Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

1) The one core basic feature would you 100% expect to be in, and expect to be perfected at launch, bug free and "cool"

Exellent animations. They need to be fluid any my characters abilities have to be represented well. This also makes it possible to judge what other people are doing in the game just by visual cues. If this is not done well I lose interest at once. Oh and stuff like good idle animations is also great for making the game seem alive. An example of a game that does this well is of course WoW.

2) What one thing that hasn"t been done well, or at all, in any MMO, would you most like to see as a thoroughly fleshed out mechanic/content piece/UI feature?

Can"t think of anything at the top of my head that has never been done well that I really want. Sorry, not very helpful.

orcmauler said:

Realistically I don"t think this feeling can or maybe even should be replicated. EQ"s system, for better or worse is a halcyon reminder of the "good old days." And this reminiscence falls apart in the new generation of games (Vanguard, EQ2).

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This.

Now, I don"t wanna get into a EQ nostalgia discussion. There"s been enough of that. But, more in line with these discussions, I"m not so convinced that that "heroic" feeling that EQ provided can be replicated either.

Here"s the problem. The reason you felt "Heroic" or powerful in EQ was because other players of similar stature weren"t. For example, not just every random warrior on the server had the skill, gear and mentality to be the main tank of a guild. So, the fact that 50+ people depended on you for the overall success of the guild produced a "heroic" experience.

Now, with this generation of MMOs mentality, player satisfaction must be met at every turn of the game. Therefore, it"s truly impossible to get that much ahead of the curve.

The fact is that if 1 out of 50 players (guilds) got to experience something the other 49 didn"t, it makes that experience special and "heroic" for that one player (guild). The problem is, as a game developer, you"re making the game great for 1 player(guild), but shitty for 49. Thats the essence of EQ. You could make a Darwinian argument for it and say, "well, that one person (guild) worked their way through the food chain and achieved it"s status. Therefore, they deserve it." I think theres truth in that, but it"s not exactly the best idea from a business standpoint for the development company. Sony got away with it because they were pioneers.

That being said, you"ll never see that in a MMO ever again. This age of MMOs is that every player should get the exact same experience regardless of how much work they put into it. I"m not saying thats a bad thing, but don"t expect to feel special at the end of the day. It"s just like the real world-- If your rich and successful, you most likely did that by busting your ass and getting ahead of the curve. The rich and powerful are only rich and powerful because there are people out there that aren"t. That"s capitalism, baby.

I actually don"t like being the "hero" from the first minute I play a game, being a small fry and evolving into a hero is much more satisfying and realistic. Being told your the savior of the world the first time you play a game has no resonance, it makes you feel like your in a bad movie or something. When you first play Baldur"s Gate or Fallout or any number of good single player RPG"s you start off with small beginnings and slowly become someone of notice.

This should be especially true with MMO"s since not every person can be a "hero". If everyone is the hero then it loses all meaning.... and you end up not feeling special or unique. But like another poster said you don"t want to be killing rats in the first 5 minutes either, so it"s a tough balancing act.

Ngruk said:

1) The one core basic feature would you 100% expect to be in, and expect to be perfected at launch, bug free and "cool"

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All of the basic mechanics of the game should be flawless or near to it. Pathing, collision detection, 3D geometry, items, abilities, LOOT TABLES, leveling curves versus content, all that stuff should work great, right out of the box. Not on the 4th patch on the 2nd day after release, not a week later, but right when I install and launch the game. As consoles continue to get better, the amount of patience the PC gamer has for paying to do the final beta test that most devs call go live will wear even thinner than current levels.

But if I have to pick one thing I want right out of the gate beyond all the basics, it would be providing the proper amount of playable content so that if every player you have subscribed hits the level max a week from launch, then there is still content available to keep them happy until your next planned upgrade/expansion. Now this is not to say you take the "make leveling slow until we get content added after launch" approach.

Simply don"t launch the game until your high end content is fully capable of holding the attention of your playerbase for extended periods of time. Artificial cockblocks and unattainable gear checks won"t do it either. We"re all wise to that trick ever since the launch of Luclin and Planes of Power.

Ngruk said:

2) What one thing that hasn"t been done well, or at all, in any MMO, would you most like to see as a thoroughly fleshed out mechanic/content piece/UI feature?

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I"d like more content-on-demand stuff. Anarchy Online is probably the best example of good c-o-d thinking, but they left most of their great ideas incomplete or added unnecessary randomness/timesinks/difficulty where it wasn"t necessary.

