Originality when creating a virtual world that has it own physics, lore and mysteries. Unique classes with truly unique abilites. Having the players adapt to the world they are playing in, instead having the world adapt to the mainstream player "expectations". Everything that "NPC Man" makes fun of.
Design a world to be truly unique, instead of designing a world to be way to increase revenue and maximize profits. Make an expanding playerbase and a truly addicting experience to be your profit engine.
Caine said:Having the players adapt to the word they are playing in, instead having the world adapt to the mainstream player "expectations".
This. Also, culture is missing. There's something very Stepford wife Truman show about the city NPCs. I just don't care about any of them individually or even collectively. They are forgettable clutter. No matter how impressive the architecture of the city looks, it still feels like a wax museum with a population of unengaging mall walkers. They're too busy to talk with me, yet they aren't really doing anything.
Caine said:Unique classes with truly unique abilites. Having the players adapt to the world they are playing in, instead having the world adapt to the mainstream player "expectations".
^ I would add also having players adapt to the class they are playing. I would even go so far as to add Race. Just because the class cannot do something, doesnt mean their gimped, it means you have to learn how to deal with that challenge.
No healer classes available in a certain race starting city? Deal with it. Learn to suceed-fight and win- in the way of that race. Make the assumption that the race has survied in that world without healers so far, and if you as a PC cannot, then you have the problem. You need to learn how to play that race and class with the tools and abilities you have. Yes. Especially at the first levels. Then when you get some confidence in your own abilities and other PC classes of your race you have met?- say conservatively by level 15-20 in 9 months time? then think about traveling. YMMV.
Kilsin said:Tavern Talk - What do you feel is missing from today's MMORPG's? #MMORPG #CommunityMatters
True creativity by developers. Instead we get recycled races of elves, dwarves, humans, etc and recycled classes that have barely changed in 20 years.
Developers being forthright and upfront with their playerbase, especially with their VIPs who gave them enough money to actually start development.
Publishers actually willing to publish and not overly interfer so that we don't have to deal with the bullpucky of crowd funded projects.
Kilsin said:Tavern Talk - What do you feel is missing from today's MMORPG's? #MMORPG #CommunityMatters
IMO:
Tangible daily personal character power progression via content that requires a group/group-role to consume, in a server/world that is not cross-realm.
and..
Innovative features that add breadth and depth to many/all game loops, not just combat.
and..
A planned, designed economy.
I will be slightly contrarian here. All of the things mentioned above exist, more or less, in some MMOs. Not in enough of them and not as fleshed out as we might want but there is nothing there that would make Pantheon unique. Though the more of them we have the better.
The obvious things that we all understand and that are listed in Pantheon's core design principles are not unique either, of course, but they are far from common today.
Slow pace of progress. This is rarer and rarer as games like FFXIV and WoW increase the already far too fast pace of getting to maximum level.
Slow pace of travel. I cannot even think of a game today that does not have numerous means of rapid travel. So will Pantheon - perhaps fast mounts but certainly class teleport abilities. So this one is a matter of degree.
Classes that cannot do everything and that are limited, mostly, to specific roles. As distinct from games like Rift and New World where any character can do anything more or less and numerous games that come close to that.
Focus on group play and, hopefully, a much greater emphasis on guilds as an important factor. Again, a matter of degree. Many MMOs focus on groups at certain points of their life cycle and Pantheon will permit and hopefully reward solo play - as a separate but unequal path to success.
Anything, and everything that requires even the remost amount of time, or patience to achieve in-game.
Gamers today remind me of overly excited dogs... Who's that? who's that? what's this? where's that? who's there? what's that? who's this? puff, pant, bored.... NEXT!
Kilsin said:Tavern Talk - What do you feel is missing from today's MMORPG's? #MMORPG #CommunityMatters
Time...
In most (all ?) MMORPG the time is shrinked to nothing : XP, travel, quests, craft, dungeons, etc...
All is designed so that everyone can do everything in little time : at the end, everyone has done the same quests, has seen the same things, has the same abilities, has the same gears, etc...
I would like to see a MMO where everything takes time so that every achievement has meaning, an MMO where you need to make choices on your goals, because you won't have the time to do everything.
And I desperatly looking for an MMO without action combat style, where the most important is to burn down as quikly as possible entire rooms of mobs...
