Help me with a project? (SOE related)

[Grimwell]

I've got an uber top secret project in action at work that can be summed up as "Why people quit playing the game!" since it is usually wise to look at that sort of thing, and exit surveys are not nearly as fun as up close and personal comments from people not afraid to say "Because the Elves didn't shit Unicorns." (Imagine that for a moment...)

So, if you wouldn't mind being quoted/linked in an internal document, I'd love your feedback in this fun (?) and easy (for me to process) format:

Game Title:
When You Played:
Your 'Main' Character:
Why You Quit:

Please be honest, unless I'm the reason you quit, then make up some other sort of answer eh? I don't need to get fired for my report.  If you are still playing, twist that into a 'why I still enjoy it' answer if you please.

It's highly likely that I won't be able to share the finished document, but I'll give some kind of feedback when I'm done.

[Lum]

Is this limited to SOE titles?

[Lum]

Game Title: Everquest 1
When You Played: 1999-2001
Your 'Main' Character: Whiff Dirtnap (he was a monk, OK? And iksar, they used the word "whiff" a lot.)
Why You Quit: You banned my guildmate for ranting on the internet. Also, I was too busy to play. More the latter, but the former sounds good.

I'd list my wife's experience with SWG, but.. well... she was a bioengineer. The NGE was not kind to bioengineers.

[Slyfeind]

If it's just SOE...

EQ1, on and off over the years, Therod the wood elf druid, latest quit was 01/08, left because all my friends were in WOW.

SWG, on and off launch till NGE, Chinwa the spike-head (Maul's race, whatever they are) rock-n-roll ninja, quit because the NGE wasn't fun for me.

Pirates of the Burning Sea, launch for two months, Leonardo the Spaniard Privateer, quit because it just got boring.

Planetside, just for the free month, Slyfeind the pilot, quit because it wasn't deep or sticky enough. (ew huhuhu lol)


I plan to return to EQ1 because of the sheer amount of content, and the accessibility of it all.

[Kirth]

Game Title: Everquest
When You Played: 2000-2004
Your 'Main' Character: Kirth (Ranger)
Why You Quit: Did not like the direction the game was taking with Omens of War / Gates of Discord. World of Warcraft was much funner at the time.

Game Title: Everquest 2
When You Played: late 2007 - early 2008
Your 'Main' Character: Htrik (Dirge)
Why You Quit: Game lost appeal. didn't want to get involved in the end game. game play overall was boring. The world felt polished at times(Kunark zones) and a mess others (basically leveling 20-70)

[Evildrider]

Game Title:  SWG
When You Played:  From Beta til a little after the 2 year anniversary.
Your 'Main' Character:  Drider started as a Doctor/Swordsman, then hologrinded to Jedi.  Ended up as a Bounty Hunter.
Why You Quit:  Pretty much the NGE killed it for my guild.  Didn't have as much fun after that, but was still playable.  Toward the end I was bored and tired of the constant changes and rebalancing of the classes, or lack of class functionality.  I've heard that some of this has finally been worked out, but I've just moved on to other games.

[Kitsune]

Fair enough.

Everquest: 1999-2000, 2003-2004
Sondara D'Tiruuk
Quit from the grind.  More helpfully, quit from the grind because I was unguilded; playing EQ solo and in pick-ups was akin to beating myself with weasels.

Planetside: 2003-2004, 2005-2006
KitFix
Quit from the horrifying incompetence behind the game.  SOE's inability to modify the game and make real improvements or fixes was just pathetic.  The price hike and the loss of the reserve players put the final nail in that baby.

EQ2: 2006-2006
Cyllix
Quit for the same reasons as EQ1: Never found a proverbial posse, and the game without friends to play with was just bland.

I can write your paper for you by hilighting the obvious above: People make people stay in MMOGs.  Anything that cockblocks a person from playing with their friends (harsh party level restraints (I'm looking at you here, Mythic. Fuckers.), hassles that make organizing and communicating difficult, driving off 90% of the guildmates with NGE, etc.) is ruinous for a MMOG.  The easier it is to play with your buddies, the easier and better the guild functions, the better off the game is in that regard.  The wise MMOG designer makes a game with making and building friendships in mind, because a shitty game with friends is more fun than an okay game without.

