Saw this on eqclerics. Best review I've read yet of PoP :)

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I have to say, this expansion looks really good. For about three days. Then you fight Grummus, and realize that nobody but the top few guilds of a server, even at mostly 63+, will get past Disease. Then you go fight the Manetic Behemoth or whatever, and realize that's true there too. Then you go and fight Terris Thule, and realize very few ever have a prayer there.
Well, that's okay, you still have Plane of Justice trials - those are doable for a group of merely primal equipped people. So you get to Valor, where no items drop, and Aerin'Dar kicks the living hell out of you with a 3k difficult-to-resist AE with a 45% slow, 1400+ melee, and nine mobs that add on you once you start fighting her, and realize that's a dead end too.
That leaves 80% of the expansion for 2% of the population base. This stuff is JUST THE FIRST TWO TIERS of five tiers. Level 65 isn't gonna help - the only thing that will help is 500 in all resists with 16 damage backstabbers and flowing thought 25. Especially since you can't get your spells, and no decent gear drops anywhere.
Planes of Power was supposed to be a change from the Luclin timesinks, and it is. However, what they DIDN'T mention was that you are required to go back and do those timesinks to get into it. The uberguilds have effectively hand-tailored themselves an expansion in which they don't get simply one or two zones of exclusive content ala Sleeper's Tomb or Vex Thal, but an entire expansion full of it. 98% of your average player base will never see Tier 3, much less Tier 4 or Tier 5. They'll never kill so much as a single tier 1 boss. And they'll get frustrated and quit quietly because the expansion is designed for Afterlife. ALL of it.

Exarch Finnien, 64 High Priest
Crusaders of Plilo
Zebuxoruk

[/quote]

That about sums it up in a nutshell.

Has anyone heard SoE's take on what they were thinking?

1. Rates of spells drop are just sickening
2. Uhm, what's a tier 3 plane? :P
3. Level 65 means you HAVE to stay in PoP in order to get any exp unless you like killing 1,000,000 golems in hole for 1 yellow of real exp.

Alaten
Hierophant

I have to say i agree with that review. Other than excellent xp in the tier 1 zones there is pretty much nothing else I'll be seeing unless I apply to an uber guild on my server. (1 of 5). One thing I noticed also is that you have almost no chance of loot either. I have seen about 2 pieces of armor drop off a non-boss mob, metal linked crown and gloves. Uber. I mean at least with Luclin there was ME and UP for random decent armor. I guess they cant really upgrade that armor off the Tier 1 mobs, but something would be nice. A random named, non-boss mob here and there would be nice. Maybe I havent explored PoP enough, which could be, but those are my comments on it.

Winwell 60 Hierophant
Steel Horsemen
The Nameless

Sounds about right :(

Sure Absor commented on it.

Look for this thread

pub149.ezboard.com/fthedr...1&stop=120 (http://pub149.ezboard.com/fthedruidsgrovegeneral.showMessageRange?topicID=29 501.topic&start=101&stop=120)


The following are some excerpts

"Members of a guild that have need of certain flags should have little or no problem finding a way to get them, either through pickup groups, alternate routes or just by their guild doing what guilds do - helping their members achieve goals"

(Read this next one for a big laugh - Didn't they say at the Fan Faire that parchment drops had been increased (guess noone told the programmers).

"Spell scarcity has little to nothing to do with your level of casualness (casuality?). In fact, less so now than ever. Think back to trying to get your spells in past expansions. Often you had to get your guild or group to go take out certain NPCs to gain spell drops. Now you can go with them pretty much wherever they want to go and get your parchments. Yes, just like anything else it’s going to take X hours to get X spells/swords/helmets or whatever. I’m not going into the whole argument that X is the same for casual players as anyone else, except to say that with Planes of Power removing a lot of the time constraints for players (travel, finding groups, getting into raids), the ‘set-up’ time gap between casual and not casual is reduced, not increased."

"I guess I’m saying that if you are finding Planes of Power difficult, understand that there is an adjustment and learning period, just as there is for any expansion. If you play casually then it might take longer for you to learn what you need to know and get used to the style of the expansion. Again, if it takes X hours to figure out how to deal with Y encounter, then it’s going to take the casual player more real life days to get in those X hours to learn Y than it does the more active player."


"Planes of Power is a fine place for the casual player. Plenty of places to solo, easy to pick up groups in PoK, the whole portal system, the raid feature makes it much easier to get players into raids, and all that. And, no, you don't have to pick between AAs, levels, and zone advancement. At least no more so than ever before for the casual player or any other player for that matter"

(I can see the Tier 1/2 planes 6 months from now - It will look like Sol B and LGuk prior to ROK.)

I couldn't agree more with this review.

Keep in mind the reviewer...
Exarch Finnien, 64 High Priest
Crusaders of Plilo
Zebuxoruk

He is the leader of the number 2 guild on the server. In terms of power and accomplishment, only the Dark Horizon/Ytrilinth's Hoard alliance can be said to be ahead of CoP. So it's not some weak guild saying this. These guys are are skilled and accomplished guild and it's absurd to think SoE would be foolish enough to want to drive away their player base by making the high end game inaccessable to 99.9 % of the most DEDICATED players.

PoP needs a MAJOR overhaul. Once the newness wears off and reality sinks that PoV / PoS really IS the end of teh road for most people, they're gonna be looking for a game that's more accesable to people who ONLY have 6 hours a day to play, lol.

If Absor posts one more time to tell us that really we SHOULD be in love with PoP cause it's just fabulous, I will loose my mind. He's about as out of touch with the realities of this expansion as anyone possibly could be but then he's SoE's propaganda minister so that's his job. I actually really enjoyed Kunark, Velious and Luclin so it's not like I hate expansions. I actually used to enjoy everquest once before PoP too.

I have to agree with this sentiment, 100 %. And I was a big fan of PoP for the first week or so...until the three zones I have access to started boring the snot out of me.

The worst thing is, the experience is SO good in PoP that there really is no point fighting anywhere else. You might as well be killing greens as fighting in old zones...two blues a night used to be reasonable experience. I can get that in half an hour solo in PoP! Why is it a bad thing that experience in PoP is through the roof versus every other expansion? Because, effectively it means no more hunting in all those cool old dungeons I used to love. No more Seb, HS, DN, SG, Chardok. Sure I could go back there, and I probably will have a few last glory runs for the heck of it...but it seems pretty lame now. After the initial novelty of PoP wore off, I was left with three boring as hell OUTDOOR zones. Ok, technically four, but PoJ has one teeny little camp that's trivially easy and packed, and the only (as I understand) cool part of PoI requires someone getting flagged. So really, it's PoD, PoN, and a crappy bit of PoI. Two and a quarter boring as hell outdoor zones. There isn't even a reasonable dungeon I can get to...and those hobgoblin caves do not count as a dungeon.

My guild, which is a teeny tiny one composed solely of real life friends, has the worst time getting flagged for PoV even! We have about 8 members, spread between 57 and 62 (mostly the higher end), but no real good damage dealers. No rogue, no wizard, our monk is 57, our ranger is 59...so even if I ever do get flagged for PoV, I'll likely never fight there, since I vastly prefer to hang out with my friends...and the rest of my buddies play too casually to get through even the PoJ trial. I certainly don't intend to spend any more time getting more levels (currently 61) or making repeated attempts at the trials, since the zones I have access to are boring. PoV doesn't really sound much different. And there's no way in hell I'm ever gonna get past that!

Anyway, sorry for the long rant but...I've been playing eq pretty heavily for three years now, as has most of my guild. I've got two characters 60+, and several others in the 40-50 range. I'm a solid player, and so is the rest of my guild. Prior to PoP, we were ALWAYS able to find fun, cool single group stuff to do, and I accepted that certain content (VT, VP etc) would just never be open to me. No problem, plenty of other things to do.

But now? My options are awful: two and a quarter boring outdoor zones...or gimp myself horribly on experience. Or spend days trying to get flagged for PoV...and then not be able to group with half my friends. And STILL be denied any content beyond PoV. No way in hell are my guildmates ever gonna be able to get flagged beyond PoV.

Most of my buddies rarely log in now, and I haven't played in over a week (and I'm a fairly hardcore, daily playing kind of guy). I'm seriously (and I've never said this before) contemplating a four letter word...rhymes with spit, and starts with q.

I think PoP has some great ideas, cool monsters, love the exp, the graveyard feature is cool (although it does sorta trivialize stuff, making zones even MORE boring!)...but no way in hell I want to spend all my time fighting in the same few zones. And frankly, it's a bit annoying that Verant catered this expansion so exclusively towards large powerful guilds. Hell, EVERYONE can get to 65 at some point...where the heck are they supposed to fight, if they are not in a huge guild? Even in the high 50's, low 60's, PoP is really where you want to be...

On a positive note, I finally finished the NWN official campaign, Medal of Honor Allied Assault, and am burning through the original Homeworld. All three are great games, and the word "uber" doesn't come up in any of them!

Can I ask a question or 2?

PoP is an expansion where essentially your job is to go to the different planes of the gods and kill them, right?

Are you expecting an expansion after this one?

When you get through killing all the gods over and over again, what would that expansion be like?

I mean, what do you go from there, after killing all the gods?

Hell, the only thing I could think of making it going further would be an expansion where players become gods themselves.

EQ1 has "jumped the shark". And they want you to start looking forward to the sequel/spinoff, EQ2.

What is the life expectancy of EQ1 if PoP is the last expansion if it were NOT such an enormous/idiotic timesink?

I am sure that they want you to be playing EQ1 for at least a few more years(even without any continued development/new content). How better a way to do it, that to do exactly what the review says they are doing?

As much as we rant and rave about how stupid these people are, they have built the the best and most legally profitable Skinner Box in history. They are not stupid.

I'd tend to agree with that review, but primarily because PoP is so insanely linear. No matter how much Absor might insist on there being "alternate routes" to tier2+ zones -- those routes all lead to the same degree of mob difficulty.

Every time I zone into PoN, I literally have to /hidecorpse all, because there are so many deaths in that zone (compounded by a steady stream of trains to the zone-out, which is conveniently located directly next to the zone-in point). Just entering that zone can cause an instant death from a swarm of mobs left by the last train ... of course, most of those mobs see through all forms of invisibility.

A vast majority of guilds and groups who are not very well-equipped <strong>will</strong> have problems with mobs in tier2 zones in PoP... and even if they're able to squeak by and advance to tier3, they aren't going to find the type of "exp" they've been brainwashed to seek over the past three years. Most of these mobs are hitting double/triple/quad for over 300 per smack.

That would be all well and good if people could say "oops, we are in over our heads and we need to go back." But the most diabolical trick VI plays on folks with PoP, is giving them a relatively fast way to level all the way up to 65 in tier1/2 zones, where they will quickly discover their new uber level prevents them from getting significant exp in any zone from any previous expansion.

If guilds figured this out soon enough, they will be 'enjoying' (groan) all the timesinks PoP promised to eliminate -- because they'll be going through all the old EverCamp content (HoT, NToV, VP, VT, etc.), in efforts to ramp up their gear before attempting to advance into PoP.

There should be a disclaimer printed on the front of every PoP box:
"Warning: If you and your guild are not uber yet, progressing in this expansion will be a one-way trip through an increasingly narrow passage in which you will eventually suffocate."

~Firemynd

The review is unfortunately dead on. I'm sure these encounters will get easier as time goes by, but they're not going to get easy enough for casual players to advance into the majority of the content. This is definitely the first expansion where many players won't even see half of what they paid for. The spell drop rates only add to the mind-boggling stupidity of the whole scheme.

And to think, I actually half-believed the promises that PoP would be an expansion geared towards the 6 man group and away from large, boring, "uber" encounters.

I have some critizisms about this expansion. First, if you read FOH's board you will see a long post from Furor about how FoH owned pop and how various guilds were able to use inside info to proceed though the expansion.

This is one aspect that kinda pisses me off. If your not in the beta for an expansion, your sol till either you figure out what to do or read the message boards on what to do. The text on a lot of the quest givers is vague and very difficult to figure out while others have the advantage of a pocket insider.

This expansion was tailored to the organized/more active player and I think it probably should be. I wished that the difficulty level for the higher end guilds was much higher than it was. That is, FoH and other high end guilds should not have been able to own the expansion so fast. If spell drop rates were too fast, why did the devs have them so high in the first place? Why were windblade drop rates nerfed? Why was the drop rate so high?

I heard the term, Devs won't be working in isolation any more.... I guess that does not apply to expansions.

The biggest F' up in this expansion is the nerfs that were required and the ability of top end guilds to proceed so quickly through the expansion.

On the point of casual players. This is not a casual game. I can't imagine starting from scratch on a mature server. There are just so many hours needed to gear up your charater and you will always be behind the curve... unless you get lucky.

For those who say that 98% of the population is going to be stuck in three zones, can you answer these questions for me since you seem to know it all, and know it one month into the expansion?

What's the alternate quest method to get into Torment? How about the alternate quest method into Tactics? Into Temple of Sol Ro?

Can you tell me how you know there aren't alternate quest methods to get into Fire, Water, Earth, and Air?

Can you explain to me again what part of the Decay quest is impossible to do solo? Or what part of the Halls of Honor quest takes more than a single group? Or what part of the Bastion of Thunder takes an uber guild?

Or did you want all of it handed to you on a silver plate, one month into the expansion?

A bit confused,

Xylem, E'ci

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Aerin'Dar kicks the living hell out of you with a 3k difficult-to-resist AE with a 45% slow, 1400+ melee, and nine mobs that add on you once you start fighting her, and realize that's a dead end too.[/quote]

My god I can't believe all the whiners. While I will admit the first time we fought Aerin'Dar many of us felt this way, we tried again and again and finally won. It's easy to fail and bitch about how hard something is. Instead of bitching, why not try again, refine your strategies and don't give up until you win? Why? Because it's much easier to complain.

People go on and on about how everyone "needs" Primal and FT 15 etc to kill Grummus and similar PoP mobs.

This is simply NOT true.

Try thinking outside the box. Strategies that worked on prior expansions no longer work in PoP. Do you really want to blow through what is probably the last expansion in a matter of weeks?

I can tell you about the five other guilds on my server that have FULL primal and decent FT gear and still wipe to Grummus with 60-75 MULTIPLE times. Then there are two guilds which can take Grummus out quite easily with ~35.

PoP is more about strategy and skill than ancient strategies that once worked. Sure DPS matters, but not as much as you'd think.

Personally I think Grummus and Aerin`Dar are too easy. I am not attempting to troll here, this is what I believe.

Our DPS is not double that of other top end guilds on our server. Why is it they fail continuously on Grummus and Aerin`Dar' with 70+ when other guilds do it EASILY with 35? The difference is strategy, skill and less lag. I think VI achieved nearly exactly what was needed for this expansion.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Then you go and fight Terris Thule, and realize very few ever have a prayer there.[/quote]

Many guilds on my server have downed TT. In fact our first attempt ever we got her to 80% with 11 people. I strongly disagree that very few will have a prayer there.

I hope this post doesn't upset anyone, that was not my intent. It just seems when a guild fails a target, people are more likely to get pissed and post about how difficult it is instead of learning and trying again.

Oh and here's another comment.

Why would Verant actively want to screw 98% of the people over? It's not like they get more money if they cater to the top 2% of the population.

It's 4 weeks or so into the expansion; I think it's too early for them to easily determine whether there is a real problem or if people are impatient. I will bet you 10000pp that if this remains a major problem 3-5 months from now and none of the alternate quest methods are known, that there will be a "leak" on how to do some/all of them, and that if the quests are too hard for the majority of people that they will be made easier.

A good example to look at is the epics. Almost all the epics are TREMENDOUSLY easier to do now than they were when they were first implemented.

Druids - Used to have to fight over VS and camp the easily-poofed Fayd
Warriors - Used to need the sea dragon scale
Bards - Used to have to fight with casters for the white dragon scale, used to not have a triggered trakanon
Clerics - Used to have to camp 3-7 days in SolB, then used to have to have have a huge FFA fest in Skyfire

I believe most of the epics have been made easier since their introduction, though I don't remember the specifics to the others (and I believe that some are still as hard as they once were).

But my point is Sony gains nothing by making the vast majority of its userbase unhappy. The problem they have is they sometimes overestimate the abilities of players because they sometimes underestimate the abilities of players. In other words, they kind of expect players to figure out ways to do things inventively and effectively which they didn't think of. Thus, they pad their content with that in mind. Often that works, but occassionally, players get screwed because the bar is legitimately just too high and players find nothing but frustration.

But considering that only a couple of the alternate quest routes are even fully known and spoiled (and the three that have been spoiled are really not that hard... well BoT you might be looking at 3-4 groups for one of the fights, but that's still somemthing that two casual guilds can get together and do, and other two require one group or less), I think it's a little early to say whether the overall path is too difficult, or people are just complaining because they want everything *now*.

- Xylem, E'ci

Ok to you ubers who are so critical of this review - congratulations, you've made it to the upper tier planes and dont want any company... ever.. /applaud.

Personally I think many of these criticisms are very valid - as an example lets take the easiest of the tier 3 zones (tier 2.5?) Halls of Honor. Most tier 2 guilds cant handle Aerin Dar - period.. I have no shame in admitting with the balance of classes we have even though we have 40+, 60+ members we can't. So the alternative quest involves repeatedly kiling mobs which CAN drop quest components with 1 to 2 60+ groups .... GREAT except the drop rates on some component are about 1 in 10.. and the named mobs spawn over PH 1 in 4... so if you want just say 2 groups of 6 with HoH keys via the alternate pathway ... you have to camp the agony memphit for 50 hours best case?... then 3 other mobs for 50-100 hours? Worse yet the stupid PoI component is an ultra-rare drop off of no fixed mob type we've been able to find so far (perilium) - any of you know a mob that consistently drops it cause in 3 weeks of nightly camping the zone we've had 0 drops (including cubbies, not including castle since we dont have keys).

IMO this expansion IS 90% for the top 1-2% of players if even that - which really sucks for the rest of us. I'm almost done with crypt of decay alternate quest - GREAT - even if I get a key without my guild I'll almost never be able to get a group there since only whole guilds get keys and then subsequently do pre-formed guild raid groups there. There are no pick-ups in Decay or Tactics or Fire ....

This is just a big FU to most of us who payed our money for this expansion period. Don't get me wrong - I like having a lvl 65 cap, I like my new spells, and I like many of the new AAs and tradeskill items but having so much of the new content locked away for so few is total BS and makes PoP a total rip off unless EQ is the be all and end of all of your life or you plan to be playing for at least another year... or you have no loyalty to your guild and friends and want to jump the nearest tier 1 guild just so you can get what you payed for.

This is the last time I get bent over by VI - I like my friends in this game so I have no intention of leaving but Star Wars Galaxies and EQ2 could be slices of heaven and I will never go near them or any other Verant product.

Ok /rant off - say what you want but PoP's layout is just a total screwover from a consumer point of view.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>congratulations, you've made it to the upper tier planes and dont want any company... ever.. /applaud.[/quote]

Thank you, you just proved my point. It's much easier to give up, cry and whine about your failures then work on what went wrong, refine your strategies and try again.

