What caused the decline of EQ as the #1 MMO?

[Tsuken]

Everquest died eventually because gameplay was often based on some very negative feelings. Like corpse running and having to calling out to get a port. And calling out for a rez. And calling out to join a group and being unable to solo. And stuff in general simply taking ages.

I never liked a single second of doing those things. It involved a lot of waiting and frustration. But it did add risk, realism and difficulty to the game. It wasn't 100% bad, but it did go at the cost of some gameplay.

The negative feelings in Everquest gave other games like WoW the chance to attract players away from Everquest.