Revisiting old zones is good nostalgia. Its not at all the same zone though. Every revisited zone is redone, not copied.
Regarding EoK and RoS the zone choices were a bit weird to me as I rarely hunted in some of them back in RoK. Many of the most popular RoK zones had just been left out and some of them for sure are: Lake of Ill Omen, Field of Bone, Dreadlands (Lceanium is just about 1/10 of Dreadlands and a bad joke), Karnor's Castle, Old Sebilis, City of Mist, Timorous Deep. Of coure Field of Bone was already included in SoD so it was left out for good reason maybe. I definetly could imagine two sequels to EoK & RoS in a few years with the following zones as packages: Lake of Ill Omen Firiona Vie Dreadlands (excluding Lceanium) Karnor's Castle Timorous Deep Warsliks Wood Crypt of Dalnir Old Sebilis Trakanon's Teeth Emerald Jungle City of Mist Swamp of No Hope Veksar Cabilis (Quest & transit zone with some Iksar raid targets) The most popular loot and experience reward zones from the old days have been highlighted in bold print. This is just from my own experiences on the Drinal and AB servers. Veksar got added three years later during the Legacy of Ykesha expansion and never was very popular even that it is a great zone. Zone overview and connections: http://www.eqmaps.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/World-2005-06-07-DoN.png
Im not sure all the zones were completely redone from scratch. The outdoor ToV zones looks a little too "polygonal". I suspect they just added some spikes to the original zone geometry and redid the buildings. Droga from EoK looked like a lazy copy-paste job. CoV and ToL looks like proper remakes though.
I just asked my local seer Next: Luclin part 2 - release december 2022 no level increase xp zones: Twilight Sea Scarlet desert Mons Letalis Katta Castellum raid zones: Sanctus Seru Ssraeshza Temple Then Planes of power part 1 - december 2023 Level increase to 125 xp zones: Plane of Nightmare Plane of Storms Halls of Honor (a+b merged) Plane of valor raid zones: Plane of fire Plane of earth Planes of power part 2 - december 2024 xp zones: Plane of disease Crypt of decay Plane of tactics Bastion of Thunder Raid zones: Plane of air Plane of time See...its not hard to plan expansions ;-)
Tuco's expansion wish list 1. No level increase 2. More zones, fewer quests. 3. If it's cheaper, more re-used environments from prior expansions. If it's a choice between re-used Fungus Grove and Twilight Sea vs a remade Twilight Sea, I'd take the re-used zones 4. Hard content. 5. No cramped indoor multi-level zones.
As a seasonal TLP player I personally like that expansions these days are rehashes of the classics. For example I quit Mischief when PoP launched which coincided with ToL launching on live. It was super cool immersion wise to go from 3 months of classic Luclin to the new version.
Only Absor and other EQ devs know how tenuous the house of cards they've spent decades building is, but I remain apprehensive that tooling around swapping mobs and items is infeasible. I don't know how feasible it is, I have my own technical debt and tooling to pay off, not my circus and not my clowns. I'm just speaking purely as a user. If in TBL they took the Plane of Fire zone for TBL's 3 missions, made it a static zone and created a new hunter achievement for some juiced up versions of rare mobs I'd probably love it as much as any other TBL zone with unique art, quests, etc. If they built tooling to do that quickly and created a handful of zones like that for each expansion I'd love it.
Even new zones are stuffed with "copy-pasta" internally, compared to older zones. argin-hiz and the 2 demiplanes from TBM are 2 examples of that: Huge sprawling cities, but only 2-3 different house-designs(you tend to notice that, when doing collection hunting). Old Freeport had a lot more variation than that. There have been excellent zones in everquest too, but none of them were remakes(EoK-Chardok was alright though). GMM, Convorteum and Resplendent Temple were masterpieces imho. just to name a few. I realize that making a new zone from scratch is A LOT of work. I hope that all the new artists they have hired recently, is up to the task.
Expansion 29, 24th Anniversary ToL part deux is expected next I guess. New Ui roll-out be nice Expansion 30, 25th Anniversary Gotta be something special, may possibly have a longer development cycle than any prior expansion, or at least will have spent more time in pre-prduction nailing down all the things the team want to put in it to make it memorable & a true celebration of the longevity of the game. PoP is still arguably one of the most iconic expansions EQ has ever had so it could have some major influence on this new expansion, but Classic was where it all started, so perhaps a mix of those 2 would be a nice place to start. For example it could have some "Return of the Gods" flavour where the entire pantheon, even the ones we have not ever seen before make a big impact upon Norrath. If it could also incorporate the zones we never saw on the original Classic map alongside some unvisited planes & even some "astral planes" that the Spirit Deities exist upon. Epic 3.0 quests (Maybe) Revamped Religion system with deity questlines. Quests to switch deity allegiances or to re-dedicate to an existing deity choice. Few suggested zones/gods ideas Upon the early EQ Maps there are still a few places which have as yet not had a zone created for them Antonica: The Unkempt Wood, The Hatchland, The Northland, The Frigid Plain - near Halas/Everfrost Peaks (perhaps one of these could serve as a gateway to Erolissi Marr & her plane of Love given her connection to the creation of Barbarians - maybe add Paladin & Cleric as Barbarian classes) The Winter's Deep - near Misty Thicket (this could serve as a gateway to Torvonnilous & perhaps the lore could hint that his influence is what made the Halflings a bunch of thieving pie-munchers) The Rujarkian Hills (probably passed off as South Ro) can I play with Madness? Perhaps could serve as a route to the realm of Vazaelle & help explain why the deserts send you crazy before you die in them, the Desert Madmen actually being his Priests. Odus: The Grand Plateau The Vasty Deep - a gateway to Prexus? Perhaps the oceans are sickened by pollution wrought by Bertoxulous & we have to go eco-warrior on the place to destroy the malign influencers, and clean up the ocean plane. Perhaps the Queen of Thorns (or a streamlined version of her) is used as a base here. Gulf of Urun Faydwer: Ranthock's Ridge Wayunder Lake Elizerain Lake Gods whose realms have not yet been accessed/explored or represented yet thus far in EQ: Erolissi Marr: The Queen of Love - God of Love Prexus: The Oceanlord - God of Oceans and Seas Rodcet Nife: The Prime Healer - God of Health (The Plane of Health may be its usual home but its Avatar was not found here) needs his own "area 51" maybe a "Hangar 18" themed/inspired zone where players don't go to kill him but to rescue him. Torvonnilous: Lord of Greed - Demi-God of Greed Tholuxe Paells: Demi-God of Lust (Demi-plane of Debauchery) Vazaelle Kaleine: Demi-God of Madness (Demiplane of Madness) Spirit Deities Drinal: The Silver Reaper- Wolf-Spirit of Night, Destruction and Death - Warden of Lupine Lycanthropy Ehayae: Matron of the Dawn - Bear-Spirit of Daylight, Birth and Life - Mystic of Ursine Lycanthropy (sometimes also described as a humanoid with a hawk's face & wings but that seems a but too "Horus"-like to me) Sahteb Mahini: The Feral Spirit - Cat-spirit of the Hunt - Fury of Feline Lycanthropy
That would be an interesting zone. Maybe they just listened to much Iron Maiden ? The Plane of Music with the demigoddess Ayonae Ro would fit better then.
Literally zero people appreciate water zones, mobs warping everywhere, pets being useless, rogues/monks/zerks being frustrated, etc. See: Cobalt Scar
