So I'm trying this out, and for a facebook game it isn't horrible. I just wish it was a little bit more sped up, but hey, that's just me.  On a scale from 1 to 10, and me being only level 10 and going slowly up from there, I'd give it a 6.

I'm not a sony fan boy, just starting off with that, but I am not 100% blaming sony on this. They attacked someone intially that hacked their property, the software of the PS3. One hacking group, Anonymous,  claimed they would retaliate against Sony.  With a whipping boy in place, it set in motion for other hackers (and a good hacker can crack pretty much anything) to take from Sony, with blame being diverted by them.

I see nothing wrong with a mage that has slowly trained up his skills as a swordsman being able to utilize one in combat. Ok, if not a sword, then his trusty staff that can deal massive damage in real life. Customization of your toon initally is not a priority for me, but throughout the game, I would love chacnes to tweak him out little by little.

I miss my house in SWG on Rori.  Just a nice out of the way place that was fun to assecorize. Mine was very utilitarian, though had a couple of beasts that I created guarding it from would be pests :) .

what we need again, is a true sandbox that doesn't make things too difficult. In some ways, though I enjoyed it, EvE is a difficult game, especially to break into.  You keep on hitting walls and have to way days/weeks/months to truly succeed at the next plateau. It needn't be a space mmo or whatever type of futuristic theme. As the above article, instead of a machine to make things for you, you "apprentice(s)" could do it for you. Maybe a little bit slower than you yourself could make it, but, for a little cash, and some time, it would be done while you were doing other things.

Actually, if you watch the second anime, Rockman EXE, and made that theory into a MMO, it could be fairly fun.  I will agree though that it should be more of a FPS than a standard RPG, at least for basic weapons.

Ok, I've read most of the posts, and what I'm seeing is that people are afraid of high level players strong arming low levels and not allowing them fair competition.  I enjoy crafting, I'm more of a hobbyist.  I've played several games with crafting, SWG as a bio-engineer, bitch of a job to get.  EvE, mainly crafted ammo for self use.  EQ, got into crafting there so I could get the port potion, or whatever it was called, as a beastlord.

Now EvE has a robust trading system. People have been playing that game for years.  Just using their profits, they are able to play for free.  High level resources are primarirly found in 0.0 and below, medium 0.1 to 0.7 (I think), and low anything from 0.8 on, gross simplification.  Certain locations in that game have a fast turn over, low prices, and availability of items, Jita for example (shudders).  The further you go out from hubs, the more expensive items get.  Now you could always go to Jita and get whatever you need for the cheapest possible price, but you would have to travel there, which can and does take hours.  Or you can go to whatever is closer to you, pay a premium price, but get back to doing what you were doing before you went shopping.  Time is money after all.

As a new player in EvE, you can start making money right away, just start mining, and before long, you'll feel like you have a lot of money.  Admittedly, an experienced player in the same place can make significantly more profit than a newbie, especially due to having larger cargo holds.  By not having the primary way of selling being an AH, there is a more controlled economy.  Yes, some things get inflated every time new compenents/ships come out, but it is a good economy.

On the crafting side, it's boring. It is utterly down right boring.  Get resources needed, go to a factory set queue, start, wait and done.  Yes, you can research to make better items, but in the whole scheme of things, it's a boring process.  I could have skills to make significantly harder items than Tier 1 ammo, but my tier 1 ammo will turn out the exact same t1 ammo, that a newbie with minimal training makes, though quicker and with fewer resources.  Now ammo in EvE is something that shouldn't be meddled with, but ship components, I would love to train skills to make, say, an afterburner that increases speed by X, based on, maybe not a minigame, but heck, a roll of a die.

Here would be my semi perfect crafting economy scheme.

