The idea that there's some consensus that classic ended with Luclin is nonsense.

You don't get to decide what is/was classic. Neither do the owners of the project - they just get to decide what experience they offer.

Late 2004 was almost simultaneously: 1) the launch of WoW, 2) launch of EQ2, and 3) the shitty and broken OoW expansion (which followed the shitty and broken GoD expansion). That series of events is what I think killed classic EQ.

Tells people that they don’t get to have an opinion about something while also telling them your opinion on it

Dude, my ARMY friends literally begged me to buy WoW Shadowlands. It's a weird situation because we're all best friends who live on the other sides of the country, so we play games to interact with one another. So I went out and bought Shadowlands just to play with them... AND THEY quit before hitting level 60.

They hated being forced to play the Campaign, which was essentially a single-player version of the game that might as well be played offline. We couldn't really group with one another because we were on different portions of the quest.

Well I make it to level 60, and I grind my fucking heart out on WoW PVP gear, only to find out that I can't even upgrade it because I need to wait another week to do more campaign quests, and then that week comes around, and I grind some more, only to find out I can't upgrade anymore because I have to wait another week for more campaign.

Meanwhile everyone else in PVP has max-level gear and is completely stomping the fuck out of me. After about 4 weeks I was just like this isn't fun, man. Like I'm playing Subtlety Rogue. The entire spec is centered around one-shotting people, but when you don't have the gear to one shot someone, and your burst just tickles them, the spec feels so fucking bad to play.

It's just a terrible idea to force players to be time-gated, like what if you work all the time, and finally get a weekend off and want to dump as much time into the game as you want, but can't because you're only allowed to do so much. It's such a dumb fucking design.

Maybe in their mind it forces players to play the game longer, so more subscriptions, but in practice it just makes players quit playing the fucking game. Like right now if you wanted to play WoW, you would be absolutely retarded to subscribe to the game right now. You need to wait until the next content patch before subscribing.

The game shouldn't be like that. You should be able to play whenever you want, however you want -- forcing PVE'ers to gear up through PVP is toxic af too -- you're forcing raiders to have to do BGs they don't enjoy, and you're forcing PVPers to have to deal with these players who are mostly AFK or don't care about winning/losing to be on the same team as people who really want to win.

That's actually around the time I started playing on Sullon Zek... I remember leveling in Paludal Caverns, and it was scary because random high levels would show up and slaughter entire groups... I finally gave up when I was in Shadowhaven and had taken money out of the bank to buy something in the Bazaar... I thought it was safe since it was a city with guards... well.. I didn't even notice, I got to the bazaar and when I opened my inventory my money was gone... I was confused, then I scrolled up in the logs and saw where a Rogue had swiped all of my coin... I'm talking thousands of PP.. I quit the game lmao.

I remember this chart during it's relevant time period, and at that time I was more concerned with the future of EQ 2 and whether or not it was dying. The information was taken from the servers, not from the companies. It was and still is considered very accurate.

I agree with this sentiment and this is one of my biggest complaints with WoW. When WoW first came out it their original mission statement was to not increase the level cap and only add more content for level 60 players, but that obviously didn't age well.

When I explain to my friends how in EQ, a new expansion would come out and most players would still be playing the old content, their minds can process how this is possible because all they've ever known is WoW. It's very possible, and I think for future MMOs to have a long-life, almost necessary..?

Like it feels really bad to log into WOW and realize that 99% of the content is trivial and ultimately pointless.

If I made a character on P99 right now, I would still be leveling in old zones, and I wouldn't be able to really skip over most raids. Every character I level on P99 has had a completely different route for progression and the game felt drastically different each time. On WoW you level off the exact same zones, and quest lines, and there's no reason to want to explore. There's no sense of adventure or reward from looking over the next hill to see what it may behold.

they finally got back to that by making max lvl 60 again :D

You need to learn to read.

You get to have an opinion. You just don't get to decide for everyone else nor do you get to characterize what everyone else has decided. Actually you get to try, but you'll just be wrong.

phasing is terrible except for like a player city with like one final level ya were things change

the garrison in WoD was good phasing tho

You're posting data that mirrors what used to be posted on mmogchart. Whatever site you pulled that graph off simply copied the old one. It was mostly compiled from companies' own public statements. That's why the EQ graph has that solitary (and ridiculous) spike in 2004--that was when Sony most radically re-defined what it counted as a subscriber. The "growth phase" and "stagnation era" numbers for EQ from 1999 into 2003 are usually regarded as more or less accurate.

In this case it benefits us as a community to accept a definition of "classic EQ" because it serves the benefit of communication. I'd rather talk about classic--which insofar as P1999 is concerned very much includes content through but not beyond Velious--than argue over definitions. Words need accepted meanings.

Danth