Chalk me up as one of the old MMO players who wants more open world content. It's interesting to see people describe open world content as hollow, because I feel the same way about instancing. when everything important that I do takes place in an alternate reality where only I and 3 to 23 friends exist... it feels removed from the universe that i am playing in... which is suppose is exactly what it is.

But yeah, I get that the open world feels hollow too. But the reason for that is that no one is there.

Back in the day one of the MMOs I played had a fixed number of mobs that would exist on a map at any given time. This meant that if you killed something, a new one would appear to replace it at a random location on the map. Now on the first level of several dungeons in that game there would permanently be a large number of people. All killing things almost as quickly as they spawned, all over the map. This made it quite hectic and exciting as you could very quickly be overwhelmed if too large a number of respawns appeared where you were fighting. BUT because the map was full of people, there would always be others to help you out.

Then there would be people who far out leveled the map just hanging out. Sat in corners, or standing around, chatting with their friends. So newbies in trouble could run and wipe off the adds on them, or get rezzed by them when they died. You would even have characters playing merchants setting up shop in the danger zone, selling potions and what not.

It was anything thing but hollow. But if I go back to that game now, some fifteen years later. Now those maps are hollow. People moved on. There is no one there. Its sad.

So yeah. I miss open world content. Is that just nostalgia? I don't think that's all it is.