It started going downhill after 1999. There was a huge influx of new players in the beginning of 2000, as a result of getting Everquest as a holiday present, and most of them looked at the game as something that needed to be rushed through and "beaten" to be enjoyed. With information about the game accumulated on the internet and being able to twink themselves easier as a result of existing players having items to give away, these players made the game environment less immersive.
Kunark was brilliantly designed in terms of zone construction and creatures and lore, it was a great addition to the game in terms of continuing to broaden Norrath, but it created huge problems in terms of class balance, grinding, and twinking. It took forever to level up once you got into the 50's, further reinforcing the new mentality that you need to grind grind grind, and many players were finding themselves frustrated at how their class was becoming less and less exciting to play (and undesirable for groups), despite needing to put more and more time into it. On the twinking side, new items in Kunark were destroying the lower-level game with players able to rush through content far more easily and quickly than they should have been able to. In combination with new zones that offered more plentiful hunting grounds, most of the old world zones started dying.
Velious was also another wonderfully designed addition to the game, in zone design and creatures and lore, but it continued to build upon the problems created by Kunark. Combat encounters became more and more repetitive (monsters had such ridiculously high HP and resists) and the necessity of having a few select classes in order to even experience the content became a larger problem. The immersive quality of the game continued to drop, with so many zones being completely abandoned (or very nearly) and twinking/powerleveling continuing to rise.
Luclin was terribly designed. Totally wrong for the feeling of Norrath and it further pushed the game into a grind grind grind mentality and continued to destroy the feeling of a living, breathing World, with the way that it allowed you to almost completely ignore all the game content from Original EQ/Kunark/Velious.
Planes of Power obliterated any sense of living, breathing World. Instant travel to almost everywhere and one single, sterile zone that everyone flocks to. Hated the design of the planes I saw too. So terrible.
Lost Dungeons of Norrath deconstructed even basic player interaction in the game, with instanced zones where you just get together with your party and never see anyone else.
In order for the spirit of EVERQUEST to truly survive, for an MMORPG to truly live up to its namesake, the content needs to be constantly changing. Players shouldn't be able to go online and read what they need to do in order to complete a quest. The game should force each individual character to go to different places in order to obtain something and the way NPCs fight and interact should be changing semi-frequently. Going into the same dungeon should be a different experience every month. The combat system should certainly be far more advanced than it was in Everquest and there should be far more customization involved with individual characters, not just physically (there needs to be a set power cap on items in the game and players should choose their equipment based upon look rather than NEEDING any specific item in the game for their character to be competitive) but also in terms of viable ways of engaging in combat with every class and using different class combinations to form a party.
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