I find it interesting how a segment of the player base seems so hung up on the idea that "competition" is essential for an enjoyable EverQuest experience. Like it validates and justifies their spending 30+ hours awake camping legacy items and/or shitting in a sock. In a completely meaningless, artificially handicapped setting. Lost in it all is a sense of
community. Which, to me at least, was always one of the most important aspects of EverQuest & MMOs. And has anyone who has played on Green for an extended period ever honestly said, "yeah, this community rocks"? It wasn't my experience.
This thread on the Blue forum shows older members of the community mourning what the project's culture has devolved into - "a greedy affair." Seems to be closely related with these concepts of competition.
(Saying this, I hope other people have had nothing but positive experiences with the community here. As the most visible + popular EQemu, I hope it continues to succeed. I caught Sugz's stream yesterday where someone was saying they had lost their 22 bard's corpse at the bottom of TD and didn't know how to get it back. I ran over, emptied out my bank (17kpp), and gave them all my 57 bard's equipment - not great but probably ~20-30kpp's worth. I hope they have a grand ol' time and pay it forward when they get the chance. But certainly leveling up two toons 50+ was enough time spent on these servers for me.)