In my opinion, we're seeing the twilight days of MMOs now so regardless of which direction the devs take this game it's going to go the way of the dodo anyway.

I've played MMOs pretty much since '99 when Everquest started out as being almost an underground movement not many people knew or discussed about. That was a world where people immersed and lost themselves in. Then we had FFXI, EQ2, etc until WoW came along. Love it or hate it WoW brought MMOs to the masses and the genre was forever changed. Sadly, that led to where we are now with this watered-down, tepid crap where everything has to be achievable by everybody with the minimum amount of effort/brainless repetition. Eventually even the lowest common denominators will move on long after the supposed hardcore crowd have migrated to the next big MMO which in turn will prove to never match the expectations of their "first" MMO experience.

Ramble over. The genre is on the wane and the best you can hope for is a pleasant distraction till the next new thing comes along but right now I'm not seeing anything on the horizon. The industry has no room anymore for a couple of guys with a love for gaming churning out the amazing experience that was early Everquest.