This was tough. My gut reaction is to vote "Everquest" without any expansions because there was no mudflation yet. The original game feels very coherent. It continued to feel very coherent until Luclin. Of course, Kunark started the mudflation, so it progressed with every expansion.
And yet I felt the urge to vote for "Planes of Power". Why? Because of these things:
1. Easy teleportation between the noob cities and various other zones - important for grouping at all level ranges, and is a great accessibility feature for people who want it
2. You're battling the Gods; a concluding coherent end to the game
3. No instances yet; not until Lost Dungeons of Norrath
4. A wide variety of raid content; some of it mudflated, but still lots of viable raiding
5. The classic zones are still used; no Mines of Gloomingdeep or Crescent Reach yet
6. No overtuned GOD and no weird stuff like Omens of War
One of the downsides of POP is the epics were less meaningful because of mudflation. The 1.5 was introduced with OOW. And yet epics still had some meaingful uses; not a complete loss.
Now if we're talking about the modern EQ, I'd say it'd be ideal if every expansion before The Serpents Spine (introduced Crescent Reach and the Drakkin) were cut away and the rest was modified so epics and everything else could be done in the newer content. I also think creating new Epics in the spirit of the old - yet without the camping - would be bullseye. I really do not understand why they abandoned them. Epics were a integral part of progressing your class and attaining status amongst your peers. The use a bunch of excuses to explain why they stopped making them, and yet the truth is they just didn't want to invest as much in Everquest as the used to. This is just a sad truth. Much of that money went to other games and ones in development.
In my mind, these're the best sequences in Everquest's life
1. Original
2. Up until Planes of Power
3. The Serpents Spine and after (with some modifications in an ideal world)
Thankfully, I was able to play p1999 before Kunark was launched, so i got to expeirence some of that AGAIN. Yes, I experienced it in 1999. I vowed to not level past 15-24 which I faithfully adhered to. I still think that's the most coherent and least mudflated experience.
Keep in mind hte modern EQ is VERY mudflated. Everything before the current expansion is USELESS. That's not how it used to be. Older raids (from several expansions previous) were routinely played. Teh game had a lot more content back then and felt more vibrant. It mainly felt vibrant because I think they invested more resources into it and because it was still new to us.
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