Over on plaguelands, Krones wrote an ode to one of the original EverQuest dudes, Kendrick, including a list of the design projects he supervised. I was vaguely aware of Kendrick when he was with the VI/SOE Collective, not in the way that Krones knows everyone’s resume, but more as a disgruntled player that took four-plus years to escape from the hamster wheel.

I certainly remember when the mass exodus was announced and a good portion of the old skool VI left for greener pastures. Initial reaction … have a nice life. Later reaction … damn, maybe they were the ones holding this thing together. The game certainly changed under SOE’s sole reign, whether that was inevitable as the game matured or was due to management, I wouldn’t know.

I always hazarded a guess, of course. It was because SOE was evil, the very nexus of evil.

Anyways, from plaguelands, here’s a list of Kendrick’s projects. My commentary follows, and remember, this is from my experience only.

Others may have liked those zones, maybe they liked camping Fear night after night after night too, I don’t know. Maybe they enjoyed waking up at 3 in the morning to catch the Planes’ respawn, or a naked corpse retrieval in Howling Stones, or camping key pieces FOR THE ENTIRE FUCKING GUILD … different players enjoy different activities.

This is just me. I enjoy good.

Concepted “Discipline” system for RoK as a non-employee — ok, this wasn’t bad. Actually, borderline genius. The concept itself was a great idea to keep the tanks and melee types interested after maxing their level.
Mage Epic quest, implementation — should be beaten with a stapler. If memory serves, the mage epic was THE WORST (ya, WORSE than the cleric epic bullshit), single-handedly turned every mage into a begging, whining whore.
Rogue Epic quest, concept and implementation — heh. Let’s just say, if you played a rogue, you loved the rogue epic quest. (hint: crazy easy.) I would have too if I was a rogue.
Western Wastes, items and implementation — bleh. Fucking annoying zone to run across on your way to a better zone. Unless you were a bard, or had a bard taxi, death was a good possibility depending on what dragons were roaming about. Hunted here a few times too. Doubly annoying.
Dragon Necropolis, items, implementation and population concept — Cool looking zone. Only went here for the boss dragon or for the dragon that would spawn outside (WHICH was a bitch and a half to kill — fucking AEs.)
“Ambush” and “Flavor Text” trigger concept (based on Dan Enright’s brilliant solution to the trap problem) — not really sure what is meant here, but I did hate traps so if it solved traps in some way, then I’m all for it.
Sleeper’s Tomb, items, implementation, population concept, and cross-zone event concept and implementation — I was a melee character in EQ, I loved Sleeper’s. Like every other guild on every other server, our casters hated it. Was a CONSTANT struggle to get them to participate. Finally, we used DKP bonuses to force them to help out. The cross-zone shit was cool though. Witnessed some of this, liked it.
Revamped the Plane of Hate, concept and implementation — Still sucked. FIX THE DAMN PATHING. Jesus. You’d clear, clear, clear mobs so the group could run to whichever is their favorite pull area, run to camp, everyone LOGS OUT to clear the hate list because you just know someone nicked a building corner on the way and half the zone was incoming, probably via a ceiling drop. Heh, we were so excited when they announced that Hate had been fixed … finally! After years of bullshit pathing, it was fixed. God, we were naive.
Repopulated Runnyeye Citadel, items, concept and implementation — I never tried this out after the revamp, but other people said it was great and they enjoyed it. Frankly, no one really went there before the revamp — sucky experience, train heavy IF there was someone else in the zone, bullshit loot for the most part — was a good idea to redo this.
Sanctus Seru, Marus Seru, Netherbian Lair, Mons Letalis, concepts and implementations — Only pass through zones to me. No comment.
Grieg’s End, concept and implementation — Hated. Guild raided Grieg and the Servitor of Luclin from time to time. Annoying ass mobs in an annoying ass zone. Hated. Hated.

I didn’t hate everything in Velious and Luclin. Just many, many things. I didn’t hate Kael Drakkal … tough mofo bosses, the faction hunting wasn’t overly annoying. I wasn’t fond of the armor quest mob that was buried behind see-inviz KOS giants, but that was nothing that a bard sprint, mage summon or a sneak and hide couldn’t solve.

I didn’t hate Ssra Temple exactly. If the guild could get the temple to ourselves for a night and the bosses were up, there was some good raiding. I grew to hate Vex Thal (who didn’t!), but on my first visit, after rezzing all the guild idiots that couldn’t handle arriving safely, it wasn’t a bad experience.

I’ll tell ya the EQ zones that I always thought (and said, many times) were stellar: Lower Guk and Sebilis. The frog zones! Good itemization, clearly definable camps (so you could kick out intruders … DAMMIT, we said we had the ENTIRE disco camped, assholes!), reasonable mob spawn rate and experience, and the best arguments in the /shout and /ooc channels.

There was a reason that Guk and Sebilis, for their time, had waiting lists every night: they were perfect. AND they had bad-ass frogs.

I’ve sometimes wondered what happened to the frog dude that designed Guk and Sebilis. In other worlds, when I’ve found a zone that I thought was perfectly designed, I would often think, “I’ll bet the frog dude did this zone. It’s that good.”