Depth is the ability to solve the problems presented to you in various ways, shallowness is obviously the opposite the more ways to manipulate the game the more depth there is. Chess and Go have hundreds of ways to beat your opponent and the game flow is organic as you try to figure out your opponents stragegies and counter them while executing your strategy. No two games are the same if you play a similarily competent player and why they have been popular for hundreds of years, the absolute definition of depth and the template for all designers to try and achieve, the holy grail of easy to learn hard to master. EvE has many of ways to dominate in the game through ISK, territorial control, political subtefuge, espionage, alliances, amassing firepower, resource control etc.... so lots of depth.

WoW has one way to dominate through superior stats the min/max way with a bit of strategic thinking in high level raids or high level arenas so very little depth. GW2 has a combat system that requires the player to understand their class as skill will always beat stats in PvE and PvP, the depth is playing to your strengths and building your char to maximise those strengths, the dungeons also take skill to actually be efficient and clear them properly. Theres more than one way to achieve this, everyone in group has to be alert to others in the group as well as their own situation and like Chess and Go the flow is organic and changes from moment to moment. But GW2 lacks depth in manipulation of the game world as in polictical ways like EvE and Lineage 2 or even Perfect World.

Lineage 2 had depth in combat as you have to con all mobs to find out their respective resistences as some classes struggled with certain mobs when the mob had counter resistences to their strengths, I think EQ had this as well but I'm not sure, the class changing systems gave you something to think about and how you want to play in a group and with there being 36+ classes with more than just the Holy Trinity in playstyle you really needed to think about what you were doing, couple this with the regular seiges that took place a well put together army would hold their province more securely and thus benefit everyone in the alliance with buffs and taxes. The political landscape changed regularly like EvE and what made it such a great game.

Its a big subject and all systems can have depth like SWG and Ryzoms crafting systems, so its about looking at individual systems and seeing how much they can be manipulated to the benefit of the player or players.

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Calerxes

What fluff was there in EQ, AC, DAOC, FFIX?

I'll take AC:

• - fishing
• - chess
• - housing
• - titles
• - cow tipping
• - costumes
• - gambling 
• - wedding trials and seasonal quests
• - pack doll collection

 

I haven't played much in the past few years, so there may be more.

ill take Everquest

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/history/patches.html

- fishing

- weddings w the assist of GM

- casino

- dyed armor

- titles  (unrelated to any achievements, altho achievement titles exist too)

- illusions that players can wear

- housing was added in 2010 in House of Thule expansion

 

OK the AC list is good but were they all in at launch? the EQ list not so much especially housing 2010.

Right modern MMO's

Guild Wars 2

Titles

Dyes (literally hundreds of colours to collect)

Exploration (loads of hidden stuff not on map)

Vistas

Keg Brawl

Town Clothing

Mini Pets

Achievements (loads of non combat ones)

Jumping Puzzles

Map Completion

Mystic Toil.. sorry Forge

Lots of potions that turn you into mobs.

RIFT

Housing

Collections

Titles

Achievements

Fishing

Marriage

SW:TOR

Data Crons

Achievements

Pets

Codex

Companion Stories

Gift affection system

Titles

There were rumours of the Ship system being expanding in Fluff terms, decorations and having more ship types.

These games are in their infancy but its not a bad start really is it? EQ took 11 years to add housing.

Originally posted by Rohn

Originally posted by Quirhid
No, we don't need fluff, housing or other stuff not involving killing. Devoting as much time to them as "the killing part" is mad, because those features are nowhere near as popular. The killing stuff sells - fluff & housing does not.

 

The "fluff" is much of what made MMOs of the past feel like actual worlds.  The complete focus on killing stuff is one of the main reasons most current games feel so limited - our characters are not denizens of a world, they are troop types and the only activity is slaughter.  When games offer nothing other than killing, they can get boring fast.

What fluff was there in EQ, AC, DAOC, FFIX?

Originally posted by Beatnik59

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Beatnik59

Frankly, all this adds up to the same thing: the kind of streamlined, action/adventure-esque, fluffless combat MMO we've been accustomed to for the last decade is coming to a close.  It is, because the combat/achievement crowd costs more to appease than they grant in return.