For example, the AO mission booth. You log in, you want to run a few missions, looking for a few upgrades here and there. But you have to go 3rd party and run ClickSaver to sort and roll missions in locations you prefer, with rewards you prefer. They kind of left the whole mission system alone in 2001 and never really gave it upgrades in functionality, rewards, what have you.

Another example from AO is the pocket boss system. Great idea, but it was only good for one kind of drop (symbiant implants), and the better drops came from PBs whose pattern pieces were absurdly rare drops off one mob on a long timer.

Finally, look at WoW instances. You can raid your way to the final boss of the Crumbling Halls of Uber Temple of Dark Awesomeness, kill said boss, then leave zone, and come back tomorrow. The timesink is the whole "learn the encounter" nonsense. You spend 4 hours getting to boss, you wipe on him a few dozen times, then do it all again tomorrow. Why not grab the AO pocket boss system to make a makeshift version of the Danger Room of XMen fame, where your guild can learn boss strats on a simulation, maybe a watered down version, then take that experience into the raid zone to limit the snorefest part of raiding, which is the "die a few hundreds times to feel like you earned it" mechanic. Why not take the WoW daily heroic, the AO group mission generator with the difficulty slider, mix them together, and give people more content-on-demand options?

You"ll have the "whack my nuts with a sledgehammer if the raid wipes" morons along any time now to vilify my "make the customer happy" thinking with a lengthy rant about welfare epics and the like, and how MMO customers are unworthy unless they camp Raster for 79 hours without blinking, but giving the player lots of options on how they can play their game, which is actually your game, will keep them subscribed longer and happier while there. Content-on-demand.

Locithon said:

I actually don"t like being the "hero" from the first minute I play a game, being a small fry and evolving into a hero is much more satisfying and realistic. Being told your the savior of the world the first time you play a game has no resonance, it makes you feel like your in a bad movie or something. When you first play Baldur"s Gate or Fallout or any number of good single player RPG"s you start off with small beginnings and slowly become someone of notice.

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You can still start out with small beginnings and feel like an important character if the story is involving you and sending you on quests that actually mean something rather than just kill some bears and collect some hides. Look at characters like Frodo, who got swept up in a quest that was far larger than he was. He is not what you may think of when you think about the word "hero", and yet that story he very much is one.

When we"re talking about making the character feel like a hero from the beginning, it doesn"t necessarily mean they have to be godlike and incredibly powerful - just important. And you only need to give the player the illusion they are important, it doesn"t actually matter if they truly are or not. Such a thing is difficult to do in an MMO without robbing other players of the same experience.

Dare i say it but bring back zones! I am tired of these "seamless worlds" that just look bland. I can"t imagine what an Unrest zone would look like now with today"s technology. I don"t know about anyone else but I wouldn"t mind a few seconds of loading to have a huge multilayer haunted house with secret passages, boobie traps, etc. I forget that castle in Nek forest in EQ2 that was pretty cool.

I haven"t seen anything as cool as Sirens Grotto, Unrest, That underwater spot with Phinny "I"ll never drop your wizzy epic staff" Autopuss or whatever his name is.

I don"t think people should feel epic or heroic at first because then you have nothing to base it on when you get max level in max tier items.

It would also be great to have some high level dungeons around low level areas so the lowbies can run around inspecting the "uber doods" etc. I remember doing the whole EC Tunnel trade and at times just running around and inspecting people to see the cool stuff.

I know it is more convenient but having items random generated based on certain specs is for the birds. I would rather have one FBSS then 20 different versions with slightly different stats. Make each dungeon notable for the items that drop in it and at times bring back a camp or two. Don"t have it be the only progression method but having a named camp here and there isn"t a bad thing. Some people like to just shoot the shit while they grind and get the one piece of gear they really really want.

Make all items show on the toons. This means belts, rings, necklaces etc. Really let the player show off his gear(epean) that he/she worked so hard to get.

And yes epic items for the win. If you had a huge quest line for each class and had it upgrade with each expansion that would be really fun. It doesn"t have to be their main hand weapon, it could be a ring slot, pocket or trinket. Just make it stats be really tailored to that class and give off some kind of cool spell effect.

Raids are the way to make people feel heroic. You should have heard our guilds vent channel when we downed Sunchild the first time in Poets Palace in EQ2. Everyone was dead besides our Templar (healer) and as Sunchild dropped the shaman and came running towards our healer she cast her nuke spell and dropped him just before he was about to smack her silly. By far the best experience I have ever had in a game.

