Where did EQ Live go wrong?
 

EQ Live is often a sore subject for many of us, particularly those who started playing at the beginning. I am wondering, where/when do you think EQ Live went wrong, if you think it did at all? What made you stop playing? What changes, expansions, etc., did you hate? Just curious! Myself, I would have to say Planes of Power (as a wizard, I hated the fact that one of my class's main selling points, porting, was essentially nerfed).

Cats on the moon

AAs encouraging you to endlessly continue playing your main, making time spent playing an alt feel like you were wasting time.

Not to mention alienating new players due to a widening disparity in power as a result of this along with a lack of low levels to group with since the majority of people are busy on their max level mains.

Luclin.

SoE

Ouch. That's 2 against Luclin (not sure when AAs came out?). Poor Vah Shir!

id say mostly pop but a little luclin.

AA points came out in Luclin too.

this plus bazaar

Luclin was the first mixed bag expansion. All of Kunark and Velious were generally entertaining, but with Luclin came the dumb cat race, the dumb bazaar, the dumb teleportation system, and dumb zones like Paludal and Vex Thal. I generally like it though because AAs were awesome and Ssra was when raiding really took off.

Planes of Power was the same way. Plane of Knowledge was retarded, but the raiding progression (minus the endless backflagging at first) was EQ at its finest.

I quit playing twice in GoD (original and first progression servers) because the theme of the expansion really nerfed my class (shaman). It's hard going from being slightly OP Kunark -> Velious to completely OP Luclin -> PoP to poor buff/heal bot in GoD. Shaman weren't nerfed directly, but the content shift to low hp high dps mobs doesn't mesh well with slows and insane mana regen. Compare that to a fight like Seru that can last 20-60 minutes, where a single shaman can heal the raid, cure curses, keep slow up, and still be on top of damage charts by the end. Also Uqua really crushed the spirits of any raiding guild I was in because it was just so damn hardcore. I still have a lot of respect for GoD because of just how difficult it was, but that expansion is still pretty much the end of EQ for me.

What class you played had a lot to do with it I think. You can't be a shaman and hate AAs because some of those abilities were completely game changing like Canni 5 which was like obtaining an FT200 item and Virulent Paralysis which let you solo literally any mob in the game that didn't summon.