I'm pretty confident WoW is what killed EQ. Of course combined with Sony's mistakes. I played EQ hardcore from 99-2004, every few months a grp of peeps would say, Im leaving for DAOC, Im leaving for FF, half the server said they were leaving for Star Wars Galaxies! I just stuck to my guns on EQ and watched 90% of them filter on back to EQ. So when a few peeps said they were leaving for wow in 2k4 I just waited for them to come back...and waited and waited. December 2k4 i met this cute chick in a store who played wow so i decided to give it a chance and I really liked wow. The graphics were fresh and brighter, and played better on my grfx card, and there was a bit of challenge to it and alot more pvp which I loved.
After playing a month or so I knew EQ was in trouble. Every single thing I heard peeps complain about in EQ was addressed in wow, it was pretty impressive whoever led wow along those lines. I mean EVERY complaint. I hate having only 8 spells memed, I hate CR, I hate losing exp, I hate having things i need camped in dungeons, i hate not knowing where to lvl, i mean even camping out was reduced to 20 seconds vs 30 and u could have 9 or 10 toons per server instead of 8.
One complex thing most peeps dont understand about MMORPG's is, the hardest thing to balance in these games is the economy.
To me there was only one thing that would make or break WoW...would players accept bind on equip gear that they could never re-sell or hand down? WoW's economy could not survive as designed without BoE gear, but peeps accepted it without even blinking.
So in the end I think I'm saying you can chalk up EQ's demise to peeps accepting BoE gear. But that was not what turned me.
From my point of view as a PvPer, with so many friggin zones in eq in 2k4 and pvping solo or with 1 friend, it took hours just to find anyone you could pk, so I was willing to accept wow and its faults just so I could get some pvp action.
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