What would your suggestion to make EQ greet again!

That sounds great, and it seems like this could be implemented in EQ without too much work. They already have systems in place similar to this when you de-level. If a 120 de-leveled to 80, they still can use the level-appropriate spells and AA's. One main issue would be the equipped gear that would have required levels too high, but that seems easily addressed. When in mentor mode, bump req level down and scale the stats to the lower level. Even if it makes the mentor player OP'ed, so what? The 120 player could instead just be doing PL babysitting by casting massive buffs on the lower level player as they blast through content. Either way there are opportunities to be OP'ed, but mentoring actually sounds like fun and would make the lower-level experience a lot more enjoyable. It seems like the systems in EQ are already have about 80% of the function they need for mentoring. Putting a bit more effort in this to fully implement it would have huge payouts for the health of the game.

More content

UI update (on the roadmap)
Display Technology has already moved far past the 1080P era & significant numbers of players use bigger displays.
Way too much bloat with the current UI anyway.
In conjunction with a combat overhaul a reduction in how much on-screen real-estate the current chatbox & hotbar-hell occupies is a necessary exercise, whole thing needs streamlining for the modern era.

Combat bloat reduction (likely required for the reduction of lag anyway)
Too much whack-a-mole feel to combat.
Too many dang hotbuttons & macros required overall and surely the thousands of players jabbing their spam-bar hotkey is creating a data-stream that is far too heavy anyway.
Moving EQ to a more strategic kind of combat from an almost action-oriented one that doesn't really suit the game anyway might reclaim some of the resource management strategy the game used to have & which is hampered by the need to bash certain buttons on a constant basis. The move to longer battles with mobs that have larger effective hp pools should bolster that shift in direction.

Graphics Engine Update
Probably several thousands threads & posts asked for this already, among the biggest obstacles to new players even trying EQ after the confusing UI are the antiquated graphics & models.

Catch-up-System(s)
I've long suggested a Side-kicking system (as used in City of Heroes) or something like it which allows players of any level to group together, other players have suggested the same or similar thing under various other names "Squire System", "Level mimic", "Level Boost".
I went into detail on how I would go about creating that here - LInk to Post

Increase Expansions in size & Content
This one entirely depends upon the growth of the team because we have been getting too-small expansions for the past 10 years or so, this is not the fault of the devs just a by-product of their much-reduced numbers.

Continue to innovate on the TLP concept
This one needs the players contributing as much as it does the devs.
Ideas like Level-Locking & later expansion starts are worth exploring in broader terms but also maybe some funky rulesets that are more left-of-field.
Level-Locked-Progression
Era-Locked Progression (Vaniki uses that)
Fast-Unlock Progression (Selo style)
LoY unlocked earlier than PoP
LDoN unlocked with PoP or even earlier (Wayfarer TLP)
GoD-Start Progression Server (Vaniki uses that)
TSS-Start Progression Server (popular enough to get a shot next year perhaps)
Truebox (I believe that all future TLP should use the relaxed > switched off cadence that 2022's TLP will).
Free Trade/Random Loot TLP - once Mischief/Thornblade have a combined population that is down to just a few guilds do another because this was a popular server at launch.

Add-in content for pre-Live expansions (stretch- goal dependent upon team size & the above mentioned goals being hit)
Not suggesting whole-expansion sized updates for earlier expansions but some Veksar / Sol-C style additional zones with a quest arc tied into them using more modern design priciples would be cool.
Classic has several zones on the original Map that were never iterated on, those would be where I would start on this effort, especially as Classic is still one of the weakest eras in terms of raid content.
Adding in a couple of those zones as group content & one or two for raids all with classic-era statted gear drops & some of the funkier mechanics used in later expansions so even recyclers can see what later expansions bring to the table beyond the tank & spank eras, sort of an indirect "education of the recyclers" effort.
Add in one or two of these zones a year so they grow gradually in number.

Seems like contradicting wants.
Raider wants raider stuff. More long drawn tasks.
Group wants less focus on raider and more group stuff. Less long drawn tasks

Easy fix, make T1 T2 group zones easy for groupers, make T3 group zone designed for raiders/serious groupers in mind.

