For me it's all about character options. Giving me 3 abilities to choose from every other level might make balance easier, but its eye-rollingly boring. At the same time "+3% to [thing]" is also terrible. If the upgrade doesn't give an obviously tangible benefit, it's a waste of time.
My biggest complaint with MMORPGS lately is everything is on a very short timer. Your skills/abilities are all "for the next 3 or next 5 seconds." That is obnoxious, and every game has been doing it since WoW. As an example, previously, if you played a stealth class, stealth was a toggle, not a timed ability. Enemy players (or mobs) could see you based on their detection stat, and kick you out of stealth or attack you if you got close enough for them to 'see' you. You could raise your stealth ability just like you could raise your detection ability and it not only made stealthers good for scouting, but also ambushes and actual stealth gameplay- getting around other players to reach an objective. It also meant that stealth wasn't an automatic win, because plenty of players had high detection, and the good ones were smart enough to wait until you came in for a backstab to ruin your day. It wasn't an auto-success for X seconds.
The same thing applies to buffs. "+20% damage for the next 8 seconds" is awful. Id much rather have "+10% damage for the next hour." Or whatever.
DAoC had a fantastic buff system that I've never seen replicated since: Each buff you gave out ate a portion of your maximum mana, but lasted until the buffed player went out of your range, or until you canceled it. So you had to decide how many buffs to give out, and to whom. You could use up half of your mana bar by stacking buffs on people if you wanted, but it gave you less mana to work with for your active abilities until you canceled a few of them.
Another thing that has annoyed me lately is the trend toward offline skill training. It started with EVE, but several games are implementing it now. If I do a thing for 4 hours, I want to get better at the thing I'm doing. I don't want to arbitrarily queue up skills to train while I'm offline, that's ridiculous. It's a genius way to insure people keep subbing, but don't necessarily play and use resources, but it's an awful action->reward system.
Class interdependency. To many MMOs make classes solo so well no one needs to make teams. Then most of the content is designed to support this solo play style. Then you get to end game and people are thrust into a team based game and everyone is speced solo, their mind has been trained to solo and are now forced into a team mold.
Interdependency needs to be woven into the game right from low levels. Not saying no solo content but it should be obvious that teaming gives bigger rewards and makes your class shine brightest when teamed.
i would of say probably events bringing people together and all but since AOC is a player based game it sure promise a good game but i guess the most inportant thing would be fixing bugs so that there arent game breaking exploits and all
I agree about the events / content than naturally brings players together. Dungeons are fun but usually just turn into speed runs for loot and xp.
Would be great if somehow dungeons and raid could be at least semi-randomized so that people couldn't and wouldn't end up running them blindfolded after a few times through. Maybe keep the pace a little slower and the experience a little fresher........
Easy, good community and the game must foster this. One of the biggest things that builds this and keeps it from getting extremely toxic is player accountability. If nobody feels accountable for their actions then the community becomes shit very quickly.
One mechanic that puts me off is the lazy old static respawn. I hate it when I carefully clear an area, find myself badly in need of rest, sit down and before I can finish healing, a critter respawns behind me and attacks. If it's dead it should stay dead, not magically reappear where it was killed.
I look at 2009-2012 Runescape (pre-EOC and before it was pay to win) to be the best MMO of all time (IMO).
Quests (each one was different with a meaningful story behind each one). The best PVP with bounty hunter than you would risk mid-high level gear and lose it all in certain instances. Regular pvp you could keep several items that you wouldn't want to risk.
PVE would work great with teams but would be more difficult to get drops with larger groups. The better you were at the boss, The better odds of loot you had (Solo PVE is just as fun as Group PVE).
Economy was ever changing with Jagex's weekly updates and evolving world. allowing the richest of players to horde gear is inevitable, I believe that this is a good thing---but don't turn the economy into a richest 1%. Keep 10-20% of the players rich and allow for everyone to strive for that goal (AMERICAN DREAM lol). New quests, mini games, challenges, etc. allow for new items to be introduced into the game and I'd like to see these released at a high rate. Allowing for an ever-changing economy that grows and grows as players do will make the game exciting and I hope to always something new around the corner.
