is it better to start fresh or where I left off?

Hello everyone,
It has been years since I played eq2 I believe I left just before the daybreak buyout. I am thinking of trying the free to play version again to scratch that itch but I am not sure where to start anymore. It looks like most of my characters, that I can access anyway are in the tranquil sea and were around level 100. Has the game changed so much that I would be better off starting fresh or try to pick up one of my older more established characters?

I think you will find its better to start over, and tho ftp is a valid option it is rather...lacking, and a royal pita to mess with.
mileage may vary, some folks have more patience than I

I'd start with your established characters if it were me.

I'd also encourage you to consider the subscription. $15/month is less than a pizza and a six-pack, and I guarantee EQ2 will give you more entertainment value. Just being able to use the Fast Travel amenity would be worth the $15 to me, nevermind the limitations on the broker and what gear you can equip that goes with being free-to-play.

I would start fresh on the ftp and wait for the next tle server to start a subscription.

What is a tle server? Also are interface mods still in high use? In ages long past eq2map and interface mods were widely used.

tle=time locked expansion
These are servers that start off as an early version of the game, and then over time, progress the expansions. Many players prefer to revisit how the game used to be by playing on them.

Interface mods? I've heard other players talk about them, but personally I don't want that headache trying to figure out whether it is the mod or the game on the fritz when something doesn't work right.

The site for mods is EQ2Interface.com. I would absolutely recommend that everyone get EQ2MAP.

Nowadays, probably the best, most useful, complete interface mod is DarqUI. I'm personally using part of the old ProfitUI and pieces from DarqUI, but I'm seriously considering blowing it all away and going completely with Darq.

Another very helpful tool is Advanced Combat Tracker. Many people just think of ACT as a measure of how much DPS or heals you are doing. For me, the most important part is using the custom triggers and spell timers available. ACT parses the text being recorded in your EQ2 logfile, and you can ask ACT to look for a certain phrase that a mob will call out that signals something you need to do, like joust away from a big frontal attack, etc.

I've made my ACT triggers available for anyone who wants them, and I have triggers going back many expansions. I almost always limit my triggers to a specific zone and/or mob, so that ACT knows not to look at all those many triggers all the time. If you import this set, be sure to scroll through the triggers and make sure that only the ones you will be using are checked on... right now, the active trigger set is all VoV. If you'll be doing older zones, you will want to activate any triggers that are available for those areas instead.

I'd roll a new character to learn the game again with, but save your oldie for harvesting in lowbie areas without the mobs attacking you. Glowies and rares sell for a fortune on the broker; you can rake in a lot of quick cash doing that and Quo's harvesting quest line (Quo is in Isle of Mara). You can even do the Quo harvesting quest line on the Time Locked Progression servers, and I personally feel both Kaladim (PvE-TL) and Tarinax (open PvP-TL) are well worth playing on now. They still have populations on there every day, and you avoid most of the bolted-on pay-to-win end game of the live free servers.

Even silvers can use the broker now, so if you paid the $5 way back when silver was a thing to become a silver account, you still are grandfathered in as a silver now. I think that even if you were gold subbed at any point in the past, you were auto-flagged as silver when F2P launched.

But if you do the gold sub, you can do the daily quest on the live servers (harvest 40 items, kill X number of mobs, Discover 3 new areas, etc), and cash in 5 loyalty tokens you've earned for a bag with 500 plat in it at the loyalty vendor. You may even have old loyalty tokens in your currency tab of your character sheet you could cash in for plat right away, if you're gold subbed.

EQ2 is forgiving enough to let you back in with your higher levelled characters (for solo) where you'll pick things up again fairly quickly as they are now (and very quickly progress to current content from there).
It took me a couple of days coming from EQ1 to pick up the core of how EQ2 worked, and from what I've read, most of the mechanics behind things work consistently through the advancement, so you're still good with what you remember.

To me, the only considerations on the Free to Play vs Sub are:
1) Does it impact your food/rent/living costs to pay sub? (if so, then FTP)
2) Are you expecting to play to scratch that itch and then vanish again when satisfied (in which case, maybe FTP, but a 1 month sub is cheap. Just remember to cancel. Or if you are the forgetful type and just want a month, FTP and buy a Krono, which is the purchasable token that will get you one month of subscription with no renewal built in).
3) If you're definitely considering hopping back in and joining the merry mayhem, then shell out for a subscription. Makes life in the game far less problematic and easy going (and you can get that nice happy glow that you're helping keep the servers running for and the Daybreak staff kept in pizza and beer).

How is the main content on the higher end these days level 100+ I left originally because I just couldn't get into raiding due to time restraints and an alternating work schedule and at the time solo/small group was kinda annoying at best.

I suspect that's a very subjective question. I'm quite enjoying the content this xpac (and did do for the last couple too).
Solo is quite repetitive when you've done it every day for ages, but it's a way to get the gear (every game has grind, and this isn't a bad way to do it, even though the RNG can be painful).
Heroics (group content) vary by expansion. BoL was a simple rush. RoS was so full of mechanics you almost had to use ACT or suffer task overload.
VoV started off tough, but the Heroic 1s were made simpler, which has made it simpler to progress from Solo to Heroic (good), but left a huge gap from H1 to H2.
Not done the raids in VoV, but they remain time consuming unless you're in a well practiced raid group, or are using gear from a future xpac to the one the raid is in.
Overall though, fun. Give it a shot.. A month's sub is a little bit more than a couple of cups of good coffee, so well worth it, even as an experiment.