Originally posted by maplestone

Originally posted by Banaghran

These games more often than not offer equipment , experience and skills in a cashshop, does that mean that equip, experience and skills are put into the game just to milk the cashshop, and should be abandoned altogether? :)

Flame on!

So no flames needed - I agree with you.  If anything is boosted/accelerated in a cash shop, it means people are paying real money to *not* play the game ... which calls into question what the entertainment value of that feature was in first place.

What is the entertainment value of building a plastic model when you can buy the finished thing?

Flame on!

:) 

Originally posted by Banaghran

Originally posted by maplestone

Originally posted by Banaghran

These games more often than not offer equipment , experience and skills in a cashshop, does that mean that equip, experience and skills are put into the game just to milk the cashshop, and should be abandoned altogether? :)

Flame on!

So no flames needed - I agree with you.  If anything is boosted/accelerated in a cash shop, it means people are paying real money to *not* play the game ... which calls into question what the entertainment value of that feature was in first place.

What is the entertainment value of building a plastic model when you can buy the finished thing?

Flame on!

:) 

What if you want to play this interesting dungeon but the prerequiest is to kill 5000 rats with your sword or buy a poison in the cashshop for 5$ that can instantly kill 5000 rats.

I mean, what you really want to do is do the dungeon but not kill 5000 rats with your sword.

Anyway, I think we are getting offtopic.

Originally posted by LauraFrost

 

The reason why most recent MMORPGs are boring is because they are just too convenient.

When you design an MMORPG that probably aiming to use a subscription model you need to create an environment where the player can delve into for long playing time feeling that they "belong". It is when developers started to turn the world into a "game" of convenience that players started to feel more of being in a "themepark" than being in a world. (and sandbox has nothing to do with it).

 

The key here is we're so spoiled that everything is made easy to the point that "getting there" feels pointless and effortless. You don't feel accomplishment at all because it's a fact no matter who you are, you WILL achieve everything eventually (which is usually within a few days).

 

If traveling is too easy, death is unimportant and leveling is very linear and fast.... then what's the point???

 

Adding such inconveniences to the "World" would give you enough design options to add player-intederependence skills that help overcome such inconveniences. Traveling is too slow? you give, say, 30% of the classes abilities to overcome such a thing (teleporting, speed boost...etc).

 

The old timers always ask "Why can't I even convince myself to login in?" part of this because there's no sense of "investment" in your character. Everything feels very generic and again too convenient.

If every 2 minutes you're going to loot a gear upgrade, I say tell me why would you feel excited about gear upgrade anymore? I think we need to balance the pace of a game. Traveling pace, combat, leveling and gear upgrade. I think if it takes you 5 days in order to get a minor upgrade would actually make the item a lot more exciting than the recent trivial/redundaness of itemization in the insta-gratification MMORPGs.

 

 

 

 I cant see how death penalty or long travel time can add any joiment to any game. Other reasons are cousing games to be less fun to play than those two you mention.

For people who want convenience in an MMORPG, adding inconvenience is not likely to be seen as a positive.

Different day, same general concept:  Players don't all want the same things in an MMORPG.

For myself, I was quite displeased when WoW removed the need to carry ammunition for my hunter.  I felt it was an appropriate detail as part of gameplay.  However, the masses cheered the change as removing an inconvenience.  I see this as a clear illustration of how a developer will cater to the masses and disregard minority preferences.

WOW!! You guys should give up MMOs. Its like drugs. You do it for years just to get the same high you got when you first started. And you never get the same high down the road.

Unless technology changes, there will still be the same shitty MMOs being released. Its all about money.

GO OUT AND GET LAID AND FORGET MMOs!

Originally posted by Banaghran

You must have played some very simplistic muds then, you know, kinda hard to argue if someone approaches you with "the frozen pizza they sell at the local 7/11 is crap, all italian food is crap and everyone should eat hamburgers".