Skills were grindy, but there were so many different ways to train including different rewards that came along with the training that allowed for differentiation when choosing the "best" or "fastest" training method (mini games are life). Top levels of skills should be VERY hard to achieve. The power that comes with top level skills allows one to help lower levels achieve goals easier (take that however you'd like).
Guilds were simply a huge group of people with common interests. They didn't massively change the game but made it more inviting to try new things and the more the merrier when it comes to friends and raid partners.
A game can be great but have a crap community that makes you quit playing but you take a sub-par game and add a great community chances are you'll stick around awhile if for no other reason than some good laughs and hilarious moments.
Community, as well. For example, after Ashes is ready, new players who were never here, never participated in the long wait will need some guidance! A good community with friends you can make memories with... that's what they'll stay for! So... we should implement a "buddy system" of sorts.
The biggest question is longevity. How do you keep it going without creating huge vertical progression or disrupting the base game. Like what happen with WoW and many other games.
One of the biggest concerns I have with this game is the character creation. I'm always one the spends hours upon hours creating my character, and I want to be able to make it cute in some way. I hope the character creation is very vast and allows you to make your character however you want ;v; A lot of costumes would be a plus too!
I've mostly played WoW (and a bit of SW), but the one thing there that broke the camels back for me was the loss of stats and talent modification. Simplification is (IMNSHO) the wrong way to go, there should be _more_ options instead of less (feel free to make the steps smaller if you want). Letting the players theorycraft and think they can come up with something unexpected to "beat the developers" is an important piece of the meta-game - if the meta dies then that will have a carry-on effect to the game itself. (And seeing the ham-fisted approach to "rogue shiv-spec" and the creative use of "unconscious dig rat" in WoW is exactly the wrong way to go about handling the game. Still IMNSHO.)
Next up is expansions. (My view is still from having played WoW.) If leveling is an important part of the game then expansions will be a problem. To give the expansion leveling the same importance as the original leveling then it has to be nearly as long. That means a longer way for new players (unless the game has mechanics that properly can mix new and old players) to "endgame" - this might be undesired by the developers. If you cut the expansion leveling short then you basically say it doesn't matter and is just a speed-bump. Do you apply catch-up mechanics? That goes for both major and minor releases. I think WoW does it wrong (though the way you could get green Outland gear from early quests or drops in WoW was an ok way to up player gear at the start of the 2.x expansion.) Do you add new abilities/talents, re-arrange and deepen talent trees with an expansion? To me it feels as the original WoW was meant to just keep the 1.x talent trees but let you have more talent points to place in it for future expansions, and then the new deeper trees came about as players weren't really willing to play hybrid classes. If players can do multiple roles(tank/dps/heal - and feel free to find some more) then think hard and long how that affects play, how it affects expansions, how you communicate this to players, and then stand firm by this. Oh, and I too hate how WoW absolutely _has_ to reset and obsolete all gear and items from expansion to expansion. I see the point in having focus on the new, but don't go about simply destroying the old. Stuff with percentage-modifiers are one kind of items that could still be useful, or if something reduces the cost of some ability in a meaningful way. Let me theorycraft and wear new shiny stuff and that one odd old thing that turns the tables and surprises everyone.
Good question, I want the world to feel living, I don't like the idea of say Orcs for example, randomly walking around around their spawnpoints. I want them to have a proper goal.
An example would be. The weapons the Orcs use are not that sharp anymore, they need certain resources in order to properly get their weapons, so as a while group, they gravitate towards said resources (Players also need these) It makes it a lot more believable then them just walking around in a forest.
Same with creatures of lesser intellect (non-humanoids) If a hunter is killing all the prey animals, the wolves will leave too, or start attacking lone travellers.
I guess what I am saying is, give them purposes, and dynamically make their actions change depending on what happens to the environment.
A world that changes with our actions. Keeping the world static and unchanging makes me feel like I have done accomplished nothing of meaning in the game. I want to see how killing wolves affects the ecosystem and how building a town affects the economy and native species living around the area. If all the goblins in an encampment are killed, it is demoralizing to know that they will just spawn again in a few moments because it feels as if my killing them doesn't actually matter at all. So essentially, I just want player actions to have weight in the world.
