MMORPGs are great fun to play for a majority of the gaming masses, sure, but they also bring many a gamer much heartburn and discontent. You can read all about how good they are just about anywhere. You'll have to dig just a little deeper through the interwebs to find quality discussions about what ails them.
This recent blog post at Scott Hartsman - Off the Record is just such a discussion. Titled A Conversation About MMOs, Qhue and his friend Gallenite carry on a discourse full of meaning and insight, covering a wide range of topics from the initial pondering that "MMOs seem stuck in a bimodal arrangement" to "the inherent effort/reward imbalance", to eloquent waxings through what they term as "The MMO Lifecycle As We Know It Today." Despite not actually deriving upon any solid fix for many of the problems within the MMORPG genre, the post is still an excellent observation into a number of possibilities worthy of consideration. A must read for game makers and players alike!
[09:48] Qhue: The market is changing however and the population has matured... very noticeably over the last few months
[09:49] Qhue: To whit: WoW and its latest endgame content. People look at it as another silly asymptote that is going to be blown away when the level cap is raised in a few months and they react by saying "No... you fooled me once and yer not doing it again" and they leave.
[09:50] Gallenite: I disagree with that. If that actually were the case, no one would stick with any MMO beyond its first expansion.