Meanwhile, you have housewives, teenage girls, men who aren't manchildren and business professionals dropping $50 on lot space for 2D flash programs on Facebook.  The industry is betting that these folks want high quality, 3D environments where they'll do the same things they are doing now...the things they used to do back in the early MMO days.  That's the future we're going to see.

Really? If you look at big sellers of games in 2012 .. most are combat oriented.

Surely there is farmville, and stuff like that for housewives and teenage girls. Do you think that is the future of gaming? Farmville is not doing as well as it once was ... right?

 

Perhaps the future of online gaming is to actually institutionalize the schism we're seeing right now in threads like this one.

1)   You'll have the publishing houses design new games, stripping out the MMORPGs of the last remaining RPG elements that WoW didn't already strip out--the stuff the combat twinks say they hate (customization, fluff, reading, etc.)--until they aren't even RPGs anymore.  We see this in games like League of Legends (the real WoW killer, in my estimation).  Those people will leave the MMORPG scene and spin off into their own sub-genre of grind/button mash/PvP/loot/Rankings splendor.

2)  You'll also find publishers (probably the same publishers) will keep on adding things into other new MMORPGs, things that they used to have, that a more diverse clientele would find appealing.  Those people will form the kind of cosmopolitan MMORPG clientele that the games used to attract.  Combat will be there, but it won't be the focus.  Immersion will be the focus.

In short, I think this whole affair with "making MMORPGs an alternative to Diablo and Counterstrike" is coming to a close.  You'll have MMORPGs, and you'll have online combat games like League of Legends.

How do you come up with this stuff its priceless, cosmopolitan really? cRPG geeks and D 'n' D geeks is cosmopolitan these days is it? I bet you there is a more diverse clientelle in todays MMO's than there ever was in the past.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Calerxes

Originally posted by Vesavius

The sad thing is that this next generation of MMO sandboxes is that their apparent reliance on open world PvP as content will kill their wider appeal (specifically to the builders/ socialisers/ PvEers) and restrict them to a small niche. This will mean they will 'fail' in the eyes of the mainstream and it will be seen as sandbox has no market.

It will be the open world PvP that kills the model ultimately, not the concept of sandbox play itself.

But then, ofc, the themepark will be back in fashion by then so it won't matter anyhow.

Blimey I agree with Vesavius. 

I agree, as well. The growing association between FFA Full loot and sandbox really hurts that aspect of MMOs.

Its part of a bigger issue for me, if you have mecahnics in games that allow players to interfere with others players game time you will reduce your potential playerbase. This is a core aspect of sandbox gaming as I read it from many posters on here, things like OPvP, FFA PVP, territorial control, deep crafting systems, taming etc.. its just that some are more insidious than others and at the top you have FFA PvP. So dev's have a really hard task of balancing the various player driven tools that sandboxes require to make them work as the more freedom you give players the more exploits will be found. Its why I believe dev's have shied away from making UO/SWG style games they are just way to complicated to get right.

Originally posted by Vesavius

The sad thing is that this next generation of MMO sandboxes is that their apparent reliance on open world PvP as content will kill their wider appeal (specifically to the builders/ socialisers/ PvEers) and restrict them to a small niche. This will mean they will 'fail' in the eyes of the mainstream and it will be seen as sandbox has no market.

It will be the open world PvP that kills the model ultimately, not the concept of sandbox play itself.

But then, ofc, the themepark will be back in fashion by then so it won't matter anyhow.

 

Blimey I agree with Vesavius. 

Originally posted by Mavolence
Much,much,much,much less emphasis on the importance of items. Back in UO i cared not when i got dry looted because the items were just not that important to me, i easily replaced them and had a house just full of stock piles that it took me a few minutes to get back re armor,arm,pot,aids and recall back into the fray kill and reloot both his and my own set i had just lost.

Darkfall has zero emphasis on gear you can get gear very easily and players have it stockpiled, couple that with the fact of having universal banks its easy to get regeared. Same with reagents and stuff but the game was an exploiters and griefers paradise. Also UO had the problem so bad that they brought out completely new ruleset servers. The only solution to this problem I see is don't have it in your game if you want to have more than a niche playerbase or for players just don't play these types of games they attract the worst in the gaming world there is a reason why most MMO's are not FFA PvP based games.

