Man, if you weren't max, no way you were coming to NToV with us. You must've had some nice folks on your server Elurin.
Planes, definitely. Seen plenty of family guilds run the planes when they were dated, and they ENJOYED it. They didn't complain it was old content, it was still challenging and provided good rewards.
This is the effect you get when you make magic items rare, and don't obsolete them during expansions. EQ accomplished the rarity by having, obviously, non-instanced content, which meant only X number of items could drop for the whole server. This forced older items to retain their value, so even old dungeons were very, very valuable. There was no such thing as useless content, unless it was 3+ expansions old and even then, people still killed Nag for his cloak even when guilds were clearing NTOV--it all depended on access, because magic items were so limited.
In WoW, this kind of system wouldn't work because all of a characters power is pushed into acquiring items. So if you don't get new items, you were shit out of luck in terms of power. In EQ, where the levels were so long, MOST non-hardcore players, could always gain a level for more power, even if they didn't get an item. Then AA's came out, and essentially everyone but the top tier guilds had a "broad" base to increase power, you did not need a new item to get stronger, you got stronger in a variety of ways--this let them use the item system described above.
In WoW's system though, where everyone needs items to advance--you need to start offering items consistently, so people don't feel like their time is a complete waste. This is what has lead to things like badges or PvP points. Think about it, eventually badges just became numerical values. In other words, they had to use items to replace the constant experience gains you had in other games. I feel this was a very large mistake.
Multiple power advancement options, with soft cap systems, would allow you to "tier" your content so it stays useful longer...AND still provide large, but rare rewards in single group content--that would remain useful to everyone, because powerful items are limited. While at the same time offering people with only a little time a consistent method of power advancement every log on, through gaining experience. While still having the allure to give players the impetus to take on the more challenging content with that "treasure" hunter vibe that only very rare/powerful items give.
The big change was instancing let people do whatever content they were capable of, rather than having to wait on guilds in front of them to finish.
Yes, but I think this could work with instances, too. By putting strict lock outs on instances, and making so items only drop, even in instances, rarely (Yep kill a boss, get only gold/gems, which given everything would be non-boe, would allow you to eventually buy some gear, but the boss wouldn't always drop it.)--you'd keep that same rarity. This would
NOTwork in WoW because if someone did an instance and got nothing, it's a complete waste of time, that's simply too frustrating, especially for low time players.
However, if people did instances and still grew in power through various soft cap systems/skill gains, combined with money gains and an open trade market where they could eventually buy gear, then they wouldn't need constant improvements to gear from each dungeon, and you could make gear more "rare" and "difficult" to acquire. This has the side effect of letting you not mudflate as much. Because in new dungeons/content, the bonus to doing them wouldn't need to be an advance in stats--but rather simply another avenue to get more chances at drops. (It goes back to being "broad" rather than simply growing in stats.)
But again, this would only work in a game where you could offer players other forms of power advancement, so they wouldn't feel like a majority of log ins were wasted by bad RNG--rather the RNG for gear should feel like a special bonus, and the experience should feel like the pay off for work done. Right now, in WoW, gear has to occupy both those roles, which is why, for me anyway, gear feels very bland. It may as well just be a bar you fill.
