MMORPG Design/Features - "This or That"

SirAgravaine

General inquiry as to what you prefer, feel free to simply list your pick between the two options, or type a full treatise on how my list of binary choices are lacking in your eyes, or feel free come up with your own tertiary options. (answer as many or as few as you want)

1. Open World -or- Instanced
2. Full Loot -or- No Loot
3. PvP-focued -or- PvE-focused
4. Crafting-intensive -or- Crafting-light
5. End Game -or- No End Game
6. Single-shard (megaserver) -or- Multi-shard (multiple servers)
7. Class-based -or- Skill-based (Class-less)
8. Voiceover Questing -or- Text-based Questing
9. Action Combat -or- Traditional MMORPG Combat
10. Story-driven -or- Story-light
11. Perma-death -or- No Penalty
12. Equipment Breaks (becomes useless) -or- Equipment is Permanent
13. Realistic Inventory (size/weight) -or- Unrealistic Inventory (9 bags of full plate)
14. Instant Travel -or- Conventional Travel
15. Level-based -or- Level-less
16. Lobby-based Content (Group Finders, Raid Finders, Queues, etc.) -or- World-based Content (Must travel, manual grouping etc.)
17. Multiple Races/Species -or- One Race/Species
18. Gear-Progression -or- No Gear-Progression
19. Multiple Characters (per server) -or- Limited Characters (1-2)
20. Default Movement: Walking/Slow Jog -or- Running/Sprinting
21. Opposing Factions (Horde vs Alliance) -or- No Factions

EDIT (user added questions):

22. Traditional Roles (Trinity) -or- Non-traditional Roles (no Trinity)
23. Player Housing -or- No Player Housing


Discuss

SirAgravaine

Here are my picks:

1. Open World
2. No Loot
3. PVP-Focused
4. Crafting-Intensive
5. No End Game
6. Multi-shard
7. Skill-based
8. Voiceover
9. Action Combat
10. Story-driven
11. No Penalty
12. Equipment Breaks
13. Realistic Inventory
14. Conventional Travel
15. Level-less
16. World-based Content
17. One Race/Species
18. No Gear-Progression
19. Limited Characters
20. Walking/Slow Jog
21. No Factions

postlarval

1. Open World
2. No Loot
3. PvP-focued AND PvE-focused
4. Crafting-intensive
5. No End Game
6. Single-shard (megaserver)
7. Skill-based (Class-less)
8. Voiceover Questing
9. Action Combat
10. Story-driven
11. No Penalty
12. Equipment Breaks (becomes useless)
13. Realistic Inventory (size/weight)
14. Conventional Travel
15. Level-less
16. World-based Content (Must travel, manual grouping etc.)
17. Multiple Races/Species
18. No Gear-Progression
19. Limited Characters (1-2)
20. Walking/Slow Jog
21. No Factions

Shaigh

1. Instanced dungeons/raids
2. no loot
3. PvE-focused
4. Crafting-light
5. End Game
6. Megaserver
7. Class-based
8. Text-based Questing
9. Action Combat 
10. Story-light (make it about the world instead of me)
11. No Penalty
12. Equipment is Permanent
13. Unrealistic Inventory (9 bags of full plate)
14. Conventional Travel 
16.  World-based Content (Must travel, manual grouping etc.)
17. Multiple Races/Species
18. Gear-Progression 
20. Default Movement: Running/Sprinting
21. No Factions
Extra option. Tank&healer-roles

Highlighted gamebreakers.

sunandshadow

1. Instanced

2. No Loot
3. PvE-focused
4. Crafting-intensive
5. Depends what the end game content is.  No raids though.
6. No preference on number of servers
7. Skill-based (Class-less)
8. No preference on text or voice dialogue
9. No preference (I like turn-based tactical combat, sidescrolling brawler combat, and combat where you are an animal, among others... anything third person that isn't a shooter)
10. Story-driven
11. No Penalty
12. No preference on equipment decay (but screw cash-shop mounts that only last a week, seriously -_- )
13. Unrealistic Inventory (9 bags of full plate)
14. Instant Travel
15. Level-based
16. Lobby-based Content (Group Finders, Raid Finders, Queues, etc.)
17. No preference on number of species as long as it isn't a single race that is boring old humans.
18. No preference but gear should not be drops, craftable only.
19. Depends - I hate games where you are limited to one or two crafting professions per character regardless of how many characters you have.  But I'm willing to make a different character to try out a different combat style/build or different faction membership
20. Default Movement: Running/Sprinting
21. No preference; I'd like NPC factions if they weren't PvP related, but I hate not being able to talk to or trade with players of a different faction, and races that can only be one faction are pretty stupid.
22. Non-traditional Roles (no Trinity)
23. Player Housing
[renumbered]

24. no cooldowns
25. flat monthly fee
26. no preference on item binding, except bind-on-pickup is stupid.  Bind-on-equip is ok if it's hard to do accidentally.
27. auction house yay!!!
28. no preference about starting areas

29. player housing
30. NOT traditional roles

Wizardry

There is too much to discuss there without getting into 12 paragraphs so.....
I can sum it up by saying i want things that MAKE SENSE.However sometimes it is either not possible or can be different if for a good reason.

