So what am I missing out on by playing a PoP-locked server? (Aradune)

When I was a kid I remember playing around in Luclin zones, PoK and doing some LDoN runs here and there, but I honestly don't remember much past Kunark/Velious.

Are there any really good expansions past PoP/LDoN that I would want to play? I know the Berserker class doesn't come out until after PoP, but are there any other good additions to the game?

Overseer.

Gates of Discord and beyond are good additions to the game.

You're missing Berserkers, Gates of Discord, Epic 2.0s, so many new abilities and spells for every class. It is a very limited version of Everquest that you get in a LDoN locked server.

Housing, Mercs, Missions, MPG trials, DoN trials, Mech Fort ROBOT, honestly so much....but if you could erase PoR minus the aura's.

They should at least open up zerkers, that is a fun class and stupid to stop short of introducing it or lock at Gates, I mean wtf????

All of the above (Overseer gets my lol, but seriously for the rest) and I wanna toss in TSS. I liked it as a sort of EQ1.5 Kunark 2.0. New systems/QoL stuff and it encompassed 1-max like Kunark.

there is some really good/great content from gates till about seeds of destruction, give or take an expansion based on preference.

up till TSS its a fairly steady progression of what still feels like "everquest" in terms of gameplay. new spells and gear, that dont automatically obsolete everything before it tho.

starting with TSS tho, the game slowly morphs into "spreadsheet quest" where every expanstion starts to trivialize and obsolete the one before. new spell "rank" system, all the gear is essentially the same with just xx% of more stats, with the same focus effects in the same slot. its a gradual process, and i still find the game fun up till house of thule. but that ramp up exists, and eventually group gear from an expansion is better than the previous expansions top end raid content, completely obsolescing the previous expansion.

combine that with general ability bloat and eq just becomes...meh. post level 85 to me.

In all fairness stopping at gates would be the absolute freaking worst way to have zerkers on the server.

Who in their right mind would start one right as the server locked? a one single expansion class in that scenario.

I personally don't ever want to play on any server that locks at a specific expansion, unless it had some seasonal cycle reminiscent of Diablo III's seasonal rewards, special items you could earn for your characters on other servers from playing on the seasonal server, and no I am not referring to Krono.....

A TLP that did not lock in LDoN or any other expansion but that had Beastlords & Berserkers in from the start?
Yeah that would actually light my fire to try a new TLP

I can understand that to a small degree, but only 1 class really has bloat in my view, that being Warriors because they just have way too many abilities that basically do something very similar to each other, they could combine like 15 of those banal, mediocre or next to useless abilities down to 3 actual useful ones.

The rest of the classes have a little bloat maybe but most just get a lot more tools that make the game a little faster paced but a whole lot more interesting. Most of the reticence over the 85+ game is pure unfamiliarity I would be willing to wager.

How much of the "PoP drop off" is due to new TLPs coming out at the same time? Does Gates of Discord and/or Omens of War suck, or is the idea of a fresh start just more appealing?

GoD sucked originally... it was overtuned (harder than it should be) and the raids were buggy (non-existing) at launch... it scared away a LOT of people and that "rumour" still sticks to this day... played through GoD on Phinny and it was very VERY enjoyable to raid through, tougher than PoP but way more fun.

WoW launched after GoD on live had been making raiders smash their heads into their desks at the bad tuning & buggy mess it was, I recall many guilds saying they quit EQ to go there in protest at how badly the expansion had been delivered.

The poor roll out, guilds departing, and protesting that took place, which included a well supported call to boycott Omens of War led to SoE organising a player summit to address the concerns.

Playing through GoD on Phinigel was a whole other experience & on that TLP it was a fun & enjoyable experience to play the post-retune version through from start to finish, and for me it is now one of EverQuest's strongest expansions thematically, aesthetically & mechanically.

You miss not getting insane gear drops from random fire beetles that make you overpowered past all the previous expansions content. You will actually have to work for your gear on a pop locked server and you will feel damn proud of it.

You miss not being auto granted tons of skills and AA points just for hitting a level and having all these things thrown at you then feeling weird cause you didn't actually earn any of it yourself. Every AA point you earn is gonna make you feel that much more powerful and you will have the choice to unlock them with the path you personally choose.

You miss not having legal bots called mercs run around with you doing everything so I'm afraid you will have to actually communicate with real people and establish real human bonds to progress past solo content.

You miss not every class having every skill in the game and different classes are actually needed for their unique skill sets.

I think that's everything your gonna be missing on a pop locked server. Please don't hate, this has just been my experience as an og EQ player (The Nameless server) that tried to come back to retail EQ a few years back. Just like newer WoW it's just a completely different game and not the game I had enjoyed and signed up for.

believe me, retail EQ is unplayable to me because of stuff like that

but don't those things come out later than PoP? secrets had defiant gear and mercs came with seeds.

you will miss out great zones, great quests and great raids

all the stuff the hater above lists is stuff you can "ignore"... if you don't like defiant gear then don't loot it, if the server was not pop-locked the defiant gear would still not arrive at day 1, it would arrive in the timeline when it originally appeared, if you don't want autogrant AA's (which is a great way to catch up for returnees) then don't use it (and it is a couple expansions behind current expansion anyways) so if you play normally without breaks then you should be at or near maxed anyways unless you are the type that plays 2 hours per week

you will still have to work for your gear by killing mobs and doing quests and have you been on the server since day one then the "leg up" gear isn't interesting nor an upgrade to you anyways.

Classic through LDON is EQ from 1999-2003, 4 years of content.

Gates through TOV is the remaining *17 years* of content, *22 more expansions.* EQ was actively developed with new concepts and new zones that whole time.

Some of those expacs are generally agreed to be pretty good, some are a bit weaker. But it's *a lot* of content to miss out on, like it's hard to comprehend the gigantic mountain of content this game has. That's why I'm sticking with mangler, not interested in re-doing 20% of the game over and over.

In terms of specifics, characters get a lot of complex abilities and combat becomes much more complicated. Timing your ability usage separates good players from bad. You have to do a lot more than autoattack and press a single button over and over or cast a couple spells and med.

Raids become elaborate scripted events more along the lines of WOW raids where everyone has to pay attention to the mechanics.

They start paying a lot of attention to the group game -- in later expansions there's tons of stuff to do besides raid, and there's progression paths and goals for players that aren't interested in raiding.

Tons of miscellaneous experiments, monster missions where you play as an NPC, shrouds where you can reduce your character level to play with lower lvls, heroic adventures, crazy storylines with shissar under the ocean, the death and rebirth of cazic thule, the crazy god of undeath and her jolly halloween city, you return to kunark but this time the mobs are level 105 butt-kickers..

New EQ is good

Good one

No Guild Lobby, no Guild Hall. Ever.

17+ years and 20+ expansions of content.

Pretty much a big screw you to any dev who worked on post-LDON content.

This was my experience and why I generally have a bad taste over the post-PoP expansions. Sony was releasing new broken expansions without fixing the existing broken expansions.