[Ratman_tf]

Just the Sony titles until we hear otherwise:

Game Title: Everquest
When You Played: God, a few years ago. Around the time of Kunark I think.
Your 'Main' Character: Zashalla. DE Warrior.
Why You Quit: Bored. Only lasted a month or two. I've ranted a lot, but there's absolutley nothing about EQ I liked.

Game Title: Star Wars Galaxies
When You Played: Few years ago.
Your 'Main' Character: Thuron (Weaponsmith)
Why You Quit: NGE. Straight up. I was an off and on subscriber, but NGE cured me of that.

Game Title: Planetside
When You Played: Few years ago.
Your 'Main' Character: Konig
Why You Quit: Wasn't sticky enough. And the Core Combat expansion kind of harshed my enjoyment of the game.

Sorry to be vague on the "when played". It's been years and I don't keep track of that kind of stuff...

Why I quit games in general: Kitsune nailed that one. There are so many cockblocks to playing with my friends. I don't do PUGs. They're just not fun and not worth my time. I'd rather go offline and play some solo games.
Plus, I don't give a shit about endgame content - if I'm not having "fun" after mastering the basic gameplay, and I can't hang with my friends, I'm pretty much done.

[taolurker]

Haha

I r Sony's bitch


Game Title: Everquest 1
When You Played: Late 1999-2003, 2004-2006 on and off, 4 months in 2007 2 months in 2008
Your 'Main' Character: Blackivar Backbiter (Rogue) Laozee Mcharma (Shaman)
Why You Quit: Mostly associated with lack of groupmates, the lack of excitement, roleplaying or fun, combined with financial issues.

Game Title: Planetside
When You Played: end of beta? a month tops? God knows what year that was?
Your 'Main' Character: ? brain cells?
Why You Quit: Never actually thought the game ran well enough compared to other FPS on my hardware for release, and because other FPS games multiplayer ate it for breakfast. Never went back to this game, it's had no free trials, and it also isn't on my Station pass as a game I got to own for free (but 3 others are).

Game Title: Star Wars Galaxies
When You Played: Last 3 months of beta, June 2003 till June 2004, a month or two each year until NGE, then 2mos a year to keep my "properties" paid off and not taken by the Empire.
Your 'Main' Character(s): Laozi (a rebel, combat medic who was severly gimped since the NGE) and Karmantra (an Imperial  smuggler merchant prior to the NGE, who now is a Millionaire Domestics resort owner).
Why You Quit: Each time with SWG it had more to do with changes that tore my classes all to hell or changes that caused me to go WTF?, combined with the same issues as EQ finances and lack of "fun" groups and roleplayers.

Game Title: Matrix Online
When You Played: In beta, when it wasn't a Sony game, and then 4 months last year on a Station Pass Sony let me own the game with a free trial. Last two months on my Station this has also been active.
Your 'Main' Character: Laozi or Karmantras
Why You Quit: Beta was hardly stable or smooth running on my machine of the time, and it was a hollow experience. I attempted playing it, but the game itself needs more grouping, reason to battle, and rewards. Looks really pretty on my recent hardware, but still is missing the collectables game, exploration, and variety.

Game Title: Everquest 2
When You Played: Beta for the last 5 months, after release not at all until a free trial in 2006 which allowed my Station Pass this year and last year to also think I had purchased the game.
Your 'Main' Character: Karmantra, Blackivar and Laozi
Why You Quit: Beta was a nightmare for me, and it was extremely crash prone with many aspects of combat I didn't like. I think the balancing they did helped, and I since I magically owned it, I did play some during 4 months last year, and a couple of times in the past month, but it's still missing much of what I liked in the original: Roleplaying, fun and exploration. Looks nice, plus runs decent compared to the machine I beta tested with, but I still hate the sound and mnay things that it lacks from it's predecessor.

Game Title: Vanguard
When You Played: Beta player from end of Beta phase 1, didn't actually work until start of Beta 2 on my machine. Was magically added as a game I "own" not in last year's attempt at Station Access, but during this year's.
Your 'Main' Character: Dunno, think I was named Soused in beta. Haven't installed it in the two months my Station acct has been active.
Why You Quit: OMG THE HARDDRIVE SPACE!! Never purchased at launch because it was a pale, empty version of EQ, that seemed kind of empty, lag ridden and almost too massive (OMG THE HD SPACE). Still haven't bothered to install it in past two months (OMG THE HD SPACE).

