UO's original karma system and everything attached to it.

Be it looting a player and being flagged grey, stealing from a player and being flagged grey, massacring a bunch of players and being flagged red, it was all very fun.

Nothin' like running through Britain flagged a criminal hoping you can make it into the east wilderness before someone notices you and calls the guards.

Thief / Trader / Cop thing in Silkroad Online :P

I like the achivement in wow :) And the small scale pvp as what was AV in the same game. Hours of battle against the cruel and nasty alliance was so much fun back in the days and it was new to me. damn i miss those days with hours of joy infront of the compture. now i need to be around friends to have that feelin ;(

While it fell by the wayside to a large extent, the Diplomacy sphere in Vanguard had so much potential, and it was an interesting take on 'faction' :)

Treasure hunting in UO.

Finding the maps themselves, decoding them, trying to work out where they actually pointed to (some were easy enough, some were far from it), grabbing a shovel and going digging.

And on the high end maps, the spawn that came up with them could be fantastic fun, especially if you had my second favourite game mechanic with you, a musician/provoker. Not come across another means of killing all manner of beasties where you could bring a packed lunch and watch your enemies pummel each other just by playing a lute.

I've been in one of the most epic Darkfall sieges in history that determined whether entire alliances were dismantled or left intact.

Asheron's Call randomly generated loot system where a monster's level gave a rough estimation of the general quality of the loot, but would drop completely randomized items to where you would almost never find two of the same item truly identical.  This allowed for some fantastic hunting and looting trips, as well as an item trading market where people actively sought specific items and would value them accordingly.

Factions in Everquest.  Some hate it due to the number of timesinks involved with it, but the idea that even the most hated race could be welcome amongst the side of good with enough work on behalf of the player has always appealed to me.  Gives the player a bit more control over how they want their character to be viewed as players aren't forced into making a permanent choice between the "good races" and the "evil races."

DAoC's 3-way Realm versus Realm system they had implemented.  I don't think I'll ever see something like that... well at least not in the near future.

As for an actual mechanic, I'd say cooldowns (or at least the 6 - 30 second cooldowns). I think cooldowns were an indirect creation from older games, but having them in MMO's creates this small element of mind strategy.

Close second, I'd think public quests, given their nature to take the best elements of solo play and throw those next to cooperative play.

Hmm, I can't really pick a single mechanic. I guess if I go broad enough, it was SWG's player run economy, which included the in-depth resource system, crafting, player housing, player cities, vendors, etc. I know it's cheating, but it's the combination of all those things that made it so great.

 1. Combat system in Spellborn

2. Diplomacy system in Vanguard

3. Phasing system in WoW: WoTLK

Originally posted by ikyle620

As for an actual mechanic, I'd say cooldowns (or at least the 6 - 30 second cooldowns). I think cooldowns were an indirect creation from older games, but having them in MMO's creates this small element of mind strategy.

Close second, I'd think public quests, given their nature to take the best elements of solo play and throw those next to cooperative play.

Don't mind cooldowns at all as long as there isn't thirty second to one minute cooldowns for the majority of my skills when fights only last about 10 -15 seconds. 

Ultima Online:

1. IDOCs: Houses from player accounts that are no longer paid for, are going through different stages ("Like new", "slightly worn", "greatly worn" etc.) until they finally reach their last stage "In Danger of Collapsing". Other player knew about these stages by clicking on the door sign (imagine you could make the same system today with changes in graphics too...). People also knew about the length of each stage. So a few minutes before the house actually crumbles to dust a lot of player recalled to that house and fought about the items. Yes, once the house was destroyed, every item simply dropped to the ground, free for loot for anyone.

2. Rares: In Ultima Online some player seek a special profession: They collect rares. These rare hunters do nothing else than collecting rares and showing them inside their houses. Some even decorated their house like a museum. There are lots of different rares in the game. Server born rares for example sell for several million, while daily rares for exampel sell for less. I had a lot fun getting into the game each morning, shortly after server up, trying to collect these dailys. There are alyways some other player trying to do exactly the same thing.

I can not understand why neither of them was integrated into another game yet (as far as I know).

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

My favourite ever game mechanic was SWG's shifting resource system.

It's the only game I've ever played where exploration was a useful playstyle.

Could you describe it?

Love the Public Quest idea, but the execution is tricky. They are SO reliant on having the right number of players/levels. So often they are either too easy or way too grindy/difficult.

I'm going to take some flak and say that PQs belong in instances, where levels and numbers can be controlled.

1. SWG's crafting/resource system. These guys fucking nailed it.

2. UOs treasure maps. Tons of fun.

3. DAoCs 3-way RvR.

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

My favourite ever game mechanic was SWG's shifting resource system.

It's the only game I've ever played where exploration was a useful playstyle.

Could you describe it?

There were tons of resource types in SWG. Each type would spawn with a set of random statistics that were used in the crafting process. Each resource would only last a certain number of days, I think it was wholly dependant on how much was being harvested on the server. Every few days, old resource types would phase out to be replaced with newer ones, that were sometimes better, sometimes not.

A good crafter would always search out new resources on a daily basis, as the best resources equalled the best crafted items.

Add in the fact you had 9 or so planets to check up on every day, and it was a game in and of itself.

Theres nothing else even close.

Housing. The one in SWG is the nest. the best

Full loot is always fun. Or, to be more precise, PvP with full looting is always extremely fun/exciting/addictive.