Over the years, the EQ team has added things to the game to make certain zones/expansions a better experience. Sadly, somebody has decided for TLP servers to lock these improvements behind the expansions that these changes were instituted. My suggestion to the content team, and I think many people agree with this mentality, is to let these changes be in the game for the era they were intended to benefit. Examples of this include the Veksar zone (level range 40-60), which could be tweaked loot-wise (some of the items are a tad too good) and unlocked with or half-way thru Kunark. Other examples include the Veeshan's Peak group-able named mobs and their loot. (ex: A Deadly Lava Drake and his loot http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=20798). These items would need no tweaking. Yes a lot of them would be BIS, but they are not broken or overpowered or even out-of-era stat wise. They also drop in the top zone of the expansion and can be very difficult to find/camp for a group, so what is wrong with that? Other examples of the this loot: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=21141 http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=20800 http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=23122 http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=25148 http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=21439 http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=25143 Removing these items was done in error IMO and does nothing to help the Kunark or TLP experience. It removes content and fun, possibly never-had experiences for players that the EQ team at one point in time felt was needed to add. Other examples of this: Runnyeye Citadel The Warrens Jaggedpine Forest Next subject. Illusions. I'm sure people that work for EQ are proud when they come up with newer graphics and they get implemented, but many of us don't see the need to add them to older objects that affect nostalgia and early content. Examples: Amulet of Necropotence skeleton illusion was changed to a new one, even though the old skeleton model is in the game again, it's not tied to the AON as many wish it was. Another example: level 59 spectre pets and lvl 60 Lich line. These both use new specters instead of the older and much more preferred spectre graphic like the ones outside Plane of Fear. I'm sure I'm missing things, such as the Corrupted Hammer of Consternation, which has it's own thread right now. Feel free to add things that fall in the same realm here. Ngreth, I hope you will read this and actually give it some thought. Thanks for your time.
To give some more feedback about this, I played on live and 4 different eras of TLP and have never done anything in Veksar, The Warrens or Jaggedpine Forest because they are brought in and instantly useless. I would love to see the content in a meaningful way. Please don't try to be p99 by locking things arbitrarily behind a patch note date. This content was added because the EQ team saw a need, and to remove it or delay it beyond it's usefulness goes against the spirit of the TLPs, which is to experience nostalgic content that you may have missed or live it all again.
Items that would be best in slot, IE better than anything else that is available in era, but they wouldn't be overpowered or inappropriate for the era? Yeah, ok...
I just wish they would fix luclin models so the animations don't look like some 4 year old with marionettes made them. Revamp of mischief was brought in at a bad time also.
Not sure what exactly your point was, but if you meant to say, "Hey, here's another item that is overpowered, inappropriate, and ought to be removed till the correct era!" I completely agree.
Isn't the SWC in era for Kunark? It's on P99 of all things...if it weren't classic, they'd have nuked that from orbit, right? Or is it a Velious item?
dec 2002 was initial live entry according to lucy history http://lucy.allakhazam.com/itemhistory.html?id=5723 Which was during PoP it seems.
Believe it was implemented in velious. But, I'm not 100% sure. If it was original kunark, I retract my comments!
Most (not all) items that are presently dropping in Chardok are currently out of era as they were introduced with the revamped version of Chardok which happened towards the end of Velious. I don't know for certain when the Spirit Wracked Cord was introduced but it was definitely introduced during or after the revamp to Chardok. There just needs to be consistency on how content is handled with these servers. Edit - Post is intended for the Coirnav server.
SWC is definitely not part of original Kunark. If someone is going to complain about out of era gear then you may as well cry about focus items while you're at it. (not that I'm saying you should, please don't remove my spell haste....). Anyway I love the idea of making content relevant in-era that was added later. By the time Vexsar, Jaggedpine, etc were introduced to the game most players had already out leveled and out geared it. Would be an interesting way to spice up these TLPs.
Veksar is still awesome AA XP up through 65 and some of the best tribute farming available, definitely still relevant when it releases. Jaggedpine Forest releases during... Luclin? I think? And still has a couple relevant quests. Good XPing zone as well. Warrens/Stonebrunt Exist because Odus didn't have much content to begin with. Stonebrunt is a favorite leveling spot of mine. You ignoring content =/= content being poorly implemented.
What was shouldn't be what is because what was was often broken or misguided. AKA some things were fixed way later than they should have been. Veksar would need a loot lockout or revamp (down in quality) to be okay with Kunark release. I'd love to see this done, not sure it ranks high on the to-do list. Warrens being tuned down (in drops) to open with original should rank as a higher priority as it is a clearly missing content piece for leveling Erudites, but again... maybe not that high on the list. Group-tier loot shouldn't be best in slot for an era if that era has raid content. It doesn't have to be a big step down, but there has to be a reason to want to do the raid content or super-involved quest (which can warrant a b-i-s piece). For progression purposes, it really should be as simple as defining the gear parameters for each era (and I count PoP-LoY-LDoN as one era) and then tune away. This means add drops to underutilized zones, do pre-revamp and/or lesser revamp versions so the loot pinata is spread out in era-appriopriate content. For example, Original is out of whack... way too much focus on a few specific camps for gearing up when there are other zones intended to be equally or even more used (i.e., compared to Lower Guk). Focus effects are a funny thing. I love them, but less power before PoP would be a good thing. The backwards way they were added onto the old content way overvalues some items compared to what were the intended comparables of the day. Plus spell revamping already adds power. Having said that... I think focus below rank 3 were a waste of coding and all 1 & 2 should be consolidated into being rank 3 items. Given the choice of losing them all until PoP or having them consolidated into rank 3 I'd go for the consolidation first. You would generally still want the items that currently have rank 3 as they are better base-quality items, but more diversity in options (and no decay in utility at pointless level ranges) would be better.
