General Discussion

   We all have our ideas of what would make a great mmorpg.  I know there have been comments here concerning what would make one.  Several new ones have come out recently, and it seems no development company has hit on the right combination.  However, there have been some new ideas  introduced that show promise.  What say we give developers a hand and start a new thread listing those features we would like to see in our games?  First I will present my ideas, then feel free to add any you can think of that you would like to see included. 

   As much as I was disappointed in Age of Conan, I have to look at the reason for that.  Mainly I was heavily let down after the first 20 levels.  AoC had a good thing going, but they failed to follow through. I would like to see more mmorpg's include elements of solo rpg storyline like AoC did.  However, each class should have its own story line, which AoC did not do.

Class specific quest lines are important to me, as they allow me to get more immersed into my character.

 Customer service is a must. I can  deal with glitches in programing at initial launch, as long as there is a "cavalry" of csr's on hand to solve my problems in a timely manner. 

The ability to have my armor and equipment dyed colors of my choice is a plus to me.  Ultima Online did this very well.

I like being able to choose when and where I engage in pvp.  I quit UO because of the gangs of griefers running around  ruining the game for those trying to enjoy the quests in a role playing manner (I was a Great Lord, btw). 

Housing is an ok feature, but not a game killer if it isn't included.

  Crafting needs work still.  Wow I think has the best system, but still isn't quite what it should be.  Perhaps include quest lines for crafters as well. For example:  "The forces of good are preparing for a war with the evil guys next country over, we need to make 50 short swords for the infantry".  "Bah!  You call that a short sword?  Go make me 10 more until you get it right!"  Successful completion equals  crafting exp and money of course.  Perhaps you make a fine dagger for a courtesan and she rewards you with a special gem or money and faction plus exp.

  Mounts with even a minor speed increase at a reasonably low level are a plus.  Other mounts with incremental speed increases could be offered at higher levels, say, every 10 levels or so.  WoW has a good idea with flying mounts, but, unfortunately, the lower levels never see them because they can't be ridden in the under 60 zones. 

Accessability over a broad range of computers and video cards, of course.  The graphics don't have to be leading edge.  Frame rates of  no less than 20 fps in densely populated areas  is more important than eye candy. 

An aggressive team of hacker/exploiter police should be availible. 

In game voice chat  is a plus, but not really a major plus.  Make sure it works (I initiated my voice chat in a well known mmorpg and it corrupted my sound files.  Now I have no sounds for mining or calling my pet). 

AoC style guild keeps and seiges are a good idea, if the frame rate can handle the population load.  Perhaps a limit could be set on how many players can be involved, say 20 vs. 20.  They could even allow guilds to declare war and set the player limits of the engagement up to that number.  That way a smaller guild  with 10 dedicated members could  declare war on a giant guild and limit it to a 10 v 10 war. 

Smaller guilds could be allowed to have smaller fortresses, like a keep and an all purpose community hall in a walled enclosure.  Larger guilds could have more buildings.

   These are ideas "off the top of my head".  Add or comment as you see fit, you will, anyway, lol!  

Thanks for the advice about breaking up my ideas into sections.  I hope this helps.

As a footnote, crafting quests would yield crafting experience.  I inserted "crafting" above when I edited per your suggestion in the next post.

You might have some good ideas going, but your wall of text hit me out.

try splitting your text up into sections, then more will read it

I just wanted to comment about crafting and Wow being the best example so far. 

I agree Wow maybe has some of the best Crafting Quests so far.  Pretty good.  Leveling up is tolerable, but still very boring.

DAOC had a much better crafting system (for most tradeskills) that better integrated the need for the items by the community vs. loot / quest dropped items.  Crafted item customization was very good.

My two cents.

I agree, add some paragraph breaks to your wall of text. You have some good ideas mixed in there, but it is really hard to read that much compressed together.

Anyhow one thing I like to see in mmo's is players having the ability to affect the game world. There are some games that have already jumped on this bandwagon and a great many more that claim they do.

Basically, if the story is that the races are at war then if there is a big RvR style battle or a bunch of players go and capture a city, mix that into the story. Change the banners to reflect the victories, add different quests depending on who is winning. Make me care about what the game world is coming to so that I feel compelled to drag myself outta the PvE grinding pool and do something about all the enemies invading my turf.

Change things to reflect what the players are doing so that they have an influence. It feeds into the whole "I care more if I matter" mentality.

