I'm very upset. I have no idea what to do. I love EQ but....

1. Go to a zone
2. Find dark blue or lower con mobs that give XP
3. Kill those mobs
4. Get XP
5. Do this until level 85, then start incorporating Overseer recruitment tasks daily
6. At 110, start to group up and contact guild you want to join for assistance
7. Profit

Any class: For someone with normal life (job, spouse, children, house to take care of etc) the only way is to acquire a character already @ 120, and go join that guild.

This is the most honest quote I've ever read on these forums.

You are right, nobody has any real idea of what the EQ developers are doing. They certainly don't bother to tell the customers that play their game.

The diagnosis is obvious: the devs are out of touch with the player base. I contend, that they don't play EQ in their leisure time. If they actually played EQ like the rest of us, they would be personally acquainted with all of these problems and be more likely to fix them promptly.

If they do play EQ and then refuse to take that information and not fix EQ, then that's an even bigger problem. Maybe I'm wrong and the devs do play EQ but given the state of the MMO, I don't think so.

Since the devs rarely communicate with players at length, we have no idea what is really going on at Darkpaw or what their design philosophy is.

We as player and customers can come to the forums and post all we want about the state of the game, but we have no power. The devs have the power, but for some reason they don't use their power to make EQ better. Instead, they simply add more content to EQ and compound the problem.

To your main point, the social experience of playing EQ was one of its most unique selling points. The fact that EQ on live for new players does not provide that for them is very concerning. The devs should be all over this and they should be doing all they can to find ways to enhance the social experience in EQ.

Imagine you join a club to meet new people. You get to the meeting, and nobody wants to meet you or talk to you. Instead, the people at the club are talking to themselves and their friends. When you talk to them, they ignore you or look down on you. You would feel marginalized and excluded. You would leave and find a new club. That's EQ live right now.

The only real solution is for the EverQuest franchise to get new leadership.

No matter which path you choose, EQ is designed to be a time sink.

If you experienced Luclin and PoP you are already used to the linear story lines unless all you did was sit in a camp and grind mobs. That is still very much an option, just keep looking up zones in your level range and attack until you find something that requires more than pet auto-attack. Google "EverQuest Zone Guide". Honestly....a tank merc will allow you to sleep until 70 or something if you want it free and easy for that period. Google "EverQuest mercs".

Playing the game and doing it the long way...the devs laid it all out for you...Google "EverQuest Hero's Journey". The tutorial can get you started on some of the UI stuff but jump out once you get through that if you need it.

Hero's Journey from your start in Crescent Reach from level 1...all the info is mostly spoon fed but more info is on the usual sites. I am pretty sure there is a gap between Hero's Journey (70 - 85) where it is not so laid out for you in game but 70 - 85 is very much covered by linear progression expansions which would take you to 85 with minimal research. Once you get to House of Thule (85) just follow along without thinking about it on EQResource. They break it down to very simple steps for you. The power creep over time has made the level ranges not so defined so there is room to wiggle. If it seems too easy, try something higher level until it is too hard.

If you have more money than time, an 85 or 100 heroic will jump you ahead pretty far but you will need to start asking questions on the forum/Discord about how to be more proficient with your chosen class if Googling is not an option or does not help. If people get snippy...ignore them. EQ still has a community that will help. They will show up fairly quickly.

If none of this leads to fun...you may just not like EQ.

If you want to jump right to raiding, I'm sure you can still buy fully ready characters but you are likely going to make other people's play time miserable if you lack understanding of what is expected of your class and you are not up front about it.

Someone's estimated 2 - 3 years minimum to be ready sounds nuts to me but maybe they have very little time to play. Doing every thing the hard way, you could get a character up to max in mere months if you are motivated to learn your class all without making it your job. A lot of shortcuts have been added that you do not have to use. Learning any class should not take years. Learning to play EQ on live should not take years.

You will need to set aside however much time you need to get over the notion that you are going to find groups like you did in those early days.

If you just want the shortest path for a specific class, I would ask that question directly in the class section and read the responses. You will get good information but you may not like it.

Keeping a game interesting to play for more than 10 years requires a lot of thought and planning. Most of all, it requires a willingness to totally rework parts of the game that can be done better once technology allows it or someone simply comes up with a better idea. Instead, they made a business decision many years ago that progression servers cashing in on nostalgia would be profitable and that maintaining such servers completely separate from the live game with vastly different code would cut into those profits. Thus, they won't do what it takes to really refresh the game, consolidate abilities to reduce the complexity, or otherwise make the current game playable for people starting out. It is past time for everyone playing the game to accept that EQ has long been on a path where the only viable choices to have fun are to keep up with the endgame on Live or play TLPs. There is very little left in between that is enjoyable for people that demand more.

I've played enough EQ to know that you're missing a lot of steps. A Shaman, SK, and Bard would be very confused as to why they're struggling so much (hint: 2.0 epics).

Here is the simple answer: Twenty years worth of EQ cannot be easily researched in a short amount of time, which is good and bad. We all have a game to enjoy with a lot of content. Fantastic. I've never been bored playing EQ. Great. I really do like this game despite its issues.

