no clue what good a new expansion will do with most servers players MIA ...

the next expansion is the first in a while to look interesting. RoK was when i started EQ and played for years and loved it. the difference now vs. then is most of the players have left Luclin and other servers and don't even raid anymore.

maybe if classes and mercs were balanced to solo to end game (like most MMOs), more could level up at their own pace solo'ish. Then maybe more would be around at max level to raid or group...even 3 boxing is a pain leveling at endgame the way xp and zones are setup now....

no clue how i would get back into EQ1 at this point. EQ2 has some interesting content, WoW Legion has been interesting, and even ESO is looking good also. EQ1 is a major time sink the way XP and endgame is handled. all the newer games are setup in a way to get a raid or group instance done in and hour or two at most, where EQ1 can be good part of an evening or weekend day raiding and/or LFG.

i have 3 accounts with a year sub now so i can only hope EQ1/2 will be pulling peeps back to the main servers to enjoy the new expansions. PS2 is still plan B for my subs, it's still a fun game.

1. This is a multiplayer game. Not Skyrim. While some can solo, some cannot. And solo classes cannot do all content in a current expansion, so some grouping is necessary.

2. Considering there are players who are max level within seven days of an expansion release, it seems like levelling is easy in today's game.

3. Kids are back in school soon. Adults will have more time to play instead of spending time with the family.

4. Today I invited someone and their box to group. They turned auto attack on, and that was it. Their box was "lagging severely" and casted a total of five spells in 20 minutes. After 20 minutes the player had to AFK and go out to eat with their family, but decided to stay in group. Needless to say I will never invite this player again.

The good players get groups. The bad players don't.

i know this topic causes butt-hurt for some but it is the case. PVE makes up a small part of the game for MMOs and without world events can be a solo'ish game. Skyrim and Fallout 4 are very nice games, this is not what people playing (wanting to play) EQ1/2 want, so relax and lets see if this can be discussed without insulting peeps....

5. Wouldn't matter. Some of us can't raid, because none of the guilds raid on a schedule that fits our schedule.

In response to 4... holy cow. You have WAY more patience than me. I would've booted him as soon as the "just hit auto-attack" thing became apparent.... and I'm a boxer! If you can't do it reasonably well, don't burden somebody else with it.

Tat

It was probably a 9 year old playing on someone's account. (Or at least you have to hope so.)

How am I insulting?

You stated in the OP that you want players to be able to solo to max level/AA where your thought is that more groups would be available. Unless I am reading it wrong. I am saying EQ is not a solo game, and to allow everyone to solo their way would not allow people to all of a sudden group up in the end in all circumstances. What you want would not cause more groups to happen; instead I feel the opposite would happen- everyone can do everything they want solo, so why bother with groups?

At least now there is some solo content, some content you must group on, and some content that is in between (duos, boxers, etc). Some classes can blur the lines between them to some extent, but in the end there is content that can be soloed and grouped.

So no, I disagree with your premise to allow everyone to solo to max in order to create more groups. The opposite would occur.

What Cicelee said.

Classic EQ died when mercenaries were added. No one needs to group anymore to progress.

For EQ, outside of Zek, PVP makes up exactly zero percent of the game, with PVE making up the rest.

I cannot speak for other MMO's except for FF14, in which PVP makes a very tiny, very ignorable part of the game, and PVE making up the rest.

i agree. i should have said content outside of raid and instances (Dungeons) make up a small part of the game. EQ1 is all PVE, always has been.

there is no solo content except for well geared alts and/or a few classes.

sitting in a wall group for hours leveling is nuts. it was the way to level for years, but as the game's name states everQuest, the quest should be a major part of leveling. but tasks and quests in EQ1 are not solo-able but by a few classes. Dungeons and Raids are group/guild activities. without the questing gear of max level, endgame activities cant be attempted. EQ1 requires groups for endgame, i don't see why anyone can say solo questing to max level would hurt the endgame (and may even motivate some to return).

i had fun sitting with croc groups, gob groups, and such for hours on end this past December on phinny. was like the old days. at this point playing EQ1 is a major timesink and requires hardcore gamers to have fun.

