[SirAlvarex]

For me it was a combination of PoP books making the world seem smaller, and just plain better games coming out at the time. I loved DAoC pre-expansions. SWG was tons of fun pre-NGE. Everquest 2 was also awesome for a few expansions (then kicked up again after Kunark was released).

Then I kind of out-grew the whole experience with college. Now I play EQ because it's the ultimate carrot on the stick game. It's hard to earn stuff, so when I do end up getting some planar gear/that epic drop, I feel awesome.

Oh, and the sandbox nature of everything is killable, and we're all given a set of tools and can use them how we wish. Hell, in some games the idea of "fear kiting" or "snare kiting" is considered exploits. Here it's just a great way to XP.

So I don't think EQ went "wrong" for me until PoP. And even then, it was only "more wrong" than the other options at the time. I never played after PoP, so I don't know how terrible it really got.