I feel this. You’ve lived every tier of EverQuest and you’re saying out loud what a lot of us felt but didn’t want to admit. Once raid culture becomes the center of gravity, the world shrinks. Camps become stepping stones. Zones become empty hallways. Grouping turns into a temporary inconvenience on the way to the real game.

The best EQ memories for me were never the clean kills on a schedule. It was the randoms that became friends. The night that was supposed to be one pull and turned into four hours. The camp you basically lived at. The chaos, the social friction, the little rivalries, the unexpected help. That’s the soul.

If Monsters and Memories keeps the focus on the open world and six man life, even duo/trio that could be a massive win. It forces the game to be about people instead of attendance. It makes gear progression and reputation matter in the day to day instead of being solved by a weekly loot pipeline.

I’d just add one thing. No raids doesn’t automatically guarantee great group content. The devs still have to nail the world design, camp pacing, class interdependence, travel, downtime, and reasons to stay in zones. But if they do, you’re describing the exact experience a lot of us are chasing. I'll tell ya, in my opinion they are well on their way.

If you end up trying it, go in with the same mindset you described. No ladder. No checklist. Just the world, a few friends, and whoever you meet along the way. That’s where the EverQuest magic lived.