For me it's not fun to just rush dungeons, here again, please give me Time !
eldarendil said:Kilsin said:Tavern Talk - What do you feel is missing from today's MMORPG's? #MMORPG #CommunityMatters
Time...
In most (all ?) MMORPG the time is shrinked to nothing : XP, travel, quests, craft, dungeons, etc...
All is designed so that everyone can do everything in little time : at the end, everyone has done the same quests, has seen the same things, has the same abilities, has the same gears, etc...
I would like to see a MMO where everything takes time so that every achievement has meaning, an MMO where you need to make choices on your goals, because you won't have the time to do everything.
And I desperatly looking for an MMO without action combat style, where the most important is to burn down as quikly as possible entire rooms of mobs...
For me it's not fun to just rush dungeons, here again, please give me Time !
I agree with time as well. Build a robust interesting world that takes time to enjoy. Creating content is expensive. You might as well create a dense world. The idea that you have to make choices because your character can't do it all makes alot of sense as well. All your alt characters should have a nice unique experience.
I want a sense of awe and wonder. A burning desire to get lost in the world. Something that feels new and that has meaningful gameplay, not perfunctory tasks and mindless grinding. I want a world that feels huge, not small. A world that doesn't feel like a whole bunch of medium zones where the only way from one to the next is through the small gap.
Biggest thing for me is that the past 10-15 years have pushed MMO's towards convenience rather than gameplay.
There’s nothing wrong with an MMO where you are just playing and feeling as part of the world rather than being pushed towards a mythical ‘end game’ that doesn’t actually exist, it’s just content at the highest level. Design content for all levels and encourage people to use it and enjoy the process rather than dreading it.
Bring back more traditional roleplaying features such as food and water, spell reagents, researching, gaps in power, and class power differences and uniqueness. I'd also like to see us go back to a human centric world where there fantasy races are quite a bit different both in terms of their abilities and gameplay - make them a true fantasy race.
Not everyone in the world (or most certainly a fantasy world) is the same, so this push to make all mechanics, leveling, gameplay generic across the board is boring me to tears. Traditional roleplaying systems (think AD&D 2E) had TONS of flavor with their classes, races, and mechanics. This was the foundation of what MMO's were started on.
Notice how the move away from all of this has lead to stagnation of the market? Then I have to talk to people who want more of the same, yet complain about not having any games to play because they blow past the trivial content which lacks depth. I bet some of the folks playing games released in the past 5-10 years wouldn't know what to do if they had an MMO that had truly deep design that they could call home for 10 years.
Fun-Games in general are becoming more joblike to make people feel loyalty... Loyalty is not always fun unfortunately. Ex: Daily quests, big guilds that need you to send in a resume, raids that unlock at specific hours which you feel compelled to log in for, etc.
On the other side of fun, the game creators are probably hourly workers instead of a group of friends having fun making a game that may or may not work out. If you aren't having fun leisurely making a game you can't expect it to be fun and leisurely for it's players. Unfortunately making a game is so expensive these days we will never trully have a game like everquest ever again.
Yes, I believe this is the most important part of any old game; It was a game for its developers too.
Originality-Why not just sign up for WoW? Also applies to gear and how we value everything about the gear besides it's unique name and looks. Also applies to classes and races. Yes, balance is important, no, that doesn't mean everyone does the same thing.
Challenge-I love how Dark Souls is trying to murder me. Enemies around corners at just the right angles, holes I can't see until I am falling into them, starter mobs I far outlevel who blow up half my health with one attack if I lose focus, a variety of enemy types who counter various player primary weapon choices... Maybe I'm an M or something but...I want that in games.
Travel-I wanna see the world, not skip it to the next place the wiki tells me is good. Also as Iksar mentioned, I wanna get lost and find something cool.
Trade- I love it, but it gets ruined by npcs who do all the fun parts for me. It's like paying an npc to raid for me...no fun.
In combat choices and limitations- I never want to discover that my role is to just cast flash heal over, and over again, at the tank, whether or not his health has even gone down, again. ever.
There's a new MMO out called Book of Travels. It's a MMO that's not for everyone, for sure. But who it is for, they will absolutely love it. And that is another thing to think about that I preach about so often here. People want all of our new MMO's to be dumbed down to all have the same features. So yes, that is what is missing, MMO's wanting to stand out and be different.
It is OK to be different and it's OK to make a game that is not going to appeal to everyone.