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

[Tsuken]

I think Luclin and beyond ruined Everquest. I quit in the Luclin era.

As to why I quit I think... I played a bard. Selo's required an outdoor zone, but the indoor zones many. So going to Luclin often meant walking slow like everyone else. Except for the people who cast SoW before entering the zone. There was no obvious reason to not allow Selo's in those huge indoor areas, in the old world it was obvious, but some of these luclin indoor-zones were as big as outdoor-zones.

Oh and then there was the dreaded LFG and waiting for a group. Horrible. It eventually got to me.

And I didn't like corpse runs at all by the way, never have. But it did add the element of taking risk to the game.

After I quit EQ I didn't dare to pick up another MMO like WoW and waste more of my time.

I did play WoW, but not until the burning crusade expansion. I quit WoW soon after jumping through the burning legion portal though (or whatever it was called).

[Kika Maslyaka]

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

And that is an example to site concerning the fanboi approach to sabotaging every other game than their own, having been done in masses at every gamesite. Fortunately at EQemu it's in poor taste, but asshat publishers like SOE eat it up and go chasing after the fanboi playerbase they will never get. Fail.

LOL you haven't played on any other servers here at Emu, have you?
Hard core eq1 players are a tiny minority even among the eq1 players

[Daywolf]

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

LOL you haven't played on any other servers here at Emu, have you?

Been on eqemu since early 2007, when there wasn't much of anything. Your point? ...

[Kika Maslyaka]

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

Been on eqemu since early 2007, when there wasn't much of anything. Your point? ...

then you should know, that Emu existed well before P99, (since 2002 for that matter) and will exist well after.

[Kika Maslyaka]

i would not mark that as instant gratification- this is just too overused.
WoW simply broken down one GIGANTIC grind EQ1 had into thousand small steps with a little carrot attached to each.
And yeah, I prefer to log in for 30-60 min, and actually complete SOMETHING, than spend 30 min just putting group together, then another 30 min running to a dungeon, grinding it for 30 min, then discovering that oops cleric has to go, then spend 30 min looking for another cleric... And what about those 8 hours VT raids? I mean fucking seriously? I have a full time job you know.

call it what you want- wow approach is better [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Dojii]

Originally Posted by eqdruid76 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

In light of all these "Let's think of all the different ways we can sabotage and ruin Project 1999" threads that are popping up, here's a counter-thread. What were the changs, nerfs, new game mechanics, graphics upgrades etc that happend on live that you NEVER want to see happen on Project1999?

Well Sony pretty much was capitalizing mostly off the addiction factor of the game and creating a never ending grindfest. Only till after the population had began to decay, did they begin implementing things like, Rest (u regen mana and hp faster once you're out of combat).

The AA's and constant expansion launch every 6 months, they pushed out less quality expansions and just as you were halfway through the one they just released you were like WTF a new expansion???

There are many reasons why it lost so much population... but overall my opinion is the general difficulty and grind after 10 expansions was too exhaustive for anyone with even a part time job to play.

[Nedala]

I quit because the (older)world got empty and it made me sad [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Also, most part of my guild jumped eq2, so i just quit playing but after a year or so i started playing eq2 and had a good time until sentinels fate, which sucked. Then i joined p99 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Dojii]

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

I quit because the (older)world got empty and it made me sad [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

;p

[Amphitryon]

the #1 thing that caused EQ's decline was the simple fact there were other options, other MMOs to play. EQ had a sort of captive audience for a long time. I mean for a while there was simply EQ and UO, and if you wanted 3D, you played EQ, simple as that.

Then Asherons' Call came along, but it never really made a dent in EQ, and Anarchy Only got called the sci-fi version of EverQuest, but it didn't do very well due to an awful launch, then came DAOC...now that one rattled EQ's cage...it was the first competitor to gain significant interest by EQ players as it was the first to offer anything really different from EQ.

DAOC alone did not force EQ into decline, it was simply the start point, the point where players did not simply boomerang back to EQ, they started leaving to try the new games and stayed gone.

Prior to all these other options, player simply had no choice but to endure all EQ's grinds and timesinks or simply not play. The newer games softened the grind, and a lot of people were ready to escape the EQ grinding treadmill at that point.

Never underestimate the value of a captive audience.

[Xupiter]

What I hated after Luclin was released...I was a Monk and once they nerfed monk mitigation i couldnt kill a damn thing solo. I played multiple toons over the years and no matter how much time i devoted to one toon they never had good enough gear/aa for the groups that were looking. My Warrior before i quit. http://eq.magelo.com/profile/1088959

It just boggles my mind the gear i had and i would be told my hp/ac and aa were not good enough....sad day indeed.