What don't you understand?

If you have a guild of 60-65's and you are failing the pov dragon with 60, SOMETHING IS WRONG, PERIOD.

You can bitch and complain and threaten never to buy another VI product again, or you can work on your techniques and kill that dragon. For some people bitching is easier.

We kill the PoV dragon with 30-35. Is our DPS double that of your guild? I HIGHLY doubt that. Do our tanks have 8-9k hp's like the "ubers" out there? Perhaps ONE has broke 8k. So again, it comes down to skill, strategy, class makeup, persistance and less lag that make the difference for us and so many other guilds.

Listening to people like you whine makes me happy I'm in a competant guild. If I wasn't, I'd quit. We boot the people who constantly complain and give up. Why? Because they drag the guild down, and THAT'S the reason why we're successful. We never give up. It doesn't mean we're "uber" like you so assume.

I GUARANTEE you if you channeled all this negativity, and focused all this anger I'm seeing into killing flag mobs, you would win sooner than you think. Once you figure it out, you will feel stupid for saying the "ubers will never have any company to the upper tiers". In fact, once you figure it out you will be able to kill it again and again with fewer people than you ever thought possible.

Why come here and complain so much? Quit the game if you think it sucks so much. The days of cornering a MT, counting to three, clicking heal are over. PoP encounters require skill. There is nothing wrong with failing, if you learn from your mistakes and try again.

If you think the game sucks so bad, please just quit.

Gash and Random,

PoP sucks from my point of view for a very simple reason...

Namely, a small guild such as mine can NEVER get flagged for even half the zones in the expansion. It doesn't matter how good our tactics are, how high our levels/aa are, or how great are equipment is.

There is NO CHANCE a small guild will be allowed to play in the majority of PoP. And I'd venture to extend that to say---there is no chance a large but mediocre to average guild will get flagged for a bare majority of the PoP content.

But just look at my specific case, as an illustration. I belong to a tiny guild composed entirely of RL friends or ANCIENT eq buddies...about 8 people total at this point. We've been single grouping stuff forever, and loving it, which I happen to think is the best way to play eq. Prior to PoP, my guild was able to meaningfully exp and explore almost every zone released. PoP changed that, not only in the expansion itself-but retroactively to previous expansions. Not only can my guild not explore PoP, but with the retro-exp nerf, we can't even go back to our old stomping grounds!

Tactics won't change that. Gear won't change that. Numbers might---but only with gear (and really, tactics are a far far distant third to either other, don't kid yourselves). And in any event, we'd have to fundamentally change our entire guild structure to add others.

Now, in my particular case it's a small guild getting shafted out of the vast majority of the zones in PoP, because we cannot possibly take down any boss mobs. "Random" brought up the quests...well that's great, but even doing the PoDecay quest half a dozen times would take for freakin ever...with a tracker.

My situation sorta sucks...but now imagine the situation of the BIG guilds, where it sucks as much, times the number of people!!! Larger guilds have even worse issues with flagging. Take the number of members a typical guild has...fifty or so I guess? And multiply that by the number of zones that need flagging...uggggh. That is just UGLY, especially considering most members will need to go through flagging procedures many, many times until all are flagged.

And again, speaking personally...I could care less about gear, spell drops, or even exp gain (to a certain degree) as long as I could explore the expansion to a reasonable degree.

PoP has COMPLETELY rewritten the rules regarding keys...sure they call it "flagging" now, but it's the same damn thing. 80 percent of the zones are now keyed beyond the reach of the majority of the level appropriate players---which would be fine, EXCEPT at the same time, ALL of the old content has become completely IRRELEVANT in terms of xp.

Never before has eq so strangled the non-uber players in terms of content and availability.

If you are not bored with PoP yet, I would humbly suggest: a) You are in an uber guild, and are still seeing new content, or b) A fair portion of your brain is composed of osseous tissue.

btw, I am about to install the original Diablo...good fun! And I can kill the boss mob without an uber guild AT ALL!

Casual pick up group players and small guilds have reached that point most of you have described. I started out in pick up groups, which was a bit of a change for me. More of my Guild Members are getting PoP, however for most of the novelty of PoP has quickly petered out.

It is nice to have something new and I suppose once the fun has run out I’ll finally make my move to take a long break of leave all together.

I think people should be thinking less about how much PoP content they can't see and thinking more about how much of the rest of the game you CAN see, now that PoP has effectively removed the top guilds from the chessboards of Velious and Luclin.

I see a lot more guilds having the opportunity to take on encounters that they were essentially locked out of, due to the sheer luxury of having the time to <em>learn</em> the encounters, without worrying about 18 bored uberguilders swooping in for a surgical strike 5 minutes after spawn.

I'm not gonna lie to you. PoP encounters require experience and strategy yes, but it also requires gear. Gear that was gotten by doing the lame-@#%$ 'timesinks' and messed-up content of the previous expansion.

Besides, the strategy required for this expansion is a combination of the old and the new; a little MT rotation here, a little CC there, and a few other little twists that you have to make up your own strategies for. But this content is far too overwhelming for guilds who think that riposte-tanking VS is a novel idea or struggle to maintain a healchain.

Everyone wants to do the NEW and the NOW. I know of three guilds on my server who probably could take legitimate first shots at Emperor and noone would really bother them. But what are they doing? They are busy blowing Manaetic Behemoth every chance they get.

For guilds that have advanced to the later tiers, the flagging system is a pain because you have to get new members and lagging members through something that you would like to leave behind.

For guilds that haven't, the flagging system is a pain because it confines your guild to a limited number of planes that are increasingly overcrowded. There's a reason we call PoV the Plane of Velketor on my server. And delaying reaching 65 to attempt to keep more XPing options open in the old world isn't an answer, because the XP in PoP is so much better that it compels playing there for XP, regardless.

There may be alternative routes to the higher level planes...we know of two so far, after all. However, speaking as someone who attempted the HoH alternative quest before getting around to killing Aerin'Dar, I'd definitely recommend that the drop rates on the quest items be increased, especially as this quest only gets one person in at a time. Rare drops on a rareish PHer? An insanely rare drop on random mobs? Not good, especially when you consider that it takes a group to do these.

As for spell drops, I can't help but agree....they've been nerfed to the point of silliness.

Just killed Grummus for the first time last night and got a good chunk of my guild flagged for Crypt of Decay. I'm REALLY not looking forward to doing this fight the 3 or 4 more times it will take to get 98% of my guild Flagged for CoD.

But, PoP has helped my guild out a ton. Because the top two guilds on my server have moved their focus onto PoP, my Guild has been taking out all the Luclin content we can and it's a lot easier with higher levels, more AAs, etc. Last week we killed Arch Lich 3 times, before PoP we only had the chance to engage him a handful of times due to competition. We've also been able to knock out one of our longest term goals by killing Lord Inquisitor Seru (twice now!).

For my Guild, PoP has helped a ton. We're able to compelety dominate Luclin and Velious content with zero problems and we're still hitting up PoP content when we can. There has never been so much to do before now. PoP reduced Luclin competition and my guild has the power to tackle Tier 1 and Tier 2 bosses.

But I can totally see where casual players in smaller guilds feel the way they do. I'm lucky to be in the Guild that I am so I can enjoy the content that is out there.

Anyway, done rambling now.

My first thought at trying the trials was - OMG how the hell and I ever going to see Tier 2. Now I see friends managing to get tagged, but the thought that lingers is that if its that hard to get to Tier 2 I'm sure its not going to get easier to get to Tier 3.

I enjoy hunting in PoN (haven't been in the other much) but I know I'll get bored of it soon. And then what, I can't go any further and I can't go back, so then what do I do - quit. Verant have trapped players in a corridor, and if they think they are trying to keep us entertained until EQ2 comes out. I don't think so. The top 2% will have all the content done in another 3 months, and the rest of players will be stuck on Teir 2 and below - essentially getting bored and leaving, way before EQ2 will go into Beta let alone release.


I think they shot too high. Getting to Teir 2 should only require a group of 60's in very moderate gear (after all you only need 46 to even get in the zone). Getting to Teir 3 should require what Teir 2 needs now. Teir 4 should require Vex Thal gear, level 65 and a reasonable strong guild. And Teir 5 should be for the Elitests.

As they say this expansion was made for FoH. Well I hope they enjoy their game, becuase it sure as hell isn't mine.

P.S. I think this maybe some little competition between Verant and FoH. Maybe they should just grow up and just get over their own egos.

Back 2+ years ago, when you made level 46 and *could* zone into the Plane of Fear, did you run to the Feerrott and jump thru the portal, and /OOC Level 46 _whatever_ LFG?

Then, when you found yourself naked at your bind point with no way that, as a casual player without a guild capable of "breaking fear" at the time, facing the prospect of losing your body and all of your gear then come and post about how the planes were too hard and unfair to the solo/unguilded/casual player?

Remember back when the "uber guilds" of the time would be trying to break into fear for a raid, and they would send in "breaking groups" and hold back additional breaking groups in case the first one got wiped out? And have members with sets of alternate gear in the bank run back to try breaking again so they could at least clear enough of the roamers to res their bodies and get their gear?

Now, after everyone knows all there is to know about PoFear a single group can go in and clear everything but the bosses. If the mini's didn't DT, they could take them too. Some folks have even been known to solo-break fear.

The entire point of the Planes of Power expansion (in my opinion, others may disagree) was to restore the kind of challenge that PoFear was to the first guilds making a serious run at it back a few years ago. I don't see why people are expecting easy access (and yes, access at all even if you aren't guilded or are with a small or rp oriented guild) to zones that were designed for the "raid crowd".

Look back to Velious... It was also designed with high-level guilds in mind. For a while he "ubers" were the only ones killing Zlandicar, Yelinak, Tormax, Vindi, Statue, AoW, and fighting in Sleepers Tomb.

Back then, everyone said that 98% of the players would never do those mobs/zones. That lasted for a while... now everyone and their brother has a Sleepers Tomb key.

Except the players who insist that they don't play enough/have the play time to be part of a guild and want to solo all the time. Yet those same players still expect access to the full range of content. That is totally and completely unrealistic.

A much more accurate statement would be that 98% of the player population won't see Tier 3-5 Planes in the first 3-5 months. That is the time that non Tier-1 guilds will be spending going to places like Greig's End, Ssra Temple, Sanctus Seru, and Akheva (all places where they probably couldn't get into before because everything was dead already). Places where you can get the gear that in part enables the Tier-1 guilds to get past the very same planar mobs you are having troubles with.

I have to agree with Quistil. I have a very good chance of getting flaged for tier 3 and higher planes, but I can look at this expansions and see all the problems for casual and time constrained players and I think the original review is dead on for the most part. This expansion seemed great the first few days but it's really got some serious flaws in design.

Sorry, but Fear is a very bad analogy.

Fear was free. It was a single plane designed for a single guild to "raid" over a long period of time. It was something that you had to break into, which was very risky and often took several hours alone. Until much later, a single group, much less a single person, had no place there. It wasn't someplace you went to XP.

PoP isn't anything like Fear, and PoP was not designed to be the "new" Fear. PoP is simply a normal expansion with many planes of differing difficulty. It wasn't free. Many zones are designed for XPing with a single group in many areas, and soloing is a good option for many.

Moreover, PoP was purposefully designed to make it easy for people to LFG and find and get to groups. What do you think PoT is all about? Why do you think that you can get (if flagged) to all the substantive zones in the game fom PoT? It is precisely because Verant wants to encourage exactly the sort of thing you disparage about Fear: someone going and looking for a group. People didn't go looking for a group in Fear. But you can in the tier 1, 2 and 3 planes. And yes, you will be able to in later planes as well, as time goes on.

Yes, and as a casual player you got all of those benefits from an expansion that was expressly designed for the high-end raiding crowd. The back of my PoP box says "20 new planar zones full of scripted events and dynamic content that will challenge the most skilled players."

When Sony was advertising PoP they were saying that it had "something for the casual player as well" in the form of the portal system. On top of that you got some good exp zones to play in.

The fear analogy works. You don't like it because it doesn't agree with your desire to be able to solo your way to the Plane of Time.

I've been saying it was an uber guild expansion from day one. No big surprise there. It's a linear dead-end with very little "real" content. Congrats to the Verant morons.

Random - Verant has a track record of making stupid choices and angering the majority of the player base, that's nothing new. As far as the "1 month" into it comment, that's getting REAL old. Will you still say that after a year? Two years? You're only a decade into the expansion...give it time and don't complain yet. Uh huh, sure.

Sekira = Harmonium, one of the most uber guilds in the game if I'm not mistaken. You don't even have a say in this matter since you WILL see most, if not all, the content. Nothing an uber guild member has to say will be valid here because of course YOU like PoP since it was designed for you. Unless of course you keep an open mind and look at it from an average player's point of view, like the person who made the review did.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>What's the alternate quest method to get into Torment? How about the alternate quest method into Tactics? Into Temple of Sol Ro?[/quote]

These alternate quests you and Absor are so fond of mentioning are clearly not a viable means of flagging a bunch of people in a small- to medium-sized guild who aren't powerful enough to defeat boss mobs for flags.

The biggest irony is how Verant's spokesmen insist that the new flagging system is better than the old key quest system for places like VT. Sorry to burst any bubbles, but repeating the 'alternate' flag quest multiple times is EXACTLY like the keying system for places like VT -- a huge timesink.

Those higher tier zones are not built for soloers or small groups of people who lack the best equipment from previous expansions. Lotusfly is an upper extreme, but consider that the *majority* of us do not have a group of people each with 2-3k more hp than the average for their class.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Can you tell me how you know there aren't alternate quest methods to get into Fire, Water, Earth, and Air?[/quote]

Until it has been proven that the "alternate quest methods" do not require hundreds of camping hours to repeat those quests multiple times to flag each member of a small guild, see above; it's no different than the old key quests and therefore doesn't live up to Verant's claim of being easier or less time consuming.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Can you explain to me again what part of the Decay quest is impossible to do solo? Or what part of the Halls of Honor quest takes more than a single group? Or what part of the Bastion of Thunder takes an uber guild?[/quote]

By now, you probably see my point; the choice here is to a.) be in an uber guild capable of defeating each flag boss, or b.) camp all the mobs involved in 'alternate' quests multiple times to flag each individual guild member.

However, the larger concern is the content people will face once they get into tier2+ zones. Most will need to go back to previous (pre-PoP) content to obtain adequate equipment, and they will need to level up to 63+ for a decent chance of surviving the mobs they'll be fighting in tier3 and beyond.

Problem: once they level up, there is virtually no turning back. Old content will be green by then and their ONLY options for exp will be PoP zones -- where the mob difficulty level is such that players can only hunt for exp when everyone in their guild happens to be online. Sure, there may be a few tier3 spots for soloers, but what about everyone else?

The complaint here isn't merely about the relatively few zones PoP added for the casual gamer; it is about the large number of older zones PoP takes away from the casual gamer who dares to level. Even at this early stage a month after PoP's release, I'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands of 64-65th level people who would gladly trade three or four of their levels for something they can use.

~Firemynd

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You don't like it because it doesn't agree with your desire to be able to solo your way to the Plane of Time.[/quote]

Um no. The point is that guilds of 40+ people, because they haven't been in VT for the last year won't make it to HoH or Tactics any time soon and probably will NEVER see plane of time or Fire etc.

The fear analogy works. You don't like it because it doesn't agree with your desire to be able to solo your way to the Plane of Time.

Sorry, Sekira but a glancing personal attack and saying the equivalent of "I'm right!" does not make a good argument. I shot down your Fear analogy. If you are going to claim that it does work, at least respond with substantive analysis.

But I suspect we both know why you didn't, don't we?

I agree with this. I spend more time discussing where we can go for exp when the lvl's are spread from 60-65 and only half the members are flagged than I do getting exp.

VI is going around with blinders on. They could fix the problem - revamping zones so there are more that give exp to 65 or relax the requirements to get into pop zones.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>But, PoP has helped my guild out a ton. Because the top two guilds on my server have moved their focus onto PoP, my Guild has been taking out all the Luclin content we can and it's a lot easier with higher levels, more AAs, etc... For my Guild, PoP has helped a ton.[/quote]

Great quote.
I think what people don't understand is, not every guild is at the same level. It's not about "98% of the playerbase will never get to the upper tier zones." It's not about that al all.

I remember people complaining that Trakanon/Gorenair etc were "too hard" and the little guys will never kill them.

I remember people complaining about Yelinak, then AoW saying these encounters were FAR too hard.

I remember people saying they would never be able to do the HoT, or NToV because it was for the "ubers".

More recently, I remember even the mighty LoS stating about how Emperor is a 70+ person event.

Do you see my point? This game is called Everquest, doing things have always taken large amounts of time. There is a natural progression required. Eventually, with new skill/gear/levels/alliances, you will overcome. However I have learned by reading these boards, it's much easier to complain about something than try to solve the problem. If you can't yet kill Grummus, farm Ssra as stated above and obtain the gear you "need". This is the nature of the game.

If your small guild can't kill or quest your way to higher tier zones, form an alliance for certain targets, adapt and overcome your obstacles. Coming here, pissing on VI and threatening to quit accomplishes what? Adapt, or quit people.

Perfect example: On my server there are several small, non-uber guilds that formed an alliance awhile back and they collectively managed to kill Grummus. I applaud them for their insight and teamwork for getting this done. This alliance has overcome the "small guild" obstacles and is now flagged for decay and I suspect HoH very soon.

4 months from now when everyone is still in PoV and PoS you can post that again.

Tuved, I am wondering have you ever made a positive post? Or does everything suck? I can't remember you once posting anything positive. Usually it's a complaint or a sarcastic reply to a legitimate post.

Please answer me this... If everything sucks and EQ is so out of whack, why are you still in the game? Why are you so passionate about putting a negative spin on everything? Not just this thread, just about every discussion?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>4 months from now when everyone is still in PoV and PoS you can post that again.[/quote]

You proved my point EXACTLY. PoP is a new expansion and there are new rules. Adapt or fall behind. I see you would rather fall behind and complain.

When PoP came out, a group of my friends on the server who all were guildless (most of us were in the top guild, and left for various reasons) formed a regular xp group. We all got to 65 quickly. Out of that group, about a month later, only 3 of us have not cancelled our account right now.

A regular discussion each night about what to do is "should we do mephits to get the last couple of mephit hearts we need, reavers for xp, or pov again". Yesterday we even bit the bullet and said "ok, two of us have all the parts for the HoH alternate quest except the perilium, let's go to POI and get some." Over 6 hours later, we got 0 perilium drops and got frustrated and stopped.

This game now has nothing for the casual player. At 65, not in a high end guild there are 3 possible zones to XP in. The alternate quests are great but 1) you have pretty much every 60-65 who's not in a top tier guild after the same drops from the same 1-2 mobs, and 2) 6 hours and 0 drops?? hello massive time-sink.

