Contested dungeons

Here's one of the biggest examples of what inspired AoC's dungeons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaXnRu2rWTM

You have rooms with mobs, you have rooms with bosses, you have the final room with the final boss that requires an item to enter (you get the item through a quest) and the boss respawns once a 1.5 weeks. That boss room is a semi-instance, so after his spawn and after people start entering that room - he'll wake up in a few minutes and the access to the room will get locked.

So if, by chance, Intrepid copy those mechanics one-to-one, it'd cover your first 3 points (though there is a "final boss", the only difference in loot was a single item and the higher chances to drop other stuff).

Points 4 and 5 could definitely be added w/o subtracting from the overall design direction.

We have not received permission from Kilion to share the quoted post.

Not really. Either direct pvp interactions or just quest-based item triggers that allow to access rooms in a dungeon that others can't if they don't have that item.

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The good ol' "this game is not for everyone" applies

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I think he just wants to make a game for himself with his own preferences. And however many people like it - that'll be great. And if it's a good game, that's gonna be a fair bit of people.

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L2's groups were 9-man and, yeah, usually you'd try to fight several mobs at once just to speed up your farm.

But quite often those rooms would be pulled into the corridors one mob at a time because the groups farming them were too weak. And then just running through the dungeon would be quite dangerous.

L2's leashes seem shorter than EQ's though and mobs across the entire dungeon are not as socially agroable, so if a mob from 2 rooms back hits you while you're running through another room (but don't agro its mobs) - other mobs won't just jump on you.

I'd prefer Ashes to exist in the middle ground between L2 and EQ. Fewer mobs per room, but they're more difficult and the dungeon is more dangerous overall.