Game Title: Pirates of the Burning Sea
When You Played: Both Stress Tests, and end of Beta 2, into Preorder in Jan of this year, and until present.
Your 'Main' Character: Laozi Mi'Karma
Why You Quit: I haven't, but damn if FLS don't get their shit together and overhaul like 60% of the game, I probably will quit. Ship combat is awesome and a great stress relief, but there's way too much broken that has been broken forever. Breaking things when fixing others is the norm, and lately changes have made the low level game harder, while not improving the end game. It's slowly sinking under it's own weight, and is a better game than it's numbers show, trapped by a crap interface, grind boredom and a crowded market where it became a niche title.

[Reg]

EQ1 - 2001 - 2002

I quit because my wood elf druid actually shit out a unicorn. It was spiky and painful and it made me fall off Kelethin again.

[UnSub]

I did something vaguely in the ball park a while ago.

[Ratman_tf]

I did something vaguely in the ball park a while ago.

Chart-tastic!

[Jade Falcon]

Game Title:SWG
When You Played:first time from launch for about 5 months second time just before jtls until NGE.
Your 'Main' Character:He changed around a lot pistoleer with various other skills.
Why You Quit:First time lack of content and bugs.Came back for jtls and life was good then the NGE came and I'm sure you don't need any details on that.

[Venkman]

Oldie but a goodie.

Otherwise, I'd recommend not limiting it to SOE titles. Too limiting in scope.

[Hutch]

Does PotBS count?

If so, Title: Pirates of the Burning Sea
When you played: for less than an month, earlier this year (2008)
Your 'Main' Character: Crain Cutler, Naval Officer. I may be mis-remembering his exact name.
Why you quit: Land-based gameplay was a mere shadow of the quality of the ocean-going travel and combat. Too much grinding required to get to the end (aka level 50), which was where the "fun" pvp was perceived to be.

[JWIV]

Rough chronological order, probably stuff I've forgotten

Game Title: Everquest 1
When You Played: On and off over the years, ending in 2003 or so
Your 'Main' Character: Monk, Beastlord, Shaman
Why You Quit: Raiding requirements, PoP keying/backflagging nonsense, friends quit

Game Title: Dark Age of Camelot
When You Played: at release, quit before Darkness Falls
Your 'Main' Character: Friar, Polearm Armsman
Why You Quit:  Lackluster PVE with broken skills everywhere and mediocre PVP experience (yes, later it got better, but I had moved on)

Game Title:  Planetside
When You Played: Few years ago
Your 'Main' Character:  New Conglomerate for life!  Mostly played in a MAX suit
Why You Quit:  Core Combat being the worst expansion of all time leading to server mergers and the death of Konreid and subsequent squad falling apart

Game Title:  City of Heroes
When You Played: On and off since release
Your 'Main' Character:  Kinetics/Dark Defender
Why You Quit:  Mostly because guild quit to go to Warcraft.  Issue 5 ED crap didn't drive me insane like it did others.  Still my favorite game to go back and visit (hell, I'm playing right now with the wife for the free weekend).  Mission repetition and experience grinding were the biggest flaws with the game, both of which are at least slightly improved.

Game Title: World of Warcraft
When You Played: a few months after release, quit before burning crusade
Your 'Main' Character: Orc Warrior
Why You Quit: Raiding turned me into a raving loot whore and it stopped being fun

Game Title:  Vanguard
When You Played: At release + 6 months
Your 'Main' Character: Wood Elf Shaman and  Orc Warrior
Why You Quit: Empty world, a million crazy deaths due to bugs, broken quest chains, crafting revamp, system performance, overall lack of polish and playability.

Game Title: Guild Wars
When You Played:  2007
Your 'Main' Character: Mage, Warrior
Why You Quit: Guild drama, hitting eye of the north and catching myself beginning to faction grind for asuran armor and realizing that therein lays the path of insanity.

[Grand Design]

I'll limit my response to SoE.  This is like when an ex-girlfriend calls two years later and asks why she was dumped.  Sorry.

Game Title: Everquest
When You Played: Kunark to GoD
Your 'Main' Character:  (If this is important, pm me.)
Why You Quit Retired: Everquest 2 released

Game Title: Everquest 2
When You Played: Release to KoS
Your 'Main' Character:  (If this is important, pm me.)
Why You Quit: This needs its own paragraph...

