I honestly believe that its time for Everquest to make a major change to the game client in order to make it sustainable as a MMORPG going in to the next decade.
There is no getting around the fact that Everquest is designed around the concept of playing as a group. It worked absolutely brilliantly for many, many years. What it has become after over two and a half decades, with the player population going down over time, is the majority of it's players running their own groups.
It's a group-based game. No getting around that.
Let's not fool ourselves into believing that the vast majority of players actually group up with OTHER players to play the game. The only place that happens on a regular basis is on new TLP servers.
One of two things needs to happen in Everquest to set it up for another couple decades of success.
- Integrate boxing software into the actual game client rather than pretending you don't know everyone is using 3rd party software to box until you need a reason to get rid of someone who upset one of your GM's friends
- Change the game client to let you control between 1 to 6 characters (across 1 to 6 accounts) within ONE Everquest game client. This would include expanding on the in-game macro system to add commands for the various characters you are playing on that same game client (ex. be able to create a macro hotbar button that instructs your healer character to cast a particular heal spell on your tank character and so on)
Now, will they do it? No. DBG has shown over the past decade that they put in minimal development into anything they do for EverQuest. So... it won't happen.
Just my two coppers...
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