I've seen this happen in a lot of MMO's principally WOW and Runescape - as the game ages players increasingly value convenience and you see the more "grinding" elements of the game relax. The more successful games are able to walk the line between respecting what players have "earned" and keeping pace with modern convenience features such as instant teleports and configurable UIs and macros.

Stories like these are tremendously valuable to entrepreneurs. MMORPG ecosystems are some of the most complex pieces of software ever made with ravenous (and lucrative) userbases if you handle it properly. There are plenty of stories of innovative success and massive incompetence to learn from.