Grim, as for your point -- I think that's the ultimate (philsophical?) crux of ANY game - replayability.
I play EQ from level 1 to 85 and what have I achieved? I can hit harder and wear better gear. There are a few other bits; I can access dungeons others can't (but after the first few times, so what), I can buy things other people can't (they're already putting in an energy crystal system here so that's covered). And that flat about it. Then I sit and stare at the water in the harbor and... eventually unsub.
This is one of those moments when I have to say that, on some levels, the jaded a-hole types are right when they keep throwing in a new "shiny" because, as a quick-fix, it heals the player-bored faster than fixing the old shinies and making them perfect. (relying too much on new shinies and not fixing the old stuff is its own disaster, there's a balance in there, somewhere).
The answer as to what kept me capped and still playing wasn't 100% game content, because 100% game content couldn't keep me. Community in an MMO is essential - it is its own 'replayability' factor, albeit one uncontrollable by the programmers (unless they hire "thought leaders in the industry", apparently).
Aeon - Well we were sort of stuck with scripting. that's what happens when you "yar har fiddle-dee-dee" someone else's game engine and don't write your own - you need to work in their skeleton.
(Even worse, without their own devtools, so you're reverse engineering your own, which tend to be clunkier unless you get lucky; you're spending hours staring at a tiny .DAT file that basically says "6 monsters, each respawns every 10 minutes" in English - but that isn't really what it MEANS once the engine, this basic sheer black monolith of game engine saying, "Haha I will misunderstand everything you try to tell me." translates it as once it ties of to the 4-5 other files you also edited vs. the original DEVs version (why wont my death timers run right?!?!!) Cracking it apart, well, you're basically hacking it, in the most literal of terms. Getting it right is this sort of blackops feather in your cap.)
So yeh, you take the stupid AI and you make it APPEAR intelligent. It's all "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" and if you manage to do it right, you're more than a programmer, you're an artist. (Which is, tbh, why I think all programmers need to be both.)(
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I play MMOs. I need a signature which is deep, thought provoking, and devours bandwidth with the voracity of rabid weasels. It is also, by nature, vaguely sad with a tinge of my obvious internal, unfathomable loneliness. Like this,
, but at 1.3megs packed into 2 by 6 inches. ANIMATED.