I would like to compile a list of 'greatest features' or 'most desired features' for my blog, I was curious what the community was looking at/for these days.  Something as simple as 'crafting' or 'PvP' can be posted on some other thread, I prefer specifics.  If you can tell me which game executed your favorite feature best, what they could do to improve that feature, etc. I would appreciate it.  The more detail the better.

Thank you,

Tertiary

A multiple side RvR, with features built ingame to develop cohesion within each realm.

the TEF - covert/overt  pvp system in StarWars Galaxies (pre-Cu)

Territory control mechanics example is the sovreignty in eve online where a corp/alliance would OWN and CONTROL all aspects of a star system. (mix that with full loot upon death and the TEF - overt/covert pvp system and you have pure gold)

Originally posted by LisXia

A multiple side RvR, with features built ingame to develop cohesion within each realm.

How many sides do you prefer?  What features would create a cohesive faction?  What games did this best?

Originally posted by Tertiary

 

Originally posted by Squal'Zell

the TEF - covert/overt  pvp system in StarWars Galaxies (pre-Cu)

Territory control mechanics example is the sovreignty in eve online where a corp/alliance would OWN and CONTROL all aspects of a star system. (mix that with full loot upon death and the TEF - overt/covert pvp system and you have pure gold)

 

What aspects of the TEF did you like?  Also, I am not entirely familiar with it.  I didn't get that far in SWG.  A basic outline would help, I can research the rest on my own.

Why full loot?  What about that feature appeals to you?

 

Thank you,

Tertiary

TEF

there are 2 factions, lets name them for easier point of refference rebels and imperials (yay starwars) (there is also neutral for those who do not want ANY part in pvp whatsoever)

each faction has 2 status options. overt or covert for understanding purposes make it overt as "on duty" and covert "in civilian"

if you are overt you can be attacked by any overt AND covert member of the oposing faction. 

if you are overt you can attack only overt members of the opposing faction. OR covert members that attacked you first (TEFed)

if you are covert you can't be attacked by anyone

if you are covert you can attack only overt members of the opposing faction OR covert members that are TEFed

TEF (temporary enemy flag)

you can be covert as long as you want but if you do an hostile action towards oposing faction (be NPC or PC) you gain yourself a TEF (temporary enemy flag) that lasts for (back in SWG it was 10 or 15 minutes if i remember well) during this time you are considered overt. 

also a tricky one is healing. if you are covert and heal/buf/cure an overt member of your faction, you become TEFed and attackable by any overt or covert member of the opposing faction.

you can always see who is in your faction covert (purple name) or overt (purple name with faction logo)

you can always see who is in your opposing faction overt (yellow if you are covert meaning you can attack him but you gain the TEF thus anyone covert or overt may fire upon you , red if you are aready overt and you should either run or fight)

every one else, neutrals and covert members of the opposing faction apear blue (neutral)

hope that helps, if you have any questions dont hesitate to quote/reply

FULL LOOT

there has to be that territory control mechanism like sovreignty in eve online in order for the full loot to have meaning

it puts some insentive to stay alive. to play smart. and to be able to weight in risk versus reward. of course this can't be done in a game where its gear oriented and takes month to get a set of gear. but a player run economy. where the sword you will loose, may be that its expensive, can reasonably be easy to replace. 

like i always say, its easy to bash your head 1000 times against a brick wall and it will eventually break, but it takes a martial arts expert to break it with 1 punch.

if you have territory control, the attacking side goes into battle risking something. if they go in with weak throw away weapons then they will not conquer the territory, if they want that piece of land/space, they need to bring the big guns... and being able to loose those big guns is a risk they will have to take in order to come and conquer the deffending land. on the opposite side, if the deffending side uses cheap wood to mount a wall, they will have trouble deffending their territory... so they also need to risk something... these players/guilds/alliances knew the risks they where getting into by accepting sovreignty of the land... 

