First off, here's my bias. I think MMORPGs have great potential. I watched other people play MUDs, then UO and EQ from the outside but never got the hook - it seemed like a whole lot of really boring, really repetitive stuff. Then I tried WoW, looking for a game to play with my brother across the country, and was blown away. Through the stress test, open beta and the first year it really felt like another place, full of interesting sights, people (the real ones) and things to do. I enjoyed the game for a solid year and half before the really boring, really repetitive foundation started to show through the cracks.
I'm not going to begrudge my "hardcore" friends their desire to burn through content as fast as possible, play 10-16 hours a day, repeat content ad nauseum and grind, grind, grind. But I'm not going to join them either.
The point of these posts is to ask how to improve on the current crop of options. I think it's wise to try to avoid a monolithic Vision(tm) since such a comprehensive, interlocking design can be boring to read and hard to discuss. Also, it's important to distinguish "new tech" ideas from things that could be reasonably done today. Finally, it is better to suggest a small but effective change from the norm than to start by trying to change everything.
Ideas in the absence of opportunity and will to implement them aren't worth much. But they can be fun to kick aounrd so hopefully there'll be things here that are fun to ponder and worth discussing.
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