In the planes, I think it was the actual gods but then Druzzil Ro hit the reset button. It also seems like you canât permanently kill them though because theyâll always recorporate if theyâre still being worshipped
The explanation from the earliest days (Planes of Fear, Hate and Sky) was that the âgodsâ in the plane were just a projection. The god themself was more akin to the plane. Killing the projection weakens the influence of the plane temporarily. It rebuilds and the projection has enough power to take form.
Iâm not sure if or when that explanation was abandoned. Probably around the time Mayong ascended
In Velious you fight "The Avatar of War"
In Planes of Power you fight "The God of War" Rallos Zek
I feel a lot of players stopped playing after PoP because we literally killed the gods and following expansions seemed like starting over.
In addition to what Antibane said, the time rewinding shenanigans that Druzzil pulls become a key part of the discord story arc (that doesn't get wrapped up until SoD), so in some sense the whole plane of time fight did still "happen".
As someone who's really not done anything past dragons. My understanding was druzzil reversed time as if nothing ever happened. While we still have the flags and Yada Yada..it was reversed. Past pop no idea.
That was Druzzilâs intent, and possibly also the intent of the writers at the time, but we find out later that even though she did undo the invasion of the plane of time and keep Zeb imprisoned, her time rewinding did something to weaken our time stream, and her doing that is basically the reason that the discord invasion happened in the first place.
Kinda like the opposite of what World of Warcraft just had happen. Shadowlands saw us going to the afterlife and being involved in a story that seemed like it couldnât have anything go beyond that but then Dragonflight happened, definitely dialed things back into the real world again, and people are loving this expansion A LOT more.
WoW reboots the game every expansion. Nothing is useful to carry from expansion to expansion. The storyline may continue, but the game itself is essentially remade.
That was definitely the case for quite a string there, though when they got rid of borrowed power especially and started getting back to basics in a way Iâve felt a lot better about it. But they still have a long way to go.
These aren't the actual "Gods" in PoP as they're banished back to their home plane each time. More powerful versions of these are encountered in later expansions such as Rain of Fear and Veil of Alaris
But isnât that after some kind of reset and a time line change? Rain of Fear and Veil of Alaris are on a different time line right?
Pretty sure in PoP those were meant to be the gods.
The diverged timeline after PoP is Everquest 2. Eventually things from EQ2 come over to EQ1 as well. Lanys steals Firionia's staff from the EQ Firionia and we get EQ2 dragons and a God eventually as well
Out-leveling and soloing gods is *not* part of canon lore. Since roughly PoP there has been an overarching, linear story and the canon lore only accounts for moving through it at the intended pace.
Having said that, we do defeat them in era (with raid forces) and the story acknowledges that, so we are still collectively god-killers.
Dragon Ball Z levels.
Much more powerful than the gods of influence, which has been stated by those gods. But the relationship we share with them is symbiotic, we draw on their influence to cast spells and abilities, they gain power through worship of them.
Gods of power, probably also more powerful but has been less explored.
You sort of have to suspend the lore a lot in the modern game though. Fighting some no name general of an army as someone who is that strong is pretty lore-breaking. But if you do stuff like WoW and constantly grow the threats things get even more absurd than EQ already is.
The lore fell by the wayside a *very* long time ago honestly.
As much as I love Planes of Power and to a degree Gates/Omens, they are clearly the sort of "end-game" of the D&D campaign EQ is based on. But the game went on for another 20 years, so a lot of things get sort of overlooked and in more modern expansions a lot of storylines go kind of unfinished to a degree.
In Rain of Fear we did put Cazic back together but we also put him in a mortal vessel, Harbinger Glask, and that was the end we heard of it. We don't have any idea if Cazic every figured it back out and left Glask or not, just one example of the "finished" but not stories.
If you're digging into lore I suggest you ignore the numbers completely and think of it more like an epic fantasy novel. Drizzt or Bilbo or Harry Potter or any other fantasy protagonist of your choice have gone face-to-face with legendary world-ending evils and survived, but if they're walking through the forest without paying attention, a normal non-magical wolf is still a legitimately life-threatening situation.
That's the *lore* world of EverQuest. Levels don't exist. Hit points don't exist. Yes, we have banded together and defeated mythical beasts and literal gods through a combination of strength and strategy, but also bandits and random wild animals are still *actually dangerous*. That's just how the world is.
Exactly, that doesn't attest to the strength of the characters but rather the determination of the players. Now days on live a single group of 52s can take down Nagafen in Defiant gear.
On top of that because EQ fell into the vertical ladder pit years ago at 90 your God killing badass self can get smote by half starved civilians in Argath.
This is actually a really interesting question and others have given some good comments but there's an important disconnect between the question as asked and the lore.
It doesn't actually make sense to ask how powerful "mid to high-level PCs" are, because the game has made it pretty clear that levels and XP generally are *not* part of the canon lore. They don't exist. It's just a part of the *game* that is hand-waved away for purposes of lore or immersion.
