... and why is this new and/or surprising? 

For as long as I've been on gaming forums there have been rabid fans blindly extolling the virtues of their game(s).  Take SWG for example, still today you'd think that game was the best thing since sliced bread and yet reality would tell differently.  There have been a few shills, and from what I've seen they've mostly been taken care of (anyone remember all the Nike and t-shirt ads :p ). 

Instead of getting upset, be the adult and ignore the petulant children (regardless of age).  With the filtering options (e.g. ignore and watch) I think you have the ability to only view the posts you find interesting.

More rigidity with selecting skills across professions.  If I remember correctly, there were 32 professions allowing players to really customize their character.  The issue was that players could go fairly deep into some of the combat trees, which wreaked havoc on defense and offense min-maxing.  Anyone remember the hour(s) long fencing duals?

Creating a truly random path to unlocking Jedi.  Holocrons were ... well to be somewhat more politically correct ... unsmart.  If the designers could create a random set of professions from an object, why not expand the system a little more to aspects of exploration and accomplishments? Unlocking Jedi should've been truly unique and not simply an act of grinding through professions.

Open the bounty system to all factions and players.  As a MBH there was nothing more I hated than to be relegated to hunting Jedi.  SOE/LA should've taken a page from CCP and opened player bounties.

Create a benefit for players to keep houses close to NPC cities.  When player cities were released a diaspora of sorts occurred.  Prior to player cities I felt a real sense of overall community in and around NPC cities. On Kettemoor, Moenia was a real hub of Rebel activity and felt like a secluded haven away from the Imperial cities, like Theed.

That's just a small list.  Of course thematically SWG's original design was simply too ambitious a project for SOE/LA.  There were few features of SWG that wasn't borked to some degree or another, but one thing people held onto was the game's Potential(tm).
 

Happy 4th!

The Secret World and Guild Wars 2 are both fine games, and both offer different (and quite good) experiences.  That said, I don't see either title holding millions of subscribers eight years after release.

Instead of the incessant nerd rage that comes with every contender, and given the state of the market, gamers should simply be happy that studios continue to invest in MMOs.

Impressive to see they've made over $40k with Kickstarter.  If anything, I hope that draws in a few larger investors.

I like what they've done so far.  First, they're creating a sandbox (even if they're calling it a hybrid), and secondly, they're using a sci-fi theme.  We need another fantasy themepark in this market like a hole in the head.

Who would forget the obese lizard running around in a chef's hat?  :p

My charater was Ico, and I believe we both started on Rori.  I remember a few battles with you in Moenia and Theed.

Originally posted by DannyGlover

People say they want new and innovative but are perfectly content saying the same thing over and over again in a forum.

Lol, perfect.

The irony with boutique studios is that gamers want to support them emotionally, but rarely financially.  I absolutely agree that boutique studios tend to be more creative with gameplay and mechanics.  The problem is that gamers somehow expect these studios to deliver the same quality and varied features out-of-the-gate.

Originally posted by ReallyNow10

Originally posted by Wolfenpride

Not sure how you can make a quest without having some form of rails. Every quest has to have some sort of goal or target.

As a start though, I think you could give players a more of a sense of exploration/discovering by not putting a giant circle on where they need to go to do the quest, but that seems to be the trend of future games.

 

Take a zone with 4 or 5 quest hubs in it.  Instead of forcing the player to go from A to B to C to D to E, in that order ONLY, allow the player to hit them in any order, or to even skip them and pick up some in another level-appropriate zone.

A to B to C to D to E is ONE variation only.

A or B or C or D or E can be mixed up (what? help me, mathematicians) 5 factorial times in combination? 

ex. 

A, C, D, E, B

A, D, E, B, C

D, B, C, A, E

etc.....

This is what quests "without rails" means.

So, have more than one level-appropriate zone to level in, and have quest hubs that can be hit, or skipped, in any order.  And the result will be player freedom and exploration.

If I read this comment correctly, this outline somewhat reflects the mission terminals in Star Wars Galaxies.  The terminals would allocate missions to the player based on their skill and equipment. 

The issue with this system is that the missions were quite repetative and didn't really do much to extend the lore of the game or area.  Star Wars Galaxies also had embedded themeparks, but those missions were mostly 'on rails' as the OP describes.

I'd love to see a creative solution to adding player created content to quest lines.  Allowing players to extend the lore without being too gimicky would be compelling.

Originally posted by DannyGlover

Im going to TSW then Repop.

Same.

I plan on playing Guild War 2, but most likely only for a month or two.  The Secret World hold the most promise, in my opinion, for bringing back some interest in a more open world.

Originally posted by ericlatrelle

And this right here is why I never come to these forums anymore.

Lol, this is a bit ironic :p

Other than World of Warcraft and the semi-annual returns to Eve, I haven't found any MMOs that have kept my attention for more than a few months.  I'm looking forward to The Repopulation, but in the meantime I'll give both The Secret World and Guild Wars 2 a go.

The genre itself is increasingly uninteresting.  When studios keep pushing out clones of fantasy themeparks year after year, at some point there's really not that much discuss.

This site still does a decent job with news events and the forums are generally interesting.

If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.

Given the state of MMOs, TSW may not be perfect, but it's not bad either.  I agree with most of the dissenting opinions on combat and character creation, and to a degree with the linearity of the world.  However, the unique story and general mechanics are solid for an early release game. 

My only concern is Funcom's history (i.e. Age of Conan).  I'm willing to give them another chance and play TSW for the initial month.  I figure in the least the story will be entertaining enough.

No blacklisting per se, I simply do more digging into a game for companies with a lackluster history.  For example, I'm leery of The Secret World soley based on my experience with Age of Conan.  Not that I personally dislike Funcom, but it's the whole 'fool me twice' thing.

The Market's a beautiful thing in this respect.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Kuppa

Originally posted by Loktofeit

...

I misunderstood the title and OP then. So the thread is just about Faction Warfare?

I was a bit confused as well after reading comments.  :P

As for faction warefare, the more factions the better in my opinion.  I think the two faction design has been fully backed, and a little boring at this point.  A three faction system adds a little more chaos, but only marginally so. 

I know we're not discussing sandboxes, but what I do like in regards to factions and pvp is the ability for players to essentially define factions.  And, mostly pvp revolves on the acquisition or sustaining of territor; giving something 'real' for players to battle for.

With respect to GW2, and SvS PvP, is I do hope the designers stea ... err borrow a lot from DAOC. 

SWG had a good crafting system ... well, at least in concept.  Not only did you have a focus on crafting as general gameplay, but crafters created some of the better items.

Additionally, people could loot components that would provide better materials.  I believe this led to a decent balance for those players who wanted to crawl through dungeons (e.g. the Geonosian Cave), while still providing viable options for the crafting community.

While I've rarely bothered with crafting myself, I still like to see a good crafting feature set.  I believe craftng helps round-out an MMO in particular; preventing sole design around dungeon crawling or singular PvP play.