I was never happy with EQ2, but I was excited to make the switch and my guild was going and so I retired from EQ.  If EQ was a sandbox, EQ2 was a slide.  It was obvious from day one that every step of your path had been cleared at an executive level.  I still think that Sony overreacted to problems, perceived or real, in the original game.  Elements of the game that were fundamental to its success were completely missing from the sequel.  For example, there was no way that I could cast a spell on someone who wasn't in my group.  This may sound like nothing more than a 'game mechanic' to whoever made the decision, but in Antonica, this meant that I would no long be solicited for and could no longer aid others with a buff.  As a player, I was pretty much useless to 99.9% of other players.  For an online multiplayer game, that is a step in the wrong direction.  In fact, without ranting too much, my entire experience in EQ2 felt like a single player game played online in tandem with other people.  This is not to say that I did not have fun in EQ2, but there was never the feeling that I was part of something epic or even challenging, frankly.

Game Title: Vanguard
When You Played: Release
Your 'Main' Character:  (If this is important, pm me.)
Why You Quit: When I played Vanguard, it was not a complete game.  The bad press had rendered it empty.  There were easily exploitable bugs one could find without trying.  I felt like I had paid Sony out of obligation and that's when I knew the magic was gone.   

That was cleansing.

[Numtini]

Game Title: Everquest
When You Played: Launch
Your 'Main' Character:  wood elf druid
Why You Quit Retired: Fell off Kelethin, lost corpse, everything was dark. Couldn't find anything. Too frustrating. Quit.

Game Title: Everquest Attempt 2
When You Played: Dec 2000 (Velius hype drew me in)-Oct 2001
Your 'Main' Character:  Gnome Warrior
Why You Quit Retired: DAOC came out at the same time I was finally unable to keep up with my semi-perma group outlevelling me. Made several one month attempts to come back but the gear up/level up was too high.

Game Title: Everquest 2
When You Played: On and off launch to current
Your 'Main' Character:  Gnome Mystic
Why You Quit Retired: Left from time to time to try other games. Longest time off was fight with guildleader leading to me quitting the guild.

Game Title: SWG
When You Played: Launch for two months
Your 'Main' Character:  Twilek Tailor/Image Designer
Why You Quit Retired: Gross incomptence. I loved the game and as the 2nd master tailor on the server, I was insanely successful. (I still have friends from my tailor shop that I chat with occasionally in SL.) The bugs just crushed me. Towards the end of the 2nd month, I started to keep track of how long it took until a game altering bug came up and my record was something like 15 minutes. A new bug was introduced around that time that made factories shut down permanently after one production run. They needed to be redeeded to be turned back on. SOE's solution wasn't to fix the bug, but a bandaid to remove the cost for redeeding factories--which ignored the fact that a critter could spawn in the space or someone else could place, costing you your spot if you were in a prime area. But that's ok, because the band aid patch didn't work either and it still cost money to redeed them. That was the end for me. I came back a couple of times for freebie reactivations and such, but the servers were such ghosttowns there wasn't much point in playing.

[Hawkbit]

Keeping this to SOE titles:

Game Title:  Everquest 1
When You Played:  2001-late 2004
Your 'Main' Character:  Boscorth, mid-50s Barb Beastlord
Why You Quit:  WoW, because it had all the things I thought EQ was missing (no xp loss on death, significant solo play, no camp n’ grind).  I still consider going back from time to time because it was such a wonderful experience even in my limited play capacity. 

Game Title:  SWG
When You Played: Beta and a month into live
Your 'Main' Character:  Severance Ehoe, ranged weapons (don’t remember)
Why You Quit:  Well… I hated the skill system.  I didn’t understand how awesome it was at the time.  Now, it’s all I want from a game  (levels are bad, mmkay?).  Also, I hated how there were random humanoids just standing around for no reason outside of towns.  I kept thinking “who are these people and why are they just standing around out here waiting for me to kill them… and should I?”

Game Title:  EQ2
When You Played:Various short-lived times during live, most significantly at Kunark launch
Your 'Main' Character: Shadowknight
Why You Quit:  It’s a clunky world.  It runs terribly on any system I’ve played it on.  Characters really fall into the ‘uncanny valley’ range in how they look.  I thought Kunark was a fantastic 1-20 experience, but fell flat once it pushed me out into the rest of the world.  Quests don’t logically follow from there, they send a person across the world for no reason.

Game Title:  Vanguard
When You Played:  Beta
Your 'Main' Character:  Various
Why You Quit:  I knew from beta it was not put together properly.  I was astounded they actually launched it the way they did. 

