PoP = Dreadlands MkII

[Aabidano]

Saw this over on steel warriors, and it pretty much echos my thoughts on most of PoP.

PoP was cool at first, then soured pretty fast. What do you think?

Dungeons are my favorite part of EQ, period. Outdoor zones are scenery, and a good place for the legion of l33t gimpz who have no clue how to play in dungeons.

So what happens? PoP comes out, and I discover that the l33t gimpz have won. Its all designed with them in mind. PoI, PoD, PoN, PoV, PoS - all outdoor, pull it to the zone or zone wall zones. What a thrilling reward for having spent two plus years learning the finer points of dungeon crawling - no more dungeons. Worse, now that I have leveled past 60, my old dungeons are now pointless to visit, other than for farming.

I will continue playing the high end game, due to having been plugged into a great guild and having a lot of friends at that end of it. But the actual gameplay leaves me cold. I have a lot more fun now playing in my once a week non twink group. We are currently 29th level and running rampant through places like SolA.

[Kylere]

Yeah, all the tier 1 pop planes are gimpy, work on better tiers and you will see more "dungeonlike" zones.

[vn_Tanc]

Pff there are a few indoor zones but nothing that really qualifies as a 'dungeon'.
PoP is fantastic for raiding but I miss being able to spend time productively in places like HS, Chardok etc.

[miir]

How ironic.

Give people dungeons and they cry for more outdoor hunting.
Give people outdoor hunting and they cry for more dungeons.

I guess there's just no pleasing the legions of l33t gimpz...


I like the outdoor zones, it gives me a chance to use my l33t gimp skillz for ghetto pally crowd control.

[Truant]

yet another blah blah blah blah everquest sold out on the people that made it big. I hate everquest. everquest hates me. But I still pay my monthly fee and can't stop playing. ^^


who fucking cares.

[Sabek]

PoI is like a dungeon with no roof.

[Voronwë]

i like outdoor zones because i can move around in them with a great deal of safety.

i think at the time, the kunark dungeons were really truly awesome. And that was the scope of the game for the most part, single group xp grinds, with the occassional raid. the boss mobs were gone fast: nag, vox, Cazic, Inny, and only FoH could even think of doing VS or Trak.

I think xp grinding sucks personally, so i am happy the xp grind stuff is relatively straightforward in PoP. you got to get your levels, and it is relatively easy to join XP groups in these zones. Unlike in Kunark when if your enchanter left, you all had to gate out to EJ, run back to the orb, recruit an enchanter in the process, go get him from Freeport where he was doing JC, drag him to the orb when he died, and then fight your way back down literally took an hour+ to replace somebody.

The raid mobs in PoP are interesting i think. They challenge people on a tactical level and that is a good thing .

[Adex_Xeda]

ACK I forgot about the old days of enchantrocentrism.

I had hotkeys such as /who all enchanter 55 60

[Aabidano]

yet another blah blah blah blah everquest sold out on the people that made it big.

Didn't think so myself

But I still pay my monthly fee...

True

...can't stop playing

Pretty much have

[miir]

POP has taken a lot of the hassle out of getting groups.

If you cant get a group in PON, try Storms, Disease, Innovation, Valor, etc.

If you get a group together and the zone is too camped, head to another.
It's no more than a 2-3 minute run to another spot.


It beats the fuck out of shouting for a group in Seb for 45 minutes.

If you look at Kunark and Velious, half the dungeons were deserted, for the most part.
Howling Stones was a fucking awesome dungeon but it was empty for the first 4-5 months of Kunark.
The same with Velks and Sirens for the first few months of Velious.

The lower level dungeons were even worse.


I don't know how it was with Luclin, but I imagine the situation was similar.

[Voronwë]

luclin zones were empty simply because they sucked completely.

[Akaran_D]

Aye, now you can get turned down in 5 zones in 5 minutes instead o' 2 in 60 =p

[Chidoro]

Yep, pickup groups come fast. Even my ooc as a 56 war was answered by two groups in 30 seconds. 10 minutes later, we're hunting in PoI.
I prefer dungeons as well, but I'll take hunting over lfg any time

[Jice Virago]

Velks didnt get crowded until they dumbed it down buy upping the level on all the spiders while leaving their comat abilities the same.