Originally posted by Theocritus

Originally posted by AlBQuirky

When I read the forums, I get this feeling from the majority posters: "I want to play an MMORPG, but..."

"...I don't want a massive world that takes forever and a day to traverse."
"...I don't want to stand there swinging my sword."
"...I want my heavily armored warrior to be able to do acrobatics in full plate."
"...I want mini-games galore, for almost everything I do."
"...I want to click a button and be instantly transported to the dungeon I just threw my name onto a list for."
"...I want massive amounts of instancing so that I feel like what I do affects the world."
"...I want massive instancing so that I don't have to worry about other players spoiling my gaming experience."
"...I want to be able to turn off chat."
"...I want to be told a story where my character saves the universe."
"...I want to be able to jump online for the 15-30 minutes I have free and gain something useful."
"...I don't want downtime where I feel like I have to converse with others. I have friends IRL, thank you."

All I can ask is, Do these players really want to play MMORPGs?

 Yes they do and unfortunately they are a pretty vocal crowd and the devs are listening to them.....

No they are the majority of gamers, not unhappy forum posters and thats where the money is. So who would you aim you new MMO at? a bunch of MMO vets who cannot agree on what makes a good game and are always moving the goalposts or a bunch of casual players that will buy your game in the millions?

"Originally posted by AlBQuirky

When I read the forums, I get this feeling from the majority posters: "I want to play an MMORPG, but..."

"...I don't want a massive world that takes forever and a day to traverse."
"...I don't want to stand there swinging my sword."
"...I want my heavily armored warrior to be able to do acrobatics in full plate."
"...I want mini-games galore, for almost everything I do."
"...I want to click a button and be instantly transported to the dungeon I just threw my name onto a list for."
"...I want massive amounts of instancing so that I feel like what I do affects the world."
"...I want massive instancing so that I don't have to worry about other players spoiling my gaming experience."
"...I want to be able to turn off chat."
"...I want to be told a story where my character saves the universe."
"...I want to be able to jump online for the 15-30 minutes I have free and gain something useful."
"...I don't want downtime where I feel like I have to converse with others. I have friends IRL, thank you."

All I can ask is, Do these players really want to play MMORPGs?

And when I read this forum I see the complete opposite and it all can be summed up in.

"Give us back our virtual worlds modern MMO's are rubbish"

I find it ironic that instant teleportation was in EQ at release and they also expanded it to be accessible by all players in the Planes of Power expac in 2002 but WoW only had that latter type of instant teleport when Burning Crusade was launched in 2006 and only in Shatrath, all other transport was from Bat, Griffon, underground railway and Zepplin. Though my Lock could, with the aid of others, pull players to outside dungeons from anywhere in the world.

Originally posted by taus01

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by taus01

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by taus01

Originally posted by Aerowyn

yup i myself purchased the $60 pack.. why? because after playing beta/alpha i find it would be worth putting a little money into.. MMOs imho are almost always worth the money. You can easily put hundreds upon hundreds of hours into and still not see all the game has to offer.. for that many hours of entertainment $60 is nothing...just the foundry system is worth it for me in neverwinter. 

I am intrigued, would you mind showing us which games you recently played for hundreds of hours? Screenshots please. It can't be just GW2 and if so then show us the hundreds upon hundreds of hours you spent there.

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/4360/gw030o.jpg

you can see my /age on that SS

not sure how you can't see the value in these games.. hell i get more play hours on betas of most MMOs than i get from the average single player game

Not loading for me, but i already know you play guildwars. What about other games recently released. You can't play more than one if you commit hundreds of hours into them.

i have played almost 420 hours since launch.. that really isn't that much I still got plenty of time for other games even with a job and family

I find it hard to find games to put that much time into. Most of them are way to repetitive and boring.

Isn't this the crux of the whole argument, because some old time MMO players find modern MMO's boring therefore they are bad and no one in their right mind can play these games for 100's of hours? I have 400 hours in SW:TOR, probably nearly 800 in WoW, over 100 hours in many others so I'm with Aerowyn I find there to be lots of value in modern MMO with lots of activities that interest me. But I do not denegrate others for not enjoying modern MMO's as this thread is doing to those who do.

Originally posted by Beatnik59

Originally posted by nariusseldon

SNIP!

