I know PoP is not perfect, but I don't think it deserves quite all the bad publicity it seems to be getting. I know I've done my share of complaining about it myself, but I would like the people at VI to know that some players do appreciate many aspects of this expansion. I know VI sometimes reads these posts and it must be discouraging for them to hear nothing but negative feedback about an expansion that somebody put tons of effort into designing.

Before I get a bunch of flames, let me say that I'm not in an uber guild and I have not yet made it to any Tier 2 planes. I've got about 5 etheral parchments so far but there are many I still need.

Obviously there are things I would like to gain for myself and I would like to make it to the higher tier planes, but these challenges give me a goal to shoot for. The trials give players a reason to become uber other than just bragging rights. From what I've heard you don't need Vex Thal gear to pass the trials if you have lots of AA abilities and you're over 62. I probably could do the trials now, but I don't want to do them until I'm certain I can make a powerful contribution to my group. I don't want anyone to suspect that they carried me through the trials. I do have Karana's Rage and Winters Storm so I think I'm on the right track as far as DPS. as soon as I get SotW for manaless healing, I'll probably go try one of the trials.

The different tier planes are a clever solution to overcrowding. I'm not writing this from the perspective of an uber player who wants to keep the <em>newbs</em> out of Halls of Honor or Plane of Valor.. rather I'm one of these <em>newbs</em> who has not yet made it to these zones. I'm happy hunting in disease and nightmare for the time being, but if I could get to PoV I would probably go there. if there were no trials and everyone could just go to PoV whenever they wanted, I bet tier 1 planes would be fairly empty and PoV and HoH would be way overcrowded. but I'm not going to quit playing just because I can't have what I want right when I want it. I'm going to keep trying to improve myself until I reach my goal.

the thing I think is really clever is that by the time people in my situation have made it to PoV and HoH, the really uber players will probably be in tier 4 planes and these other zones will not be overcrowded. am I the only one who is very impressed by this expansion? I find this to be an extremely clever way to keep zone populations low.

unfortunately the people who get left behind when their guild moves on are out of luck and something does need to be worked out to solve this issue. perhaps they could make expendable 1 charge nodrop items that allow flags to be bestowed upon others. they'd have to be extremely rare so that people wouldn't just farm them to sell flags.

like if god level mobs dropped maybe 1 or 2 of these things and uberguildleaderX loots them to bestow flags upon several of his guildies who couldn't make it to the raid. /shrug

anyway, I do think PoP is a very nice expansion. it does have problems but I think (hope) these things will work out in time..

Venerable Milesgond Harelk
62 Heirophant

Make a couple more levels and then be stuck in the tier 1 zones and see how well you still like it.

Sounds like you've halted at 62 because:
- lack of 63 / 64 spells to mem
- lack of places to hunt since levelling would turn mobs light blue
- farming AA's

Welcome to the club!!

Wyte

that's just it though, there's no reason for me to get to level 63 at this time. I'm about ten kills from dinging, so I could easily get to 63 if I wanted to, but why should I? I know there's still more I need to do AA wise, so I'm not going to grind straight to 65. there are plenty of other things to do in the meantime.. TONS of AAs I still don't have, tradeskills, etc.. I never have a lack of things to do when I log on. if I can't group, I solo.. grinding to 65 as fast as possible is not the best thing to do in my opinion..

if we think of the game as <em>a race to become as uber as possible as fast as possible</em> then we're just setting ourselves up for dissappointment. I know I can't compete with players like those in FoH, Afterlife, etc. so I'm not going to try.

why do people in tier 1 planes level to 65? maybe so they can purchase spells for really high prices, and maybe so they can get slightly improved AA abilities, but I think the main reason a lot of people level to 65 as fast as possible is for the ability to say "look at me, I'm 65".

but what's the point if you can't get any spectral parchments? until this expansion came out, everyone had to be content to stop at 60 and just grind AAs.. I'd rather be 62 with a bunch of new spells grinding AAs than 60 with fewer spells grinding AAs..

however, if I'm still in tier 1 planes a year from now and I'm still 62 with still no hope of getting spectral parchments, I might start to consider leaving the game.. but I'm content with the game right now.. like I said, I know the expansion isn't perfect.. I just think it deserves more credit than it's getting.. /shrug

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>however, if I'm still in tier 1 planes a year from now and I'm still 62 with still no hope of getting spectral parchments, I might start to consider leaving the game.. but I'm content with the game right now.. like I said, I know the expansion isn't perfect.. I just think it deserves more credit than it's getting.. /shrug [/quote]

If a car manufacturer designed an absolutely spectacular automobile with a ton of nifty features, yet the accelerator pedal wouldn't go down far enough to reach a reasonable driving speed ... the ones complaining would be those who had actually tried to drive it on the highway. If you're still driving laps in the parking lot, you are more easily able to admire the car.

It really is a shame that such small obstacles and oversights can ruin an otherwise beautifully-designed expansion for so many people who thought they'd actually be able to use it for something other than driving in circles.

