic MQs eliminated.

[kaev]

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

...

EPs were a great idea though, atleast all of them except PoAir 1.0. They gave elite-cutting edge raiders a playground to get the best exp, the best groupable drops, the best tradeskill drops and access to the final pieces of some long-chain quests. As well as some solid raids to farm + the 4 elemental gods (some of the best, mechanically speaking, raids to grace EQ).

VP in Kunark, ST in Velious and VT in Luclin all were crappy cause they were raid only. EPs allowed some exclusivity to them while also allowing groups to occur there.

Tl;dr - PoP best expansion ever.

I could not disagree with this more. The EPs elaborated and perfected the premanent separation of EQ players into larger population of casual scum who might maybe get a few content crumbs and a minority of privileged players who got to play the game that everybody payed equally to play. It was this divide in the player population that led inevitably to EQ's decline. Fewer and fewer players found enough interesting about the game to keep paying a subscription. When you're effectively locked out of vast swaths of content, why would you pay to continue developing and elaborating that content?

Quite a few casual and/or RP players could see where EQ was headed once they got a good look at Velious. Many of my friends, both RL and those I had made in-game, bailed on EQ early in Velious. More left early in Luclin, most of the remainder bailed as soon as it became clear how PoP content worked. Amongst gamers who were not obsessed with ordering their real lives around high-end EQ raiding, PoP sucked ginormous necrotic donkey balls for exactly the reason you are applauding it.

PoK & PoK books were stupid, but they're not why PoP sucked. PoP sucked because it offered next to nothing to the overwhelming majority of the players who paid for its development. Velious prepared the stake, Luclin held the stake in place and handed up the mallet, and PoP struck the killing blow, driving the stake mercilessly into heart of EQ, killing the greatness of the game for all time.

[Raev]

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

You seem like a really cool person to hangout with [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

People saying "will donate for port" always seemed like a misuse of language to me. Which is why I always say WTB port/buffs etc.

Also Daldaen I checked http://www.eqclerics.org/forums/showthread.php?t=24202 which seems to be a list of AAs by expac and the PoP list looks quite small <shrug>

[sox7d]

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

I think the original poster is just reflecting on the fact that there doesn't seem to be a whole lot to do that's fresh after 5 years on blue. The rolling nature of content in the original game of EQ (You were beyond PoP at the 5 year mark) kept things interesting until the post-PoP period where its universally agreed that shit got stupid.

I've expressed this opinion several times in the past, but what a lot of the "classic" nazis forget is that in the process of microscopically adjusting every gameplay feature to adhere as close to the original as possible, you have a blue server that is becoming more and more unbalanced due to item saturation, lvl 60 saturation, chardok AE etc. You also have people who would really like to keep playing who become burnt out by doing the same raids and/or camps over and over again, 100s or 1000s of times. An important part of PVE EQ is to progress your character (and also guild as a team)... and if you have nothing to progress onward to, there's little left to do. Some people have kept on playing because they enjoy the little things like Sebilis grinding and the complexity of EQ's group and raid based gameplay, but everything has its breaking point where its like...-_- *sigh* I suppose I'll cut my P99 time.

Saying all that, I'm certainly one of those folks who supports the mechanical and gameplay changes happening now in the hopes that a new, fresh and balanced blue server would eventually be released that follows an accurate timeline, with classic features like /guildwar implemented and perhaps gamebreaking things like chardok AE, item recharging, and epic MQs eliminated.

More like:

We all missed classic and the memories we had in it.

We've gotten our fix and since everything is so commodotized, most players are jaded and the discovery/fear/excitement is gone.

The distance between classic -> P1999's release is now shorter than the distance between PoP/LDoN -> today.

I had a lot of fun during PoP/LDoN.

I'd like to relive those memories. (Though I don't expect it at all from this project, keep classic classic.)

[Itap]

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

People saying "will donate for port" always seemed like a misuse of language to me. Which is why I always say WTB port/buffs etc.

I always say something along the lines of "Donating 50pp for port to WC"...

/shrug

[Daldaen]

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

I could not disagree with this more. The EPs elaborated and perfected the premanent separation of EQ players into larger population of casual scum who might maybe get a few content crumbs and a minority of privileged players who got to play the game that everybody payed equally to play. It was this divide in the player population that led inevitably to EQ's decline. Fewer and fewer players found enough interesting about the game to keep paying a subscription. When you're effectively locked out of vast swaths of content, why would you pay to continue developing and elaborating that content?

