[Gogan]

Yeah, the crowdsourced world design does smell a bit cheap. I'm not a huge fan of the Second Life aspect of purchasing/selling in-game objects for cash either.

I don't see anything stopping instanced raid zones, or even world raid bosses though. Destructable environments don't affect that. In fact, they may make those fights even more interesting.

It's clear to me, though, that the next gen MMOs have to be of the sandboxed sort. Giving the community complete control of the design and evolution of the world is what will keep people interested and logging in. The days of daily quests and tiered armor as a means of motivation are over. They've been done to death.

The emergent AI tech sounds awesome. I didn't play much GW, but I don't remember the mob behavior being so intertwined with the players and world around them. Again, time will tell how well it works in practice, but it sounds like an evolutionary leap above the boring static spawns of today's MMOs.

The layered depth of the world also sounds and looks exciting. Hopefully it fulfills its promise of making exploring the world constantly new and interesting. Not to keep hedging, but this is another feature that may be amazing or fall flat after the novelty wears off. We'll see.

Overall, I'm glad to see them setting their sights higher than, say, Wildstar or ESMMO. The MMO genre needs more than just incremental improvements on the same old formula.