Wrong to be honest. If they didn't add mercs, the game would have been shut down long long ago. People were very tired of sitting around for hours waiting for a group just because there were no healers available... then the healer would log and back to waiting again. They were vital to the game to continue on. DPS mercs on the other hand were never needed and were a pointless addition.

You must be living a decade back in time. The problem is what the OP said, EQ takes far to much time to get anything done, when other games offer entertainment at a less costly time expense.

I'll stick to WoW Legion for now, and wait till most of the goobers like you buy the expansion , and actually see if they put out "real" content, before investing my money into Daybreak.

No, we're both correct. And then they added mercs and people didn't even TRY to get groups anymore. It completely broke the social system, reliance on other classes, and inter-dependencies. Now everything is generalized. As a healer, the problem was never finding a tank.

Now you can log in and DO something, but it permanently broke EQ as we all remember it. When I think of my time spent in EQ, I think of the groups that I formed and the content that we did. Today I just 3 box with mercs because most of the time everyone is doing the same and I would have a hard time *paying* someone to replace a merc simply for conversation.

It depends on the player. I box, but I also group - selectively. I refuse to do DH for example. It causes you to insert toothpicks into your eyes and ears for no apparent reason. I'm not going to group with people that press attack and stare at the screen hoping for wild cool things to happen.

There needs to be more tasks like Damsel of Decay, Enslaver, etc that are near impossible to box. People do complain about it too... constantly because they can't box it but too bad. Not everything needs to be boxed.

I don't really understand the mentality that EQ must conform to the status quo in other MMOs. If anything, I wish EQ went back to some of the ideas it had a decade ago. I certainly understand that people want different types of experiences, but why is it that EQ has to change when there are a plethora of other MMOs you could play if you wanted to solo to max level?

And honestly, I don't even really accept the premise (referring to the OP) that EQ takes a weekend day to get something done. You can get plenty done in an hour or two in EQ, the key is to actually talk to other people. I don't really see the problem with having to do so in an MMO, though maybe that interpretation of "massively multiplayer" is antiquated.

Headshot was fun when it procced often. Swarming was fun before it was nerfed. Charm kiting was fun before it was nerfed. Mercs were great before they were nerfed. Seeing a pattern here? Nothing fun to do except chat.

Cue the people who post to tell us how easy everything is and we should all go play WOW or tell us to suck less:

Agree that the demand for a merc kind of solution sorely predated mercs themselves. If you don't agree, you probably don't realize what percentage of veteran players were boxing fully macro'd/automated characters to increase the functionality of their game experience. There's a well-established pattern of expansions offering functionality that had previously existed already via 3rd party programs. Mercs is just a particularly dramatic example.

it is for the best if EQ stays unique, has some of the quirks of the past. but a lot of the "features" from back then were due to the state of the industry and tech at the time. i love EQ story, look and feel (art), and the people it attracts (most of them). these aspects need to stay in line with EQ. EQs guild from years ago i was a cleric thus had a lot of "friends" and guild mates. EQ was the first MMO i even traveled to meet the people in my guild in RL. i and most people do play EQ to group and raid. we do try hard to make groups. with this said, times change, somethings are replaced with improved tech and methods. the industry has added some fun features that have been shared with all MMOs in some way.

the new expansion has a chance to be more quests, more open world solo and team (less than a group) experienced. people need to want to log in, be productive in less time, and come back to EQ. the OP was my suggestion for the start.

I would prefer that EQ stay the unique game that it was, but it needed to evolve with the times. It did that a little bit but sadly not nearly enough. The game is still far behind other games and the MMO industry in many ways.

I think at this point the only things that should be full group or greater should be progression tasks, raid targets, and the most powerful named mobs. Everything else should be soloable or boxable without needing a balanced or specific group makeup.

Mercs pretty much killed the group game as far as I am concerned. I remember how awesome the game was years ago when the game was designed for groups of players. You cannot tell me the game is still as good. The LFG tool was useful once, but after mercs came along it strangely stopped being used at all. While the old grouping could be very painful when it came to looking for tanks and clerics or just waiting for hours for a group it was profoundly more beneficial for any good player than soloing. The social aspect was one of EQ greatest things about it and post mercs this has disappeared entirely outside of small clickes.