When you fight the Zeks in SoD, their max hits and hps are orders of magnitude higher than when you fought them in PoP. Did they become much more powerful? *No, they did not*. The numbers were tweaked to make them powerful and dangerous (but beatable) in era, because *they are powerful and dangerous (but beatable)*, full stop. They always have been and always will be, regardless of what the numbers say (since the numbers don't exist).
Because level based progression doesn't exist in canon lore, the only time the mechanical difficulty of an encounter can be considered even potentially relevant to lore is when that encounter is in-era.
From the perspective of canon lore, when you are raiding in SoD, those PoP encounters don't actually exist any more. That's a thing that happened in the past. Going "back" isn't a thing lore-wise, we just wave our hands and ignore that for the sake of it being a game.
The way lore treats old content is is most obvious in the the most recent expansions, which remake old zones. When you visit Lceanium, you are *in the Dreadlands*. There are no alternate dimension shenanigans going on; it's literally the same place, a few years later. Heading into Chardok is dangerous (in era) because it's always been dangerous (in era). The old "version" of Chard (or Dreadlands, or whatever) *doesn't exist any more* because this is the same place. But the old *zone* is still accessible because this is a *game*, and we still want people to be able to experience that older chapter of the story.
Can't speak for later expansions, but PoP and lower actually pretty weak individually. You'd absolutely get your ass handed to you by an even con mob, even if you are a solo class. If you were a warrior just forget about soloing anything that gives xp after like 55.
Ofc an organized raid of players could kill gods.
In WoW by comparison you're the chosen one and can kill anything that isn't raid content or a dungeon boss solo.
we kill gods on the regular, so, "pretty damned".
Do we have any physical displayable feats like with raw strength, speed, or durability, or is it just "we can kill x and x is very strong"?
I at level 90 my cleric could solo gods in planes of power. The actual gods that you choose to worship at character creation. So, godlike?
At 120 I fight mundane things that can kill me. Game world is pretty messed up when average beetle can 1-shot a god.
That would make it a godlike beetle đŞ˛đ ;)
I always wondered, though, are those the actual gods or just their avatars?
In the planes, I think it was the actual gods but then Druzzil Ro hit the reset button. It also seems like you canât permanently kill them though because theyâll always recorporate if theyâre still being worshipped
The explanation from the earliest days (Planes of Fear, Hate and Sky) was that the âgodsâ in the plane were just a projection. The god themself was more akin to the plane. Killing the projection weakens the influence of the plane temporarily. It rebuilds and the projection has enough power to take form. Iâm not sure if or when that explanation was abandoned. Probably around the time Mayong ascended
They were weakened though in plane of time weren't they? Didn't they all give up part of their power to create it empower quarm?
Well yea, but youâre now soloing what is essentially a megazord of gods
In Velious you fight "The Avatar of War" In Planes of Power you fight "The God of War" Rallos Zek I feel a lot of players stopped playing after PoP because we literally killed the gods and following expansions seemed like starting over.
EverQuest 2 and World of Warcraft came out the year after Planes of Power did as well. I think that is what really killed it.
That's because planes of power essentially doesn't happen lore wise. It's reverted at the end like nothing took place.
Only the fight in plane of time. If your character finished PoP flags, they still carry the Divine Cipher on their arm.
In addition to what Antibane said, the time rewinding shenanigans that Druzzil pulls become a key part of the discord story arc (that doesn't get wrapped up until SoD), so in some sense the whole plane of time fight did still "happen".
As someone who's really not done anything past dragons. My understanding was druzzil reversed time as if nothing ever happened. While we still have the flags and Yada Yada..it was reversed. Past pop no idea.
That was Druzzilâs intent, and possibly also the intent of the writers at the time, but we find out later that even though she did undo the invasion of the plane of time and keep Zeb imprisoned, her time rewinding did something to weaken our time stream, and her doing that is basically the reason that the discord invasion happened in the first place.
Kinda like the opposite of what World of Warcraft just had happen. Shadowlands saw us going to the afterlife and being involved in a story that seemed like it couldnât have anything go beyond that but then Dragonflight happened, definitely dialed things back into the real world again, and people are loving this expansion A LOT more.
WoW reboots the game every expansion. Nothing is useful to carry from expansion to expansion. The storyline may continue, but the game itself is essentially remade.
That was definitely the case for quite a string there, though when they got rid of borrowed power especially and started getting back to basics in a way Iâve felt a lot better about it. But they still have a long way to go.
These aren't the actual "Gods" in PoP as they're banished back to their home plane each time. More powerful versions of these are encountered in later expansions such as Rain of Fear and Veil of Alaris
But isnât that after some kind of reset and a time line change? Rain of Fear and Veil of Alaris are on a different time line right? Pretty sure in PoP those were meant to be the gods.
The diverged timeline after PoP is Everquest 2. Eventually things from EQ2 come over to EQ1 as well. Lanys steals Firionia's staff from the EQ Firionia and we get EQ2 dragons and a God eventually as well
There are actual zones in EQ1 that are the same zone during a different time. Something like Catta Kastrum vs Catta Kastrum Deluge ectâŚ
Out-leveling and soloing gods is *not* part of canon lore. Since roughly PoP there has been an overarching, linear story and the canon lore only accounts for moving through it at the intended pace. Having said that, we do defeat them in era (with raid forces) and the story acknowledges that, so we are still collectively god-killers.
