First off, I'm still playing and still loving it, even though I'm playing the same race/class i played on live.
The ultimate reason people stop playing is because the game stops being fun for them. For me, I don't think I'll hit that stage for a long while. I've spent the last week at the same level, but I've been having fun by tradeskilling and solo camping spawns for their loot (most recently was permafrost, a very underplayed zone, which is very fun to camp even thought most mobs were green/LB cons). I hope to stretch out my p99 experience by really getting know all of the zones. I'll look at the continent maps on EQ atlas and say "i haven't killed a single mob in THAT zone, ever!" and i'll head over there. If my main is way past that zone in terms of level and loot, then maybe I'll send one of my new, low level alts over there. I imagine that once I hit the level cap, have all the best gear, have all my skills at max level, and have a detailed first hand understanding of all of the zones then I'll be bored and stop playing, but I dont see that happening for a while, since I'll also want to play my alts more and more as I level my main higher and higher (I happen to find a few different play styles fun, so having a few toons makes sense for me, but not everyone).
Eventually this server will either stop evolving or will add the EQ expansions that 'broke' the game (or maybe the developers will make up their own rules to keep veterans interested and still make the game noob friendly
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] I've seen some interesting ideas in the threads). The problem with live is that as time goes on more and more players are in the top 10% of the overall game content in terms of level and items. They have to develop a way to make the game attractive for a totally new player, but in doing so they killed everything that was classic about the game and which drew me (and many others) in in the first place. All this fun won't last forever. Just like Live changed over the years, so will p99. It all hinges on the fact that this game requires other people to play in mass to have the classic touch which most of us love. That classic feel ended at different times for all of us, its just a matter of time before it completely dies all over again, but for now I'm loving it and will be having a blast on p99!!!
PS I see some threads in the forum about a$$ hats who ruin the game and QQ all the time, and how its hard to find a low level group if you aren't a 1337 Twink. To that I say this, I only joined p99 since Sony's big shutdown (actually I thought about joining live again a few days before that fiasco!) and I've seen nothing but kindness from 99% of the players out there. My main isn't twinked, and I get invited to group all the time, even without the LFG tag up. I have similar names between my alts and my main, and I get tells "hey, isn't your main ____, how are you?" and most of the time I have no idea who this person is or what trade/port/group/convo we shared in the past, but clearly I was a decent enough person with a unique enough name to be memorable.
The titale of this thread is sad, cause it implies the community here is dying. I am really enjoying this community, and while I will be taking a week break for vacation, and while this barely matters at all because my toon's names have nothing to do with my forum name, I just wanted to say this is still a fun place to play, I have really enjoyed my time here, and I wish everyone the best (especially the dev staff, the one time I petitioned, they dealt with it almost before I could blink. Damn was I impressed, having dealt with falling through the boat on live and waiting hours for help with my corpse, this felt really good).
See you all out there!!