What does your ideal modern MMO be like?

I’d be happy with a modern day upgraded anarchy online.

Or take the trade and politics of eve, the slickness of wow, the setting of anarchy online and the skill system of the secret world and combine.

I don't think many would share any of my likes / dislikes but here goes:

Very large amount of customization options. Uploadable tattoos the way archeage did sails / flags / shirts. 50+ hairstyles etc with more always added. Tons of non combat clothing and accessories, though combat gear wouldn't be modifiable. Great items should be recognized.

Tab target combat with a small bit of action to it. Like daoc combat styles with reactionaries for parry and dodge etc. No active dodge or block unless it is tied to an ability (like that sweet cone protect ability the knight of the something sun had in warhammer). Semi slow pace with time to react.

It should be VERY apparent when you are damaged. None of the pow-suddenly-I'm-dead moments common in recent mmos like elderscrolls / guildwars.

EQ style crunchy hits at low health. Better in-scene visual indicators of health and cooldowns. Shouldn't need to watch the interface much.

No instance clearing, but a take-and-hold concept for dungeons. Head down to live tower or assassin / supplier and plant a flag. Instead of frogs just popping up alone in the room, teams of frogs will path from inaccessible points to retake the room, getting a bit tougher or more numerous every cycle. The rare / loot chance goes up every cycle as well.

Classes with powerful training stories. Similar to transitioning from scout / fighter / whatever to Jedi in Kotor1.

David Benem's "Requiem for Heroes" stories for a setting, or the Stormlight archives.

Crafting for crafters. Unique items with swg style materials and experimentation. One character per server to keep people from just crafting on alts. Stages should have some basis in the art.

Slow advancement but large bonuses to grouping and much higher xp in difficult areas.

I love the idea someone had earlier of keeping secrets for some items that reduce in power the more people have them.

All npcs would have ultima style schedules at the bare minimum. If goblins inhabit a cave complex why are they there? Is this a staging area for raids? Where do they get their food? Who trades with them?

Dead players are dead until resurrected. In addition to the res spell, magicy types could bind a magical message contingency to fire upon death. This could trigger a group of player controlled hirelings to come in and rescue the party or something. Dying should leave some kind of permanent reminder like scars or stat adjustments. Will your stuff to other players or your successors.

Obscure mysteries and scattered pieces of ancient lost stories. Like the odd ruins scattered about in EQ but with real bits of stuff to solve and figure out. Could lead to new areas or new items or just fluff.

A game with a huge world ( like how eq1 was at start ) Everquest did it right with alot of content , not everyone wants to rush to max lvl and i remeber actully enjoying going from place to place seeing the world and lvling slowly
Really good graphics and combat system
Quest system actully meaning something , not something like go kil 5 rats
Crafting be something that stands out but not be required ( i liked eq2 commision system ) not something you gain lvls in but something you get better at crafting new recipes or doing quests
No pay win mechanic at all , even for apperance it should not be for sale , you can make the pay 25$ a month instead
Testing done In house with a paid crew! i remeber when back when people actully got paid and testing a game was done inhouse , now people pay to test games and it leads to games being released with bugs left and right. ( this also means that new content is actully new and not something that has a wiki guide straight up and raid guilds finishing the content a few days after due to this

Don't know how these ideas would be in a game, but what I'd like :

1) Dynamic World. Once you kill King Dain Coldreaver 4, he is no longer there, ever. Either your team killed the whole coldain population and they are now extinct, either a new king is put on the throne.
2) Dynmiac world implies that your character is permanently in the world, even if you are not playing, meaning that you must put him in a safe spot such as an inn in a good city
3) Full PVP, lootable corpse, bounty, npc/pc investigation
4) 4 hit points : bruised, wounded, badly wounded, severed. No in combat heal spells. You must use protection to survive.
5) No classes - if you want to become one, you go the temple of Marr and then you go through the trial to become one.
6) Ships
7) huge world
8) endgame is not "everybody hits autoattack on the dragon, move out of the fire, click the gems, jump over the fire circle, kill the add". It must feel like storming a castle, ie from when you step in Permafrost keep, Lady vox starts to throw shit at you. Tons of small fights, etc.
9) UO style of skills.
10) Faction : you cannot go in the king room and hump him till your fingers are sore - you must first gain reputation.
11) Fun tradeskills, with entirely customizable design, imbue, gems, runes, etc.
12) Housing that can be looted if you're not carefull.
13) Seasons. I was half hoping that WoW would implement that. Imagine Westfall during summer, winter, springs, etc. would have been gorgeous and a sense that time is really going on.
14) a very complex magic system that starts simple. Combine voice, runes, ingredients, gems, place, time, phase of the moon(s), number of people that helps you channelling, etc. I'm no theorycrafter, but I want them to commit suicide over this system.

