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I disagree that a character needs to progress. Assuming the story progresses or the parallel world moves forward then what you the player gets is progression.

True, the possibility that I've totally misread the arguments here exists but I'll attempt to put into a WoW perspective what I've taken out of Innsmouth's idea. (god i hope I'm not wrong).

The only thing in WoW that shows any progression is the avatar. You gain levels, you gain items but the world itself is static, ie no change whatsoever.

The premise of gated content or parallel worlds is to put each story into it's own setting and actually give it a conclusion and where is the loss in that? You put the defias quest chain into it's own world and there is no need to worry about a level because the story is the hook, the avatar progresses the story, not their own selves. At the end after killing Van Cleef there is a distinct change in the world. How often do you redo the deadmines in WoW after you've finished your goal? Get rid of respawn of mobs and you have progression straight away.

Right after finishing that world you move straight into the Onyxia quest chain world and move that story to it's conclusion.

Quite frankly the idea of a multiverse that is open to my choice is an incredibly heady idea and I'm quite taken with it. Taking my various avatars around the World of Warcraft I have no sense of accomplishment in the world; even the premise of two factions is useless because no action in the world has any lasting value. I could go take on the undercity but really, why would I?

Find me a way to progress a story and I'll sign up month after month after month because the story progresses with me then. My pace defines the experience.

Of course, there's every possibility I've totally misunderstood the ramifications of the original idea but on a personal aside, the greatest moments I've had in WoW have all been as a function of story and the ability to interact with any story at any time is powerful incentive to sign up.

If I could have accessed every part of World of Warcraft at any time, actually rid the mines of Kobolds, foiled the plans of the defias, tracked down the kidnapped king, destroyed Raz frostwhisper, helped reunite Tyrion Fordring and his son, saved little Pamela, discovered Onyxia in the throne room then the game would still have that allure; a sense of accomplishment.

Right now and again using WoW as an example, there is no sense of accomplishment because my character progression has stopped because I don't have the time or desire to raid high end instances.

Gated worlds offers up the possibility of world consequence for the avatar. Take the avatar away from levels and items and tie consequence to their action which can happen with a story driven world.

I may have gone off on a slight tangent there but I remember the thrills Planescape Torment gave me or star control 2. Yes they were linear but in both cases the story brought me into the respective worlds, furthering the story was why I played it.

Progression of story for me trumps progression of an avatar.

Mechanically, I've no idea how it would be done, but we're talking ideals and ideas here.

Ask the WoW playing population if the World Event of AQ was exciting and 95% will probably answer overwhelming negatively because for them it was a grind. Ask the 5% who actually did the quest chain (the raid guilds etc) and they'll probably say it was decent and I'd put that down to the story moving the events.

For me, the gated world approach allows the possibility of story driven consequence to be more central.

So in summation, there must be story and there shouldn't be anything to prevent you from entering that story. Create a hub and create 300 worlds that shift in and around that hub. In short form, for me, it would be Planescape. :)

-illaraphaniel