What caused the decline of EQ as the #1 MMO?

[mitic]

on pvp-servers it was PoP ruining it

controlling zones (on sz it was like neuts velious, goodies oldworld, evils kunark) went to hell with those books. added to that the high resist armor started to make casters almost obsolete in pvp

[odizzido]

For me it was things like books, corpse summon halls, etc. EQ is good for me because of things like travel and risk.

Old world content becoming easier and easier is just the natural evolution of a game like EQ. I imagine a single item from a raid boss in EQ now is better than all the best items combined in classic EQ.

[Taxi]

Originally Posted by Olorin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Eq2 which released around the same time had an effect as well -- Sure, WoW grabbed more, but EQ2 at release was difficult as well, the amount of soloable content was well, not much.

Stopped playing EQ1 when Luclin came out cuz my comp wasnt handling it too well, and Luclin left me meh.

I bought EQ2 and then quit after the free month after i realized you needed 2 accounts to use the auction house, i couldnt heal anyone unless i was in their groups, i could pwn myself in the face and lose hours of combat xp while crafting, etc etc..

I guess new games coming out and (im guessing here based on the feedback i hear) the subsequent expansions after Luclin were less than stellar is probably what caused the decline. Played SWG in 2003 and WoW in 2005 myself.

[Alleusion]

I think the release of other games is what caused EQ's decline in the beginning. Than in an attempt to lure people back from those games, SOE devs overcompensated and made the game stupidly easy...mercs anyone?

When I started playing, the world was big. Travel was dangerous and you actually had to earn exp. Your reputation was a big deal and there was a community. Then the world got bigger, but travel became a little easier (Nexus). People hung out and chatted while waiting on ports. Then it got bigger still (PoK)...and bigger...and bigger. With each expansion travel got easier and easier. Guild halls were introduced and people would hang out in there...and it got quiet. Unless you sat around in the guild lobby or PoK, there was little chatter. People wrapped themselves up in their guild and became suspiscious of newcomers. The game wasn't social anymore.

[nosto]

I think the issues started happening with the inception of the bazaar and translocators. Immediately separating the community from its roots. I also heard a lot of complaints about luclin being too sci-fi for the fantasy genre and a lot of people were turned off (this wasn't the case with me). The only thing I was torn on but really seemed to start killing EQ was when they went to the LDON expansion, where the content was all instanced etc. etc.

Anyway that was just my on the crapper input response.

[Akame]

Time sinks killed EQ. Why keep playing EQ when there was much more instant gratification elsewhere.

[Jify]

I jumped ship because I hated GoD and OoW. It didn't feel like EQ, it felt like I was playing something completely different. I decided to rough out GoD, and then OoW came out and it was the same shit-tastic mobs, zones, etc. I said screw it!

Then I went to EQ2, which was AMAZING.... and then they brought in things like the Sony Exchange ($$ for pp & gear), and lots of favouritism (freaking Curt Schilling got so much GM favouritism), the little things added up. When I came back to try it out, it was still fun content wise, but they introduced an "AA-like system", and I wasn't having fun earning points for minimal improvements. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Feather]

I think it was having crappy GM's or no GM's at all - - the disdain Verant has for players. They basically shut down communication with players. I sure didn't feel like I was valued as a participant.

[Chieling]

IMO if they would have spent the time updating the EQ engine, and possibly adding more quests or something - instead of coming out with EQ2 - that the original EQ would still be doin alot better.

[Brut]

I guess it just grew old and folks got bored. Happens.

Personally quit because I was never in any big raiding guild and felt like 98.5% of the content looked to be directed solely to the server's #1 guild. Couldn't be assed to buy 6 latest expansions since 4 of em were now graveyard zones, and I saw no appeal in any of the monster-mission-craps. Could pretty much look from somewhere like Allakhazam on what the new raid bosses in DoN look like, while I ran around in PoP elem-tier gear and some bazaar-bought crap, spending time goofing in the Hole. Had fun in the Hole, though. And then got bored of the Hole and quit.