Hybird spells

[ojamajoe]

While you and I might not regard their efforts as an attempt to "improve" eq, I bet that a lot of the custom server ops do. This is the tricky nature of dealing in subjectives! Part of the problem is the massive amount of work involved... just like creating p99. A custom server dealing with the issues discussed in this thread would be tons more work than trying to recreate old eq; and that was so much work and torture that this is the first successful effort in the many years of EQEMU to do so, despite the clamoring from early on for just such a server.

I regard SOD as more of an attempt to "mix up" eq, rather than improve it. For people that played Classic, SOD (when it was on) probably offered a great deal of the actual experience of Classic by virtue of depriving the player of a great deal of meta-knowledge.

I still believe that future of truly original and spirited MMO is in the hands of private developers, rather than corporate producers, be that soe, blizzard, or anyone else.

This I agree wholeheartedly with. It will take a private dev to not lowest-common-denominator a game, and instead focus on making it kick ass!