EQ and New Player Population

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by MrBeerBelly [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

EQ was fine in 2001 and 2002.

I remember being online in 2002 in of of the zones introduced in the Shadows of Lucin when a GM came on to announce that EQ just broke it's own record for most people logged in at one time.

EQ didn't die until WOW/EQ2 came out.

I don't know about you, but I know without a doubt that there were far more people in the low level zones in 1999 than there were in 2001-02 when I started a new character. I got by, and I did so well, all on a pvp server (in 1999 I played on Rallos Zek). But I was well aware, even way back then, that things weren't the same. Today I know that as a top heavy population, but back then I could only think that it was dead by comparison. Now, looking back on all of it, I see a picture with more going on in it.

You have to look at the rate of incoming active subscriptions to understand what this thread is about. If you do that, you'll see that it, literally, hits a wall in mid 2001. Like it was run over, and stays that way for years. In fact, I wonder if it even recovered at all? That spike in 2004 is suspect, and I know GOD, as John Smedley put it, was probably EQ's worst expansion ever. They made it for level 70 cap, and most people were barely 50.