Welcome!

There's been some other commentary floating around on this as well -

Joystiq, Blackguard, and Raph all have their piece to say on it.

The researchers in question are long time gamers and have invested a lot of time and passion into the MMO genre, so it isn't as though this is something that a couple of egg heads simply stumbled upon. Personally I'm with Raph on this, while not a revolutionary statement by any means it now gives us a formalized scientific study to point to that extols the virtues of Virtual World/MMO spaces as places of social worth.

Deus Ex 2.

Given the incredible quality of the first one I was hoping for more of the same with improved graphics, and possibly even additional depth. However it ended up being a disappointing mess that lost most if not all of the appeal of the original without bringing anything new to the table.

Well, EQ2 and VG, as others have stated, will be on the all-access pass. So for only a slight bit more you will be able to subscribe to both.

To more directly respond to your concern though, there is plenty to do with only a small amount of play time. For example, the content I've spent the last few days working on has been targeted to players who only have a hour or two and are either solo or in a small group. Generally these encounters consist of a 'camp' of baddies along with quest givers who are reasonably close. The camp design features different tricks (different mob abilities, wander paths, repop times) that make them unique and have some degree of learning curve along with what is hopefully or will be balanced to become an appropriate reward for the effort put into clearing a camp. In addition there is the chance to run into named monsters, who offer additional challenge for additional reward, and occasionally there is even a segment of a camp that is designed to be harder to break but offer an even higher chance at named spawn or a better quest reward.

So to answer more succinctly, yes, there will be plenty to do and ways to advance even if you only have a 'limited' play time. = )