Quite a few casual and/or RP players could see where EQ was headed once they got a good look at Velious. Many of my friends, both RL and those I had made in-game, bailed on EQ early in Velious. More left early in Luclin, most of the remainder bailed as soon as it became clear how PoP content worked. Amongst gamers who were not obsessed with ordering their real lives around high-end EQ raiding, PoP sucked ginormous necrotic donkey balls for exactly the reason you are applauding it.

PoK & PoK books were stupid, but they're not why PoP sucked. PoP sucked because it offered next to nothing to the overwhelming majority of the players who paid for its development. Velious prepared the stake, Luclin held the stake in place and handed up the mallet, and PoP struck the killing blow, driving the stake mercilessly into heart of EQ, killing the greatness of the game for all time.

Surely you jest!

PoP offered more content to everyone at every level. People forget the massive size of the expansion...

There was content for the high end, like the EPs and Time (VT, ST, ToV, and VP are all prior examples of this that locked out the dirty casuals.)

There was content for the mid-tier (the flagging raids).

There was content for the low-tier. PoNightmare had the hobgoblin script, hedge event, and Vhaskiz. CoD had Paffa. PoI had Xanamech, Prototypes and the trial. PoJ had the 6 trials and Seventh Hammer. PoValor had the Sleep Walker. PoStorms had the giant named in each fort, the frog event, the bees event and the Lightning giant trial. BoT had the mini named and tower named for farming loots. Tactics has Glykus and Overseer plus the mini named along the path to VZ/TZ (plus those gods themselves were very easy). Torment had the Stomach event. All of those were fights designed for one solid group or multiple casual groups.

Groupers - again once the level barriers were added - had tons of zones to exp in.

46-55 you had PoJustice, PoNightmare, PoInnovation, PoDisease
55-62 you had CoDecay, PoValor, PoStorms, PoTorment
62-65 you had PoTactics, Halls of Honor, Bastion of Thunder

Tradeskillers - Finally All 7 TSes are made relevant and yield items that are marketable. Even Pottery had Ceramic items people wanted. JC made a resurgence with Valor Rings primarily. Fletching... If you had access to EPs you could make the 2nd best now in game behind only PoTime, Nightmare Bows was great for groupers. Baking/Brewing are made even more relevant with meaningful stat food for the min/maxers. Tailoring and Smithing add armor from almost every plane.

Questers - tons of quests lead you back to classic era zones. Wood elf illusion crown, mid-level focus effects, recharging no drop quest items, etc. Not to mention some of the best quests in game IMO. Secrets of the Planes, Signet of the Arcane, Power of the Elements...

MMOs will always have high end content that even though you're paying for it, you won't experience it because your neckbeard isn't long enough or you may even only get an hour a week to play. I don't think that's a problem though :/. Just so long as it is reasonable allocations.

GoD for example was failure in this regard. 95% was tuned toward high end raiding. Grouping was shitty and overtuned.

[Daldaen]

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

People saying "will donate for port" always seemed like a misuse of language to me. Which is why I always say WTB port/buffs etc.

Also Daldaen I checked http://www.eqclerics.org/forums/showthread.php?t=24202 which seems to be a list of AAs by expac and the PoP list looks quite small <shrug>

Here's a pull from my cleric's Macgelo. These are all PoP AAs. The list you show is where the line originated.

PoP Class

Advanced Innate Strength: 0
Advanced Innate Stamina: 0
Advanced Innate Agility: 0
Advanced Innate Dexterity: 0
Advanced Innate Intelligence: 0
Advanced Innate Wisdom: 0
Advanced Innate Charisma: 0
Warding of Solusek: 0
Blessing of E'ci: 0
Marr's Protection: 10
Shroud of The Faceless: 10
Bertoxxulous' Gift: 10
Planar Power: 5
Innate Enlightenment: 5

PoP Advance

Advanced Healing Adept: 3
Advanced Healing Gift: 3
Lightning Reflexes: 5
Innate Defense: 5
Radiant Cure: 3
Hastened Divinity: 3
Hastened Purification of the Soul: 3
Hastened Turning: 0
Divine Arbitration: 3
Celestial Renewal: 0
Unfailing Divinity: 3
Fury of Magic: 0