~Firemynd

good analogy, but the situation isn't completely hopeless.. car owners with a lot of time and skill and the proper tools will be able to fix their broken accelerator.. some of us still lack the abilities to fix our pedals and so we'll have to work on becoming better mechanics.. some of us have the abilities and tools, but we don't have as much time, so it will take us longer to fix our broken pedals.. some people have already fixed their broken pedals and are soaring down the freeway.. people like me are still working on filling our "toolboxes" with the proper tools to begin working on our cars.. ;)

Bottlenecked flag encounters, low parchment drop rates, insane numbers of duplicate spells from parchment turn-ins, and a very low number of tier1 (accessible) zones, are all things players can't fix.

Having the 'tools' and even being expert mechanices would help, as the EULA prohibits players attempting to fix any of these problems ... and in this case, it's the accelerator pedal, brake pedal, steering column, turn signals ....

But hey, we can at least count on Verant fixing the music player, so we can plug in our own entertainment while driving in circles.

~Firemynd

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> Bottlenecked flag encounters, low parchment drop rates, insane numbers of duplicate spells from parchment turn-ins, and a very low number of tier1 (accessible) zones, are all things players can't fix.[/quote]
you're right about all those things.. like I said, the expansion isn't perfect.. I hate it when I turn in a parchment and I get a spell I already have.. I got Earthen Roots three times! :mad: I wish they would change all the things you mentioned as well as a few other things..

but in spite of all this, the fact remains that I am enjoying the game more than I did before this expansion came out.. maybe that's just me though..

IMO, if Miles is happy where he is in the game, and is happy with the expansion thus far, kudos to Miles.
I got flagged for PoV/PoS and my world changed for me..
I love PoP... the exp is great, its fun, spell rate sucks, but you get over that.
I am easily pleased, as seems Miles is too.
Just be happy for the people who are happy with the game, instead of trying to rain on their parade.
Just because you hate this aspect or that one, 95% of the people arent even close yet. And of the 5% remaining, you are spoiled of being lvl 60 for so long and having everything. You are not used to working anymore.
How long did it take to acquire all of your Kunark age spells?
Or your Luclin age spells?
and you expect to get all your Planes spells within a week of release? get real.

I am really enjoying this expansion also. I also decided 62 is high enough in level now. I've been flagged for PoV, PoS and HoH but until I start hunting in these zones 100%, I have no desire or need to go higher.

I guess the only warning we can give players is unless you plan to stay in Tier 2 and higher permenantly don't go above 62 and just do AA's in the meantime.

The only major grind I have against this expansion is why are spells so rare. I mean they seem to get rarer every expansion. I'm just hoping that the quest version of spells is going to be working soon if its not already.

Actually I went to 63 for AA upgrade reasons. However, until I can see some spell drops or some further access to new zones - I have PoV/PoS and should have CoD tonight - I am staying 63.

You know I dont even see a single 63+ spell for sale.

As far as past spell drops, it was never this bad. Not in the slightest.

It may have been hard for people to see a drop depending on guild and friends, but those that were hunting at the higher ends were getting enough that they were trickling down for sale quickly. Thats not happening here at all.

IMO, people that think spell rates stink are not realizing how many spells that 1 parchment really is... sure you get a dupe of your class maybe then you need to factor in the idea that that parchment could be any class spell... while yes they drop rate could be a bit higher, but it's a penalty you have to take for being able to choose the class that gets the spell instead of like pre-PoP where it was determined right off who drops it and becoming completely worthless to you

I kinda like PoP too right now but I suspect that might drop off before long. I have PoV/PoS and a couple secondarys like CoD and TT's lair. Once the guild is finished (1 more hedge trial) we can take a shot at TT and might very well succeed.

What bothers me slightly is the lack of upgrades in the lower tier zones compared to the jump in difficulty once you get to Torment, Tactics etc... Reading reports of some of the encounters I'm sure we'll be forced to go back and do the VT grind, ST farming to get us in shape. Not what I had hoped for but at least they're often available now the ubers are in PoP a lot.

However we aren't an entirely un-powerful guild. Average level is prolly 63 now and we can field 50 players on our best days (40 is normal), NToV and lower end Luclin equipped. What will happen to smaller guilds in the long run I wouldnt like to say.

I have a few issues with PoP. I'm not sure if VI plans on fixing these issues, but there are 3 that will HAVE to be fixed or they will lose their customers.

A) Parchments

I'm 1 blue from 65. I am missing only 3 of my 61-62 spells. I've bought 3, was given two, and farmed the rest. For the first time since the expansion came out I SAW a spectral parchment the other night.

I grouped with mostly guildies in HoH for about 2-3hours. One spectral dropped. 4 people in the group needed. So it's possible that every person that NEEDED a spectral could have had one if we would have camped that spot for 10hrs straight. Now here are the facts

1) Assume spectral drop rate is 1 every 2.5 hours
2) For the sake of argument assume you will never get a duplicate spell
3) Assume that each class has 10(it's more than that) spells they need for 63-64.
4) Assume 4 people in your group needs a parchment

To get all my spells in the above situation I would need to camp this one spot for 400 hrs. To put that in perspective...assume I play 4 hours a day 7 days a week and I do nothing but camp this spot(IE, no raiding, no questing, , then in 100days(3.25months) I will have all my spells.

