Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogean
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What caused the decline of EQ was WoW pretty much.
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I really have to disagree with this statement.
First, EQ/SoE had a LOOONG standing history of, for lack of a better term, pissing all over the subscribers faces. They didnt care if we were happy, they had our money, they had no competition.
WoW, UO, Earth & Beyond.. it wouldnt have mattered. SOE killed themselves with outstandingly shitty customer relations. They catered to the top 1% of EVERY server, they released a new "exspansion" every 6 months, without fail, for years.. most of them with massively broken content, buggy gameplay, and a rushed feel like they were literally TRYING to run it into the ground.
They NEVER fixed broken quests, bugs etc, because they had no reason to do so. I forgot the exact name of the quest, but I know one of the major Kunark quests went unfixed for FOUR YEARS.
John Smedly was the death knell of EQ. His "Vision" is what killed the game. His GREED is what killed the game.
The servers were in decline LOONG before WoW showed up. That much I remember quite clearly. I remember Gates of Discord, I remember playing it.. I remember going "WTF Is this shit".. then I remember cancelling, uninstalling, and never looking back. It wasnt a month later they were announcing the NEXT fucking exspansion.. while simultaniously spouting apologies of GoD being a broken piece of trash.
As far as *when* for me.. it would have to be a draw between Luclin and Planes of Power. Luclin made porting less needed, but still functional.. PoP completely killed it.
Luclin had Paludal Caverns, hands down the best leveling zone ever created, Vah Shir (A fun race!) and BST (a great solo class)
PoP had a great raid progression system, perhaps a little TOO restricted for the casual players tastes.
All said and done..
WoW had nothing to do with the demise of EQ.. WoW, if anything, was the wakeup call SOE needed to start trying to save thier game, listen to thier playerbase.. too little, too late..