I am not surprised. For a game that costs 10s of $M to make, it make sense to spend a little on science. The fact that a) most games are combat oriented, and b) the combat centric games that i have listed are successful. Some of them has very little fluff, compared to old MMOs .. pretty much tell you how important combat gameplay is.

Please also look up the studies.

"The studies" you refer to don't exist.  But I did find this one:

"What’s interesting about Achievement as a play motivation is that it may directly lead a player to the Burn Out stage (thus both a good and bad thing at the same time). As the chart also shows, players who make it to the Casual stage have let go of their strong Achievement drives. Or in other words, strong Achievement players in Burn Out stages tend to quit instead of stay, and thus the ones who remain in the game (in Casual stage) score lower on Achievement on average."

Nick Yee, 2007.

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001646.php?page=5

Here's Smed recently, the one who once said "sandbox can't work":

"Our opinion is that today's MMOs, and I'd include ours in that mix, are stagnant and stuck in this model that we frankly helped create with EverQuest, where we put new content in the game, and they go through it at an incredibly fast rate because of sites like Thottbot and that kind of stuff."

http://www.polygon.com/2012/12/18/3777814/planetside-2-is-just-the-start-of-sony-online-entertainments-free

Here's him again:

"In my opinion, the days when companies can make content [generation] the number one strategy, in the kinds of games we make, are over, because we can't win the war. Star Wars:The Old Republic proved that. Players bought it, loved it, and they played the game. Then they left."

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/01/24/smedley-talks-players-as-content-hints-at-eqnext-actual-releas/

 

Frankly, all this adds up to the same thing: the kind of streamlined, action/adventure-esque, fluffless combat MMO we've been accustomed to for the last decade is coming to a close.  It is, because the combat/achievement crowd costs more to appease than they grant in return.

Meanwhile, you have housewives, teenage girls, men who aren't manchildren and business professionals dropping $50 on lot space for 2D flash programs on Facebook.  The industry is betting that these folks want high quality, 3D environments where they'll do the same things they are doing now...the things they used to do back in the early MMO days.  That's the future we're going to see.

We're going to see it because their development dollar goes farther.  For the price of one coder, one mesh, and one texture, they can get more from the "fluff lovers" via the item store than they can with the combat folk, who require legions of coders, testers, and capital outlay to appease (and they are never appeased for long).

Combat-centric players also are a service hazard.  Combat games create a culture of  harassment, abusiveness and cheating (http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2012/08/hell-is-other-games-and-some-games.html).  They scare away the lucrative people the industry wants to attract (mature players, women, children).

Now tell me.  Please do.  If it's so unecessary to do this kind of "fluff" stuff, how come every single game on the ropes (and even a lot not on the ropes) these days have offered up fluff items?  Because combat alone ain't cuttin' it anymore.

I mean, we have DCUO coming out with housing, so late in its post-launch cycle.  They do it becaause they really don't have anywhere else to go.  Combat content is pointless, because the manchildren park out for 72 hours straight to finish a year's worth of expansion, and thousands--if not millions of dollars in capital expenditure--in a few days.

The counterstrike crowd has outlived its usefulness to this genre.  Now it's time to take our worlds back, one lot purchase at a time.

You believe a man in John Smedley who hasn't released a fully featured and working game at release ever? When the new "saviours" of the MMO world like Archeage, Age Of Wushu, Black Desert or indie titles like Star Citizen, Greed Monger (god thats a rubbish name) go down the same route as every other MMO from the past few years will you come back and correct your gung ho elitist attitude of taking back "our worlds"? diversity is great within any scene and I welcome it but to dismiss the whole scene because you cannot play dolls house or pick flowers 24/7 is ridiculous. I always thought RPG's were about epic adventurers and winning out against all odds not playing average joe from nowhere. I can sense your frustration in your post and I'm afraid thats a problem only you can deal with but lashing out at the so called "service hazard" players who put your little scene on the map is taking it too far.