Now I assumed the worst part away.
1) No raiding for me
2) No duplicates for me
3) I don't play 4 hours a night 7 days a week.

I honestly believe it's double that. In 6 months maybe. But that doesn't include the timesink for level 65 spells.

B) Experience Grinding
I'm 64 and 2 blues from 65. XP grinding is only worth it if you are killing dark blues. Anything more than 9 levels below me is light blue. What zones can I xp in?

1) UP(some, not all)
2) CT
3) SS temple
4) PoV
5) HoH
6) PoS
7) CoD
ToV(who xps in ToV?)
Akheva has turned light blue
ME is light blue
Velks is green/light blue.
Chardok is light blue/green
HS is green

In a very short time the entire server will be in 3-4 xp zones. This is NOT a good thing.

C) Flagging - Flagging being done through quests and Community raids cause a problem. I have a few issues with PoP. I'm not sure if VI plans on fixing these issues, but there are 2 that will HAVE to be fixed or they will lose their customers.

Racmoor

I dont think POP is all bad, i think some of the encounters and difficulty lvl were good things. I think PoN is a very well done zone, probably my favorite zone in the game with or without the exp bonus. Some of the scripted events are very cool. However, theres alot of stuff that was just implemented poorly, or very bias.

Your not in the same position as many others. Others have alot of AA's, and you should mention it takes lvls to upgrade your POP AA's as it is. Its not a quest to become Uber, its an advancing of your character within its natural progression. Your going to tell me that my only choice is to not lvl and work on old AA's? And you justify that design? Gimme a break. Only choice as in lvling to 65 with only access to 1st tier zones is stupid.

Others have tried to trials including myself numerous times. No, they arent just about lvling, they are about DPS and group makeups. What many guilds do is stack a group with rogues and wizards, and get their whole guild flagged with those DPS classes holding their hand. Try lvling to 65, you'll probably still fail. Unless your whole group has i guess, and you get the right dps classes in there. I dont understand how you make the point that we're not supposed to lvl, then you say we're supposed to lvl to pass the trials just to get into the 2nd tier planes. Which are we 'supposed' to do?
Its a screwed up design, and the more you play it the more you realize the problems.

I just dont think you've played enough of POP to realize its issues. I've pretty much been stuck to 4 POP zones since the day it was released, you may be content now, but you'll get sick of them after a while. Old world zones just suck, i've seen them and done them a thousand times, not to mention most of us are still hoping for some ethereals, and exp rate makes doing old world zones pointless. I still dont believe people when they say they have no problem going from POP back to old world exp'ing.

Bottlenecks based on DPS is not a good design philosophy. 3/4's of an expansion being closed content to most of its playerbase is not a good design philosophy. Not being able to get any 63+ spells, and waiting for Uber guilds to pharm them and the 65 runes, so they show up at the bazaar for over 50k is not a good design philosophy. The whole system of character advancement is screwed up, because you shouldnt have to tell yourself not to lvl because you cant get any 63+ spells, and justify it by saying "ok, well i havent finished all of my old aa's so i guess thats what i'm supposed to do now". That makes no sense, and its just an excuse for dumb design.

I guess its all about what you've experienced and your predicament in POP. Ubers are happy and are kissing Verants @#%$, oh, and whining about drop rate on 65 runes. The less Uber are scouring every spot hoping to find a spectral anywhere that doesnt take a full raid force. The less less Uber have been in the predicament not to lvl because your just limiting your exp spots to essentially 3 zones, and 1/4 of the mobs in those zones for any exp at all.

To justify all this as good is just silly.

PoP's design totally sucks. That is all.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Just be happy for the people who are happy with the game, instead of trying to rain on their parade. [/quote]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but this board is for sharing information and sharing opinions, both in agreement and dissention. If someone only wants to hear the bright and sunny side of things, they should probably stick with reading material that SOE publishes on its EQ-related sites. :D

No one is flaming Miles and he is certainly entitled to his opinion, but most would agree that there are some serious issues with PoP. It shouldn't be a big surprise that when someone publicly pats VI on the back, others are going to offer their own perspectives to the thread.

If Miles was only wishing to kiss Verant's behind without any discussion whatsoever, he could have very easily dropped them an email.

~Firemynd

"Just be happy for the people who are happy with the game, instead of trying to rain on their parade.
Just because you hate this aspect or that one, 95% of the people arent even close yet. And of the 5% remaining, you are spoiled of being lvl 60 for so long and having everything. You are not used to working anymore.
How long did it take to acquire all of your Kunark age spells?
Or your Luclin age spells?
and you expect to get all your Planes spells within a week of release? get real."


Your joking right? Your making the analogy between Kunark and Luclin spell availability to POP? What game are you playing? I think your the one that needs to wake up into reality, the players at 60+ are way more than 5%, and if you wanna talk about spoiled we should be talking about Uber guilds, not the average 60+ player because theyre the ones that have always had to bottomfeed off those Ubers. With POP the average 60+ has to bottomfeed more than ever, and at this rate they wont be able to for months just for 63+ spells.