all in all it makes much better gameplay 

note, FFA pvp is not required for the full loot. this TEF system could work very well also. if you want to participate in pvp you need to put yourself overt, risking your stuff... and yes it will happen that you will get ambushed by 40 people while getting to the rendez vous point and you loose everything, but you willingly put yourself overt knowing the risks

edit: i would be interested in reading your blog

1: Deep, realistic, and non-repetitive crafting. I really enjoyed SWG's resource and crafting systems. One particular aspect I liked a lot was the fact that a resource gathered at A might be better / more durable / lighter than the same resource gathered at B, and that all resources ultimately affected the stats of an item. The same item could be crafted with these different materials and it would ultimately affect the firing speed, damage, weight, armor value, durability, etc of whatever you were crafting. Being able to name your crafted items was a plus. Perhaps my favorite feature was being able to set up a building full of vendors that sold your wares. I had vendors full of all kinds of weapons, armor, mats, etc that just made me uber rich in the game. I was literally handing out millions to my guild =)

2: Classless skill progression. Not to sound like a broken record, but SWG had a really decent way of handling this. Being able to shape your chracter to ANY playstyle trumps cookie-cutter classes any day.

3: Modifiable terrain/player actions that affect the persistant world. Games like Xsyon and Wurm handle this somewhat nicely, although I'm not sure of many other games that let you do this, if there are any. I want to be able to build my settlement/base/city/etc into whatever I want with the highest level of customization possible. I long for the game where I can make caves, tunnel systems, canals, etc to my heart's content. In Wurm, I believe you can do a lot of this but the engine for that game is so outdated it will never be more than a cult following.

4: GM run events. These are absolutely necessary in my opinion. Not many games do it, but having special GM run events can really bring an MMO community together. The only games I can think of off the top of my head that have these to any reasonably level of frequency are Darkfall, Xsyon, and Mortal Online.

5: Mature community. I guess this isn't so much of a 'feature', but something I consider extremely necessary for a truly great game. Too many games today have the shittiest communities (WoW and LoL to name a few) that make it hard to enjoy playing them. 

6: Proper development cycle. Again, this isn't that much of a 'feature', but something that a lot of games fail to achieve these days. It's time to do away with the age-old story of a game being pushed on the market before it's ready and spend some real time developing a game and making sure it's ready for the public. Too many games that had a huge amount of potential in the last 5 or so years have been ruined by a bad launch, never being able to truly recover.

Originally posted by Tertiary

 

How many sides do you prefer? 

 

i hate pre-made factions.

IMO there should be as many factions as players care to make, with no limits on how few or how many are in each.

in other words, clans/guilds.  8)

to answer the thread title question..... there's really only one thing that draws me to MMOs.  virtual worlds that are full of life.  life == real humans controlling much or most of the entities/actors that you encounter in this world.

i honestly hate just about everything else thats usually a part of the "MMO" package.  but am so drawn to that one feature that i've tried just about every major MMO in existence, despite hating to actually "play" them in order to explore much of their worlds.  and i spend too much time reading forums like this to see how players react to different games and virtual world ideas that are discussed.

@Squal-Zell

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Tertiary

I've extrapolated the following from your posts:  Optional PvP with TEF-like system and full-loot to enforce regional sovereignty.  Implied features are sand-box style/player initiated realm versus realm, territory improvement/city building, etc.?

@travdoty

1. Non-repetitive crafting, possibly automated.  Quality tiers for reagents.

1a.  Automated merchants/player controlled NPCs.

1b.  Item customization.

2.  What about classless/skill-based progression appeals to you?  Do you prefer that all skills be available to anyone like in Darkfall, or do you prefer the model SWG has where you choose a number of skills to advance in based on class (if I recall correctly)?  Or Asheron's Call where you choose skills individually?

3.  Fully morphable terrain for city-building/etc.  (Reference: Xsyson, Wurm)

3a.  Player actions have impact on the game world:  implies dynamic world.

4.  What sort of events do you prefer?  Are you talking about events where GMs take control of a prominent NPC and role-play with the PC community?  Ones where GMs just take the spawn stick and throw NPC enemies at PCs eventually culminating with a boss encounter?  Scavenger hunts?  I understand that a combination of all of these are preferable, but I am curious which you like the best.

5.  Define 'mature community.'  Would you prefer an age restriction on the games?  How should the community be encouraged to be 'mature'?  A full discussion on this topic may be my next blog post, for the purposes of this thread I'd appreciate it if you could narrow this into a single, specific feature since 'mature community' is too broad a concept.

6.  Again, the definition of 'proper development cycle' is too subjective.  Please define.  Would you prefer regular monthly updates like Asheron's Call?  Quarterly installments?  Some sort of extra testing before release?  Is it the advertisements pushing the development cycle into early release that bothers you?  More specific, please.

