1 year into release is where you will see whether they can get past their lack of content and instancing. I think they will Pantheon out before all that, though. The masochists who want all the worst parts of vanilla EQ will bail as they cannibalize themselves. This has all happened before.
Never forget the post launch week push, 15k would be insane 10-12k is very likely. Past the first month though we will see.
The bigger issue is people who pay have actual expectations the team is going to have to deliver on. Even a pay for play EA (again, Pantheon did this same shit). They are going to have to get roadmaps out and actually deliver on them in the timeframes they lay out. Fail to deliver? Goodbye subs. Fail to communicate? Goodbye subs. Fail to address the glaring problems you made with bad design decisions? Goodbye subs.
EW newb quests have been in for awhile now. They were boned for a bit after they rejiggered trade skills to need recipe purchases. But those vendors have been added. It took them way longer to get that place fleshed out than it apparently took underdocks. But they added quite a few people since ew first got added in it’s barebones state. Dedicated quest people and zone builders seems to have sped things along substantially.
I don’t think anything is done done, but aside from being way smaller than NH, it’s good enough to start there with no complaints. Done enough for this state of the game anyway.
I mean it is a city run by vegan librarians who live in trees I’m not sure “well run, polished society” is really the flavor there
In 2026? With no MTX or alternate revenue sources? Yeah, 10k isn't going to sustain you long. Especially with how much infrastructure costs, servers, hardware costs, etc. etc.
