Don't try to live in the past. Let's spice TLPs up!

If the TLP cycle is going to continue with a new TLP being released every year and with a large player base playing on these TLPs I think focus should be put into making the game fun and fresh for these early expansions. I think the "I wish it was more like back in the day" is nothing more than a meme veteran EQ players use to describe the nostalgia of playing EQ for the first time. I think trying to recreate that feeling is also folly as it wasn't the gameplay that gave people that feeling but the newnest and how ahead of its time EQ was.
Frankly the gameplay of EQ when it came out had a lot of problems that were covered up by lack of player experience, and even if a perfect replica of that EQ was made people would not get that feeling they did 21 years ago. Its time as a community we ask for something fresh something to spice the TLP cycle. Here are some of my idea that I think are simple but would bring that wonder back into the game.
1) Class balance changes: War and Rog have had trouble being as fun and exciting as other classes shake up the meta a bit by buffing some of the less popular classes
2) Add 10-20 new items in the game: Some zones see very little attention give players a reason to go explore and find never before seen treasures
3) Add 1 or 2 new raid mechanics: All the raid content has been studied and optimized give players a surprise add some challenge by adding extra mechanics to the old fights. Could be as easy as giving Naggy a couple of spells that he uses at certain times that raids have to avoid/prepare for or make Vox spawn some adds that require to be mez/burned/offtanked for a certain period of time nothing crazy just something to throw people off their game
4) Make group mobs have more powerful abilities and compensate with better xp: Make the group content interesting to play. give caster mobs spells that I am going to be scared of and give melee mobs abilities I have to watch for (riposte disc). Having a few longer but more engaging fights would be more interesting than a long grind where nothing changes for 6 hours.
Let's stop searching to find that game we played long ago instead lets push for something new and exciting and we can bring back the days of fighting through the unknown, building strategies, and developing skill expression. What was fun about old EQ was the unknown.

The solution is called live and new expansions. TLP is for playing old stuff over and over. If you want new stuff play on live servers.

I would disagree because playing live doesn't fill a lot of what TLP players love. TLP players love the server launch. Where everyone is naked, the economy is fresh and there is a ton to do. Live servers don't provide this type of experience at all and its one that is super unique and amazing. even if I haven't played on the server long term I have played every TLP launch its kind of like an annual festival. Live servers also have HUGE time investment to catch up what frankly is impossible without being carried with the help of server veterans. TLPs are super new player friendly as everyone is on a equal playing field. As someone who has never played EQ a live server will just be confusion and frustration but on a TLP you can meet new people and play with them with no prior experience. Live servers tend to be very dead at anything but max level and EQ is a terrible game if no one is playing with you.

Play past PoP & all of the class balance changes are right there staring you in the face, new items, new clickies, new NPC abilities, new raid mechanics, new spells, new combat abilities, new disciplines etc. etc.

Rogues kick buttocks so do Warriors.

The game becomes more exciting with more challenge, less camp & grind & more working through stories.

Now I don't like all of the changes to EQ as the game progresses through each expansion.
I properly detest the way that the devs have taken the game in terms of tying up so much of the XP in the progression game & practically all but removing XP from killing creatures & it actually pisses me off that they are determined to continue down that path, it might be the one thing that eventually leads me to quit EQ altogether even because I feel that strongly about it.

But the rest of the game, yeah I'm loving it.

Leave old EQ the way it is, the reason your suggested changes won't work is because if you change them at all you change them for the whole game, this game all runs from one code base - enthusiasts like the P99 crew CAN have multiple code bases & that's something DPG doesn't want to & shouldn't need to have.

If you make the changes you suggest then you move drastically away from providing that true nostalgia trip. DPG can't make EQ like it was in '99 but that is different to completely overhauling the old game balance, altering npc abilities, adding a bunch of low level items & changing raid mechanics.

ftfy.

The entire sole specific reason that TLPs exist is for this exact purpose.

Even if they added new strategies, abilities and items, they would be new for a week and then everyone would know everything about them.

I was in a guild with Shakara on Agnarr... I don't think he was born yet in 1999

You want to spice things up?

Randomize all loot tables across the board every TLP.

Nagafen could end up dropping water flasks while pixies in Gfay cpuld be dropping cloak of flames.

Not knowing where everything is, that's the part that makes things crazy.

Why spice it up when you make tons re releasing?

Playing on Coirnav with my brother was probably the most fun i've had playing a video game since FF14 2.0 came out and I played with my brother and 2 friends for a few months. It wasn't even nostalgia. I just really enjoy the game with faster exp and with picks for zones and instances for raiding. I loved EQ in 1999 but the slow exp and lack of space for groups/raids back then just isn't as fun now a days for me. I'll never forget spending entire days sitting in Unrest with LFG on and shouting LFG every so often as a 21 warrior and never getting a group.

Point being, TLPs are just fun in general. I loved WoW from day 1 way more than EQ and I had 0 interest in playing on WoW Classic and I still don't.

Bad idea, here is SOE/DBG/Darkpaw past MOs to meet your requests.

Nerf all other classes. Keep War and Rog the same.

Add armor and weapons that are 10 levels below or more than your character. And are the same stats as drops in all other zones, but with a new name.

Add permenant spells called 'Mitigation of The Might-Might Might, and a Damage Shield.

Increase group mob difficulty 75% while Xp gain 1%.
Sprinkle extra mobs around the dungeons, with the same loot tables as before, so pulling less than two or three is near impossible even with a Monk.

Someone have nightmarish dreams in here, holy sheesh... just try to enjoy the game without trying to ruin it for everyone else

Are you sure you played in 1999 or any of the couple years following? There was no 'LFG' mechanic you could have turned on. shouting 'Looking For Group' is all we had.

.

But why leave in frustrating/unwanted/boring game mechanics? whats wrong with sprucing up old content? People play this content in fact there is a large majority of the EQ community that plays this content. Runescape still adds content to their Old School game and their player base loves it. Why not make QoL and needed balance changes?

Because that's exactly why TLP are popular in the first place.

What's wrong in playing beyond it to see something new?

And they do so precisely because they know it & feel familiar & comfortable with it, that's the very essence of what Nostalgia is.

This isn't Runescape.

QoL changes - tons of them were already made, corpse recovery being the biggest of all.

Balance changes - the LIVE game gets balance changes, the TLP only get balance changes when those live changes break the TLP game or make it trivial - that's largely why MoTM even exists & why focus effects were removed from pre-Luclin TLP with Mangler onwards.

Disagree. TLPs are popular because of the fresh start. people play them despite the bad mechanics not because of them.

Nothing but not really relevant to this post. If people are play the old content it should be given attention to

So? seeing what other games have success with is common tactic for improving. Hence WoW Classic.

And they have been successful. why stop something that makes people want to play more. Pickzones, instances, extended targeting, origin, and many many more things have had positive player feedback and none were in the old game. People like this and want more.

People are not playing TLPs to play old Everquest people are playing TLPs to have a fresh server to build a character on. People love the feeling and challenge of progressing not necessarily the content.

You are of course free to disagree.

I am really very dubious that your suggested changes would do much to improve TLP numbers though, in which case it would be effort wasted. I think actually it might have the reverse effect.

Were the next TLP to be an Aradune clone & see terrible numbers starting there I would then say maybe some changes were needed & exploring your suggestions would be one way of several possibilities to try.

If I recall correctly, you could put a 'LFG' flag up on your toon back then - but there was no tool. So if you /who all LFG, people would show up. But don't think most bothered with it.

Go play EQ2 or Wow; more your speed.

I think it would break brains if the loot tables were shifted up a bit. Add a level of mystery and excitement.