@corpusc

Are you talking about a game like Eve, Shadowbane, or Darkfall where the only appreciable enemies/factions are player driven?  Or would you prefer a game with no NPCs at all and the world is soley comprised of PCs?  What specific aspect of that sort of world appeals to you the most?  Player economy, PvP combat, world building, politics?

@All

If I have summarized your favorite feature(s) incorrectly above, please correct me.

A lot of the features you are giving are not so much features as full game concepts.  RvR is the primary draw of DAoC, Horizons could be cited with its open ended sandbox nature, Eve has territory control/building/player politics as its concept.  These concepts are too broad in scope for my purposes because creating the base game concept is a subjective task.  That is what you want and thus you create it.  What I would like is for specific features to be objectively identified as well implemented.  SWG's craft system having quality impact the final version of the product, for instance.

Thank you,

Tertiary

Originally posted by Tertiary

@corpusc

Are you talking about a game like Eve, Shadowbane, or Darkfall where the only appreciable enemies/factions are player driven?  Or would you prefer a game with no NPCs at all and the world is soley comprised of PCs?  What specific aspect of that sort of world appeals to you the most?  Player economy, PvP combat, world building, politics?

 

in any kind of game i like player created "factions".  if you're asking what kind of games i like, it would definitely lean toward "sandbox".  i like things to emerge organically rather than having pre-made stories, histories, factions forced upon the players.  they always feel contrived and unnatural, and fight against the natural way that factions would developed.

i would prefer mostly real players in the world, but with NPCs that would fulfill roles that most players would find too boring to play or roleplay, but that would be important for immersiveness (like shopkeepers, merchants).

all of those aspects you mentioned are good, and all of them work much more organically when its the players driving it rather than developers trying to force people into contrived groups and activities.  hardwired stories and setups, etc.

Vanguard and Darkfall have come the closest to the kind of world i like to be in. 

and Darkfall by far the closest to the kind of real gameplay that i seek.

Originally posted by travdoty

1: Deep, realistic, and non-repetitive crafting. I really enjoyed SWG's resource and crafting systems. One particular aspect I liked a lot was the fact that a resource gathered at A might be better / more durable / lighter than the same resource gathered at B, and that all resources ultimately affected the stats of an item. The same item could be crafted with these different materials and it would ultimately affect the firing speed, damage, weight, armor value, durability, etc of whatever you were crafting. Being able to name your crafted items was a plus. Perhaps my favorite feature was being able to set up a building full of vendors that sold your wares. I had vendors full of all kinds of weapons, armor, mats, etc that just made me uber rich in the game. I was literally handing out millions to my guild =)

2: Classless skill progression. Not to sound like a broken record, but SWG had a really decent way of handling this. Being able to shape your chracter to ANY playstyle trumps cookie-cutter classes any day.

3: Modifiable terrain/player actions that affect the persistant world. Games like Xsyon and Wurm handle this somewhat nicely, although I'm not sure of many other games that let you do this, if there are any. I want to be able to build my settlement/base/city/etc into whatever I want with the highest level of customization possible. I long for the game where I can make caves, tunnel systems, canals, etc to my heart's content. In Wurm, I believe you can do a lot of this but the engine for that game is so outdated it will never be more than a cult following.

4: GM run events. These are absolutely necessary in my opinion. Not many games do it, but having special GM run events can really bring an MMO community together. The only games I can think of off the top of my head that have these to any reasonably level of frequency are Darkfall, Xsyon, and Mortal Online.

5: Mature community. I guess this isn't so much of a 'feature', but something I consider extremely necessary for a truly great game. Too many games today have the shittiest communities (WoW and LoL to name a few) that make it hard to enjoy playing them. 