Today, with a wife, kid and full time job, I no longer have time for end-game.  It’s just not feasible.  As a few have said above, I refuse to PUG because it always ends in drama.  If I can’t play with my guild, I don’t play.  If it's something where the game can't be put on hold for a few minutes while I fix a household issue, I won't even start to get involved. 

Also – a note to developers:  Graphics don’t make a game… I’d be happy playing EQ/Kunark/Velious graphics on a game as long as the gameplay was engaging and doable by a busy person. 

[Merusk]

Game:  Everquest
Main Character: Half-Elf Druid
Played: off and on between Oct 1999 - April 2004
Why you Quit/ Retired The game wasn't fun anymore. This had been my "fall back" game that I still enjoyed and returned to after checking out other games.  Something changed after SWG so that I didn't enjoy the game anymore.  I didn't care about the whole GoD 'debacle' though that was about the time I quit.  I think it was that too much 'end game' time was spent trying to grind AA's.  Uncapped AA acquisition was a fucking stupid move on SOE's part, really.  Not to mention the horrible amount of points you needed just to be 'useful'

Playing off and on meant you fell behind quickly. I would try to find groups only to be told I didn't have enough AA's to be taken as a group member.   I was part of a 'casual' raiding group.. meaning we only raided for 7 hours on weekends  and I realized the game was just sucking up too damn much time.  Not only that, but having to spend ADDITIONAL time online to grind-out the AA's was bullshit, even for a druid who could quad-kite.  I sold my stuff, destroyed whatever was soulbound and gave away all my plat. I went and played City of Heroes instead.

Game: Planetside
Main Character: None really a 'main' the highest BR I had was a BR6 on TR
Played: Off and on between launch and last year.
Why you quit:   I bought the game sometime when WT/ Corp was running an active chapter and I could pick it up for $20.  I don't think I ever paid an actual sub more than a month.  I played infrequently even during the 'reserves' promotion.  Simply put, persistence in an FPS is pointless.  What little persistence the game offered in terms of unlocks is now also offered as a feature by free to play games.  The only thing PS has going for it is HUGE battles.. but it doesn't do those well enough to deserve $15 a month.   Particularly when even large battles come down to squads of 12v12, which free FPS offer in spades.

Game: SWG
Main Character: Carbineer/ Entertainer/ Merchant/ Miner
played: Release until about November of '03.
Why you quit  I was willing to try out a 'world' game, despite my thoughts on 'worlds' vs 'games.'  Plus it was motherfucking STAR WARS.  I just couldn't stay away.   I decided to try out an entertainer/ merchant/ miner at first, to get into the 'world' aspect rather than combat which had taken up so much of my game time to date.  Plus, all the UO folks had the best stories about non-combat stuff, so that seemed the best way to go in a "world" game. 

I quickly realized that this was a mistake of epic proportions, however.  I couldn't defend myself in the "wilds' around populated cities, meaning I died a hell of a lot trying to run around every 2-3 days to re-place my harvesters for the best ore & power.   On top of that, since I actually had a job and the resets would happend while I was at work I'd get stuck on only a 30-50% yield spot, and never ever hit those sweet "70-90%" areas, because they were already jammed full of harvesters by the time I got home.

It was obvious, however, that if I wanted to make credits this was the best way to do it, because crafters were rolling in bank and adventurerers were really poor.  Particularly rich were the 2-3 "top" crafters on my server who were able to exploit the factory bug to mastery in a few days.  A full month ahead of anyone else who actually had to grind to the top once it was fixed. Way to not roll-back skill gains from folks who exploited, SOE.

After a few months of my harvester dance, and 1-2 hours surveying every time I logged in to make sure I was still pulling down the best resources, I realized this game was a job.  I wasn't having fun, I was busy micromanaging buillshit.  I wasn't making friends, because I was out in the wildreness humping my surveying crap around or running back to where I'd just been pwnd by killer rabbits, or micromanaging my merchant dummies trying to get that whole buggy system to work for me and actually sell my goods.

THEN, when I was done with that I'd get to go to the caninta and macrodance.  I found a group of folks to talk with, but they and I were quickly driven away by the macrobots and people just looking to grind the profession up so they had a pocket wound healer for their combat account.  It was obnoxious and annoying, because in the middle of a conversation you'd have a doid named "TIP SHALAKABOOMBOOM PLZ" running about while shalakka spammed "DANCING FOR WOUNDS! WATCH ME AND PLEASE REMEMBEr to TIP! THANK YOU YOUR pATRONAGE IS APPRECIATED!!1" every 30seconds.

