I can see there are a lot of WoW fans on here. I am not one, but what I am is a huge fan of fantasy RPGs in general, especially big open world games like Skyrim.
So... Single player rpgs or MMOs? Skyrim or WoW? Which do you prefer and why? Do you think they can be compared or is it a question of apples and oranges? I'm interested to hear what you all think

I'd say it's the latter. That they just can't be compared. You can never get the depth of story or the immersion of a single player game in a MMO, but you also can't get the insane levels of fun and the sense of community of a MMO in a game you play by yourself.

But that is exactly what I would like to compare, the fundamental differences between multiplayer and single player gameplay in RPGs. Also, would it ever be possible to get the best of both worlds? The depth and intricacies of a single player rpg, but with thousands of other players playing along with you and contributing to that depth.

Hmmm, I would say that it's impossible. You would need to constantly churn out new content that is made based on what players do in the game, and that is just to much for any studio to handle. What I'm getting at is that in single player rpgs quests aren't (and don't need to be) re-doable, because, once you save the village elder's daughter from a gang of bandits, that's it, the daughter is saved and the bandits are dead. But what happens when the the next player comes over to that village? You can either suspend your disbelief and have the bandits magically resurrect and kidnap that same daughter in order for the quest to be available to everybody (which is what MMOs do regularly... Velan Brightoak is practically swimming in Springpaw pelts by now ) or you can advance the narrative and make a quest that, for example, is now given by the rescued daughter and has nothing to do with the already vanquished bandits. Doing the latter is insanely difficult even with minor and unimportant quests, now just imagine how bonkers it would be to try to do that with a major quest that impacts the story in a significant way.

I completely agree! It's just too dificult. It would need to be a constantly evolving and growing world.
The closest thing to what you are talking about would be EVE but that is a game that is more economy driven than story driven. It's more of an ecosystem created and managed by the players but, because of that, there is no depth of story in it, and you just can't have an rpg that is lacking in that key aspect.