On Lanys there are 2 guilds on the entire server that have killed the dragon to get into HoH. The second guild can barely kill him too. Thanks for making an expansion that 1% of the population can use. I'm not even going to get into all the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th accounts that are being cancelled because it's impossible to dual box.

They spent too much time on the graphics, and not enough on the gameplay. Unless something is done soon, I (and many others who are "waiting") will join the ranks of accounts being cancelled out of frustration.

To add as well: it's been 2 1/2 weeks since I've seen a spectral parchment drop. And with only 2 guilds in HoH the trickle-down effect isn't happening yet.

If its only Uber guilds.. why do I see 2nd and 3rd tier guilds higher in the game then what you state here?

I mean.. come on people .. its called Planes of Power.. we have had Planes for several years.. each progression being a bit harder then the last plane. Even some even being revamped due to Mudflation. How many of you stated you couldn't do ToV, the Dragons... Dain.. Tormax.. etc.. shoot I Remember Vox and Nag being only for the Uber Guilds.. and getting Efreeti Boots.. that was a chore for a Guild.. at one point in the game.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Fear was free.[/quote]

Taking it out of context a bit.. but Fear still require's Level 46 (for access/your flag) and a competent guild or groups to break in.

I see uber guilds walking away from Vex Thall while 2nd and 3rd Tier are going back and cleaning up and still raiding in PoP.

As for flags, many believe the flag should be Guild based.. I agree.. until that is accomplished they should at least put an item on the Mob that has charges to be able to "flag" those who may of missed the event etc.. as for access from Tier 1 to Tier 2 Zones.. I do not believe this should exist.. you should at least work the trials.. quest or destroy grummus.. etc.

I don't usually go off like this, and you can flame me all you want but you won't change my mind.

First thing! Help your Guildmates get their flags! There is Experience there and Teamwork to be gained. Second, if your guild won't do jack.. and you want to .. move on and find the guild that suit's your play style.

I heard these arguments so many times its like "De cha Vu" each expansion. Sure now its Flags and Spells, no one noticed that the Druid Trade Skill Gear compared to the monks is like a boot in the head. "Wha wha make it easier.. I only play 1 hour a day" .. "I have a life etc etc etc..", and its funny those who claim to be the casual player.. were not so casual before.. but hell if you can rant and rave for the casual player to make your life easier.. why not!?

I work and visit my friends and this doesn't make me any less of a player.. I do what I need to and squeeze in as much time as I can to the boards, and the game. As for Raiding.. those are after 8:00pm for me.. so it really doesn't effect much.. I be watching TV by that time anyhow. Sat/Sun unless there is something RL going on.. I concentrate on improving my character.. if I don't have the time then there is always next week..

The truth is.. from what it sounds like.. you only want to experience in PoP and skip over the progression the 1st Tier... 2nd and 3rd tier guilds had to go through last expansion outfitting their guild members (some are still doing that.. heh.. what a concept) and getting them the gear and spells they needed to progress further and deeper into the next expansion.

As for PoP.. its a challenge.. if it wasn't I be upset.


BTW.. this has officially become a rant.. clean it up.. before it's moved.

It's not the same thing as you are comparing it to. Apples and oranges. I don't think anyone truly believed Sleeper's Tomb would never be broken, the AoW would never be killed, etc. I guarantee that most people won't get to see past the 3rd tier at most.

By the way, I notice that Sobe has said you can't change his mind. How about you flame that Falamil since that's such a negative thing to you. Some people are devoted to their views, simple as that. Doesn't mean they're wrong for being adamant, although in Sobe's case he's blinded by his uberness and connections to Verant. :mad:

The one problem this expansion presents, though, that the others didn't:

If you participated in other expansions and got your butt kicked, you could just go back and work on old expansions. With PoP, I see a lot of people in tier3 and lower guilds levelling into the 60s. When they get frustrated with PoP, they have now screwed themselves out of content in the old expansions (at least for XP).

That's why I am staying 60, and getting all the "must have" AAs I want (SoL AA), before I ding 61. I do have PoP now (got it last night), and may fight there, but all my XP is going to AA for quite a while. And once I do ding 61, I will be massively farming AA and spells again, before I ding 62. Since I'm a very casual player lately, I believe this is the only way to go. But I see a lot of other casual players who are now zipping through levels, and I think they may come to regret it.

Tat

I find it ironic that the same powergamers who previously bitched and moaned about the VT key quest are now praising the "alternate quests", which are basically VT key quests on steroids. These quests are impractical for getting a small guild or regular group into the next level of planes, unless you want to spend months of mind-numbingly boring, contested camps to get quest pieces. Of course, it's not surprising that the people who praise them never had to do them, instead spending a short session getting everyone flagged (hey, that was easy!).

Also, with the rate of nerfs, what's to motivate a casual player to get further keys? Soon after anything good is discovered in Tier 4, it's good to be nerfed just like Halls of Honor recently were. The first players there will get all the benefits and the rest will be left with crap.

The bottom line is that if you don't have the numbers to do the raid, you're locked out of the majority of the content. This has never been the spirit of Everquest, which allowed for players to at least explore the majority of zones and only lock out one or two zones for the extreme powergamers.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>connections to Verant[/quote]
Where do you get off? What information do you have to support these attacks? I have the same access that you have.. I email my concerns and post them here. Besides Summon Companion for charmed, Animal Mez.. blur or Slow I really don't have that many concerns. I do not have all my spells and I am still working to get my Spectrals and Do not own any 65 Spells.. even the Mage Spectral one. Do I fear this.. do I dislike this?.. no it makes me work even harder to obtain my goal.
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> don't think anyone truly believed Sleeper's Tomb would never be broken, the AoW would never be killed, etc. I guarantee that most people won't get to see past the 3rd tier at most. [/quote]
Yes... they truely believed it and stated such.. as you state now.. especially North ToV.. now people are doing it. Guess what I still have some ToV gear.. why because it is still good gear, and until I find something that replaces those pieces I guess I will still have ToV Gear.
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>although in Sobe's case he's blinded by his uberness [/quote]
I do not boast about my gear or guild accomplishments... I have it linked because to many emails, tells in game requesting me to put myself on Magelo.. but is that wrong to feel Proud? I don't claim to be uber or not to be uber.. you have labeled me that... I am Sobe and he is my main and I work very hard at him.. as others do.. and they are very proud of their characters... but you rather label that work as a Bad Thing and belittle it as a less credible source of information.

I have said my opinion and will stick by it.. its up to others to share their stories and convince me otherwise w/o the personal attacks of which you feel so inclined to share with us.

I want to clarify something about myself. I'm in a guild of about 15 active players, of which 1 is level 65, and 10 are level 60 or higher.

I don't consider myself in an uber guild. The hardest mob we've ever killed is maybe... umm.. The Va'Dyn? Never killed Velk, Vindi, let alone anything higher than that (mostly due to only have 10 level 60s). Never been able to find Rhag up to get a try at him.

All of my gear is either purchasable, or obtainable with 2 groups or less. So I'm not coming from an uber-guild perspective.

Someone wrote:

<em>A much more accurate statement would be that 98% of the player population won't see Tier 3-5 Planes in the first 3-5 months. </em>


This statement I more agree with. I've gotten my valor/storms key, 1/4 of the decay key (without really trying even), about halfway through my HoH key, and just need one more medallion for my BoT key. And this is just in the first four weeks, though I do have more time to play than some of the other people posting here. I actually expect to have my BoT key faster than in 2-4 months from now, but it may be 2-4 months before my guild will be able to field a group in BoT. I also anticipate having my HoH key within 2-4 months.

I guess I'm just more patient than the people complaining. I've also mastered (250 skill) several tradeskills (with various characters). I didn't do those overnight either. Like the tradeskills, I'm doing them in stretches, and, especially since they are still blue (are the decay larvae still blue? If not at least there is other stuff in the zone that is blue... the rest of the stuff is all definately blue) it's not too tedious for me to camp the spot a couple hours every once in a while.

As to when I'm going to get over the whole "this expansion is new thing" I gave you a time frame in my post. 3-5 months. And if you think 3-5 months is "forever" then I question whether you really are a casual player (though I agree you might be a impatient time-starved player).

As to Grummus, I don't really expect to kil him anytime soon (though I might with our raiding public... E'ci is weird in that we have an alternate public raiding system) but I am very sure after talking to a number of people that there is a strategy that you can use that greatly simplifies him. No I don't know what it is. But the numbers and equipment that I have heard some people kill him with make me believe that there is some way to eliminate or otherwise counteract his AE. If there were more people in my guild I would probably care more :P

As to parchment nerfs, I do think that they were nerfed, in that for a couple play sessions now I haven't seen any parchments. But then I got 3 more last night, all within 2 hours of each other. So either I was really unlucky before, really lucky now, or they were nerfed and got unnerfed. I'm not sure on that one.

- Xylem, E'ci

Sobe says: but is that wrong to feel Proud?

No, of course not. You just have to realize that people like you and Lotusfly play the game from a point of view that's different from that of 99% of the players. If YOU feel frustrated with the spells, just imagine what it's like for the ordinary player who has to struggle to find blocks of time to even get a group together.

No offense Sobe, but you and Lotus don't play the same EQ the rest of us do, although you're playing the eq that Absor thinks everyone is playing.

The analogies to previous expansions just aren't valid. Velious had 1 zone, NToV which was for the uber guilds. Luclin had 1 zone, VT which was for the uber guilds. When those 2 expansions came out, the average player could go to every zone within the first month except NToV in the case of velius and VT in the case of Luclin. In PoP it's just the opposit. Of the 22 or so new zones in PoP, after 1 month the average player can enter 7 (5 if you exclude Knowledge and Tranquility, and only 3 if they aren't done with trial of execution).

I have a perspective perhaps not represented as of yet.

I am the Only player in my guild at or over 60. We have a number of low to mid 50s folks and one 59 druid. I am now 64 and a half almost COMPLETELY solo.

I have all my 61 62 spells except for Winter's Storm and Imbue Storm. I gained all of the scrolls for these solo except for 2. This amounts to maybe 15-20 scrolls. Ethereals ARE within reach of everyone if they do their homework and stick with the easy to kill droppers (a tracker sure helps also). There are some named mobs that drop them 50 percent of the time.

Spectrals are the problem.

The HoH key quest is really really really tough solo or in pickup groups. I got through the trials pickup after a good 25 times and 2 stacks of star rubies. I also got my crypt key solo although it seems worthless as no pickup groups go in there. I have no idea how im going to get my spectrals other than buying them which is what I did for all the kunark and velious spells. My guild will NEVER raid at those levels.

My honest impressions of tier-2 is that the people that get there that are in larger guilds are about half complete jerks, at least. I do not wish to join a group of people like this simply to advance any further. It's not worth it.

When I hit 65, the game may be over for me.

You do realize there's single person quests into HoH and CoDecay right?

Yes, if you read my post I have the CoD flag. CoD is not a soloable zone for druids :)

Puslings summon.

Woodru Treerider
64 Hierophant of Xegony

I agree with the assessment of what goes on in PoP, but the end game is not meant to be easy. Guilds have their work cut out for them, that's the challenge of EQ and why we all play. /kudos to Sony for the expansion

Some people may have said that those things couldn't be done Sobe. I'm saying it wasn't true then but it's true now about the PoP content. I don't remember that many people saying Sleeper's, AoW wouldn't be done. Not like the numbers saying that about PoP now.

I say you have connections to Verant because you have been the voice of druids in the past and were the one that solved the epic first correct? Because of this I think you have become a little too close to VI and I've seen you do nothing but support anything they do lately. If you have disagreed with some things they have done recently then please point them out. You always seem to defend their choices though, whether wrong or right.

Uberness isn't bad in and of itself, but I have met VERY few that are humble about it. Instead, they use it to bludgeon the more casual players(like myself). They act snobbish, are condescending, and have a phat lewtz/leet FPS attitude about it. Not all ubers really "worked" to get what they have either. Those have been my experiences with the great majority of people from uber guilds. Maybe it depends on the server, I don't know.

My favorite part of these threads is to look at the magelo's of the people who debunk the theory that its too hard.
Oh whats this in your magelo, teh best piece off every high level raid encounter in velious.

Oh wait its two year old content. However, it still means many, many raids unless guilds give druids the best stuff the first time they kill something.

Oh wait whats this some choice pieces from some high end luclin encounters. You must have alot of dkp to outbid everyone on that one raid you went on.

Oh wait all bets off VEXXX THALLL GEAR!!!!!!!!!!

Memo to all you people who don't get this thread.
We are not all uber!

If you are anything like what i just said YOU ARE NOT A CASUAL PLAYER!!!..

Ps. this in no way reflects on your playstyle, just your understanding of some of the rest of us.

That's not why I play. I play to explore and learn new tactics and most of all to be with friends. I have met an awful lot of nice wonderful folks in eq. I have also met alot of real nasty people. The nasties seem more common in big ego driven guilds. Many of these guilds operate like street gangs.

I prefer the solo/small group/small guild experience. Why am I not privy to a good 80 percent of the content? At least throw me a bone and give me more than PoV and a few blues in tier 1 to solo at 64!

Anyways thats my gripe. I really think it should be ok to go solo. The game is an escape from the stresses of life and sometimes that includes alone time.

Woodru Treerider
Venerable 64 Hierophant of Xegony

Can we please stick to the issues without personal attacks? I used Lotusfly as an example of a true high-end player who is appropriately geared for the higher tier zones of PoP; there were no judgements about her play style or affiliations in my comments.

Moreover, there is absolutely no reason to attack Lotus or Sobe. Both of them have contributed a wealth of time and information to the druid community, and neither of them deserve to be flamed or criticized just because they happen to be in situations which enable them quicker access to high-end content. They may occasionally forget to consider what it's like for those in 'less green' pastures, but it is FAR from appropriate to call either of them elitists.

Many of us, however, make the mistake of aspiring to be like them, and attempt to follow their paths. Such aspirations will lead to disappointment and possibly to resentment as well; for most druids who do not happen to have the same advantages of belonging to powerful, top-tier guilds, it would be better to focus on doing the quests and hunting the zones which you and/or your guild are capable of doing. Create your own goals instead of trying to use pages from someone else's diary.

I am still of the opinion that PoP is too linear and its mob difficulty levels beyond tier2 are prohibitive to those in smaller guilds. Aside from the timesink of attempting to get each person individually flagged with 'alternate' quests, those higher tier zones present an all-or-none proposition.

I am still of the opinion that PoP fails to deliver on its promise to eliminate "key type" timesinks... that is only true for those who endured the timesinks of Velious and Luclin, and who are already equipped to handle the one-shot flag bosses of PoP. There simply isn't enough content in PoP to skip those old timesinks, so all VI has done is to make old timesinks more accessible to smaller guilds by nudging top-tier guilds away from farming those places. Nothing in PoP really eliminated the need for timesinks... you have either suffered the timesinks already, or you will have done so before you get very far in PoP.

I am still of the opinion that those who race to level 65 without waiting for their guildmates are setting themselves up for huge disappointment. When your guildies go to hunt exp in Seb or Chardok, are you going to sit in a tier3 zone LFG a few hours, or are you going to join your guildmates and see literally no exp over the course of an entire evening?

For many, that one factor will be a deal-breaker; they won't continue logging on night after night without being able to participate productively, and as for joining an uber guild which more closely "matches" their play style .... how many choices do they really have?

~Firemynd

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Memo to all you people who don't get this thread.
We are not all uber!
[/quote]

Given... but you feel the game should be designed around your playstyle and NOT someone elses. PoP was designed, advertised, and rolled out to be of most intereste to high end raiding guilds. Nowhere at any time did Verant promise that everyone would have access to all of the planes.

Casual players who purchased EQ purchased:

- Easy Transport via the Plane of Knowledge
- The ability to reach level 65
- 4 easily reachable Post 60 EXP zones
- 5 (PoV, PoS, BoT, CoD, HoH) fairly easy to reach post 60 EXP zones
- about 30 new spells per class, 5 of which will be REALLY hard to get

Now, if you add PoKnowledge and PoTranq to those 9 zones, that is 11 out of 20 zones that cater to the "Casual" player. Yes. Those 5 zones are reachable by a large majority of casual EQ platers.

That leaves 9 zones. NightmareB is not really a zone, but a tunnel that leads to Terris Thule. Same with HonorB. However, in the interests of not being called a nit picker, we'll leave them in the count.

So 9 zones that will probably not be accessable to casual players for quite a long time to come. That is still more than half of the expansion allocated towards the "casual" player and non-tier-1 guilds.

And yes, people lamented that AoW would never be killed at all by anyone... that Ventani couldn't be killed and the sleeper freed (remember a guild was banned for figuring out a way to kill Ventani?) Only "uber guilds" could ever hope to kill Tunare, kill the Status of Rallos Zek, set foot into Sleepers Tomb, clear North ToV... all things being done every day by guilds that didn't do it a month after Velious came out, but over time developed the ability to do so.

It is no different here. But now, just as then, some people want it NOW without having to work for it. If all you want is an Uber character and to see the planar zones, download the emulator and go to town.

If all of the PoP content was designed so that guildless, or guilds with 10 people in them, could march thru the game to the Plane of Time, how challenging would PoP be to the players that HAVE gone thru ST before anyone on their server, then cleared Vex Thall a dozen times?

If the entire expansion was as easy as the "casual gamer" wants it to be, it wouldn't be an expansion at all for the "uber guilders" they despise so much.

I think the game should accomodate ALL playstyles. Not some to the exclusion of others :)

As for uberness, I am lvl 64 and completely self equiped either through loot or purchase and I think im pretty uber :)

Woodru Treerider
Venerable 64 Hierophant of Xegony

Sekira,

You're conveniently forgetting one of the huge problems with PoP...all of the old zones just became irrelevant for an xp group.

And saying there are four exp zones initially is a stretch. Only in PoN do players have full access to the zone, PoD players can access all of the meaningfull content, but even parts of that are locked away. PoI requires killing a dragon to get flagged for the factory right? Something my tiny guild is never gonna do, even if he was ever up for us. That eliminates the majority of PoI (and from what I understand, the most interesting part...not that I would know!). And PoJ really isn't an experience zone at all, unless you count multiple trial attempts as an experience =)

My guild could probably get all of our members flagged for PoV/PoS in a few weeks, if we had a little outside help...which is of course, another problem with PoP. The nature of the trials prohibits my guild from doing them as a single group. Which is just an annoyance added to the mix: the trials require big damage dealers, and we've never had any.

As for HoH and the other zones you mentioned...there is no WAY we're ever gonna get flagged for that. Most nights, we have three or four guys online. Half the time we fight without a tank, either charming or just root rotting stuff, or having our cleric tank =). We've always used unconventional tactics to get stuff done, always been able to experience the majority of the content offered.

I guess my biggest problem with PoP is this: it is the only expansion that REQUIRES you to raid, that REQUIRES you to be in a large guild in order to see even a bare majority of the content. AND! at the same time, it effectively removes all of the old single group xp-ing zones. Justifying this by saying "well, it's end game...it should be that challenging" is just silly. Every expansion released to date has been end-game! And yet this philosophy never entered before.