It was crap.

So I started dropping entertainer for combat.  That's when i got to see how truly craptacular SWG's original combat system was.  When i realized that was no fun either, I changed my shop name to "CLOSED- SEE YOU IN FINAL FANTASY XI" gave away the last of my resources and quit.

The game was a cluster fuck of mismanagement and lousy, unfun design from the top down.  I regret playing and paying for the little time I was there to this day, and really, I think it's what soured me on all SOE products.   I didn't last long in EQ after my return from SWG/ FFXI and I haven't had a sub to a single SOE product since I left EQ after, and none of them have proven that to be a mistake.

  I beta'd EQ2 and PotBs.  I could tell neither was going to catch my attention for various reasons, but since you asked for games we actually subbed to, i won't expand on that.

[palmer_eldritch]

Game Title: Ultima Online
When You Played: 1997-1999
Your 'Main' Character: Decker
Why You Quit: Everquest came out

Game Title: Everquest
When You Played: 1999-2000 or so
Your 'Main' Character: Pheseus, an enchanter
Why You Quit: Reached the end-game which involved raiding, which I decided I hated (even though there were few raids in the game at that point - there were a few planes)

Game Title: Star Wars Galaxies
When You Played: When it came out (2003?) for about six months
Your 'Main' Character: Can't remember. He was a tailor
Why You Quit: Euro servers opened up some time after we had already started on US servers, causing the guild to split into two.

Game Title: LotrO
When You Played: April 2007 - Oct 2007
Your 'Main' Character: Linthir, a minstrel
Why You Quit: Reached the end-game - it was raiding. Not for me.

[Tebonas]

Game: Everquest
Main Character: Barbarian Shaman
Played: November 1999 up to Gates of Discord (with pauses).
Why I quit: Direction of the last few Expansions (from Planes of Power onwards) showed the Developers were not interested anymore in the "nicely crafted world" aspects that drew me to the game. The randomly generated dungeons were the drop in the bucket that didn't allow me to ignore that anymore.


Game: SWG
Played: A few weeks
Why I quit: Bored to tears, wasn't even able to regenerate without other people.


Game: Everquest 2
Main Character: Barbarian Shaman
Player: About a year, on an off
Why I quit: With my random playing schedules it became too expensive to pay a months worth to play a week. I instead settled on Lotro because the lifetime subscription gives me the ability to log in when I feel like it and ignore it the rest of the time without actually feeling like losing money. I would love for EQ2 to have a lifetime subscription model so I can return.

[stu]

Game Title: SWG
When Played: Mar '05 - Sep '05
Main Character: Dakken Kuiper - Master of Teras Kasi
Reason for Leaving: I had just overcome the game's learning curve (this was my 1st MMO) when the CU hit. I stuck it out for several more months because the game already had its hooks in me and I hadn't invested so much into the old system; however, the noticeable decline of activity in NPC city cantinas and hospitals nagged at me until I eventually quit. Maybe I'm crazy, but I enjoyed exiting a starport and seeing word balloon spam. The game just wasn't immersive anymore.

[Nyght]

I can make mine pretty short and sweet:

Game Title: EQ, EQ2, SWG pre and post NGE

When You Played: On and off in stints, typical 2 or 3 months at a whack.

Your 'Main' Character: The names elude me. Perhaps that is in itself most telling.

Why You Quit: For the dikus, to include SWG post NGE... the pace of character advancement at mid to upper levels. I don't have the patience for repetitive combat. For SWG pre NGE it was due to the pace of repair of numerous system flaws. A lot of things were buggy or just whonky system wise.

[Nyght]

I did something vaguely in the ball park a while ago.

That is truly a thing of beauty. Craig, if you use it, you should send this guy a consulting check for a grand or more.

[Engels]

Game Title: EQ and all other SoE games
When You Played: 1999-near present
Your 'Main' Character: raid-capable SK on EQ
Why You Quit: EQ poped my cherry, and times were wonderous and all consuming for about 3 years. Attempts to relive the experience failed time after time. Main reason, in summary, is that you can't go home again.

