When did Everquest start to really decline in quality of experience?

[Knuckle]

I think Shadows of Luclin - Planes of power - Legacy of Ykesha would be my 3 step tier to downhill.

SoL killed a lot of the traditional fantasy element, take that as you will, space cats and nexus/bazaar all kill community aspects of EQ, one of its primary strengths. Additionaly, raid keying got a lot more brutal, stepping up the difficulty to participate in endgame contnet.

Planes of Power took ease of access from shadows of luclin and cranked the knob up, instead of just having timed nexus teleports at spires, now you had a stone you could click in every city, and click it to get to any city.....

I did play and enjoyed planes of power, but never touched the endgame, i think your cheeto powder layers had to be pretty thick on the beard for plane of time/rathe council.

Legacy of Ykesha... Ehhh..I know Planes of Power had introduced recommended levels, or maybe that was shadows of luclin, I always hated the killing of the twink player, half the fun of everquest was decking out a newbie character, and it kept old players in low level content.

Anyway I did a few zones in LoY and never re-subbed after that, it felt like a game that no longer gave a shit, lol.