The stupidest thing that I believed about EQ back in its early days was that it was a nearly perfect MMO. Well... lemme expound a bit...
I believed that I had found a wonderful artificial world, filled with all sorts of fascinating challenges and like-minded comrades. I believed that the "magic" of EQ would endure, because anything as good as EQ was would be respected and preserved by its developers and players alike. Only a crazy person would mess with success, right..?
But then along came SOE in late 2002, and everything went straight into the shitter. By the time the GoD expansion was rolled out by SOE only a few months later (SOE released something like FIVE expansions within a six-month time frame after assuming control), I just couldn't take it anymore. Everything that I had loved about the core of this game had devolved into a dumbed-down, ez-mode craptastic for "casuals" and kids. The community became less cohesive, the game itself became incredibly marginalized and an increasingly large percentage of EQ players were of the "Gimmee gimmee gimmee NOW!" variety. All because of the influence of SOE.
I did learn something from that experience, though. I learned that whenever a publisher uses the phrase "We're working hard to make this game be more accessible," what that actually translates into is "We're dumbing this game down and adding tons of fast food rewards -- because we want those kiddie dollars."
Long live the emulated servers. I'll never play on "live" again... not even for free. The EQ that I fell in love with no longer exists, thanks to John Smedley and his ass-raping marketing staff.
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