hexeez wrote:
The raiding game in EQ is still strong, but the majority of people are still in the group game and I suspect that most are happy in the group game (like myself).
Let me add something to this, as a semi-returning player myself. The biggest difference now is that it's not the same "raid or die" system that EQ used to be. It used to be that if you didn't raid, you were effectively giving up ever having access to certain spells, or zones, or gear. Heck. Whole expansions existed where if you didn't raid, there wasn't much point going past the first couple zones (and in some, you *couldn't* get past the first couple zones). By creating standard tiered gear and spells, anyone can get tier1 stuff just by buying it. Tier2 stuff requires grouping, but can be done fairly casually if you want. And tier3 (and other related goodies) are available via raiding. Point being that you don't get "left behind" by not raiding. You just wont be as powerful at any given level, but even tier1 stuff is sufficient to be effective against current content at any given level.
Prior to that change it was not uncommon to see people simply stop leveling mains because it became nearly impossible to get gear upgrades without raiding, and higher level zones became deathtraps without the better gear. It was a pretty vicious cycle. Now, anyone can get gear sufficient for what they're doing and continue to advance in levels and content, at whatever pace they desire. Most importantly, they know that the gap between themselves and raid players, while still present, isn't so vast that they simply can't get there from here if they wanted to later.
This means you can be as active or casual as you want and still have lots of fun. And that's a good thing.
And it's not as impossible to get groups as some make it out to be. Yes, you'll run into a lot of people just playing with their own mercs, but I've been able to get into pickup groups in hotzones with my alts without too much trouble. And if you cant? Then you can always pull out your own merc and still do something. It's more of a plus than a minus IMO.