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6. "Instead of a new client they should do a sequel": Again, the client/server structure with the persistence of an online world precludes this. Expansions ARE the sequels, they are the new chapters. You don't have to have an entirely new book because the book is NEVER completed, it's ongoing. Most MMOG sequels have NOT fared well. Lineage 2 did ok because it was a HUGE difference, Asheron's Call 2 DIED and EQ 2 isn't exactly tearing up any charts either. UO2 was canned before release because it was UNNECESSARY. UO itself is fine, and just like the content has been updated over the 12+ years, so too is the technology that is involved with the clients and servers.
This is the only point I strongly disagree with.
First, expansions are NOT sequels. This flat out makes no sense. By definition, they "expand" the existing world. Additions are made, but rarely, if ever, is anything substantially changed with expansion packs. AoS I guess is the biggest offender, but it changed itemization. I wouldn't even call that a "sequel".
Secondly, you're subscribing to logical fallacy that because no one has done a successful MMO sequel, that it can't be done at all. No one thought MMO's would be mainstream, either, until someone actually did it.
Third, a UO sequel, done correctly, has some strong advantages going for it.
A) Nostalgia and a rabid following. How many people got started in MMO's with UO? How many people still talk on message boards and in other MMO's about UO? If it isn't a WoW clone, I'd suspect they'd come close to covering a good chunk of development costs on box sales alone.
B) The game is an MMO based off a single player game that did fairly well, and has a rich history that hasn't broken off radically from those roots. No other MMO that has had a sequel made has had any kind of origin in anything other than the MMO space.
C) Provided it doesn't RADICALLY alter or remove the things that make UO special (Skills, the sheer volume of itemization player housing, open world, rich crafting, lore to name a few), it can see some very substantial improvements in all of those things - Improvements and changes that could NOT be made without seriously pissing off the existing player base. And that's what holds a lot of things back now, as you argue with graphics - People don't want this world to change in ways that are too far from what they are familiar/comfortable with or like. I'm not talking about just graphics - What if they completely redid the way all weapon skills and magic work? Even if it made sense, and was a good decision, how many people would take to it?
AC2 failed because it was radically different than AC1, EQ2 and L2, while staying afloat, aren't lighting the world on fire because they are little more than what WoW is, and does better.
Finally, and I'd have to get a dev to confirm this (I think Draconi stated it a few times, but I don't have time at this moment to cite sources), but no, the technology behind the game (Server, Net Code, and the databases itself) haven't changed substantially, if at all, since launch. The clients were what changed the most, and they were sort of held back because. Well.. Everything else behind it! They're only the top layer of the cake. The content has been added to, and the sever hardware has been upgraded, but the code, the backbone of everything, has changed very little. Hence, many of the hacks that worked a decade ago likely still work today.
Other than that last point, I can see your reasoning. The final one though, I cannot.
