Developers Corner

here are my top 10 musts/like to see in a MMO, what are yours?

inorder from 1=Must have or i'll kill all the developers for failing! 10=i might send the devs some hate mail if i can be bothered etc

1. Organised PvP with Rewards/Titles
2. Damagable/Destroyable Environment
3. Clean Looking Graphics (realistic, not anime style)
4. Large Explorable World
5. Craftable Items/Armor
6. Companions/Pets/Mounts
7. Max Dmg Weapons & Armor Stats ( i hate not knowing)
8. NO ITEM MALL/Potions
9. Auction House
10. Lvl Cap from 50-100

its alot to ask but it would awesome to see

I only have one... it has to be fun.

1. No developer created quests, lore, cities, dungeons, PvP arenas, etc.  The devs should create the world.  The players interact with that world and each other in competitive or cooperative ways to create all that happens.
    
2. A well balanced, natural economy built into the world, on top of which players have the tools to build their own infrastructure and economy that can fail or succeed at various times depending on the situation they create.
    
3. No resources being spawned and dropped out of thin air.  If it is a natural component of the mob OR they picked it up or harvested it from the game world in real-time, then fine.
    
4. No classes or levels, just an increase in a vast number of skills that apply to a vast number of situations. (see #1)  Also no showing of arbitrary numerical stats.
    
5. Intuitive controls that let players build and manage resources from the individual scale to the world empire scale.
    
6. Large varied, dynamic (deformable, climate, weather, etc), seamless (no instances) game world.
    
7. No willy-nilly teleportation that makes the game world map distances meaningless.
    
8. Less clutter and immersion-breaking user interfaces displays.
    
9. Much more customization of character at the start, with many things that can be changed regularly.
    
10. Multiple world types instead of just copies of the same map on a different server.  Some worlds have lots of magic and monsters of various types.  Other worlds have less or more or different types, different resources or varying amounts as well.

I put this together quite quickly as I was in a hurry.  Maybe I will refine it later, but these are some of the things I have discussed quite frequently in other posts.  I agree that it has to be fun, but the challenge is to define that for as broad an audience as possible, or at least for your target audience.

1) extensive crafting system that is the focus of the game.  Monsters don't drop swords they drop stuff that is handy for crafting them, along with traditional resource node stuff.

2) real character customization.   stuff like hair/boob size is pretty basic.   I want every character to play differently with an a feat system(don't want a death penalty use the feat system to get rid of most of it, lose out on something else).  with some ability customization.   (skill based would be nice but an impressive class system would work as well)

3) survival.  You need to feed yourself, need to drink water, need to keep any animals/pets you own alive. 

4) Player world control.  If you have the manpower to build a town or over throw someone elses do so.

5) town/alliance based PvP.   see number three/four.  PvP that discourages solo PvP and random kill type stuff, in favor of organized PvP.

6) massive world.  since you have all these factions building towns and controlling resources you're going to need a very big area to fit them and to get real boundries,  there should truely be the case of I don't care what happens on that side of the world since it won't directly affect me.  allows for geological stuff like huge oceans that take a couple hours to cross with favorable conditions, or moutain ranges that no one wants to cross since you'd be SOL if something bad happens.

7) editable sturctures.   something along the lines of an extremely tonned down second life, along the lines of very basic polygons where you can move some points on the mesh around.   or alongs the lines of texture intruptation for sturctures.

8) slow paced combat that has a lot of stategic decisions.   (think a dumbed down chess game, or a wizardry game(second life thing) optioned up).

9) low magic world.   you won't be casting anything resembling a tiny bit of geomancy or traditional druid magic without extensive investment.

10) super investments.  along the lines of a town that builds a ship, makes a wonder, or small group fulfills all the requirements for killing a hidden dragon(which has some nifty things for armor and weapon crafting), setting up territory claims, improving those claims again to allow magic to be used in the area.

pretty much a entire game based on what could be considered guilding.  but having it be based on survival and territory control.   with some interesting cutomization features of both the town and individual players. 

sounds like something you wouldn't want to spend much money on since it's a very focused 'player type' aim.

1. Crafted Items better than what is dropped by NPCs

2. Ability to find groups and people willing to group.

3. NO gold sellers.

4. No raiding

5. No leet kiddies.

6. Leet speak will result in permanet ban.

7. A death penalty that hurts.

8. No levels, skill based.

9. Player housing.

10. No RMT.

I realize that a game like this will never happen, but I can dream.

that signature used to be mine for a little while

Originally posted by Zoulz

I only have one... it has to be fun.

qft

1.) A polished game which is not released too early.

