Yes, the fact that EQ1 is getting long in the tooth does occur to me. There has been a lot more time to work toward building a solid community.
The conclusion I'm becoming increasingly drawn to is that in giving people what they asked for, Sony may have killed the game.
It may be that some (or most) of us are gluttons for punishment, but at least at higher levels in EQ1, it wasn't so much the competition versus the environment that stimulated aggressive play, it was competition against other guilds and / or people.
I can't remember how many times I was forming my guild up for a raid and watching another guild zoning in warily while trying to get us organized to move in our our once-a-week god spawn and thinking to myself "This is piss-poor game design...I wish this plane was instanced!"
I remember camping Raster for my epic and finally getting him to pop and having a level 60 monk jump in after the fight had started and KSing me. I was so bitterly angry, I couldn't stop thinking about how stupid it was that Sony hadn't locked encounters.
I remember cursing at my monitor after being trained into oblivion by some ignorant ass in Chardok didn't have the courtesy to announce it...And then being that ignorant ass later in Karnor's Castle and chuckling evilly to myself as the unfortunates who had AFK'd at the zoneline did corpse recovery.
The point is simply this: While EQ2 is fun...I'm still enjoying it, as is my wife...It's not particularly challenging. The fact that when I play, I always have a partner to play with probably has gone a long way toward mitigating boredom for me. I can see how a person who primarily solos and just groups when they need help with a particular mob would feel like the world is empty. Considering so many quest mobs are triggered, this eliminates the sense of urgency one feels when they happen to catch their quest mob up in a competitive world.
The net effect of having to compete with others for so little, I think, is that you stop valuing to some degree what you have. I think maybe Sony banked on the fact that time involved and the intricacy of quests would keep people fixated, but it may just be a testament to our society that we're only having fun when we can define our characters in a way (through gear and progression) that distinguishes itself greatly from other players. (My toon's better equipped than yours. Nyah nyah!).
Now I'm not saying there aren't benefits to guilding or having a group of solid hardcore players, but those benefits are minimal. When I look at a monk that's in T5 gear and in a powerful guild, he has a few more fabled items than me...Hell, he may be ALL in fabled gear, but it isnt' *that* much better.
I'm also not saying that spawn camping and difficult encounters don't still exist.
But, when I look at another monk at my level, I can expect to see essentially the same thing: Tailored Augmented Armor, rare crafted Tier 5 weapons (doesn't matter which, they all deal out about the same DPS) or maybe a fabled one, fishbone earring, FBSS, Legendary Journeyman's Boots, a pair of rare fright dolls, and possibly some rare crafted imbued rings.
My suspicion is that EQ2 is not doomed to go the way of SWG. The developers ARE cranking out tons of great new content, and they do a tremendous job of fixing Things That Are Broke(tm).
But more than that, I think they will begin to see that what buttered their bread in EQ1 was addiction. Addiction was fostered by making the best items drop off difficult encounters that lived in keyed zones that other guilds competed for. Addiction was promoted by making XP grinding the primary method of advancement. Addiction was encouraged by making it so easy to fail that when you did, you would get mad at yourself and commit yourself to try harder and to be more focused next time.
The reason EQ1 was so successful in the long run was that it was Darwinian in nature. If you didn't play your character well and you weren't ambitious, you would spend your whole virtual life looking at what others had and what you had no chance of getting. If you were driven, had unlimited time, were cutthroat, or just so nice everyone wanted to give you a break, you could filter your way to the top echelon of guilds and thus content / loot.
It's a tough call...I know the tendency is to think "you can never make everyone happy." Or that the players just complain to complain. In fairness, there is some of that.
I think Sony's released an outstanding solo or small group game...I think there's a lot of work to do to make Norrath Redux a place people will skip meals for and neglect family / friends to be in.
Not sure that's a bad thing.