Yeah I just don't see where you are coming from olts. You really think it is for the good of the game that people have to raid stuff from 5 expansions ago to get decent ratios on their weapons? I can see keeping it so that you have to raid the last one or maybe two expansion's content to get geared up for the new one but making people do years old content just because other people had to do it back in the day is just stupid.
Although it is a nice idea in theory that people have to go through the whole progression, it is a fact of life that people like to do the new "shiny" stuff. If EQ is going to stand a chance of staying commercially viable going forwards in what is a very competitive market place these days, it needs to cater to all it's players and not just elitist raiders. I have seen people on the SOE forums saying that they are worried about lack of content in the expansion because the zone where this stuff drops will be trivial and what are they going to do after 1 month when they hit 85. Well guess what, most people aren't endgame raiders with the ability to kill mobs "in two hits" and so this sort of zone will be a challenge to them.
I've been playing since 2000 (with a few breaks in between, last one was a long one and I've not been back that long) and I'm not near to max level yet. I think it is great that I'll actually be able to go to a zone in the new expansion and actually get some upgrades - I can't remember the last time I was able to go to a new EQ expansion relatively soon after it comes out and feel like I might be able to contribute to a group (always been a bit behind the curve in EQ
).
WoW has many faults and I'm not sure I 100% agree with the idea of a total gear reset every expansion, but it is a great idea in the sense that it brings the whole community together again and they can all enjoy going through the content with each other. I was raiding in WoW when the last expansion hit and had fallen into the old guild/other raider only groups habit because, let's face it, gimps like me only slow you down. It was a real breath of fresh air to be suddenly back in the field, where everybody was useful again and it didn't matter if a_random_mage didn't have the great staff of uberness because he could still contribute to the group with new equipment that he had got since the expansion hit (Contrary to popular belief, there wasn't a vendor giving them out for free as soon as you zoned in, you still had to do
some work!)
Now I 100% realize that groupers don't need raid level equipment - of course they don't as they don't fight raid level mobs; there does need to be a clear distinction between group and raid. However, the mobs in new content will be tuned around the fact that people do have raid equipment, so when somebody turns up with a weapon with a worse ratio than a raid weapon from five expansion ago they are at a bit of a disadvantage.
I agree with Brohg that old content (certainly of that age) should just be there for flavor, somewhere to go for a bit of fun and to relive old times - it shouldn't have actual upgrades on current content apart from the odd clicky or unusual aug.