I'm not sure what lvl you are, but if your a low lvl, you shouldnt really be telling everyone how great POP is since you clearly have no clue what your talking about without the experience. Advocating only positive POP propoganda on an open forum is silly. Heh, did you even play in Kunark or Luclin for spell drops? Have you played POP yet? Makes no sense to make that analogy because theyre not even close.

bah! I never felt flamed until you said I was kissing VI's behind! :evil:

Oh, there are some great things about PoP. I was so blown away by the beauty of the new mobs and zones for the first few weeks. But you know, it's funny how you stop seeing those cosmetic things after a few weeks. The nipple rings on the giants don't make me giggle anymore either. You start to only see the frustrations and problems and limitations and they become huge mountains that stand between you and enjoying your game and suddenly you don't care that your frog looks like one in Sebilis or a beautiful poison arrow frog. It's just another mob to kill and you're still stuck in Tier 2 with little chance of moving ahead.

Sad, so sad. I guess I just need to stop and smell the corpses a bit more.

Pop actually makes EQ fun again no more boring drab days of soloing the grey or begging for a group in Cazic Thule.....or gasp Cobalt scar....Now we can enjoy brand new lush environments with new and exciting monsters to conquer and quests to discover....I am most impressed.....EQ got it right this time!! My only complaint is the nerf of Spectral spell drops.....but I guess we will just have to work that much harder!!

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Pop actually makes EQ fun again[/quote]


Rofl, ok Absor.

There's a couple reasons why I am holding off leveling to 63(62 now). One: the dark blue/light blue issue mentioned above. I want to get AA while I can and since I can't do the stupid trials to PoV I don't want to experience myself right out of places to hunt. Two: the 63 spells are fantastic, upgrades to some of our most useful spell lines, but since I have had troubles even getting ethereals I know I have no shot at spectrals so there's no point bothering right now(or maybe ever).

I won't get into what I think of PoP overall. Let's just say I think it sucks and leave it at that. :)

Apolitytic (spelling) wrote

"IMO, people that think spell rates stink are not realizing how many spells that 1 parchment really is... sure you get a dupe of your class maybe then you need to factor in the idea that that parchment could be any class spell... while yes they drop rate could be a bit higher, but it's a penalty you have to take for being able to choose the class that gets the spell instead of like pre-PoP where it was determined right off who drops it and becoming completely worthless to you "

That is absolutely the worst bunch of hogwash I have ever heard. If anything becuase the spells can be used by 11 classes THEY SHOULD more plentiful. Not less.

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

Phantasmist (Spelling) wrote

"Pop actually makes EQ fun again no more boring drab days of soloing the grey or begging for a group in Cazic Thule.....or gasp Cobalt scar....Now we can enjoy brand new lush environments with new and exciting monsters to conquer and quests to discover.."

1. You are stuck soloing in maybe 7 zones instead of 17 previous (due to exp - please dont say you can go do the old zones and make half the exp you are currently making that argument leaks like a sieve).
2. A lot of the quests are broken, aren't implemented, or need tuning. Trail boss encounter mobs are being blown out of spite to prevent other guilds from progressing.
3. New monsters - spiders, bats anyone? (yes there are some new models)

PoP is by far the best EQ expansion ever. Without the flagging system, by now every zone would have been fully explored. and noone except the uber guilds would have anything left to look forward to. Getting 20 zones at once is like opening a box of chocolates all at once - the first few taste great, but you soon become sated.

Instead, everyone at ever stage in the game over level 55, can expect to gain access to another zone for every month they choose to continue playing. It's like having a monthly subscription to a magazine - you pay your money up front, and get something new year round, instead of getting a vast wodge of articles and only reading the best few.

People complaining they want everything now need to grow up - the poll in the polls section showed they are an extreme minority. The flags system certainly needs some tuning, as does the fact that the new content has such good risk/reward that noone can be persuaded to leave it and go back to the old world. But all of those I expect to be fixed within a month or two, so I would suggest looking for new things to complain about if you want to carry on being bitter.

Soru

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Instead, everyone at ever stage in the game over level 55, can expect to gain access to another zone for every month they choose to continue playing.[/quote]

If you honestly believe that "everyone ~ over level 55" can expect to gain access to another zone for every month they continue playing, I have to ask the question: what game are YOU playing?

Soru (aka Forrest Gump) - your 'box of chocolates' analogy is flawed. For the vast majority, it was like buying a box of chocolates only to discover that they couldn't eat anything past the first layer or two unless they happened to belong to an uber guild.

If you cannot see the bottlenecks and other issues (such as guilds literally being able to block otherwise capable guilds from obtaining access to higher tiers), then you apparently haven't been in PoP long enough to fairly declare it the best EQ expansion ever.

~Firemynd

<strong>How long did it take to acquire all of your Kunark age spells?
Or your Luclin age spells?</strong>

I had every Luclin spells, except Moonfire, MotS, and the compentant Lev/EB (which I still don't have, because they aren't worth the effort) within a month of Luclin coming out.

