Ranked in order of time I spend:

1) Guild Activities (negotiations, recruitment, player-mentoring, and war)
2) Farming (both resources and players)
3) Combat type activities
4) Village Building
5) Crafting


Also please give examples on how you feel MMOs should improve on the choice you pick!
1) Focussing more in-game benefits on player-cooperation instead of "time spent levelling-up".
2) For farming players: defence mechanisms to avoid being repeatedly -looted. For resource-collection, no ideas.
3) Intuitive skill-system (I favour elementalism) with group-benefitting buffs, and shut-down skill "builds" that counteract other skill "builds" used by other groups, yet which can themselves be shut-down by either fast-thinking and adaptability, or by another shut-down group which counteracts the second group, etc. (I refer to real-time combat.) As for turn/tick-based, I enjoy... Anything where you can fight over control-points (instead of farming all your enemies), and setup defences at choke-points.
4) Building-tree, special benefits from construction, guild-benefits, and miscellaneous features.
5) ... The ability to partake in a manufacturing-tree (ie. need flint for knife for carving wood - which requires an axe to obtain logs - in order to craft a bow... Then a complicated string-producing process, the ability to fletch arrows - buying the raw resources from other players - and create... A recurve bow)!

MMOs need to present the player with a purpose. There seem to be no goals. Guilds are there to chat and make war on each other, but is there an eventual goal for the guild to work to? Be the biggest is about it, and its pretty bland. End game content seems to be most players goal and that content itself seems to be rather purposeless as well so I think overall the biggest thing MMOs need to to continually feed the player base big long term goals to strive for, and these goals should be achievable in different ways and should go away and be done when they are met and new ones that are truly different should replace them. I often feel like I am inheriting stale content when I start a new character because its impossible not to see what the people 5 levels in front of you are doing, and then, 5 levels later you get to do it. Problem is, its always presented like its new, but I just saw people do it, so whats the point?

I want it so you can just do anything, your not tied down to area's based of level.

I liked UO, if a newbie wanted to go to the most deadly dungeon they could, give them some items and they might even be useful

Level based games just dont allow that freedom.

I giving this a slight different approach and hooking in on a different angle.

1) Community Aspect

The major element would be the community aspect of a game. I am basing this though of having a 'working' gameplay in single-player mode.

The massive part of the MMORPG isn't really important either to me.

Friendliness of the community is a key-condition though. I will lose interest pretty quickly if the present part of the community consist out of 12-year old youngsters that seem to know it all and think its cool and okay to display elitish behavior.
Giving the entire community tools and features to suppress this kind of bad/destructive behavior in a responsible, non-abusive and collective manner, is a major plus. Being able to reward players (in the same responsible, non-abusive and collective manner) for displaying friendly and wishful behavior.

The game should be playable in solo settings, however grouping should feel/be (way) more rewarding. Grouping up should be quick n' easy and feel non-obligatory, meaning that when grouping up with you is proposed is always desirable be it only for 5 minutes or even 5 hours.

Also grouping should always be possible and not feeling like being penalized when grouping up with a much newer player. Effectivily this could mean that such a game hasn't have a form of levels or stats that divides newer players that from more experienced/older players.


2) Progression

As this subject is lightly touched in the previous aspect, I feel I need to elaborate a bit more on this aspect. When spoken about progression the first things that will probably pop up in your mind are levels, number-based characteristical properties and the quantity/quality of assets.

I understand why this mainly is so, it are effective methods to let players distinguish themselfs and set themself apart from the rest. This is mainly what players want somehow to feel 'special'. I no longer have this, since I know that personality is the thing that can make you special more then anything else.

When I have an avatar that can progress, I would like to progress in becoming more versatile. I want to be able to (gradually) adopt a more complex playstyle having access to a wider of gameplay options.


3) Freedom of choice
I hate class-systems, they are stepping stone on of class unbalancement and as a player you can do almost nothing about it. Class system have only one purpose, which is the enforcement of (clinical-)roles. The have the most nastiest property, that of restricting you to a certain array of choices.

This is what I like so much about EVE-online, there isn't any sort of conceptual classing. When working in gangs, you do have certain roles, however they are never fixed. You can adopt any kind of strategy that works for you, as does you enemy. This invokes all kinds of interesting gameplay.

So this at best boils down to this: The absents of a class system.


I think my favorite game would be a selective mix of Eve-Online and World of Warcraft, leaving the genre (fantasy, medieval, space, western, post-apoc) completely in the middle.

Regards,

Xeile

Quote:

Original post by Dinner I want it so you can just do anything, your not tied down to area's based of level. I liked UO, if a newbie wanted to go to the most deadly dungeon they could, give them some items and they might even be useful Level based games just dont allow that freedom.

And it also applies the other way around, in a level based game there is usually a pretty small section of the game that is level-appropriate at any given time, and if you want to replay a favorite lower-level area you can't unless you make a new character and get them to the appropriate level. It's also not surprising if every level feels like a mass-produced grindfest if the developers are aware that each is something the player is only going to pass through once. Can you imagine what kind of cool content we might get if it was more like a popularity contest, players could play in any of several equal areas and level designers competed with each other to create areas that players would choose to spend their time in?