Player interaction in every aspect of the game, be it PvE, PvP or crafting. An MMORPG should not be about you, it should be about a community. Solo players have enough single player games or action RPGs to choose from.
One thing I hope the devs work on is making dungeons more dynamic than just boring old loot corridors. As an example, vanilla WoW Blackrock Depths. This dungeon was huge and had many branching paths with several optional bosses. It even had a creative shortcut via lava run. A lot of the original WoW dungeons had some optional bosses, alternative routes, or at the very least different approaches to the same end goal. Unfortunately Blizzard did not stick to this design approach for long, and most other MMOs haven't even bothered to attempt it.
I really dread the current MMO trope of boring, linear, auto pilot dungeons that are prone to player burnout. If we want to beeline towards the end boss, give us the option. If we want to hit the boss with good loot for certain classes, let us do that. If we want to clear the whole thing, then by all means go for it. Anything that introduces even the most minimal amount of forethought into the experience instead of ready, pull, kill, rinse, repeat.
I'm not opposed to some dungeons being straightforward, but at the very least I would hope that more than 1 dungeon (including a late game dungeon) would be somewhat open ended.
Next up is expansions. (My view is still from having played WoW.) If leveling is an important part of the game then expansions will be a problem. To give the expansion leveling the same importance as the original leveling then it has to be nearly as long. That means a longer way for new players (unless the game has mechanics that properly can mix new and old players) to "endgame" - this might be undesired by the developers. If you cut the expansion leveling short then you basically say it doesn't matter and is just a speed-bump. Do you apply catch-up mechanics? That goes for both major and minor releases. I think WoW does it wrong (though the way you could get green Outland gear from early quests or drops in WoW was an ok way to up player gear at the start of the 2.x expansion.) Do you add new abilities/talents, re-arrange and deepen talent trees with an expansion? To me it feels as the original WoW was meant to just keep the 1.x talent trees but let you have more talent points to place in it for future expansions, and then the new deeper trees came about as players weren't really willing to play hybrid classes. If players can do multiple roles(tank/dps/heal - and feel free to find some more) then think hard and long how that affects play, how it affects expansions, how you communicate this to players, and then stand firm by this. Oh, and I too hate how WoW absolutely _has_ to reset and obsolete all gear and items from expansion to expansion. I see the point in having focus on the new, but don't go about simply destroying the old. Stuff with percentage-modifiers are one kind of items that could still be useful, or if something reduces the cost of some ability in a meaningful way. Let me theorycraft and wear new shiny stuff and that one odd old thing that turns the tables and surprises everyone.
I agree with this. Powercreep is a real issue in MMOs long term. It starts affecting immersion too, when, say, level 60 characters need 40 players to defeat demigods, but then a few xpacs later it can be done with 1 or 2 characters. So you mean this literal demigod is barely more powerful than a level 90 "Cutthroat Bandit Captain"? It's this powercreep that is also present in other games, notably Skyrim, which similarly eliminates any of the feeling of progress or growth in character power as the rest of the world simultaneous grows with you.
I think an appropriate approach is make any level increases and gear/mob increases be relatively minor steps up from the previous level cap. IE: A level 50 player has 500HP, a level 60 player has 600HP, and a level 70 player has 700HP and not 1000HP or 1200HP as other games seem to do. I think this incremental approach should also apply to lower levels as well. It seems sort of silly that, say, a level 25 or even level 40 is basically worthless compared to a level 50 or 55 due to the massive power differential. I think if you can get 3 or 4 players together you should conceivable be able to kill someone 10 or 20 levels higher than you; it might be a challenge but it would be possible unlike in other MMOs. I think this would also help stem the rush to hit level cap, since you're basically in a tutorial until the "real game" begins at cap in most other MMOs. By allowing lower level players to feel like they're capable of accomplishing some things that higher level players can do by grouping together they might be more inclined to take their time, explore, or level up crafting skills since there isn't such a massive power differential making them feel so minuscule.