As of now I don't even have all of my 61-62 spells and I have a single level 64 spell.

It was slow enough getting spells. Then they nerfed them. I haven't gotten a parchment in close to a month.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>and noone except the uber guilds would have anything left to look forward to[/quote]

lol thats how it is now past tier 2...

Its amazing how many 63+ people have no 63+ spells and people think their isnt a problem. I quit leveling and chose to work on AAs due to the disgust with future spell advancement. I cant even buy any of them with the 61-62 spells still bringing 10k a pop. Its just ridiculous. I am in tier 2 zones and have lost my ability to use my charming abilities which is my main source of exps due to this issue. The less I play the easier it is to not play at all.. thats bad for business.

I do like many aspect of PoP and Norrath but the spell drops need to get fixed fast for those that can get to 65 in tier 2s but most likely will not get beyon there for some time if ever.

What kind of pig eats 20 chocolates on the same day? The point is, you can! It's not like there's some hidden barrier blocking you from the good chocolates, although if there were...

"Hail"
"Hail Grandma"
"Ahhhhh, hello there sonny. Are you [interested] in obtaining access to more chocolate?"
"Yes"
"Yes, I'm interested"
"Yes, I'm interested in obtaining more chocolate"
*sobs silently*
"Please give me the rest of my chocolate"
"What chocolate?"
"The chocolate I gave you for christmas, don't be silly! If you'd like to eat more than the first four nasty salted peanut-filled chocolates in that box of 20 there are some things you can do"
"Grandma, that's retarded"
"What things"
"continue"
"I've been having some real trouble with pests in my garden lately, perhaps you can help me."
*at this point i give up and read the spoiler site*
"I will help with the pests"
"Excellent, thank you so much. There's been quite the infestation of bugs and gophers lately, please seek them out and come back when you have something to report"
You have received a character flag! (but you still can't open any more chocolates, neener neener)

-Quelm

As for the magazine subscription analogy: LOL. I would die laughing before the magazine salesperson even finished explaining how I had to actually wait at the newsstand for at least 2 weeks of every month if I wanted to get the latest issue.

Devs need to realize that not everyone is as patient and optimistic as Soru. If problems like "not having access to spectral parchment" take 2 months to fix, there's a good chance that instead of taking a break and coming back, folks will cancel. Quest bottlenecks and old-world lack of xp are frustrating as well. PoP definitely needs a few changes.

-Quelm

Keledan, even if you were right and everyone 55+ could get to a new zone every month, they'd still run out fast. The point is, if you arent in a VT guild you can forget getting past (and in most cases even getting to) tier 3 unless you stay in Velious/Luclin for a year and get the equipment and memebers required.

The more reports I get of the encounters involved the less chance I see for 90% of the server pops to ever complete them.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Keledan, even if you were right and everyone 55+ could get to a new zone every month, they'd still run out fast. The point is, if you arent in a VT guild you can forget getting past (and in most cases even getting to) tier 3 unless you stay in Velious/Luclin for a year and get the equipment and memebers required.
[/quote]

If you take Rallos Zek as the upper limit of what the non-uber will kill this expansion (analagous to Emperor Ssra in SoL), then that leaves 14 of the 20 planes accessible to everyone.

What previous expansion has ever had 14 usable zones? On release, velious didn't have a _single_ usable 50+ exp zone (Velks was revamped later, for exactly that reason).

If everything past Tier 2 didn't exist, there would still be more decent high level exp zones in PoP than in the prior expansion that had the most, SoL. Match them up side by side:

Plane of Knowledge Shadowhaven
Plane of Tranquility Nexus
Plane of innovation Fungus grove
Plane of Justice the grey
Plane of Nightmares Maiden's eye
Plane of Disease Umbral Plains
Plane of Valor Acrylia caverns
Plane of Storms The deep
Crypt of Decay Ssra temple
Plane of Torment Akheva ruins

In just about every case, the PoP zone is superior to the SoL equivalent (umbral plains would probably win out over plane of disease, although that was revamped after release).

Add in plane of tactics, bastion of thunder and hall of honor all as zones that eventually anyone who tries will be able to get to, and the superiority of PoP is clear.

Unless your favourite activity is visiting pretty-looking, but empty, cities like Shar Val and Sanctus Seru...

Soru

"then that leaves 14 of the 20 planes accessible to everyone.
What previous expansion has ever had 14 usable zones"

Could just as easily ask what previous expansion had 6 unuseabe zones?

I think the idea was spells and levels would come as you progress through PoP but with so many people stuck in lower tiers levels went up fast while spells stayed scarce. With some of the flag bottlenecks changed it might improve some but the backlog will make it painful for a while yet. Still in places like BoT with a good group or two a spectral an hour or so isn't too bad.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Could just as easily ask what previous expansion had 6 unuseabe zones? [/quote] Hi, I'm reading this literally and my answer is NONE. All expansions and all zones are accessable, you just need to work for it.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>All expansions and all zones are accessable, you just need to work for it. [/quote]

Belonging to an uber guild certainly doesn't hurt, does it? I mean, if you don't happen to have that luxury, then sure you can gather friends and alliances to take down a flag/key target..... but even assuming that you already have an established method of communicating which is just as efficient as /guildchat, will you be able to accomplish this feat of organizing and mobilizing before uberguild01, uberguild02, or uberguild03 gets to the mob and kills it first ... (either because they wish to flag one or two new members, or simply because they wish to keep the higher level zones to themselves)?

