I first started playing the original version of EverQuest back in October of 1999. I moved to EverQuest II with it’s release in 2004.

Over the past eleven years, the EverQuest II design team has added many revolutionary MMORPG features, which were inconceivable back in the EQ1 days.  Some features that are relevant to my proposal are:

• Instanced Housing, so everyone can have their own home to decorate without impacting other players
• Mounts that you can ride or place in your home as a house item
• Pets in multiple settings and for multiple uses
• Mercenaries
• Mentoring

Daybreak, please take another look at player Alternate Characters.

Using the existing in game mechanics, I would like them to make player ALTS available as;

• House decorations, when not logged in as  a playable character
• An equivalent to a Mercenary when playing

There are a lot of benefits that could accrue to both Daybreak and the player community.

For Daybreak, this would provide a incentive for Veteran players to create multiple ALTS and continue to play.  It may also add some new excitement to the home decorating market.

For the players, this would allow them to show off their ALTS and to custom design them for both a skill and appearance.

Some restrictions would be needed to make this work for both teams.

• Only player characters that have reached level of maturity, such as level 100 adventuring, could be used for mentoring.
  • An equivalent level 100 crafting mercenary might not be too helpful, but could still be made available as a housing item.
  • This puts a “price” in player time on the function.
• All the current mentoring “downgrades” would be applied.
  • There may need to be some additional controls to help balance this out.

This would not replace the current Mercenaries, so players who do not have a qualifying ALT would not be hurt by this change, but would be given a incentive to look at creating one.

I believe, compared to some of the other things that they have done, this would be a “relatively” easy expansion.  Yet, based on my experience in game and readings on the forums, this might be a real, welcomed game changer for a lot of players.

It would be cool to walk into my main home and see some of my ALTS wandering through the rooms (like the current plushies) or sitting in the gather area or studying at a table. (Sitting would require some work and new functionality, but it would be cool.)

Or how about your Guild Hall having a conference table with player ALTS sitting around the main table of in the gallery?  Given how creative our community is, this would be fascinating to watch.

So, what do you think?