Why didn't EverQuest remain as popular as other old MMO's?

[Wakanda]

I just googled most popular MMOs to see if I could find a new MMO to play until M&M comes out. Was scrolling through this list and was kind of blown away at how many people are playing Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes etc. (Obviously Runescape goes without saying.)

I tried all of these games when they were new, and none of them came close to EverQuest when all of the games were new products on the market. Even in 2026 I have more fun playing on P99 than I do playing WoW most of the time.

I'm just genuinely baffled by how so many older MMOs were able to gain such a huge following, yet the same games struggled to even compete with EQ back in the day?

It also cracks me up when I meet a younger person and they just assume that since I played EverQuest that I must have really loved Runescape since it came out in 2001... like no, man. Runescape was the EverQuest that you bought off of wish.com.

My theory is that the direction EQ went with the millions of different expansions that came out doesn't really appeal to veterans of the game, or younger / newer players. And P99 it just too difficult to install for the average normie. Game itself is possibly too difficult to play if you aren't familiar with it? IDEK.