Quote:
Originally Posted by calaxa
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Storm,
I think you need to reread that chart. The huge plummet did not occur until 2005 (a few months after EQ2 and WOW launch). I was still playing on live during this era and there was no mass exodus just yet. Stormhammer server opened during this time as well as a few other servers. Wasn't until 2006 did SOE start doing server merges and that's what you see on the chart. Numbers are inaccurate after that as SOE introduced station pass which means anyone subscription numbers can be duplicated for multiple games.
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The MMO's after 2003 might have "broke the camels back," but it had had a bad back for a while.
The decline does not have to be huge. If you have a decline in active subscriptions, you'll very likely also hve a decline in new player subscriptions. In fact, I think this is highly likely. We all know that EQ, just like any other mmorpg, becomes top heavy in short order. Without a strong thriving new player population that can find groups and survive in EQ's world, all you got left are the veterans. Veterans get tired of playing the same game over and over. They try new things. When EQ2 and WOW came out, just as Anarchy Online and DAOC and others, EQ lost accounts. The decline did not start with WOW or EQ2, as I was trying to point out here by referring the reader to the event that happened in mid 2001 when there was a marked decrease in the rate of active subscriptions. It might not have started with it, but it certainly was hit hard in 2005. Some other mmo's that came out in 2004-05 were: Lineage II, City of Heroes, Guild Wars, Matrix Online, Conquer Online.