All the mechanics the devs are talking about sounds great. But if the combat is not fun and interesting, I will lose interest. That is the core of the game, and what I have heard the least about. Which scares me a bit.
A lot of things make a difference, but for me the big one is letting the actions of an individual player have a real impact on the world. I'd say the overwhelming majority of MMOs fail to tick that box.
So many. One of the most important outside of combat is the economy and engaging replayable content.
Take a game like GW2, it has some fun gameplay and interesting systems but the crafting (albeit interesting especially cooking) is pointless and the auctionhouse is completely over saturated. It also has some of the most boring end-game content. Fractals have hardly any variety, the dungeons are few and far between.
Parental Advisory - Make it some type of violent, gory! DEATH!
Story - With most MMO's I never really get into the actual story line, and it's usually because I get into the PvP more.
Player Interactivity - As mentioned in another post, have quests where you need a partner or 2, BUT have options where you can SOLO.
Character Oper-ability - (yes I just made that word up) Where learning to use a class of character actually takes time to learn which is truly experienced only through leveling with a class. As a member previously stated, make it difficult.
Talent tree and weapon customization - Should be in depth to keep each character unique and make even the slightest modification make that much of a difference.
System specifications - Graphics should not be demanding. Game play should always be smooth.
Environment - Keep the world interactive, have seasons and weather effects.
Audience - Keep in mind (not to sound like an old guy) some of us don't have the luxury of sitting for 6+ hours to get an item/quest/reward etc...
Subscription - I don't mind paying monthly for a game as long as it's actually worth playing.
One thing I would like to see modified is the grinding
as mentioned in a previous post. If there could be a transition while going through MOB's, where specific enemies in groups are either higher classes (Mini-mini bosses), make enemies "smarter," have spontaneous patrols to making grinding more eventful instead of killing 30+ of something that's continuously easy to kill in the same area.
Looking forward to what the developers are going to end up coming out with!
So many great answers. Homogenization is the bane of all. Don't make the classes play the same. I like having great character customization as far as build much like Rift does with the skill trees. Being given a choice of 3 skills every 15 levels is weak. Being able to experiment and find new different way to solve the same puzzle and being able to find what works best for you. No two people are the same what work best for you may not be what is best for the person. As long as stuff works and things get dead.
Group play is important If I want to play a single player game I can go load Fallout4.
The developers said crafting would require us to interact with others to build stuff and I think that is the best way to go. Nobody should be able to solve all the puzzles by themselves or even 90% of them. I think 90% of the game should require group play.(this from a notorious solo player). Excited of all on what we have seen and hope they stay true to their vision.
Puzzles and secrets! A large open world to explore. Random spawning high level mobs that roam the entire world. Excitement and danger. Random Live events.
Very much - 'puzzles and secrets...!' I'd love some areas of the game to need you to think things out... E.g. use of maths; anagrams; spatial awareness; timings; map and search skills and in-game knowledge to be gained from various nodes and/or NPCs - or a mix of all these types of skills, then GREAT!
Many of the things already mentioned are great. If I were to prioritize for me it would be:
Combat mechanics - combat has to be fun and can't just be a faceroll
Spell / Skill variety - having to choose specific spells/skills based on the situation and having choices when you start getting bord of the same spell / skill
Variety in classes - I love the idea that not all character classes are a like - even within the same class. Not sure of the best system but I like how it talent points were handled in world of warcraft - expect that there always seemed to be a "best build" that was way better than the rest - if there is a way to balance it out maybe slightly more that would better but not make them all equal - situational seems to make sense to me.
Utility Spells / Skills - As I saw in one of the videos on the site, the mage has a levitate spell. Those things add so much fun for me. I'm also always hoping that there is a teleport / mass teleport similar to how Everquest had for Wizards. I always enjoyed "punting" people I also thought it was pretty fun that a specific class could get paid for their services. Like a Wizard being paid to teleport someone to a specific zone or an enchanters being paid to provide a buff to speed up mana recovery. Another way to make money and to feel your class is unique and important.
Make healers count - Games like guild wars 2 seem to minimize the importance of healing/healers - That was a bit disappointing for me. While Everquest was too reliant on healers - World of Warcraft around Litch King had it right I think.
