Suttree.com: Casual Games, Social Software by Duncan Gough

The Internet is a global thing. MMO should be massive things too. Not so, World of Warcraft. Playing friends from the US when you’re in the UK just got harder. It’s restrictions like these that give me valid reasons to avoid WoW (the other being time and commitment). I have finally bought a copy but attempting to install work arounds so that I can play with people I’d happily pay a monthly fee to go massively multiplayer fishing with just doesn’t sound like fun.

If WoW is the new golf then country-based restictions must be the MMO equivalent of plus fours.

Eve Online gets plenty of mentions in the comments too - Eve is a single shard so there are no restrictions on where you’re from and where you can play, but it also seems to get a bit of stick for separating players over huge distances:

But that’s the nature of *Massively* multiplayer online games. It’s a virtual world - it’s just like the real thing. I have friends in real life that it would take well over two hours to visit - don’t blame the virtual world when its approximation mimics real life so closely. However, this is a game. It’s hard to complain about reality when you’re an Orc with funny ears and an virtual existence that self-evidently proves you’ve neglected real world relationships. This sort of thing is the Uncanny Valley of MMOs - the closer they get to reality the more the bitty details of our real worl lives replicated in game will offend us. What we need are MCOs - massively casual online games where the world is a much an illusion as our powers within it. Let me meet up with my friends, wherevery they’re from, and go questing until I’m bored. Let my actions have consequence and my avatar remain in-game even when I am not, but please don’t make the virtual world too serious. Casual Games are showing hardcore games that fun and replayability are still better than graphics and technological trickery. Casual Games exist in part because traditional games lost their fun. MMOs should be wary of the ‘casualization’ of their genre because it will happen, on a smaller budget and with less restrictions too.