No, I'm not about to introduce you to such a game, just saying that I think there would definitely be a market for such a game; I'm surprised no developer has gone there yet.

I think a game like UWO made with "Western" game-design philosophies and values would be excellent.

I understand that PotBS is made by a Western developer, however my biggest gripe about that game is that... you're trapped in the Carribean, at an age that was all about exploring and colonising the world.

Then there is EVE, which I acknowledge has some excellent gameplay features. It would be great to transfer some of those features into an Age of Sail game.

I think Neverwinter's Foundry system, whether it succeeds in itself or not, does open a new way forward for the genre.

We all know that the speed at which players 'consume' traditional themepark content is phenomenal. But we also know that there is a huge untapped pool of creative talent out there - the players themselves. Marry the two together - voila.

We've already seen this happen in other genres. Many single player games outlasted their "expiry date" by virtue of user-created mods, where in some cases the mods gained greater acclaim & fame than the original themepark that was shipped. Also things like scenario editors, campaign editors etc have existed in other genres for ages - let's not forget where DoTA (and its 'heirs') came from! A number of MUDs already have player-designed dungeons and quests that have become part of their persistent world.

Obviously translating these things to MMOs will not be easy and aspects of it will be technically (very) challenging. But hey, it's 2012; I think it's do-able; at least to some extent. Ignoring the technical side of things, the potentials are great: user-created dungeons, pvp battlegrounds, questlines, zones... The developers can in turn focus on creating and churning out new assets and tools for the players to use in their designs.

Obviously this lends itself more towards instance-based games, where we could join an "instance" of user-generated content. But it's also potentially possible in larger persistent worlds - e.g. players could elect to 'trial' the content on a separate test server, and if deemed 'good enough' it could be voted to become part of the game world.

Any suggestions?

Basically I'm looking for a game that is nigh-impossible to solo, preferably right from the early game :)

Yes, it's not a "quirky" mount, nor did it introduce any groundbreaking features;

But how could we have a mount thread without mention of it :)

I still think Ashes of Al'ar is one of the most beautiful, elegant mounts I've seen in an MMO.

Plus it's bright orange-red colours really do contrast well with the rest of the (WoW) universe. It really does scream "look at me!" even from very far away.

And to cap it off, there is a touching story about the very first owner of this mount.