Where did EQ Live go wrong?

[Lenowill]

It got ready to jump the shark when Luclin launched, then actually jumped the shark after PoP was done.

As I understand it, PoP was kinda-sorta designed to be "the end" of EverQuest, with the intent being that people would then move on to the up-and-coming EverQuest II. I don't know if that's a fact or not, but it seems to be true, given just how "end-game" PoP felt. It was a fitting conclusion to what had led up to it. Both in terms of Lore and Gameplay, Plane of Time felt like the final zone of EverQuest, and Quarm felt like the final boss.

I think, after that, the game pretty much jumped the shark. I loved a lot of EQLive content after PoP (LDoN and DoN are two of my favorite expansions, about as near to my heart as Kunark is) but it really did become a totally different game from then onward. The high-end focus, gear resetting, and endless streams of new (and often not that useful) AAs turned the game into an increasingly silly grind and arms race, as others have noted.

Of course, Luclin laid the groundwork for a lot of the "endgamey" changes that would be consummated in PoP (AAs, travel made easier for unsociable players, the Bazaar).

Personally, I feel like the original trilogy is indeed a good "stopping point" for this server. Velious era was a solid game that still felt cohesive, and wasn't setting up for drawing the game and its world toward some epic conclusion. So I support that notion.

I'd also like to eventually see a server that used Luclin as a stopping point, though, and perhaps one that used PoP/LoY/LDoN as a stopping point as well. There are several good "stopping points" in EQ's history - points when the game's flavor was fairly cohesive and sensical.