My favorite panel from PAX was a MMORPG.com-hosted discussion attended by a number of high-profile MMO devs (Massively has the breakdown). It was a good, open talk on various MMO topics, and while some PR-speak was uttered, overall the devs were upfront and had interesting insight.
One amusing part of the whole panel was all of the love Scott Hartsman was getting for Rift. The applause was loudest when he was introduced, and time and time again other devs would answer a question by, in part, referring to something that Rift has done well or that they hope their launch is similar to Rift’s. Scott handled the love-fest well, and you could see the pride he had for what Trion had delivered. The timing of PAX East worked out well here, as Rift had just launched and I think everyone, players and devs alike, were and still are surprised at just how well Rift is doing. I would not be at all surprised if currently some upcoming MMOs are making Rift-based adjustments to their game.
Something very noticeable right away was how varied the opinions were, and what people considered the ‘best path’ for success. Even without a SW:sRPG t-shirt on, you could clearly hear James Ohlen’s belief that story and individually-focused content delivery were his goals, while others talked about virtual worlds, dynamic content, or mixing action combat into the MMO formula. Although I was not a fan to begin with, the panel pretty much cemented my belief that SW is going to be a (hopefully) solid sRPG, but a terribly MMO. Unfortunately I don’t think that’s going to work out well for EA financially, but at least we will get a fun game to play for a month or so.
Outside of the solo-MMO fans, the buzz word for the panel was ‘dynamic content’, yet even here everyone had a slightly different take on what that means, and ultimately no one went as far as what EVE or other sandbox games do in terms of impact. It’s funny that the genre seems to be taking baby steps back to what Ultima Online did so well back in 97, but at least we are (mostly) moving back in the right direction.
Hardcore Casual 
Your mom moves in the right direction
I would say both Ultima Online and Asheron’s Call did it well back in the day. I really miss AC’s monthly updates where they would actually change the game/world we played in. To me this is much more interesting and evolves the world more so than the current dynamic content.
Rift’s Dynamic Conent involves rifts that can sprout up anywhere and take over an area killing NPC’s. Once the rifts are taken care of though, those NPC’s magically reappear. Although the content wasn’t dynamic in AC, their monthly changes were permanent. when they blew up one or a number of their cities due to an invasion or whatever, it wasn’t magically repaired the next day or the next month.
I’m still waiting for some kind of permanent content changes that make me feel like I’m playing in a world and not just playing a game.
I’m still shocked at how many people are singing Rift’s praises, and thinking it’ll be *the* second-place MMO (since a WoW killer isn’t gonna happen.) I suppose it’s because I got massively hyped up over it, but, well, it just disappointed me in so many ways. Oh well.
“Story and individually-focused content delivery were his goals, while others talked about virtual worlds, dynamic content, or mixing action combat into the MMO formula.” That kind of sums-up why MMOs are stagnating: none of them are willing to do all of those things in an MMO. And that’s a bit sad, because methinks anyone who had the ambition and skill to do them all would take the MMO world by storm and create a new gold standard.
I wonder if soon we’ll see an innovative and dynamic shift in design paradigms towards better interaction between players and word.
Maybe the game companies can focus on their core competencies too.