Make Leveling Matter - In Guild Wars 2 your level pretty much doesn't matter as much as it did in WOW. I like when you see that hardcore player and you can see the power difference. Although, I like the GW2 system of being able to downgrade your level to help. I think Rifts system was good.
Events - I do enjoy the events that Guild Wars 2 has to offer
Challenge - While Guild Wars 2 is fun and super casual there doesn't seem to be much challenge - to me it's pretty much face roll. Everquest took too long to kill mobs and guild wars 2 was too easy so I'd say WoW (Vanilla or maybe Litche king exansion) had it about right. There was some challenge and you had to think
Make equipment matter - Again I'll use Guild Wars 2 as an example because that's what I've been playing with my kids lately. When I get a new peiece of equipment I just kind of shrug and go OK great and you can basically buy it on the auction hall anyways. There is only about 10% excitement when getting new equipment in guild wars 2. There is no journey to get the awesome weapon and armor that lasts for quite a few levels. (disclaimer: I'm only playing super casually). However, I remember in Everquest and Wow, how hard I had to work for great equipment and how proud I was when I obtained it and there were very few others that had it. This is something I feel is missing in recent - casual MMOs
Love the ideas of the caravans and the bounty hunter system. If my memory is correct (and it might not be because I played a ton of MMOS starting even prior to Everquest alpha) Dark Age of Camalot had a fun way to get money for killing those that have a bounty on their head. I like this idea a lot. Let's say a griefer just keeps killing you and they are a lot higher level. You can't beat them in PVP but you could Hire someone to take them out. Maybe a number of times. You go to some bounty hunter hall or something and say I'll pay 1 gold per kill for X person for 3 times. However, that count should be based on how many times you were killed by that person when you were not flagged for PVP (or something like that)
Destructible / Changing environments - I was sad to see that Everquest Next wasn't going to be developed or is permanently delayed (can't remember what it was). It seems like the team was side tracked by Everquest Landmark and perhaps should have focused more effort on Everquest Next. (Besides the other published issues). However, the idea of a destructible environment was pretty cool and seemed interesting. I love the idea of the changing season in Ashes of Creation. Fantastic idea and I hope specific events occur only in a specific season. E.g. spring time Bears are hungry and they are more aggressive but in Winter they aren't seen. Maybe a particular item requires bear pelts or teeth and you see more bears in spring and summer, a little less in fall and none in winter. Something like that.
Multi-sized team dungeons - So I play these MMOs with my two kids. In Rift we were able to do dungeons as just the 3 of us. That was so much fun. I dont see the ability to do 3 person dungeons in many MMOs. Wildstar had some things similar but they didn't have the great feel of accomplishment.
Race and class specific quests / tiered quest story lines / epic quest lines - Like a personal story line. I also enjoy playing MMOs solo and I always liked when quests were tied together. You have to complete this line of quests to open up this line of quests. When I completed all of the quests in the whole series and got that fantastic item I always had a sense of accomplishment. Basically something I can progress in when I'm not in a group.
Dark Age of Camelot had a lot of great things in it that I haven't seen many MMOs do. One person mentioned the buff system - I agree - that did make you think. They also had a a good stealth system and pvp system as well.
Comments
My biggest complaint with MMORPGS lately is everything is on a very short timer. Your skills/abilities are all "for the next 3 or next 5 seconds." That is obnoxious, and every game has been doing it since WoW. As an example, previously, if you played a stealth class, stealth was a toggle, not a timed ability. Enemy players (or mobs) could see you based on their detection stat, and kick you out of stealth or attack you if you got close enough for them to 'see' you. You could raise your stealth ability just like you could raise your detection ability and it not only made stealthers good for scouting, but also ambushes and actual stealth gameplay- getting around other players to reach an objective. It also meant that stealth wasn't an automatic win, because plenty of players had high detection, and the good ones were smart enough to wait until you came in for a backstab to ruin your day. It wasn't an auto-success for X seconds.
The same thing applies to buffs. "+20% damage for the next 8 seconds" is awful. Id much rather have "+10% damage for the next hour." Or whatever.