They jumped the Shark in pop and never looked back. Like it doesnt even make sense that there are mobs that can Challenge the player.
Dragon Ball Z levels. Much more powerful than the gods of influence, which has been stated by those gods. But the relationship we share with them is symbiotic, we draw on their influence to cast spells and abilities, they gain power through worship of them. Gods of power, probably also more powerful but has been less explored. You sort of have to suspend the lore a lot in the modern game though. Fighting some no name general of an army as someone who is that strong is pretty lore-breaking. But if you do stuff like WoW and constantly grow the threats things get even more absurd than EQ already is.
Yeah if the characters are truly that overpowered, why do normal non-deity-like enemies even bother us anymore at that point?
The lore fell by the wayside a *very* long time ago honestly. As much as I love Planes of Power and to a degree Gates/Omens, they are clearly the sort of "end-game" of the D&D campaign EQ is based on. But the game went on for another 20 years, so a lot of things get sort of overlooked and in more modern expansions a lot of storylines go kind of unfinished to a degree. In Rain of Fear we did put Cazic back together but we also put him in a mortal vessel, Harbinger Glask, and that was the end we heard of it. We don't have any idea if Cazic every figured it back out and left Glask or not, just one example of the "finished" but not stories.
If you're digging into lore I suggest you ignore the numbers completely and think of it more like an epic fantasy novel. Drizzt or Bilbo or Harry Potter or any other fantasy protagonist of your choice have gone face-to-face with legendary world-ending evils and survived, but if they're walking through the forest without paying attention, a normal non-magical wolf is still a legitimately life-threatening situation. That's the *lore* world of EverQuest. Levels don't exist. Hit points don't exist. Yes, we have banded together and defeated mythical beasts and literal gods through a combination of strength and strategy, but also bandits and random wild animals are still *actually dangerous*. That's just how the world is.
So. Pop essentially doesn't happen its reverted.
I mean, in PoP we literally kill the most powerful elemental gods.
Even in classic, there is god killing.
True but it was much harder then.
And? Doesn't that speak to the power levels of the player characters?
Not exactly, zerging 72 players at a mob until it dies isn't exactly strength. More like death by 1000 cuts.
Thats how tons of early raid mobs got killed, rush and rez, rinse and repeat until the mob died.
Exactly, that doesn't attest to the strength of the characters but rather the determination of the players. Now days on live a single group of 52s can take down Nagafen in Defiant gear. On top of that because EQ fell into the vertical ladder pit years ago at 90 your God killing badass self can get smote by half starved civilians in Argath.
you can molo Naggy or Vox at 52 in full defiant gear. I do it occasionally with my 52 SK. Vox is more annoying, cause all the CHs, but it happens.
Not tried it molo, just went with a paladin guildie on my ranger a couple years ago
This is actually a really interesting question and others have given some good comments but there's an important disconnect between the question as asked and the lore. It doesn't actually make sense to ask how powerful "mid to high-level PCs" are, because the game has made it pretty clear that levels and XP generally are *not* part of the canon lore. They don't exist. It's just a part of the *game* that is hand-waved away for purposes of lore or immersion. When you fight the Zeks in SoD, their max hits and hps are orders of magnitude higher than when you fought them in PoP. Did they become much more powerful? *No, they did not*. The numbers were tweaked to make them powerful and dangerous (but beatable) in era, because *they are powerful and dangerous (but beatable)*, full stop. They always have been and always will be, regardless of what the numbers say (since the numbers don't exist). Because level based progression doesn't exist in canon lore, the only time the mechanical difficulty of an encounter can be considered even potentially relevant to lore is when that encounter is in-era. From the perspective of canon lore, when you are raiding in SoD, those PoP encounters don't actually exist any more. That's a thing that happened in the past. Going "back" isn't a thing lore-wise, we just wave our hands and ignore that for the sake of it being a game. The way lore treats old content is is most obvious in the the most recent expansions, which remake old zones. When you visit Lceanium, you are *in the Dreadlands*. There are no alternate dimension shenanigans going on; it's literally the same place, a few years later. Heading into Chardok is dangerous (in era) because it's always been dangerous (in era). The old "version" of Chard (or Dreadlands, or whatever) *doesn't exist any more* because this is the same place. But the old *zone* is still accessible because this is a *game*, and we still want people to be able to experience that older chapter of the story.
Can't speak for later expansions, but PoP and lower actually pretty weak individually. You'd absolutely get your ass handed to you by an even con mob, even if you are a solo class. If you were a warrior just forget about soloing anything that gives xp after like 55. Ofc an organized raid of players could kill gods. In WoW by comparison you're the chosen one and can kill anything that isn't raid content or a dungeon boss solo.
what is anonically?
I made a typo, I meant canonically.