[Secrets]

Furthermore, WoW gives you all the gear you need to get started, not all the gear you'd ever want.

I'm not sure if you ever played WoW (it sounds like you guys haven't for the most part) but you are given a basic set of armor and then are expected to perform your role as a tank, dps, or healer. Not learn it as you're gearing up; it's given to you on a silver platter so you can stay competitive with other players that know how to play your class.

Gear isn't the only thing that determines a players' skill in an MMO, player skill is highly attributed to how well you perform. I guarantee 95% of the druids on this server can't solo Phinny, or don't want to because they're scared of failure and an 18 hour corpse run. However, if you were to give them unlimited tries and no penalty for failure, a good 35% couldn't solo it.

EQ1 isn't a skill based game, it's a game about risk vs reward and time invested.