Favourite EQ Expacs, As of House of ThuleFollow

MissJackie's comment compelled me to start this thread, as it has been a little while since I saw one of these here on Alla:




My top 3 as follows:

1. The Serpent's Spine (1-75, new race --even if I am sick of them now, lore that worked for the most part, modern quest mechanics but variety, zones that hearkened back to the best of the old stuff (i.e., Blackfeather Roost, Stonehive, etc. are far more like original trilogy concepts than most of what came Luclin and later), some of the issues with spell acquistion were fixed and so on.

2. Kunark. Iksars (that's almost enough said there...), great lore, big zones and variety. The world feels hostile when you play Kunark from within Kunark (not PoK).

3. Velious. Best lore/faction/raiding & grouping interplay in the game to me still. Most alive content overall (Thurgadin is a masterpiece) with events that are epic in scope and the details are right. Tower of Frozen Shadow remains one of the best ideas ever done in an mmo.



Distant 4th for me is Legacy of Ykesha... I enjoyed some of the zones alot and the lore had potential, but of course it's the least-realized (aka unfinished) of all the expacs.

#1 Kunark - 10 level increase and huge zones that all had some sort of intertwined lore. All of the zones had a true "feel" to them that made the mob placement realistic. I loved the one-way dungeons.

#2 Planes of Power - Being in a raiding guild helped this. We were the third guild to break into the Plane of Time on our server. I liked the progression idea, but hated the process. Good zones with unique mobs in them.

#3 Seeds of Destruction - Progression done right. Mercs. Getting to partake in the "lore". Loving the layout of some of the zones and thinking back to the original zones. For example, seeing the actual buildings in Bloddy Kith, and thinking back to the ruins in Kith. Progression armor (ok, camping the essences sucks).

There really have been a lot of great expansions and I could rate them based on various criteria. I guess overall Id say:

1. Kunark. Epics, more dragons, dungeons, new race, clicky armor. This expansion had something for everyone. Plenty of great raids, and lots of great grouping locations with great gear. Train left, zone right.

2. SoF. Not a common choice for a top EQ expansion, but as the years go by I realize all the wonderful things this expansion did. While the gear reset may be a blessing or a bane for some, there were plenty of raids for everyone. Mid-tier guilds with new gear could do the low tier of raids, while the high-enders still had plenty of content. Grouping was painfree and there were several large zones to explore. Faction vendors had good gear, and there was the face aug to do if you were looking for a nice long quest. Not to mention, Crystallos was a great raid zone, even if it was a candy land.

3. PoP. Its really a wonderful expansion. Shame the hardcore players at the time didnt get to see much of it. If you were playing a lot in a good guild, it was a stellar expansion that provided challenges and gear that would last for many expansions. Grouping was great, but not being able to access elemental planes without a heavy time investment was a hinderance for some.

Edited, Jun 27th 2011 5:57pm by tombiggy

Dragons of Norrath, because:

1. I love dragons. I love killing them even more.
2. The progression rewards are great, even today.
3. Guild Hall and hot tub. Paused buff timers.
4. The raids were all very, very quick. Max 30 minutes. What a relief!
5. Corpse summoning. I miss corpse runs in a sick and twisted way, but the upside is that we no longer have to /petition when corpses are lost in a zone's geometry.

The Japanese garden theme is also cool if you're into that sort of thing. But the dragons were (and still are) awesome.