Again from Grimwell but this time from Geldon:

For the first time, I saw it extremely clearly, well enough that I can define it for you in one little sentence: “We hit the treadmill wall when we realize that the game has no more purpose to ourselves but to grind away at leveling.” Surely the City of Heroes deep combat mechanics could be fun, but I was amazed to discover that fun had little to do with it, instead it was simply a matter of context. When time investment reaches this scale, we need more reason behind our actions, and the mere story bits strewn in the missions issued by my contacts just weren’t doing it anymore.

And it’s exactly tied to what I said about CoH not being a mmorpg. They built a game around your character and not toward the effort of building a world, where you actions have a meaning in that “context” that Geldon misses.

Paragon City was fun, but ultimately it seems that I require more than gameplay depth. Such depth is meaningless if it’s an activity without a purpose.

A purpose, a sense. The treadmill provides you one but it’s becoming obvious that today the players require an evolution.

Woe be to the title of Game Designer, for at the time of this writing, I’m afraid I have few ideas how to introduce this sense of purpose.

I have ideas but I guess I’ll never be able to know if they are valuable or worthlessly stupid. Someone else could have a better luck.

Or not.