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This by far the best expansion to date hands down.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is by far best expansions for any lvl 46+ toon.this is must expansion get you 65 still alot zones that are live.Kiteing grps best two zones is Halls Of Honor or Planes Of Valor.Any pet class 55+ will get godly exp in these two kiteing groups all the way lvl 65.This is my favorite expansion to date.

EQ: Shadows of Luclin: A low point for EverQuest

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: November 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Note: This review is ONLY about the "Shadows of Luclin" add-on to Everquest, and not the game itself.

After the triumph that was the "Scars of Velious," it was probably inevitable that "Shadows of Luclin" (SoL) was to be something of a disappointment. But instead, it was a crushing disappointment, wildly incomplete and buggy when it launched, and still bafflingly unfinished even today, almost two years later.

Whereas Velious gave us a three way war between the dwarves, giants and dragons, Luclin promised to plunge players into the ongoing civil war of the lost Combine Empire. But instead of the difficult (and game-changing) choices Velious offered, players for the most part could move between the two warring sides freely, and many players, even now, had no idea the two sides WERE at war. There are hints at it, but this much-touted aspect of the expansion feels perhaps 1/3 finished.

That feeling of things being unfinished permeates the whole expansion: There is a colony of gnomes in a cavern, including the teasingly named King of Above and King of Below, neither of whom speak, and who are surrounded by equally mute courtiers, except for a single historian whose dialogue has been broken for two years. Who are they? What are they there for? Where are their kingdoms? We may never know.

The storyline of the expansion, if you have the patience to tease it out of a dozen zones of all levels, involves the goddess of shadow, Luclin herself, keeping the Combine refugees trapped on the moon. One of them, the boss of the Grieg's End zone, even exhorts you to kill her in revenge for what he has done to him and his people when you defeat him. So where is she? Where is the Plane of Shadow? Not in the game, and SOE shows no interest in finishing this content. (One can speculate that all of this is linked to the departure of the game's lead developer, but whatever the cause, the fact remains that the expansion remains blatantly and frustratingly unfinished.)

The allegedly improved graphics engine that shipped with Luclin is nice, if you have a far more robust machine than their system specifications indicate. Even with a gig of RAM, expect a great deal of lag, even in almost empty zones, and look forward to models with strange proportions (male and female humans alike were given the male hands, with predicatable results) and some outright ugly new models. The announced every-weapon-style-gets-its-own-animation improvement never happened, and instead, the new graphics engine boasts fewer animated emotes than the original engine, and more of these are shared with other emotes.

The expansion does add a new race and class, and while the Vah Shir cat men are of only middling popularity, the beastlord is a popular and powerful class. (The Vah Shir city, Shar Val, is perhaps the zone that shows off the new graphic engine's problems the most, routinely grinding even the most powerful workhorse systems to a near-halt when running through the beautiful Arabian-inspired environs.) The expansion also features (adding it six months after release) the Bazaar zone that lets players trade with other players by turning their characters into Non-Player Character units, able to be shopped at like any merchant, even when the player isn't at the keyboard (although the computer needs to remain logged in to Everquest). While this disappointed some of the wheelers and dealers in the player community, this is inarguably one of the biggest selling points of the expansion.

If the Bazaar were located elsewhere -- or its technology used to create one on every continent on Norrath -- along with the player-purchaseable horses for sale there, and the beastlords were simply added to the game, along with the new Alternate Abilities (new abilities that characters level 51+ can buy with experience instead of just picking up character levels), there would be no reason to buy "Shadows of Luclin."

As it is, with this small amount of important content, I give this expansion only the most grudging recommendation. Better to pick this one up free in one of the regular Everquest compilation packs -- without a doubt, this is the low point in the history of Everquest.

great game do not buy it used it wont work

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

this is an awsome game if you are any kind of a rpg player youll love it. but i worn you dont buy it used it will not work it says right on the box cant be reselled. why once the game is regestered on soe.com it is there forever if you try to reregister it they will think it is a fake or a copy so ya the price looks good but it dont fall for it thnx

Great Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: March 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

If you really want to go any where in the EverQuest PC, interactive online game you need everything up to Planes of Power. The legends of Yeksha expansion is brand new, however it is very easy to play the game without it, but dont take me wrong, this game is NOT for all you people who just want to take an hour or two out of the night to get on your computer. No, this game does take alot of time and dedication, not for the light hearted gamers! You should only purchase beyond Ruins of Kunark if you are positive that you will be dedicated in playing this game, otherwise I strongly advise against it. (note: this game does require a online fee for server time, it's approxametly 120$ a year, however the new Legends server is quite a bit more, but isn't as widely used as the original servers, but much more reliable.)

The fun is up to you.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: February 11, 2003
Author: Amazon User

If you don't already own everquest, this is not for you. Not because it's bad, but as every review I have seen thus far forgets that you NEED a copy of EQ to run it. It's an expansion pack. However, what this does do is give you more ground to cover, 2 moons to be exact, brings the graphics up to today's standards (and well beyond any other mass multiplayer game to date), improved game play by changing the windows look and adding a transparent look to unused sub-windows, and advanced leveling options for level 50 and up (you can finally change your base stats!). All in all, if you already play and like EQ, this is a good expansion to get. However, the idea that a Dungeons and Dragons rip-off going to the moon is almost as scary as the Dungeons and Dragons movie, so therefore I give it a 4 out of five stars. If you like the idea of teleporting off a planet then jump it up to 5 stars, because online mass multiplayer games are what you make of it, and nothing more.

