The Good:
A lot of the emu stolen stuff is nice to have. Track on map, etc. There is also some fun little shit like ogre robes and classic models on mounts that should just have been fixed in the main game years ago.
Exaltations (being able to remove procs/focus effects/etc as augments) is an interesting feature. Makes random focus only drops more interesting/worth farming. My main gripe is that on a power fantasy server, making the item inherit the requirements (class/race) of the item the exaltation came from is kind of corny. If I pull out a haste proc, let me just stick it in whatever weapon.
Rituals. A certain subset of spells (Shrink, Gate, Bind, Ports, etc) unlock rituals for the spell once you get it on a class. This lets you cast those spells while NOT being the class at the cost of all your mana. So if you level a wizard up to 24, you can unlock all of the wizard gates up to that point and you can cast them without having to swap out your wizard to do so.
Any slots. You get two 'any' slots where you can just toss some random shit. Has weird mechanics though because a pierce weapon will allow backstab for rogue, but a shield won't allow bash.
The Fine:
Gear upgrades. Paired with motes and any slots, there is a little bit of strategy to auto-merging vs wearing a second copy (if not lore). For most gear/spells, the upgrades are pretty uninteresting (just stat increases). You need to level some items up to take out their procs/effects, but other than that there aren't any surprises around the bend waiting for you. They also need an easy way in the UI to preview all 10 levels of the item from the tooltip, maybe adding virtual items to the comparison drop down.
Stances. They give another button to press when shit is going sideways, but it usually boils down to 'use bar for damage', 'use bar for defense' or 'recover bar'.
Difficulties. Really could just be 'grinding difficulty' and 'farming difficulty'. I am not sure why you would bother having difficulties 1 and 3. You either are on 0, 2 for grinding or 4 for drops.
Personal instances. Charge system usually means you're 'fine' with the instances you have unless you ended up bugged or something.
Quick Buff. You can get an AA to just cast all memorized spells immediately on yourself, your group and pets, etc. It's fine, doesn't need a cooldown though. Also buffs you know should be permanent like THJ. Ideally you would just select the buffs you want in your spell list and quick buff would cast them without having to mem them, that would justify the cooldown.
Main/Race lock. It's whatever, it requires a bit of arcane knowledge about what you want to do in order to not fuck up your character at 11, but I can see why they need it if they want to have additional race/class unlocks through achievements. The problem right now is that all race and class unlocks are the same shit, get faction with the race, collect sky shit for the class. Ideally there would be something a little more 'questy' about unlocking the races and classes, which would give more content to farm vs just get to 50. Almost all race unlocks are just doing 400 random turn ins. Turning in muffins isn't engaging gameplay.
AAs. You also have no way to control the xp going into it, but they come at a reasonable rate. Some classes aren't in so some classes have things that are way more interesting to chase vs others. I think finding the balance of 'level requirement' to 'power fantasy' will be interesting. Right now it has a similar problem to D4, where you get all the cool shit first (obviously) and then later it's like 'oh shit nice, improved metabolism 3'. The dopamine curve is extremely front loaded.
The Bad:
Revamped zones kill almost everything else. The loot is very hard to replace and the instances have no PH so the names are always up. This makes it pretty stupid to be in non-revamped zones for farming drops. The enchanted fine steel and pristine studded leather out of befallen will be almost impossible to replace with classic itemized gear. This will probably eventually be 'fixed' by everything being revamped, but for right now it steals away some of the 'nostalgia' of chasing a powerful item only to bank it because some random shit you got off a skeleton at 10 is way better.
The community. As evidenced by this thread, people are either quietly playing, sycophants for the developers or want the developer and players to die. The cash shop shit shifted those numbers a bit and from a PR standpoint (if not a direct player count standpoint) was a big misfire. I don't foresee the same level of theorycrafting in the community as THJ, because the casual retards have already claimed dominance in the main discord and it has a chilling effect on anyone who isn't a retard from wanting to talk in there. Ideally some theorycrafting discord will show up that bans anyone who says "just play what is fun ^_^"
The on-ramp / future. The game has very little on-ramp for the new mechanics and if the idea is to attract NEW players, it's fucked. The game requires a reasonable amount of EQ domain specific knowledge (as did THJ), but then adds on their veneer of additional systems to learn. I have the same gripe with MnM where if you didn't play EQ, you're fucking lost because what person thinks you have to buy a spell and right click it and put it in a book? That is EQ-ism shit and isn't intuitive. Also the stock UI and presentation is still horribly ugly. The default layout and UI need to be optimized for new users and not just a hodge podge of UI elements that mean nothing to anyone new. I know there is a tension with the "nostalgia" group vs new players, but what we find nostalgic is exactly what has been preventing new people from picking up the game (it's ugly, obtuse, old, clunky, etc). They really need a "are you new to EQ or do you want the lube-less version" prompt when you first make your character and then proceed from there.
Ultimately, it's fine. Prob not worth giving up THJ for and in a perfect world they would just coexist like p99 and TLPs. More weird ways to play EQ is better than fewer. It feels like classic will be here for a while, and I was already anticipating getting out of classic zones, but I think if they can keep coming out with 'classic+' zones prior to Kunark, it could have some legs. The main issue will of course be the mudflation of the new zones and having the dev resources to 'pre' rework all of Kunark to make it worth doing.