I remember teleport disabled zones that DID make your life more challenging and where abilities like run energy regeneration or carry capacity would shine, not even mentioning fighting with penalties, in a area where you cannot regenerate, we would use the special (racial, class or quest gained) teleports to go to town and then back as mana batteries in a proper "raid", good times....

Just the consideration that a thief would be able to go on forever exping in a hostile environment while a mage would have to find ways to escape (ways to travel?) once in a while to regain mana seems so completely outlandish these days...

Flame on!

:)

Relax, no 'mine's bigger' required.

Yep, we had lots of rooms flagged +noteleport, as well as the more specific +noteleportin and +noteleportout. It honestly rarely equated to "more challenging", but I guess if you add up hundreds of rather insignifcant individual restrictions, you'll achieve enough cumulative "inconveniences" to justify some minor chest-thumping.

Largely reliant on the degree of latent sadism of your room painters, I suppose. :shrug: Games in the 80-90s really could be made "hard as hell" just by piling on enough cumulative frustrations--and coders weren't at all shy about doing it, either.

We love to stretch and tell these youngsters how easy they had it, my games were all uphill, both ways, through the snow, all the time.

I just hope not many of the youngsters buy it...because the truth is that it's largely exaggeration driven by nostalgia and the previously mentioned Iyamso hardc0re pose-and-flex dance.

Originally posted by Banaghran

What is the entertainment value of building a plastic model when you can buy the finished thing?

Do not try and buy the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.  There is no spoon.

Originally posted by apb2011

GO OUT AND GET LAID AND FORGET MMOs!

People keep telling me things like this, but it always turns out they weren't volunteering.

I see absolutely no reason you cannot mix the old with the new and make a decent MMORPG.

Old most would like to see again...

- Open seamless world (or fairly close at least) .

- Quests that are quests (Deep stories and longer to complete with a decent reward you will use awhile). Epic Chain quests.

- Robust economy via meaningful crafting. (Crafted items better than world drops and better than some raid drops.

- Travel that allows exploration and gives the world a large feel to it.

New to innovate the above...

- Make the world more unique...with less copy and paste scenery and more unique landmarks. Hidden dungeons, random events.

- Chain quests taking you to several locations world-wide to complete with possible arching storylines or options for a varied result. Also helps with giving travel a point. Just quests with purpose, interesting stories, and that effect the world or player reputation.

- Crafting needs a real purpose, and needs to be relevant.  I'm not saying crafted gear has to be the absolute best in-game. As some raiding that requires 25 players should be the best...but possibly making some crafted gear on par....so players can buy gear from players if they are not into Raiding...but those that choose to raid don't get the short end of the stick because others could buy better.

- Travel. World travel is a must. But that isn't to say I am against instant travel. Traveling that same path for the 1000th time can get boring. So I feel (personally) portals should be an option to certain locations (Major hubs). But limited and not overdone.

I see no reason such things as ships to take from one continent  to another cannot be done. Why can there not be things to do at the port whiel awaiting a ship? Small PvP arenas, games players can play for coin, a small trader's post players can browse or haggle, a tavern for players to mingle.

Anyways, I feel so much can be done to take away the wait and same old issues players complain about...but so many developer's do so little to actually do so. Personally I feel it's because players settle for what they get, so the dev's feel little need to go that extra mile. If they keep paying, why bother?

Originally posted by Kyleran
The quote from Raph Koster in my sig sums it up best, one man's inconvenience is another person's challenge. How are developers to know which of them to cater to? There in lies the real heart of the debate. Generally speaking they try to cater to the largest audience to maximize revenues/profits.

Surveys? Player responds and complains?

And of course they cater to the largest audience. Is there a reason to cater to the smallest?

Personlly, i don't play a game to travel. Given that there are millions playing MMOs, i doubt many share this "lack of motive to log on".

Originally posted by Goatgod76

I see absolutely no reason you cannot mix the old with the new and make a decent MMORPG.

 

Old most would like to see again...

- Open seamless world (or fairly close at least) .