Most of the pro-PoP arguments I've seen are along one of two lines: a) Old content is now more accessible to less then uber guilds. This is in reference to raiding only, however. Many of us do not raid, and have no desire to do so. I've been on about three raids in my life, and they bored me to tears. b) As you gear up, your guild will be able to get flagged for higher PoP zones...again, requires raiding.

In any event, getting flagged requires...small raids. Getting gear to raid the mob requires....raiding. But, I think raiding sucks! And prior to PoP, I was never forced to raid. That has changed.

If I do not raid? I'm stuck in a handful of outdoor zones till the end of eq. Yuck.

My feelings on things in general are as followws:

Yes, at this time a lot of PoP is not accessible to a large part of the player base. Yes, that will change over time. Probably as soon as the next 6 months.

Some casual players want to have it all. Most casual players, I believe, are like myself and feel that playing 8 hours a day has rewards. We can't do it but feel that if we spend 2-3 times as much time at the same spot over a period of weeks that we should get similar rewards.

Some uber players see this and lump casual players together as (for lack of a better term) "wannabees" who don't want to put in the time. Some uber players also spoil the game for others such as causing key mobs to depop so that other guilds can't advance (this is gone into in depth on the FOH boards) to the next level.

Bottom line: Casual vs Uber you will always have the few in both categories that give their category a bad name.

The two things which I personally feel have the player base up in arms are as follows: (some of the assumptions I make are based on if things continue to go as they do now)

The flags
Either you kill uber mob A or you collect rare drops off rare mobs to get individuals flagged. A lot of the quests for individual planes haven't been found yet. I have the sneaking suspicion that a lot of them aren't finished, or are broken. I also have a sneaking suspicion that Sony wants to keep players out of the top tiers becuase things are messed up due to poor development and unfinished content. I have nothing to prove this but Sony's/ Verant's track record. Thus the flagging slows players down particularly rare drops off rare mobs.

In 6 months I believe the tier 1/2 planes will be so packed it will look like Sol B pre Kunark. Everyone has heard of the exp modifiers for the zones. With more lvl 60+ in the zone the safer the zone is the more lvl 50-60 players you will see in them.

I have had high lvl 48-50s grouping with me and they comment on the fantastic exp there even though I am 15 lvls above them. In addition, as have been mentioned previous why spend 4 hours in Seb and risk dieing and long CR for one or 2 blues of exp when you can get 4+ blues of exp in the planes and CR is a 10 min process. (the past sentence was an example - your actual experience mileage may vary). You already have upwards of 150 people in the tier one planes (not innovation maybe but definitely POD, PON and POJ) during prime time.

The tier 2 planes will be similarly packed and people will get flagged for tier 3 just due to the sheer numbers unless there is a number limit to killing the key mobs. If at all possible, you will see "zerg" forces take out key mobs even if only half of them get keyed at a time.

Within a year you will have 90 percent of the players on the server in the planes. I checked out CT twice in the past week. Not one soul was there. Not even mid 50s guilds. One of these days was on a Saturday. South Karana had a total of 5 people in the entire zone on a Saturday afternoon.

The tier 4 and 5 planes will remain pretty much uber territory the same way VT was pre PoP.

The second thing I believe that has the player base most upset at this time is the lack of loot in the lower tier planes. The spell drop issue has been beat to death by myself and others.

If the drop rate isn't corrected I foresee major issues for Sony to deal wth as far as customer satisfaction. Pickup groups will be squabbling daily over the pathetic few spells that are dropping now and petitions will be flying fast and furious as will happen with regularity over any good loot gotten by pickup groups. Look at the class boards on threads concerning melees rolling on parchments now. If drop rates don't increase multiply that by a factor of probably 40 six months from now. For the most part, at least in Tier 1 planes the melee drops are shall we say poor. The only truly uber loot in tier 1 planes now is parchments. And you have 11 classes that can use them.

-----------------------------

One possible solution to the drop rate would be install a quest such as the way they did for clerics to get shards for ragefire spawn. Get a 4 slot quest box from quest npc. Collect 4 pieces of parchments (one for each tier one zone, POI, POD, POJ, and PON), combine and get a etheral parchment for turnin. Increase the drop rate of "parchment quarters" by about 10-20 fold (over current parchment drop rates) and make it so any lvl 55+ mob could drop a parchment quarter. Anything lvl 64 or over will definitely have a parchment quarter as loot.

This would solve a lot of problems

More parchment quarters means that more folks wont go away after 6 hours of playing empty handed. It gives them hope that their spells are within reach.

Folks have to explore 4 zones to get parchments quarters from each for a spell. No more staying in one zone till you are lvl 65.

Do the same for spectral parchments in the tier 2 planes and the same for the runes in tier 3 planes.
----------------------------------------
A lot of negative feelings that are directed towards Sony are the direct result of Sony's misleading their customers when they don't have to.

The developers at the Fan Faire stated (from what I have read) that spell drops were increased. Yet we see the blatant evidence by the growing numbers of posts on boards stating they are almost nonexistent now.

Absor comes here and posts what great things are available in PoP and trivializes a lot of the things that probably 75% of the player base feels.

It appears to some (I am one) that he either outright lies or at best has no clue what the game entails when you play it on a live server. I have read that the testers at Sony have ways to test drop rates. Probably statistical models. However, their modes have proven flawed in the past. Look at the spell drop rates in Kunark. It took about 6 months of steady shouting from the player base to get them fixed. Abashi finally had someone log onto a live server and test drop rates and found the players were right.

There is a whole host of past history that shows that they (the decision makers) don't know their own game as well as they think they do.

Some of the examples which stick out are:

Pets dual wielding
Alchemy
Spell drop rates
The moss covered twig
Windblades
The palidan undead nerf
The monk nerf
The depoping of "flag" mobs
The dozens of broken and unfinished quests
Epics
The experience nerf
Broken loot tables
Unitemized zones

They know how to turn a profit but don't pay attention to the gaming community as a whole, at least not until the shouts from the player base are overwhelming (can anyone say Ragefire or the exp nerf). The immense dissatifaction of the player base directed at the company leads me to believe that if something else as good as EQ comes along folks will flock to it simply due to the way customers are treated by Sony in general. It is like having the only grocery store for 200 miles. You can be as rude to customers as you want as you are the only game in town.

A lot of folks who have been playing EQ since the start (of which I am one) won't be playing EQ2 or Star Wars simply due to the fact that EQ has shown us the light. We play EQ as we have a lot of long lasting friends in game and we still see challenges that we have had and have overcome. But if anyone who has played EQ for any length of time and plays EQ2 or Star Wars and doesn't expect the "bait and switch", poor customer service, unfinished content, broken quests, etc then they are only fooling themselves.

Was I surprised by the above items mentioned as they relate to PoP? No, and I wasn't disappointed either. That is why I am trying to get to 65 ASAP as I expect experience in the planes may be next on the chopping block. It may be gradual (look at the parchment drops over the past 3 patches - it was gradual as well), but I feel that it will happen. If it doesn't then that is one surprise that I will be glad to see.

Mappy,

In my view, the debate over wether they pulled the Light Blue line up too far (thus making many previous zones poor places to exp) is a seperate subject. I can't understand how you feel that a guild of 4 people without a tank should be able to experience the highest end content in the game.

And that is exactly what it is.... the highest end content in EQ. There is just more of it in this expansion than there have been in previous expansions.

Don't know how I missed this one earlier, but it is worth replying to:

Bam:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I've been saying it was an uber guild expansion from day one. No big surprise there. It's a linear dead-end with very little "real" content. Congrats to the Verant morons.[/quote]

Yes... it is... I believe that is what people have been saying and how it was advertised. Why are you surprised?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Random - Verant has a track record of making stupid choices and angering the majority of the player base, that's nothing new. As far as the "1 month" into it comment, that's getting REAL old. Will you still say that after a year? Two years? You're only a decade into the expansion...give it time and don't complain yet. Uh huh, sure.[/quote]

Lets see... an expansion that was in the works for almost a year. Yes, I'm sure they designed it so that you could see everything there was to see in one month's time playing 5 hours a week.

Just farming enough keys to get us into Emperor and then into Vex Thall took more than a month, and we are what would be considered an "uber guild".

You want it all and want it now, and if they don't give it to you then they are idiots and morons out to alienate all of their customers.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Sekira = Harmonium, one of the most uber guilds in the game if I'm not mistaken. You don't even have a say in this matter since you WILL see most, if not all, the content. Nothing an uber guild member has to say will be valid here because of course YOU like PoP since it was designed for you. Unless of course you keep an open mind and look at it from an average player's point of view, like the person who made the review did. [/quote]

Hrm... I don't know if that is a compliment or an insult, though with your view of uber guilds I would take that to mean that I am among the worst scum playing eq :)

But if "nothing I can say is valid" than what is the point of the discussion at all? You have previously decided that anyone who disagrees with you is not worthy to hold an opinion on the subject because you _MUST_ be right. I wish I had that confidence in everything I do and say.

If you knew that PoP was designed for uber guilds from the start, why did you buy it? If you knew all that it was "going to suck" beforehand, why purchase it?

This "designed for the uber" expansion certainly has a lot to offer the "casual player", as I stated above. You probably won't ever be able to kill the Emperor in Ssra, or get into Vex Thall either. Where is your outrage at not being able to do that with 6 people and no time invested in gear up, preparation, and key farming?

One common thing people are saying is that "my guild can never do X". I think we have all been brainwashed from the original user interface. We only had /ooc, /shout, and /gu communication channels. That made being part of a guild the only real way to do things. But now we have several tools.

Chat channels are nice, but my gosh using the raid window is really nice. High end EQ is about making friends and and alliances. Perhaps human tribal (guild)instincts are too much to overcome, but you can actually combine guild forces to accomplish something.

My assertion is that EQ is very imcomplete when it comes to guilds, which are really about player coordination. Guilds have to setup their own external coorindation systems. This is horrible. What if you went into game and it was easy to find and join raids? There really should be some sort of LFRP (Looking for Raid Participants) interface. Think about perhaps how a game like Warcraft III matches players together to do start play sessions. What if you had an auto history of people that have helped you? We are all gimped by the EQ UI and lack of coordination features.

I always wonder what would have happened to the internal message board feature, if it ever was accessible everywhere. In fact does anyone know what I am talking about on the in-game message board? EQ has a complete message board interface in game. Hardly anyone uses it because it is hard to get to. Click on board looking pictures on walls of some taverns to see. I have not even checked if it works with new UI. But that is an interesting place in game to try to start coodinating things.

Anyway, I like POP so far. I am a casual, yet committed EQer. It has helped me get some nice AA exp, and help spread people out. It should rightly take a while to get to various places, and there is never any entitlement to any part of the game. It takes work, sometimes quite a bit.

--
Arkin Ryndale, Level 60, 8AA
House Kel'Dar, Xegony

Sekira,

You're defending PoP based upon the theory that it is supposed to be for "high end raiding" -- but you are imposing your own interpretation on how PoP was advertised and promoted.

"20 new planar zones full of scripted events and dynamic content that will challenge the most skilled players."

Where does that say PoP requires player characters to be members in uber guilds, or to be uberly equipped? It doesn't. It simply says the content will challenge the most skilled players -- not the most skilled characters. This could just as easily be interpreted to mean the expansion is for experienced players using characters of any/all levels.

Also notice that it says "20 new planar zones" -- it doesn't mention any prerequisite questing to gain access. It certainly doesn't state that of the 20 new planar zones, no one will see half of them for several months.

Let's not use box-top quotes to support an argument either way. Trust me, the casual gamers can argue "bait and switch" a lot more justifiably than you will ever be able to argue that this expansion was clearly released only for uber guilds.

The new portal feature in PoK is certainly a boon to casual players but let's not pretend that SOE was forthright about the content. Everything they SAID prior to release indicated that there is a ton of content geared for small groups .. what they NEGLECTED to say was that in order to get your small groups to those encounters, you have to zerg boss mobs for flags or spend weeks questing for each guildmember.

~Firemynd

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Where does that say PoP requires player characters to be members in uber guilds, or to be uberly equipped? It doesn't. It simply says the content will challenge the most skilled players -- not the most skilled characters. This could just as easily be interpreted to mean the expansion is for experienced players using characters of any/all levels.[/quote] Verant constantly heralded PoP as a high level expansion. While you're correct that the "box" didn't say this, Verant said on numerous occassions that PoP was intended as an extremely high level expansion that would be extremely challanging. When asked what was there for "casual" gamers, they said that there would be areas for 6 man experiences, a horde of new Tradeskill related things, quests and the big selling point was the ease of travel with the Portals. For months Verant proclaimed that this would be a hard expansion with difficult encounters.

Now to the Flagging system. Yes it sucks. No question about that. However, what exactly do you want? The idea is that it is supposed to be "easier" to mass flag a group of people using a powerful boss but also to allow other people to take a longer and harder route in. If you reversed things and made the quests easy, what incentive is there for powerful guilds to kill the beasts? Keep in mind, loot from these mobs isn't very good in a lot of cases compared to the difficulty of the encounter. If it was easier to do the quest, people would be complaining that the Uber Guilds are monopolizing the quest spawns and "locking out" the casual players. As it is, I agree that the quests are a bit on the difficult side but Verant is walking a very fine line of difficulty on them. Too easy and everyone will do them and ignore the bosses. Too difficult and nobody will do them which will, effectively, lock everyone but the most powerful guilds out of the higher tiers (yes that is TIER not "tear"! Pet peeve of mine). Personally I think that the quests are a bit on the difficult side and should be toned down, but a very careful balance is needed.

Personally, I'm enjoying PoP. I'm not in the most powerful guild on my server but we're a raid oriented guild and, in terms of power, third or fourth. We're having a blast going around and killing tons of Velious, Lucling AND PoP content because, for the first time in ages, there is plenty to go around. Will I ever see the Elemental Planes or Time? Don't really know but I'm not really concerned about that just yet. I've still got too much to do in Luclin and early PoP for that to be a concern just yet.

I have never seen Veshan's Peak..... I guess I wasted my money on Kunark..

Whopps.. I also have never seen Sleeper's Tomb... Velious Wasted..

Luclin.. yikes... Never Been in lots of zones there... Luclin expansion money down the drain...

Planes of Power... not even been out of Tier 1... Well there goes another $30...

.. wait a minute...

Did I have fun in Kunark.. yeah... Velious? SURE! Luclin? yup, yup yup.. Planes of Power? Why Yes!

Why am I complaining? ...

Um...

Because.. er.. Verant sucks!

yeah...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>In my view, the debate over wether they pulled the Light Blue line up too far (thus making many previous zones poor places to exp) is a seperate subject. I can't understand how you feel that a guild of 4 people without a tank should be able to experience the highest end content in the game.[/quote]

Actually, previous zones are bad places to exp in simply because the exp is so good in PoP. The fact that many of the mobs turn light blue is largely irrelevant; even if all of Seb was dark blue, the exp would still suck there compared to the planes. And it most certainly is NOT a separate subject-it intimately ties to the notion that frankly, there are NOT many places for a single group to xp...unless they can get flagged for more zones.

Nowhere in my post did I suggest a four man group without a tank should be able to experience the highest content in the game. Please don't put words in my mouth. Here is what I said: <blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Most nights, we have three or four guys online. Half the time we fight without a tank, either charming or just root rotting stuff, or having our cleric tank =). We've always used unconventional tactics to get stuff done, always been able to experience the majority of the content offered.[/quote]

Note the use of the words most, half, and majority. I am not for one second of the opinion that I should ever be able to set foot in Time, or zones near that in difficulty. I have no problem with a solid quarter or third of PoP being forever beyond my reach.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>And that is exactly what it is.... the highest end content in EQ. There is just more of it in this expansion than there have been in previous expansions. [/quote]

For the record, "highest end content" can pretty much by definition refer to one encounter...since it is the highest. Possibly a few encounters if they are equally balanced, perhaps a zone or two. Highest end content certainly does not refer to the entire PoP expansion. So your assertation that everything is hunkey-dorey, and non-uber guilds should be denied access to the majority of PoP is meaningless on those grounds.

Also, where did Verant say that PoP was an expansion primarily targetted for uber guilds? I saw press releases talking about the portal system, the new quest dynamic, PLENTY OF CONTENT FOR SINGLE GROUPS, and challenge for the most highly skilled players.

The only line in all that that even hints at uberness is the last, and only then if you make the mistake of equating skill with gear, and misread player to read character. I think many people are irritated to discover the caveat to plenty of single group content---plenty of content <em>if you belong to an uber guild!</em>

I don't think most people here have any issue with a few zones being denied to the unwashed masses, a la every expansion to date. Hell, make it two or three instead of the previous single zone to appease the uber gamers. But in PoP it is ridiculous...MOST of the zones are reserved for raid level play. MOST zones require you to raid...and here's a news flash-most players don't raid! And many of those that do, don't enjoy it.

I'm not asking for PoP on a silver platter. I could care less about loot, taking down boss mobs, or fighting in the upper tier zones (tier 4, 5 for example). I could care less if my guild could take down big game or not.

I don't want to waste my time doing time sink key quests...'scuse me FLAG quests...and gearing up to do the same. I think it is unreasonable of Verant to attempt to force a radical gameplay change on me so late in the program. I feel that I should be able to explore a majority (not ALL!) of the content in PoP without changing anything that I have been doing for years.

I fully understand the logic regarding locking certain zones away from "casual gamers" (although I play more then most uber gamers, I won't object to that term here!) However, it has been over utilized in PoP. Understand the core issue casual players have in a single group exp situation---

**At the same time all old zones are removed from meaningful play, the vast majority of new zones are denied them**

Again-I would have no issue with PoP if there was comparable exp to be gained from older expansions. But there isn't.

I knew it from day one meaning "I knew as soon as I started playing it", not before I bought it Sekira. Big difference.

Neither did I ever say I wanted anything "right now". Another fallacy statement used by ubers to talk down to us casual players.

Also, too many people that post here put words in people's mouths to try and prove their points. On this matter and a few others yes, I think I am right. Is it wrong to have conviction? Nope.

You don't have a valid point because you are from an uber guild which PoP was designed around. If you are being objective that's different, but I don't think you are.

Paldor: that's about the worst analogy I have seen yet. There's a lot more content out of our reach in PoP then those other expansions combined.

VI are idiots because they continually design crap, not anything even close to what the majority of customers want. In fact it's about the only game I've ever seen designed this way.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I have never seen Veshan's Peak..... I guess I wasted my money on Kunark..[/quote]

Paldor, the difference is that most zones from previous expansions were immediately accessible, with only a few quest/key zones. PoP went exactly the opposite route by giving us only a few accessible zones while the vast majority require special flags.

