Anatomy of a good MMO: End Game

It's my opinion that most if not all MMO's miss the mark completely when it comes to end game content. It's something very hard to nail down when you consider that the genre by nature is never meant to have an ending. No matter what kind system an MMO uses, be it a leveling based (WoW) game or a skill point based one (EVE) you are eventually going to run out of things to do.

WoW's route of going about things is raiding and PvP. You raid the same dungeons over and over again in hopes that a piece of armor drops so you are geared for the next highest dungeon and when you eventually get to the last dungeon you are still raiding to get items that unless a new expansion comes out are useless except for bragging rights and even with a new expansion they become useless. Then you have instanced PvP via battlegrounds and arena which you can compete in to gain honor which you can spend on armor. Quite frankly I'd rather play something else.

EvE has it's player driven story and PvP galactic domination via corporations end game going which sounds very appealing...if you have the time and patience for it. If you intend on running a corporation, you need to spend a lot of time preparing for it, organizing and then after it's all set up you need to keep it running smoothly and make sure you don't get destroyed by other corps in the process. I know I say this a lot when it comes to EVE but if it were to become a little more user friendly and more approachable I think this system could be fantastic and it definitely would keep me playing but until I win the lottery or get rich by some other means I can't :(