And sorry to reply to myself, but I think this is whats wrong with most MMO's today, because of the nature of the type person you get when you appeal to the lowest common denominator as your player base: they see the need to be one or the other, and dont understand that they could be BOTH. You could quite easily make a game with content thats doable solo, or with a friend or two, and have a rich rewarding experience....and at the same time include content that requires more concentration, time and effort and teamwork. The problem is that invariably the rewards for the second type player will be greater than the first, and you have whiny little bitches complaining and crying about how "unfair" that is (rather sounds like America's last presidential race).
I dont have as much time as I'd like to play EZ, RIFT or other games I play...and quite often when I AM on my attention is scattered due to RL. That means I dont get as much done as I'd like....so I dont have as many toys as some people who've played for far less overall time than I have. It means that while I can clear all of T5 relatively fast, I quite often dont because of all the time I spend afk.
Thing is....I am OK with that, because thats how it should be. Its how it was when I DID have a lot of time to raid, farm and "grind" back when I played live a ton, saw content before 99% of the other players and had all the cool toys....and its how it should be now. "I can pay off my mortgage in 7 years and have the things I want for me and my family, or I can raid 4 or 5 nights a week and have uber imaginary shit!" Anymore, I cant do both....and its really not even a serious choice.
I honestly believe that if today's game companies kept this in mind, adhered to this philosophy in their development, and went out of their way to explain this to the player base (a parent's job, to be sure, but one thats often not done) then there would be a lot more success and a lot more long term players. You'd see a lot more games making these type memories for newer players, because players would be INVOLVED....on a personal level, even if it were only for an hour or two a a time.
And....looking back at that video, and some of the old memories I have of EQ....I am hopeful that SOE will live up to their claims and hype and give us such a game with EQ Next. Time will tell