DAoC had a fantastic buff system that I've never seen replicated since: Each buff you gave out ate a portion of your maximum mana, but lasted until the buffed player went out of your range, or until you canceled it. So you had to decide how many buffs to give out, and to whom. You could use up half of your mana bar by stacking buffs on people if you wanted, but it gave you less mana to work with for your active abilities until you canceled a few of them.
Another thing that has annoyed me lately is the trend toward offline skill training. It started with EVE, but several games are implementing it now. If I do a thing for 4 hours, I want to get better at the thing I'm doing. I don't want to arbitrarily queue up skills to train while I'm offline, that's ridiculous. It's a genius way to insure people keep subbing, but don't necessarily play and use resources, but it's an awful action->reward system.
Interdependency needs to be woven into the game right from low levels. Not saying no solo content but it should be obvious that teaming gives bigger rewards and makes your class shine brightest when teamed.
Would be great if somehow dungeons and raid could be at least semi-randomized so that people couldn't and wouldn't end up running them blindfolded after a few times through. Maybe keep the pace a little slower and the experience a little fresher........
One of the biggest things that builds this and keeps it from getting extremely toxic is player accountability. If nobody feels accountable for their actions then the community becomes shit very quickly.
A game can be great but have a crap community that makes you quit playing but you take a sub-par game and add a great community chances are you'll stick around awhile if for no other reason than some good laughs and hilarious moments.
I've mostly played WoW (and a bit of SW), but the one thing there that broke the camels back for me was the loss of stats and talent modification.
Simplification is (IMNSHO) the wrong way to go, there should be _more_ options instead of less (feel free to make the steps smaller if you want). Letting the players theorycraft and think they can come up with something unexpected to "beat the developers" is an important piece of the meta-game - if the meta dies then that will have a carry-on effect to the game itself.
(And seeing the ham-fisted approach to "rogue shiv-spec" and the creative use of "unconscious dig rat" in WoW is exactly the wrong way to go about handling the game. Still IMNSHO.)
Next up is expansions. (My view is still from having played WoW.)
If leveling is an important part of the game then expansions will be a problem. To give the expansion leveling the same importance as the original leveling then it has to be nearly as long. That means a longer way for new players (unless the game has mechanics that properly can mix new and old players) to "endgame" - this might be undesired by the developers. If you cut the expansion leveling short then you basically say it doesn't matter and is just a speed-bump.
Do you apply catch-up mechanics? That goes for both major and minor releases. I think WoW does it wrong (though the way you could get green Outland gear from early quests or drops in WoW was an ok way to up player gear at the start of the 2.x expansion.)
Do you add new abilities/talents, re-arrange and deepen talent trees with an expansion? To me it feels as the original WoW was meant to just keep the 1.x talent trees but let you have more talent points to place in it for future expansions, and then the new deeper trees came about as players weren't really willing to play hybrid classes. If players can do multiple roles(tank/dps/heal - and feel free to find some more) then think hard and long how that affects play, how it affects expansions, how you communicate this to players, and then stand firm by this.
Oh, and I too hate how WoW absolutely _has_ to reset and obsolete all gear and items from expansion to expansion. I see the point in having focus on the new, but don't go about simply destroying the old. Stuff with percentage-modifiers are one kind of items that could still be useful, or if something reduces the cost of some ability in a meaningful way. Let me theorycraft and wear new shiny stuff and that one odd old thing that turns the tables and surprises everyone.
An example would be. The weapons the Orcs use are not that sharp anymore, they need certain resources in order to properly get their weapons, so as a while group, they gravitate towards said resources (Players also need these) It makes it a lot more believable then them just walking around in a forest.
Same with creatures of lesser intellect (non-humanoids) If a hunter is killing all the prey animals, the wolves will leave too, or start attacking lone travellers.
I guess what I am saying is, give them purposes, and dynamically make their actions change depending on what happens to the environment.
Keeping the world static and unchanging makes me feel like I have done accomplished nothing of meaning in the game. I want to see how killing wolves affects the ecosystem and how building a town affects the economy and native species living around the area. If all the goblins in an encampment are killed, it is demoralizing to know that they will just spawn again in a few moments because it feels as if my killing them doesn't actually matter at all. So essentially, I just want player actions to have weight in the world.
