What do you want to see in the next xpac? What mistakes should be avoided?

No, IT DOES NOT. It's that ColumbusNova bought them out, told them to fire most of their staff, and are still expecting the game to perform. OMFGKLJBGVkjnlerjklfgklfrmnlbvglkrf I give up.

And what do you speculate the reason for AoM's 2-zones worth of content was then?

Edit: Overland zones.

They had an already tiny staff and had to borrow devs to finish it - and this year the staff is even smaller. Which is why I'm not expecting a whole lot this time around. Definitely not 'inflation.'

You're right. Food products are shrinking, so-to-speak, while their prices hold or rise,,, but... we've gotta eat.

If they're going to release substantially less of a product, they should be prepared to lower the price on expansions (just like they did on all-access rates), or subscriber attrition will rise and customer base will eventually head downward until there's not enough financial support for development. And then the 'new content' plug is pulled. For a while the game goes on life support with only occasional maintenance updates; meanwhile, the company cannibalizes the dev staff to throw weight behind bigger/newer games.,,

Now that's a dire sounding forecast and unless DBG screws up, such a decline could drag on for years, but the game world is changing. For older titles, player retention is absolutely crucial, because an old game simply does not attract new subscribers. (I'd be willing to bet that FTPers convert into subscribers at 5% or lower rate. The other 95% continue to play casually for free or move onto newer games where their friends are.)

I would like to see tinkering remembered this time around. I suspect we will have an awesome crafting experience coming to us with that awesome Domino back in the fold.

Illithids are like the most widely recognized D&D monsters outside of dragons. I don't see why folks are bothered by them. but the Talavan (eq2 version) are coming in the expansion. probably as a direct result of Lanys ascension. much like Thule has his 'Greenmist infected' Ogres, Lanys will have Malice driven Talavans.

what I would like to see is that ALL zones can be done with less then ideal groups. I didn't like in ToV that you needed either very specific classes, or massively overgeared other classes, to do things like Vul'akk, or the Inner Sanctum. I don't want to have to spend 2 hours looking for Healer class X or I have to have a chanter. I want that chanter to make it easier for sure. but not for it to be if I don't have one, then there's zones I simply can't do because all we'll do is die and no gear amount or clever strat will work.

I didn't mind the overarcing sig lines. I just hope they are a little more entertaining then they were this last time.

Stun, stifle, knockback, stun, stun, stifle, stun, knockback...

THAT is why we hate them... a lot.

Because they have powers of the mind, they always give them the ever-unpopular Beastlord destroying scripts: stun, stifle, knockback.

Cool looking baddies that possess terrible, horrible, ultra-unfun / lame game mechanics, usually.

Dreadtalon, a Freetard of Freeport

Just fix the lag, please

Oh and a Wood Elf Racial Heritage Armour set. Please just copy the one the Wood Elf mentor is wearing. Ktks

let me refresh you then on how WoW works/worked.
level cap raise? you'll be capped in 30 minutes. tops. even if your slow as a snail. I gained a character 20 levels in about 15 minutes, without even buying the new skills cause I didn't know you had to. that's how easy it is.
new class...classes in WoW aren't even as in depth as a cleric in Eq1. they are insanely simple, and made so to appeal to a lowest common denominator.
growing weapons..reminds me of our Epics/green adorns now.
all new dungeons and raids. yes they'll have 3 new dungeons, MAYBE 3 new raids. and all of them beaten 2 months in. (becuase 1 or 2 of thier 'new zones' will be a city/quest hub. one massive one, or one for the Horde, and one for the Alliance)
the World Bosses are basically our Contested Avatars. you'll see maybe 4.
an overland in WoW can fit INSIDE tranquil sea. so for 4-5 new overlands expect the size of maybe Tranq Sea, or Vesspyr Isle.
when they introduced heroic characters, if I ma remembering right, paying folks did get a free one in eq2
and PvP....well I don't care about pvp anyway. but WoW is insanely PvP centric/oriented.

I think at this point my only wish would be a proper DPS spec for fights and maybe even Priests, I know it's a wow thing but plz one day allow me to be a dps_monk.

Here's the thing though. Fighters can pull off AMAZING dps if they put effort solely into DPS and not Tanking stats. However; in most situations people want you as a fighter to tank. Long gone are the RoK days where a Zerker, Bruiser, or SK were brought along as a "backup" who pushes good numbers, in case the main tank takes a mechanic to the face and we need to wait on a healer.

The only way this can really be done is scaling back statflation, and bringing back mechanics to Heroic content that require tank swapping. I.E. stacking "crud" that if it hits 10 stacks, you ded. This would require a second tank, mostly in DPS stance and gear, to pick up the slack for X amount of seconds while the "crud" stacks are deteriorating. And even then, technically Swash and Brigand have ways they can build to be pretty damn tanky while still pushing numbers, so some groups might just rely on them instead of a fighter for more guaranteed dps.

Before TSO release, there was an idea to make most buffs raid wide (other one was grp target buff) tu reduce number of bards and chanters in raid, in pair with giving some useful buffs to other classes it could provide a variety of classes in raid.

I actually remember this.

I still think it is a good idea, honestly.

While I appreciate the sentiment and remember well that phase, let's face it, what buffs would you want made raid wide NOW that actually matter, but wouldn't be ludicrously OP?

My 2 cents
Get out of generic simplification "caster DPS class", "melee DPS class" - thus may be look into EQ1 and create variety of raid encounters outside of "burn burn burn" approach?. Again may be just may be - fix coercers? in terms of usefulness of class in the end-game.
Definitely more levels and more AA

Personally, think they all should be raid-wide. Reduces the amount of space reserved for chanters and bards in raids, so it gives more room for other classes. Which subsequently might allow for this...

A lot easier to create raid encounters where the "useless" classes (Swash, Beastlord in particular) are viable as more than just filler classes, and encounters that aren't fully burn oriented when we're not required to bring 4~5 support classes to perform properly.

Lanys T'Vyl! Either She becomes a goddess we can worship or we help the Primordial Malice (who we can get faction with to do this) help Her become a goddess we can worship and chose as our deity. That will make all the others deities envious! *hateful grin*

I would like to see more people in the game but that's not something easily fixed. WoW's computer requirements are much lower than most games. EQ and EQ2 would not run on a laptop my cousin bought 2 years ago at Walmart, but WoW would. Not everyone can afford a new computer just to play a fun game.

Not sure what you can offer, but I see many people who complain that the benefits of paying to play EQ2/EQ is not worth the $15 a month. Being on limited income, I understand that, but we manage it (barely). Perhaps offering EQ2 OR EQ alone for $10 a month? This way they aren't paying to play a game they have no interest in paying? And maybe more benefits? Just a suggestion.

Its been already offered for $9.99 .. with annual subscription

What I'm trying to say is . . . what buffs really matter? I think folks just have chanters and bards because that's the way it's always been done, because it was needed in the past. A couple Coercers can keep power up easily enough. A couple Dirges to rez. What else do you need?