If it were not so insanely easy for large and powerful guilds to literally block access from others, this wouldn't be as much of a problem.

~Firemynd

"Hi, I'm reading this literally and my answer is NONE. All expansions and all zones are accessable, you just need to work for it."

This from the front page of your own website:

"I've gotten 1 night of sleep in 3 days, I know we killed more stuff, but I don't remember what it was; that's all that stuck in my head <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/embarassed.gif ALT=":o"> "

As a married, working man that kind of play isnt something I can do and probably applies to the vast majority of people and guilds. I dont have a problem with previous expansions which had one zone at the very end that was reserved for people who could "work for it" (VP,ST,VT). Six of those, and its at least 6, is a little much.

Edit: One day I'll remove my sig BEFORE I post!!

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
I've gotten 1 night of sleep in 3 days, I know we killed more stuff, but I don't remember what it was; that's all that stuck in my head
[/quote]

Once you, as a game designer, realise that players like that exist, what do you do:

a-
ignore them, designing the game as if they didn't exist

b-
design the game so that they have minimum impact on other players, due to them being lured into zones that others can't access.

c-
ban them

if you can't get away with 'c', only 'b' works. If you ignore them, you know that they will be camping that rare spawn 24/7, running over that fun 3 group event with 72 players, killing every raid mob within 5 minutes of it spawning, etc. You may think EQ would be a better game without full-time players, and you may be right, but wishing something didn't exist rarely makes it go away.

Soru

With all due respect Kaledan, that's a load of bull.

It is patently wrong to imply that most of PoP's content was designed to draw 'full-time players' away from the masses. Especially wrong because this expansion was heavily promoted *to* those masses; only after it was released did players discover that the one significant feature for casual gamers was PoK's portal system.

Do you think SOE would have sold as many copies if they had been forthcoming about the flag/tier system which prevents access to over 75% of the expansion's hunting zones for many casual (non-full-time) players? Absolutely not. There are too many people who would have contented themselves with the nexus for getting around, rather than supporting a product for which they had little other use than travelling.

Players might have taken some minor issue with previous expansions giving uber guilds a portion of content all to themselves; perhaps your explanation might have been satisfactory considering all the freely accessible content in those expansions. But I believe many more players are having some major issues with the idea of an expansion which restricts over half of its content to a minority of power gamers.

PoP itself may not be the end of EQ, but it casts a grave shadow over the prospect of successfully marketing another expansion to 'masses' who feel their faith in SOE hasn't been justified. The only hope SOE has of restoring any portion of that faith is to do the right thing -- soon -- and address the glaring issues which have been brought up time and again on every single class community board.

~Firemynd

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
But I believe many more players are having some major issues with the idea of an expansion which restricts over half of its content to a minority of power gamers.
[/quote]

If that was the case, you would have a point.

But in the maths I was taught in school, 6 planes out of 20 is _not_ a majority.

If you don't believe that the overwhelming majority of level 65 players will have access to everything outside those 6 planes in 6 months time, then /shrug, more fool you.

At the release of SoV, were you one of the people stating with utter certainty that only fires of heaven and a few other guilds will ever make it as far as Cobalt Scar?

When epics were released, were you part of the overwhelming volume of complaints that the ubers should be given such good weapons, and denied to the casual player?

Soru

<strong>why do people in tier 1 planes level to 65? maybe so they can purchase spells for really high prices, and maybe so they can get slightly improved AA abilities, but I think the main reason a lot of people level to 65 as fast as possible is for the ability to say "look at me, I'm 65".</strong>

65 gives many benefits, the least of which is the dick waving. 2 extra mana/tick regenned, bigger mana pool, more hps, better able to resist spells/AEs, better able to land spells, more crits from AA, bigger heals from AA, a radiant cure that can actually cure slow finally, a noticeably better SoW which is amplified by MGB and gosh I can even scribe spells when I get them. For meleers it's even more dramatic as suddenly mobs that were equal or higher level in Luclin are now lower and can barely hit you.

PoP has some good points and bad points. Spectrals are too rare as it is, they were too common before the HoH nerf but now they're too rare. Ethereal are way too bloody common now, they drop like rain, it's silly.

Key mobs are seriously stupid. 3 day spawn and spawn on server up and blowable. @#%$ YOU SOE! @#%$ YOU! @#%$ YOU @#%$ YOU @#%$ YOU @#%$ YOU @#%$ YOU @#%$ YOU @#%$ YOU! We have active Asian and Euro guilds on our server. Think we're ever going to see a plane before them? No @#%$ way. Basement cyle of Ssra all over again. Right now they're chain blowing the Behemoth, not to grief mind you, only Nightbane, a NA guild are big enough assholes to grief anyone as far as I've seen, the Euro/Asian guilds are just having problems with Behemoth so it's never up and won't be up commonly enough for us to have more than a slim chance of seeing it until they figure it out and are done with it, probably months from now. It's hard enough being a PST with EST guilds around but add on Euro/Asian and forget it, what a pain. We haven't tried the Bertox event yet but from what I've read it's even worse. Key mobs should not be as long as 3 day for their spawn, particularly on crowded servers, key mobs should not be blowable by any means even with a full failed raid let alone some single griefing bard @#%$.