- Quests that are quests (Deep stories and longer to complete with a decent reward you will use awhile). Epic Chain quests.

- Robust economy via meaningful crafting. (Crafted items better than world drops and better than some raid drops.

- Travel that allows exploration and gives the world a large feel to it.

Great ideas, but some problems.  First off, when crafted items are better than anything you can get from a mob, it creates a grind roadblock, where someone will have to grind constantly to gather enough money to pay for the better items.  There's really no fun in that.  Secondly, while I have nothing against travel, and it might be exciting the first couple of times you go to a certain place, by the time you've been there 8-10x, you don't want to see the same old tired environment anymore, along with the same old tired random mobs.  You just want to get there and have fun *NOW*, not trudge through things you've already seen over and over again.

 

New to innovate the above...

- Make the world more unique...with less copy and paste scenery and more unique landmarks. Hidden dungeons, random events.

- Chain quests taking you to several locations world-wide to complete with possible arching storylines or options for a varied result. Also helps with giving travel a point. Just quests with purpose, interesting stories, and that effect the world or player reputation.

- Crafting needs a real purpose, and needs to be relevant.  I'm not saying crafted gear has to be the absolute best in-game. As some raiding that requires 25 players should be the best...but possibly making some crafted gear on par....so players can buy gear from players if they are not into Raiding...but those that choose to raid don't get the short end of the stick because others could buy better.

- Travel. World travel is a must. But that isn't to say I am against instant travel. Traveling that same path for the 1000th time can get boring. So I feel (personally) portals should be an option to certain locations (Major hubs). But limited and not overdone.

I see no reason such things as ships to take from one continent  to another cannot be done. Why can there not be things to do at the port whiel awaiting a ship? Small PvP arenas, games players can play for coin, a small trader's post players can browse or haggle, a tavern for players to mingle.

Anyways, I feel so much can be done to take away the wait and same old issues players complain about...but so many developer's do so little to actually do so. Personally I feel it's because players settle for what they get, so the dev's feel little need to go that extra mile. If they keep paying, why bother?

Problems galore here.  First, hidden dungeons never stay hidden for long, once they're found, they're mapped in detail on the wiki, the secrets last maybe until the end of the first day, then they're no longer hidden.  I do like the idea of truly random dungeons that move once a day to a wholly new location, but again, if there's a pattern, it won't be long until someone works that out and it's up on the wiki.  Secondly, we have the typical problem with the "you're a  hero" nonsense, I have yet to play any of these games where I have ever felt like a hero, nor that anything I did made a demonstrable difference in the world.  It just doesn't.  Everything you do, everyone else has already done.  So what?  If you fail, the world doesn't end, if you succeed, the world doesn't improve.  It just  goes on.  Crafting has no real purpose, in most  games, every single smith makes the exact same sword from the exact same ingredients.  You can't tell who made what because they're all the same.  Perhaps the biggest problem is that most people just don't want to wait at all, they have limited time to play the game and they don't want to waste it screwing around waiting for a ship to arrive.  I want to go where I need to go and do what I want to do.  Wasting an hour wandering around in the wilderness to get to fun content is just not what I'm playing the game to do.

Sorry, it just doesn't work for the majority of MMO players.

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Goatgod76

I see absolutely no reason you cannot mix the old with the new and make a decent MMORPG.

 

Old most would like to see again...

- Open seamless world (or fairly close at least) .

- Quests that are quests (Deep stories and longer to complete with a decent reward you will use awhile). Epic Chain quests.

- Robust economy via meaningful crafting. (Crafted items better than world drops and better than some raid drops.

- Travel that allows exploration and gives the world a large feel to it.

Great ideas, but some problems.  First off, when crafted items are better than anything you can get from a mob, it creates a grind roadblock, where someone will have to grind constantly to gather enough money to pay for the better items.  There's really no fun in that.  Secondly, while I have nothing against travel, and it might be exciting the first couple of times you go to a certain place, by the time you've been there 8-10x, you don't want to see the same old tired environment anymore, along with the same old tired random mobs.  You just want to get there and have fun *NOW*, not trudge through things you've already seen over and over again.

