This update seems to be written by Richard Garriott, not Brian Fargo.

Edit:

Sorry, but I find this social aspects unnecessary and waste of time&money. PC community has forums, text and video walkthroughs for this. Extra money should be spend to make the world content rich (I'm not saying bigger and empty world). More NPC reactions to our actions, more choices & consequences. And maybe, just maybe finding decent voice actors for the main NPCs (I'm not talking about full voice acting don't get me wrong) like the one in IE games.