I understand your concern. But I don't think this is anything new, to be perfectly honest.

It does amuse me to see that we've been at this for so long that some old hands are starting to develop nostalgia for a bygone era in gaming. Invoking Norman Rockwell does seem quite apt. *winks*

But once we get past the romantic notions of ages past we realise quite simply: T'was ever thus. We've always gamed hard- the utter craziness of hyper powergaming is part of the charm our quirky and mildly psychotic community is possessed of. Really, at worst I would say this incident with Altdorf was the result of a failure of imagination Mythic's part.

I saw this coming, as did many others. We knew someone, somewhere would do it. Primarily for the lulz, I'm sure. But do it all the same. It's certainly not good for the image of faction imbalance in Warhammer and does highlight some serious endgame bugs that need mending.

But beyond that, I do not think this is an example of a dark trend in gaming. We've had the best and worst of humankind in this genre since the days of AOL-NWN, and powergamers have always been here. WoW's early days saw much hardcore gaming- though much of this has been lost to the ether of history.

As to your worries about the PQ system, that's legitimate. But I would console you with the fact that Mythic's intent here is lull antisocial gamers into working with other people while not pressuring them into doing so. The hope is that it'll warm people up to being helpful and community oriented without bludgeoning them over the head with the cudgel of LFG.

In the end, that's an eminently good thing for us all.