A couple of those are instances,i have no problem with instances,i could look at them as being a sort of DOOR,you know where you enter and close the door on everything behind you.

Travel,well it has to make sense,if you have magical beings then perhaps one class or two can teleport or utilize magic for this.Or if you have some magical portals of some kind but definitely 100% not AFK type anything.Remember i said it has to be plausible or within reason of making sense.

Ridiculous combat i don't like,seems every game now is all blind careless spam,combat does NOT loo kreal in 90% of these games,instead it looks silly/foolish.

4507

1. Open World
2. Full Loot
3. PvP-focued
4. Crafting-intensive 
5. No End Game
6. Multi-shard (multiple servers)
7. Skill-based (Class-less)
8. Voiceover Questing
9. Action Combat
10. Story-light
11. No Penalty
12. Equipment Breaks (becomes useless)
13. Realistic Inventory (size/weight)
14. Conventional Travel
15. Level-less
16. World-based Content (Must travel, manual grouping etc.)
17. One Race/Species
18. Gear-Progression
19. Limited Characters (1-2)
20. Walking/Slow Jog
21. No Factions

EDIT (user added questions):

22. Non-traditional Roles (no Trinity)
23. Player Housing

Aelious

SirAgravaine said:

General inquiry as to what you prefer, feel free to simply list your pick between the two options, or type a full treatise on how my list of binary choices are lacking in your eyes, or feel free come up with your own tertiary options. (answer as many or as few as you want)

1. Open World
2. No Loot
3. PvE-focused
4. Crafting-intensive
5. No End Game
6. Single-shard (megaserver)
7. Skill-based (Class-less)
8. Voiceover Questing
9. Action Combat
10. Story-light
11. No Penalty
12. Equipment Breaks (becomes useless)*
13. Realistic Inventory (size/weight)
14. Conventional Travel
15. Level-less (Skill points)
16. World-based Content (Must travel, manual grouping etc.)
17. Multiple Races/Species
18. Gear-Progression*
19. Limited Characters (1-2)
20. Walking/Slow Jog
21. Opposing Factions (Horde vs Alliance)

EDIT (user added questions):

22. Traditional Roles (Trinity)
23. Player Housing

* A piece of equipment could theoretically last forever but would need to be crafter maintained.

Great topic and would be a great thread to tabulate trends!

deniter

1. Open World
2. No Loot
3. PvE-focused
4. Crafting-intensive
5. No End Game
6. Multi-shard (multiple servers)
7. Skill-based (Class-less)
8. Text-based Questing
9. Traditional MMORPG Combat
10. Story-light
11. Moderate death penalty
12. Equipment Breaks (becomes useless)
13. Unrealistic Inventory (9 bags of full plate)
14. Conventional Travel
15. Levels / No-Levels (Levels shouldn't make you stronger - only permit access to skills and/or gear)
16. World-based Content (Must travel, manual grouping etc.) (This one is very important)
17. Multiple Races/Species (the more the merrier as long as they are different from each others)
18. Gear-Progression
19. Multiple Characters (per server)
20. Default Movement: Walking/Slow Jog
21. Multiple Factions
22. Traditional Roles (Trinity) (Or even four or five as long as you have a role in a group)
23. Player Housing -or- No Player Housing (Doesn't really matter)

Eronakis

1. Open World 

2. Full Loot 

3. PVE

4. Crafting-intensive 

5. End Game 

6. Single-shard (this may require zoning to alleviate server tension or I'd consider Multi-shard - Seamless world no zoning/instances.

