The Perfect MMORPG?

[Chris the Human]

As someone with a budding interest in the genre, I've noticed that there's a lot of criticism (as there is with all games, I guess) towards titles irregardless of whether they're the smaller ones or the big one. While WoW could seemingly do no wrong when it came out, there's definitely a growing undercurrent of discontent and dissatisfaction when it comes to the product now. A lot of it has to do with the fact monthly payments aren't being adequately rewarded with new content, and I can understand that.

I played D&D Online for a short while, and while it was a largely terrible game (and with such a vast amount of in depth source material to go on, there's no excuse for shit storyline and boring setting being on that list) - one thing I did like was that almost monthly new content was being added. In most cases this was a new region and new creatures, but occasionally a dungeon or race would sneak in there.

And while WoW is undoubtedly bigger and more detailed than DDO (and hence, new content doesn't need to be added quite so quickly), I can understand where players are coming from. I've only been playing WoW three months, but in that time the only announcement of note has been of another expansion pack that will add a a smallish continent (which interests me), a new 'hero' class (that sounds rather stupid in how it will fit into the game, a new profession (which I could care less about), and the promise that every trash drop in Northrend will make the gear I've spent ten levels acquiring obsolete. I say ten levels because upon hitting level 60 and venturing into the Outland - I promptly replaced almost everything I'd been using.

But back to the topic at hand - what features would make an MMORPG 'perfect' for you? With Lord of the Rings Online out and garnering great reviews, what sets it apart? What makes City of Heroes/Villains or Runescape so addictive?

For me - one thing I'd love to see drastically improved is the amount of RP in the MMORPG genre. While there's always the option to play on a roleplay server and nerd it up - I find that your character isn't so much a personality as it is a set of traits and gear.

[Captain Eo]

I love City Of Heroes/Villians for one simple reason.

It's advanced enough for the hardcore l33t players, but it's simple enough that you can pick it up and by the end of the day completed a number of missions on your own and gained a pretty decent level.

I have to say that the major factors for me to which MMORPGs I play are as follows.

The community : The in-game community has to be one where people don't just talk down on you because you haven't played for X amount of years. WoW for fun for awhile but then I realized I was playing with either a group of 13 year old l33ts or 40 year old virgins, both of which were major prickish.

The gameplay : Like I said about COH/V, if you need a guide to play it takes the fun out of it in my opinion, I understand how it's all about feeling accomplished, but if a quest revolves around a saga of things that take forever to accomplish then it's just plain annoying.

Lastly, I know the whole thing that makes MMORPGs great is playing with people from all over the place, but I can't play a game where my leveling up and completing missions is dependent on other people.

[Toe]

World Of Warcraft got boring so quickly for me, it just seemed like it was nothing new.

[oldskool]

1) Must be free-to-play.

I just don't have the attention span to play a game for a month straight...I like the ability to play when I want to play without having to re-sign up and commit money to the deal, and I also like being able to stop playing for any length of time without having to choose between cancelling a subscription or paying for something I'm not using.

2) Must not be boring.

I like change, and I like options. There's nothing I hate more in a MMORPG than getting to a particular level and finding out that there's only one "decent" set of weapons/armor/spells to use (thus throwing the option of buying it from someone out of the question, as demand is so high for it), or worse yet that there's only one decent place to get exp. This applies more to freeware games like Nightmist & Revelation than it does Guild Wars, WoW, etc.

3) Must be at least somewhat solo-able.

Friends aren't on all the time, and sometimes randoms are just jerks/foreigners you can't understand...if I want to level on my own it should be feasible to do so, if I want to go through the story by myself it should be feasible to do so, I shouldn't have to resort to reliance on the playerbase.

[Captain Eo]

1) Must be free-to-play.

I just don't have the attention span to play a game for a month straight...I like the ability to play when I want to play without having to re-sign up and commit money to the deal, and I also like being able to stop playing for any length of time without having to choose between cancelling a subscription or paying for something I'm not using.

[Chris the Human]

I wouldn't mind a middle ground with regards to cost. I mean, there's obviously cost incurred in the creation of new content - and I've got no problem paying a monthly fee to cover that plus the maintenance of servers. But, in WoW's case, I'm paying $19.95 (AU) a month and so far have received nothing new for my buck. And with an expansion due out next year, I daresay new content will be minimal in the interval.

[Captain Eo]

I wouldn't mind a middle ground with regards to cost. I mean, there's obviously cost incurred in the creation of new content - and I've got no problem paying a monthly fee to cover that plus the maintenance of servers. But, in WoW's case, I'm paying $19.95 (AU) a month and so far have received nothing new for my buck. And with an expansion due out next year, I daresay new content will be minimal in the interval.

[Guest clintcasey]

The perfect MMO. Sounds obviously [sarcasm]Dragonball Online (due out in Japan next year) is going to be the best MMO RPG ever! Let me tell you I can't wait to play it, even though there is no planned US release date at this time. The character dept and variety of attacks and abilities and the (quite literal) power leveling is going to be the bestest![/sarcasm]

Seriously, City of Heroes/Villians is probably the best MMO I've ever played. Every few months they add new content, and add things like like new areas and occasionally new power sets.

As a side note, I heard a very interesting rumor lately. All the Star Wars fans out there are probably glad to hear this, or at least those of us who play MMOs, but SOE is going to loose the rights to Star Wars Galaxies, which started out as a great MMO, but they completely ruined their own game and broke a lot of promises they made to their customers.

