Good MMO design?

[White Haven]

I don't think 13 year old idiots are going to become overly powerful. Optimally you'd have to be the leader of a large, very well organized guild in order to assert serious control over an area, and I don't think the typical immature gamer kid would be capable of that. If despotic guilds do emerge that make it their mission to grief random players, then that provides motivation for those players to organize and defeat the evil guild.

Slight anecdote to refute your first point there, Seggy...back on Mannoroth, when I played WoW, the leader of one of the two most successful Alliance raiding guilds (on a high-pop server, mind you) used to start leading a raid, drop off for an hour, then log back in to finish it. The reason? His parents put him to bed, and he had to wait for them to go to sleep. Being a tyke doesn't mean you don't accumulate vast power and influence.

[Civil War Man]

I wonder if the goblin beer goggles from the latest Oktoberfest work on anything like a similar principle?

I can see you're obviously Horde, because I view them as gnomish.

Anyway, from what I've been able to tell, those work differently. More along the lines of:
a) locate character
b) replace their skin with a random male gnome/female orc skin

Phasing on the other hand drastically changes the game world for each player. Where you might walk into an area and find yourself surrounded by zombies while someone who did a "kill the chief zombie" quest might find the area empty afterwards, or occupied by friendly soldiers.

Interestingly enough, on the subject of the beer goggles, I found that there are exceptions while flying around Shattrath. They don't change Naaru (which I expected, though it would have been awesome to see A'dal turned into a giant, glowing, spinning gnome). And they also don't change dragons. Obviously unsurprising when they are in dragon form, but it also didn't change dragons that were in humanoid form (i.e. the elf-looking guy standing with the Netherwing drakes and Zethyr, the elf in World's End Tavern that works for the Keepers of Time).

[Molyneux]

I wonder if the goblin beer goggles from the latest Oktoberfest work on anything like a similar principle?

I can see you're obviously Horde, because I view them as gnomish.

Anyway, from what I've been able to tell, those work differently. More along the lines of:
a) locate character
b) replace their skin with a random male gnome/female orc skin

Phasing on the other hand drastically changes the game world for each player. Where you might walk into an area and find yourself surrounded by zombies while someone who did a "kill the chief zombie" quest might find the area empty afterwards, or occupied by friendly soldiers.

Interestingly enough, on the subject of the beer goggles, I found that there are exceptions while flying around Shattrath. They don't change Naaru (which I expected, though it would have been awesome to see A'dal turned into a giant, glowing, spinning gnome). And they also don't change dragons. Obviously unsurprising when they are in dragon form, but it also didn't change dragons that were in humanoid form (i.e. the elf-looking guy standing with the Netherwing drakes and Zethyr, the elf in World's End Tavern that works for the Keepers of Time).

Of course I play Horde. why would I want goggles that turn everyone into gnomes? And male gnomes, at that. I like a cute guy as much as the next person, but really...

Yeah, I noticed that the goggles actually didn't work on the Brewfest-specific NPC revellers; the vendors and such would transform, but not the random people standing around in Brew gear.