Rethinking the MMO

Interesting article up over at Gamasutra by Neil Sorens on the subject of MMOs, specifically subscription-based games like WoW and the like, which he terms Persistent Entity Games, or PEGs. He outlines six problems he sees as plaguing the genre: boring gameplay, level grinding, "Advancement-holics Anonymous" (treating the ultimate goal of the game as character building & heading up the levels), making players feel ordinary, domineering design, and exorbitant time requirements. He also outlines some potential solutions to all these problems.

I'm not a MMO player myself, mostly because the concept doesn't appeal to me & I find some of the issues Sorens raises to be quite off putting, but I think the following goes for all facets of the game industry, not just MMOs/PEGs:

As long as developers and publishers do nothing but copy what is successful, they—and gamers—will continue to miss out on these games’ staggeringly awesome potential. And as long as PEGs are designed by and for stat geeks (whom I know and love and sometimes am) with little regard for traditional game design fundamentals, they will continue to waste that potential.

Rethinking the MMO [Gamasutra]