7. Class-based

8. Text-based Questing

9. Adaptable Tab Targeting Combat

10. Story-driven 

11. Harsh Penalty - XP loss/item durability 

12. Equipment Breaks

13. Realistic Inventory (size/weight) with Magical Bags that can carry 9 things of armor. 

14. Conventional Travel with minimal instant travel

15. Level-based 

16. World-based Content (Must travel, manual grouping etc.)

17. Multiple Races/Species
 
18. Gear-Progression with no gear dependency

19. Multiple Characters (per server)

20. Both?

21. NPC Factions only

EDIT (user added questions):

22. Reinvention of the Trinity Gameplay Model

23. Player Housing 

Tsiya

1. Open World
2. No Loot
3. PvE-focused(Flagging  system)
4. Crafting-intensive
5. No End Game
6. Multi-shard (multiple servers)
7. Skill-based (Class-less)
8. Text-based Questing
9. Action Combat
10. Story-light
11. Perma-death -or- No Penalty(happy medium?)
12. Equipment Breaks (becomes useless) (a must in a crafting-heavy game)
13. Realistic Inventory (size/weight)
14. Conventional Travel
15. Level-less
16. World-based Content (Must travel, manual grouping etc.)
17. Multiple Races/Species
18. Gear-Progression -or- No Gear-Progression(No gear score)
19. Limited Characters (1-2)
20. Default Movement: Walking/Slow Jog
21. Opposing Factions (Horde vs Alliance) -or- No Factions(3 or more factions)
22. Non-traditional Roles (no Trinity)(Can't be done in a classless game)
23. Player Housing

zephirius

1. Open World (including dungeons)
2. No loot (but maybe some sort of equipment durability system)
3. PvP or PvE but not both concurrently, except a solo or group dueling feature like EQ2
4. Crafting-intensive
5. No End Game (preferably a world where players can make permanent changes to the world, within reason)
6. Single or multi-shard, whichever technology allows the game to still be playable
7. Class-based or Skill-based, both with deterioration of unused skills
8. Text-based questing (only because voiceovers requires paying people to read scripts when the money could be used for other gameplay enhancements)
9. Traditional MMORPG Combat
10. Story-driven
11. Death penalty should be feared but not to the extent of irreversible perma-death
12. Equipment Breaks (becomes useless)
13. Realistic Inventory (size/weight)
14. Conventional Travel
15. Level-less
16. Lobby-based Content or old-school chat channel broadcasts
17. Multiple Races/Species
18. Gear-Progression (but not when it solely dictates one's combat prowess and survivability)
19. Multiple Characters (per server) -or- Limited Characters (1-2)
20. Default Movement: Walking/Slow Jog (running/sprinting with an endurance mechanism)
21. Opposing Factions (Horde vs Alliance) -or- No Factions - Depends on the type of server; I like both approaches
22. Traditional Roles (Trinity) -or- Non-traditional Roles (no Trinity) - Either; I like both
23. Player Housing -or- No Player Housing - I only like it if it makes sense to have it. If it's just a place to store items then not so much, but if it's something that has to be defended or otherwise has an impact upon the game then I'm all for it; otherwise, no

Po_gg

DMKano said:

Its not the features alone - its how everything fits together as a cohisive and polished gameplay experience.

This. But just for the fun's sake, let's see those points  

1. Doesn't matter
2. n/a   (since, look at the next one)
3. PvE  (not "-focused", only. So the 2. point about loot is pointless )
4. Doesn't matter (I like crafting, but if it's missing and the game is still great... /shrug)
5. No End Game  (it's the Journey, what matters...)
6. Doesn't matter
7. Doesn't matter (I like both)
8. Doesn't matter (I like both)
9. Doesn't matter (combat is irrelevant, until it doesn't hinder my enjoyment. On a sidenote it's pathetic that RPG on computers was turned into a kill-a-thon... combat should be the least important aspect of an RPG session or game)
10. Story-driven, of course.
11. Any Penalty is fine, from very harsh to nothing   (I must add, on a long-term focused game, affected by the chance of power or net failures, lag spikes, etc. permadeath is the stupidest idea)
12. Doesn't matter
13. Doesn't matter  (I'm a hoarder personally, but I'm fine with inventory tetris and weight limits too)
14. Doesn't matter (I like both)
15. Doesn't matter (I like both)
16. Doesn't matter (I like both)
17. Doesn't matter (I like both)
18. Doesn't matter
19. lol, 1-2 per server? make that 30-40, at least! Altoholism for da win, man  :waving:
20. when you can switch between the two, does it matter which is the default?
21. F*cktions, in a way you mean, never.   Factions, story-wise (like TSW for example), sure why not.
22. Doesn't matter (I like both)
23. Player Housing, every game should have that  

SirAgravaine

Po_gg said:

DMKano said:

Its not the features alone - its how everything fits together as a cohisive and polished gameplay experience.

