Partying is not particularly advantageous or even relevant at this point, and part of the reason for this change was to encourage our coders to consider them as viable for design space.
Regarding there being enough for parties to do, that's quite a larger problem than Candanuca's post makes it out to be. Most mobs are designed to be solo'd (though things in the Stalker's Realm are obviously an exception) and don't scale well to partied combat because the xp they can give is finite. Since they are designed for a single player to fight, they're just steam rolled when more than one player begins fighting them, and parties give no experience bonus/sharing to counteract this(another thing we've been looking at, but no one has taken on as a project as of yet). When mobs and areas are designed for party interactions primarily, they go largely unused.
I can tell you from experience that coding mobs that can stand up to a single player is difficult, but generally just a question of how much effort the coder puts into it (and testing it). Coding mobs that could stand up to parties is quite another thing entirely though, as writing the special routines is not only time consuming but difficult to ascertain the real effectiveness of. My current project is called the Manor, and I'll continue to see what I can do to make some places advantageous for multiple players at once to be involved in it. The other side of that coin is, of course, that the possibility for attack effects over parties.
Darke is in heavy need of areas, both as hunting places and quest/exploring zones. We're accepting applications.
