Progressing past progress

I'm going to go ahead and say that we've pretty well seen the limits of the achiever/progression model (diku, EQ, WoW). At its best, it takes a fun game and adds purpose, which is great. At its worst, it keeps people playing a game that ceased being fun long ago. But how else can you keep people playing? And I don't mean just from the cynical, bottom-line company viewpoint. Having reason to play is an important part of any game, and particularly those that try to build community. There are many intertwined assumptions that make it impossible to imagine something different, but perhaps by taking them out we can find new ground. Here's some I think need to go:

1) Playing 8 hours a day

It is assumed that any legit game must support players who play all the time. Consider that developers can only produce let's say 2 hours a day of entertaining content and is there any question why all MMOs involve grinding? Furthermore, anything you do that much becomes a job, that's just human nature. Thus the need for more and more dangling carrots. Wouldn't it be better to play a game say 2 nights a week that is really, really fun? With us gamers getting older and having families, I believe there is a sane audience out there that could power a game that doesn't bother supporting grinding.

2) Content must be endlessly repeatable

Companies want steady subscriptions. Conventional wisdom says that you cannot retain players unless they constantly have something to do, even something they dislike. This is a dead-end strategy. It is the equivalent of McDonalds locking the doors and trying to sell people as many burgers as they can before they get sick of them and escape. As consumers, it is ludicrous to play along with this. What we should be demanding is a quality meal that is good enough to bring us back. Perhaps we will complain about the delay between meals, but in a competitive market the winner is the game that puts out new content just good enough, just often enough to keep us coming back.

3) Diligence must be rewarded

This is tricky, because on the surface of it that is a good principle. If a player pays his money and puts in the effort, shouldn't he be rewarded? Problem is, that is antithetical to the competitive spirit of games. When you and your buddies get ready for a dungeon run, you're not wondering what is going to happen and whether you'll be able to surmount it, you're wondering how many tries it is going to take. By human nature, people in this situation become risk averse and focus on efficient use of time. At the end of an evening of playing a game we should be talking about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, not how many beans we counted.

4) You can't take stuff away

When a game is based entirely on putting in huge amounts of time to gain things, taking those things away is a bad idea. Proponents of harsh death penalties seem to miss the fact that such a scheme does not generally encourage risk and excitement, it smothers it. However, you can't have winning and losing, risk and reward without some concept of failure. Gaining and losing things are both part of a vibrant, interesting experience. If losing is too painful, make gaining easier.

5) Progression never ends

The whole idea of a progression-based game continuing on and on is broken. Any progression aspect of a game has a clear end to it. Attempting to stretch it out with an "end-game" that is merely another form of progression is propagating the grind. Either make a game that ends (and possibly starts over) or make a game that isn't based on things constantly increasing.