The realm, Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, DAOC, SWG, City of Heroes are all shit games and were all shit games at release. Not sure exactly what your trying to get across here... that your objectively bad opinion is terrible when it comes to what games are "good" and which ones aren't?
Every single one of those MMOs you listed in the second part (Minus Firefall maybe... what the fuck is a Firefall?) has more content and shit to do, overall, than any game you linked in either section of the Pre-WoW part. You're stating an opinion based on... your opinion. Wildstar was a turdfest, but it was magnitudes larger than EQ up through 2005, and certainly bigger than AC, DAOC, The Realm, COH and SWG. EVE is different, I'll give you that, but the rest of your examples are dumb.
What are your metrics for competitiveness? Your opinion? Cool, I think your opinion is wrong, as does a massive chunk of the world. Doesn't do much in the way of convincing anyone if all you do is state an opinion and do zero to back it up.
Here's a Fact: Pantheon doesn't have the budget to "compete" because it had a failed kickstarter and it is targeting a niche demographic. Investors don't look for net-loss as an outcome to their investment, which is what the magnitude of investment the rose-colored glasses brigade thinks should be behind it. It's clearly a game designed for 50-100k players, and will probably end up with about that much when the majority of release purchasers stop playing it to get their enjoyment in a game that isn't being designed to remove a chunk of their enjoyment. The niche folks it is designed for will stick around, but bitch about any technological improvement that doesn't make it exactly like EQ. Please quote me when it comes out that they started "sharding" (because the idea of instancing enrages people, but shards are a-fucking-ok!) and some people question why you would do so in a modern gaming environment.
My evidence for that fact is this thread. My metric is I'm not holding up an 18 year old game as the pinnacle of a genre I clearly haven't participated in. I've played every game you mentioned (again, minus Firefall. Is this some sort of FPS PVP game or some shit?) and you're objectively insane if you think The Realm, Ultima Online, Ahseron's Call(both), DAOC or COH was even as robust as EQ, let alone all the objectively deeper and better made games in the post-WoW grouping.
I think we get it; you haven't liked an MMO since EQ. Great. And your opinion is that every game released since EQ was a "big deal" is terrible. Also great. Personally, I think your opinion is crap and steeped heavily in nostalgia fueled by resistance to improvements. I don't have that as a fact, but I will point to your previous posts as evidence. You sound like you've read about WoW on a dating website and think you know a ton about it, or any of the other games you listed sans EQ. You might have played UO or the Realm, but your second list and how you look at them clearly shows you put the blinders on in 1999 and haven't taken them off yet. AOC alone was 3x the budget of any single player game you listed, and sold as much/more in its opening week than all those one-and-done games.
Really, I just don't get your point. If it's "I like EQ" then hey, everyone has gotten it. But don't even try to pretend to be looking at this objectively, because you are most definitely not.
