Most mmos drop you into a world, where you wander about with no clear purpose other than to level, get better items, and, if you PvP, beating the stuffing out of other players. 

In that environment, there is no real winning scenario.  So over the years players have devised all sorts of measuring sticks for success.    

Personally, in past mmos I have admittedly cared whether my stuff was as good or better than another guy's stuff.  Because it is a convenient way to measure if you are getting anywhere.

But my brief weekend experience with SWTOR was different.  I "met" the NPCs for my quests.  They had expressive faces, emotions and voices which seemed real to me.  They appreciated the things I did and thanked me for them.  I felt like I was making a difference.  So I didn't care so much about levels and gear.  I cared about carrying out my missions. 

I believe the validation players receive in SWTOR from their immersion in an interactive story will reduce, for some players, the usual obsession about gear.  That's not to say people won't care about their gear.  Just that many of them may not care quite as much as they have in other games. 

It used to be that when I logged on to play an mmo, I had no idea what I would be doing that night.  There were very few things I could do alone, and anything worth doing took quite a long time to do.  So I would log on and see where friends and guildmates were going.

But nowadays there are thousands of things you can do all by yourself, or quickly with a group of random people.  Goals can be set and met in one evening.  Or even in an hour. 

People simply don't need each other as much.  Only for the biggest tasks, like raids. 

It's game design, pure and simple.

Original Everquest. 

Here on the mmorpg.com message boards we argue about many things, but the one nearly universal common ground is the value of choice.

Choice of character appearance.  Choice of equipment apperance.  Choice of class and race.  Choice of build.  Choice of abilities.  Choice of skills.  And many others.

Generally speaking, the more choice a player has the happier he or she is. 

As more games enter the market, we see even more choices evolving .  In SWTOR, for example, we will be able to choose what direction a quest takes.  There is not merely one way to complete a mission.  We also can orient to a dark or light side through our choices.

In the years to come I look forward to seeing even more types of choices be introduced into mmos.  For example, what if instead of choosing a race I could design my own race?  At the character creation screen I could customize his appearance and select from among many options what attributes that race would have.  And once I create that race, it would go into a database where other players could choose that same race if they liked (a la Spore).

Of course, there is one potentially down side to choice.  Companies sometimes get nervous turning the reins over to the players because they can't foresee where those choices lead.  As in a line from the movie Easy Rider: "Oh yeah, they're gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom, but they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em. "

What other areas are there where you would you like to see  more choice?

It's the same as with nearly any human activity.  Let's take swimming.  There are a certain number of people who want to swim competitively.  They enjoy the challenge.   

The you have a much larger group of people who just want to splash around in the pool.

And then you have another still sizeable group who just want to lounge by the pool while others swim.

If you want to know what players want, which of these types of people are you asking about?  People who like a challenge? People who don't like a challenge?  People who are just hanging out? 

It makes all the difference.  But generally speaking, the more the challenge, the less people you find who are interested.

Rare mobs pop when you kill lots of trash, a la EQ.  Makes the open world relevant other than for quests.

I agree with the OP.  I had a pair of pants in EQ that I wore for 8 months (they were nice pants). 

But it is hopeless to try to undo the current system.  WoW proved that most people need/crave a constant flow of new items.  So that's how it's going to be.  It sucks, but there's no hope for any changes.

I have many criticisms of WoW, but I don't fault the size and interest of their world.  It is quite remarkable really. 

Also, I think we have more to look forward to.  SWTOR looks like it has a massive world that I personally plan to explore every inch of.

People mostly don't mind raiding.  They mind the type of people they inevitably end up having to raid with.  They mind raiders being rewarded above all others.  And they mind raiders treating non-raiders like noobs. 

Combat where success is a product of eye/hand coordination, rapid action and reaction time.  Not my cup of tea.

I am hopeful that Everquest Next will stay true to original Everquest, with a few innovations developed in Everquest II.  What I fear they will produce is WoW set in Norrath.

Recently I played EQ II and witnessed the implementation of a design decision that all classes would now have two primary stats.  Previous stats that had been important were rendered irrelevant and gave no help anymore.  So what did SOE do?  They didn't change the old gear!  So anyone whose gear was not the product of their most recent expansion now had gear that made no sense.  That is the kind of sloppy, for the moment, half assed, buy our new thing we no longer care about our old thing, mentality that has come to epitomize SOE. 

So while I hope for the best, I truly fear the worst.

When I quit WoW I did not hate it.  I was just frustrated with it.  My personal reasons:

1.  You would grind and grind at max level to get your guy to be a little better, and then hello patch day with a nerf to undo every gain you had made;

2.  They were constantly screwing with my character.  Every time I turn around they had messed with the character trees,  No other mmo (of the 9-12 I have played) changes your class abilities that often;

3.  As a primarily PvE player, I hated having to be "balanced" every time some PvPer found a new way to win in the chase each other around a pole excuse they have for arena competitions;

4.  Same old dungeons over and over and over and over;

5.  "The dance."  Guys we are in Phase 2, subparagraph A, section iii of this boss encounter.  Time for everyone to take two steps to the left while singing an Irish pub song.  It was all so terribly scripted.

Everquest monk.

Originally posted by AvatarBlade

Originally posted by Malickie

 

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Originally posted by Amathe
This game is going to make WoW look like Eve.

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Please elaborate?

Think he means it will be too easy.

Yes.

This game is going to make WoW look like Eve.

I like grouping but I have other demands on my time.  So I need to be able to solo on nights I know I will be interrupted too often to give a group my undivided attention.

I personally don't want to learn a new scheme every time I play another game.  I like that there are certain standard movements.

Originally posted by MacAllen
Playing is not testing. If that were the case, then the devs could do it easily. 4-5 folks playing the game is enough testing if playing is testing.

Beta testing is *NOT* playing, not if you're doing it right. Beta testing is breaking the game deliberately. It's going places you wouldn't normally go because some idiot might go there. It's trying to create dupe bugs deliberately.

Saying "playing is testing" is like saying "walking in your front door is security testing". A beta is trying to climb in your window, or your crawl place, things normal people would not do but random folks might.

There's a huge difference.

BioWare disagrees with you.  From a July 2, 2011 Dev post:

 (which mirrors what I said btw)

To the 'I have a lot of experience in MMO testing but BioWare invites my lousy friend instead who doesn't care' crowd:

A) We don't have any way to validate such claims.

B) Tests have several axes: Player feedback, automated metrics, and bugs. They are all valuable. Even a player that just plays and never fills out their surveys or gives any feedback is valuable to us in some form because of the playtest metrics they generate. We see what they do, where they get stuck, what classes they play, how they use their abilities, etc. If you add enough random players, these metrics become very powerful feedback by themselves. If you want to answer questions like 'where will people likely quit' the hardcore fan tester often isn't cutting it, because their tolerance for bad things is almost endless.

C) Testers that give exceptional feedback are, of course, very useful. In those cases, we do take steps to retain them.

 

There are quite a lot of PvPers who aren't having fun unless they are absolutely sure that you're not.

My advice is: Find the links to the websites of some guilds you think you might like.  Then read their message boards.  If they're talking and having a good time on their message boards, chances are they do the same in game.