Modern day MMORPGs are defined by content, quests and stories the players move through, usually capped by boss fights and tough combat encounters. This is the endgame, the point where the normal leveling treadmill falls away and the game shifts from gaining power to using that power in raids, PVP, and other top-tier content. Building a good endgame is hard, but the endgame is a vital part of an MMO because players will blast through everything before it in roughly ten minutes of powerleveling. Endgame content, however, is expensive and time-consuming to produce, yet increasingly, players ravage to the endgame as if it is all that matters. Is this race to the endgame a poison seeping through the veins of the gaming community? Ten Ton Hammer has the story.
Minigames. I think the answer is an array of overlapping minigames that help the player complete various goals in the game world. That way, there’s always something that needs to be done, and always a minigame to do it.