Originally posted by Aeolyn

Originally posted by Calerxes

 

Its not about whether its a good thing or not, I like pet/taming systems and collection ones, housing not so much, its about understanding why it has become low priority to modern MMO's and the irony is that you vets are the ones that gave the dev's the data thats it wasn't very popular in the first place, boom boom. j/k

Lol like I said, surveys are subjective so depending on what data the surveyers were looking for, that's what the survey will usually reflect.

ie. if they wanted to compare those who participated in combat versus those that didn't then of course combat would win because you pretty much had participate in combat if you wanted to play any part of the game.(recalls dying to mongbats and having to raise my fighting skill to survive so I could gather, mine, find a house location, fish, etc let alone be a viable member of the community) 

In fact, I was playing UO when that particular survey the article uses was done and guess what, I didn't fill it out and I'm guessing I wasn't the only one.  For another example of skewed data, think of historical records and how they tend to show bias according to who has recorded it.

So the only way we'll find out if fluff is the right stuff is if an MMO centered around things other than combat becomes a rip roaring success. Personally I'll probably be putting on some skates and figure dancing with beelzebub before that happens. 

Originally posted by gwarf

Most of these posts are silly.

 

It must be the combat that addicted us all to Minecraft right! 

 

Good Grief! Some people just want a 3D somewhat pretty world to explore, paint, sing, fight, steal, build, craft, market ETC ETC.

 

Runescape must have that huge user base for its combat right?  Lawlz...

 

If you don't like playing minecraft, then you don't have a prayer of a clue why others are interested in housing.

 

*goes back to lurking*

 

Its not about whether its a good thing or not, I like pet/taming systems and collection ones, housing not so much, its about understanding why it has become low priority to modern MMO's and the irony is that you vets are the ones that gave the dev's the data thats it wasn't very popular in the first place, boom boom. j/k

Originally posted by jimdandy26

Originally posted by Calerxes

Originally posted by jimdandy26

Originally posted by Zarriya

SNIP!

 

Originally posted by Calerxes

I answered your question also you are focusing on one slight inaccuracy and misunderstanding in my post but as I said my points are still valid one exception does not change the rule. So no AAA MMO has grown since WoW was released is that clearer?

Well yeah, but what does that have to do with the topic at hand? WoW for the most part is fluff light, and EvE LOST subs when they made an effort to introduce fluff. Both of those facts fly in the face of what op and his supporters claim. Though because of Eve's nebulous success its spawning its own clones, most of which are going to fail for a variety of reasons. Even Wod I feel is likely to be a failure due to its "focus" on clothing for example.

 

I made the mistake of expecting some common sense, in another post only to have the classic but but but EvE hasn't etc etc... if you take it out of context then it isn't relative to the argument but in context it is though I'm not going to go over it again. Though your seconds points Jim I agree with totally, fluff is great for MMO's but its not some magic bullet that many think it is and you can builod you whole AAA game around it.

What was taken out of context? All available evidence points to the statement "Adding fluff increases retention" as being patently false. If that idea is true then provide some counter evidence, please! I for one would love to see it since I am pretty ambivalent when it comes to fluff. I like fluff in some games, and some needs to be added to an extent, but with the rising costs of game development (both in the amounts and costs of content creation) Its really hard to justify. With as much as people cry for things like housing (though none of them can ever agree on implementation of that feature, lol) It just cannot be justified in terms of retention in the short term, and even arguable in the long since those who "focus" on fluff also tend to use the combat content also. It really is basic numbers.

Bloody hell I'm agreeing with you not arguing with you it was Zarriya that was misunderstanding me.

Originally posted by jimdandy26

Originally posted by Zarriya

SNIP!

 

Originally posted by Calerxes

I answered your question also you are focusing on one slight inaccuracy and misunderstanding in my post but as I said my points are still valid one exception does not change the rule. So no AAA MMO has grown since WoW was released is that clearer?

Well yeah, but what does that have to do with the topic at hand? WoW for the most part is fluff light, and EvE LOST subs when they made an effort to introduce fluff. Both of those facts fly in the face of what op and his supporters claim. Though because of Eve's nebulous success its spawning its own clones, most of which are going to fail for a variety of reasons. Even Wod I feel is likely to be a failure due to its "focus" on clothing for example.

I made the mistake of expecting some common sense, in another post only to have the classic but but but EvE hasn't etc etc... if you take it out of context then it isn't relative to the argument but in context it is though I'm not going to go over it again. Though your seconds points Jim I agree with totally, fluff is great for MMO's but its not some magic bullet that many think it is and you can builod you whole AAA game around it.