Make content longer?
Easy fix, do what they do with raids.
Make group content time locked.

You don't waste time in timesinks when its not a timesink but its locked because you have to wait 3 months to do it. Just like raids, not all raids are unlocked day 1. Because, they'd all be beaten on day 1. Hence timelock. Also, you can make it a bit tougher, but once next part of content is unlocked, it gets easier for those still have not completed it yet.

So dothis with group content too. T2 zones don't become available until a few months, tier 3 doesn't become available until few months after that.

Pros. They focus bug fixes on select few zones. Rather than bug fixing all over the place.
More people doing samething, easier to find groups
Cons. Gotta wait if your someone who plays 24/7/365, get everything done in days.


As for me.
Meta events, would make EQ .

What are meta events?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers
Basically something really fun and rewarding event happens.
Don't have to be grouped with anyone, you just show up, and participate and get rewards.
The rewards are equivalent to EQ T2/T3 GROUP gear loot rare chance, T1 GROUP GEAR loot common chance.
Can't kill stuff, can't find groups, having hard time finding fun? Meta events is the solution.
These are OPEN world events.
No groups/no raids necessary, you show up, participate, make sure you win. Everyone gets reward.

One another thing that would make EQ
Wait periods.
Having to wait on a boat to zone, having to wait on an airship to zone.
Put in the translocator when the expansion becomes old, but when its fresh.
Wait periods.

More greetings are needed?

1. Less lag
2. " "
3. " "
4. " "
5. " "
6. Some new AA's that are,... actually new.
7. Pizza Not really an in-game thing, but I am hungry ATM.
8. Fan Faire
9. Less lag in Overseer.
10. Lots of odd failures in Overseer. I know this has already been mentioned, but I needed one more to fit into the Letterman era paradigm of ten.

Make level increase expansion gear equippable at the previous expansions max level.

Come up with a better way to obtain powersources. Having them as rare drops sporadically on some expansions and not others plus having them available through TS that requires the Rallos Zek Earring Quest #6? And then requiring Alchemy, Tinkering, and Poison Making is mental. This might be okay if they didn't have a limited life span.

Remake the game with the original 3 continents with a new engine.

One thing that would help with button bloat would be if they made a way to activate AA's directly from the AA window without having to first make a hotkey. In the place where the "Buy All", "Train", and "Hotkey" buttons are, add an "Activate" button to directly activate the AA. This way I don't have to have hotbars filled with AAs that I only use rarely.

[One way to avoid creating hotbuttons for rarely used AAs is to use the "/alt activate <aa_id>" method to activate an AA from the chat window, but it would be more convenient to have an Activate button on the AA screen itself. I would already be bringing up the AA window to find the ID in the first place.]

UI update. People play on 1440p and 4k (myself included) monitors, but the UI is impossibly small at those resolutions. I have to reduce my computer's resolution to 1080p every time I want to play Everquest, and I shouldn't have to do that.

Expansions with more content.

It's a Fantasy game! IMO, the game headed downhill when REAL LIFE VALUES started to be incorporated. Let Wizard BLOW Stuff Up! Give the Class the Mana needed to do the job! Let Knights Swarm Pull! Sheesh. Quite NERFING the Hell out of everything. There is No Unfair in Fantasy

PS, I choose my toon to play for what I could do. Not what it couldn't do.
... Hardcore player since Kunark.

Follow through with EQ Census for EQ1.

more EQ advertising ..................

1). HD Remaster, not remake, but just cleaned up sharper textures/resolutions and graphics. (Please no zone or mob re-draws, or at least ones that are mandatory.

2). Something to mix up the solo game, so more than 1 merc, changes in mercs, changes in perks that are solo/molo friendly.