All of those wishes are not unreasonable. What is unreasonable is for all of those be in one MMO without the consideration of other details to bring in more people. This is what causes MMOs to be hard to develop. Another thing someone might try is that maybe if I can find a game with 75% or 50% of my wishes and start from there.

The MMO genre is in hard times right now. Money is tight all around and that translates into less companies producing them. Considering there are not many innovating or different MMOs out, this compounds the issue greatly. But I think help is just over the horizon. There are several new MMOs coming out that have changed the pace just a little bit. TCoS, Aion, Fallen Earth, Darkfall, and a few others.

The last time I played an MMO (paid for it, not beta as I was in Warhammer beta until beta 3) was early this year. But before that, I have played some type of MMO from ~2001. I played 6 or 7 of the top MMOs on the list of this website and many others before I decided to just wait for the next one that has centered around my wishes, like yours.

Also banks should have branches in every town.  I can understand the desire to have players congregate in a certain city, but that can be handled easily enough by making those cities the only place where the trade channel works.

Originally posted by Darter

   We all have our ideas of what would make a great mmorpg.  I know there have been comments here concerning what would make one.  Several new ones have come out recently, and it seems no development company has hit on the right combination.  However, there have been some new ideas  introduced that show promise.  What say we give developers a hand and start a new thread listing those features we would like to see in our games?  First I will present my ideas, then feel free to add any you can think of that you would like to see included. 

   As much as I was disappointed in Age of Conan, I have to look at the reason for that.  Mainly I was heavily let down after the first 20 levels.  AoC had a good thing going, but they failed to follow through. I would like to see more mmorpg's include elements of solo rpg storyline like AoC did.  However, each class should have its own story line, which AoC did not do.

Class specific quest lines are important to me, as they allow me to get more immersed into my character.

 Customer service is a must. I can  deal with glitches in programing at initial launch, as long as there is a "cavalry" of csr's on hand to solve my problems in a timely manner. 

The ability to have my armor and equipment dyed colors of my choice is a plus to me.  Ultima Online did this very well.

I like being able to choose when and where I engage in pvp.  I quit UO because of the gangs of griefers running around  ruining the game for those trying to enjoy the quests in a role playing manner (I was a Great Lord, btw). 

Housing is an ok feature, but not a game killer if it isn't included.

  Crafting needs work still.  Wow I think has the best system, but still isn't quite what it should be.  Perhaps include quest lines for crafters as well. For example:  "The forces of good are preparing for a war with the evil guys next country over, we need to make 50 short swords for the infantry".  "Bah!  You call that a short sword?  Go make me 10 more until you get it right!"  Successful completion equals  crafting exp and money of course.  Perhaps you make a fine dagger for a courtesan and she rewards you with a special gem or money and faction plus exp.

  Mounts with even a minor speed increase at a reasonably low level are a plus.  Other mounts with incremental speed increases could be offered at higher levels, say, every 10 levels or so.  WoW has a good idea with flying mounts, but, unfortunately, the lower levels never see them because they can't be ridden in the under 60 zones. 

Accessability over a broad range of computers and video cards, of course.  The graphics don't have to be leading edge.  Frame rates of  no less than 20 fps in densely populated areas  is more important than eye candy. 

An aggressive team of hacker/exploiter police should be availible. 

In game voice chat  is a plus, but not really a major plus.  Make sure it works (I initiated my voice chat in a well known mmorpg and it corrupted my sound files.  Now I have no sounds for mining or calling my pet). 

AoC style guild keeps and seiges are a good idea, if the frame rate can handle the population load.  Perhaps a limit could be set on how many players can be involved, say 20 vs. 20.  They could even allow guilds to declare war and set the player limits of the engagement up to that number.  That way a smaller guild  with 10 dedicated members could  declare war on a giant guild and limit it to a 10 v 10 war. 

Smaller guilds could be allowed to have smaller fortresses, like a keep and an all purpose community hall in a walled enclosure.  Larger guilds could have more buildings.

   These are ideas "off the top of my head".  Add or comment as you see fit, you will, anyway, lol!  

Thanks for the advice about breaking up my ideas into sections.  I hope this helps.

I agree for the most part, But I think they should have allowed each race to have their own "tortage" and then had different storylines for each class in their racial cities.

That would give people a real reason to try all the races and classes, also people wouldn't get so tired of Tortage after the 3rd-4th time through