On a serious note, and this is not inventive on my part, I think the basic framework has to be, the period in question was a different time. To me, it made total sense that WoW exploded. Big diff b/w what computer and internet people had 1999 v 2003. EQ2, the natural choice at that end time frame for eq-loyal players, required a killer computer. WoW did not.
And millions had played the rts warcraft for millions of hours already.
In a sense I am not sure there is a story here. The actual sequence and tempo of events + technological progress predicts original eq dropping like a fly pretty much exactly when it did. No content could save it. No design decision totally explains it.
RL killed the eq star.
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go go go
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