While this may seem silly, i believe that having player cities/housing offer the biggest attraction in a game, I.E swg,. Because of the social interaction. Crafters,buffers, have a home to work from, and warriors/hunter types have a resting place to kick back, be in the game but not in a lag infested area such as the large cities in any game. YOU have access to stored loot in  your house/bank to trade or showoff, and have your own lil safe haven , surrounded by family and friends .  The days you dont have time to go on a Four hour quest/hunt/instance you can pop in and socialize and maybe putter around the house or set up your auctions/vendors/ etc. which leads me to the second choice.

Crafting needs to be very diverse and not generic, (forget the term i looking for) cookie cutter, but where the materials used and the skill lvl has an effect on the end item. Then the crafter should have means to set up their own shop.

YES i know, these ideas were from swg. but i am serious . pre-cu swg had this part of the game right and if other games, hopefully SGW finds ways to interject these into the game, i believe it will add the diminshin to the game that seperates it from all others.

I agree with you a game like SGW can lend its self easly to such a concept. In the shows there is a lot of go back to the home base of operations.

Well If I am limited to two things, I would say I want to see:

1. A significant battle loss aka death penalty. Too many games these days just give a temporary small  reduction in stats and maybe a corpse run, both of which amount to nothing to fear. It's important for both immersion and playability, that losing in battle has significant consequences, otherwise players won't respect the environment, they just zerg attack everything, and everyone maxes out their characters too quickly and becomes bored.

2. A Sandbox open environment. Most leveling/skill experience should be achieved from combat aka "so called grinding" to some players, instead of the curent trend of leading players by the nose from one quest to another with unrealistic stupid icons marking the questgivers and minimaps with arrows pointing the way. The trend of this linear dummied down style of gaming is killing the genre. Players should be expected to explore and decide what to do and where to go with little direction. 

I'll be really happy with player housing or a homebase. Just that is enough to keep me glued to a game.

I love sand box, I HATE having to play a game the way some one tells me it aught to be played. I hate the hand holding of step by step progress.

Agreed no risk no reward.  Im ok with no corps run or no exp loss but not boath.

It was in CoX that I for the first time realy begain to like having a base of operations. i had always over looked such parts of the games.