The alternate quests are somewhat painful too. Perilium for the HoH one being a bad one. Locked in a plane that isn't worth going to once you break 62, it's too rare and theres a chance of blowing the combine once you get it (and I've seen several blown combines by the NPC.) AFAIK alternate quests into Torment, Sol Ro, HoHb (another blowable 3 day ****up, thank you Assbane) and deeper places don't exist or haven't been found yet, and people that do get in with alternate means, say to save their guild killing some lame mob for the Nth time to key 1 or 2 people, get screwed as the alternate routes in don't give you the proper flags so you can't continue to get flags from deeper kills, ala Bertox.

Oh and btw, WTF is up with graveyards? Dear god fix those things. Every zone has a differnt time you have to learn, they'll snatch while you're looting or even as you get rezzed but before you zone in, they leave the corpse visible for some people but not others because of client/server sync problems. Here's a hint, just make /corpse have infinite range when you do it in a graveyard and get rid of this auto-corpse summoning crap.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>But in the maths I was taught in school, 6 planes out of 20 is _not_ a majority. [/quote]

Players have non-flag access to exactly three new hunting zones: PoI, PoN, PoD. To a lesser degree, PoJ. The majority of new planar zones are totally inaccessible until completing each of those zone's flagging requirements.

If you can break out of 'uber mentality' mode for a moment, maybe you will be able to recognize that the "less difficult" flags are flags nonetheless, and therefore not universally accessible; you also seem to be taking tier2 access for granted. Furthermore, hub zones like PoK and PoT certainly don't count as hunting zones; at best, they're simply bigger and lusher versions of Nexus and Shadowhaven, and aside from connecting points on the map, they contain no benefits that couldn't have been easily implemented within SOL's framework.

~Firemynd

[qupte]
Players have non-flag access to exactly three new hunting zones: PoI, PoN, PoD. To a lesser degree, PoJ.
[/quote]

Exactly 3, sure. Why stop at 3? I am sure you can come up with some reason to discount PoD, PoN and PoI too. PoJ is one of the best dungeon zones in the game, as good as Chardok or Cazic Thule. I could just as easily say plane of time, sol ro's tower and the elemental planes are not exp hunting grounds, so they shouldn't be included either.

If you really think a majority of players would be unable to pass any PoJ trial at level 65, or compete quests way easier, relative to levels, than any class epic, then I really think you are making the mistake of underestimating the average casual player.

I suggest you cure yourself of your 'ubers are the only ones who know how to assist or hail a mob' mentality, because it is not only make you look silly, it is obviously also affecting your enjoyment of the game.

Soru

"Exactly 3, sure. Why stop at 3? I am sure you can come up with some reason to discount PoD, PoN and PoI too. PoJ is one of the best dungeon zones in the game, as good as Chardok or Cazic Thule. I could just as easily say plane of time, sol ro's tower and the elemental planes are not exp hunting grounds, so they shouldn't be included either."

Oh, give us a break, lets be realistic here, because PoJ is not the same type of hunting zone with nearly as many mobs worth killing as PoD, PoN, nor PoI. In fact, anyone thats been in PoP for awhile, pretty much chalks PoJ up as a trials zone despite the fact that there are some mobs to kill there. Yes, people kill there, but its not the same as PoD, PoN, nor PoI so dont try and pass it off like it is. "PoJ is the best dungeon zone in the game"? Are you joking? Ughh, what game are you playing?
-----------------------


"If you really think a majority of players would be unable to pass any PoJ trial at level 65, or compete quests way easier, relative to levels, than any class epic, then I really think you are making the mistake of underestimating the average casual player."

Maybe you havent been reading, but most casual players and even non-Ubers arent lvling because their just limiting their hunting spots, and have no chance at 63+ spells. Regadless of how much you seem to love POP, it has flaws believe it or not, one in which where your expected to lvl to be able to pass the trials, but if you do then you pretty much limit yourself to even less mobs to kill and zones to play in for experience. Your damned if you do, and your damned if you dont.
----------------------

"I suggest you cure yourself of your 'ubers are the only ones who know how to assist or hail a mob' mentality, because it is not only make you look silly, it is obviously also affecting your enjoyment of the game."

Actually, i think you need to wake up and take off them rose colored glasses because you clearly dont see the issues people are going through, or i guess you have no sympathy for anybody else but yourself. If you cant see the disparities, and some of the major issues the design of POP has caused other players, then your clearly not reading anything thats been written in countless threads. If you wanna ignore it because it doesnt concern you, thats fine. At least come clean and admit that POP has issues that maybe dont affect you nearly as much as others. But dont act like they dont exist or everyones just whining. Of course its easy to say that when your the one being spoiled :P

btw, i hope your enjoying yourself in the old world, ya know, how you said you trained yourself to go back to old world experience? I do wonder how true that is....

