What will MMOs be like 10 years from now?

Brain Trust, assemble! I've called you all here today to put on your prognosticating caps and cast your vision into the future -- the future of 10 years from now, that is. Consider this: It is the year 2020, and I am 44 years old, practically ready for the video games old folks home. Also consider: MMOs are still around, and we're all still playing them fervently. So we need you, the Massively Brain Trust, to tell us what these MMOs will be like.

Will they be mind-controlled, like that goofy 1991 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which everyone's addicted to a lame addictive frisbee game? Will these MMOs be huge, revolutionary leaps forward, or will they merely be a series of small, progressive steps to better graphics, better immersion, and larger exclamation points above NPCs' heads? Will we be playing the MMOs of today in 2020, much like how gamers still enjoy EverQuest and Ultima Online?

What do you think MMOs will be like 10 years from now? We'll record the responses for posterity, and then in 2020 we'll pull them out to see who was right and who was completely ridiculous.

TH