Smedley asks "What if?"

SOE has certainly felt the pinch of competition from Star Wars Galaxies, and World of Warcraft. There's also some indication that EQ, predictably, has started to bleed customers for the first time in its history.

In response, John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment, has penned a tome called "Sony Online Entertainment Looks Towards the Future." The letter/essay lays out some interesting ideas about where the MM genre can go from here.
The choice part is this, though:

Where are we going? What are we going to be doing to revolutionize this business? Well let me throw out just a few of the things we're thinking about here at SOE.

What if you could have families in MMO's? Virtual Children... What if your characters could have children and pass on the family name.....

What if players could build fantastic dungeons that become part of the worlds we create with tools we give them? How would that work exactly?

Can MMORPGs have skill-based combat?

What if?

Good questions. They're ideas that expand the genre for MM fans, AND MM wannabe fans. Features like having
"families" will probably only appeal to current players, who are accustomed to the community that EQ and EQ2 offer. But ideas like skill-based combat appeal to RPG fans, in general. That's the way you turn the 2 million player MM base into a 3 million player base.

It's good to see that Sony knows the market is becoming more competitive, and that they need to innovate to succeed.