Game not built for playing just One Account anymore

I'll just say a small % of boxers use the program you are talking about. I six box so yes hate me but i definitely don't use red or anything like that - that's a boring game - trying to stretch myself to manage 6 heroes through all progressi on- thats fun for me.

I liked the rest of your post but on the point about a Mobile game I am very much in a different camp.

I think a mobile "EverQuest Classic" would do amazingly well, as an entirely new game, new team, its own servers, but built to look and feel like the original did.

Take a look at how well RuneScape Old-School did on mobile & you might just be blown away by how successful that turned out to be, the secret to their success?

Two main things
1. a large population of "former players"
2. a very simplistic UI

Both of those things could be just as true for a EQ Classic for iOS/Android and I think that is why it could be a huge success if implemented well.

Is it a game I would play? No, but I think there is a massive untapped audience for exactly this kind of game.

I'd guess there are about 800-1000 players that use it on a regular basis. Probably depends on the time of year as well(expansion launches, TLP launches and the dead of summer)

Just a note from the other side. My main is a cleric. I've never solo'd, cuz, well - cleric. I usually 6 box (no additional software). So far in CoV, I haven't had time to get any progression done on my boxes at all. I login and without saying hello in /gu, I get several group offers to help folks finish their progression, mission runs or achievement runs. Very frustrating, being in the middle of logging in 3rd toon, get invited to several groups, log the boxes off, setup traders again and go group for the rest of the night. I take some solace from the fact that this latest expansion is very small and my guildies (we had 9 full groups in discord doing progression last night) will be mostly done with with the whole thing and I can redo it all with my boxes and anyone else that's on when I am and wants to tag along - in another month or two.
While I see where frustration comes from for some, I offer other realities exist in Everquest. Tunare is not the highest populated server, probably not top 5, but I see a ton of activity during my play times - in and out of guild. Perhaps another guild or server could provide you a better experience than you're enjoying now?
Conq

No thanks to designed solo-content in new expansions.

There is plenty of solo content for the non-maxed player in the form of older expansions, and the dynamics that drive people to group or box is what I love about this game.

I don’t need another open world single player RPG, there are good specialized AAA games for that experience, it is not a space where EQ is currently ready to compete.

so few? out of 80k players, that is not a lot.

Eh, I highly doubt that 82k monthly active users actually means individual players. Considering each boxed account is a separate "user account" that number is probably grossly inflated.

of course, completely agree. Should not have written “players”.

EQ isn’t an MMORPG anymore. It’s a pay to play bad single player RPG.

If they sold it to me so I could play it on my computer with as many instances as my computer can handle I would definitely buy it. It's pretty good game.

I 3 box but not because I can't find a group. I do it when I want to camp an aug that I need on my main and don't want to roll with 6 others lol. I boxed 6 Crystalized Ores the other night to make augs for my main. My alts in past years I would only get them raid weapons and then group gear as it came along but never really camped anything specifically for them. This year was different with the loot parade that was ToV they are in full raid stuff basically.

On the other hand, sometimes I use boxing, just to hide out and be anti-social lol I 100% prefer to play with friends or guildies but admittedly there are times I just wanna relax, watch a movie , kill PH's and chill.

This is what keeps me on TLPs and keeps me from playing the newer expansions. On Phinny I stopped raiding after VoA because of remaining guild raid schedules, so my gearing started to be behind. I stayed casual through TDS (loved how accessible that content was, TDS hit the perfect balance IMHO), but from TBM+ I couldn't stay engaged; it's just a slog to grind through anything. Want to molo when you can't find a group? Enjoy killing one mob for 5 minutes in a T1 zone!

Everyone has their own box crew, even in an active guild finding people to have them drag you through content you can't molo and that they have no interest in revisiting takes forever and I just felt like I annoyed people doing it. I have zero interest in boxing, truebox or otherwise, but the modern game really feels inaccessible without boxing.

I feel it's a good idea to have a zone set aside for people who may prefer to solo/molo time to time. Or for players who just don't have enough time to group in working days.
Just grind at your own pace few hours would make a satisfying play.

Don't need to force people to group all the time, some times people get burn out on grouping, etc. Or like I said just don't have time to group.
I would feel bad if I join the group and spend an hour or so and leave...

I understand your sentiment, and empathize with you. But you need to consider the possibility that perhaps your expectation is out of line with reality.

I 6-box (sans the Redguide blanket statement you so eloquently included, thanks for trying! ) and routinely invite solo players. I routinely offer assistance, buffs, rezzes, to strangers and friends alike. I have had people surprised and delighted by my inclusive approach - and I have encountered people who, like you, carry a stigma towards boxers and project their anger and frustration onto me.

This is a social game, and I play with the understanding that the more people having fun in it improves the game for everyone.

Also, all mercs should die. Thanks!

You realize your telling people they shouldn't be able to play a game by themselves as you do so.

Making content that allows individual players to progress is not trivializing the game. Playing with 6 accounts at the same time is trivializing the game.

But its ok because your nice to the solo players....

I also dont have any problems with boxxers. If you wanna box have at it. Have fun but dont cry when ya mow through crap.
.

