So yeah it is 3am here and I am bored. So let me share one of my idea with you (if anyone will read this).
Many people nowdays complains about grinding in MMO without thinking. Grinding - repetitive action to achieve some sort of goal: advance to next level, get extra rare drop, gather materials for crafting, everything to advance, to become stronger, better. So it is really impossible to remove grinding, as life is mostly is grind itself (99,(many nines)), only few chosen gifted with extremely learning abilities or money and interested in everything can always enjoy every seconds. But common people have to train in sports, learn boring stuff and so on. SO it is essential part of life.
But what really annoys me in MMO is that you cant change world, cant shift it. No matter how much you grind and how strong you become you just cant do it. You just forced to grind for nothing at end-game. Yes there is some thing which can occupy you for some time, like pvp tournaments, sieges, guild versus guild, live events( we dont see those these days anymore :/). And so it comes that you grind for months (it may be enjoyable, may not), enjoy end game content for bit and there is nothing else to do.
Only way I see to solve this problem is very complicated in both - conception and programming. It is to make Live world which will change according to players actions (single person would be too much and world would be thrown in chaos at first hours, but by large numbers of players working towards one goal) like eradication of entire NPC races/nations (it would suggest that there would be just one PC race) by waging massive and long wars with territorial conquests, destruction and massacre.
But that rise big problem: game must be extremely well balanced so that wars would last for months or at least weeks and wouldnt end in like few days. For example making thousands of players cooperate to siege enemies capital cities.
If made correct and adding content at normal time intervals it would be possible, but very stressing on devs. And also if they would make some mistakes game could "end" in matters of hours (bug or just imbalance).
Still if they done correctly it would contain exploration for years, as after one conquest always must come another (if you stop you will be eaten by you own size or will have to go to defense) and so you will meet another races, explore new lands and so on.
After all it is still grind but it looks very attractive to me. Uhh.. Nice dream, isnt it? Time to go to sleep and dream about perfect MMO LOL
