General MMO gameplay question...I am curious about it in general terms. Not necessarily in the context of EQ2. Are populated areas like cities, castles, towns, etc. being surrounded by vast expansive wildernesses a good MMO design? Re-spawn location aside and joining friends aside? Does a design like this along with need to provision for meals and perhaps armor repairs a good thing? I think it would mean the towns would be more populated if facilities were concentrated into small areas that are located far from each other. Joining friends is a real life issue. I think that fast travel would need to be a thing. Re-spawning in the nearest safe area (if safe areas were a thing). Safe areas being camps or something like that. Even if fast travel between cities was a thing, would having vast tracks of wilderness between them be a good thing? So much, that it would take a wagon of provisions to travel between them. (Not including hunting and foraging or finding a place with provisions somewhere out in the wilderness.) There are many benefits of having extremely large areas of wilderness. Is the only downside a socialization issue?