3). Something to make real-player groups worth a lot more:

(In a hurry, cause i should be getting off here and heading to bed, but 3A-3F are not necessarily separate points each, just breaking up the run-on-sentence/thought from hell a bit for easier reading)

3A). so another (but really big this time) bonus to real-player groups.
3B). Bonus in experience increases per amount of real players in the group, to quite a bit of a bonus for 6 separate people.
3C). Things here is that while you boosted the solo game, and they're chugging along faster than ever, the people who have zero mercs, but a real group made are (seemingly) flying through the content, or if no exp bonus, maybe other bonuses in affect "All damage output +15% while 6 member group" or "All damage intake reduced etc, things like that.
3D). This could still go back and benefit the guy who wants to run 6 accounts, or 2 people who run 3 accounts each, etc, -- but still the amount of work being put in, to play more than 1 account would offset the bonus being giving that would appear to indirectly encourage 6 person bot groups (but again, no mercs can be in this group for those kinds of benefits)
3E). consider other bonuses like some kind of evolution/leveling treadmill that is purely relational between if 2 accounts have grouped together before, for example, every time I login and group with Skuz, and make the effort to match his play time, and stay in his level range etc, I'm leveling up my "synergy with Skuz" which increases how much bonuses whether in damage output increase or damage intake reduction (or other group perks/bonuses) or just simply an exp bonus, that unless me and Skuz have a complete falling out, find other people to date, or one of us quits the game
3F). it would almost always be beneficial to level with that person, like basically strong incentives to create statics, or build community, or level up with guild mates, and also things like if I'm falling behind, Skuz now has incentive to encourage me along, and try to meet my schedule, or keep me from quitting etc etc
....could help keep more people addicted longer.

4) Big focus on Quality of Life items. Things that would include the UI, but also things that (as has been discussed to death here lately) lead people to want to use 3rd party addons/illegal programs. -- things that helped make the experience more manageable and fund, but not things that are just cheats/hacking stuff that takes the fun away from others.

5) Server that I guess like Rizlona, or like has been discussed, a Prison Server, where there, and only there (unless well received, and votes/desire spreads to other newer servers) allowed more stuff than what you see on a typical live server.

6) Some new surveys asking the community what they want. -- Even if manipulated, like lets say I go created 500 alt accounts to push TLP PVP, even with the risk of manipulation, would seemingly still give some good feedback to the comany, or use registered account emails, or use the in game voting stuff they created a few years back for those TLP that vote on expansion unlocks.

7) Along with the Rizlona/Prison/Relaxed Rules server thing, make a server that encouraged bot play, or encouraged solo play. Call it the anti-social server, the "they don't play EQ the way it was meant to be played, they should just play a 1player game, geez" server (to which I would have a lot of fun playing on said server) ... not only creating a server with a label like this, but even more so, looking at some of the stuff from above, and play around with the benefits/bonuses to playing the game a different way. This same server would allow all HA/LDON zones that somehow required more than 1 person or account to bypass this, like 1 person could go into LDoN all by themselves.

I mean, if you have a special server for it, with it not trying to create an environment where everybody gets along great, and it's simply "a different world here" or "different way to play the game" .. you could change so many things, or almost like all the options and variations you can make with an emulated server.

8) More Perks. Perks scream pay 2 win, and scream "we're bringing the mobile gaming p2w mentality to EQ" and I'm not sure they are whats best for the game and all servers in a one-size-fits-all, but perhaps make more p2w'ish type perks that can generate even more revenue for EQ1, keeping them in check by making them only available on certain servers, or never available on certain servers, make it where they're never on TLP, or special ones, only on special TLP rulesets, or they do come to TLP but much much later on.

9) -- as an extension on number 7 --- "...or just release a 1 player client" of the game. Not necessarily something with a ton of work put into it, that costs the studio a ton of dev time and money, but something that is basically lets you load your client "offline" and connects only to 1 particular server or something on the server select screen -- but still a real world. Agent of Change on everything that matters, if not the option to create your own pick zone or something as you play that you can invite/summon others 2, otherwise it's only your zone, but once you zone out or even die and respawn in a different zone, this created pickzone or instance goes away, something like that, but it has online-only options baked in like bazaar/trader bots, chat channels, zone chats (maybe some zones like Guild Lobby or PoK are NOT instances) so kind of like the pseudo online games out there, where it's really a single player game, but there is online elements.