Kunark Dungeons were the first expansion dungeons ever and took time to enter (due to key quests) and time for people to get used to after a full year of cat assing it in Guk and SolB. Also due to bugged item tables, there was loot dropping in outdoor zones that was superior to most dungeon loot people were finding. Once stuff became more widely known and keys trivial (remember when the HS key was a rare drop off a rare pop Xalgoz?) people settled into the easiest spots, namely Seb and KC. Places like Chardok and HS got ignored because of the PITA getting to them hindered pickup groups.

Luclin Dungeons simply sucked for the most part. No argument there, although Akheva was somewhat interesting and Griegs had potential, the designers seemed hellbent on annoying the living shit out of anyone who zoned into any of their indoor zones.

POP is the expansion of lazy designers. Now that we lemmings have been conditioned by Luclin to hate indoor zones again, just say fuck it and dont make any indoor zones anyhow. Those damn players will just sploit the shitty pathing and Walls to avoid our assrape AEs anyhow.

[Oreck]

My favorite Zone was Old Seb.. My least favorite zone was DL since i spent from level 35-50 there.. God how i hated that zone.

Oreo

[noel]

In my opinion, the only zones in Luclin of any value whatsoever are the Bazaar, Ssra Temple, and Vex Thal. I actually like Ssra a lot.

I have yet to be impressed with any other zone in Luclin.

My favorite expansion to date is Velious, though the books in PoK, and the way the planes are laid out makes PoP a very close second.

[Truant]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabidano

i was referring to the little gem from some other board that you felt needed to be copied over.

I don't even remember what you said.

In general, I'll address you if I'm speaking to you.

[Karae]

I think if you can't get out of tier one you deserve to deal with the gimps, because you are one.

[noel]

I think if you can't get out of tier one you deserve to deal with the gimps, because you are one.

Best Karae quote... EVAR!

[Aedryn]

I agree there were some great dungeons in Kunark even at the lower levels they were awesome......only problems were that they were in shitty locations and really SUCKED getting to. If they had made them more accessable I think the hoards would have been in them OMGIAMRETARDEDCAUSEALOTISTWOWORDS more. I still hate the run to seb even with my bard.

I loved droga purely due to the fact that no-one ever used to be in there. I Pl'd many a gimp there with no issues of camps or anything

I do agree also that pop does sadly lack a good dungeon to exp in. I think they may be saving that for the next expansion when Brell(bless his soul) may make an appearance and whoop everyone.

[Boo]

A good player is a good player is a good player.

It shouldn't matter one iota if there are a 2 thousand outdoor zones or 3 million dungeons.

[vn_Tanc]

HS = hard to get to?? Pshaw! Get a port, get a lev, get an invis, you're there inside 2 mins from the dropoff in Skyfire. Not a pickup zone, sure, but not hard to get to.
Lower Seb was lots of fun. First few times breaking that damn King in the high 50s was a hoot. Upper Seb was lots of fun off-peak too but any other time you would just get over-camped.
Chardok was great til something gated. After the revamp it was just great
Velious's best dungeon was probly ToFS but it was too low level. Velks was a nice challenge til it got 'gimped' though the loot sucked mightily. I remember being down as far as wearing someone else's CR gear in the first couple of weeks there cos my CR gear was on the corpse next to my real gear SG was interesting and pretty but small and buggy. Plus we all hate fighting in water.
In the old world Kedge was cool and great exp made up for the hassle of swimming. Guk Liveside was nice enough cos even when guk was crowded to buggery 95% of the people there were squabbling over dead side mobs. But my fondest memories of the old world was levelling up in pretty much every dungeon that was going. Perma and SolA were great for their levels. And who can forget the craziness of Unrest on amateur night back when root overwrote SoW and a single hag could vapourise half of the zones population. . .

I liek dungeons

[Shaerra]

And who can forget the craziness of Unrest on amateur night back when root overwrote SoW and a single hag could vapourise half of the zones population. . .

Ah, the good ol' days. When people became infamous for ninja looting a jagged band.

When famous last words were "Hail, a festering hag".