Let’s Make EverQuest Better For All

Free trade is the best thing since sliced bread, I love being able to flip gear I've upgraded from instead of deleting it! No trade is dumb. Rotting gear is dumb!

Both have their pros and cons and I like not having to compete with everyone for an item because they can sell it but can't use it.

Understandable

I have no idea why my original post was deleted at all, but let's start this again.

Outside of some classic raid target loot, which a lot is shared with Kunark mobs that is worse than group gear (horrible lazy design if I may add), some lower tier targets in Kunark, and some outlier Velious gear, all raid gear from Velious-NOS is no trade. It's very safe to assume that equates to 99% of all raid gear considering more raid gear was developed in those eras than ever was developed in Classic-Kunark. POP alone may have more total raid designated items than all of classic and kunark combined.

People who don't raid on TLPs are a part of a very small minority population. The usefulness of non-raid gear lasts no longer than a couple months on a TLP as raid gear finally becomes decently itemized and overtakes group gear in power. Commonlands importance literally disappears in Luclin. Bazaar importance fades to nothing more than various tribute fodder, tradeskill stuff, and/or other miscellaneous goods. You are seriously overstating the importance of Bazaar.

I'd argue that plat/krono raids are a multitude times more important than the bazaar when it comes to gear acquisition. The game has evolved with the times and plat raids are a more modern phenomenon that I haven't seen until TLP. They are undoubtedly a major driving force for gear on TLPs for the casual player-base and/or alts of main raiders.

First, I never said no trade is only raid gear. Not sure why you're stating that.

Furthermore, if you look past the worst itemization eras of EQ (mostly classic- kunark) it becomes more normalized and consistent. The lower tier group items are normally tradeable. The higher tier group items are normally no trade. The raid gear is all no trade. Augs are predominately no trade (and prestige). There will always be exceptions to the general rules of thumb. It's a 25 year old game with dozens of developers over time. You're never going to have a truly consistent linear itemization, but it does get much better the deeper into the game you go.

For the umpteenth time, please stop bringing up classic. Stop trying to use it as an example. It's well known that design and itemization in classic is utter trash. Can we just agree on that and move on?

Refrain from using Classic as an example. Classic is, at this point, an outlier, not the norm. I don't understand why people flock to that truly awful era of EQ. There's no semblance of good balance, design, itemization, etc. Stop talking about it. The classic era is the shortest era in all of TLPs now and for good reason. It's worn out and not good. Let's move on from that unmitigated disaster and have a real conversation about eras that are actually designed with some logic

Disagree all you want. Raiding on TLPs is the super majority of the player-base. It's a well-accepted consensus. To argue otherwise is futile.

Play the game beyond the trilogy. This concept already exists. It's called attuneable gear. This isn't some idea concocted by yourself. Stop trying to lay claim on the idea.

That is a challenge in all fields of professions. Hackers always are finding exploits, just like farmers are always finding loop holes. You'll never stop them 100%. You can only hope to mitigate them. Having free trade does nothing to mitigate them. It only encourages them. Mischief set up mitigation rules - randomized loot and copious amounts of loot per kill.

Standard free trade? Unmitigated disaster.

Disagree.

I'd be fine with all GROUP loot being random loot & tradeable, I think some portion of the game should revolve around trading items between players.

I draw the line there though because I think Raid items should never be tradeable as it undermines the value of the raid events themselves if the items from them can be endlessly recycled and tacking the events for the items is circumvented too much. I would even retroactively make pre-luclin raid items no-trade myself but only doing so with retrofitting raid currencies to all pre VoA content being done at the same time.
I could maybe go as far as compromising that Raid Items can be Heirloom so you could hand them down to alts on your main's account.

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No, I and others will not stop talking about it. This is a discussion forum. In fact, this is the TLP server discussion forum. Players can talk about issues that pertain to the server type they are playing on. Nothing should be off the table as long as it pertains to EQ. I don't have the audacity to tell EQ live players to stop talking about issues that affect them, so please stop gate keeping on these forums.

TLP servers are the gateway for new players to EverQuest. EQ live servers are not the gateway to EQ for obvious reasons.

I am an actual bona fide video game designer with AAA titles to my credit. I understand and appreciate the importance of onboarding new players to a video game to make up for the players lost in churn. I see many things on the TLP servers that could have been done better and easily improved. Consistent loot rules and proper itemization could easily improved to make the EQ TLP newbie experience much better than it is now.

