yes, but bigger – I want to get lost later on too. Not necessarily that damnit-wheres-the-exit bewilderment, but the omg-this-place-is-cool sense of lost. How big? Look to the game Fuel (http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05/22/fuel-sets-guinness-record-as-biggest-console-game-ever/)

* Do you like that there are so many possible activities that you will probably never be able to do them all?

Yes. I like what that implies too – I’ll be doing activities that other people likely haven’t yet or ever will. There’s scope for specialisation and differentiation.

* Does it bother you if there is content that other people do and you can’t (assuming you have enough to do to justify whatever you are paying for the game)?

Nope. There are also other games I could possibly purchase which I also don’t play – same thing.

* Do you like having lots of options (for example: massive raids, large raids, small raids, instances, solo) or would you prefer a more streamlined experience?

Lots of options, and lots of options in those brackets too. Why must raids be lined up in serial sequence? I want my raid guild to (eg) specialise in dragon killing, and we’d go off and do the dragon killing raids and dungeons. Some other guild can go handle the rising undead menace of the Dread Moors.

* Do you like to feel totally immersed in the game world?

Yes. It helps avoid the existentialist despair of just-pushing-buttons-for-pixels.

* Do you like to feel like a small cog in a big machine? To be part of a larger virtual society?

Ah, the illusion of importance of my character. I’d like to see a game which was a cross between an MMOG and Dwarf Fortress – one with thousands of players, each with (possibly) hundreds of NPC minions. A bit like a dominion strategy game, but where I walk amongst my subjects instead of having a gods-eye view. And where I have to watch my back in case another player decides to gank me, one on one, in some dark ally one night.

2. No, because then it becomes an arms race of content between the people who will do them all and the rest of us. When I left FFXI I left with half of the endgame content undone because it took so long, and I put years into the game.

3. Only if that content is necessary for story. Had that argument in FFXI. Or if the content is needed to get stuff to do future content, then the gap widens.

4. Options are good, so long as they dont fragment the playerbase.

5. Yeah, who doesnt?

6. As long as I am not faceless. I hated that in EVE, you were really just one more ship in a swarm, and nothing set you apart.

I would like a game world so large I could get lost in. I would say yes to have tons of activities. No it doesn’t bother me if there is some content I can’t do because of my chosen style of play or time spent in game. Yes to lots of options of solo dungeons, multidungeons, etc. Even if I’m a small cog in the machine I don’t feel that way since I’m choosing what I do – the machine doesn’t control me – I control the machine.

A non-persitent, player changed world could be divided in chapters, triggered by events the players cause. five chapters and the world collapses or ascends, and the whole thing starts again in new one based on the old.

You’re describing A Tale in the Desert here.

Sometimes I miss the days of 100 man raids in EverQuest. I preferred it when games didn’t limit how many people you could bring along so that “less efficient” guilds/groups could zerg content if they wished and it was a point of pride for some people to talk about defeating content with as few people as possible. Any time a game gives more control to the players, establishes less rules, is a win for me.

However I don’t mind if no one knows me personally, have no “friends” online.

I love that, it describes WoW perfectly. You need all the cogs for the cogwheel to work but the cogs themself have no interaction with each other.

The cogs are just attached near each other on the wheel (and if they are lucky enough the get 2 EoF a day.