 

New to innovate the above...

- Make the world more unique...with less copy and paste scenery and more unique landmarks. Hidden dungeons, random events.

- Chain quests taking you to several locations world-wide to complete with possible arching storylines or options for a varied result. Also helps with giving travel a point. Just quests with purpose, interesting stories, and that effect the world or player reputation.

- Crafting needs a real purpose, and needs to be relevant.  I'm not saying crafted gear has to be the absolute best in-game. As some raiding that requires 25 players should be the best...but possibly making some crafted gear on par....so players can buy gear from players if they are not into Raiding...but those that choose to raid don't get the short end of the stick because others could buy better.

- Travel. World travel is a must. But that isn't to say I am against instant travel. Traveling that same path for the 1000th time can get boring. So I feel (personally) portals should be an option to certain locations (Major hubs). But limited and not overdone.

I see no reason such things as ships to take from one continent  to another cannot be done. Why can there not be things to do at the port whiel awaiting a ship? Small PvP arenas, games players can play for coin, a small trader's post players can browse or haggle, a tavern for players to mingle.

Anyways, I feel so much can be done to take away the wait and same old issues players complain about...but so many developer's do so little to actually do so. Personally I feel it's because players settle for what they get, so the dev's feel little need to go that extra mile. If they keep paying, why bother?

Problems galore here.  First, hidden dungeons never stay hidden for long, once they're found, they're mapped in detail on the wiki, the secrets last maybe until the end of the first day, then they're no longer hidden.  I do like the idea of truly random dungeons that move once a day to a wholly new location, but again, if there's a pattern, it won't be long until someone works that out and it's up on the wiki.  Secondly, we have the typical problem with the "you're a  hero" nonsense, I have yet to play any of these games where I have ever felt like a hero, nor that anything I did made a demonstrable difference in the world.  It just doesn't.  Everything you do, everyone else has already done.  So what?  If you fail, the world doesn't end, if you succeed, the world doesn't improve.  It just  goes on.  Crafting has no real purpose, in most  games, every single smith makes the exact same sword from the exact same ingredients.  You can't tell who made what because they're all the same.  Perhaps the biggest problem is that most people just don't want to wait at all, they have limited time to play the game and they don't want to waste it screwing around waiting for a ship to arrive.  I want to go where I need to go and do what I want to do.  Wasting an hour wandering around in the wilderness to get to fun content is just not what I'm playing the game to do.

Sorry, it just doesn't work for the majority of MMO players.

I said crafted items better than mob drops yes...but that doesn't mean they still won't be of use.

You have to figure in a game where crafted items are better than world mob drops they are going to be pricey. Face it..players are greedy. And again, if player made items are better than world mob drops...they will ask more for them, especially after they went through the trouble to collect the items to make it and then actually make the item. So not all players will be able to afford them right away or if even at all in some cases. So the mob drops will still be useful to players...and wouldn't be completely useless.

For travel, I stated it was open world, but also there would be need for some portals, mainly in major hubs...but these could be spaced out so you don't have to travel to any given point very far. Make them discoverable to use. Nothign saying there can't be classes that have the ability to port players either. Have several methods of travel...the ports, ships, maybe like in Vanguard and have rentable flying mounts you can fly anywhere but are on a limited timer for use.

Yes, I know that it would not take long for hidden areas to no longer be hidden...I am not nieve nough to think otherwise. I just didn't want to write a novel explaining EVERYTHING in great detail...as I am not pitchign this to actual dev's. But such "hidden" dungeons could be instanced. Every day, few hours...whenever decided on, they could (If possible) be changed out in pattern. or who's to say every patch or other patch a new passage couldn't be added inthe form of a collapsed wall, previously blocked path opening via apparent quake, etc.

Crafting could be more aesthetics than stats. If a photoshop style interface coudl be incorporated for crafters to have the ability to craft pieces, and then rearrange them as they wish for unique looks to go along with stats.

