My recent time away from the forums has been due to two reasons: World of Warcraft (hence forth known as WOW) and Lord of the Rings Online (hence forth known as LOTRO).
These two games should be labelled with a warning stating that you will be robbed of time and money.
Real life friends and social life might suffer from these games if you get absorbed and immersed into these games.
But hey! Life is supposed being an adventure so what is wrong with travelling around Azeroth and/or Middle-earth doing some adventuring?
And by adventuring I don't mean jumping of building/bridges with a parachute or an elastical cord strapped to your body, white water rafting, mountain biking and all that extreme sports stuff.
No I mean adventuring by travelling and exploring.
While most of the worlds population don't have the financial means to do so worlds like Azeroth and Middle-earth offers the next best thing namely: Going places and doing stuff.
But you won't be going places and doing stuff by yourself as you do in most RPG based computer games.
Many other real people that are going places and doing stuff on Azeroth and Middleearth just as you do: Infront of your computer.
Friends are to be found in Azeroth and Middle-earth. Friends you can go places and do stuff with.

All of this ranting brings me to the question at hand.
Where will these virtual worlds take us?
Will the virtual worlds become an integrated parts of our everydays as they are 'trying' to do with Second Life?
Who says that these exsisting virtual worlds are only for entertainment purposes. Can they be used for something more?
If, yes. Then what can they be used for?
If, no. Then what will become of them?
(Personal Rants/opinions are most welcome. Just beware of feedback!).

Yes, virtual worlds will be an integral part of our daily lives in the future. There are 7 million subscribers or something to WoW. There are millions and millions using facebook and similar services. MSN is used frequently by millions. We like to meet new people, and going to the local pub gives you limited options. In VR you can meet people like yourself.

The fact that we post here on a more or less daily basis says we're likely participants in virtual worlds. There are companies arranging meetings in Second Life, and there are people investing in and getting rich on businesses inside these worlds. It's only a question of time...

One major obstacle that needs to be overcome is the interface issue between the real world and the virtual word a.ka. Man-machine interface. Right now it's a keyboard/mouse/joystick/gamepad/monitor/speakers solution.
Something like the neuron interface from 'Brainstorm' or 'Strange Days' might be beyond the horizon.
Even the network interface in the back of your head known from 'Matrix' and 'Johnnie Mnemonic' is also out there beyond the horizon.
Voice recognition instead of keyboards is not an far fetched idea due to the advances being made in cellular phone technology.
One other thing I would like to see instead of 108' display screens is a decent wearable visor display like what they use in the Apache combat helicopter.
But this visor display shall be able to display a resolution that rivals what a 30' Machintosh screen can show (2560x1600 screen resolution). And it should be no different then wearing a pair of glasses so you can wear the visor when you walk down the street instead of having it block your field of view as most of the current visor displays does.
A display like that would open up for the concept of augmented reality where the virtual and the real world augment each other.

Online games (such as WoW) are filled with real people, but a lot of the interaction is with non-humans - Monsters, NPC vendors and quest givers, and so on and so forth. But that's because it's a game. Although you're playing it with other people, the "issues" at hand have less to do with reality and more to do with the fake game world.

While I can't ever see all the online worlds dying out, it seems to me that some will be more popular then others, to the point where they become household names - As well known as the Windows operating system (Which many people believe is the only operating system (Assuming they understand the concept of an OS. Most users probably think Windows is the type of computer they have)).

The most mainstream VR worlds probably will be based (to some extent) on reality. Perhaps users will be able to add their own themes, and customise the experiance to their own tastes (turn all the houses into castles or something). These places might be similar to the forums and chat programs of today - Where the issues at hand have more to do with reality, the interaction is solely with people (and spam bots - Curse them!), and you don't have to collect items and experiance points to gain "status".

I don't see MMORPGs as an integrated part of reality. Ever. Why? Because you can't live in them or from them. Aside from having fun they are not usefull for anything except for commercials. The future may be grim indeed. I'm sure sooner or later free MMORPGs full of commercials will emerge and these may leed to the downfall of normal ones. Ok, I can stand a commercial or fifteen per day if I don't have to pay for the game or any monthly fee...

But that doesn't mean I don't see virtual reality as an integrated part of our lives. Shopping for instance. You have on-line shops naturally BUT it's MUCH more shopping-friendly if you could virtually stroll through the shop. Not to mention the much bigger sales this way.
A week ago I wanted to buy all the necessary things over the internet. Me and my girlfriend made a list and "threw everything into" the e-basket. It summed up to 46€. The shop only delivers a buy over 62€ for free, otherwise it's a quite costly delivery. So we went to the shop (live! ) and bought for over 90€!!! Only because when you walk through the shop you always find something else you want to have. Really, I can't understand how nobody thought of a FPS-style shopping yet... You have unlimited shelf-place. The development need some money but I'm sure this could make a revolution in on-line shopping.

This is not at all the only virtual reality use. Cinemas, galleries (hell, anything visual), government offices, clubs, meetings, ANYthing. HUGE perspectives. But MMORPGs... I doubt it. Just not usefull.