Raid zones instanced?

Yeah but WoW and EQ2 and etc didn't launch all over again while Fippy was committing ritual suicide... so this isn't really relevant...

GoD was not well recieved because of the bugs and being mostly designed for lv 70 not lv 65. Was considered impossible by even hard core guilds. People hate GoD, lots of people love PoP. There will be a max exodus this time also. This 800+ post gives no induction of a mass exodus if instanced raids are added into classic.

And yes the population of every game server has peaks and eventually declined while approaching 0 until it shuts down. You do know Everquest will not be live forever right?

Nice straw man you created there.

Oh so that now it's going to take even longer before we get to anything that's instanced you think people will not get bored as fast? You're not making sense.

I know, it's equally as irrelevant as your claim that servers decline over time. Decline/surge cycles and server death are two very, very different things my friend. Fippy died as it progressed, it never bounced back up.

I know that but this is pretty much like Vindar is saying... server decline and resurgence isn't the same thing as server death. The population never recovered once the real decline started after PoP. If say OoW opened and it grew in any meaningful manner then I'd say you're right on the money.

It didn't. It only gets worse and worse for these servers once instancing takes hold. Now that's not to say it's all because of the instancing, most of those expacs are garbage all on their own.

With an expansion being released every couple months are you really suprised? I wouldn't be suprised even with a fully instanced server it would peak at launch then decline over time.

Live has a year to build up excitement for an expansion which may create a nice peak. Not sure how much an EQ expansion brings backs subs these days.

Biggest problem post PoP is like you say. Most the expansions were not well liked overall.

TLP doesn't offer you much if you like exp 1-5 then hate 6-12. Might as well play live after 5. Feel like most do, or wait for next TLP. Just given the large problems with those expansions has a whole it's hard to go instancing did it! I mean WoW had instancing had launch...it did fine. People just fundamentally do not enjoy those expansions for a lot of reasons.

Last I checked, Fippy isn't dead at all.

What you and others are insinuating is that instancing is what caused the population decline despite lacking any evidence to support that claim.

No way, bad game design is why the population declines in those expansions. I'm definitely not placing the blame solely on instancing's shoulders. It bears some of the weight sure, but not as much as the rest of the doodie content.

And Fippy is absolutely dead, let's not even pretend that's a debate.

GoD was pretty crap until OoW. Was all the stuff still near imposible on flippy? Just curious.

I left when it unlocked. Debated coming back for only OoW, but we all know what happens when you plan on coming back.

Yet EQ lived on just fine through those expansions. About the same time OoW released, WoW came out and likely took a chunk of the EQ population with it. I don't think instancing has anything to do with it.

I don't think instancing had much to do with it back then either. Instancing was new and hip and cool back then. Now it's cookie cutter snooze fest, unless the content is actually engaging and challenging. It's neither of those things in EQ til at least PoP, soooo... here we are.

I'd be all for instancing + actually making Naggy challenging!

If they jacked up raid mob damage, health, armor, resists, and made all the loot no drop you'd have my supports in this instancing love-fest.

Until then I will more than likely not see a reason to instance other than to give EQ the Oprah treatment.

You get a dragon! You get a dragon! Everyone gets a dragon! It's been done a billion times over. Let EQ be itself for all of 4~ expansions.

It is kinda bs that the dragons were not retuned to account for the mage/monk/etc. crap.

I am sad about that.

But it can't be its self now. Back then there were no RL money farmers but now it's a multi billion dollar industry that will never go away just instance the raids so we all get a chance to see the content please! Otherwise farmers will have all that content on permanent lockdown.

WoW didn't launch in PoP or GoD era either. But actually sometime AFTER DoN. GoD was actually just to hard for the casual player that it wasn't even an expansion for the greatest part of the people playing.

Actually, it launched mid-OoW. I know, because there was a mass-exodus from my server. The entire top guild left for WoW, along with majorities of the next top 3.

Not that it matters much:
GoD: Feb 10th, 2004
OoW: Sept 14th 2004

EQ2: Nov 9th 2004
World of Warcraft: November 23rd 2004

DoN: Feb 15th 2005