Will There Ever Be an Everquest III?

The target audience is EQ1/Vanguard players and those of us that like that older MMO game play style. Unfortunately very few people trust Brad to be able to deliver.

I think the bigger problem with Ashes is the twitch combat style system that fits better on a console game than a traditional PC mmo game. Conceptually the game has great pvp/e theory behind it - which is the targeted audience - but the APOC system (which is just a battle grounds testing experience)
reminds me of Assassins Creed meets a dungeon crawl arcade/console game - not a traditional MMO and I do not care for it as of now.

We need to win some lotteries to crowd source Norrath

when I play on a PvP server I like to do both so yes I don't like the event server at all and hope that any futurer PvP server they might come up with will also have the old version .
I know of a lot of people who love to play the game , and just want the PvP as an extra little something to bring exitement into the game .

Considering how "dead" EQ2 is to the international MMO world awareness, it would be very unlikely EQIII is going to get any actual interested audience even if it was to become a thing. Not even mentioning the very unresponsive and unenthusiastic nature of EQ2 owners towards player wishes, throughout so many years.
The world of gaming altogether went a very different way by now, a way the owners of this game would have yet to (be able to) catch up to - and a very long & thorny way to go, at that.

I would be stoked if they just modified existing game to use more of GPU and less of cpu.

I've pretty much given up on EQII recovering. No advertising speaks volumes and some of the current in game mechanics and decisions defy any attempts at logic. Played this game for quite a while, but the PTW mechanic and some other design decisions have made this game way too much like a job.
Came across a new game that just launched and while I swore I'd not play a Korean MMO, I've found it vastly addictive in the short time I've played. It was just released for Western audiences. It's motto, "Play to Win." It's called Astellia. Pay a one time fee and play or you can even try a monthly subscription to try it out. Old style gameplay: the Holy Trinity for classes (there are some branches of those, but healers still heal, etc.). Gear for upgrades drop on quests you do or can drop off mobs. And I'm talking gear for a future level off current mobs you're fighting. Fairly easy to level. And one feature everyone's digging. Click on a quest in your journal and you automatically run/ride to that location. A 64 bit game design with beautiful graphics. Devs are interactive and quick responding to player issues. Spells/CAs advance as you level. You can imbue gear and your toon with in game mats that drop off mobs or are quest rewards. If there's a "negative," only two classes are currently males (fighters/assassins). The rest are female, but later releases will have male versions if you want and--wait for it--the conversion to male for existing female toons is free). I've played 4 of the classes thus far and they're all fun and competitive. "Pets" are called astels and you start with one and others join you as you advance through the game. They all do different things. Every player has one or more and guess what---zero lag. There's guilds there. Some in game mechanics need refinement or development, but those are being discussed--like guild halls, etc. It's easy to learn and has many layers. People I've come across in the game that are EQII players say "this is what EQII should have been all along." Is it new and does it have that new gloss? Absolutely!! I will say however, that they've done an excellent job with it and it has a lot of promise. It's hard to stop playing because well, damn, it's just fun. And yes, there's TSing. Still learning about that. But right now, I find myself having less reason to log in to EQII and a whole lot more reasons to play Astellia. We'll see what EQII can put together for their upcoming xpac. But not attempting to be a fan boi here--I'm just saying there's another alternative you owe yourself a chance to check out because if you're waiting on Brad, you'll love the play, "Waiting for Godot."

The graphics engine, and the game, would need to be redone.

I would hope that Daybreak is currently working on EverQuest 3.

All they need to do is get a mainstream game engine and remake EverQuest 1's world with new graphics. Once you have the world in place, you remake ALL of the Races from EverQuest 1 and EverQuest 2 (don't make the same mistake that EQ2 did by leaving someone's choice Race out) and put them in the game where they make sense. Ratonga would start in Freeport with the Humans, and they could put a little Kerran settlement on Odus, and give Freebloods a place in Lesser Faydark by Mayong Mistmoore's home. Every Race gets their own city! But literally, every Race from the Freeblood to the Drakkin would need to come together to make one joint world. Every deity would need to be included, including those like Prexus who haven't come back to EQ2.

