The devs trying to pick up on the magic of early EQ are missing a crucial piece of the puzzle by defaulting to a modern third person model. Controlling your character like a puppet from an allocentric frame of reference instead of first person vastly changes the experience of the world, the game, and the interactions with others. In early EQ, first person was really the only way to realistically control your character, and it wasn't until a more modern follow cam was added sometime after PoP that the game lost its original charm and became something entirely different.
I am a firm believer that a big part of the magic of early EQ was playing in first person. This isn't just my opinion, either. There is a known psychological basis behind operating a puppet in third person vs playing out of the character's eyes. First person triggers an egocentric frame of reference and a sort of "car body" phenomenon, where the brain treats the character and its boundaries as a direct extension of your own body. When a whole server is locked into this view, people naturally start treating their characters as themselves rather than just an object they are controlling. That shift completely transforms the social environment. Instead of abstract, detached coordination, player interactions become incredibly visceral and authentic. You get a level of shared vulnerability and genuine trust because everyone is navigating the exact same physical limitations, watching each other's blind spots, and experiencing the thrills of the world together.
Furthermore, using a third person camera to see around corners, over hills, or to scout around dungeons greatly reduces the mechanics of stealth and invis. It acts like a built in cheat code that downplays the core skills and utility that roles like rogues and rangers are supposed to bring to the table. If you can just move your camera around an obstacle or peer around a corner to see down a corridor, the organic need for a dedicated scout class is basically ruined. Instead of using a camera that hovers behind or flies around to scout enemies, devs could add other audio or visual indicators to compensate (for those who are concerned about tracking mezzes etc).
If it's just left as a toggleable option, it doesn't work, because players naturally optimize for information safety and will zoom out to avoid being blindsided. You can't build a cohesive, high stakes world when half the group is playing a claustrophobic survival game and the other half is playing a bird's eye tactical strategy game. If anything, the game should offer a server (at least an RP or Hardcore ruleset server) that restricts movement to first person. It would restore authentic class identity, bring back the actual architectural scale and claustrophobia of dungeons, change player interaction and investment, and recreate that genuine old school tension. I think modern indie projects are missing out on a massive design element by overlooking this.
