My previous article was linked at WoW Insider and I think some of the folks replying there have misunderstood the point of my original article.

I don't think going back and doing any of the old raiding instances again is insurmountable, nor terribly difficult for players like myself that are already experienced with them. It was about casual players who either have started WoW more recently, or never had the time and the energy to raid in the first place.

The point was, Old Raid Content is still Raid Content and I don't think it should be.

In other words, I don't think the old raids should be maintained as raids at all and specifically not within the scaled Hit system as it is now. Instead of being ?? / 73 bosses, they should be level 70 or even level 63, flat out. They ~should~ be absolutely and completely trivial to a current raiding guild and only a moderate challenge to complete newbs in a 5-10man group.

Why? Because leveling a character for the first time completely skips that content at the moment. It's old and it should be reduced to casual content, even if just for the sake of players who wish to see the storyline and lore aspects. Do I think it's silly if some ultra-geared rogue goes back and solos Onyxia? Sure I do, but that's a price to pay. I think it's even sillier for this content to be wasted on occasional nostalgia for raiding guilds when it could be fresh content for a large number of players.

It's absurd to take 30-40 players back to AQ40 or Naxxramas, even more absurd that they typically still wipe.

This isn't meant to be a debate of casual vs raiding, because it's not exactly premium raid content or loot-centric, there's lots of that with TBC. It's straightforward: That content is past its time for raiding, just hand it down.

I think it's a dying cause though, because the "casual" player population in WoW is swiftly dwindling.

I've heard World of Warcraft referred to as the first of a new generation of MMORPGs, which is something I've agreed with, though typically I've placed City of Heroes as the jumpstart and WoW as the foundation. But now I find myself questioning that.

Perhaps WoW and CoH are actually the last of the previous / first wave.

Graphically, there's no doubt that CoH was leaps and bounds ahead of other MMOs when it was released. And Blizzard's stunning art direction and seamless world was a huge advance. But in gameplay, neither of these presented much that was new. Blizzard did what they do best, they took an existing genre and capitalized on it with a slick and polished product. They mostly refined what was already defined, following steadfastly in the footsteps of Everquest.

Between the two, the most advanced gameplay features I can think of are CoH's Sidekicking and WoW's complex threat / aggro system.

Now however, we're on the verge of the true new wave of MMOs, each one presenting some distinct new factors in gameplay combined with cutting edge graphics and combat.

• Pirates of the Burning Sea involves sea battle content with a clever port contention twist which is unlike anything I've seen in these games.
• Age of Conan promotes guild communities with player cities and guild fortifications that introduce real siege warfare. It also includes an inventive combo-combat system and a MUD-style bounty system for PvP.
• Warhammer Online integrates faction warfare with their quest system in an attempt to blend PvE and PvP gameplay together.

There are probably examples from different games that show how the next generation is pushing some real innovations. Bioware's un-named MMO is bound to have some surprises for sure.

Gamasutra has posted a paraphrased and quoted version of Gordon Walton's GDC Austin speech. I'm a fan of Mr. Walton, I met him back when he worked at Kesmai on some of their amazing forerunners (namely Air Warrior and Battletech) to the MMO market. He has a pedigree resume and I think he's exactly the right man to produce Bioware's first MMO.

Overall I'd say his speech was hit & miss, some parts read bang-on like an MMO producer & designer's bible, while others demonstrate that he could be dangerously too close to the source, perhaps needing to step back and play like a gamer rather than in designer mode 24/7. Regardless, he's still on my shortlist of good peeps in the MMO industry, so it's well worth a thorough read.

Some highlights (because I couldn't resist):

"Content sucks. Content takes people to build. You can build systems, but systems suck because we pattern match 'em real quick. Content is custom-crafted things for people to do." He described the concept of the "player horizon" -- a player should not perceive all that she can do from the beginning of the game: something tantalizing has to hang out of reach. "If I can visualize everything that will happen to me by the end by level 3, the game's over."

. . .

Simplify the damn GUI!" Walton exhorted. "MMOs have the worst and most complex GUIs because we have so much shit you can do in the game. We want to give players all that stuff!"

. . .

Walton described customization as "a steam release valve" for an audience that can't be satisfied within the bounds of the basic interface. Bringing up another example, Walton cited City of Heroes, another MMO with a strong casual audience. "Conventional wisdom said that their game was missing all these features, but it worked."

. . .

"Don't tune for the hardcore."  . . .  this stems from "forgetting our object is not to keep people as long as humanly possible, but to provide entertainment." When it comes to grinding, "they will do it, but they will hate you."

I'm betting that Bioware's MMO will be a great game, although it's still a few years away.

I've met most of my current friends online, in one form or another (some as far back as the BBS days), so I think the cliché of the anti-social geek is a lie. In fact, the primary usage of any network is exactly that: networking. Socially, business and otherwise.

But the social value of different networks is not equal. For instance, I don't lend much credit to the so-called "social network" websites: The MySpace, Friendster, LiveJournal, Facebook, Orkut, etc.-- perhaps because there are too many of them, making it easy to be a tourist or transient. When the temporary visitors far outnumber the core citizens, social value can get drowned in a sea of nonsense. It all depends on how well the network handles the different kinds of traffic. Regardless, it's a place to interact and that's the core.

The same is true for online games.

Games are a more specific interest that can strengthen social value. When I recommended to my girlfriend that we start playing City of Heroes rather than just chat on MSN, she was wary. Soon enough though, she developed connections with my other friends that were playing, plus now she agrees that chatting while fighting evil villains is more fun than just chatting.

On the other hand, game activity as community has limitations, similar to the way Flickr brings together Photographers but is not likely to be used for other purposes. It works if most of your friends are Photogaphers / Gamers.

Social value also may not be the prime directive for a game developer, which can lead to conflicting results. We've been playing World of Warcraft for almost 3 years now and some social implications have become evident.

The downsides with WoW.

The first, most obvious social problem with WoW is how impossible it is for players of disparate levels to spend quality time together within the game. If I'm level 40 and my friend is level 65, the only way we can quest together is if he "powerlevels" in level 40 areas with me, making my quests trivial with his ease of completing them.

Even once the "Endgame" is reached at max level, WoW's content divides like a pyramid to the top tier of players. Content is restricted based on achieving goals of faction-reputations, quality of gear, attunements, etc.. Finally, the highest tier content is WoW's raiding system, which requires almost military-like adherence to schedules that just aren't realistic for many people.

Getting the most from WoW, then migrating.

Personally, I've tried very hard to make my social circle work within WoW's limitations. I've held back to let others catch up, helping where I can. Our group of guild leaders have attempted to stick to the Endgame content which keeps most of us at an even pace, but that also has the side effect that some players may feel like they are held back. Most of us have also given up on raiding content which we could enjoy if it were more reasonable to play with friends.

In the long run though, we've had friends (some which had played with us across many other games) leave WoW because of these exact problems. The core of our group has decided it's soon time to migrate to another MMO more likely to strengthen our social bonds again. City of Heroes had a "Sidekick" feature that made leveling characters much more positive as a group and that was a very big difference, but it had a lack of great content overall. Age of Conan reportedly has a similar feature (called Master / Apprentice), but that's just one reason we're looking at that game, it seems full of community-building features.

It's important to me that I'm able to keep up with my friends. Not just the hardcore gamer ones either, but the ones I see occasionally. I like to bump into them in real life, but it's even more likely that if we have a common online "home" we'll see each there too. And when we do, let's fight a few baddies.

. . .
(PS: Our guild has launched a new forums site to assist in our little migration from WoW to Age of Conan @ path.gameslate.com.)