Sony showing EverQuest Next this week

I have been looking forward to this game ever since its development was first hinted at back in 2009. Many discussions have taken place among my friends over the years as to what we hope Next will be like. For more then a decade I have been searching with constant disappointment for the same experience that we all had back in the early days of EQ. I could go on and on why no mmorpg has ever compared to the original EQ but I will try to stick to why I made my comment.

It really comes down to satisfaction and the fact that so much of today's society wants instant gratification. I'm so sick and tired of this pansy hand holding experience that a third grader can fumble his way through to max level in a couple of weeks. I hope that the leveling is on par with the original EQ or more difficult and give me hell levels that make me question if I'll will ever get through it. I'm talking months of everyday play or a year of casual play to reach max level. It has to be difficult or where does any satisfaction come from. Then add AA points or something similar so that your character never stops growing. That way no two characters can really ever be the same. Which leads me to the next point about loot. While I do hope that loot is done slightly different then the original EQ going to a WOW armor set model is definitely not the answer. I have gone back to WOW a couple times since my original WOW experience and it has taken me around a month to catch back up and have the same loot as almost everyone else. WOW at least has decent raiding content so you can separate yourself slightly from the masses with the latest tier of loot but you can pvp to get basically the same thing and both are obsolete within a few months. (Side note on raiding; Give me the ability to mass 80 people together and stand toe to toe with a god to get loot that few if any have ever seen before. Also if you are lucky enough to get loot off a mob that took 80 people to kill you shouldn't be able to get a random drop off a trash mob in the next expansion that's better, what was the point then?) IMO loot drops should rarely ever be the same and not primarily set up in a tier set structure. In today's age of programming we have the ability to put an element of randomness into just about everything. Let's use a low level item as an example say a stone mace, well that mace only drops 1 in 100 times and when generated can have 5 different graphics, 5 different levels of durability, 5 different levels of use requirements and 20 different variations of stats. If every item in the game was set up in a similar fashion it would be rare to see two people using the same items. If they are going to model anything after WOW take a page from their PVP book, then a page from Aion's and Warhammer's PVP and mix them together into something epic.

A few off topic random thoughts:

-95% of the content should not contain instancing.

-Competition for mobs is realistic and important.

-Bring back the grind and promote group play rather then solo play.

-Quests should focused around getting items not XP.

-It should be almost impossible to craft the top tear gear.

-No two top tier crafted pieces should ever be the same.

-Randomize just about everything.

-Make maps and mapping more realistic, I want to feel lost in an area until I get to know it.

-Most importantly DIEING SHOULD SUCK...

I really hope Sony's main goal with this game is to make an alternate universe, a place that seems like your stepping into another realm an alternate life if you will and life is not easy, life is not fair and no two peoples life is the same. Obviously they are making this game to make money but if that's their primary goal then we are going to end up with WOW2.

My greatest fear is that no game will ever stack up to original EQ again because I'm chasing a point in time rather then a actual new game but please Sony prove my fears wrong...