Personal taste of world setting : I've always loved "End of time" settings such as Elric the necromancer or Cugel the Clever. I'd like to see an Everquest 3 game taking place like 400 years after PoP; a few days after Quarm was defeated, magic slowly dries out until no spells can be cast again. 2/3 of the population did of starvation, madness, war, etc. Then one day, children are born with a mark and they can cast magic. Player would only play caster (not meaning that they must only be mages, they could use magic-enhanced sword skills, etc)

My "modern" PvE MMO looks and plays like EQ...with a modern engine. With Group attainable gear being slightly less "good" than Raid gear, but good enough to complete Group content without a huge burden (new EQ expansion does this, Group/Tradeskill gear is about 8% "worse" than Raid gear). Distinct classes that bring different things to a group/raid...fuck this WoW "everyone can do everything" bullshit. Very challenging content, limited ability to solo (but not NO ability to solo), and a mercenary system similar to EQ's that can help fill one of the holy-trinity when needed (no one likes having 5 people ready to go with no fucking healer around).

My "modern" PvP MMO has a world design concept like EVE but Fantasy based, with conquerable, and upgrade-able areas over a large map with DISTINCT resources for each area that have application for production across the entire game. All gear/weapons will be player made, using resources that are "mined" or obtained from conquerable areas. No passive collection, only active. The game universe would have a neutral NPC controlled "safe space" for market trading, speculation, and VERY limited access to resources.

VR/AR set up to make my dick sucking robot look like Ivanka Trump.

Lots of snowy mountains with frosted peaks.

Cool shades and rendering.

Should have a tradeskill system that involves cooking, I really like sick burgers.

Sweet goatee

Is Guy Fieri

Noodleface said:

Maybe I will get flamed for this

I think EXCEPT FOR TECHNICAL PROBLEMS vanguard was the perfect MMO. I loved that you could solo quest or just join with a group and grind mobs. I think the world was interesting, classes were exceptionally well made and interesting, and combat was fun .

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I really liked that Vanguard was slow leveling and you had hubs as you leveled with quests full of armor / weapon rewards that you used for a LONG time. Much like EQ you couldnt go soloing into the dungeons so you had to put a group together and plan on being there hours. Just breaking into the Celestine Wardship dungeon took a decent puller and group and time commitment. Having to stop to work together, talk about roles, and take your time being careful entering a dungeon is something gone from MMO's.

The Secret World's Dungeons also were the best MMO dungeons in any MMO I've played. I would love for another game to repeat that games dungeon system of normal, heroics, nightmares which had no trash.

WoW's difficulty tiers and polish with an MMO like Vanguard would be perfect.

GROUP CONTENT FOCUS

RipeFrumunda said:

Sweet goatee

Is Guy Fieri

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I want the game to be designed loosely enough that I feel like there is space to do some sneaky shit. Playing through FFXIV's main story I just felt like there was 1 way to do everything and it was all trivial. I want the game to let me feel like a smart ass quad kiting or pulling or whatever, and give me that flexibility relatively early, not after 100 hours of painting by numbers.

I don't have any strong opinions on gameplay or mechanics or any of that. Just needs to be fun. Somewhere between WoW and EQ (probably closer to EQ) for combat would be fine. I'd prefer it be more about timing and spell selection than filling every possible second with a cooldown.

As divided as people are on instances, I think they have to exist these days. While I'm a competitor in my own mind, the reality is that I need the instances to really see the content in my old age. I wouldn't even mind the EQ system where you get an instance lockout period but can still compete for the open world spawns.

What I do really want to see though is a world with lots of lore and a cohesive story, but with mostly sandbox gameplay. I'm thinking a long the lines of Lost in delivery where you piece together the lore through things you see in the world, the items you find and a few sparse quests here and there. Factions should be in and everything should be killable (or attackable at least). To me the world should really just speak for itself without cut scenes, tons of dialogue or other lengthy scripted encounters.

Some other nice to haves would be things like - if it wields it drops it. No more mobs holding cool looking swords that disappear when they die. If it's not looking at you, you can sneak by - with some exceptions where it makes sense. Only sentient things should bring friends. I've played games where stupid shit like a snake will proximity aggro with a rat... why? All of the world should be interacted with. If you can't touch it or go in it, don't put it there.

All I want is enough enough freedom for there to be a great deal of emergent game play and then a live/balance team that doesn't just shit all over what the players come up with.

Korrupt said:

I really liked that Vanguard was slow leveling and you had hubs as you leveled with quests full of armor / weapon rewards that you used for a LONG time. Much like EQ you couldnt go soloing into the dungeons so you had to put a group together and plan on being there hours. Just breaking into the Celestine Wardship dungeon took a decent puller and group and time commitment. Having to stop to work together, talk about roles, and take your time being careful entering a dungeon is something gone from MMO's.

The Secret World's Dungeons also were the best MMO dungeons in any MMO I've played. I would love for another game to repeat that games dungeon system of normal, heroics, nightmares which had no trash.

WoW's difficulty tiers and polish with an MMO like Vanguard would be perfect.

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Yeep, me and my static ended up going into this level 35 dungeon for hours, got to the end and there were several giant boss/statue guys, each one took us 10-15 minutes and dropped nothing but some weird key item that when googled we found did nothing. It was fun, but felt like the area was unfinished .