Actually a mix of cabal and vindictus if that is actually possible.

Cabal's combo system was very unique as the time that you did your rotation moves was important to how well they did and each successive move got harder and harder to time.

Adding a combo bar to vindictus's open area combat and allowing movement during the bar moves would make for quite the complex system but it would work fairly well at least in theory.

What warhammer needs is a monthly server with an actual winning side.

Everyone starts at level 1 the first day of each calendar month.

Double or Triple the exp earned.

All dungeon lockouts set to 1 day.

Stars can not be regenerated, only earned for the cities.

First city to reach 0 stars loses.

Meteors start falling from the skies decimating the defensive protections starting the 25th day of the month.

On the last day of the month, if there is not a winner, they start hitting the cities taking them down stars.

Actually $30 for the digital collectors edition is an even better deal as the items and mount are definitely worth it at an additional half price and most future sales will NOT be for the collectors edition and there isnt a way to upgrade anymore to the collectors edition.

Well nothing would stop you from having a permadeath version of the different servers that I listed and giving them added rewards...

Well other than the fact that people would cry like babies when they decided they wanted the extra benefits and died.

Of course one could always have something between perma-death and normal.  I mean if you lost 5 levels and all the items that you were carrying that is a really harsh penalty.  It falls short of perma-death of course but it would certainly have meaning even to the hardest of the hardcore.

If you are looking for a game coming up soon that has perma-death and is at least AA, I would say look at Wizardry Online. 

That is going to be the kind of "get lost in a maze, die, and reroll" kind of game.

I think anyone getting over level 25 is going to be an achievement.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/681/Wizardry-Online.html

Question about this -- Does the code activate Immediately or can you sit on it a while...

IE lets say you are about to go on a vacation for 2 weeks but the sale is tomorrow...  Is it like buying the product in a store where you can wait until you come back before activating it -- or does it activate immediately upon purchase such that you would lose 2 weeks out of your free time?

Heh -- this is actually the most forced grouping game I have seen in this MMO generation.  From start to finish things are much easier and much more pleasant in a group.  The items you want for crafting and for using come off group monsters.  There is a system where if you outlevel monsters a bit before fighting them then nothing useful drops -- so anything balanced for a group is not useful to kill solo when you can kill them solo. 

The solo play in Tera is far inferior to the grouping experience.

Wow -- actually this is one of the first times I am happy about a software patent.  If they patent it then maybe other companies will be barred from using it -- or the royalties will make it not worth them doing it. 

Ads are becoming way too ubiquitous.  I mean especially with something like a game -- you have PURCHASED the game.  Why should you then additionally get ads.  If they want to innundate me with ads then the game should be free or at least discounted.  Plus I should have the option of no ads for a higher price.

Actually I do think they have some amount of responsibility for one major reason and a few minor ones.

The major reason is that they allow repeated logons without locking down the account (from that IP range).  In essence this opens the door to brute forcing passwords.

The minor reasons are that the passwords are not even case sensitive.  This makes the hacking of passwords easier.

The other minor reason is that they use the email address as the login name.  If you are allowed to use a handle (not shown anywhere) as your login then hackers need to guess two things not one.

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In essence this means that you REALLY have to be careful with your passwords to the battlenet. 

If you use a word or even 2 words as your password -- IE if your password is "redclematis" you are extremely easy to hack under the current system.  That password would be sufficient in a system where you were limited to 5 attempts -- but where infinite attempts are allowed there are only a finite number of words.

Is someone who uses a password like "redclematis" at least partially responsible for being hacked because they didnt take enough care?  Sure.  But not everyone knows to make passwords like "5jd0sxa2pfs"  nor can everyone easily remember such a password -- especially when they have many passwords that they need to remember.

This one would not be all that difficult to implement.

There is absolutely no reason why servers have to all be independant.  Some of the FTP games manage to run their games with channels instead of servers.  There is not a lot of reason why you couldnt run a AAA game the same way.

