I started playing late enough in classic that by the time I was in a top level raiding guild the game had moved on to PoFear and PoHate being the only really useful left over classic content, I did the Kunark Dragons a bunch of times so I don't feel like I missed out on Naggy/Vox and I did everything in Velious, but I have NEVER raided the Plane of Sky, has anyone checked to see if it is working? Also what is the Plane of Sky like? Does anyone know the spawn rate, etc.? I just remember by the time classic was over no one wanted to go there and everyone seemed to hate it so much they didn't even want to talk about it.
Hmmm I have gone up to the plane of sky on a wizard, so yes you can still zone in ok. It was working fine on Fippy / Vulak, but because of how good the gear is, both quested and dropped, the larger raiding guilds mostly kept it locked down during the classic era on Fippy. I am still waiting for my chars with sky keys to be copied over, once that occurs I will run up through the islands.
Sky works great and is the end game zone for classic and is still very relevant in Kunark. The first few isles respawn every 4 hours while the back islands respawn every 8 hours. The efreetis are the exception, as they respawn after several days.
Sky was a good zone, and while the uber guilds did get much of Sky for themselves, even the smaller guilds were able to do 1-4 pretty regularly. The guild I was in (Which wasn't the uber guild) was able to get to Bixie Isle...which is respectable.
Sky is tons of fun, and is a nice linear one-way dungeon experience. It's similar to the other planes in that there's some special rules. You know how in fear the aggro was all..well..screwy? And how in mischief wierd things happen? Well in sky, rumor has it you can't use /say. Only certain mage pets work, the keys poof if you log out, and there's no way to leave the zone without falling out of it. Also many things deathtouch, and certain named can be chain-spawned under certain circumstances. Falling off the world can and does happen, and certain mobs have knockbacks to try and facilitate that. Some mobs split on death, and I believe the fastest mob in the game is in that zone, though I haven't managed to get a ukun up there to race him. Now, not everything I said is strictly speaking true, but believing it is certainly part of an authentic experience. The guide I used to use seems to be gone, but I think it got ripped off pretty thoroughly here: http://eqclassic.de/wiki/Guide:_Plane_of_Sky Rest in peace verizon site builder tool? I don't know.
It's one of the coolest zones in the game, honestly. Only way up is a Wizard port(like Hate)... in Classic, at least. One of the best items in the game comes from there(Ranger clicky haste cloak). Sky is central to a ton of the Epic quests(Mage, Warrior, SK, Ranger, Necro, not sure if any others) in the Kunark era. There are alot of Death Touch bosses in the zone. They DT every 30 seconds or so, so that's fun with low level DPS. You need to loot and turn in an item on each island to get a key to the succeeding isle. The NPC who gives you the keys used to go bat**** crazy when people would talk to him and attack you. So, there was just simply an agreed upon rule to not use /say at all in the zone. The zone was fairly buggy though, which often made it a nuisance. Particularly the Azarack island, as I recall. All in all, one of the more unique zones in EQ, like a floating version of Kedge Keep(I mean it's uniqueness, not the layout). A really fun place, but could take quite a while to get through it all. From what I can tell, the zone really hasn't been changed at all, even on the Live servers, since the old days.
When Sky launched the keys did indeed vanish every time you zoned out, which given there are only 12 keys per island was a problem. That design flaw has been corrected, hence reason I still have a bag full of keys on my monk and shaman. The bosses of 2 islands can be made to respawn continuously. The Plane of Sky provides the greatest challenge available in the Classic Era of Everquest. Bee island provides the most challenge, and it was quite common for raiding guilds to wipe there on a regular basis. The Noble/Overseer/Hand cycle are also fun challenging fights, but the vast majority of players will never encounter those in era, the gear is so good they will be locked down by the top raiding guild.
The back few islands (from Aviaks on), were actually meant for level 60 characters. The Bees and Efreetis are stupid difficult for level 50 characters. You just have to throw numbers (with ample mage pets) at them until they die because superior healing just ain't cutting it with the damage those mobs dish out.
Yea, the difficulty of the zone is advertised right at the beginning. There's a merchant there that sells coffins. No fair with spoilers on the keys! The fear of not being able to get back to where you were is part of the experience!
I think one of, if not the most impressive eq accomplishment of all time was Fires Of Heaven getting to (I think) island 7 of sky before kunark.