Come to think of it, we never quite figured out how to drop that Frog that was extremely fast and hit like a truck. Still bothers me to this day

Fun heroic boss fights ftw!

Heroic is simply having a part to play in a larger epic. Not everyone can be "THE" hero, but everyone can feel heroic.

Personally, I find that building my characters skills or doing things required for said skills to be heroic...but only if I have to do them myself. Furthering my character should be my job. Furthering the guild should be a group effort.

If gaining some skill meant that you had to enter an instance by yourself, use your skills, and learn how to play said character well...that would be heroic to me. Having a scroll for said skill simply drop while 39 other smucks were killing things doesn"t imply anything about me other than I haven"t been kicked out of the guild.

Current games are simply barbie dress up with itemization. Any naked level 70 of the same class is EXACTLY the same all other naked level 70"s of that class. Create some stuff where by the character himself changes and that would create a heroic aura around some stuff.

Build characters, not gear repositories and you are on your way towards people feeling unique and heroic.

Ngruk said:

1) The one core basic feature would you 100% expect to be in, and expect to be perfected at launch, bug free and "cool"
2) What one thing that hasn"t been done well, or at all, in any MMO, would you most like to see as a thoroughly fleshed out mechanic/content piece/UI feature?

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Theres been a lot of good ideas, all of them are ones I agree with, however I guess for my own 2 coppers I will throw in that for both of these questions my answer would be the player class system.

Know ahead of time going into your game what the primary role of each class will be, and stick with it. This also includes taking into consideration any potential additions in player class choice in future expansions. There is nothing more frustrating then to find out your "role" is being changed 3 years down the line as thats not what the developers envisioned for you.
Examples
Bards v Monks v SKs in EQ1
Beastlords v Shaman v Monks in EQ1
Warriors v pallys v druids in WoW
Warriors v Rogues v Locks v Wizzies in WoW
EQ2s blurring of the class lines with the good v bad team split of each class.


The availablitly of a class and race combo should make sense. Either allow all races to be all classes, or at least have some semblance of reasoning why there are restrictions in place.

Starting areas. In todays gaming world either allow new players to start at any newbie zone or allow them a once use teleport to join a friend/partner.
Examples
My wife and I. When ever we start a new MMO we have to come to a compromise over starting race, and this is down to class/race choice and their starting locations. When you go into a new game you have no maps or travel experience, and so we often end up playing a class/race combo that may not be what we really wanted due to their availability. Case in poing a Tauren Warrior and an Undead Priest. Getting one to the other in the opening hours of WoW was an impossible task.

Ngruk said:

The challenge to me is what people define as "Heroic", and finding the most common ground there. Hey, that"s going to be my next question.
1) Has any game ever made you feel like your character was really heroic?
2) If yes, what game? Why? Was it an acquired thing or was the game designed to make you feel that from start.
3) Does being heroic need to be exclusive to you? Do you feel heroic if everyone else can be where you are, or look like you?

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The only time Ive felt Heroic is either a) Farming low level mobs where you can walk about with impunity, or at times when Ive pulled a win out of a hat against am NPC or PC I thought would trounce me. Encounters where you have to work for your win, where it could go either way. Its a shame when you finally outgear that encounter that you go from feeling heroic to feeling bored!

Games Ive experienced this in have been EQ1, WoW, EQ2, LOTRO etc. Usually it is due to the acquisition of new items that increase your power relative to others, however for me, the monk class in EQ1 and 2 have it as a game design choice, in that you have a complete group in one: self heal, tank, dps, feign etc.

I feel that while looks add the least to any feeling of heroism, they cannot be overlooked. I took a 6 month break when TBC was released and came back to see the old T1 and 2 armour sets used on blue gear. While I understand why it may have been taken, I hated the design decision to homogenise the armour looks between PvP and Raid gear, as well as between armour types (cloth, plate, chain etc).
You need to look into borrowing the appearance tab from EQ2, and throw in the dyes from EQ1. Add in the ability to change the appearance of your weapons and its golden.

The times I felt heroic in EQ, defeating things like AoW and Emperor. Things that were really really hard. Completing MC for the 1st time in WoW was pretty good too. But it doesn"t always have to be about killing. I remember feeling pretty heroic in UO with my Glorious Lord title, wearing all GM crafted(with my name tagged to it) Coal armor( the rare solid black stuff).

Heroic is something you have to work hard at to achieve. I don"t think you can do easy and heroic at the same time.