Disgrace

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 11
Date: December 18, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Everquest is a disgrace to the mmorpg genre. The graphics are years outdated and the gameplay is horrid. If you're interested in a good mmorpg, go for Dark Age of Camelot.

A Must have for EverQuest Fans

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 26, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Shadows of Luclin is an expansion pack with some excellent new features that is essential for any Everquest player. Probably the most exciting feature of this expansion is the new character models.

These models are drastically more detailed than the previous models. In addition to that, new customization features have been introduced. You can customize virtually anything, from eye color to hair style. On the down side, though, your friends running the old character models will not get to see all the nifty customizations that you have made. Also, the new models take some getting used to. Trolls are now more upright, Ogres look more fierce and less stupid and elves are more refined (facial-feature-wise). Just because there are a lot more details doesn't mean that you may neccessarily like the new models. One of my favorite features is armor is no longer just a texture, but it actually adds new polygons to give your armor girth.

In addition to that, Shadows of Luclin introduces the moon of Luclin, a mystical moon of Norrath that previously remained hidden in the night sky. There is a wide variety of zones to play in that add a new flavor to EverQuest, from the dank Paladual caverns to the empty void known as "the Grey" and exotic arabic styled city of Shar Vahl. Relatively speaking, each zone is 200% more detailed than the original EverQuest zones.

Also, this expansion introduces the playable race known as the Val Shir. These are basically giant cat-like men who are roughly related to the Kerrans and have been estranged on this moon for a long time. This playable race introduces the new class called the beastlord (which can be played by various other races). Now you can have a warder (an animal friend) who fights for you. Unfortuantely, this new little buddies often get lost, so you need to make sure they are right behind you. The Val Shir are well detailed, giving you a variety of different fur patterns to pick from (tiger stripes, leopard spot, etc.)

In addition to that, there has been a variety of excellent additions introduced since Shadows of Luclin, including the great Bazaar (in which hundreds of player gather in one place and use an interface to trade with one another). A brand new interface that is skinnable, an MP3 player and an out of game messenger so you can check in on your buddies when you can't make it in the game. Of course these are standard to regular EQ players as well.

With all the features, its hard not to get excited. Previous SOL was plagued with stability problems, but these are thing of the past. Despite the extensive memory requirements (which probably aren't so extensive anymore as of this writing), there are vitually no drawbacks to buying this game. However, if you do not like the mechanics of EQ, than chances are this expansion will not change your mind as they are all still there.

Love it.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 18, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is one of the best expansions to one of the best games I have ever played. Wonderful!

Revives an old game..

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 12, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I was starting to get tired of playing EQ, but this expansion does so much to make it fun again! It not only adds a new world, race, and profession- it also redoes the graphics of characters and gives you much more custome options in character creation. And there's horses now!!!

Cost/benefit

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: October 02, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have been playin EQ since 2001, so I am not as old school or 'uber' as many hardcore EQers out there. Initially I bought the origional EQ, with no expansions, and a 90 day card just to try it out.

Immediately this game drew me in, but I stuck to the old world for several months before reaching a point of utter frustration at the time spent searching for groupmates, compared to the actual time fighting. I was so close to giving up, but instead started playing a solo class, the druid. Eventually I started grouping with regular friends, and my experience became much better.

Once we leveled into the 30's my friends wanted to move on to Velious, so I went out and bought the trilogy. It was a great buy, the content for that level range is much larger with only a few select zones. I quickly leveled to the late 40's and then took some time away from the game.

Now a few months later I have returned, and the first thing I did was buy SoL. My experience on the moon is limited to 2 zones, the Nexus and the bazaar. These two zones alone are well worth the money spent for SoL. With the Nexus now any character regardless of porting abilities has many more places they can zap too without taking a boat. The nexus is also great for finding groups, nice buffs like KEI and ports to anywhere in the world.

The real boon of SoL is the bazaar. One of the things I had a love/hate relationship in EQ was the necessity of bartering goods with other players. Basically it came down to sitting in the EC tunnel trying to read the auctions as they flew by. Learning all the acronymns was hard, and selling things back was such a long and tedious task that I either sold things at a great loss or just plain gave them away for the sake of my sanity. The bazaar has made all these problems disappear.

Any time of the day it is possible to enter the bazaar and search for any piece of equipment you need and can afford. Yes, there is lag and it is bad, but who cares? Instead of wasting time and money in ECbay trying to find an upgrade the procees is much simpler. You can browse the wares at your own leisure, compare prices, and discover items you never knew existed. Also the nature of the bazaar itself has depreciated a lot of the mid-range gear. Everyone tries to undercut the rest, making it very easy and rewarding to twink a new class. I started a warrior and bought gear for maybe 5kpp that would have cost 50k and 100s of hours prebazaar.
Like I said, the other content is unknown to me. I will soon begin to explore these zones, but the bazaar itself was well worth the one time cost of purchase of this game. It is almost a requirement, as the old way of buying and selling is all but dead. Very shrewd, Verant.

As much as people like to complain about Sony, I think it is great how mush the game keeps imroving over time. New zones, newbie quests, new mobs, new spells; keep it up, your fans aren't going anywhere.

EQ: the best and worst thing that has happened to me in years. Love it, and dispair =).

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