This si something I've been thinking about all week. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to check the guild house, auctions, etc. while at school//work whatever.
Lately, more game have been rolling out 'WoW Armory' type setups, allowing you to view are parse character data.

It's a step in the right direction, but personally I'd like to see more meaningful and seamless integration, such as extending chat servers to the game's site, allowing you to chat with your friends or guild from a web client.

I've started taking steps in merging the forum more, allowing your avatar to display in-game (like EVE, sort of), as well as having your in-game title shown in the forums, etc.

So I guess what I'm asking is.. what do you think? Where can games go from here? I'd like to focus on these types of things ahead of time, as they can be semi difficult to implement once character data is finalized.

I can only speak for myself on this.

The day I'm at work, and find myself that desperate to check an in-game auction, or check on raid status, is the day I stop playing MMO's.  I'd feel like that was breaking the boundries of a hobby and that's what this is for me.

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Originally posted by clwoods
The day I'm at work, and find myself that desperate to check an in-game auction, or check on raid status, is the day I stop playing MMO's.  I'd feel like that was breaking the boundries of a hobby and that's what this is for me.

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An excellent caution, and something that I would hope game developers would be aware of.

That said, realize that there will be times when players will want to engage in their hobby, but won't want to use the full game client. That may be because of where the player is and the hardware that is available or simply because the player is doing a specific task and wants to use a special interface to the game world.

Imagine sitting outside listening to your guild's raid audio channel. Or watching over another player's shoulder on your iPhone. Or managing your guild's holdings on your little netbook while you ride the train to work in the morning.

I'm a believer in the idea of letting MMO gaming leak out of the single client that developers create. CCP permits players to create custom applications that read (but not modify) their character and corporation data. In time, that will become a standard feature of games. I suspect that it will have a tendency to change the way that people think about MMOs.

In time, I wouldn't be surprised to find companies using MMOs to build a competitive edge, making all these different ways of accessing the MMO an important business consideration.