Now we're having a healthy discussion. I like it
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Pro Tip: Notice all of those conducting personal attacks...those are the true "toxic" players on this server.
https://imgur.com/WRTyKUn
https://imgur.com/ZDrSn5Q
Compare the subscription numbers to the Expansion timeline releases. After Luclin and PoP launch, subscriptions were trending upward with a first ever decrease in July '03. Just like the real world economy, policies and implementations take some time before the effects are visible and felt.
What happened to cause subscriptions to begin decreasing in July '03 then permanently continue the trend by the fall of '04?
Management mandating an expansion drop in 4 months with Legacy of Ykesha, which was a terrible expansion that brought a few quality of life improvements/spells that we were all going to get later on down the road anyways. It was a pure money grab and we all knew it at the time. Then, LDoN brought the first Instancing to the masses. No longer were gamers required to have any downtime to socialize and get to know one another via interaction (Brad's Vision), and it became a soulless experience going through those missions. LFG Tool was implemented as well. What made it worse was LDoN had some of the best augments so everyone was forced to do it. We were all forced into a non-interactive state and it was a terrible experience. Gates of Discord bombed severely due to it being rushed to Live with broken content, overpowered mobs, and the initial level cap presuming to increase to 70 and instead kept to the level 65 cap. In addition, gamers were burnt out (just as the devs were) on sharding to experience gameplay: VP, ST, Vex Thal, PoP. We needed a break too and realized SOE didn't give a damn about the player base, they just wanted "more more more".
Subscriptions rebounded around June '04. I believe it was in anticipation of Omens of War and to see if the path forward would change for the better, but in the end it was just more of the same. In Feb. '05, Dragons of Norrath launched and it was met with mixed reactions across the board. Lower level and casual guilds couldn't truly participate in the content and top tiered raiding guilds felt it was a continuation of heading down the wrong path, yet again. Cool concept, improper implementation both regarding content and timeline release.
Subscription numbers plummeted from OoW launch date in Sept. '04 - Sept. '05 by over
HALF. SOE chose their path, the same path Atarii and many companies that followed chose, quantity over quality. They never recovered from this blunder.
In conclusion.. I've always believed that both the player base and dev's needed a break from continuous new expansions drops. Take a year or two off from beginning to make any expansions and go back to polish the broken/overlooked aspects of classic and all other expansions up through PoP. Keep in mind that the most "hardcore" players only had 1-3 alts and none were really max level nor fit for raiding. My father was a hardcore casual player, with every single class in the game, yet none above lvl 50 by PoP era. There was time to take a breath/break and it either else wasn't recognized or plainly ignored.