A good friend of mine and I recently had an interesting conversation. The pulse of the topic involved aging, and the growing distance between ourselves and some of the friends we’ve had for over a decade. People do change obviously, and isolation over the years between individuals in numerous relationships is as inevitable as getting older itself. However, we realized that some of our most recent friendships that had been forged in MMOS have in many ways become stronger than the relationships we’ve had with people we’ve known for more than a third of our life.

New MMOS promise the world to players, and like rats in a maze of boring quest hubs we right click feverishly for any new information to affirm that THIS game will change everything. New combat systems, an absence of grinding, and an array of other things with the predictable quote from a passionate fan, “this isn’t your dad’s MMO!“ If you’re smart, you’ll be weary of such things and remain cautiously optimistic as I like to be. They are doing something new though. To the food pellet dispenser I go, teething at the metal tube for more information on something so simple; integrated social networking.