Why did some EQ players dislike WoW?

[SantagarBrax]

EQ was a Juggernaut when WoW released. We knew EQ was a much better game and didn't feel threatened by wow in the slightest. The cartoony graphics alone killed any viable fantasy feel to it and that was the majority of the opinion of the players on Xegony.

Unfortunately, SOE made some fatal mistakes that boosted WoW into the frontrunner spot without putting in the time and killed their own brand at the same time. WoW was a "dumber" game designed for easy access and less commitment.

1. EQ2 - split dev teams and made em go over there.
2. The transition to instancing thus killing off inconceivable interactions within the game (LDON)
3. EQ Marketing was terrible in the U.S. Overseas, they were wonderful, yet you never saw any advertising on TV for EQ, it simply didn't exist.
4. SOE's relentless bullshit keying for every expansion from VP to ST, Luclin, PoP, etc. We were tired of it and needed a break and GoD broke the camels back.
5. SOE's bullshit "we need a new expansion drop!" that went from 18 months with kunark to 4 months with LoY and the trend persisted for money grabbing's sake with the average around 6-9 months thereafter.

SOE fucked up royally in so many ways it's hard to list them all. The one thing we can be sure of is that they lost the player base from their own greediness, rush to drop broken/limited expansions and everyone knew it at the time it was happening. We saw it live and experienced the degradation from the poor choices at the top and we never forgave them.