Originally posted by Zarriya

Originally posted by Calerxes

Originally posted by Zarriya

Originally posted by Calerxes

Originally posted by Zarriya

Originally posted by jimdandy26

Originally posted by Zarriya

Eve has grown in population steadily from launch.

Yet the patch that CCP went out of their way to include fluff made them lose subs! Its of the few times they have noticably dipped. do you really want to attempt to play the game of correlation is causation?

I never said the reason for its growth.  I simply said it has grown.  That is really interesting though - what did Eve add that was not liked?

 

Google EvE Captain's Quarters and you know I meant from release didn't you I'm sure you did so no splitting hairs.

 

Perhaps there is somthing you are not understanding. I simply said Eve has grown from launch. Yes i heard about the Captain's quarters thank you for letting me know, but subs are now up to 500,000  (http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/02/28/eve-online-hits-500-000-subscribers-heads-into-second-decade/) Its a simple fact that i mentioned without a reason for it.  So there are no split hairs - Eve has grown from launch period.

 

I answered your question also you are focusing on one slight inaccuracy and misunderstanding in my post but as I said my points are still valid one exception does not change the rule. So no AAA MMO has grown since WoW was released is that clearer? 

well of course it does :)    the original statement was that "no MMO" has grown.  I simply stated Eve has.  No one said it had to be AAA  (although SWTOR wishes it had 500,000 subs lol). 

How do you know it doesn't? look use some common sense the whole argument is about the top MMO's failing and that adding fluff would magically transform that into success ie retaining and growing subs, players would stay longert but the flaw is that top MMO's are not failing as they are all still up and running apart from a very minor few..

Originally posted by Zarriya

Originally posted by Calerxes

Originally posted by Zarriya

Originally posted by jimdandy26

Originally posted by Zarriya

Eve has grown in population steadily from launch.

Yet the patch that CCP went out of their way to include fluff made them lose subs! Its of the few times they have noticably dipped. do you really want to attempt to play the game of correlation is causation?

I never said the reason for its growth.  I simply said it has grown.  That is really interesting though - what did Eve add that was not liked?

 

Google EvE Captain's Quarters and you know I meant from release didn't you I'm sure you did so no splitting hairs.

 

Perhaps there is somthing you are not understanding. I simply said Eve has grown from launch. Yes i heard about the Captain's quarters thank you for letting me know, but subs are now up to 500,000  (http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/02/28/eve-online-hits-500-000-subscribers-heads-into-second-decade/) Its a simple fact that i mentioned without a reason for it.  So there are no split hairs - Eve has grown from launch period.

I answered your question also you are focusing on one slight inaccuracy and misunderstanding in my post but as I said my points are still valid one exception does not change the rule. So no AAA MMO has grown since WoW was released is that clearer? 

Originally posted by jimdandy26

Originally posted by xAPOCx

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Beatnik59

Combat gets boring.  It cannot help but get boring, and spending a lot of time to make it more 'exciting' isn't going to make a difference in the end.  Once players develop a pattern of what the combat is like, the first steps towards boredom take root. 

 

Where do you get that? Combat is the core of gaming. How many hours do people play COD .. nothing but shooting.

How many hours do people play D3? 99% is mowing down monsters.

Take any popular game .. how many is nothing but non-stop combat (plus some stories)? Halo, GoW, .....

Take the successful online games in the last 2 years .. LOL, WOT ... what is the gameplay in them? You guess it .. combat.

Don't think that if it is boring to you, it is boring to everyone.

I would like to know the % of game time people play per session. 10 mins? 20 min? 30 mins? an hour? and how often do these people log in per day? 2 times? 4 times? Or perhaps log in in a week. 10 times? 15 times?

When combat is the only thing that drives a game, how long can one play before they feel like logging out?

Would be something to look into to. the avarage play time per session of a combat orented player to a non combat orented player.

That study has already happened. You will just discount it because its from 2007 I believe (Eq2 was its focus group) and its finding were pretty clear that those who focus on "immersion" play less, and do not play as long as those who focus on goal orientated gameplay. Which one can only assume is part of the reason why many mmo's and game companies in general have moved in that direction. They do tend to listen to science when it tells them it makes them more money.

Good point, MMO companies follow metrics and research and thats why MMO's have gone down the path they have, they don't make up data from personal likes and biased perception of what the market needs, posters on MMORPG.com do that though.