Done that way, resources would be optimally used (you wouldnt have servers with very low populations and ones with very high populations and queues) and you could set them up (even on the fly) for different purposes.

IE you could do something like this:

Servers 1-5 Easy -- Raid Monsters are Group Monsters, Group Monsters are Solo monsters, Solo monsters are easy.  Drop rates and exp are lower.  Some drops do not happen.

Servers 6-10 Normal -- (all things normal)

Servers 11-15 Hard -- Monsters have more hit points and hit harder -- higher drop rates, somewhat higher exp -- Some raid drops can happen on group mobs, and group drops on solo mobs.

Servers 16-18 Nightmare -- Raid Monsters get some new tricks and are harder, Group monsters take on raid monster characteristics, Solo monsters are pretty much Group monsters. 

Server 19-20 Even Nastier.

Server 21-23 PvP Easy World

Server 24-25 PvP Normal World

Server 26 PVP Hard World

Server 27 PVP Nightmare World

Server 28 PVP Nastier World

I am actually for it making differences throughout the whole levelling experience. 

IE not only do orcs get a +5 to damage with bladed weapons, and a +3 to general strength, and a -5 to wisdom, etc -- stat stuff, but they get several additional skills and do not get other skills for whatever class they choose.  IE they have a different style.

If you are an orc warrior you might get more bloodshouts, and berzerk type abilities, and not have certain finesse abilties that many other warriors have.

If you were instead an elf warrior, you might get a ton of finesse abilities and no bloodshouts or berzerker abilities etc. 

The races would make the classes vary enough that they would get the job done in very different ways and in some battles the orc warrior might do best and in other battles the elf warrior would be a better choice.

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You would get at least 10 skills unique to your race in each class and be missing at least 5 skills from the normal skills of the class.  Maybe 2 or 3 general skills that all members of your race would get at level 1, another 3 skills that all members of your race eventually get, along with stats.

This is a very simple question that has very large consequences in an MMORPG.

Different games have handled this in different manners....

In some games Peons drop garbage loot from 1->cap all the time.  When you are levelling you know that the 25 orcs you are killing for their scalps to hand in will drop nothing of any use to you.

In some games Peons consistantly drop garbage loot, but very rarely a Purple People-Eater Peon will spawn that could drop something interesting.

In some games there are world drops -- sets of items that can drop off ANY monster that happen to be blue or purple.  IE instead of a green valor item in rift that grunt you were attacking amazingly drops a purple version of the same item.

Some games it varies -- there might be world drops that are purple from level 20 to 58 in a game with a 70 cap but no even tier 1 endgame purples will ever drop off any monster.

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The answer to this question defines the flavor of the game.

Everyone loves to get that uber item that came out of nowhere -- but if they are so rare that you will likely never have more than one of them at any time, or if they do not exist at all -- it will tend to prod players into the dungeons.  If a decent set of rare items can drop, then people are more likely to solo where they can.

Not having the rare great drops off peons also makes the levelling process a lot more boring as you remove the slot machine from it.

If you take the rare monsters not rare drops path, then you often see known areas they can spawn perma-camped.

The thing that really annoys me as a slayer that is a non-issue as a warrior is the way they build abilities...

In essence as a slayer you need to rapidly move from monster to monster or your action bar will have 0 points in it.

If you are soloing you really want to be harvesting stuff for the buffs.

This synergizes well with a warrior who can harvest between monsters. 

This synergizes really lousy with a slayer who will start at 0 every time they tap a node.

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Your warrior is 15th -- warriors do not come into their own until the mid 20s.  I would say give it a chance and stick with the warrior for at least another 11 or so levels before jumping to another class.

I think it is mostly a problem of content.

The next game to really break out will be the game where you can set out from a city on the east coast of a continent, and walk west for 24 hours and not hit an artificial barrier.  Where walking slightly south of west would have brought you to different things such that you never HAVE to specifically go to point X you just have the option of doing so.

