OK, I've taken time to respond to you, but I don't usually respond "on demand", your demeanor isn't really ideal when encouraging others to engage in discussion, none the less, I hope this sets you straight.

You've taken one part of what I've said, and used it as the basis of your rant against Blizzard Entertainment, this is not what we are talking about. You want to write up a compelling argument for WoW vs EQ, go for it, it's not the discussion I want to have, and I didn't incorporate this into my response other than to talk about a hugely successful company who have continued to reinvest in their game, beyond the initial years of production.

If you reread carefully, I referenced Blizzard in the same paragraph as I was talking about reinvestment in technology, the major failing.

EQ is stuck with an outdated engine which hide the quality of game itself, Blizzard have made changes to scale their technology to newer machine and to attempt to keep pace (even though they appreciate it's evolution rather than revolution) by adding such enhancements as cross server protocols to aid with grouping. I also feel you've downplayed some of the features unfairly, but again, not here to talk about WoW per se, so I'll leave that for you to uncover in greater detail if you really see fit.

Like I said, if SOE had continued to evolve, the EQ franchise would be vastly larger than it already is, their failure to reinvest in their technology now means they have outdated platforms to push expansion after expansion and no room left to innovate. I also mentioned this was not wholly their fault, because the genre was immature and they at the time were one of the first out there amongst very few worthy competitors.

They instead decided to rewrite their game from the ground up, and write a 'sequel' cannibalizing their own player base, rather than broadening it's potential to the market by making similar changes to the content heavy and lush Everquest game. The fact that EQ trumps EQ2 to this day, demonstrates that was an unwise decision. A failure to reinvest, the willingness to start over. This is what I'm talking about, evolution, not starting over.

In summary, their innovated at the start of EQ, the first mass market MMO without doubt, definitely, but they lost pace, they didn't keep up, and as a result their IP didn't grow to it's true potential, they diluted their own appeal and didn't reach the mass market, just the basement dwelling PC aficionado, which is a given for this type of technology.

I trust this restates my position regarding the technology, I should have known the words 'Blizzard Entertainment' are a red rag to some ;)