I agree with the first part of that - Solo content were it ever made, and many online games have this, would simply provide players who cannot find or do not want a group a way to make meaningful progress through the game, gaining XP, AA, maybe some loot - though I would have a "Solo Loot" system for that content that takes longer to obtain than group gear does.

The second part I disagree with - there is no trivialising that can be done by a 6 boxer with 6 characters when the content for the most part is designed FOR 6 player groups, it used to be tuned for 5 players & the 6th was a bonus though I think they moved away from that tuning as the game got older. Unless they are doing open world stuff & they have more that 6 characters - utilizing what is known as OOG (Out of Group) extra help.

This thread is getting to my big complaint about the state of EQ since I returned from a 12 year break in 2016. The separation between someone with my play style (very casual, but still works toward progression at the level cap) and what group progression content is tuned for is huge. I can mostly walk through HAs and missions up to EoK at this point, but if even 2 year old group content is still giving me a really hard time, then I see that as a game design problem. (I'm thinking of DPS check missions that I still can't pass at lvl 115 from two expansions prior. I have recently been trying Fell Foliage with a WAR/WIZ/RNG 3-box + melee dps merc + 2 healer mercs. I only get him to 25% before the adds make him invulnerable, then I can't kill the adds fast enough to break his invulnerability again.)

It isn't just a problem with gear either, as group configuration makes a big difference as well. I tend to switch to alts when I get frustrated with my main team, so I now have 2 additional teams starting ToV that are currently ~lvl 112. I make my box teams based on what classes and combinations I find interesting, not how much dps I'll be able to put out. One of those teams is DRU/ENC/MAG + tank merc + 2 healer mercs. I'm probably going to have to switch one of the healers for a melee dps, as this group's dps output is truly pathetic as it stands. (~200k dps sustained while fighting at the giant fort trying to do Last of the Storm Boars) Mainly, I am getting really frustrated with the extent to which "getting good" at this game means min/maxing your group's dps.

During my long break from this game, I was mostly playing EQ2. One of the things I like there was how the "Signature" quest lines that advanced the expansions' stories were doable solo. EQ2 generally did a lot better of job of setting up challenging content for different play styles. Solo, small and/or sub-optimal groups, full and balanced groups, and raids (which I never did in EQ2, and did only some of in the old days in EQ) all had challenging things they could do and it gave rewards that would be upgrades. Here, they try and balance and tune all group content to the same level for everyone.

(True soloing and even moloing is hardly a thing at all when it comes to content designed for your character's level anymore. People that play on TLP servers would probably be able to answer: What is the most recent expansion where someone could actually solo/molo effectively with only gear, levels, and AAs from that expansion or before?)

The problem is how do you mean soloing/molding effectively? A necro can do it all through the game - non stop for XP and some gear.

I can remember adding multiple boxes in HOT because that was about time it just became more effective then just running my 3-4box with mercs.

The reality is you can probably more through most of the progression outside of EOK with no ideal group by EOK you might make it through but it will get harder with some things like Fell Foliage and a few o there’s beyond that.

Now it’s one thing to build non ideal groups but if you don’t have some balance the game has never been very good to those groups.

If you played one healer, cleric or shaman preferably + high end melee dps (rogue, ber or monk) or possibly necro you might find you can do a bit more with a mixed group. I have so many combinations of boxes but at end of day for most part if you have one tank, one healer, one real dps youu can usually mix the other 3 to be different combos and find a way to get through the content.

EQ has always been an arch type game though so not having those baselines will are it tough.

BTW have you tried switching out the healer merc for one more dps? Sometimes that’s better than two healer mercs. You also might be able to make that work better with an SK as your tank because you can self heal to offset the lack of healer mercs.

I’ll say this I’ve been playin since beta and while I understand super hard content isn’t good overall for adding players to the game but what does keep me coming back again and again is the strategy, group requirements for tweaking and the min/maxing. At end of day if you can’t tweak your group some sadly EQ may not be for you because it’s just not that type of game.

that said TLP through HOT should be good. VOA will present some challenges at times though and then on and off until ROS real difficulty.

It is a vicious cycle. No one goes /lfg (partly because they don't want just a random group) so there is no one in the LFG tool. Since no one uses the LFG tool no one goes /lfg. And thus the cycle continues.

Truth be told the only times that the LFG tool were used to any regularity were during LDoN, DoN, and at the dawn of the Monster Missions. Aside from that it was not really used. People had long before LDoN stopped using the /lfg tag as it was not useful, so most people never started to use the LFG tool. Then when currency awarding/XP grind missions which could be done by any random group of people stopped being the thing, they LFG tool lost its luster and stopped being used again. I'm not sure how to revise the LFG tool to make it useful in today's game.

EQ was never a solo game, it has always been a group game which some people have figured out ways to solo current content.

FV has a very large population, but that does not necessarily mean it's good for groups. Everyone (and I do mean just about everyone) boxes multiple accounts on FV. There are box crew armies all over the server due to it being much easier to gear up multiple characters due to all items being tradeable.

That said, you don't technically need a huge box crew to get things accomplished. I run a beast/bard in about half raid/half group gear (on the beast bard is almost all group) and I just finished duoing all CoV merc/partisans (including DN parts). Missions are another story with just a duo, but usually you can find some help to knock out a few missions here and there when needed.