All they had to do was remake EQ1 with a few class changes.
Take spells away from rangers, make them about bouncing between melee and ranged, give them a few buttons to press for attacks, and gap closers/creaters--I would keep their small healing abilities and utilitarian shit like snare.
Beastlords- Ditch 'em, give rangers an animal pet.
Combine Warrior and Berzerker, give warriors some debuffy abilities (snare, etc), the beserkers buff shouts, and a their provoke line from the begining. (As an aside, to give them minor soloability I would give 'em the ability to proc a rune on themselves)
Paladins-Keep 'em with the current class design.
Shadowknights-Focus almost entirely on taps and aggro.
Monk- Same general design, incorporating some of the later AA abilities added for more buttons to press for the ADHD kids.
Shaman - They were obviously intended to be spell/melee hybrids. Make it happn capn
Cleric - Same basic design, maybe with a stronger offensive stance kinda thing that makes 'em able to do half-respectable DPS at a cost of major healing
Druid - Same basic design.
Mage - Same basic design, not OP pets
Necro - Fast dots and long dots from the beginning, just for more group viability; I'd personally just make this a toggle to avoid epic dot stacking, similar to the ST-AE toggle in the original incarnation of FFXIV
Wizard - Make shadowstep do something fun, otherwise keep 'em mostly the same.
Bard - Fuck 'em imho, but they're loved so keep 'em the same. Maybe tweak some numbers and shit so that they can solo
Enchanter - Obviously, make CC matter again. Make this their primary purpose. Perhaps some solo abilities like a mez bomb or something for fun. Nerf the balls out of charming.
Rogue - The goal in most of these changes is QOL or to give them some solo viability. Thusly, the rogue provided the most difficulty. IMHO the solution is to rip off the riftstalker's shadowstepping shit. Combine it with 2-3 hit invulnerability on the shadowsteps, give them some minor stuns (for level-1, and make those abilities interrupts above that) that let them get backstabs off. Maybe a force the enemy to turn ability..I would give them a smokescreen ability that is an AE debuff to accuracy. I would also give them group sneak/hide....I don't know of a good option that would make them viable duo partners on group named without making them OP on raid mobs. It'd be possible to make the "stun" abilities allow 1-2 backstabs from any angle, I suppose.
I may've missed a class.
For all classes, I'd provide a downtime reducer so that your downtime is a max of like 3 minutes--Maybe tied to a regentless bind wound? Makes you actively play. For caster I don't know what the answer would be for mana, or for endurance for melee. Maybe make ability resource be the big point in downtime? I don't know. Mana regen doesn't HAVE to be as slow as it was back in the day.
Basically, make EQ1 in a new engine, provide some fun abilities for all the classes that fit fairly well into the EQ system (I feel mine do, with some minor changes to some base mechanics that would allow the game to feel mostly the same but be more fluid), and remake the land we know and love with the same lore.
Shit, I'd of played a rogue over a monk in EQ if it were like that. Probably would've even paired well with a shaman...Making things more involved cuts down on the box armies too, cause you need crazy shit like complicated ISBoxer bullshit to pull it off.
I just want the glory days back though, so a simple reskin would hook me.