So why is this important? Well Lucas Arts feels like the MMO market is a place where they can still make a lot of money. Obsidian Entertainment, who made Knights of the Old Republic 2, have just hired 30 new developers who specialize in online gaming, several of them former are former Blizzard employees who worked on WoW. In addition, Obsidian's CEO has stated recently that Knights of the Old Republic 3 is in the works and that development will be starting soon. Basically, to make a long story short, theres a reasonably good chance that Knights of the Old Republic 3 could very well end up being an MMO.

[Robsturgh]

I was actually thinking last night about how good a Firefly MMO would be. Then I got to thinking about how it could be great. Basically, the main features I'd like in ANY MMO to be, not just a Firefly one would be:

Much more manual control of things like Travel, Combat.

Have a dynamic content, that would change if there was a significant player influence on it.

Have content readily available for all players and all sized groups. (The example I came up with for Firefly would be ship that required a lot more than one person to fly successfully).

And possibly the most important for me, have a server (or universe) wide event happen every month or so, that everybody is almost required to take part in for the "humans" or whatever to survive. The main reason I say this is because something happened a little while ago on EVE Online (A Space MMORPG), where the biggest Alliance in the game (there is only 1 MASSIVE server), decided to declare war on everything, and what occured was perhaps the most fun thing Ive ever experienced on a game, nowhere was truly safe, and my corporation had to work together at some points with a rival corporation to fight off a small part of them. It was absolutely brilliant. I hadn't seen anything like this before hand, and I'm wondering if I'll see something like it since.

Things like content updates should be relative to whether its pay-per-month or not, if it is, there should be either enough content to last for about a year at least (WITHOUT it resorting to dungeon grinding) or have there be monthly updates. If its free then theres a bit more leeway, but either way, there should be enough content to justify buying the game.

[Guest Grapehead]

I just started playing Guild Wars, and it's actually pretty fun. The main things that draw me in are the fact that I can just go run it alone, and hire henchman as necessary, or I can get my guild going or random parties and tear it up. Also the fact that it's free, so if I don't play for 2 weeks, no big deal cause I didn't waste any money paying for those 2 weeks I wasn't playing. Since it's free and I don't feel guilty not playing, I feel less worried about getting too sucked in.

[Chris the Human]

I think WoW would benefit greatly from more world events and world changing events. When TBC came out they had a big daemon invasion, which is a start, but as it is it never really feels like anything changes. Certain towns are Alliance and certain towns are Horde. The world never changes, except to have new content added, and this very rarely effects the world at large.

One thing I would love to see in an MMORPG is autonomy. None of this 'I am ally' or 'I am horde' or even 'I am generic' - but the ability to develop your character as you saw fit. Whether this be as an evil, independent sociopath or a light aligned defender of justice. WoW basically forces you into an alliance with people who you mightn't necessarily like. While I play horde, I can admit most of them are douchebags. I'd prefer to create a character and figure it out from there.

[Mountainous Cleavage]

http://www.ijji.com

The games there coming out with on there are actually really fun to play. GunZ, Soldier Front, Drift City (due to be out again soon after a great closed beta was around for a bit, definatly a game to wait on), and KwonHo.

All online multiplayers, free to play with optional premium items to buy.

[Gazz]

If anyone does play Last Chaos, I'm on there as Shibuya - C3 or C4 servers

[Skummy]

The Conan one, when it comes out, looks like it'll own MMORPGs forever.

[thatshortguy]

The Conan one, when it comes out, looks like it'll own MMORPGs forever.

Was in on the beta, and we'll just say they have some work to do. It looks absolutely seck-z, but there is a great deal of balance to be worked out. Casters can absolutely encroach upon anyone's couches at no danger.

Then again, I last touched it around a month ago. May have done some decent tweaking since then.

[GhostMachine]

City of Heroes\Villains.

You pay $14.95 (or $14.99 - I forget which, but does it really matter) a month whether you play City of Heroes, City of Villains, or both. There's lots of interaction between both games - not just PvP, but zones where heroes and villains can join forces (ie, the alien invasion going on right now). Unlike most MMOs, the expansions are absofrickinlutely free - you download them as patches - and there have been 10 so far. And it is possible to solo the entire way from lvl 1 to the maximum lvl (50), unlike a lot of other MMOs, if you want.

I also have to say the quality of players in CoH and CoV is quite high; I've rarely had bad pick-up groups, but can't say the same about Everquest or WoW, which I used to play.

(I'm mainly on the Freedom server, with a few low level alts on Virtue, by the way)

[Lord Nibbler]

I play City of Villains, but that's mainly because I'd rather be a supervillain than a dwarf or an elf, rather than because it's a better game than WoW or Guild Wars or whatever.

Still, I need to get into the teamplay aspect to keep me interested.

[Skummy]

To be honest, most MMORPGs are spoiled for me by the amount of statswhores out there who are just like LOLz Level 40, or whatever, completely negating the whole roleplay aspect of it and turning it into a glorified hack 'n' slash, and just lording over everyone else because of how kvlt they are.

[MalaCloudy Black]

I know where Skumfrog is coming from - it's like that even on the RP servers on WoW. I joined a RP-PVP server partially to play with That One Guy and partially to roleplay, but no one ever does. I've met less than five roleplayers total, everyone else just lords their level over you or begs you for money.

[Skummy]

Yeah, I noticed on the RP servers you still get people saying "LOL!" and "FTW", which really got on my nerves. But then the guild I was in (or the character I was playing as, anyway, I don't own the game) went for a fishing trip, followed by a pub quiz, so that improved things tenfold.