It is undeniable fact that the TLP server concept revitalized EverQuest. I believe EQ would have been shut down years ago without the introduction of the TLP concept. Just this week news broke that the most popular MMO in the world right now is Word of Warcraft Classic: Wrath of the Lich King. Yes, you heard that right. Players are flocking in droves to WoW classic for many of the same reasons that players gravitate to EQ TLP servers: because they want to experience the magic and community of those early MMORPGs.

A few weeks ago, I saw a new group photo of the Wow Classic team. There must have been a hundred people in there. I saw Holly Longdale and other ex-EverQuest devs in the photo too. As an EQ player it was bittersweet to see some of our best talent no longer with us. They seemed happy to be with a studio that cares. Blizzard cares enough about the quality of their products and the happiness of their players to adequately staff their studios. Enough said.

To me, the next logical step to making a better tlp. Is removing the recommended/required tags from raid loot and keeping it free trade. After getting a small taste from some of the DoDH mission rewards, I want more of that.

A level locked TLP with Mischief loot rules and relaxed truebox would be a huge hit.

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Rasing the spawn rate would just give KR/RMT farmers more loot to sell. Mischief rules helped out a lot with the no drop tag being pulled off everything. Unfortunately, there are cases when there should be a "no drop" tag even on Mischief. This became apparent in OoW, I did a ranger and mage 2.0 and everything was tagged as "no drop" and I was able to complete the ranger one less than a week into the expansion and the mage one 2 weeks in. I had issues with the Shaman one, because of the mushroom in FG was being perma camped because it was an easy kill that was low level that dropped often. Butin the /baz there were 2-3 people that were selling them for 500K each and you need 3. I went to FG in off hours and people where still camping it and they would see me and ask if I wanted to buy them off them.

There are definitely things on Mischief if they were tagged as "No drop" would have made things a lot easier on people. Epic stuff and certian quest should be no drop. It seems the KR/RMT farmers find other things they can farm and leave that stuff alone, at least when its Mischief rules.

I would argue with the OP that there are many more epic/raid drops now than in the "olden days" due to AoC. First time through, we might have got one set of raid targets a week or two, depending on respawn. Now, there's as many as people need - just spin up a new DZ from the AoC. I would even go so far as to suggest that many more epics are completed now than originally due to this fact. There's significantly more drops available on TLPs than original servers imo.

When it comes to free trade, the Mischief server is doing wonders to get devs to address long standing exploits, which they had previously ignored.

No trade I think is a necessary evil because EQs item system is designed poorly for long term scales. Many very successful MMOs have everything completely tradeable and it creates very complex and engaging player economies. However these MMOs all have well designed item sinks that keep items from piling up into overabundance. EQ has no well designed item sink and thus has to force scarcity in a very heavy handed approach. I think all tradeable items is the best place EQ can go but before we can get there EQ needs to develop a better way of taking items out of the game.

Many? Which of these successful MMO's are you talking about? At least from the ones that are popular in America I can't think of any.

EvE Online, Albion Online, Runescape, Lost Ark, Black Desert (not completely sure about this one)

Those games also have non tradeable items though it might not be a lot and they are not all designed with the same style as EQ.

Eve Online Non Tradeable Items: https://forums.eveonline.com/t/personalized-not-tradeable-items-in-eve/196397

Albion Online Non Tradeable Items: https://forum.albiononline.com/inde...n-tradeable-items-in-a-Sandbox-is-bad-design/

Lost Ark Non Tradeable Items: https://forums.playlostark.com/t/untradable-materials-should-be-tradable-to-alt-roster/277787

The non-tradeable items in those games are not relevant to the type of conversation here. Yes certain quest items or tokens are not tradeable but i do not think that's what's really being discussed. Which is also why I said No Trade is necessary in EQ unless they make some design changes. The way gear comes in and out of EQ makes a poor choice for free trade

Also its ironic you chose forum post with people complaining about the items in question not being tradeable

The fact remains that you made a claim about games with everything being tradeable and it only took a quick Google search to show that those games also have non tradeable items. Not to mention that they are all a different style game then EQ is which makes it an unfair comparison. Non tradable items are in EQ for a reason and most people don't have a major problem with them.

You are arguing a point no one is making lol