Just a little curious. Are there some folks that could be considered the original plane of mischief designers and devs more specifically than the total list of SoV devs? Velious Credits Thanks!
Only name I see on that list that is currently on the team is Absor, however it shows he wasn't on the dev team during that time.
Are you talking about POM when the castle would randomly spawn in different zones? and you had to collect all the cards?
Like the actual original zone, quest, mob design. It's always felt like it was some person/team's baby/side-project/fever-dream.
I don't think it ever spawned in different zones. Originally you had to do a near suicide run through 'Temple of Veeshan' to get to it. But later a copy of the Doll House Castle appeared in 'The Great Divide' making it much easier to get there. I always wanted to do the Veeshan run and visit POM back in the old days before the quests were revamped. But never getting around to it was probably my biggest EQ regret.
It looks like Kayvan Simantob worked on the zone. The farthest back that anyone currently on the design team worked on content is late 2002.
You can enjoy the orginal PoM on Phinny right now. However, I'm not sure when it changes over, and that might be GoD. Clearing ToV and seeing the little castle was my highlight of SoV. I loved that zone. I collected the cards and handed out different ones to guild members. So far it has been my #1 place to enjoy on Phinny. I assume it will stay forever on Agnarr.
I don't play on TLP - we always heard a bogus excuse that the original PoM zone information was lost. You really have the original, 2001 version? Jealous, if so. Post a raid of it on Youtube and let me experience the nostalgia, seriously.
If there really is the original code for the zone, I would beg DB to reactivate it. You could make the zone in Temple of Veeshan go to the Old POM (and leave the Great Divide one to go to the new zone). Would be a great nostalgia trip. Especially if you choose to go there with low level characters. Its not like anything you can get there is overpowered anymore.
Even if it's not the "100% true" original... TLP gets the closest thing to it (despite the claims that the code is lost as AoV stated we've heard in the past). A PoM that at least dropped cards and decks etc. again would be one of the best things ever. Hell... sell it as an expansion feature and you already sold most old school people who play on Live that don't want to TLP. ^Solution.
The original PoM was out on Phinigel. I think it was revamped to the newer version when LDoN released but I haven't been back to check. My PoM experience on Phinigel is one of the best times I've had in EQ. I farmed a full set on Enchanter gear and Resist Flowers while Velious was out. For the first month or so of the expansion you couldn't bind in the zone, so if you died your only way of getting back was getting rezzed or making your way through ToV again. There were only 4-5 of us who farmed the zone during that time because of that. The occasional raid would zone in but they'd all leave after a few hours. It's one of the most unique zones in the game. The mob names, getting death touched if you hail the mob Life (was funny when my group found this out for the first time), the mobs growing in size as you go farther in Alice in Wonderland, and a lot of other small things that add to the experience. There are a few flaws in the zone though. The drop rates on Thrones and the White Crown is awful. I was there for almost a month before seeing my first White Throne and White Crown. It was a couple weeks before I even saw my first Throne drop. The 60 min respawn makes it so that there's only enough Throne droppers to support 1 group (or less) of 60s. This wasn't an issue when you couldn't bind there but once binding was enabled there were very few mobs to go around. Also Bristlebane drops nothing or his drops are rare. I think every EQ player should be able to explore the zone at least once. I wouldn't recommend farming for cards with how bad the rarity on top of the respawn timer is though. Killing Bristlebane with 1 group in Velious:
Well, considering they had all live servers on original mischiefplane a few years back for April Fools ...
It wasn't, though. It was just the forest and the mobs up to the first main room. Everything else was pretty much empty, you could only get a few of the cards, and blam sticks. You couldn't make anything with the cards that would drop from the few mobs that were spawned. That day was weird.
Ya I went and hunted in there that day, got several cards but no decks to combined them in. It was still a nice surprise.