10). Some kind of mobile client for the game. Seems right up there with "HD Remaster" on number 1 on a list of things that "it's just not that simple man" and probably won't ever happen, but that would help drum up a lot of business I think. People playing EQ from their tablet etc.

I got my Steam Deck the week of April 25th, and some people are using them already to play mmos, including ones where it seems like it would not be.... ideal like Everquest (just google it, you'll see a reddit thread about EQ on steam deck) ... but man, if there was some kind of Steam-Deck friendly set up for this, I'd play EQ a WHOLE lot more. -- it's more about being able to have a decent controller setup. But anyway, being able to play EQ from bedroom while with the wife as she's near me watching netflix on her tablet, ya, that's where this number 10 thing appeals to me.



-- I need to get off to bed, been typing on this post for about 20-25 minutes. --- These were just really rough ideas thrown out there off the top of my head. If anything looks like "you obviously didn't think this through man" type stuff, ya it's rough, not polished, so dont yell at me too hard.

HD Remaster, for me meaning improved Textures/Resolutions would be amazing (but very unlikely each year that goes by).... and I'm really excited for this UI upgrade coming, and I hope it's HUGE, and not just a fancier cleaner arrange/display of the same buttons. -- I hope it's much more than that, the kind of stuff that you find in newer MMO UI's.



That's what I got!

ya, the way I think they could be true to you, and the many who share your desire, is for some of the things people suggest (like some of my crazy ones) only limit it to new servers, or a special server, or whatever.

At this point, ALL of us want to see EQ continue for another 10-20 years. We're all pretty loyal to this game and the crew who make it.

I don't know.

I didn't always want to play this game all anti-social like, or 1player-game style, or time-constrained & RL first like ... but hey if I can have my cake and eat it too, I'll throw the idea in the pot!

Static database dump containing recipes, items, mob names. (Omit which mob drops what, what is a placeholder, etc). A real high fidelity dump for fan sites and other enthusiasts.

Similar to how CCP Games released static data for Eve Online.

Beyond that, native Mac support (especially those fancy ARM Macs).

In terms of game design: rip the bandaid off and abandon the cookie cutter expansions with the same spells, the same recipes, the same craft materials
It's stale and not very engaging. Transition to a crazy system which is compelling Beyond figuring out what a given expansion's diamond, lumber, and ore is.

1. Strenghten the community !
2. Make new expansions compatible with not so powerfull single players like FTP/Silver accounts and AllAccess players that are 10 levels below the cap. Much more expansions would be sold. Current expansions have nearly nothing to offer for free/silver accounts.
3. More zones per expansion including small instanced dungeons (maze, sorcery tower, crypt, castle dungeon) in LDoN style with an adaptive (dynamic) mob power range and a high replay factor (see #2). The expedition/adventure/shared task giving NPC should be located close to the dynamic zone entrance. Only short 10 minute replay timers for RL breaks and socialicing.
4. Atmosphere improvements by harmonic and melodic music tracks. Most music tracks are to brute and do get muted fast. Original EQ and TSoL do have the most of the best music compositions so why not hire Jay Barbeau again ?! Triggered local music themes like in original EQ (SK aviak tower, Ak'Anon, GFAY) was also a cool thing. There is much potential in audio improvements.
5. EverQuest III - Honestly EverQuest will never be gre/\t again it is like a fight against windmills. But it still can be improved.

1. Performance increases
2. New UI engine and UI re-design from the ground up.
3. Spend 3-4 expansions keeping us at level 120 so that we can get some real class re-works, button consolidations, etc., in order to have meaningful impact on class fantasy and group/raid combat for the future.

Make EQ "Great"? That's a tough one.

1. Increase EQ funding way beyond what would be profitable.
2. Open source the engine/backend and hire a team of people to manage this and introduce player-contributed modifications.
3. Move to Unreal 5 and hire a team of Unreal devs to handle the transfer.
4. Focus on creating a group-required + box friendly game in the modern era with similar rules as EQ.

Pure nonsense.