[stray]

Title: SWG
When you played: Umm, launch time ... 2003? Off and on for about 6 months.
Your Main Character: Expert Bounty Hunter
Why You Quit: It wasn't "Star Wars", obviously


Title: EQ2
When you played: 2004, for a couple of weeks
Your Main Character: Newb Dirge
Why you quit: My character looked like he was made of Play-Doh.

[Grimwell]

Thanks!

I asked for only SOE titles because I'm looking for anecdotal quotes I can reference to show personalized reasons why individuals quit. I have Yee's information already included, but UnSub... yours I didn't have. Do you mind if I use and attribute properly?

I've got enough of a start here, so if you want to broaden this to other companies/games I'd still be interested even if it's not for my project. :)

[stray]

Ok then..I'll add a couple more 

Title: Shadowbane
When you played: 2003-ish
Your main character: Bard
Why you quit: Because Wolfpack got feature characters involved with rivaling guilds, and destroyed my city

Title: City of Heroes
When you played: 2004, off and on
Your main character: Katana/Scrapper
Why you quit: teh grind

Title: Eve Online
When you played: Launch
Your main character: Don't recall.... one of those frenchie dudes
Why you quit: Sparse presentation and convoluted UI

[Mandrel]

SWG
Launch- NGE
Ryeun Dharow- Master weaponsmith/ Pistoleer
Quite because: The NGE ripped the soul out of good game that needed bug fixes/ balancing and content while at the same time trivializing the work thousands had done to get their Jedi.

[Selby]

EQ1: Beta (back in early 1999 or so? I think... I slept alot since then and was trying to study hard for circuit theory courses).
Quit: I didn't buy it because it didn't run nicely on my machine at the time (very choppy and laggy).  While watching from the sidelines and upgrading my machine Abashi and Brad McQuaid caused me to never ever want to buy a Sony product again.  Sorry if that was 8 years ago, their attitude and Sony's at the time basically gave a big middle finger to any paying customer who didn't agree with them.  I have voted with my dollars ever since by not paying for SOE's products despite how much fun they look like they might be.  It's going to take one hell of a game to come out to convince me to become a paying customer again.

Non-SOE products:

UO: early 1999 to early 2001
Characters: 10 across 3 different servers
Quit: Trammel.  Mostly the loss of my in-game friends who stopped playing because of it.

I'm still playing WoW ever since release, albeit very casually (1 60, no 70s) and have never cancelled my subscription yet.

Those are the only MMO's I've played\tried besides the "free" Japanese ones that come out every now and again that make me want to break out the eye-spoons.

[Viin]

Title: Star Wars Galaxies
When: Launch + 1year or so
Character: Irek Dabry, Master BH, Imperial PvPer
Why I Quit: After the CU and adding 'bases' for the PvP folks,  tons of bugs and imbalances were introduced into PvP play. Because we could never get a fight without someone exploiting something (shooting from the bottom of the base, shooting through walls, etc) or using overpower abilities (way over powered AoEs), or grinding to a halt with more than 10 folks.. I decided to find a pvp game that was a world *built* for pvp, not tacked on at the last minute. Over reliance on random foods to be competitive in pvp was also annoying - changed from combat skill to who had the most pie. That, and I think simplifying combat was the wrong way to go - simplify the UI/interface, but we want more depth to dig into when we are ready for it.

[caladein]

SOE

Game Title: Star Wars Galaxies
When You Played: ~3 Months after Release off and on up to ~2 Months post-NGE.
Your 'Main' Character: Aen'ene Escaa on Tempest, Combat Medic/x pre-NGE and Medic post-NGE
Why You Quit: Usually related to guild/friends leaving the game for some other new shiny that was recently released.  Bugs didn't help though.

Game Title: Matrix Online
When You Played: Late Beta through August 06 and again in mid-07
Your 'Main' Character: Caladein Arsou on Regression/Method/Recursion, Team Patcher (Force Multiplier w/ Corpsman usually, although I had everything outside of MA made and leveled)
Why You Quit:  For context, I was a Machine PvPer and later my faction and I went Cypherite.  There probably wasn't one thing that did it as I wound up quitting when the game was simply "not fun" and most of our faction had gone to greener pastures.  Near the end of it, my main frustrations were from PVP being broken.  For a top five though:

(1) Exploits and bugs all over the place.
(2) Side balance was a joke. 3:1 odds were pretty commonplace as a Machinist PvPer.  With smart play those odds were sustainable for us to the point it became a battle of "who got bored first", although that may have been an issue in-and-of-itself.
(3) I usually play Healers in MMOs, and Patchers were outright retarded.  I was one of two or three primary PvP Patchers on our entire server.  I was able to do some pretty cool things with it, but the trees didn't make any sense... at all.
(4) As a general theme, abilities/trees were either broken or wildly overpowered.  It was at the same time a theorycrafter's greatest day and worst nightmare.
(5) The interface made me want to kill small woodland creatures.

