It was a combination of things, including aging, competition and mismanagement among others. The biggest specific issues were:
1. Bifurcation of the player base due to keying and most new content being geared towards raiders.
2. Loss of the Vision (tm). I refer not simply to the loss of Brad, I mean the core ideas and approaches that Brad was certainly a part of and ultimately took credit for. Examples of this loss are things like PoP Books, theme disruption (cats on the moon), soul binders, etc.
3. Competition from something new, easier and targeted at a mass audience - i.e. WoW.
4. EQ2, which contributed towards splitting the player base.
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~ give me a large old school fantasy MMORPG, make it PVE, and hold the voice chat ~
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