JerryVan

I started playing EQ in the beginning, and I switched to EQ2 when it came out. There are many things about EQ I remember fondly. Corpse Runs, running from Halas to Freeport...vast and dangerous environments, not being able to do anything without a solid group and when you found one you made new friends and played with each other as often as possible...

HOWEVER, when we wax poetic about the good old days, and the good old days rarely are as good as we remember, we forget about the bad things. About 10 minutes before you were going to log off you die, and you have to spend 3 hours on a corpse run you didn't plan and didn't want to do and get 3 hours of sleep before work or you lose everything you have earned so far. We forget about spending 5 hours online without being able to find a group, and we forget about 10 hours of play spent to get 2% XP or to get through step 2 of a 20 step quest.

That level of frustration drives most players away...fewer players means less profit, and in the end SoE makes games to make money. There may be "Hardcore" servers in EQ Next that caters to players that want the level of challenge to be truly daunting, but most people play games for escapism and feeling weak and vulnerable is something most people can experience in their day to day lives and want something else from their games.

I hope the "Hardcore" players realize all this and can be happy with a high risk, high challenge, high penalty server of their own.

I just want a deeper play experience, with an amazing world to experience, beautiful graphics, and compelling stories to engage me and tie me to the world. I want my Clerics and Paladins to be shining beacons of holy light, my Necromancers to be truly dark and menacing, wielding death and darkness like a wicked blade, my Shamans to be something other than a priest that uses some necromancer spells to be true channelers of Place, and Animal spirits, and to be a conduit for ancestral spirits. Savage holy people to the savage races that empower their warriors, and are no strangers to the battlefield themselves, my druids being true stewards of nature and that represent the savage, brutal power of primal energy. I want my Warriors to be exemplars of martial prowess, entering battling and wearing the blood of their enemies like a second skin and my Mages to rain Arcane fury down on their enemies, crackling with eldritch power and releasing maelstroms of mana infused destruction. I want the full deal, I want the flavor of the classes to drip from them like so much melted butter. I want to be able to shine as a true hero when I play any class and not have my class be anything like the others.

I am tired of not being able to tell the difference between one class from the other...I am tired of content on rails. I do not want to know that if the mob is red, no matter what happens I can't defeat them, no matter what strategy I use, anymore than I want to know that I could defeat all 10k grey mobs simply because the con says so...

I also want things to make sense, no more rogues teleporting me out of dungeons, because their "ability" says they sneak us all out in a matter of seconds...Paladins grouping with Necromancers? Rangers and Rogues being extra good at killing animals for XP? Clerics of good gods killing Paladin guards for XP with no penalty? Stop the madness!

I think each class should be effective in several different roles. Non tank DPSers should be able to act as a tank if they are willing to lose DPS in the process, same thing for priests, they should be able to heal, and if their healing isn't needed, no reason they can't sub for DPS at the cost of healing prowess...kind of a slider that lets different classes scale back things like healing for DPS, or DPS for defense...or vice versa. It allows players to make the best of whatever class combo's they find in their group.

Just thought I would throw out my wants in a rambling wish list since everyone else was. =P