Something else that lead to the heroic feeling you got in EQ that we won"t see again prolly: for the first 4-5 expansions all the bosses you killed were uninstanced. When you killed Trakanon, you knew you were the only ones on the server that would be doing so til it respawned again. The rest of the server knew you killed it because there were others wanting it instead of you. Now in games you kill a boss and you know 5 other guilds might be doing the same thing on your server at that moment. Its like.. so what?

I think class specialization is important too because it allows different classes to feel heroic if the situation arises. For instance, as a ranger in EQ there would be times where you could snatch victory from defeat for your whole team if a tank died and the boss started eating your raid at a quick pace. With quick aggro and weaponshield I literally saved a raid a number of times. Most of the time a ranger was just another ho-hum cog, but with the tools they had there were situations where they were allowed to be heroic. This goes for both grouping and raid situations alike.

One thing, that has not been done, but you feel is either a must in next gen or a serious differentiator that could set a game apart.

Ngruk said:

One thing, that has not been done, but you feel is either a must in next gen or a serious differentiator that could set a game apart.

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In my opinion, a dynamic world that changes and evolves is the holy grail. If you kill an NPC, he"s gone. Kill a boss. He"s gone.

Every MMO respawns the same critters over and over. Most are based on running through the same dungeons killing the same critters over and over.

A lot of MMOs have discussed dynamic, live content but never delivered.

I think this would seperate an MMO from the others, which are currently really just single player games with tons of people in them running on autopilot...

Ngruk said:

One thing, that has not been done, but you feel is either a must in next gen or a serious differentiator that could set a game apart.

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I"m going to go with more dynamic content as well, though I disagree with Gecko"s extreme version. What he describes would never work in an MMO.

I"d like to see things like the world changing based on day/night, season, and so on. Weather changing as the season does, complete with snowfall during the winter, etc. would be really cool and immersive. A lot of work too, though, admittedly. From a gameplay standpoint, maybe certain events or quests are only running during a certain season. Maybe certain tradeskill goods become more or less valuable depending on the season. Stuff like that.

The Day/night cycle could effect anything from what creatures are roaming at what time of day to certain quests only being available or doable at certain times. You could have a graveyard area that might be graverobbers and cultists during the day, but at night the dead rise out of their graves and roam around. Or, maybe there"s a quest to slay vampires and collect a certain type of dust from their remains, but the catch is the dust is only valuable if the vampire is awake and active when killed. The player would need to wait until nightfall to find the active vampires and fight them. Probably very simple to do, and yet it would add a lot of interest and replayability to the world.

I"d like to see NPCs actually going about their daily activities during the day, and going to sleep at night. A city could change completely in the hours of the night as the rogues and assassins make it their own.

Speaking of that, in a similar vein I just want to see city life be more interesting in general. In a next-gen game, I want to see huge sweeping cities that I can explore. I want to be able to actually sit down and just "play" without ever leaving the city if I want to. Give me an assassin"s guild to join and some "daily quests" that give me marks to track down within the city and eliminate without getting caught, Assassin"s Creed style. You could easily come up with various other little mini-games for other types of characters that would give players something fun to do in between adventuring. You could simply ensure that everything the player needs is easy to get to (AH, Bank, etc all close together in a place that they can reach easily, the rest of the city can be for other things) and the size of the city would never be a hindrance to people who aren"t interested in the other stuff.

If you implemented a system like this you could also take it to another level and actually track time as it goes by. Let"s say a year in game was 3-4 months, so 3 times per RL year you could patch in a little update that represents this passage of time. Maybe new structures are erected, or new leaders appointed, new events take place, wars reach a conclusion, etc. This could be sort of like the monthly content update that Asheron"s Call always had (very cool) except you don"t need to do it quite that often.

Dynamic Content is great for the players on the bleeding edge... and everyone else just screams and pulls their hair out over it.

Everyone wants Dynamic Content, as long as they get to it first. And if the developer implements dynamic content in such a way that it"s fair to late-comers/non-bleeding-edge (See: OH GOD YOU KILLED THE LAST WARDER YOU FUCKS I"LL NEVER GET MY ROOOOOOBE), then the Dynamic content will be labeled meaningless by the playerbase since the same rewards et al are available, just with the mob having a different name and look.

Of course, I think the Bleeding Edge should have an advantage and get to see cool shit for all the bullshit they put up with, and that dynamic content would be awesome because of that... but that"s some lurking EQ1 elitism peeking through the years of "everything must be solo and casual friendly" that has drowned the market. Only way I can see Dynamic Content being readily accepted by the audience is if it"s like the LOTRO newbie quests... where after you"ve experienced the content, you zone into a new version of that content where the changes have been made. Mount Rapesauce explodes in a fiery conflageration? You now zone into Rapesauce Crater whenever you"d go to that zone. And that has its own problems with working with friends who haven"t done the content.