Every game these days is so very content dense and size small.  You spend 20 hours in what amounts to a 100x100 grid.  You fight a monster in 6x5 you turn in the quest at 10x7 and sell your items at 35x35.  When you are done you go to another 100x100 grid.  When you run out of zones//are max level you actually shift from having 100x100 grids to having 2000x1 lines.  Dungeons/Raids.  Data points.

No real exploration and very little "I did this first." 

The next game to really "win" will be one where you can carve your name on a rock 75 miles west of the city and someone eventually ends up there a year later and wonders who did that?

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If anything we have been going in the wrong direction that way...  I remember reaching the endgame of WoW a month or so after release and thinking -- this has been quite a ride -- they really need 3 more continents at least.

Everquest -- the original everquest had a much more wide open feel to it. 

Things have become too content dense, too convenient, and too 6-hour playstation gameish.  Yes it has happened to other genres as well -- like 6 hours of play and done -- very pretty -- very scripted -- and done.  Like a book.

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In a lot of ways I blame the graphics.  I mean really, if you want to code up models for 5,000 different kinds of monsters instead of 50 -- actually in some games these days it is more like 25.  It takes an awful lot of work with the number of polygons people expect.

If you want a world as opposed to a few settings, you need a lot more variety of terrain etc as well.  All of which take a lot more time at the levels people expect today.

You should be careful with chargebacks.

Not only does the cc company keep track of them and if you do too many you may be dropped // lose credit rating // etc, but...

If you do a chargeback, the MMO company is well within their rights to permanently get rid of you.  Meaning you try to create another account and no dice.  Banned from playing any future games from that company.  And word does get around.

Pull that in a beta and you will be far less likely to ever get into another one with any company.  And of course never with the company you did it to.

Well to post an example... Rift.

Rift actually had two "betas" in parallel.  The beta that most people saw which had the 1-5 beta stages, and the "Alpha" which actually started when the game was much less polished and the server was up fairly constantly during the beta period while the "beta" was phased. 

Vanguard is where a lot of my early beta experience comes from -- and even there, people were in quite a while before me, but I got a look at systems that were very different from what was eventually released.  I will say this -- the beta experience is far different 8 months to a year before the games release than it is during the entirety of what is currently called beta.  The more recent games call the period before the standard fairly easy to get into if you are on your toes beta, alpha.  They were simply early betas in the old days. 

If anything that people really want to get into the betas of games these days make it harder to get into the early betas than it once was.  If you really had an interest in a project and knew about it before it started advertising -- you had a passable chance at an early beta in the old days. 

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At any rate I have been in a few phases of games where they would be called alpha today.  It can be done. 

Actually that is more the way things used to be -- These days a closed beta has degraded to a preview and is about what an open beta used to be...

Friends and Family // True Alpha // Who knows what they call it now:

This is the first stage that someone can possibly get into testing.  There isnt a permanent server yet.  You don't usually have set permanent characters.  You log in and they say -- we are testing crafting today -- or here is the level 25 zone we worked on.  Testing tends to be targeted and disjointed and buggy.  There are maybe 50 to 200 testers.

Old Beta 0 // Alpha Testing

This is where you get a more or less permanent character -- although wipes are frequent.  The server goes up and down like a ping pong ball, and you get access to the developers.  The game is playable though.  Your input is very important.  There are maybe 100 to 400 testers.

Old Beta 1 // Alpha Testing (currently sometimes called Friends and Family today)

This is the first chance anyone who didnt have any experience with the company can get in and usually it requires luck and pluck...  Winners of contests etc.  It is a permanent character -- the devs are still there and playful with the players.  The world is somewhat more stable though.  The game is still over a year away from release though, and it is definitely incomplete.

