MMORPGS to become just MORPGs?

This is just a topic based on a couple of things I heard about a month or so ago now and I'm wondering what others think:

City of Heroes/Villains is stream-lining with practically every update to provide more and more single-player action and less so on events that require large numbers to participate in.

World of Warcraft's expansion pack, The Burning Crusade, is released at the start of 2007 and this too is stream-lining dungeons so it is no longer required for 40 people to take part and the vast majority of dungeons will require only a few players to be in a group.

I think it's interesting that since WoW became such a huge commercial hit and a lot of new MMORPGs are due in the next 12-18 months that the market these new games are aiming for doesn't actually exist, even now - which both CoH/V and WoW are now realising.

Could we see a lot of game companies losing large amounts of money here simply because they are so far behind the likes of Blizzard that they are going to have to learn the hard way that the people who want to play these games in the first place are going to want to play with just a small group of friends that they already know rather than use what should be an opportunity to become friends with strangers?

um why can't more companies use a system like Blizzard's Battlenet witch is free? It may not be the best theres hackers on it from time to time but it does work.

ome are calling it the 'WoW effect', so many people have gone to play World of Warcraft its causing financial issues for rival games. It has apparently caused an increase in monthly memberships for said games and, apparently, a decline in interest for the multiplayer online market.

Just when things were getting good too.

softnyx game launcher would be good. of course it has a few problems, but which one doesnt?

MMORPG's are whatever you say, a pretty niche thing, and people will lose interest. Only a certain type of person plays them, they don't require alot of strategy, they are not comparable to FPS's, and they are similar to what people seek from myspace, but in its extremities. There is no end to the games, it is a way of life, and sometimes death, however sometimes, they will not pick up new fans, as they chant change alot with a few expansion packs, and it is very hard to push people (and maybe they would want all of their accounts/stats) to an entirely new game.

MMORPG's in their nature have a fundamental flaw, personally I dont like them, others are addicted... there isn't really a middle place to be. I couldn't live a life on the internet, and as we all know there have been deaths. They are not fun.

That brings me to disagreement with equating "fun" with attaining goals. While the achievement of a goal might be fun, the process (and gameplay) may not be in the game design. In entertainment I think that the journey needs to be as fun as the outcome. At least given that the positive outcome is fairly ephemeral.

The systems are very big and resource (server) hungry.

I hate them Guild Wars, WOW, and all the rest are really for people who don't even know the outside world exists,.
Deaths involving WOW:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2005/6/21/547
(Neglected child dies while parents play World of Warcraft.)