1) Extensive Crafting system (multiple ways of crafting)
Like hand building or using magic
2) Complex Eco system
Monsters able to breed with other monsters(usually of same breed)
3) Affectable World (World Changing Quests)
Okay I killed the troll that killed your brother, move on with your life
4) Housing System
Thats based within the world, every mmo should have some form of housing system
5) Skill System (Complex!)
You can train skills, learn thru your weapons, be taught, learn of books etc

oh wait thats a list of things i want in a mmo
Housing system ive only seen done well in UO

Quote:Original post by Staggy11
Make individuals weak. Make groups strong.

Encourage people to join groups. Give each person (class?) a clear role(s) which they NEED to perform to help out. I'm not saying that you should take away the freedom of choice, but you should enforce clear differences.

In a MMO I played (Lineage 2), that's definitely already the case at end levels, and most people don't seem to like it that much.

All it does is force you to play in groups at higher levels, which can mean 1-4 hours of waiting before you get any group if you're lucky. Then the said group can fall apart within 30 mins of hunting (20 mins of which takes to get everyone to a location, get buffed and ready, etc.).

So instead of encouraging people to play in groups, it encourages everyone to buy 2nd/3rd/etc. accounts to act as buffbots/healers/etc. in order to be able to hunt on their own (2 boxing). As it stands, an unbuffed player can barely kill 1 mob at max level. A buffed one can kill them 40x times more quickly and effectively.

An interesting idea would be a MMO that supports 2 boxing without the need for 2+ accounts and alt-tabbing. But rather make it more like a squad-based RTS, where each one of your squad members is your guy. But still let players team up with their squads (and you don't always have to play them all at once).

Hmm, I'm not answering your question the way you wanted but I wanted to share some insight. On my development blog, I took a poll on what people would like to see in a game. Out of about 80 responses, PvP, Questing, and Items took the top three out of 5 possible answers.

1) The MMO aspect
2) Skill based PVP
3) Epic gameplay (one person is insignificant, teamwork is almost mandatory in the scheme of things)
4) everything sunandshadow said except not getting PvP'ed when going AFK. If there's anything I love in an MMO and learned from in Planetside and Vanguard PVP, you're never safe.
5) Can't stress this enough, class-less game. The idea of having an alt or other character should never be necessary.

and 6) Extremely complex combat choices/skills even down to combos and team based skill/"spells".

And something I've always wanted is for gameplay to go in cycles. 1 month changes of the persistent world and then end game. (complete with a linear story mode with 40 hours of play time that can be completed within a cycle of the game fairly easily as an introduction for players. Something to add to the "this is all leading up to something"). Obviously at the end-game, teams/factions/guilds band together for a week long (or something) adventure end game event. (something fun enough that it could be rehashed many times and still be fun).

- Fun game-play (I guess that sums up everything you would really want in a game... lol... and it doesn't really help... how about fun game mechanics?)

- Collecting stuff, leveling up, building up an unbeatable strategy to defeat my opponents, becoming the toughest, best, most experienced, most high level character with all the best items...

- Having game items that I would want to buy (which would make me want to earn game money and therefore make me want to do the things required to get that money, i.e., play)

- Playing with friends/family (I like playing with my cousin, maybe there are some things in a game that could take advantage of this to make it even more enjoyable?)

- Compelling environment/atmosphere/story/characters (this goes for books and movies too... having an atmosphere and story filled with characters that I would want to explore and see how it continues...)

Not necessarily in order...

• Matching my skills against living opponents
  --I dislike games without hardcore pvp
  --WoW and other RvR based PvP does not remotely qualify as hardcore PvP
  
• Influencing or Changing a non-static world
  --Eve is the only MMO I know of where this is possible
  --There, everything is player based
  --Eve is subsequently one of my favorite MMO's)
  
• Creating a character that is unique in a world full of unique characters
  --Extremely rare
  A decent example, as I can think of no particularly good ones, would be Ragnarok Online with it's stat system. A characters class barely defines it's limitations; it's stats determines who and what it is.
  --Crit priest? Vit priest? Agi priest? Dex-priest? Int priest? All viable builds, and this is before skill selection
  
• Experiencing something new and different
  --RP is very fun, but it's hard to RP in a single player game...
  --Players will throw new things at you (if the game allows for it) continually
  --Every good MMO breaks from stereotypes and offers a new experience
  
• A sense of achievement
  --A game with no consequence for stupid actions is a game that merely rewards time playing - spending time playing a game is not an accomplishment
  --A game with legitimate risk vs reward ratios rewards those who think of ways to "beat" the system
  --In a video game, a gain's value is positively correlated with the risk one had to take to get it, in my opinion. If I risk nothing, I don't care about my $10383409875 in game.

That's about it off the top of my head.

1. Socializing
2. Exploring
3. Killing
4. Achieving

Or at least that is how my Bartle Test turned out last time. If those don't ring a bell you should look up Designing Virtual Worlds, it really opened my eyes to designing MMO's.

Well it's clear that even among designers, no one MMO can wholly satisfy all of us.

Some people want the hardest of hardcore PVP,
Others want intense story-driven exploration

That is why the most successful MMOs cater to everyone, and people shouldn't complain when it's not catering entirely to them.

However, there are some things that it looks like most of us want (in no particular order)

1. More complex/skillful combat
2. ANY change to the standard class trinity (or classless)
3. More complex/skillful crafting
4. Changeable world (whether it be story evolution, or players that can have an impact, as long as the world is not just frozen in time)

-Humblest of Hobos