1. Resources should be easily available.  Maybe instanced as one poster mention, or maybe just a big, eventually, expendable piles (ie Asteroid belts in EvE).  If the resources are instanced, to help with botting, have randomly spawning mosters.  Maybe it won't stop, altogether, botting, but it will hinder it.
2. Items crafted should be competitive with dropped items.  I'm not saying they have to be better, or even equal, but if you want a Long Sword of Fury +6, you can either buy it, or camp a mob that may drop it and instead get the Long Sword of Fury +6 which decreases attack time by half a second.  Also make it that an item has a slim chance of lasting indefinitely, unless never used.  For a fantasy game that Sword of Fury is getting used alot, you need to repair and you do, it's not going to be as good as it was before, type, it might need repaired a little sooner next time.  Eventually the sword won't be worthwile having and you'll have to replace it, and not just because you got to old for it.
3. Make items be different based on each crafter.  Have skill trees that increase certain stats.  Say one for fire. The crafter that is on the fire tree makes weapons that deal fire damage and armors that defend against fire.  Have each skill level be significantly more expensive than the previous one.  So, someone that focuses solely on fire buffs might make a high level sword have a +200 damage.  And someone that dabbled in fire buffs might only be able to add +30 but since he has other skills, might be able to add +2 to str.  And since each crafter can have their own, semi unique items, players should be willing to buy more items based on situations they are going into.
4. Don't just make armor and weapon making the best crafting class.  Make all crafting neccessary.  That apothecary class, make buffs that last and stack with player buffs, and make them last long enough that you aren't afraid to buy them and use them.  If crafting is level based, a level 10 crafter should be making items that are needed/useable/an option for players of that level.  Don't make it that if you are a level 10 crafter, that your items are for level 5 characters.
5. Copy EvE's marketplace. I personally love it, at least for a Science based game.  For something more fantasyish, and this is going to be stretching it, but have a simple market report that players can look at the shows average prices for the region they are in by the previous day, week, month, and year.  That's the only thing I can think about fantasy

There are probably a few more thins I could think of, but, hmmm, it's an idea

Beta for some of the easy to get in ones, like the Perfect World game on the MMORPG.com homepage. Use those as examples of games you have BETA'd. Also, have a unique rig to play games on, and it doesn't have to be state of the art, it can be a mid or even low level rig, it gives the developers variations to play with

I played this in the original beta and a little when it got released. From what they are saying about having the item mall, you just are able to pay for stuff that you'd be able to get through crafting or using in game money originally.

Also, for what the game was, the $10 a month wasn't worth it, unless you played Thul and got your research through battling, otherwise everything you can do is web based and is not really worth it...

It's a niche game, a lot of people will hate it, and there'll be some that things it's great

I am currently able to quit an MMO whenever I feel like it.  Though, when I first tried to quit EQ, I quit because I was playing entirely too much, it was hard.  I was still enjoying the game, just got fed up with it.  I donated all my items to one of my guild mates, and told my guild leader I was leaving.  After that, just so I wouldn't just resume my account right away, I deleted my character.  I admit, he was only like level 35, when the cap was still 6, but still...

Since then, I have resubbed and started new subs to a whole heck of a lot MMO's and I'm able to quit as soon as I need to, either through boredom, or need for real life.  Just started school back up, and I am MMO free since I started it, though it does help that I haven't had time, or really interest any in MMO since starting back

Closest I can think of is EvE, not that it's a high fantasy game.  But it has diplomacy, ability to control "zones", etc

I'm not a programmer, but I have played around with it a little. But I assume your buildings take "X" amount of time to build, correct, assuming you have no mods working around with it, you could probably, at the begininng of the build, find the end time and basically divide current time from end time to find percentage done.  I honestly don't know of that would work...but it sounds like it might to me

Out at a bar one night with my friends and we were talking about it. Done right Pokemon would be something cool for an MMO.  I'm not sure if it would completely work but....

And one other series of books would be cool... Xanth. This is a series by Piers Anthony and I could definitely see that being fun, especially if they randomly generated a magic ability for each and every person with repeating of abilities