I don't really agree with the idea that they need to use 20 years of expacs. Every game has areas lost to time. The new areas are supposed to be better and more appealing. It would have to be something akin to Hardcore Heritage but optional.
I'm not a fan of recycled content. I prefer new places to die. When I want to exp in old zones I use and alt or head to a TLP.
We get recycled content anyway, but crowd into 5-8 "new" zones. Unkempt Woods is a variation of Butcherblock. Moors of Nokk, you mean Blightfire Moors? Pal`lomen looks suspiciously like Beast's Domain, and the T1 raids are in Elddar Forest and Plane of Mischief. NoS: Shadeweaver's, Shar Vahl, Paludal, Shadowhaven all revamped Luclin zones only 3/7 were "new" ToL: Maiden's Eye, Umbral Plains, Ka Vethan, Vex Thal all revamped Luclin zones only 3/7 were "new" CoV: Cobalt Scar, Western Wastes, Temple of Veeshan, Dragon Necropolis, Skyshrine, Sleeper's Tomb all revamped Velious Zones 0/6 were "new" although they combined Siren's Grotto into CS. ToV: Tower of Frozen Shadow, Eastern Wastes, Great Divide, Ry`Gorr Mines, Velkator's Labyrinth, Kael Drakkel, Crystal Caverns all revamped Velious zones 0/7 were new, although they split CC into two zones, CC and Ry'Gorr Mines. This was our 3rd? run at Velious including the original launch, RoF and CoV/ToV. I could keep going, but the point is, we already get recycled content, I was saying there's a better way, where 99% of EQ doesn't sit empty while picks constantly spin up and spin down and people don't fight over ubercamp 13.
Which is why the best recent content was TBL. While the progression was awful the new zones were fantastic. Over the last few years the content has been boring, the worsed being CoV closely followed by Luclin, the only saving grace ToV had was the TS quest earring. LS feels fresher, completly different look and feel than the original a bit like HoT was. This kind of revamp is great. It doesn't fee like rehashed zones. But I'm not sure the TLP servers would appreciate this kind of revamp just to give high levels more content.
EQ does tend to feel like a mansion that just keeps building new rooms when there are plenty of current rooms standing dormant. Maybe it has been going that long that there is nothing new in this genre for DBG to develop? We have mountains, hills, plains, forests, towns, cities, castles, dungeons, caves, snow, deserts, water, space etc. Maybe anything 'new' is always going to feel like it's been done / churned out before.
This might not be as hard as you think. Instead of scaling the content, scale the player. Work within the Persona system and let people hunt for loot that gives Tribute points. Put gear for Tribute on a PoK vendor. Expand the Teek boys perhaps?
I do think scaling, and the Teek boys are definitely areas that could be expanded upon. I like the idea of an open-ended improvement, a bit like AAs. It gives people something to work for at all levels of the game, and at their own pace.
If they really invested in something like this, they could make it so they would not need to waste time managing TLPs/Live/special servers/merging servers/servers with low population, they could just make content. They could allow people to form organizations (leave the organization and that character is out forever) that enforce specific rules (hello whatever TLP ruleset you want to play under). They could do free trade, PvP, random loot, just about anything on any server. You could just play EQ your way with like minded people. Truly a pipe dream.
Probably one that hasn't been revamped 3 times, like Riftseekers or maybe some of the upper tier HoT expansion, stuff with unique models and worlds. But the idea would be that you could go anywhere.
I'm totally ok with them adding things to older content/changing it. However, only if that time/work comes out of the TLP time budget. Using up all the live dev time for lvl 10-60 content doesn't make sense, because thats not what live players are doing. However, a good TLP would be one that adds new content on as expansions progress.
I don't think anyone suggested spending time adding content for level 10-60. The suggestion was that all zones should scale to the player level, including fights, mobs, loot, experience and would then make all of Norrath a playable area and not just LS at 125. You cannot even go back to NoS and exp at this point. One expansion back and the content is all flushed.
This would only really work for instanced zones as the open world would still need to stay the same level so that level appropriate players can still use them when higher level players are there or traveling through the zone.
I could see it working in several ways tbh. Have you ever pulled a mob in Lceanium and the guards engage it and the mob suddenly turns gray? So there's already a mechanic in place for mobs to change level depending on the target. I am picturing a mechanic where you'd engage a level 60 mob in like RSS and it would become 125 with appropriate spells and loot/experience. Or instances, but we already see how broken instancing is in EQ. Isn't there a list of the "bad" instances based on the # floating around somewhere?
I don't think you all are thinking of all the things scaling break. If the gear on mobs also scales, how do you go back and get old items? Lets say you wanted to go get the TBL carpet, or the PoWar circle of power, or some random rare clicky item illusion. Would you have to go do PoWar mini bosses like we did when it first came out? Getting 2-4+ groups? Part of the FUN for some of us *IS* being able to go back and WTF own older content, soloing stuff that took full group/raids to do.
Personally I think things like the COP4 clicky, let's say every single specialization aug, all of that should scale and be improved on. Stagnant old items that are required to min/max a character, but require farming gray con mobs....isn't what I'd call an engaging experience of play. And let's be clear, this is my pipe dream. That they spend time expanding the available gameplay already there, that they hired an additional team to work on eclipsing old spells and focus lines that are definitely not used, easy enough to parse that. That they invested as much time and effort into the game as we as players do. But we'll be happy they just pump out 2 missions and 8 raids. We don't even get maps of the zones that they design...
They could handle that with instances. Open world is scaling, instance is original, or vice versa. They do not have to break anything to make it possible.
I mean, AoC already exists, you could AoC for original content or AoC for scaled content. I like that take on it. Nice add.
