I guess a fair assumption would be a middleground of sorts with more of a focus on group interdependency than solo play. I guess you could consider it a direct opposite of WoW, but not more punitive than EQ. Whenever someone brings up the question if the game will have solo content or not, Brad usually replies, “there will be casual content, more on this later.” Casual content? Vague as all hell.

The game will most likely require a longer time investment to reach the cap than WoW and offer a few more robust systems, like crafting-harvesting but, I don’t think it will be hardcore like EQ was pre-Velious. So far, there really is nothing new or innovative on paper. The dynamisms and advanced spawning-flag systems that are planned have been done in numerous games before. I think a lot of the combat mechanics will be based on DAOC’s system, we might see group skill chains like FFXI, the spawning system will borrow concepts from UO and SWG. We will know more when E3 rolls around. It’s a 30 million dollar investment with the potential of cross development platform for the Xbox folks, I don’t think they can make it too niche for the hardcores.

Probably the #1 thing that I’m looking forward too, is the overall potential, being the fanboi I am, I like Sigil’s team of developers. Kendrick, Akkirus, Tagad, Aradune, Myrlokar, etc. I know what these guys are capable of from a pve persperctive, so it will be interesting to see what they come up with, even if it’s nothing revolutionary in a different shiny. I think the game will definitely lack easter egg type humor though, to preserve their high-yawn-fantasy setting. Honestly, from a game vs game perspective, D&D online sounds much more interesting to me right now.