Quote:

Original post by hplus0603 I want to be able to quickly find a pick-up group of sane, funny people, and then quickly find an area suitable to our group for hunting. I want the combat of the evening to be varied (not just grinding the same mob over and over), and the rewards to be reasonable for an evening's work. I want the session to be 1-4 hours in length. I don't want to grind. I don't want to level much. I don't want to spend months before I can play the "nice" parts of the game. Meanwhile, I want the environment to be dangerous enough, and matter enough, that good teamwork is required. Think the death penalty in EQ: it was very harsh, but that meant that dieing was a real problem, and your group had real incentive to work well together.

This is the perfect answer! HE READ MY MIND!! GAH!

I'd like to better my position in society by accomplishing quests, extending my influence, unlocking access to some new areas (such as the inner castle since the king trusts me, the caserns of some special faction), joining factions (thieves, assassins, merchants, etc.), taking control of some fortresses, etc.

Basically, I'd like it if MMORPGs were more like RPGs and didn't rely on players self-organizing stuff between them. I think giving a framework is a better approach.
There are new opportunities in an MMO though, in a fairly small assassin guild the NPC can give an order for example to kill someone (possibly a player) and to cooperate with another player member of that faction. It could be argued this should be done by player-driven guilds, but I personally prefer having NPCs do the assignments, since player guilds can be quite a mess, not always available, etc.

Also, I think being able to create buildings, or even unlock a house of your own, is very nice.

Hey, I've been thinking what do you people think about an MMO where players will be the moving force??
Where player them self will be the merchants, manufacturers of goods, work/quests/request providers...also power ups sellers (potions whatever)
Of course use of some NPC will be necessary..example would be a hotel or Inn...but mostly everything else will be made/created by users them self...

So speak your mind =)...btw I think thats what needed on a game...

I want a wide expanse of game-world to be able to traverse, and have the tools with me to avoid monsters I detect, such that I can slake my thirst for exploration uninterrupted by mindless aggressive humanoids.

When I do encounter said humanoids, I want to fight them in ways other than stabbing, slashing, bludgeoning, and magicking. I want to scare them away. Or bribe them. Or convince them that I am not worth attacking. Or that I am much more powerful than they, how dare they interrupt my wilderness stroll? I want to fend off semi-intelligent creatures with some measure of semi-intelligence.

I want to take on responsibility for my King. I want to scout dangerous territory, and report back any activity of seemingly nefarious nature. I want to be rewarded by my Liege in form of title and land.

On this land, I want to enlist the aid of an architect, and build a sturdy and attractive home. I want to give back to the community of which I have become a part.

As time goes on, I want to marry, and bear offspring. I want to watch my son grow older. I want to pass down my grandfather's battered and battle-worn longsword to him when he is of age. I want to teach him to take the family name and make it something great, something to be remembered for generations to come.

I want to grow old, and eventually pass on to the next life. I want to know that, in doing so, I have left my mark on this world, and that my friends and family will mourn my death through celebrating my life. I want to do so, knowing that my legacy is intact, and somewhere, my son is making the family proud.

Then I want to see the game-server's message boards flooding in response to my character's passing, knowing that they too are striving for the same sort of virtual life, community recognition, and strong roleplaying standards that I did.

Quote:

Original post by DarkHorizon I want a wide expanse of game-world to be able to traverse, and have the tools with me to avoid monsters I detect, such that I can slake my thirst for exploration uninterrupted by mindless aggressive humanoids. When I do encounter said humanoids, I want to fight them in ways other than stabbing, slashing, bludgeoning, and magicking. I want to scare them away. Or bribe them. Or convince them that I am not worth attacking. Or that I am much more powerful than they, how dare they interrupt my wilderness stroll? I want to fend off semi-intelligent creatures with some measure of semi-intelligence. I want to take on responsibility for my King. I want to scout dangerous territory, and report back any activity of seemingly nefarious nature. I want to be rewarded by my Liege in form of title and land. On this land, I want to enlist the aid of an architect, and build a sturdy and attractive home. I want to give back to the community of which I have become a part. As time goes on, I want to marry, and bear offspring. I want to watch my son grow older. I want to pass down my grandfather's battered and battle-worn longsword to him when he is of age. I want to teach him to take the family name and make it something great, something to be remembered for generations to come. I want to grow old, and eventually pass on to the next life. I want to know that, in doing so, I have left my mark on this world, and that my friends and family will mourn my death through celebrating my life. I want to do so, knowing that my legacy is intact, and somewhere, my son is making the family proud. Then I want to see the game-server's message boards flooding in response to my character's passing, knowing that they too are striving for the same sort of virtual life, community recognition, and strong roleplaying standards that I did.

Thank you very much for your response! Our creative department is taking a very close look at your response for our MMO. We are also looking at all the other responses in this thread. If any one else has any thoughts please post them here! This is all very insightful and is really helping us to refine our ideas.