I still think FL needs a mechanic to allow characters to quest in order to gain Cabal type eq without being in a cabal.
You can ask the "taskmaster" for a quest (easy medium hard or elite) and you get points upon completion. Now for the point use.
Points can be used to restring items, on titles, on COLOR titles, on skill training (limited to 95%) on training hp/mana/mv (not sure what to limit it to here) and points can be used to gain pre-made EQ of decent value (just because I don't have 8 hours to grind through gear trips does not mean I should not have good, competitive shinies.) Now the thing here is preventing people from having full suits of owner only gear via this system which can be remedied by offering insurance through the task master (similar to cabals). Now the big question is how do we stop someone from camping the taskmaster with a ninja to assassinate or a thief from prying the gear as soon as it is gained. The taskmaster could be in a no_hide area (mayhaps a mob tucked in the woods somewhere in his own spunky forge/cabin/warehouse/magical portal to FL harbor freight.
The reasoning is it would allow people who are fresh to the level 50 game have something to work for (gear, titles, and RP) without having to join a cabal and get massacred by some of our veteran/elite players COUGHDaveCOUGH. I mean questing and gaining CP would be about the same. You might get a hard quest to slay the Troll Chieftan, without a group. That would prolly be about the same amount of time required to use cabal armies to take a smaller area. Of course some classes are going to have an easier time with some quests. A berserker might be able to pillage mob X while an invoker can't do it period. Meanwhile that same invoker can teleport til he lands near another target, and the berserker could never even get halfway there. You can even have items that you can "use" at the cost of quest points. A shield that casts stone skin could use x qp each use, and become unusable if you don't have the quest points required to use it.
nearly all muds have something like this implemented, and it really gives you something to do in your downtime besides hope you have someone log on to RP with, or a cabal enemy to pk, or a contract, or your imm.