2.) Housing! If it has to be instanced, than I'd rather have it as in EQ2, where you have "apartements" so you dont' have to switch instanctes, as in LOTRO.  Free decoration in houses, a la SWG or EQ2, not the static version as LOTRO.

3.) Skill based instead of class based. There are a multitude of "class-trees" which one often can retrain, so why not make those trees into general skills so you can play/test with your character different character different classes without having to reroll? Of course, rerolling is a form of time-sink (see 7.)

4.) Pets, even if solely vanity pets.

5.) PvP that makes "sense", more in the style of the upcoming WAR.

6.) Creature play/session play, but not like LOTRO, more that you are, say the Wolf, or the Orc that attacks players/which players attack during their quests; sort of a PvP.

7.) No "forced" time sinks. Hardcore players get around it one way or another, casual players just get frustrated. Travel is one big time sink for example.

8.) Crafting where crafted items, even low level ones, have a meaning and are at least equal or better to loot drops. Or, say, different, so as to make them attractive. Also, a bit more interaction in the crafting process, a la SWG or EQ2; at least not the point and click type as in AoC, WoW, LOTRO, etc. VG seems too extreme again imho. Housing is a great example for usefuleness of crafting. Potions and food should also only be available from crafters, at least the more advanced ones.

9.)  Travel: either be strict and hard about not having flight paths, portals etc, or simply have them. Mounts: Why always after level 30 or 40? You can kill, craft, help level 1 npcs who have horse, but not use them. Idiotic. It is just an excuse for time-sink. Level 10, with a slow mount, or very expensive ones, a la EQ2.

10.) Don't make expansions with increased level cap. That only screws up existing balance and visited regions. Introduce some sort of new skills which are usefull for high level players and the high level areas/dungeons/bosses (say mana for level 1-60, then you need speelforce, or magic-radiation, or whatever you want to call it).

1. I must be able to play it with my real life friends and everyone enjoy the game.

    This includes many different activities, for differnt types of players and moods so that we can all have enjoyable activities in the game.  These must have activites are:

It cannot be a tech or mech game.. many of my friends refuse to play anything sci fi.

It has to be affordable so that all my friends can afford to play it, just because I can does not mean they all can.

 A well thought out pvp system with many different zones. Noncomabt zones, pvp anything goes winner takes all  zones, duel zones, gambling zones, pvp same lvl zones, multicombat zones where you can fight hundreds of players all at oncein massive wars, pvp  training zones,  pvp fortress war zones.. ect.

Non combat skills for my friends that are not good at pvp, so there is always something to do in the game if you do not feel like fighting at that time.  If they want to play the game and never fight another player they do not have to and can enjoy the game anyways.

Quests for my friends that actually enjoy doing them.. I personally think they are a chore but for some of my friends they are a must have.

 All of the actvities in the game are made to be fun and profitable for the different types of players instead of repetitous and boring.

No one of the activites are required for you to do well in the game, they are choices so no matter which activity you enjoy you can do that and do well in the game, you can choose to do them all or choose only the ones you enjoy and still have fun in the game.

I can help my friends by giving them items in game  and doing activities with them. No item binding or untradebale items with the exception of player reward items for great accomplishments earned by players in game. I can give my friends christmas presents , birthday presents, and randomly give items to new players if I wish.

2.  Every item in game can be player made and is tradeable with the exception of player reward items that are earned by those players.   Items can still be dropped by monsters and players but they can also be made so that there is not only one source or activity in order to get ahead in the game.

3. A good merchant system so that I do not have to stand there repeating what I am selling in chat. I want to sell it fast and be done with it so I can get back to what I consider fun.

4.No kiddie graphics, they make my eyes bleed. I do not want cute toons.

5. Highly customizable characters, human race preffered but can wear and make in game many different types of clothing, armo,r costumes, weapons, and items.

If you want to look like a bear you can make a bear suit, if you want to look like an orc you make an orc suit, if you want to look like a devil you make a devil outfit if youw ant to look like an angel make an angel outfit. No other classes needed, just make the items in the game to customize armors and clothing and all items in game can be used by all players not just a select class. your appearance has nothing to do with abilities and you can have the ability to mage in range armor melee in a santa suit . If the items are made slotted or upgradeable their bonuses could be determined by what you do to them not what they are. so you could give your santa suit +40  melee defense if you wanted by adding the right components to it.

You can have the ability to change hair color, eye color, gender, and body style in the game after initial creation if you choose by going to a makeover shop and making changes.

6. Good player rewards for their efforts. Show the players they are appreciated by giving them something useful. For example like special teleports to take them places faster, special  device that allows you to spy on other  areas while in another town. there are so many useful things that could be given to players for their efforts in game t