I never got that Posi hated altoholics from that article. The column was about the insiders perspective on creating MMOs. I can definitely see where the people who are putting all the work into creating all that content, from level 1 to the level cap, and trying to make sure that all of it is of the same quality are going to be a little irked when the bulk of the players are spending the majority of their time in the pre-lvl20 areas. It may have played into their thinking on changing the tutorial and beginning contacts and missions. I know that there are games that I play where it just isn't all that fun to repeat content until I'm into the teens or low 20s. Doesn't exactly encourage me to roll up a different kind of character and see how it handles the missions/quests.
That said, if you're developing a game, you want to keep your community in mind, once you see a trend, while developing follow on content. Obviously, keeping everyone happy is impossible, but Paragon did a pretty good job, overall, of giving us what we liked. Everyone's going to have missteps, but they kept us happy, or we wouldn't be here, now, nearly two years after the game shut down!
