MMOs vs SPGs and keeping MMOs focused

[Hoofhurr]

I agree with the majority of your post. The only thing I would add is that sometimes the social component and the competitive interaction can be at odds with one another depending on the delivery. To clarify, I mean that socializing and being competitive are often mutually exclusive in the sense that it's hard to have a conversation with someone when you are engaged in competition. As an example, WoW arenas were a highly competitive environment but the pacing of the competition was so fast that all your mental energy was focused on interacting with the game interface that there was little time for socializing. By contrast, a group of Everquest players could be farming spectres in Feerott and maybe your character was responsible for hitting 3 buttons every 30 seconds or so which freed up a lot of time for socializing in between pulls or while meditating.

I feel like games with arcade style pacing don't offer much by way of socializing but can still be highly competitive. I suppose however, one game could provide an opportunity for both socialization and competition in their own game-niches.

I also feel that sometimes the social component and the massively component are at odds with one another. It's nice to have a pool of 10,000 people because that ups your chances of finding other players whenever you have a chance to play but the odds of you playing with the same 100 people time after time seems to be greatly diminished. That's the cross-server dilemma there.

The last thing I'll say is the strange phenomenon of the solo player. Quite a few players enjoy playing MMOs primarily or partially by themselves. I would love to know what the percentage is and if that percentage is financially significant to the game. Maybe a poll is called for. Speaking for myself I probably rate my interest in solo play at around 15-20% of my playtime.