You may not have ever seen the inside of VP, but if you had purchased Kunark and discovered that MOST of its zones required quest keys similar to VP, you might not have had so much fun.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Did I have fun in Kunark.. yeah... Velious? SURE! Luclin? yup, yup yup.. Planes of Power? Why Yes![/quote]

I guess if you're the type to quad the same raptor islands for 10 levels, your definition of "fun" might be the sort necessary to happily grind experience for six or seven months in the same few tier1 zones. /shrug

PoP would have been a beautiful expansion if ten of the hunting zones had been immediately accessible, each of which had a quest and/or trial to complete for access to a single higher level "raiding" plane. Of those ten entry zones -- the more difficult the zone, the more difficult its quest/trial would be, and the more difficult a zone it would lead to. The *most* dangerous entry zone would have led to a successive chain of three or four increasingly uber (top tier) zones.

This would have followed trends which were established in the beginning and reinforced throughout three years worth of expansions. The further you get from newbie starting areas, the more hazardous territories you encounter, and higher level 'general' zones led to incrementally higher level dungeons.

It seems Verant is trying to renew interest in the game by going back and screwing with components of the basic formula that made the game a success. For their financial sake and our entertainment's sake, I hope they haven't finally added too much 'frustration' to the mixture.

~Firemynd

"VI are idiots because they continually design crap, not anything even close to what the majority of customers want. In fact it's about the only game I've ever seen designed this way."

Idiots?, no. Friggen genius, really.

What the customers what? You bought it, didn't you? Sure they promised this and delivered that, what else is old? Who are the idiots? You/we are the ones clicking that lever for a food pellet, no?

The last expansion kept you occupied for almost a year, this one is designed to do it for about 3. Of course it is going to be hard and the drops rediculously slow. Of course it is designed that way, what other computer game have you played for 3+ years(and may continue to play for 3 more?).

And this is certainly not an uber vs. non-uber problem. You will become uber eventually, we all will if we keep playing this game. Frankly, the question is what are the (now)ubers going to do when they have run the course on PoP and EQ2 is not out yet?

If you want to run the maze and get to the end and complain that the cheese is Limberger, fine. But at least realize you are in a maze.

They promised us a high end expansion with tons of high end content ... they've delivered. They promised us they'd rethink the eternal MT+cleric rot for 30 minute battles, and they've delivered for the most part.

If you're in a mid level raiding guild, PoP is great for you, you now have ntov/ssra/vt all to yourselves (depending on your level).

If you're an indy/non raiding guild you've got some pretty phenomenal xp zones and tons of new quests and stuff.

Have fun and relax, they'll fix the spell drops eventually.

This Planes of Power expansion has sucked the fun out of EQ.

dont go beyond 60.... im telling you, ive said it from the beginning.. dont go beyond 60 unless youre in a real true VT uberguild....

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Have fun and relax, they'll fix the spell drops eventually.[/quote]

But I'm BORED! That's the whole problem...boredom with a few zones means no fun.

I'm not saying they WON'T fix spell drops...but remember how long some Kunark spell drops were screwed up? Don't expect them to fix things-certainly not if you don't ahem ...mention... that things need fixing.

And I'm so relaxed, I'm no longer playing!

Hell, maybe it's a good thing...

Aldarion, I agree except I'd say don't go beyond 6<strong>1</strong> unless you're in an uber guild capable of consistent progression beyond NTOV and VT because that's what PoP requires once you go further than tier1-2 zones.

There *are* a couple nice PoP AA abilities at 61st level which can increase your power significantly enough to sacrifice some of the dark blue old-world mobs which turn light blue after you ding past 60th level.

Plus, if you happen to have Dire Charm, leveling to 61 will save you a ton of time in places like WW, where 46-47th level mobs being light blue in tracking will make it much easier to find the most likely DC candidates.

However: on the off chance that you haven't purchased PoP yet and you're not in a high-end guild.... just don't buy it. Stay at 60th level for now, and keep checking the patch messages and these boards; wait until you hear reliable sources confirm that parchment drops for 61+ spells have been increased to a more reasonable rate; wait until you *know* there are ways by which *your* guild is realistically capable of getting flagged for tier2+ zones. Don't let yourself get caught up in the hype.

If you decide to level past 61, be forewarned that it's a one-way street ... 99% of mobs in old-world zones will green out and therefore be incapable of yielding even AAXP, much less regular XP. After 63rd level, you will want to be totally ready and fully geared up for PoP's higher tier planes, because that is where you'll be forced to hunt for any substantial XP ... possibly for the rest of your character's EQ life.

~Firemynd

Maybe the simple thing people need to remeber is the expansion isnt very old...like what a month a half or so?

Do you really expect to be in higher teir zones yet?
Do you really expect to have ALL your spells yet?

Really people need to stop being so impatient. It takes time to get into zones. Theres probbaly 200-300 people on each are in their 3 zones. You count that number in 5-6 months time. Now Look at how long expansions lasts 1 year? Everyone wants to be in these zones like now...well sorry its not going to happen.

The First two weeks of PoP there were pretty much only uber guilds in PoV and PoS. Now look at it.....theres lots of people in there from small guilds. Infact people who dont even have a guild are in there these days. Hows it going to be in another month?

HoH....how many people are in there atm? Probably your uber guilds and 2-3 other high level guilds. Give it another month...youll see all those people who dinged to level 65 in PoV/PoS slowly filter into HoH, CoD and BoT. Not necessarily because they kill the boss mobs but because they quested their way in.

My only issue atm is the way VI are nerfing spell drops. HoH was dropping spells fairly reguarly. Its not now its very few and in between. I dont like to see this because when the smaller guilds get in then they will find it hard to get their 63-64 spells. VI do need to look at the drop rates of spells in teir 2 zones (spectrals)...atm their too low and it wil cause some upset when people start to get into HoH etc.

Tils

Druidly greetings, one and all. ^_^

Excuse the late post, I've been grabbing a little autumnal break; this thread is very interesting, and I understand both sides of the arguments. It's an expansion unlike the others, without doubt. Does it work? I honestly think that question can only be accurately answered in a month or two.

Unlike previous expansions, it's very much progression based right from the word 'go'. In the past, most zones have been accessable to everyone that buys the expansion. They can exp in four or five zones per general stage of character level, there's a couple of raid zones (or "boss" encounters in the exp zones), and then there are one or two zones which are strictly high-end.

This one's very different, it's akin more to the progression of a traditional video-game than to the expansions with which everyone is familiar. You have a limited set of options by default, and by ganging up with some friends / guilds / coalitions / alliances of your choosing, the idea is that you kill a few landmark "test of strength / skill / tactics" creatures, and you've opened up new "levels" to explore.

There are many that are critical of the implementation of the story-line, and sometimes I agree. There are definitely points which stick out as being bloopers, but they're remedied as soon as they're discovered. One might draw the parallel with other games in which there are Beta-Test programs: in those other games, it is usual to allow testers to test the content, to tune the encounters and so on, without having any interaction with 1. storyline, 2. loot (and therefore item drop rates).

Given the nature of people, you know that if you allow full testing of the story and the items, then it'll just get spoiled instantly. Therefore, though the generic content is largely tested, the progression is usually kept strictly "in-house", in most games. I cannot comment on how this relates to the Everquest method of doing things, but that's the way that most products of this variety work, and so one might be tempted to draw parallel conclusions. ^_^

Is it too hard? Is the content too restrictive? If I answer that, it will probably be taken from the view-point of someone that has a high level character, and thus dismissed.

However I would consider that, during the first week of the expansion, the message-boards were alight with complaints that the Plane of Justice trials, the first progression events that people came across, were too hard. There was a universal cry that they required full Vex Thal groups, with no room for anyone that couldn't output 150dps.

Since then, that's been proved inaccurate. Even here, on Druids Grove, we read of team after team of players that have made it through to the Plane of Valour with much lower "specifications" than the archetypical VT group. The complaints that the Plane of Justice trials were impossibly hard have receded to a great degree. On some servers, it has been rumoured that players are even finding that the Trial of Execution is not the only trial that's passable by "average" players, heretical as that may seem. ^_~

So, in the short term, we've seen events that were dismissed as being too hard, as turning out to be not quite so bad, generally speaking.

At first glance, Aerin'dar is a real meanie. However, I've seen guilds which are <strong>far</strong> from being "optimal", "uber" guilds kill him, to use him as an example. Though his AE is pretty nasty, he has virtually no hit points to speak of, and the only real issue in this encounter are the golems that spawn when he is close to death. I've seen numerous examples of these golems being dealt with by players that requires no equipment whatsoever. You don't have to kill them, merely only neutralise them. ^_~

So, what at first appeared to be an "OMG how on earth is my guild ever going to kill that?" encounter, turns out to be relatively doable with a little experimentation. He's no Derakor the Vindicator, but neither is he the Emperor of Ssraeshza, nor even an Arch Lich Rhag'Zadune. ^_~

I suppose that the summary is: "don't panic". As I mentioned at the opening of this post, I can very much understand and appreciate the initial response to seeing a bunch of non-trivial dragons and various other guardians to the higher planes.

Honestly, with a little time invested and circumstances willing, (and here goes Lotus jumping off into the deep end) any guild that can succeed with the various Kael encounters should be able to get into, say, the Bastion of Thunder. Once there, the difficulty level doesn't go up a great deal. That same guild could do very well against the "bosses" of Thunder, and get themselves into a position of working on freeing Karana from his imprisonment.

Rather than saying "Everything is ok, you're all nuts!", what I'm saying is "Reserve your judgement for a month or two, explore, acclimatise, maybe even equip your guild in the now-vacated Luclin events and upgrade a bit, and then see how you feel".

Don't panic. ^_^

As regards "uber" players being snobbish, and so forth, I think it may be true in a few cases, but speaking from my observations of the serverwide.druidsgrove channel, everyone gets on marvellously. The various druids of all different levels chat, compare notes, ask each other questions, and it seems very pleasant.

Those unsociable types which used the channel as an avenue for strutting whatever it is that they think they've achieved in front of other players that haven't reached that level of advancement have usually left or changed their ways, due to being told that they're acting like children. ^_))

Don't be too harsh on someone that has invested lots of time into their character, but at the same time don't let an unsociable fool be an unsociable fool. ^_^


Toodlepip,

Rebecca
The Lucky Cabbage

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I guess if you're the type to quad the same raptor islands for 10 levels, your definition of "fun" might be the sort necessary to happily grind experience for six or seven months in the same few tier1 zones. /shrug

PoP would have been a beautiful expansion if ten of the hunting zones had been immediately accessible, each of which had a quest and/or trial to complete for access to a single higher level "raiding" plane. Of those ten entry zones -- the more difficult the zone, the more difficult its quest/trial would be, and the more difficult a zone it would lead to. The *most* dangerous entry zone would have led to a successive chain of three or four increasingly uber (top tier) zones.

This would have followed trends which were established in the beginning and reinforced throughout three years worth of expansions. The further you get from newbie starting areas, the more hazardous territories you encounter, and higher level 'general' zones led to incrementally higher level dungeons.

It seems Verant is trying to renew interest in the game by going back and screwing with components of the basic formula that made the game a success. For their financial sake and our entertainment's sake, I hope they haven't finally added too much 'frustration' to the mixture.

~Firemynd
[/quote]

I guess I place less value on my money then you do. $25 bucks was worth the portals and Plane of Disease alone for me... And no.. I never hunted the raptors.

I judge a game by how much fun it is compared to how much it costs... that is all.

I really could care less that you can't get to some zones. Join the club.. I can't either. No it doesn't bother me.

Planes of Power made this game a lot more fun for me because I can login for 2 hours and make progress that I am happy with.

We all know that by February most of the *uberly-challenged* will be in Tier 3... With the Ubers in Plane of TIME.

Too often I see people say things are "Too hard" and then a few months later everyone is wondering what all the fuss is about.

I am far from tier 2 ready or capable so I cant comment as most here however I will make this observation, and one I am qualified to make;

All other MMOLRPG have virtually no high end content yet we complain about EQ's high end content

Which leads to this;

Everquest is the worst online game there is.....except for all the others. (appologies to Winston)

Nicely said Lotus

"He's no Derakor the Vindicator, but neither is he the Emperor of Ssraeshza, nor even an Arch Lich Rhag'Zadune. ^_~"


Last two weeks as i repaired my dragon faction for the new skyshrine, i was witness to many, many wipes on mister vindicator.
It made me angry because i would rush over to Cash in on a juicy faction hit only to see some poor folks wipe. Damn those wimpy easy to kill uber mobs who won't let me have my faction!

Actually pop is a pretty savy expansion. They lived up to all the promises they made while keepin the maze filled with all the old cheese they have always force fed us.

Enjoy!

The thing is, it will all shake out over time. That is the way of things. Its frustrating now for many, though.

My ill feelings come from posters to this thread who would give me the advice to go back now to the old world zones and do all the luclin and velious content so I can gear myself up. It seems like that type of comment comes from folk who feel they are owed something by this game and SOE and the player base. While your guilds were spending hours on that content so that smaller guilds like mine had almost no chance of even getting a shot at trying those encounters, I was restricted to even lower end stuff. Thanks for giving me permission to now enter Luclin and start working on it. I have been following behind your guilds all my Everquest life. I know my place, thanks. No need to rub my nose in it, or say I am whining when I get irritated that levelling to 61 or 62 makes most of those encounters all about gearing up and not about experience grouping. Now I have lots of hard choices to make, which I never really had to make before. Frankly, although debate is good, I get tired of people being derisive of the opinions of others.

Its a fact of EQ that in the expansion there are those zones "reserved" for those who have the time and guild connections to do them. The rest of us may eventually get a shot at them, after a long while. The bottom line on PoP for me is this: there is relatively little benefit to levelling past 61-62 for someone of my state of non-uberness (please feel free to check my magelo, I think its pretty typical of the time-limited player). Being 61 has made most of my favorite spots useless for exping, and there is a real division amongst my long-time eq friends on whether to stay about this level and gear up or advance and maybe move on to bigger guilds who can promise that getting to valor and HoH is within easy reach.

When you only have so much time to put into a game, then you will necessarily not be able to experience all the encounters you want to do at the time you want most to do them. This has always been a given for me. I can't compete with all the guilds on my server who have mules camped everywhere checking on the sweet spawns and who can rally 2-3 groups within the hour for a kill. I understand. I accept. But please don't tell me because that's the way things are that's all I deserve.

Thanks.

We're not talking about having all our spells or seeing all the zones yet Tils. Can you people actually read? I mean seriously...why do people have to drive their point home over and over on this board? We want to see at least SOME spells and more than tier 1 zones(at least in my case since I am not flagged for tier 2 yet and might never be).

Verant are anything but geniuses when it comes to game design, which has nothing to do with the things you listed Fyyr. I will NOT be playing PoP long because it's a dead-end. If Verant was so smart they wouldn't have made an expansion where you can't go forward and can't go back...that's beyond stupid.

There seems to be a trend to those who post that they love pop, the "uberguilded" who have already seen the plane of fire and are busy writing thank you letters the the SoE development team and those who aren't high enough in level to really know about PoP's problems but think the portals are really cool.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I have never seen Veshan's Peak..... I guess I wasted my money on Kunark..
Whopps.. I also have never seen Sleeper's Tomb... Velious Wasted..
Luclin.. yikes... Never Been in lots of zones there... Luclin expansion money down the drain...
Planes of Power... not even been out of Tier 1... Well there goes another $30...
.. wait a minute...
Did I have fun in Kunark.. yeah... Velious? SURE! Luclin? yup, yup yup.. Planes of Power? Why Yes!
Why am I complaining? ...
Um...
Because.. er.. Verant sucks!
yeah... [/quote]
Old world restricted zones: 0/52, 0%
Kunark key restricted zones: 3/24, 12.5% (Raid Keyed zones 1/24, 4.2%)
Velious key restricted zones: 2/13, 15.4% (Raid Keyed zones 1/13, 7.6%)
Luclin Key restricted zones: 1/28, 3.6% (Raid Keyed zones 2/28, 7.1%)
Planes of Power tag restricted zones: 15/21, 71.4% (XPable zones w/out tag 3/19, 15.8%)

Do you see a slight problem with this progression? Look at kunark and velious. 15% of the zones were key resricted leaving 85% of the expansion open. Planes of power takes that and reverses it compeltely. It's a complete 180 degree turn around verom every other expansion to date and you wounder why people are upset? I'm not in a guild that is North ToV capable and we are working on access to VT, yet I find the system horrible and as someone else stated. The game is becoming less and less fun with this expasnion. The crowding in valor is horrible, and just about everywhere allready. Groups in valor in the wastelands can't find mobs to kill and are sitting around. WHY? Because there isn't enough content in 5 zones (Tier 1 +PoV+PoS) for the whole damn server population of high level players. Why? Look at the numbers.

The stuff about the PoJ trials in Lotusfly's post just caught my eye. How many times do these people do them though and how long are the lines? As many as you say do them I see just as many and more that still can't. I wait in lines enough in real life, to do it in a game just goes beyond all reason and sanity...one more reason why I think the people at Verant are complete and utter morons.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It's not the same thing as you are comparing it to. Apples and oranges. I don't think anyone truly believed Sleeper's Tomb would never be broken, the AoW would never be killed, etc. [/quote]


I remember very well two years ago when Furor was on sabbatical and FoH was failing to the AoW with as many as 70 people.

Everyone ranting about how VI had finally built the unkillable mob.....


Someone save this thread off, be neat to come back in six months and revisit the topic.

FoH = the most uber-guild of them all. Those will be the only people able to see most or all of the content of PoP, thus leaving out the more casual players and smaller guilds. That's been the whole point of this thread, thanks to Falamil for helping confirm that. :evil:

Actually Batou, your are so correct.

I have not bought PoP, nor do I ever plan on doing so. I quit the raid guild I was in a few weeks back because I don't care for guild politics. Anyways, what PoP was designed to do was clear out the 60's in some zones and move them to another more inline to their levels. However, what this will cause is nothing more then frustration and agrivation to many, and still will not fix the past problem of high level people camping certain zones VI doesn't want them in. It is my knowledge that many of the Teirs are unavailable to many and those toons will simply go back and farm loots in old zones, and having an easier time at it too. Good thinking Verant.... All PoP did was seperate the powergamers from the casual ones. Many will shift quilds to aquire tags and such, while others will just quit and give up. Good thinking Verant....

If Verant had their thinking cap on and acted accordingly, they would of sold more games and had more possitive feedback if they made this expansion much like the last ones. Out of the 21 zones they added, they should of only made no more then 5 key restricted. That would of given the raiding guilds plenty of key zones to play in, yet give everyone else more zones explore. Good thinking Verant...

Who knows.... there is still a good chance that in months to come as people complain or just cant' get tagged for later tiers that SoE will cave in and make all teris 1-4 public and only keep the tier 5 key restricted.. Anyone want to place bets? lol

I have only skimmed this thread, but I agree with the original review. I probably could have accepted the key restricted content, if my spells have been more readily available, but the double wammy really has me souring on the entire PoP experience.

Batou, thanks for putting some numbers up to give a more visual representation of how PoP is a drastic change from previous expansions.

