I think just about every bard out there wish it didn't take so long to
memorize new songs. At 30th level, the low level songs aren't that big of a
hassle anymore. It only takes a few seconds to memorize them. However, the
30th level songs seems like it takes forever. In real life, any good
musician or singer nkows their music and lyrics like the back of their hand.
I'll give you a good example. I've seen Jimmy Buffett in concert at least
20 times. He has a segment during his concerts called Stump the Band. He
invites fans up to the stage and they get to choose what song the JB and the
Coral Reefers will play. A lot of people pick obscure songs from his albums
released back in the 70s and early 80s. On every occasion, Buffett and the
band start right up like they had been rehearsing the song for weeks. Not
once have I seen the band get stumped. Bards in EQ should be the same way.
It shouldn't matter what level you are or what level the song is you want to
memorize. IMO, every song should take the same amount of time to memorize.

I think the biggest advantage to this would be that it would make it
feasible to memorize new songs while in combat. I've never played a caster
class, but I've been told they can switch out spells in combat rather
quickly, assuming they aren't getting attacked. I think the biggest
justification we would have is that all of our songs perform a unique
function. Bards are probably the only class that consistently use their
level 10 and lower songs/spells once they get to the medium/high levels.
For caster classes, a lot of their higher level spells are just better
version of lower level spells. The eight song/spell slots constraint
doesn't hamper them as mush as it hampers us.

If a lot of you out there think it would be a good idea, I would like to
submit a petition to Verant requesting that they implement this change. If
all our songs take the same amount of time to memorize, there wouldn't be
any need to give us the meditate skill. I would like to include some
quantitative data as part of the petition. This data would be the required
time to memorize songs broken down by level. Don't think we need to include
data on all 50 levels but instead accumulate data for all levels in
increments of five (i.e. 5, 10, 15, 20...50). Since I'm 30th level, I'll
get the data for that level. If we can't find someone on the list that is
the appropriate level, guess we could get someone close to that level (i.e.
no level 10 bards on list so 9 or 11 acceptable). All you would have to do
is start at song #1 and time it from start to finish. Wash, rinse and
repeat until you get to your highest level song. Post your results on the
list.

Good idea? Waste of time? Better way to gather the data?

Galtin of E'ci
30 bard