Now the big thing... All of the Classes that split need to be merged back together. Illusionists and Coercers need to become Enchanters again. Warriors and Berserkers, two separate classes. Keep the Channeler too. But bring things home by making the hybrid classes into true hybrids again.... Paladins with lesser cleric spells. Shadow Knights with lesser Necromancer spells. Rangers with lesser druid spells. Beastlords with lesser shaman spells.

Any new EverQuest game absolutely has to keep the housing system from EverQuest 2. That was, for all intents and purposes, the best thing that EQ2 brought to the genre.

In my opinion, the reason why EverQuest 1 has more players today than EverQuest 2 is because both times SOE/Daybreak tried to make a sequel, they lost touch with what EverQuest was and what it's about. They made EverQuest 2 too unfamiliar to an EverQuest 1 player who was looking to upgrade and come over. There's too much class bloat without enough individuality, and the classes simply don't do what the EQ1 audience expected them to do. If you make a Shadow Knight, you should have a weaker-than-necromancer skeleton pet that you can summon. There shouldn't be two enchanter classes that each get half of what made the enchanter strong. If you make a Ranger you should be able to toss out extremely weak heals when needed to your group mates. The list goes on and on.

Half the battle with making a new MMO seems to be designing one from the concept stages. Daybreak has the talented people who can crank out 2 expansions per year with multiple zones (between EQ1 and EQ2) and I honestly believe if those two teams worked together, they could create another EverQuest game in just a few years if they used EQ1's world as the template and brought in all the good stuff from EQ2 too. Clearly, since the "lore" split the two EQ timelines, this EverQuest 3 would be a re-imagining of the original.

I agree with every SINGLE thing you said here. A remake of the EQ1 world with the melding of what both games (plus include EQOA as there are a lot of fans of that as well) brought would be amazing and I believe super successful. Nostalgia rules the day now and that alone would bring many people back.

Personally, I think the EQ3 ship has sailed a long time ago.

EQ3 could happen, but it's not expected after what happened to the planned project.

No. They'll milk EQ 1 and 2 until they can't anymore and then put the IP out to pasture or sell it for pennies on the dollar.

Honestly if they want to release something EQ related, I'm just gonna throw it out there that I'd gladly buy Champions of Norrath on PC or Switch.

I like to think there will be eq3 someday perhaps , I just don’t believe the current company has plans hopefully some one else would do it if not.

They are going to make an announcement about a week about about Everquest 3 and other features coming to EverQuest 2 go to YouTube................................The Everquest show... so go subscribe to that channel and it should come out soon

The biggest problem with them bringing out an EQ3 is that the corporate mentality after WoW is that unless you can get HUGE numbers, then it is a failure and there are just not enough people who enjoy this kind of game left (ie, the what do you mean I can't be max level in 2 hours crowd) to be a 'corporate' success now.

I agree with those above though, a game that is a blend of EQ and EQ2 (going back to the lore of EQ with the beauty of EQ2) would be absolutely wonderful.

They need to go take a look at what made first and second games succeed before they ruined them first game was great played until vanilla to plane of power expansion- and second game I played through ruins of kunark these were both before they got carried away and put to life support teams... if they can keep the base formula from these eras of franchise in mind I am sure they can do a Everquest 3... also with virtual reality on the rise would be cool to see a Everquest vr game made at some point... although gaming has lost some luster for me since picking up Litrpg books they always make the games they write about sound fun like barliona or mirror world... but def would be willing to try out a new Everquest.

For everyone who says they loved EverQuest II at launch, there's 2 people who said it needed the drastic changes it got in its first 15 months of existence. Making a big deal about 24 classes didn't really pay off. It just made class balance a nightmare that has persisted for 15 years. When a class stops being fun to play, it's often faster to reroll and go through all the prerequisites than wait for fixes. I wouldn't be surprised if some day we get a button to switch between your character's alternate subclass and back without losing anything.

I know this is a super unpopular opinion, but I still say the 24 class thing was one of the worst decisions they made with EQ2.

I love the idea of there being 24 classes, but in practice it just kind of resulted in classes being the same except having solo vs aoe variants, or mage vs scout buffs. Not to mention the actual balance issues. Classes like Dirges and Troubs could easily be folded into each other with no real losses, in fact it might even add depth to the class by having to choose between mage and scout buffs instead of having the choice already made for you. But oh well, it is what it is and that's not changing now.

Well EQ3 was announced. By the way, anyone have the EQ Landmark files still? I have a few ideas i would like to try.