Lotus, I can appreciate the sentiments of "don't panic" ... you are correct when you say that in a few months, lots more people will be populating zones past tier2. <strong>However</strong>, a large majority of those folks will find themselves literally stuck in tier3-4 zones for many months after arriving, because going further will simply be beyond their guilds' capabilities for a good while.

Again, that is the most negative difference between PoP and pevious expansions. All the people in less-than-uber guilds could more easily accept that a few zones were out of reach, because they had many other alternatives for exping, raiding, hunting, and grouping. They could test their mettle against the higher-end zones and mobs whenever they felt ready, yet still have all those other options to fall back on.

Besides having more linear storylines, PoP also forces players into a linear character progression path. Once they level up and reach the point at which their guild will have to work over time at progessing further, they'll find themselves stuck in a that particular tier of PoP, knowing they can't get decent exp anywhere else... not even from lower PoP zones. They'll be in the same boat with thousands of others. I expect tier3 to become a bloated bottleneck of frustrated players whose guilds can't progress to tier4 for a while, yet can no longer fall back on other content for non-raid progression.

I applaud Verant for acknowledging that there wasn't enough high-level content in Kunark/Velious/Luclin to accomodate all the highest level players. They recognized that the longer EQ stayed around, the larger its high-level player base would become.

PoP was supposed to be the solution, by providing a new wealth of higher level zones. It certainly accomplishes this goal to a degree, but instead of spreading out the large number of higher level players across several new zones, PoP's upward linear path has created a few more inevitable bottlenecks. Not because people will never see the higher tiers (they eventually will), but because once they get there they'll have little else to do.

~Firemynd

Bah, you whiners. I soloed Aerin'Dar. Yeah, by myself.

But I'm too uber to tell you how I did it, I'm just laughing at you cause you can't. I feel much better about myself now, cause obviously, I know what I'm talking about, I'm just not sharing or explaining how I did it so that I feel like big @#%$.

Thank you for the boost to my small, pathetic, minute ego. Me > you 4ever, gimpzor loozer. Now stop whining, and do it again a million times, so I can laugh at you when a million times later you still didn't make it.

I repeat, I soloed Aerin'Dar, and anyone who can't is a gimpzor loozer. Cause any gimp can solo him. kkthx.

(No, I am not making fun of anyone! Well, except for the gimpzor loozers, man.)

Not to derail, but OMG Sobe! NICE NICE NICE equipment!!!!!
You should be proud, you have a well rounded character!

On topic, my guild has been raiding old world content to enjoy EQ without a handful of others coming in and overpowering the zone and leapfrogging us to the kill. I am glad PoP came out, the GY is great for CR's and definitely saves a bit of time from CR'ing a group of 6. Spell drops are a joke IMHO, but that's just my opinion of 1 1/2 tier zones. For the other tiers I will not comment as I am ignorant at this time. Chances are, my guild will not see 3rd tier planes for at least a year, probably more due to my guild having all 55+ casual players.
I can live with the fact I won't really see or even enjoy PoP content for easily 1-2 years, other than the exp, I would recommend anyone not in the top 1 or 2 guilds to just save your money unless exp'ing in PoN, PoJ, PoI, PoD because this expansion was not for you... yet...

I hope to enjoy PoP 2 years from now,
Alaten
Hierophant

Bam, you are REALLY starting to annoy me!


English, can you read it?!?!?!?!


You said you don't recall anyone veer saying the AoW couldn't be beaten or that Sleepers wouldn't be cracked. I pointed out that just two years ago, FoH, the most uber of the uber, had one hell of a time finding a way to beat the AoW who is now at best a Tier two mob. As I recall it took them half a dozen tries over two monhts to get him killed. The rest of the EQ population spent that two months talking about how VI had finally created a mob that could not be killed. Matter of fact AoW lives for maybe twenty minutes on most servers.

A year from now much of PoP wil be the same way. You are too damn busy whining to realize that this is exactly the same path that past expansions have taken.

Oh my, the casual folks (I am one of em, BTW) aren't making it to the Tier three planes in the first month of the release.


RUN! THE SKY IS FALLING! SONY IS DA DEBIL!


Sheesh.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I can live with the fact I won't really see or even enjoy PoP content for easily 1-2 years,[/quote]

I can't. I didn't have to do it with Kunark, Velious or Luclin, and given that PoP was touted as being designed for 2 group encounters and was supposed to be moving away from huge guild zerg raids, the fact that you not only need to be in a huge guild to progress in PoP, but you have to be in the top 1 or 2 guilds on your sever, simply means that Sony either out right lied to us or had really no idea what was actually in their expansion.

P.S. Falamil, what part of this, <blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Old world restricted zones: 0/52, 0%
Kunark key restricted zones: 3/24, 12.5% (Raid Keyed zones 1/24, 4.2%)
Velious key restricted zones: 2/13, 15.4% (Raid Keyed zones 1/13, 7.6%)
Luclin Key restricted zones: 1/28, 3.6% (Raid Keyed zones 2/28, 7.1%)
Planes of Power tag restricted zones: 15/21, 71.4% (XPable zones w/out tag 3/19, 15.8%)
[/quote]

didn't you understand?

lol Amris, just re-read your post, hehehe

Alaten
Hierophant

PoP is not comparable to other expansions. The previous expansions did not render the rest of the game irrelevant. The other expansions expanded the game. PoP has contracted the game.

Previously if you wanted to get some exp you had many zones to choose from. Now you have only a few zones to choose from.

For exping, which is what most players spend most of their time doing, there are now only a few zones for everyone to crowd into. Nice going, Verant.

I tend to agree that I don't really care for the way the tiers are set up. There should have been more lower leveled (level 60ish) zones then there are. At least that way people aren't fighting over decent xp. Also drop rates suck. Many people I know are level 65 and don't even have their 61 and 62 spells yet. Which is completely rediculous.

One thing to note with the keyed zones and the number of zones is that nearly ALL of the zones in those expansions were at least somewhat lower level zones. Redo the %s for zones that are level 46 or higher zones THEN add in the keyed ones for %s. Please don't count EC as a nonkeyed zone to skew the numbers.

PoPoop...

You know, its really great that they made these outdoor zones, great for druids and people with horses, etc. But, I feel like I'm in OT all over again when I'm in PoD and PoN....stuck up on a wall or defending one flat spot of high ground and hoping to steer clear of the worst trainers.

I was never so happy in my eq life as when I left OT/DL/KC and moved on to fun zones. Are there any in PoP for someone with my gear?

We went to get someone flagged at about 10PM Pacific, there was no line for Exe. Don't know it it was luck, our server, or what, but we got through it immediately.

I don't know about the spell drops. Part of me thinks they were nerfed, but I got three in 2 hours two nights ago, and got another one in about 2 hours last night... bringing the total of parchments that I have gotten up to almost 50 now.

- Xylem, E'ci

You're the one that can't read Falamil. Backed yourself into a corner and now you can't get out. You missed my point as usual because you are too ignorant and too much of a whiner to see it. Just because FoH will do things doesn't mean the other 99.9% of the people will. Real good analogy. Saying that they will just proves my point, thanks! PoP isn't taking the same path at all, if you weren't so dense you would see that. I don't expect to get into tier 3 in a month, but I also didn't expect to be kept out of tier 2 by now, with one crap spell to boot. I will never see half the content. I haven't seen a total of about 4 zones in all the past expansions combined. I won't see twice that many at least(if not more) just in PoP. Take your shoes and socks off and do the math Falamil. Sheesh.

Tuved, I agree with your point. My statement was not one I expected to say when I bought PoP, but I realized it after I saw that I have basically 3 zones, maybe 4 to group in. I was expecting maybe 8-10 new zones and rest keyed away, instead of the linear version we have before us.

Basically, people, don't buy PoP if you are not in an uber guild or have friends who you raid with on a constant basis, I don't feel this expansion was made for us (us being N00bs with mediocre at best equipment and resources for 12 people to play for 10+ hours a day). I've accepted that fact, and tried to look on the positive about the old world content (some of which I haven't done).

Lotusfly, I also agree with your point, I'm sure things will change and so will perspectives as people progress. I do also feel your viewpoint is more towards the higher end guilds slant on PoP, I congratulate you on your fine character and poignant view, but I have to say that PoP was tailored to people who have experienced most of the old world content and have the equipment upgrades to prove it. PoP was designed linear I feel on purpose, for warmly genuine, but uber people such as yourself, of which I have no problem with, and I even would say that is fair, as you have (I assume) experienced all of the old world content several times over.

My point is this. PoP is not for the casual gamer, we still have EQ and many many zones to enjoy (pre-PoP) of which I am able to enjoy due to "uber" alts being able to enjoy PoP and progress on. Once I have enjoyed all of the pre-PoP content that I have missed out due to powergamers evercamping due to lack of content for them, I'd like to revisit this thread. (haven't entered VP myself)

Alaten
Hierophant

I would like to add something that many fail to mention or bring up. You have to remember that when past expansions hit the market and new zones and mobs where in the game, people often didn't have the time, nor the ability to beef up to take on boss mobs and zones. With each expansion there was a significant increase in new spells and equipment that allowed guilds and players to become what they needed to be to tackle such things. However, PoP seems to be lacking in that. Yes, there are new spells, however lets take a look at past record.

Back before Kunark came out and PoF was the uber raiding zone for class armor and guilds and required many to break it, that was true because a druids best dot was 650 damage, best nuke was 612 and best heal was 300pts. That all changed with significant increases in spell power and equipment. Then came AA's and more spells and more equipment. All classes recieved significant increases in spells, equipment and skills to reach the level to tackle the job at hand.

I honestly don't see that happening in PoP. The spell increases are maginal at best. and the aa's aren't that great either. From what I read even the the best spells (which dont' seem to be dropping) and all the aa's in the world is going to help a guild that is only 20 strong or 30.. Still looks pretty much that if you want into the 4th tier and definately the 5th, you'll have to belong to a guild that has a large raiding force. So much for the casual gamer, or the small or medium size guilds.

Not sure what SoE was trying to accomplish with this expansion, but they sure got many in an uproar... Good Luck all in PoP

I still like PoP, but some things are bugging me.

<strong>1. Drop rates on key/quest pieces are too low.</strong>
Remember the Sebilis Key? I don't expect the HoH key to be *that* easy, but it sure was nice to know you were getting a quest piece off each mob. Multi-zone tour necessary? Fine. Solid group necessary? Fine. Rare spawns? Ok. Rare drop?? No.

How long will it take to get a group in a powerful guild flagged for HoH? Estimating 2 hours of prime raid time for the guild * 45 people gives about 90 person hours of work for 30 keys. 3 hours/person for a key.

How long will it take to do the quest? Given the current drop rates, I'd estimate 1 rare quest piece in 3 hours of fighting, with a full group. For one piece for one person, that's 18 person hours. 4 pieces + another 2 group hours in PoJ gives about *80* person hours required for a single key. Add in group setup time, wipeouts, mobs camped already, failures on the combine (bye 3k pp) and the figure can double, or more.

Now, compare. *That's* unfriendly to the casual gamer. Sure, there's no boss mob required so the quest is theoretically possible. The time required from the casual gamer is somewhere around 25x higher. Challenges for skilled players? I'm sorry, no. That my friends, is a good old-fashioned TIME SINK.

<strong>2. Spells? What spells?</strong>
Oh no! People are getting full spellbooks!! Quick, let's slash the drop rates on parchments so people will have a limiting factor in their character progress.

Again, PoP is looking more and more like Luclin every day. Gotta kill boss mobs? Ok. Wait. That takes at least 12 people, and a lot of the mobs are on 1-day+ timers. If you're lucky, a spectral will drop. ~10 raids to merit one spell. (Depending on the number of pure melee present) Raiding on weekends only, and estimating 10 parchments for 5 spells you need, it'll take a *year of RL time* before the average player gets all his or her 63 spells.

sounds like fun eh?

-Quelm

If they made it so easy to get to 65, then wont it be much easier for your smaller guilds to be able to do most of Velious, and then gear up much faster than you would have been able to before, (Because killing most of the Velious bosses is going to be alot easier at 65 than it was at 60).

Hence, since you will be able to clear Velious mobs much quicker, wont you be able to gear up much quicker, then you will be able to do the PoP stuff you are wanting to do. My guess anyway. It does seem like the progression is linear. Levels are always greater than all. But you have to do Kunark/Velious/Luclin/Pop in order.

The thing that PoP's insane exp-rate has done for the smaller guilds is enable them to do endgame Velious/Luclin encounters that they wouldnt have been able to do before. Which in turn will enable them to eventually do the PoP encounters.

You cant skip content, and expect to do endgame encounters in a new expansion that is supposed to be harder than the last expansion. What they have done, by making exp come much faster, is to enable the casual gamer to finally be able to do the endgame of the other prior expansions, and that in turn will enable you to do PoP, but you have to do it in order, after levelling.

If you're a caster, being 65 vs 60 in any pre PoP content minus your PoP spells really gives you no advantage. So no I don't think leveling makes that pre pop content that much easier.

I agree with the general theory, but with the rate drops of scrolls, it matters not whether you're 60 or 65, you'll be using the same spells, hence, no it does not matter your level Spyder.

I do believe once again, in your theory of progressions from expansion to expansion. When Luclin came out, by enjoying the expansion, you were not "condemned" to it as you are with this expansion I think is the main theme

Alaten
Hierophant

Doh! Tuved's a faster typer!!
next time I'll just type "ditto, what Tuved said"
lol

Alaten
Hierophant

Spidy.. you seemed to have missed what some are saying. What I'm getting and correct me if I'm wrong is that alot of 58+ level people that are guildless or in small guilds are unable to enjoy MOST of PoP because of it's design. How is it that a person that is 63rd level in a small guild is going to be able to go back to Vel or Luclin to gear up for PoP. If they were 60 before and unable to do ToV or similar zones then nothing in Teir 1 PoP is going to help. It's just a simple fact that if you aren't a member of a large raiding guild you'll have next to NO chance at all in seeing much of the higher tiers... Is that correct?

I kinda like the catch 22 SOE has here. If you want higher level spells then you need to get into higher tiers, but if you arent' a member of guilds that are higher tiered guilds then you'll end up stuck in a rut. Good thinking their VI.. I personally know of many many guilds that are lucky to have 20 people even in their 50's, let alone be strong enough to do ToV or other planes. Many of those guilds may have players that are 60 and ready to ding 61, but don't because that will impeed on the guilds progression. What I have seen is a large number of 58+ level characters in many guilds leave their old guilds and move to stronger raiding guilds for the sole reason of passing the trails and getting up to the higher tiers. This inturn made their old guild even weaker.. So what is SOE doing here? Do they want all 100 guilds to merge into 5? LOL

Sorta reminds me of one of my favorite songs by Alan Jackson "the little man".. It's sad when the little man (aka guild) gets the squeeze and is forced out of business. As my one post "social game" says, I don't see that this expansion made socialization any better, but showed more disparity among guilds and friendships. If you don't mind riding coach on a business trip then stay with the company you work with full of friends and associates, but if you want to travel first class you'll have to relocate to Calif and get a job with Microsoft and start over. I guess I'm just the ancient dino around where loyalty and honor mean something. Sometimes taking the easy path isn't always the best path, but we all play the game for various reasons. Is EQ2 out yet? lmao

Excellent post cronus,

Hit home real hard.

Hopefully they will do something about spell drops (parchments) then.

If you take PoP at face value and look at it compared to other expansions it flat out sucks, period. Break it down to it's base components and it's a pathetic shadow of the other expansions because of it's limited vision. It's designed to box players into a corner and not let them out. A lot of players and guilds are negatively affected because of this so called "maze". There might be cheese at the end but it's so hard to get to it that a lot of people won't even get a whiff of it, and unfortunately VI slid a wall down into the passage leading back to where we started, in the form of new levels. You're damned if you play and damned if you don't(the latter because those of us that didn't realize it was going to be an uber guild expansion bought it and now we're stuck with it). Somebody said we will all be uber some day and able to access more content. NOT! For some of us PoP offers nothing but a dead-end, so a lot of the content won't be seen just because we are afraid to level for fear of putting more walls between us and our escape route back to the old content. Not to mention a lot of us will never be in a guild capable of doing the higher content even if we wanted to.

I'm sorry Bam.. really I am... I knew this was comming down the pipe and warned many of it. I even quit the uber raiding quild that I was in because of it. Prior to the release I already saw people jostling around for power and position and found this most unnerving. So I removed myself from the guild and said "this isn't for me" and moved back to being a guildless druid that enjoys traveling and passing the time here and there..

Maybe someday SOE will fix things after more and more complain about it, but then who knows. I just wish they would stop messing up my current old zones I hunt in. YES, they nerfed some mobs with their super D duper "stealth" nerf. I now when kiting chromo's in skyfire get dispelled as soon as the mob is in root range.. WTF... This never used to happen with us before, so I can only assume the Nerf bat has been in use more then just PoP spell drops..

Yeah, that's a damn shame about SF. I soloed there a lot from 54-60. That was my favorite zone until they nerfed it. Now it's chroma central. Not only did they change the range of their dispel but they also jacked up the population of them so that it's like 90% chromas and 10% everything else. Was it because of Ragefire and the shards? If so that's the lamest way to jack it up. Ruined a perfectly good hunting zone. They really do NOT have a clue. VI never ceases to amaze me with their bulls**t

Tuved,

When is your guild site going to be up again?



/shrug

As someone from a guild that only hit NToV just before PoP I'd like to say that those extra levels DO make a big difference in old-world content.

Take Vindi as an example because he was previously mentioned. He wasn't an entirely trivial encounter for us pre-pop, we wouldnt fail to kill him but it could get messy. Having gone back to do him since PoP with an average level of maybe 62 (only half a dozen or so 65s) it was like a full group taking on a fire beetle. Laughably easy.

With a little NToV farming for equipment added to some of the more trivial Luclin encounters, which still offer reasonable upgrades in certain slots, we will soon be ready to progress through Ssraezha and maybe even VT. The thing is that by then we'll be doing it at 65 whilst the "ubers" you're referring to did it at 60. We might not have full spell books but we'll have a few new ones and if you seriously dont believe 5 levels matters then I cant believe you've tried it or asked anyone who is 65.

Moral of this story is: If you can't handle PoP yet then use the freedom it provides to uber yourselves up. Velious and Luclin raid content is lying virtually uncontested on my server and I'd suspect** many others.

** Not sure on this. AB is a strange server because of its history. I wouldnt be surprised at all if the average level across the server was over 60 so maybe my view is skewed.

I agree with a lot of posts coming people who see both sides. My opinion is that the one thing they could do with little to no impact that would appease a large majority of players who are unhappy is to make the mobs giving xp expand back to the original progression that previous expansions had followed. Those that wanted to gain levels and hunt old world mobs would not be penalized, and those that wanted to move forward could so. The bigger xp gain would still exist in PoP but soloers could still quad and hunt in their old familiar zones.

The parchment rate needs to be looked at either way. Can't do much about the poor design of PoP's linear, dead-end structure now but that would be a start.