Sorry for the bump, but I know firsthand the primary dev for the zone, as I spoke with them on multiple occasions. My memory from nearly 20 years (Jesus I'm old) ago ain't the best, so I'm not sure if it began with a C or K (I want to say it was a K), but the name you are looking for is Krystasia. I was one of the primary folks (and one of the very first... I think I made Terris #2 to reach PoM... there was that patch you could log in, be neutral to all NPCs for a couple seconds. Then, before they go to KoS, you /exit and repeat. Well, I wanted to explore ToV - so I did this a couple hundred times, until... PoM! As a Warrior, I used one of my prized Bind Lockets, and so was I bound to PoM!) to explore the zone. I created the first map of the zone, etc. Etc. Etc. Anyways, the dev for the zone had heard of me, popped in game a few times to discuss the zone/alterations that were necessary, in wanting my opinion/thoughts. So, as I said, I know for a stone cold fact the primary dev on the zone post-launch was Krystasia, although no idea what their real name was.
Btw, I dunno how much of this information is still out there, but I see you folks discussing the resist flower version as the "Original" version. This is not the case - the original version had no quests or anything in it... at least that were ever solved. I'm also assuming you all refer to the version where all those GD mobs spawn in the enter/exit forest as the "original". Again, not true - they did *NOT* exist in v1.0 of PoM. I bound my GDed warrior in that forest, and Krystasia knew it - added them for my benefit entirely. I *think* the cards dropped in this version, but either the deck wasn't in game or else nobody had solved it. Clearly, Verant assumed that nobody would reach/touch PoM for months, having to clear ToV first. They put it in half arsed, figuring they'd finish it after the release intensity died down. Then, we started reaching it way too early, and they ended up looking like fools. The state of the early/*original* PoM was just a joke. There was *nothing* there except for the NPCs, all of whom were neutral/non KoS. And when I say those forest KoS NPCs were added for my benefit, since I'd bound there and Krystasia, the dev for the zone, knew it? Yeah we spoke and were on good terms, but I think they were a present for my (and I think Irontail, who was on another server but ended up working with me a lot in early PoM days, also bound there, but *he* was a monk and so could FD - I ended up in a death chain I couldn't escape; one that Krystasia logged in on patch day to spy my plight, and told me "I'll rez all your corpses -I'd lost about 1.5 levels- and unbind you, but if you agree, I also kick you out of the zone." As I'd brought guildmates to PoM when it was possible to help me, I declined and waited for them to log on.) screwing up their schedule and making them look like they had their pants down, as we not only made it to PoM way early, but we were *obsessed* with the zone/its exclusivity and "this is the furthest end-game in the game" aspect, so publicizing everything we found and making every last aspect of the zone known to all on the web. But yeah, if you are really interested in the history of PoM, go on the WaybackMachine and check out Irontaill's planeofmischief.com and the forums we posted on. I screen capped every NPC in zone, created a few maps, etc. and Irontaill did even more than I. For such a worthless zone, we sure did waste a lot of time in exploring every last blank detail in the zone: Our reward was absolutely nothing, until they did itemize/finish the zone, and it was still nothing! The items put ingame were largely a joke and, at that point gearwise, so not worth the time and effort required it wasn't funny. Oh, and as for my unusual bind plight/Mega death ritual of losing 1.5 levels trying to find a way around with the rather spiteful/nasty addition of those GDed KoS exit forest NPCs...? That wasn't even my worst personal experience with a death loop binding! I was also one of the 20-25 people that GDed guide summoned to VP in the *SUPER* early days of Kunark. I'll never forget being in PoH on a pickup raid that night. It was like 3am, the Indicolite item I went for dropping, and as we were /rolling for it, next thing I know: Loading... please wait. Welcome to Veeshan's Peak! Hoshkar killed you. Loading... please wait. Welcome to Veeshan's Peak! Crazed Guide says, "Haha! You all suck! EQ sucks!" Hoshkar killed you. I was in HS at the time, got 0 sleep that night as GMs took hours to decide what to do. Their magical "reset" had me losing like 60% of a level. All that BS, and we didn't even get anything for our troubles like a free month or something. But yeah... I have a lot of strange, ofttimes frustrating memories with EQ from back in the super early days of the game and MMORPGs in general.