Non-SOE

Game Title: Asheron's Call
When You Played: ~1999
Your 'Main' Character: Garnet Monk on Frostfell, Bow/War Magic
Why You Quit: I started playing FPSs (probably Tribes 1 and DoD).

Game Title: Lineage 2
When You Played: Late Beta up to ~2 months after release.
Your 'Main' Character: Caladein on Kain, Bishop
Why You Quit: Grind started to get to me, and friends went off to play SWG (again).

Game Title: City of Heroes / Villains
When You Played: Late 05
Your 'Main' Character: Cauldreth on Virtue (?), Dark/Dark Defender
Why You Quit: Grind + no need to level past travel power for the most part.

Game Title: World of Warcraft
When You Played: November 05 to Present
Your 'Main' Character: Caldaron on US-Wildhammer, Priest
Why You Still Enjoy It: Few bugs, PvP game is balanced, friends are still playing.  Also, being able to "choose" to do PvE is awesome, instead of having to do it to stay competitive in PvP.

Game Title: EVE Online
When You Played: February 08 to Present
Your 'Main' Character: Cal Escaa
Why You Still Enjoy It: Sandbox-y and lots of different types of PvP with lots of ways to participate.

[Azazel]

Game Title: Everquest 1
When You Played: From 2 weeks before Kunark came out until 2 months after WoW came out
Your 'Main' Character: L70 DE Shadowknight
Why You Quit: The mess that was GOD caused fewer of my casual raiding guild to log on, and while OOW was better, the release of WoW/EQ2 halved my guild's active players overnight. I played WoW as well, and would play wow, soloing happily while I had my second box logged onto EQ1 for hours while waiting for guildmates/friends to log on so we could group. - Yes - I played WoW for something to do while LFG in EQ1. After a couple of months, common sense prevailed. WoW didn't have the baggage of years of implied and real dev arrogance, and was soloable, pretty, and fun. I could log on and just play immediately whenever I wanted to.

Game Title: Planetside
When You Played: At release - for the trial month.
Your 'Main' Character: Can't remember - some guy with a gun
Why You Quit: I thought it was fun, if suffering badly from lag. My exact comment at the time was "I would play this if I didn't have to pay a monthly fee for it". Compared to MMOs, it didn't offer a compelling reason to keep paying, not with 2549243 other free-playable MP FPSes out there.

[damijin]

Game Title: Planetside
When You Played: Started in closed beta, quit about 1 year later (subbed off and on during the year)
Your 'Main' Character: Damijin, Vanu, Emerald Server, Outfit: Ahriman Corps
Why You Quit: AC was made up of several stat-whoring power gamers. At some point they generally grew upset with the slow updates to the game, the repetitive game play, and the consistently growing hacker issues. At this point we began griefing as an outfit to amuse ourselves, including some strategic orbital strikes on packed friendly vehicle spawns, and strategic destructions of generators in our own bases just for laughs. The CSR in charge of Planetside banned a lot of our outfit, banned our leader, and threatened to disband the outfit. Our leader talked him out of all of that, we got back in the game -- but it didn't solve the core issue. We were bored. We had played too much in a game with too little content. When the beta for Lineage 2 came out we left the game as a guild and migrated.

Game Title: Lineage 2
When You Played: 3+ years on and off.
Your 'Main' Character: Name: Verloren, Class: Overlord
Why You Quit: The overlord class was a very useful PvP class for any clan/alliance, but it was extremely difficult to EXP. The class was so integral to PvP, but unless people were willing to power level your character for you, only those with an extremely strong stomach for grind could actually play one on a day-to-day basis. Because my main was such a bitch to EXP, I eventually quit it and just started playing other people's characters. Since I did not own those characters, I felt no attachment to them and never played them outside of raids and PvP. Eventually the lack of attachment to the characters weened me from the game entirely as I refocused myself toward real-life goals.