Fyyr,

pub141.ezboard.com/fveeshansfurygeneraldiscussionpublic.showMessage?t opicID=1265.topic (http://pub141.ezboard.com/fveeshansfurygeneraldiscussionpublic.showMessage?t opicID=1265.topic)


I was told, it should be up today sometime. I hope that's true hehe.

Most of the people in my smallish guild are always willing to help each other... for example, many of us have all the SS quest armor we'd ever want or need, but we still have fantastic attendance for HoT raids because we share a strong desire to make sure every individual has what they want and need from there.

Even so, the motivation to help others does increase when there's a fair chance for everyone to win new stuff. Unfortunately there really aren't many melee items dropping in the initial (non-flag) tiers in PoP, and our melee folks just aren't that excited about progressing ... caveat to that is, the size of our guild requires good overall attendance to do any of the bigger mobs and encounters.

Some of us have participated in groups outside of guild to obtain PoP flags beyond the first tiers, but that is a BIG departure from the way our guild usually functions; we traditionally have always hunted together and raided together as opposed to doing pickup groups or alliances, and by doing so, have learned to work together well enough to handle encounters that many larger guilds can't. In that respect, I dislike how PoP is affecting our unity of purpose.

We still have a good deal of hunting ahead of us in tier1/2 hunting to finish getting 61st-62nd level spells for our casters, but the only thing we can offer melees with any degree of certainty is decent XP, which can seem a somewhat intangible benefit. While they might be enjoying the exp flow for AAs, I'm sure some of them feel the guild's time could be better spent elsewhere.

If parchment drops were more reasonable (as they were when PoP was first released), we could get our spells and move on, both towards tier2+ zones and higher-end old world content ...but it's hard to remain enthusiastic when you can hunt high level PoP mobs for hours on end and see only one drop; so, a single caster gets a single parchment and people are left wondering if that was worth spending a whole night of the guild's time --- especially when the caster turns in that parchment and gets a duplicate! :mad:

If there were more zones accessible without flag bottlenecks, higher level folks in all sizes of guilds could experience and explore new content without the immediate pressure of timesink quests, waiting in lines, and competing for flag bosses.

PoP did more than raise the cap for player levels; it has raised frustration levels as well. Melees are frustrated because they aren't seeing many item upgrades, and casters are frustrated because they aren't seeing many new spells. PoP may live up to its promise to provide more high-end content, but it is disappointing in many ways that matter more than 65th level.

~Firemynd

well said Firemynd

The benefit of enjoying the Luclin/Velious content because of the linear expansion benefits people who haven't seen the Luclin/Velious high end. I too, am in a small guild, I see that the same people we have known for a long time are either in a flagged zone with other non-guildies and half the guild un-flagged is not, or everyone's off doing their own thing. I'm hoping this isn't the trend for all small 55+ guilds. FYI, this was not the case before PoP, but I understand both sides.
Alaten
Hierophant

I think they rename Everquest: Everbigguild

It seems to me the content focus of this game has always been and still is providing content that requires massive coordination of people.

Or if you choose to get your PoP flags in the alternate reality of questing it's: Everfarmgreenies As you will be spending countless hours killing xp poor things to get one of 6 difficult to acquire things to complete a key that you need to let 1 of your guild members have access to another zone.

lol Panamah, hehehe


I do see some benefit, perhaps VP/VT will be more smaller guild friendly zones, not sure yet on that as some are still outfitting new members.

Yeah he was and is doable with 35. However, is this before or after the nerf to mezz in regards to the 9 adds? This mob was HUGELY less difficult before the mobs surrounding it were made immune to mezzes.

Grummus is a nice mix of radiant cure, word of replinishment and Word of Restoration. Please note that the early birds got their shots at the 63, 64 spells ahead of the nerfs to drops. Thus making Word of Replinishment harder to obtain to make this encounter easier. Nerfing drops to make content harder is rather abusive to the majority of the player base. I kinda think a lot of us are getting tired of it. Bait and switch is truly a horrid way to run any portion of a business.


Belkram Marrwolf


PS Im flagged for HoHo, POS, POV and thats about it. Im most of the way through the Bastion stuff except the talismans.

Well, honestly, this is what a lot of big guilds asked for. Velious and SoL pushed people strongly into guilds and required larger size organizations. These large organizations were able (and needed to) devour content. Many members meant more drops were needed, so more bosses had to be killed.

PoP was designed to fit these guilds. It was designed to provide grounds for several big guilds to feed and spend time. For folks not in big guilds other things were offered.

I think to a large extent, considering this goal, PoP was well executed. It provides challenge, interesting encounters, and something different. I think where PoP failed is that it got carried away in the goal. Lower level planes should be more accessable and spell drops should be higher. PoP should be balanced around big groups of well equipped toons (what it was designed for), but it should also take into account that a huge group of people who play eq do not fit into that category.

I do know the original Everquest designers came from MUDs where huge guilds were the SOP so in large part we're probably all being forced into large guilds (in order to play in more than a couple of zones) because a couple of guys thought that was cool a few years ago.

So Velious kind of forced large guilds to get even larger and Luclin maintained that status quo. PoP was supposedly designed around smaller encounters, at least that was the marketing hype my ears picked up.

As far as I can tell most of the last 3 expansions have been tailored around large guilds. I was really hoping that PoP would be less like that. There's lots of stuff I like about PoP, but I'm feeling completely trapped in 2 zones at the moment.

Meanwhile it seems like we're getting guild bloat. The big successful guilds just get bigger while the smaller guilds dry up because of the frustration of their members with getting access to new content.

I suspect things will level out and change over time, but I'm finding this very frustrating at the moment.

First, I'll admit I didn't read any of the posts past the first page so I dunno how much this thread has been skewed from the original topic :)

Second, I just wanted to comment that many people bought this expansion just for PoK and its convenient book travel and little else. Can't say I blame them either...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Second, I just wanted to comment that many people bought this expansion just for PoK and its convenient book travel and little else. Can't say I blame them either... [/quote]

The Nexus spires had already reduced travel time significantly; all PoK portals did in that regard was to expand upon the concept and give all corners of the ever-growing world more accessibility.

What we must understand is that as nice as it may be, PoP's new portal system wasn't just an added convenience; Verant has proven again and again that they have no reluctance or remorse about timesinks (e.g. travelling) and will NEVER decrease timesinks solely for player convenience -- there is ALWAYS an ulterior motive. In this case, that motive was primarily to lure existing customers into buying the expansion, in order to supplement the cash flow EQ provides SOE.

Was it worth the money? Perhaps. But was this product advertised and promoted primarily as a new travel system? Absolutely not. Read all the pre-release statements, and read the back of the PoP box, where you see a list of features such as new zones, new tradeskill recipes, new items including new weapons, armor, shields, jewelry, and more. The travel system was mentioned, but it wasn't even first on the list (it was next-to-last).

What they never said in publicity statements, what they never said in promotional materials, what they never mentioned on the PoP box, was that a large portion of all those new features are initially locked away from the player base, and for a long while to come, accessible only to characters within large in-game organizations covering only a small segment of the population.

Then look at Absor's response to player concerns about one of those new features -- the spell (parchment) drop rate:

<em>"Spell scarcity has little to nothing to do with your level of casualness (casuality?). In fact, less so now than ever. Think back to trying to get your spells in past expansions. <strong>Often you had to get your guild or group to go take out certain NPCs to gain spell drops. Now you can go with them pretty much wherever they want to go and get your parchments.</strong> Yes, just like anything else it’s going to take X hours to get X spells/swords/helmets or whatever. I’m not going into the whole argument that X is the same for casual players as anyone else, except to say that with Planes of Power removing a lot of the time constraints for players (travel, finding groups, getting into raids), the ‘set-up’ time gap between casual and not casual is reduced, not increased."</em>

Note the text I highlighted (bold) in that clip. Well aside from the fact that "pretty much wherever they want to go" is a gross misrepresentation of where parchments ACTUALLY may drop -- Absor seems to be in denial about the drop rate itself. He apparently believes that saving 5 minutes of time getting a group together is plenty of compensation for the amount of time it takes to get spells.

What he doesn't take into account at all is that EACH caster needs his/her guild's support over X weeks, not hours, to obtain the NUMEROUS parchments needed for ONE person's spellbook. Multiply that by the number of casters in a guild to get a more accurate estimate for the amount of time it will take for us to get spells. In spite of Absor's assertions, there is no real way to compare this to Luclin spells dropping off boss mobs, because that was only true for a very few of the most desirable spells --- certainly not 'most' of them, as it is with PoP.

~Firemynd

Excellent post there Fire... Just OUTSTANDING.. KUDOS

I do believe that if you relook at all the hype, advertisment and interviews about PoP before it's release you'll see that much of it was deception as to WHO could and would be able to utilize the expansion at it's fullest. One thing SOE failed to do with this expansion was to put a true warning on the box label.

WARNING: The SOE General has determined that unless you belong to a large raiding guild your enjoyment and exploration of this expansion may be severely lessen.

Lets face it... in general and what will be the norm, I highly doubt you'll see many guildless or anyone from a small guild in tier 4 doing a /lfg. I would even go much as to say you'll be lucky to even see a guildless or small guild member even IN tier 4, let alone tier 3. PoP was NOT designed for those 46+ level plus... and it sure as heck wasn't designed for the casual player in mind. I can see it now.... We have Evercrack, and all the expansions; Ruins your Life, Scars Us All, Shadows of Luck and now the new one "Planes of Propaganda".. Im sure glad I never wasted my money and timesink on this one.... but that is my choice :)

Good grief, if you think SoE should put warnings like that on their game I guess next you all will want novels, plays, songs and movies to have those kinds of warnings too.

Novels have preludes on the front/back pages

Plays have a handout/playbill

Songs have "explicit materal" labels and are grouped by genre as well as some have the words printed

Movies have trailers which give you an idea of the romance/action/mystery before you watch it

I understand your point Thormiel, those analogys do give you warnings/marketing as well.

Alaten
Hierophant

As long as we are talking about what is advertised on the box, I happen to still have mine...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>A portal has been opened to a fantastic new realm -- The Planes of Power. Explore this extraordinary discovery as you fight to bring justice to Norrath. Incredible new combat models, planar zones and moster types <strong>to heighten the level of strategy and push team skills to the limit, ultimately seperating the weak from the resilient.</strong>

-- Hundreds of powerful new magic items including weapons, armor, shields, jewelry and more.

-- 20 new planar zones full of scripted events and dynamic content that will challenge the most skilled players.

-- Over 50 new monsters, dozens of new spells, and expanded trade skill recipes.

-- Two planar cities that provide a hub for travel and player interaction.

-- A central story-line links the content from every zone into one compelling quest.[/quote]
Apparently the part in bold was supposed to tell us that everythng was going to be uber guild restricted. :p That these hundreds of new items would be dropping in the restricted planes, that you would only have access to 3 zones for xp to begin with, and that your new spell book would be allmost impossible to complete if you didn't jump on the gravy train before it got nerfed.

I remember having a disagreement with you in the past Fire but damned if I remember what it was. :p You make good points about something I have said for a long time: Everquest = the ultimate time-sink. Just look at factions alone. I'm trying to do one now and it's been taking me days, if not weeks, to get it to where I can even get the quest. They might be able to explain away time-sinks on other material as being part of the challenge but there's absolutely no reason to do it with faction as far as I can see.

One of the major points I have seen the ubers and VAKS make was to question why we purchased PoP. A lot of us didn't realize PoP would be like this, myself included. I was under the impression there would be more content available. I didn't really need the portals so that was a wash. I also didn't realize it was going to be a linear dead-end.

By the way, where are the hundreds of new items they mentioned? In the last two tiers? I sure as hell haven't seen them except for a couple items off yard trash and a few from boss mobs.

I think Verant has finally lost it altogether. I don't see this expansion as being financially sound from a business point of view. It will chase people away more than anything else. Maybe that's what they're after so we all run to SWG and EQ2? They have shown themselves to be beyond stupid in the past but PoP really takes the cake.

Why wouldnt they want as many people as possible to spend money on PoP and then move to EQ2?

If anything i think POP has turned off more people to EQ2 than its turned on. Unless Verant thinks the Uber guilds count for a significant portion of their revenue.

Before POP, i was pretty open-minded about EQ2, as well as SWG. Having experienced the limits POP has placed on the non-Uber from seeing 3/4's of its content, Verant's design philosophy catering to the Uber guild way above all other players, is something i definitely want to stay away from.

Well, I would never have gone for EQ2 anyhow just because of the increased expense. Also, who wants to start all over from scratch.

I have a confession:

I enjoy twinking *looks ashamed*. And I'm not even very good at it. And I don't even keep my twinks past level 20. I just like to go get goofy gear and try out different classes for awhile while they can pound Bixies to dust.

Then I get bored and play my druid and delete my twink.

Rinse, Repeat.

Now you all know my shame.

Personally, I will think twice before buying something else from the company who just released this crappy expansion...

Now, if the competition would do something.... bleh....

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Excellent post there Fire... Just OUTSTANDING.. KUDOS[/quote]

Hmpth. All my posts are excellent if you take time to read them. :p

--(Actually, you've gotta have the Patience of Job to endure reading my posts. I have a really annoying habit of attempting to be thorough.)--

/sigh

On the bright side, I was quite popular with English professors! ^.^

~Firemynd

Before I start, I'll come clean and admit that I'm in one of those nasty "uberguilds" (in fact, we've been mentioned in this thread a couple of times). I just wanted to point out a couple of things that I have experienced in PoP.

First, it would be helpful if flags were provided on the guild level. We have some people who were gone for the first bit of PoP, and it's a constant struggle to get them caught up. Having character flags rather than guild flags is, in fact, a timesink.

Second, the encounters in PoP are light years better than all other expansions to date. Strategy is much more important than raw numbers/equipment than it has been in the past, and this is a good thing. Each fight we complete, we look back and say "Wow, that was pretty cool".

Third, I guess I just don't understand the entitlement mentality I see all over this thread. For the first 2 years I played EQ, I was in a tiny guild with friends and family. I decided I wanted more of a challenge, so I joined a "family guild". A couple of guild collapses later, and I find myself a member of the Evil Empire, simply by having known players who migrated there and respected my skills. I have a professional job and I play 4 or so hours a night (really, it's just my TV time, which Tivo helps me stay caught up with :) .)

Twein

PS: As a final note, we took a swim through VT last night for a change, and almost every member of the guild commented that if PoP was like VT, they all would have quit. That alone says something good about PoP.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Second, the encounters in PoP are light years better than all other expansions to date. [/quote]

"Better for <strong>whom</strong>?" is a question this thread seeks to answer, and apparently the conclusion many had already reached is confirmed by your post. :mad:

~Firemynd

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Third, I guess I just don't understand the entitlement mentality I see all over this thread.[/quote]

Why do you feel entitled to most of the content in PoP, at the expense of the majority of the player base?

Imagine if auto manufacturers priced 90 percent of their new product lines out of the reach of the majority of consumers. Would consumers be irritated? Would it be a bad business move by the auto makers? And how would the wealthy come across by saying "Hey, if you want to afford most cars, get more money!!"

Even if PoP had absolutely NO uberguild requirements, it would still reward that playstyle. Large powerful guilds are able to mobilize quicker, take mobs down faster, have better gear to let them fight more efficiently. What Verant has done with this expansion is expand the game mechanic to FURTHER reward this playstyle, by limiting so much of the expansion to members of uberguilds.

You do realize the entire "uberguild" slant is a paradigm that has largely evolved over the last year and a half. Verant has chosen, over the objection of a large portion of its playerbase, to cater to this minority. There is absolutely no compelling reason why eq should be slanted towards large guilds, as opposed to small guilds, or even soloists. It was a design decision...a poor one IMHO.

No one is saying ALL the zones should be open to everyone, but for heavens sake, certainly more then the bare minority now should be. And to reiterate the point: especially since all of the old zones are now largely pointless for single group exping (which is the only way many people play)!

Quote:
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Third, I guess I just don't understand the entitlement mentality I see all over this thread.
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As a casual player I know that "power gamers" will get items and spells faster than I will. I have no problems with that.

However, if I spend 100 hours at a camp that Uber Person X spent 20 hours at then I expect somewhat of a similar return.

I understand that it will take me longer to see the Tier 3 and 4 Planes. I have no problem with that.

What happened the first 2 weeks of PoP. Power gamers swept in and got most if not all their spells. Now casual players are spending time in those areas and not getting spells except for the very very few sweet spots. All other drops were nerfed.

This I believe is the MAJOR contention point that a lot of players have with PoP. The blatant "bait and switch" that Verant did in the ONE area that affects us everyone who is not a "powergamer". Every small guild/casual player was affected by this nerf whether a caster or not. Those who aren't casters are derived of the benefits of the spells as well as those who are casters.

If Verant hadn't nerfed the drop rate as much as they did I doubt that you would see 1/10th the complaints about PoP that you do. I know I would have been happy as a lark. Now I have finally made up my mind. EQ2 can bite me. You couldn't pay me to play it.

In what facet of your world is a "casual" person (be it at work, in relationships, with the law) rewarded more than someone who applies more of their time and energy to a purpose? That's the question I am asking.

By the way, the quote about "better" encounters means that many of these fights require more than tanks hitting "a", clerics counting to 3, and wizards nuking. They require everyone in the raid to work harder and try new things. The high end SoL stuff was absolutely painful to play.

As a side note, I am missing the vast majority of my spells, so I am sympathetic to that complaint. As for my other issues with PoP, I mentioned those in my first post on the topic.

I remember clearly the times when I have either been guildless or in a guild that was too small to do all the content in an expansion, but I never blamed those who were on the cutting edge. I suppose that's the difference.

Twein

Twien, I'm gonna nitpick this paragraph of yours because it encapsulates most of the uber/casual debate. So I apologize in advance if I seem cantankerous; your posts have been well thought out and politely worded.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>In what facet of your world is a "casual" person (be it at work, in relationships, with the law) rewarded more than someone who applies more of their time and energy to a purpose? That's the question I am asking.
[/quote]

There are two problems with this statement.

The first is that you assume uber gamers put more time and energy into eq. That is a patently false generalization, when speaking about INDIVIDUAL players. By your own numbers, I play more eq then you. I've been playing since the commercial release, averaging at least 30 to 40 hours a week (with occasional breaks).

Perhaps what you meant to say was, the GUILD that applies more time and energy to a situation should recieve more reward? That I could certainly agree with; bear in mind however, that even if you removed every single flag in PoP, the uber guilds would easily still come out on top. They have the better gear and organization, so can xp easier, take down bosses easier, etc. The flag system is an artificial conceit designed to slant things even further towards the uber guilds favor. Being able to do flagged events is: a <em>reward</em> for having gear (which is a <em>reward</em> in of itself) which leads to better <em>reward</em> in every single game mechanic. The developers went way overboard with what they decided to flag in PoP, and threw things entirely to the uber guilds.