I know reading comprehension is a skill you are completely unwilling to work on, but what I said was to learn to be satisfied with exp _only twice as good_ as old world exp.

PoJ (specifically the hidden tunnels area, where the worms and gralloks are, which is easily large enough for 3 groups at least) has that exp, it has good loot, ethereal and spectral spell drops, and the mobs even drop pp.

I really can't see how you can dismiss that as a hunting ground for any reason other than ignorance or a complete refusal to even consider going into an 'indoors' one (even though outdoors spells such as sow work in PoJ).

Soru

"I know reading comprehension is a skill you are completely unwilling to work on, but what I said was to learn to be satisfied with exp _only twice as good_ as old world exp."

No you didnt, and its driving me crazy cuz i cant find the thread where it was stated. Remember me saying how difficult it was for anybody to go back to old world experience, and how YOU couldnt do it. Then you stated that you are? No doubt in my mind thats what you said.
------------------------

"PoJ (specifically the hidden tunnels area, where the worms and gralloks are, which is easily large enough for 3 groups at least) has that exp, it has good loot, ethereal and spectral spell drops, and the mobs even drop pp."

Ok, 3 groups and thats probaby pushing it, how many groups does PoD, PoI, and PoN fit? And your saying PoJ is the best hunting zone in the game because it fits 3 groups? Your saying its the same thing as PoD, PoI, and PoN in terms of huntability? Your exxagerations are silly, especiallly your counter argument to Firemynd not including it in with the other 3 REAL hunting zones. I mean your going to say something like 'him finding a reason to exclude Cazic Thule or Chardok' as an anology to not including PoJ? LOL, like i said you need a reality check. You sure spectrals are currently dropping there? Or is this another one of those 'viable' alternate quests you kept reffering everyone to as legit means when they were broken or stupid time sinks(that Verant recently 'fixed' of course after your posts saying how easy they are). As for ethereals and good loot, i can get them in pretty much any other zone as long as i'm not killing yard trash, big deal.
------------------------

"I really can't see how you can dismiss that as a hunting ground for any reason other than ignorance or a complete refusal to even consider going into an 'indoors' one (even though outdoors spells such as sow work in PoJ)."


Ummm, because its not the hunting zone your exxagerating it to be, definitely not the "best hunting zone in the game", HAHA. Heh, i always thought it was outdoors, makes no difference at all since we can use outdoor spells so its not like thats a legitemate reason for anyone to exclude it. Actually, common sense is the reason considering it comes nowhere close to be a hunting zone in the sense that PoI, PoD, PoN, CT, Chardok, OS, etc. are hunting zones. I cant even believe half the stuff you post and expect people to take you seriously. If you cant see the difference between PoJ, and most other hunting zones then you have got to be trolling. Every one of your analogies has been so off its funny that you keep making them.

"Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm sure you couldnt do it, kinda funny you expect others to.

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



I am doing it. Go back and read the post.

Or is reading an elitist activity that noone can possibly be expected to master? I mean, it takes hours camping a classrom, collecting those rare drop pass-grades, doing faction work with the teachers, all to get some character flag that enables you to progress to the college zone...

Soru "
--------------------

Just curious, but why lie?

From the 'Top 2% vs the rest' thread btw.

The POJ caves have the absolute worst pathing I've almost ever seen in the game. If you touch a wall, and I mean just barely touch it, you aggro every mob on the other side of the wall. Would be a great place to xp except for that tiny problem.

Agree with the pathing issues in those caves. A few days ago we took a group down there and during one of the pulls, a ton of mobs practically came through the walls with aggro that could only be described as a chain reaction. Chewed through the puller's 5k hp in all of 3 seconds. He learned to be more careful around those walls. ;)

About four hours hunting the deepest areas in those caves: 1 ethereal, 0 spectrals. From the way Kaledan speaks, parchments drop there like candy, and maybe that was true during the first week or two of release -- BEFORE the drop rates were nerfed to oblivion. I hardly see how it could be considered reasonable to hunt an average of 24 RL hours (4*6) for one group just to see enough parchments for each person to get 1 ethereal. Turn it in and get a duplicate, and you're back to square one. Fun ain't it?

~Firemynd

here is the quote referred too from the 2% thread:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
All of these can be avoided simply by staying out of the armpit of Norrath that is PoV. Train yourself to be satisfied with exp that is only twice as fast as a month ago, instead of 4 times.

If I had exped there more (went for 4 hours once, got half a level, no intention of going back), I would be 65, and I'd probably be complaining too.
[/quote]

/shrug. Looks pretty straightforward to me, but then I went to school.

soru

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>/shrug. Looks pretty straightforward to me, but then I went to school[/quote]

And the rest of us didn't? hehe

Umm.. okay. Your momma!

There, that should remind you of the highest grade level you attained before you stopped paying attention.

~Firemynd