6: Proper development cycle. Again, this isn't that much of a 'feature', but something that a lot of games fail to achieve these days. It's time to do away with the age-old story of a game being pushed on the market before it's ready and spend some real time developing a game and making sure it's ready for the public. Too many games that had a huge amount of potential in the last 5 or so years have been ruined by a bad launch, never being able to truly recover.

 pretty much this, with some changes:

ad 1 - i dont mind repetitive crafting, as long as process is not just click and wait (i love vanguard crafting process). also i am not much of a scifi harvest/craft way guy (prefer manual harvesting and crafting over factories and harvesters), with harvesting (and e.g. prospecting) as it is done in Wurn

ad 2 - i would love skillbased system with no caps

ad 4 - not only that, i love like in Horizons (Istaria) you had (at least at the beginning) possibility to affect world progression and lore (rescuing new playable races, opening access to new parts of world ....)

i also really like diplomacy in vanguard and overall - the more "standalone" features (think minigame) the mmorpg has, the better

edit: i also really love spell/skill customization, as e.g. in ryzom or istaria

- more then 2 faction, persistent pvp with keeps citys etc to raid/claim

- guildalliance system in game.

- pvpsystem that gives factionbonuses (claim xy, steal xy)

Dynamic zone generation.  A procedural world. 

Originally posted by Tertiary

@Squal-Zell

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Tertiary

I've extrapolated the following from your posts:  Optional PvP with TEF-like system and full-loot to enforce regional sovereignty.  Implied features are sand-box style/player initiated realm versus realm, territory improvement/city building, etc.?

 Optional PvP with risks to the non PVPer if they don't pay attention (TEF system) basically saying, you dont want to pvp, fine but dont get in my way... also perks are only given to those who are in PVP, faction armor weapons enhancements etc... if you are overt...

full loot is not to enforce regional sovereignty but to give meaning to it. make the attacking side risk something while invading and the deffending side have something to risk if they want to hold sovereignty of a region..

sandbox style yes

initiated real v realm, not really, more like faction v faction. there are alliances/guilds in each faction each with their own agenda. you may have an small imperial guild who does not want a territory and all they do is precision strike on important targets such as opposing faction weapon factories, other larger guilds may concentrate on territory domination other guilds on industrial crafting.

 

@All

If I have summarized your favorite feature(s) incorrectly above, please correct me.

A lot of the features you are giving are not so much features as full game concepts.  RvR is the primary draw of DAoC, Horizons could be cited with its open ended sandbox nature, Eve has territory control/building/player politics as its concept.  These concepts are too broad in scope for my purposes because creating the base game concept is a subjective task.  That is what you want and thus you create it.  What I would like is for specific features to be objectively identified as well implemented.  SWG's craft system having quality impact the final version of the product, for instance.

 features as per your definition

1 the TEF system explained above

2 permanent in world housing, and commodities structures (factories, banks, cantinas, med centers with their own purpose)

3. conquerable regions/cities

4 SWG craft system

5 Full loot upon death (not FFA pvp)

6 (NEW) space and land movement (ships, sky cities, flying creatures)

7 (NEW) open world (i dont want to be stuck in pre-determined paths or invisible canyons (zones)) SWG Vangard

 

 

Thank you,

Tertiary

Here's some existing game-play features I like:

• Multi-line macros.  I like to role-play.  I want each of my characters to be able to say (and emote) a 'catch phrase'.  I loved the ability in EQ1 to combine multiple phrases (in different languages and channels) with specific actions (attacking, using a skill, etc.).  One of my characters even had a custom /camp macro.

• Group / Raid assist.  The ability to designate specific characters to assist when attacking is a god-send for crowd-control characters.  I didn't like it at first, but have since changed my mind.  The EQ1 mechanism of manually selecting a PC, then using the /assist function was okay, but the ability to do otherwise got lots of enchanters (and clerics) killed.  Having the ability to selectively (and automaticaly) perform this operation before attacking helps the in-camp crowd control operations, where it is still applicable.   Any game I will play from now on needs some ability for the group leader to identify the main assist and secondary assist.

• Leader Experience.  Leading a group, especially gathering the party members, is a real art.  It deserves its own rewards.  Good leaders should be able to earn more, group-related skills.  EQ1 eventually had a workable Leader and Raid Leader experience mechanism.   The Leader would sacrifice some normal XP into Leader XP, and could purchase these group-related skills.  IN EQ1, these were the ability to mark targets, designate the assist, provide spacial buffs (ranged like a bard song or a ward), and others.  Many games, for instance LotRO, incorporate these leader skills, but without the experience system.  This gives every group leader some tools to help organize the roles withing the group.  But I feel that good leaders need some reward for their efforts.

Here are my favorite features of an MMO, in no particular order.

1. the ability to travel for hours in a seemless, zoneless world.