My problem with this... "Perhaps the biggest problem is that most people just don't want to wait at all, they have limited time to play the game and they don't want to waste it screwing around waiting for a ship to arrive.  I want to go where I need to go and do what I want to do.  Wasting an hour wandering around in the wilderness to get to fun content is just not what I'm playing the game to do."

Why are you playing MMORPG's then? Seriously...I am asking. I don't get those who can't make time for them, but want to play them. This is why there are console RPG's...you can save or pause when you wish and quit on a whim. Yet...everyone wants them to be now now now gimme gimme gimme this second, effectively rendering them...well, NOT MMORPG's.

And yeah yeah....I know a few who are going to say "MMORPG's aren't meant to be anything but fun games." Which yes, is true...as far as fun games. But they are a seperate genre, like it or not, from console gaming for the reason they were meant for longer term, more commitment fun. They started for P&P geeks...which MANY of which are still around. That doesn't mean they ALL have to be that form, but a few would be nice, and CAN be a slower pace and thrive if done right....despite what some here may think.

The problems with going back to that style of MMORPG occur when you think about both generations that are currently playing the games and all the in between. 

First there is an entire generation of gamers that played back when MMORPG's first came out, those people were already fans of pretty difficult games, and enjoyed progression towards items that can take a while to get. Usually used to having to map out things, or explore everything to find what they need. Quests had riddles or took a while to figure out what to do or where to go, pvp was looked down upon if it wasn't wanted by one of the players. Travel took a long period of time, getting from a point to your objective could take an hour if you were running on foot, or if you had enough hours put into the game you had a mount that could get you there a little bit faster, teleporting was unheard of. 

Then you have the generation now, who came into the genre starting with WoW after burning crusade came out, or games similar to that where everything was convenient already. They are used to teleporting to destinations, easy to read maps with quests highlighted for them, quests consisting nearly always of killing certain mobs and collecting certain items, and focused mainly on end game things like dungeon running and raiding. Pvp for them is ganking and arena style pvp.

The problem with including anything from the older generation of MMORPG players games into newer games is that it sends the newer players into shock, they aren't used to having to run for an hour to get anywhere, so it isn't fun at all for them. They didn't grow up on games requiring them to explore to gain a sense of adventure, their adventure came from other means, flying around on a mount that goes 300% speed or teleporting into a new area or seeing that new dungeon finally. Older players can't see that as adventure because they don't see how anyone can have fun doing mindless endgame running, or doing yet another new raid. I think theres a market for both types of games, and only a couple games have tried to do both, one of which being Archeage. I started playing MMORPG games back when Lineage 2 came out, so around the time that they started sucking in the masses for WoW, and I remember back when I started having to run forever to get between towns and it honestly felt normal to me. But now if I tried to do that because the convenience was there it doesn't feel the same.

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by maplestone

Perahps one of the simplest examples of how messy this concept gets is travel time.  If you were a developer, how long should you make players hold down the w key to get from one hub to the next.  Is it a complete waste of the player's valuable time?   Is it a check on over-efficient consumption of content?  Or is required part of building a sense of geography, isolation and anticipation?  Is it all of these at once?

My opinions on this are all over the map (and not always consistent with each other), but one of the trends that is setting off alarm bells for me is the notion of cash-shops being used to bypass inconvenience, that the idea of the sole reason an inconcenience exists in a game is to be a motivation for people to pay real money to get past it.  It freaks me out to look around on forums and see other people *not* having the same alarmed reaction, just taking it in stride.  It's a humbling reminder to me that I still have a lot to learn about how other people think.

Good point. If OP really thinks inconveniences are the key, he/she should try playing F2P games for free. There will be plenty of inconveniences there.

This argument is the exam same argument when people said "if you dislike instant-teleportation from polar opposite points of the world, then don't use that just walk!"... Do I even need to explain why this is retarded?