I really dread the current MMO trope of boring, linear, auto pilot dungeons that are prone to player burnout. If we want to beeline towards the end boss, give us the option. If we want to hit the boss with good loot for certain classes, let us do that. If we want to clear the whole thing, then by all means go for it. Anything that introduces even the most minimal amount of forethought into the experience instead of ready, pull, kill, rinse, repeat.
I'm not opposed to some dungeons being straightforward, but at the very least I would hope that more than 1 dungeon (including a late game dungeon) would be somewhat open ended.
I think an appropriate approach is make any level increases and gear/mob increases be relatively minor steps up from the previous level cap. IE: A level 50 player has 500HP, a level 60 player has 600HP, and a level 70 player has 700HP and not 1000HP or 1200HP as other games seem to do. I think this incremental approach should also apply to lower levels as well. It seems sort of silly that, say, a level 25 or even level 40 is basically worthless compared to a level 50 or 55 due to the massive power differential. I think if you can get 3 or 4 players together you should conceivable be able to kill someone 10 or 20 levels higher than you; it might be a challenge but it would be possible unlike in other MMOs. I think this would also help stem the rush to hit level cap, since you're basically in a tutorial until the "real game" begins at cap in most other MMOs. By allowing lower level players to feel like they're capable of accomplishing some things that higher level players can do by grouping together they might be more inclined to take their time, explore, or level up crafting skills since there isn't such a massive power differential making them feel so minuscule.
I'd say the overwhelming majority of MMOs fail to tick that box.
Take a game like GW2, it has some fun gameplay and interesting systems but the crafting (albeit interesting especially cooking) is pointless and the auctionhouse is completely over saturated. It also has some of the most boring end-game content. Fractals have hardly any variety, the dungeons are few and far between.
Make items actually "rare."
Parental Advisory - Make it some type of violent, gory! DEATH!
Story - With most MMO's I never really get into the actual story line, and it's usually because I get into the PvP more.
Player Interactivity - As mentioned in another post, have quests where you need a partner or 2, BUT have options where you can SOLO.
Character Oper-ability - (yes I just made that word up) Where learning to use a class of character actually takes time to learn which is truly experienced only through leveling with a class. As a member previously stated, make it difficult.
Talent tree and weapon customization - Should be in depth to keep each character unique and make even the slightest modification make that much of a difference.
System specifications - Graphics should not be demanding. Game play should always be smooth.
Environment - Keep the world interactive, have seasons and weather effects.
Audience - Keep in mind (not to sound like an old guy) some of us don't have the luxury of sitting for 6+ hours to get an item/quest/reward etc...
Subscription - I don't mind paying monthly for a game as long as it's actually worth playing.
One thing I would like to see modified is the grinding as mentioned in a previous post. If there could be a transition while going through MOB's, where specific enemies in groups are either higher classes (Mini-mini bosses), make enemies "smarter," have spontaneous patrols to making grinding more eventful instead of killing 30+ of something that's continuously easy to kill in the same area.
Looking forward to what the developers are going to end up coming out with!
Homogenization is the bane of all. Don't make the classes play the same.
I like having great character customization as far as build much like Rift does with the skill trees. Being given a choice of 3 skills every 15 levels is weak. Being able to experiment and find new different way to solve the same puzzle and being able to find what works best for you. No two people are the same what work best for you may not be what is best for the person. As long as stuff works and things get dead.
Group play is important If I want to play a single player game I can go load Fallout4.
The developers said crafting would require us to interact with others to build stuff and I think that is the best way to go. Nobody should be able to solve all the puzzles by themselves or even 90% of them. I think 90% of the game should require group play.(this from a notorious solo player).
Excited of all on what we have seen and hope they stay true to their vision.
Very much - 'puzzles and secrets...!'
I'd love some areas of the game to need you to think things out...
E.g. use of maths; anagrams; spatial awareness; timings; map and search skills and in-game knowledge to be gained from various nodes and/or NPCs - or a mix of all these types of skills, then GREAT!