As for new ideas? Working XYZ axis combat, in addition to standard ground based combat. Water environments that aren"t horribly bug-ridden hell-holes to fight in. Air battles that are actually battles (Massively reduced or no exp for just pewpewing ground-only monsters, since your character didn"t actually "experience" much). Star Wars Galaxies kind of had both... just long after it was gutted and peopled by random wandering hobos. And Eve has the Z axis combat... just at an incredibly torpid pace. This also would require LOS issues to be dealt with thoroughly, which are a continuous plague to MMOs.

Melee VS Caster scaling that isn"t retarded. Spellpower/Focus (Although too broadly applied to be really *good*, as the wierd scaling coefficients et al we see now can attest to) effects were a good first step towards getting both sides of the divide to rely on their itemization for scaling. A Staff Of Magical Magicness upgrade should be as important for a Wizard"s DPS numbers as a Uber Broadsword of Slashitude for the Fighter. The recurring bullshit of "Casters rock until the melee get their weapons off of raid targets" is old. Both should progress at the same fluid rate through content upgrades. EQ2 tried it with multiple-tiers of each spell, but the differences were honestly underwhelming until you were upgrading to Master (and the statistic system they used was buggered all to hell).

I really would like an environment that matters in ways like Grave mentioned. This is something that seems nearly trivial to implement, and yet is avoided by everyone. Phases of the moon, shortest/longest days of the year, morning/noon/dusk/midnight/etc. I"d also like casters to be able to draw upon their immediate surroundings to influence their spells. Some raids might be have distinct solutions based on your strengths, such as altering your target"s environment to your advantage to weaken them/strengthen yourself, such as knocking the ceiling out of a dragon"s lair to gain access to other spells.

Preparation is viewed as a chore in WoW because it is either fleeting (consumables) or unrewarded (Hydross/Shazrah/etc.) I don"t think it needs to be so mundane as "replace your awesome cool gear with Fire Resist gear". That is why bane weapons were poorly received in EQ. It was a useless POS item that had no purpose outside the few targets you needed it for. No one likes that. We want upgrades that are advantageous, not required. Bane weapons would have been more appreciated as rapid increases in farming speed rather than minimums for progression. That"s just a baby-step, but it would transform perception entirely.

I"d also like sympathetic equipment/spells that encourage Guilds to act in a harmonious manner, even if Guild A works on bleeds and infections and Guild B works on stuns and crippling blows. Likewise their targets would be limited by their strengths and weaknesses, and while this would require creating even more content, it would also significantly increase lateral advancement potential. Ideally you would have a progression set-up that encourages both specialization at one point and adaptation at another point - perhaps epic quests that guide you along killing most of the distinct targets, but without a prescribed order. I just don"t understand why Guilds 1-1,000,000 all kill X the same way with the same tools regardless of their divergent origins, and I find this to be uninteresting.

I don"t really want dynamic content, but I can see the draw in cyclical content. I am a hardcore completionist, so the idea that an achievement has slipped out of my grasp is very frustrating. What I do want is the ability to roll my own way out of the problem - that there isn"t just a single track that everyone raids along. I"d like everyone to have the chance to experience the puzzle of a new raid encounter. This experience is robbed from you when your options are limited and your targets are few. Perhaps I am giving the masses too much credit in believing they can enjoy the challenge of overcoming new obstacles.

So long as everyone is doing the exact same things in the same ways I don"t feel we"re moving forward. The backend on these games has improved a lot via scripting, but it"s a web we"re becoming trapped in.

Grave hit this idea a bit, and I"m not sure if it"s ever been done, but I would like to see more "class involvement" in MMOs. Basically, I would love for there to be Rogues" Guilds, Mage Guilds, etc. where I become a member and move up through the ranks by doing certain things. And along with the ranks come rewards, titles, new crap, etc.

Heck, make it so there are certain events that only a single class can participate in every once in awhile. "Mages need to come together and fight x elemental boss" blah blah. These ideas are off the top of my head, but basically I would like to feel proud of playing x class not because "I"m the best DPSer in the guild" but because I have a presence in the overall community.

Ngruk said:

One thing, that has not been done, but you feel is either a must in next gen or a serious differentiator that could set a game apart.