2. the ability to fight more then 2 mobs at a time, more like 15+ mobs, it makes me feel heroic.

3. a classless. skill based system using experience points to raise skills and attributes.  Levels are there for nothing more then determing how many skills a player may have.

4. huge level numbers to tie into #3, AC's level cap of 275 suits me just fine.

5. a vibrant and living world with out any such thing as an instance.

6. Zero capitol cities, instead numerous hamlets and towns dotting the land scape.  Basically anything that artifically forces players to congregate in a particular spot is bad for open world immersion whi9c h Ifeel todays MMO's eventually become with its one shop capital city.

7. a true questing system, and not some fed-ex or kill task that todays themepark games have become.  I want my quests to require skill, some amount of work and take more then 2-3 minutes to complete and i nreturn I am rewarded for great amounts of of Experience and items.  An example of a fun and detailed quest can be found at the following link: http://ac.wikkii.net/wiki/Apostate_Nexus_Quest

8. No ? or ! above NPC's head, instead have rumors or town criers harken new arrivals that soemone in town may require the assistance of an adventurer.

9. Loot system that is random but smart, a hybrid of Asherons Call and Diablo. 

10. No raiding for loot, instead raiding should reward Experience and good currency and maybe some rare crafting materials at most.  Raiding should be about the content and not about the loot. 

11. Loot should be aquired through luck, perseverance, and be soleely attianable solo.  As such this system would amke the loot system its form of in game economy through trading and bartering. 

12. grouping should reward players instead of penalize then with reduced XP, its been a while since I played but an example is in WoW, you kill 1 mob and are rewarded 100% xp.  2 people kill the same mob and are rewarded 50% xp.  make it more like AC where each player is rewarded 60% of XP, this would foster grouping way more then anything else since its beneficial.

13. PvP is segregated onto seperate rule set servers.  PvP should be harsh and extreme, and ZERO class changes are made in the name of class balance for PvP sakes.  If such and such class is perceived OP by PvP standards, then reroll that class if its that big of deal.  Otherwise PvP balance screws with PvE balance all to much intoadys MMO's.

14. Nerfing is so rare that it rarely happens, skills (remember im a classless type of guy) should be balanced in the beta stages.  Instead Buffs of the other skills should be viewed as the sole source of post launch skill balance

15. Housing Housing and Housing.  Player created housing in at launch, with many items and decorations to fix your place up.

This is my first attempt, as I will envitably add more to this list as they crop up in my head!

Healing and Jumping

*Gives Guild Wars "The Finger" "

Originally posted by patient32

Healing and Jumping

 

*Gives Guild Wars "The Finger" "

im sorry if i am about to highjack the thread but... im really curious of your justification on how healing and jumping are features in an MMO that apeal to you the most... that if an MMO does not have it becomes a gamebreaker. seriously i am curious...

Originally posted by Squal'Zell

Originally posted by patient32

Healing and Jumping

 

*Gives Guild Wars "The Finger" "

im sorry if i am about to highjack the thread but... im really curious of your justification on how healing and jumping are features in an MMO that apeal to you the most... that if an MMO does not have it becomes a gamebreaker. seriously i am curious...

Well if you can't jump in an mmo it pretty much is an epic power strike of destruction to my will to play a game. I don't mind in single player rpgs like Mass Effect or Neverwinter Nights or whatever, but if I can't jump in an mmo my mouse slowly starts twitching towards the uninstall button (GuildWars).....

As for healing..... I LOVE healing. I ALWAYS play a healer. It stopped me smoking. The whackamole gameplay of main healer is like meditation for me (focusing the mind on a mundane but brain engaging task and the rest of the mind acheives peace). I also enjoy mmos where there is more to do than just quest. So a big passtime of mine is just wandering the land looking for travellers to buff or heal. There's nothing quite like jumping over a fence running down a hill and tossing a heal on some lowbie that had pretty much accepted he might die but was going for glory anyway.

I'd also add a favourite feature of mine...... No instances. I HATE instances. I'll accept instanced boss mob rooms and can barely put up with EQ2's population instances of a zone. But private Guild War instances are near enough an instant uninstall for me. Hence I LOVE Vanguard.... No instances- christ there's not even zones in Vanguard.

The chat box/functionality.

Without that none of the other features matter.