The difficulties in a world sets the pace of the game. It's the inter-connection between you, other players and the world. If your group were teleported in Castle Ravenloft in 1 second because they touched a blinking neon sign, it doesn't matter if you walk the path 10 minutes... because the actual distance to that dungeon is 1 second. That's it, that's the fact. Your friends, the community, everyone else can reach that point in one second it makes no sense for you to forcing yourself to take a longer route.

It's like saying "Run in circles around yourself for 10 minutes to make taking 3 steps in a city feels longer." Why would I want to do that?

Originally posted by maplestone

Originally posted by apb2011

GO OUT AND GET LAID AND FORGET MMOs!

People keep telling me things like this, but it always turns out they weren't volunteering.

Lol I would volunteer *wink* :P

Originally posted by Icewhite

Relax, no 'mine's bigger' required.

Yep, we had lots of rooms flagged +noteleport, as well as the more specific +noteleportin and +noteleportout. It honestly rarely equated to "more challenging", but I guess if you add up hundreds of rather insignifcant individual restrictions, you'll achieve enough cumulative "inconveniences" to justify some minor chest-thumping.

Largely reliant on the degree of latent sadism of your room painters, I suppose. :shrug: Games in the 80-90s really could be made "hard as hell" just by piling on enough cumulative frustrations--and coders weren't at all shy about doing it, either.

We love to stretch and tell these youngsters how easy they had it, my games were all uphill, both ways, through the snow, all the time.

I just hope not many of the youngsters buy it...because the truth is that it's largely exaggeration driven by nostalgia and the previously mentioned Iyamso hardc0re pose-and-flex dance.

So we are once again at the point when someone divides the challenges into those he does not like and calls them grind, tedious, frustrating and inconvenient and those he likes and calls them interesting and challenging...

Is that the best you can do? Cannot the requirement to advance just one square with a pawn be considered "frustrating, latent sadism" ? The player just wants another queen at the opposite side of the board...

Flame on!

:)

Originally posted by laokoko

I mean, what you really want to do is do the dungeon but not kill 5000 rats with your sword.

 

Isnt that the underlying main problem? The dungeon being a significantly different experience from the killing the rats to the point it feels forced? Leveling vs endgame anyone?

Flame on!

:)

Originally posted by Panther2103

The problem with including anything from the older generation of MMORPG players games into newer games is that it sends the newer players into shock, they aren't used to having to run for an hour to get anywhere, so it isn't fun at all for them. They didn't grow up on games requiring them to explore to gain a sense of adventure, their adventure came from other means, flying around on a mount that goes 300% speed or teleporting into a new area or seeing that new dungeon finally. Older players can't see that as adventure because they don't see how anyone can have fun doing mindless endgame running, or doing yet another new raid. I think theres a market for both types of games, and only a couple games have tried to do both, one of which being Archeage. I started playing MMORPG games back when Lineage 2 came out, so around the time that they started sucking in the masses for WoW, and I remember back when I started having to run forever to get between towns and it honestly felt normal to me. But now if I tried to do that because the convenience was there it doesn't feel the same.

This is a non-issue to the point of becoming a strawman.

There are more than enough youngsters slacking around in older games or getting bored with newer ones, and the bar is set rather low, 200k subs for a 50m project.

What you will not have is the initial 500k+ players, but you also dont always need 50m to produce it.

Flame on!

:)

Originally posted by Banaghran

Originally posted by Icewhite

Relax, no 'mine's bigger' required.

Yep, we had lots of rooms flagged +noteleport, as well as the more specific +noteleportin and +noteleportout. It honestly rarely equated to "more challenging", but I guess if you add up hundreds of rather insignifcant individual restrictions, you'll achieve enough cumulative "inconveniences" to justify some minor chest-thumping.

Largely reliant on the degree of latent sadism of your room painters, I suppose. :shrug: Games in the 80-90s really could be made "hard as hell" just by piling on enough cumulative frustrations--and coders weren't at all shy about doing it, either.