Old Beta 2 // Late Alpha Testing

By now there are more or less 1000 or so people on the server.  The devs are still there and they do play around somewhat but they are less visibile than in beta 1.  There is more of the world to play in and they may change continents or sides.  Your character may or may not carry over from beta 1.  Bugs are still very important to report and at this stage major changes can still occur albeit less likely than in beta 1.

Old Beta 3 // New Beta 0-1 // Transition.

Often there are 2 servers at this stage(The old beta people on one and the new on the other).  There might be 3000 people involved.  At this point true fans of the game have a better chance of getting in if they are active.  The devs are rarely around and people swoon when they show up but it is a lot more matter of fact than it was in the prior beta.  Typos and other bugs and exploits are important to report, but major changes are unlikely to occur unless a severe problem is found. 

Old Beta 4 // New Beta 2-3

By now there are maybe 7000 people involved.  If you go to a fan website you can generally get a key.  The NDAs are usually dropped around this point.  You do not get any access to the devs in this level of beta -- maybe just a welcome and a thank you at the end.  People who only have experience at this stage have never been in a "real beta."  At this point it is mainly finding typos and things that have slipped through the cracks.  They are less interested in pure feedback.  Major changes will not occur from this stage. 

Old Beta 5 // New Beta 4-5

Pretty much stress testing and window shopping -- even though it is on paper a closed beta, anyone can get in.  No access to the devs and anything more than a typo is unlikely to even get fixed by release -- sometimes in the day 1 patch some of it is but don't count on it. 

Open Beta // Headstart

Essentially this is just the game and a selling gimmick.

Actually that was somewhat addressed in Warhammer and copied in rift.

Public Quests allowed people to "solo together."

Actually Warhammer raids also kind of allowed people to solo together as they were a lot less organized than say a guild group or guild raid would be but they did have the purpose of defending a zone from being flipped or flipping a zone.

But Public Quests and later Rifts exemplified the process.

The biggest problem with solo together content is that people need to be dense enough to work together without really working together...  IE if you need to defeat all of the orcs in a zone, you need enough people in the zone killing orcs to put them all down or it will always be a failure.

That the public quests became empty after several months into the game became a real problem for the people levelling up later. 

What the op doesnt like is that when given the choice between soloing and grouping -- all things equal or even close to equal -- people will tend to take the solo route.

Hence to get people to group the game has to significantly encourage grouping over soloing -- the push that becomes a shove.

Thing is, there recently was a game that was released that is very much like what the OP is wanting.

That game is Tera.

Tera has the harder monsters that require a group to kill or someone with the best equipment taking a completely unreasonable amount of time.

Tera has dungeons that you really do not want to enter without a group.  And even if you do enter them at a higher level, the drop rates TANK -- you have to be of the proper level range to get any drops of note.

Tera has the items you want only in group areas by late in the game and more importantly the fodder you need to enchant such items.  So not only will someone who is more group averse have a worse base item, BUT he will have a real hard time enchanting the item to any reasonable enchantment level.

Even the better essential crafting items ONLY come from boss monsters. 

Tera has lots of features that make it easier to group.

Oh and in Tera the best grouping classes are pretty pathetic solo while the good solo classes are less desired for groups.  This further keeps the healing classes and lancers grouped up.

Keyboards will always be around.

Personally I do not like voice (person to person) at ALL In games as it significantly reduces immersion.  I do not mind when NPCs speak but I do not like when I hear the screaming baby in the background of the burly orc who then yells in a high pitched female voice at the baby. 

But that said, there are other fundimental reasons to use a keyboard even if (especially if) you use voice.

It is that there are a limited number of ways to interact at the same time -- if you are talking into a microphone, you can't also use talking to make your character do things. 

If you have 20 different actions a player can do, unless you are using a really funky mouse you really need the keyboard, and I dont see games really taking the vindictus minimalist model any time soon.

One thing that does seem gone is parsing text into an MMO like the old quests in everquest where you would communicate with the npc rather than choosing from menus.