"Flagging" has always existed before, in one sense or another, and in prior expansions I never had any issue with it, or the notion that some things would be forever beyond my reach. But now it has been taken to an extreme that should surprise anyone who gives it thought. Why is it suddenly necessary to belong to an uber guild to accomplish anything remotely meaningful in PoP? And don't say end game! Every expansion to date has been end game, and end game means many different things to many different people. My end game is doing a bad-@#%$ dungeon crawl in a place we don't belong, and a TPW is gonna hurt bad.

On to my second criticism of the quote. No one in this thread has suggested for one moment that casual gamers should reap the same rewards as uber gamers, much less "more" as you post. No one has asked for all the zones to be unlocked, access to all spells, all loots, or all tradeskill items. In fact, what I personally would be happy with would be one simple thing...

More then three lame outdoor freaking zones to play in.

(Excuse me, two and a half zones at best...most of PoI is locked off to me as well.)

Not six months from now. Not after I "gear up" in VT or any other place. Not after I disband from my guild to group up with a bunch of people solely for the purpose of being able to experience more content.

I don't need to see all of PoP. I would like to see half of the exp zones though! I don't think that's asking too much. That would leave HALF of the zones strictly for uber guilds. I never need to kill any coveted boss mobs. I don't need the sweetest camps. Keep the loot. I simply would like some variety in a game that I spend way too much time playing...a dungeon, for example, would be very nice. Honestly, if the few zones I had access to were at least INTERESTING, or if they revamped some old dungeons, I wouldn't even care if I never saw another PoP zone.

But the zones are boring, and it's a game, and I don't play boring games...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>First, it would be helpful if flags were provided on the guild level. We have some people who were gone for the first bit of PoP, and it's a constant struggle to get them caught up. Having character flags rather than guild flags is, in fact, a timesink.[/quote]
Actualy, I think that this is an excelent idea with a bit of modification.

1) You keep your personal tags for anything you do yourself.
2) Your guild also gets tags. If anyone in the guild does something, it tags the whole guild.
3) When the game checks for a flag, it checks to see if you have EITHER tags.
4) To prevent exploting by having one member tag along say to get a Plane of Time tag when they aren't even taged for valor, and thus get your whole guild taged, the guild must have met all the prerequsites to obtain a flag before it gets a new flag added. Also the make up of the raid would need to be about 80% that guild to earn a guild level tag. (everyone on a 'pickup raid' would still get their individual tag on their character.

I dislike the thought that scores of people could ride on the coat tails of a select group or two of their most uber guildmates for access to some of the most rewarding content in the game. Just sit back for a moment and imagine all the ways in which that concept could be exploited ....... scary ain't it?

The problem isn't about requiring individuals to be flagged. In fact, there's nothing inherantly wrong with the element of requiring each person to 'prove' him/herself before entering a new plane. However, any type of system which makes it possible for uber guilds to be flagged EN MASSE even more quickly certainly doesn't seem like the right way to go!

The crux of my argument about character flags is in the way they're delivered: <<bottleneck for uber flag boss01>> versus <<quest camp raremob01-04>> ... both are unnecessarily tedious timesinks, and each yields its own assortment of woes.

For any encounter needed to obtain a flag, Verant should have had the server spawn a duplicate event when triggered. In other words, multiple groups could be transported into their own separate virtual arenas, each group to face the same encounter other groups were facing.

Think of a flagging encounter as a roller coaster ride at a popular amusement park. If only one car is allowed on the track at a time, the lines will grow longer as more people decide to ride that coaster... and even longer as some people get back in line to ride again. Verant has the capability to put 10 or more cars on the track at a time, to eliminate those lines altogether! Yet they insist on keeping only one car in operation. Ask yourself why. Or even better, ask SOE why. eqtech@soe.sony.com

~Firemynd

I still dont think you guys are getting just how much more powerful you are with 5 more levels, even without ANY new spells.

Think about the Elysians for example. If you went to the Elysians at level 53, and used your lowest level root, it was resisted/broke ALL the time. BUT, when you go there at level 58-60, roots dont resist that often, and most of the time last the full length of the root. Same spell, only difference is your level.

Its the same with all mobs. You gain levels, your spells you already have land easier. You resist spells easier with levels. Your melees hit harder with levels, their A/C is affected by levels. Levels are greater than all in EQ.

If you get your levels first, (up to 65), you will find the Kunark, Velious, Luclin content easier. It was designed with level 60 being tops, not level 65.

Sure, your new spells will help alot. But I'm of the opinion that you get your levels first, then worry about everything else. Its the way this game has always worked.

Remember when they first put Kunark in, and how EASY Nagafen and Vox became because of levels. Remember that they were THE endgame encounters prior to Kunark's release. They had to put a level restriction on Naggy and Vox due to how easy it became. (And did you notice that I didnt say equipment restriction--its a LEVEL restriction on Naggy and Vox, because once again, levels are greater than all in EQ).

Anyway, get to 65, finish out Velious/Luclin, then if you still cant get into endgame PoP, then you can complain if you feel the need. Its only a few weeks into PoP. It seems like you hear the same complaints on every expansion release.

I just made my first serious attempts at the PoJ trials yesterday and it just absolutely sucked. You either have the right makeup of people that need flagged every time or switch out one person every time with a group that has done it already, which will take forever. The ahole that came up with that ought to be.... never mind. No way that people should be kept out of tier 2 planes when we paid $30 for this crap, end of story.

I would think that PoP would make "uber" guilds nervous. Why? Well, as an Uber guild you've been the top guild on your server. Most likely in size and number of devoted players who log in most nights of the week to play. You've had little competition for mobs and sometimes even zones.

I predict PoP is going to spell the demise of small high level guilds that can't get beyond the large scale gating events. Either those little guilds will coalesce into larger guilds or else the current mid-sized guilds are going to burgeon and your competition is going to be getting some talented players from those former small high level guilds.

Therefore the 1-2 uber guilds that used to dominate a server are going to be squeezed by possibly several more. In the long run, PoP may prove to annoy you folks as well as the little guys.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If you get your levels first, (up to 65), you will find the Kunark, Velious, Luclin content easier.[/quote]

You will also find the Kunark, Velious, and Luclin content <strong>greener</strong>. Mobs you hunted just a few short months ago for loot and XP, have only loot left to offer you at 65th level. Any XP you may gleen from occasion light blues will be trivial for AA progression, so participating in long camps for rare loot will have ONLY that loot as a POSSIBLE reward; you may very well come away from many 3-, 4-, or 5-hour sessions with absolutely nothing to show for it.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> <Kunark, Velious, and Luclin> content was designed with level 60 being tops, not level 65. [/quote]

When Verant designed that content, the experience and item tables were deemed to yield appropriate rewards for ~55th to 60th level characters (and we know how stingy Verant is anyway when it comes to risk vs. reward). So now you're asserting that we should spend even more time advancing our characters, this time to 65th level ... for hopes of obtaining those rewards?

Something seems suspiciously familiar about that logic. Oh yeah, it's the same thing we're doing now in tier1/2 zones. People who spent 20 hours there during the first week of release came away with 5 to 10 parchments each, and people who spend 20 hours there now come away empty-handed or if they're lucky, perhaps with 1 parchment.

Before PoP, people had good reason to say "level > all" ... by leveling to 60th, MORE of the world was opened to you by seeing visible increases in your class' power. While a few desirable spells were less common, others spells (including our best heal and a top notch nuke) were purchasable; you only had to level, then you could buy and scribe them.

Now, by leveling to 65th, LESS of the pre-PoP world is productive for anything other than loot. Increases in power are incrementally small without a basic compliment of spells (you know, the things which define a caster class?). You can fool yourself into thinking that a slightly larger mana pool and slightly better resists are an adequate substitute for the dozens of spells missing from your book. I don't think so.

Sorry but I expect more from advancing a caster class in levels. Why would I want a bigger gun and a bigger holster if I'm to be stuck with the same ammunition I was using 5 levels prior. Don't bother trying to convince me that the sacrifices are worth such miniscule gains this time around, because unless you're in an uber guild capable of accessing and settling into the highest tier planes, that simply isn't true.

~Firemynd

"People who spent 20 hours there during the first week of release came away with 5 to 10 parchments each, and people who spend 20 hours there now come away empty-handed or if they're lucky, perhaps with 1 parchment."

This is the exact reason why I won't be buying EQ2. I am tired of the bait and switch and this time it was for no apparent reason.

As a casual player I don't expect to get the same rewards as uber guilds do in the same amount of time. But if I put in 10 times the hours at the same camp as they did I should expect somewhat of a similar reward. It ain't happening.

Have fun playing EQ2. I will save my $2000 or so (2 acocunts * monthly fees * life of EQ2 in months)

Fyrmind, so from what Im gathering, you LIKE exp-grinding? Jeesh, I always was of the opinion that the exp-grind was a necessary evil to get to where you could do the "good stuff". The "good stuff" being end-game encounters in each of the expansions.

Anyway, if getting exp is your goal, you can get that in PoP. If getting good loot is your goal, you can use your levels you get in PoP to get your loot in Velious/Luclin, THEN you can move to PoP once you have your Velious/Luclin gear. I dont see what is so hard to understand about that?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Fyrmind, so from what Im gathering, you LIKE exp-grinding? Jeesh, I always was of the opinion that the exp-grind was a necessary evil to get to where you could do the "good stuff". The "good stuff" being end-game encounters in each of the expansions.

Anyway, if getting exp is your goal, you can get that in PoP. If getting good loot is your goal, you can use your levels you get in PoP to get your loot in Velious/Luclin, THEN you can move to PoP once you have your Velious/Luclin gear. I dont see what is so hard to understand about that? [/quote]

I'm starting to hear echoes in this circular debate every time someone comes along and assumes they have THE answer based on reading one or two points. These are usually the same people who say things like "Jeesh" and make sweeping generalizations. ;)

Rather than wasting time retyping the same points I've already made just because someone doesn't bother reading the whole thread before posting, I'm only going to say: please review the other posts in this topic and you will find at least half a dozen logical rubuttals to both the points you attempted to make. At the very least, you will see how one could easily view your post as redundant.

Then if you feel inclined to continue, please bring up a point that hasn't already been beaten to death.

~Firemynd

One thing I notice that not many have touch on is that common phrase that uberguilds like to say, "gear up". This logic just baffles my mind. Those casual players or small guilds that you would like to suggest in gearing up to take on the PoP mobs that will allow them to advance into higher tiers is just nuts. Where does a casual player or guild "gear up"..

The simple fact is IF the guild was able to do that already they would of done so. However, most casual players and guilds don't have the manpower (numbers) to do this, plain and simple. Just like in Kael where large guilds were able to take on Storm Giants and recieve 5 times the faction, a casual person would have to settle for Frost Giants and kill 5 times as many to achieve the same result. Now you get the faction which took 5 times longer then the large guilds, but you head to ToV, only to find out that your 20-30 man group gets wiped regularily. Again you don't have the numbers and safety of having 60+ players to do ToV or other similar zones/boss mobs. The way EQ is designed is that the rewards come from having the numbers of people with certain quipment to loot items to advance.

On a mature servers such as mine people are where they are.. Where are the small guilds going to get recruits to become larger to take on some of the zones and mobs that large uber guilds have done.... There is basically NO new blood to choose from. Are players from Uber guilds going to drop down to a small guild... NO, I think not. Will small guilds recruit from the guildless masses? Maybe, but then the reason why a 55+ person is guildless is because they just don't like guilds and the politics that radiate from them.

I have already witness a number of medium/large guilds merge to attempt to become Uber by the definition. So what is the resulting actions that are happening. SOE is basically forcing smaller guilds to merge or disolve into other guilds to generate the numbers to advance. Is this a good thing? Not really.. It doesn't work IRL and it won't work here. All it's doing it causing a rift amongst the player base and seriously gives SOE a black eye when it comes to promoting future games. (SWG & EQ2).

I'm wondering is someone or a few people at SOE are redoing their resumes, because they are about to get their walking papers soon because of this ugly mess they generated...

Fyremind wrote

"Think of a flagging encounter as a roller coaster ride at a popular amusement park. If only one car is allowed on the track at a time, the lines will grow longer as more people decide to ride that coaster... and even longer as some people get back in line to ride again. Verant has the capability to put 10 or more cars on the track at a time, to eliminate those lines altogether! Yet they insist on keeping only one car in operation. Ask yourself why. Or even better, ask SOE why. eqtech@soe.sony.com"

There is one simple answer to this question. One prove by time as well. That answer is...

Unfinished content.

The more folks past points A, B, and C make it more likely that D will get reached. In which case those folks reaching D first will

A. Find a zone with nothing in it.
B. Find a zone with a few mobs and no loot.
C. Have a GM stop the event which makes D reachable on some excuse of exploiting. (IE. The Sleeper).
D. Find that they can't get to D because it plain doesn't exist yet.
E. Zone into D and get greeted by a mob that does 20,000 damage AE at the entrance thereby gaurenteeing that players won't get past that point to find scenario A or B.

I hope Verant screws up SWG as bad as PoP so LucasArts sues them back to the Stone Age.

Bam, you are obviously not happy with PoP, EQ, or Verant right now. All you do is complain and whine. I think it's time for a break or time to quit entirely. Cancel your account and show Sony how you feel with your checkbook.

I didn't read this entire post unfortunately so if anyone already said this sorry.

You can get into PoV, PoS, HoH, CoD with single group quests. You can get into BoT with one very solid group or 2-3 normal groups. I really think the original review came from someone that didn't stop and research the quests that can get you to other zones without a raid force.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I didn't read this entire post unfortunately so if anyone already said this sorry.

You can get into PoV, PoS, HoH, CoD with single group quests. You can get into BoT with one very solid group or 2-3 normal groups. I really think the original review came from someone that didn't stop and research the quests that can get you to other zones without a raid force. [/quote]
Several people have said it in the thread, and have posted rebuttal arguments to it.

I know I am beating a dead horse here.

Full guild group, all of us 60+. Did POD Courtyard. All mobs lvl 55-60. FIVE HOURS. Nothing. Not even one sellable. In fact after we covered peridot costs for the cleric all of us wound up losing money.

FIVE HOURS + NO LOOT = NO FUN.

We did get good exp. But it is depressing to right click mob after mob and see the 30 second decay timer on it.

I have to agree Casual... We did the giants in PoS for six hours to see one spell drop. I got lucky and it was... of course a dupe of catastropy :p Thing was, that's a really long time to go for 1 spell when you have 4 in the group who could use it...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I have to agree Casual... We did the giants in PoS for six hours to see one spell drop. I got lucky and it was... of course a dupe of catastropy Thing was, that's a really long time to go for 1 spell when you have 4 in the group who could use it... [/quote]

For the amount of time (post-nerf) Verant expects us to spend getting spells, it is entirely unreasonable for there to be ANY chance of getting duplicates. Maybe some people get their kicks playing merchant in bazaar, but that's the last place I want to spend my time.

I've also noticed that the same 'trader bots' who always seemed have the most desirable SOL spells for sale (20k+) are the SAME trader bots who seem to have most of the PoP spells among their wares. Coincidence? I think not. What I think is that the uber guilds who were able to plow heavily into PoP during the first week (pre-nerf) are chiefly the ones who are setting the trends for PoP spell pricing.

When non-ubers see the spells they need going for insane amounts, they anticipate being required to spend that much, and therefore will try to sell their own duplicates for insane amounts to save up. The only people getting rich (again) are the ubers who have seen tons of extra parchments.... the rest of us are trying to scrape up money to buy spells we aren't getting for ourselves because of the nerfed drop rates and absurd number of duplicates among the precious few parchments we've gotten.

That isn't fair market bargaining and it isn't a simple case of "supply and demand" ... the crumbs trickling down from ubers are not duplicates of their own class spells which they happened to get; the ones they're selling are primarily from extra ethereal parchments collected in tier2 zones after scribing all their 61-62 spells.

Selling/trading/buying because of duplicates are much easier to accept for people who were able to get parchments by the buckets-full when PoP was first released. The majority of players are right back where they were with Luclin rares.

By the way, even though I have all mine now, I've been taking notice of prices for a few of those Luclin rare spells... you know, the ones they said would eventually be cheap, a la Kunark? News flash. MotS is still going for 15k+ and Moonfire is still selling for around 20k. The only difference you'll find with PoP spells is that ALL of them are going for 5k and up (way up) ... worse than Lulcin, where it was just the top most desirable spells that cost so much.

~Firemynd

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Full guild group, all of us 60+. Did POD Courtyard. All mobs lvl 55-60. FIVE HOURS. Nothing. Not even one sellable. In fact after we covered peridot costs for the cleric all of us wound up losing money.

FIVE HOURS + NO LOOT = NO FUN.
[/quote]

So why not go somewhere with good loot?

Go to PoJ escape tunnel area and get loot like baton of the peacekeeper (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=17091), which is droppable, and has a better ratio than primal, ranger epic, or even some Ssra boss mob weapons (counting magic damage it is 13/19).

Parchment drops, including spectral, are pretty common too.

That's not from a boss mob or quest, just a normal rare from a named mob, exactly the same as in Chardok or Sebilis. The mobs are high level and close together, so you need a good puller and/or crowd control, as in any old school dungeon.

But every time I go to that camp I see it empty. So I guess most people prefer the fast easy exp outdoors. That's their choice.

But is it really on to make that choice and then complain about the consequences?

Soru

Soru, the point being made about spell rates isn't that parchments don't drop from any mobs at all; the point is that numerous higher-level mobs which USED to drop parchments fairly regularly, now drop NO parchments or very few.

Drop rates for ethereal parchments throughout tier1 zones were nerfed from "fair" to "rare" -- within the first three weeks of release. Drop rates for spectral parchments have been hit equally hard if not harder, in tier2/3 zones.

BTW, sure that's a nifty weapon ... except that it isn't druid usable. See, some of us just don't want to endlessly farm sellable loot to save up money for months and months to buy spells. We want a reasonable chance to obtain spells for ourselves, directly, from mobs of appropriate difficulty.

Level 46-47 mobs in Skyfire have been dropping level 52nd-59th level spells for eons while the maximum player level was 60th... why would it be unreasonable to expect ~60th level PoP mobs to drop 61st-64th level spells?

Oh another side note ... now that you've publicly mentioned a particular spot where parchments have a slightly higher drop rate, expect it to be overcamped soon, and nerfed shortly thereafter. Hope you got what you needed already.

~Firemynd

I go where I know where the parchments will drop. I have a few friends who got a parchment from this area. I trust them so I go there. Why keep going back? Becuase I play 2-3 hours a day tops. Why should I go and invest 2-3 weeks of play time trying to get a spell and not even be sure that the mobs I am hunting drop them. At least in POD I had a 1 in a 1000 chance. I don't know the odds elsewhere.

Also I was lucky to get a full guild group. I am in a small guild. At least if a parchment dropped and I didn't win it it would go towards helping out the guild. We went where we knew we had a chance. Albeit a miniscule one.
But better than going someplace spending 5 hours and not knowing if a parchment can even drop. Maybe if the parchment drops were upped pre Nov 19th then we would be a bit more willing to explore becuase we wouldn't be so assured of wasting our time.