We love to stretch and tell these youngsters how easy they had it, my games were all uphill, both ways, through the snow, all the time.

I just hope not many of the youngsters buy it...because the truth is that it's largely exaggeration driven by nostalgia and the previously mentioned Iyamso hardc0re pose-and-flex dance.

So we are once again at the point when someone divides the challenges into those he does not like and calls them grind, tedious, frustrating and inconvenient and those he likes and calls them interesting and challenging...

Is that the best you can do? Cannot the requirement to advance just one square with a pawn be considered "frustrating, latent sadism" ? The player just wants another queen at the opposite side of the board...

Flame on!

:)

The guy is deluded and ignoring actual game mechanics that are NO LONGER AVAILABLE in the market and claiming that it's all "nostalgia" that's moot and I've listed plenty of game mechanics that I still want to see re-implemented. Sometimes I want to make a survey on who actually argues against what we're trying to say I bet you most of them are incapable of thinking outside the box because simply their only experience is being in the box. They are incapable of comprehending what we explain because they have no actual experience of doing something different that they can relate to.

Arguing is pointless with someone who doesn't grasp the concept, just ignore and move on I say. :)

Imo the key is finding a middle ground. If a game is too difficult, it's going to have a small audience, because that appeals to a smaller group of people. Casual games appeal to many more players. However, if you look at the chat when recent games have launched you see a ton of complaints about the lack of challenge. TOR had a poll on its forums a bit before it launched and over half the players thought the game was too easy.

I think basically what we're seeing now is that the earlier titles were too difficult to use. From the interface, to the learning curve and harsh penalties. It turned off many players before they got to the fun parts. WoW really streamlined a lot of things and made gameplay much easier. And it struck gold. But since WoW most titles have followed suit, but continuned to make things even easier. To the point where now you rarely see a game that doesn't have arrows to every quest stage, or where you should ever die in the first 10 hours without being a bonehead. And now you have players revolting against that. Maybe it's time to find a happy medium somewhere in between.

So how can change to find that medium?

The linear quest hub approach worked great for WoW, and has been cloned by pretty much everyone. It's hard to argue that it wasn't a huge upgrade from mindless grinding of mobs for experience. But as games have continued to get easier it's to the point now where players just go through the motions. They don't care about the quest descriptions, all they care about is consuming all the quests in this hub and then walking 3 minutes up the road to the next one and doing all of those there. There is absolutely no challenge, no mystique and no feeling that you aren't doing the exact same thing as every other player. Imo quests should be challenging. They shouldn't be linear. The problem is that if your making quests your way to grind to maximum level, players will gravitate towards whatever quest is the best experience in the least amount of time. They won't do difficult quests early on. That's where I feel skills based games can excel, they remove that from the equation. But I think that level based games can also use more difficult quests and less linearity but they need to make it worth the players while.

I think death penalties could be made a bit more difficult. Not going back to the experience loss of earlier games, or perma death of some newer ones. But making it a little more troublesome would help provide more of a sense of accomplishment when something is done, and prevent as many zergs. People are less likely to charge brainlessly into death when it affects their gameplay.

I think there needs to be more of a focus on group oriented content. And I'm not just talking about GW2's events, which are a step in the right direction, but are in themselves a solo act for the most part. Real grouping and socializing should be encouraged, though not forced. Part of the fun of those early games was that you had to meet people to maximize your potential, and that led to many positive things. It's just not there now. How often do players group with people they don't know unless it's just to kill a quest mob and then disband? In GW2 your often playing with 20 other people, but how often do you even talk to each other? Auto-grouping systems, experience bonuses for grouping, shared quest rewards, are a few things that can be done here and will make a huge difference.

Instant travel is a touchy subject, because it has its place. I do feel like a travel home ability that has a long recharge and casting time is important in any game. But lately games have begun to go to extremes. In GW2 the instant teleports everywhere just help to make a very large world feel small. And if you get into open world PvP, teleportation is a real problem.

That's just a few examples. But finding a middle ground is the key imo.