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

[gnomishfirework]

The reason is simple -- there was no plan for the game. They were winging everything. Advancement progression should be planned and the game should be built around it. That is the only way to limit or avoid trivialized content.

EQ did a much better job than WoW. At least there was still incentive to do old world raids. I think planning on how you would have progression go a few expansions ahead of time is key. Old encounters will always get easier, but you can inverse their difficulty. The launch of a raid encounter should be very difficult. Every expansion should make it a little less so. Maybe 3 expansions out it's single group-able by well geared groups.

I'd like to see encounters require skill as opposed to just needing to know how the encounter works. Short of a FPS type set-up, I'm not sure how that's accomplished.

Still, you shouldn't be able to copy/paste a macro from the forums and just hit that one button constantly (like wow).