If you cannot understand how a new player is overwhelmed by the amount of knowledge in this game, then you need to take a step back from EQ because you're playing way too much.

TDLR: You're wrong.

Another problem with this, if you are newer, or come from something not close to Live (like true level 1-120), is by time you get to 120 and raid ready that guild might not even need that class anymore either

The best shot is probably more like looking at Open Raid forces (the servers with long running ones) since they aren't as min/max on classes

What do you even want to do in EQ? Are you looking to make this your primary hobby? You can triple down become committed to a dedicated play schedule and advertise people to join you. The pick-up group scene just isn't there. You have to build and lead your own little community.

To the OP: The game as we knew it is gone. The reasons why are myriad and ultimately irrelevant. If you have messed around with p99 and TLP then you have already enjoyed what remains of our game. It wasn't one specific thing that buried it, although Overseer would be if there was a single thing. Point is, there is nothing here any more, not even a whisper of nostalgia. It is not worth your dime or your time in 2023.

For now we move on to other hobbies. If the leadership of EQ makes changes in the future that attempt to repair the damage then there is nothing preventing us from coming back. I doubt we will see anything positive for years.

I will diligently keep checking the forums (ForumQuest) every now and then and reading patch notes for fun, but that's all EQ has left for me I think.

Oh you are so wrong, the game everyone knew is still there and waiting. It's just that the real players have long since moved past sitting in a grind group at Orc 1, or Disco or whatever. When you're on a TLP just starting of course there's very little available but just because you want the most limited selection on the menu doesn't mean that there's not an entire world out there that you have never seen and probably won't experience.

Coming back and wanting to raid is a reasonable goal for a returning player, Thinking that you can come back, get a Heroic, and jump into the raid scene isn't even vaguely realistic.

Expecting people to invest weeks, months, or years into a game to experience "the good stuff" that they're returning for is equally unrealistic.

Even better is that "the good stuff" is simply putting yourself on some weekly schedule as if it was a job.

This game is 24 years old, with 28 or so expansions worth of content. What do you want DBG to do, just hand out level 115 characters with 30k AA to anyone that asks nicely? I mean I would love a 115/30k ranger to have some fun with, but I also realize that is unrealistic as well.

You cannot take 24 years and cram it into six weeks and have every gear, AA, clickie, achievement that someone who has been playing 24 years has. That is unrealistic.

The OP said that s/he wants to raid current content in a high end guild. And they want to do it alone. They are asking for 24 years ro be done alone in six weeks. There is a reason why no one has said anything other than power leveling or outright buying a toon (which is illegal if caught)- because it cannot be done in the time frame most of these types of requests want.

OP gave up after 30 minutes. What kind of high end raid guild would welcome someone with that type of attitude?

Bottom line is this- live EQ is not for beginners. It is not for new players, unless they have the time, patience, resources and friends to help them out. If they do, great. If not, then EQ live is not the game to get into. Most beginners don't care about the 24 year journey, they just want the immediate gratification of the current expansion. Live EQ has always been about the journey and time investment, those that want to circumvent that better have friends or money to do so. Otherwise don't bother trying at this point of the game.

How am I wrong? EQ is built on the concept of character progression, most notably by killing monsters to get XP that gives you levels and AA. Which is exactly what I said.

Now, is killing light blues and greens solo the fastest way to get to a high end raid guild like the OP wants? Of course not. But it is a way, and is the easiest and most basic way. Other ways take time and effort and energy, something that I don't think is displayed much by someone who quits after half an hour.

And FWIW you don't need SK epic or Bard epic or whatever to kill a light blue mob. I guarantee you can take a heroic 85 SK, have them go to some zone littered with light blues and greens, have them engage in one of them, and the SK will win. What epics and gear and clickies and augments do do, is they make things easier and faster. Which all takes time, patience, energy, work, and desire.

But again. At its barest of bones, EQ is about killing monsters for XP. Tell me how that is a wrong statement

I don't disagree at all. Live EQ is not a beginner friendly game, and new players will have the best experience playing a TLP launch to learn the game and systems and stuff. I consider myself a relatively experienced EQ player having played to some extent for most of my adult life and I find live EQ unapproachable even though I generally understand the game already. Yes, there's way too much vertical progression to catch up on, I think we see the same thing. I'm just saying it's not realistic for daybreak to expect new players to be able to take that on and retain a high number of them.

I have maintained all along that DBG should not care about Live new players, but rather focus its attention on keeping its current players engaged and excited and happy. Retention instead of expansion for its Live playerbase.

The mountain on Live has just become too steep. And unless they want to just hand out 115/30k AA toons with progression already done for prior expansions, that mountain becomes steeper and steeper.

Raw leveling is not catching up. You still have 10s of thousands of AAs, achievements, progression from past expansions, collects, rare loot drops from old content, trade skills and other misc things to catch up on. And just when you think you're going to get to current content, a new expansion comes out and everyone moves on without you again.

You're right. Time to give up. Nothing to see here.

Ah yes another community member who actively pushes people away from the game. Doing gods work out here keeping poor unsuspecting MMOers from experiencing the disappointment live EQ is.

Snowflake melting station is THAT way -->
In case those "poor unsupecting MMoers" need directions.