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This is probably one area that is hardest to make your mark in as a new MMO game. Lately games are being touted as "next gen" when they really only have variations on what has worked previously, very little is new. WAR feels like a bastard child of DAOC and WoW (Not to say either is a bad game).

I think you"d need to look at all the major games, find what is great about them and use it. And then spend a lot of time making them all better. Everything from the UI to the way lore is presented. There are probably at least half a dozen things that could be greatly improved upon in the top few games but they never seem to get better. Chat systems, UI layout, LFG systems, monster AI, and so on. There are a large amount of features people will expect to see, if you can make most or all of them better, you"ll make the game more enjoyable to play for your customers.

If I had to narrow down two a couple of specific ideas they would be:

1) A UI that doesn"t suck out of the box.

WAR scored a big hit with the Tome UI functionality and how it interacts with almost everything you do in game. But the rest of the WAR UI is not much of an improvement (if any) over previous games.

WoW probably has the best UI in terms of customization and stability, but it has limitations that are annoying. Why could I only have 20 quests for three years? Why aren"t there built in UI themes I can change? Why are windows incapable of being resized?

2) Put back in mega dungeons. Guk Solusek A/B. Sebilis. Blackrock Depths. Blackrock Spire. Make them dangerous and risky. Not raids, but actual single group adventurers that players look forward to entering on occasion. Tiny, bite sized dungeons have their place, but every game should always have a slog it out type of dungeon that you can"t just clear the same time as you half-ass pay attention to the TV at the same time.

Ngruk said:

One thing, that has not been done, but you feel is either a must in next gen or a serious differentiator that could set a game apart.

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Some general comments/thoughts/gripes:

Do something in cities and towns that no one else has done before. Whether this be making NPC"s more lifelike, have a quality we haven"t thought about, or creating a feature within NPC"s that sets them apart from other games.

I think this plays to what others have mentioned before me.

The more the world that"s presented feels like it"s representing reality, the more people will want to be in it.

What about towns that move depending on war faction/weather? Caves that have entrances that close and open depending on X. Whirlpools in the sea that lead to spawns, pearls you can dive for, drowning pc/npc boats? Rare monsters that come out once every month, andraremonsters that are controlled and operated by the GM staff.

Sights and visuals rarely scene - glowing objects appearing for two weeks in a wooded area that has a traveling group of level 20s going what the heck? Have this visual because it"s about ready to tie into your lore at a city, the lore in which then has the NPC"s in your city talking amongst themselves and to PC"s. The NPC"s in said city eventually leave and charge in unison out into the X with the glowing objects that appeared in the wooded area.

Non-instanced anomalies are the most important thing a game can offer (this is after solid combat mechanics, everything is after solid and fair combat mechanics). It feels more like a world that has magic, that it"s not a system of 0"s and 1"s. You"re logging in because you don"t know what the hell will happen, there"s always a chance something really odd might happen at any time. Hey look over there, a tree just turned black, what the heck was that, the whole zone is decaying!

Not everything is random and chance, but random and chance exist in a world of magic and monsters. Finding the sweet spot between this magic, and the ability to gratify ones self with material that"s "always" there is indicative to your resources and manpower, if you manage that well, you"ll have something amazing (assuming you have good resources and manpower).

Consider instanced and non instanced high end encounters. Brings in both the competition some miss, and the self serve some are used to. Demonstrate the ability to serve both player-types in that respect, have encounters so close to convenience it"s absurd, and some encounters that traveling their is a distance away, with traps, mini encounters, sights to see, indicative of bringing the travel element back to mmo"s, but only situationaly.

Without changing the technology, I"m uncertain if re-inventing the wheel on combat mechanics is anything to consider, besides extreme outcome variability (spells leading to other things, spells to the extreme (changing whether), skills that have a minimal chance to be something else) I think the core mechanics of combat are a gamble, but the possibilities for anomalies in them could be taken further (why can"t wizards port to more places than the city? that could be an obstacle in itself...). The amount of meta game still available is quite fantastic.

The only thing you can truly make that you know, positively, will be successful is making an immerse and beautiful world. Set yourself apart in that way, take npcs to the next level. Consider how to make artificial intelligence pathing more advanced, or at least more varied. Any way to take pathing to a different level really.

Work with the meta aspects as much as you can so as long as combat and game play remain strong and fun.

Frax said:

I think you"d need to look at all the major games, find what is great about them and use it. And then spend a lot of time making them all better.

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That"s mainly how World of Warcraft "won". No revolution, all evolution, lovingly polished, pruned. No Vision? to meddle: if it"s not really fun for most, redo it.