This. But just for the fun's sake, let's see those points  

2. n/a   (since, look at the next one)
3. PvE  (not "-focused", only. So the 2. point about loot is pointless )

Actually, Asheron's Call had partial loot drop (possibly interpreted as full loot) on PVE encounters. So it goes both ways. Equipment Recovery/Corpse Runs are considered a possible death penalty.

cameltosis

As with all things, you can't design features in a vacuum and the final implementation is just as important as the underlying philosophies. That said:

1. Open World
2. No Loot
3. Balanced between PvP and PvE (though, I wouldn't play an MMO without PvP)
4. Crafting-intensive (by which I mean strong player-focused economy)
5. End Game
6. Multi-shard (multiple servers)
7. Class-based (well, role based)
8. Text-based Questing (only reason I say this is I'd rather the money went towards gameplay. If money is no object, then voice acting)
9. Traditional MMORPG Combat
10. Story-light
11. No Penalty (I do like death penalties, but not perma-death!)
12. Equipment Breaks (becomes useless) 
13. Unrealistic Inventory (I don't really care, as long as I don't have to constantly run back to a vault)
14. Conventional Travel (I like a mix of both)
15. Level-less - only reason I say this is currently, levels = power and I hate power gaps. Horizontal progression for the win. 
16. World-based Content
17. Multiple Races/Species
18. Gear-Progression (as long as it's horizontal progression - I like to collect new gear and experiment with new builds, but I hate power gaps and gear scores). 
19. Multiple Characters
20. Don't care
21. Opposing Factions (should be 3+ factions)
22. Trinity+ (tank, healer, dps plus extra roles: buffer, debuffer, cc, off-tank, puller etc)
23. Player Housing

nerovergil

1. Open World -or- Instanced - I like gw2 instanced, if 1 map can hold 200 players why not? if open world is laggy, random pop out, unstable like bdo, i don't want it.

2. Full Loot -or- No Loot - what u mean by this? did u mean item drop while death? then i want no loot.

3. PvP-focued -or- PvE-focused - i like both, with flag systems, pve and pvp players in one world. pvp player can pk other pvp players but cant touch pve players. pvp caravan give more golds than pve caravan. pvp player can capture nodes/town

4. Crafting-intensive -or- Crafting-light - i love crafting, it adds more layers to gameplay. i choose crafting intensive. I want a job systems, that is player can be crafter. Player can work with the NPC and receive salaries. Example: a chef can cook and receive free items for crafting, free crafting exp and money while doing the job. However its limited to three crafting items only (a day). Player can choose to crafting food, then blacksmith then jeweler (not just one job). Player can do more crafting, but they need to gather their own resources and wont get paid salary.

5. End Game -or- No End Game - I want a long grind. End game after 30 years (PVE). And PVP matchmaking lobby game for immediate fun (like gw2 spvp)

6. Single-shard (megaserver) -or- Multi-shard (multiple servers) - megaservers can be multiple. player can travel freely between megaservers. Example hey im playing Heavensword online at server 7. Because server 1-3 is full and 4-6 is high. I want a less population servers because im freaking anti social.

7. Class-based -or- Skill-based (Class-less) - class is like a template of skills. i like skyrim, oblivion where there is no class, just pick up weapon.

8. Voiceover Questing -or- Text-based Questing - I love text. Its makes the game lighter. I hate high giga bytes games like eso. 

9. Action Combat -or- Traditional MMORPG Combat - tab target

10. Story-driven -or- Story-light - sandbox. no story, just world, player create their own stories

11. Perma-death -or- No Penalty - exp deductions

12. Equipment Breaks (becomes useless) -or- Equipment is Permanent - repair on death

13. Realistic Inventory (size/weight) -or- Unrealistic Inventory (9 bags of full plate) - realistic

14. Instant Travel -or- Conventional Travel - no fast travel.

15. Level-based -or- Level-less - Level based for pve, leveled gear at pvp lobby game

16. Lobby-based Content (Group Finders, Raid Finders, Queues, etc.) -or- World-based Content (Must travel, manual grouping etc.) - Just PVP matchmaking. I hate dungeons

17. Multiple Races/Species -or- One Race/Species - lol...

18. Gear-Progression -or- No Gear-Progression - gear progress

19. Multiple Characters (per server) -or- Limited Characters (1-2) - lol..

20. Default Movement: Walking/Slow Jog -or- Running/Sprinting - lol!

21. Opposing Factions (Horde vs Alliance) -or- No Factions - open world pvp. u can even kill your neighboor

22. Traditional Roles (Trinity) -or- Non-traditional Roles (no Trinity) - trinity. only shooter doesnt need it. if its rpg based, trinity is needed.

23. Player Housing -or- No Player Housing. house yes.

nerovergil

1. Theme - Medieval Fantasy. Like GW2, the costumes/weapons/classes can be medieval, modern and futuristic. More into medieval as main theme. Some city are modern or futuristic.

2. World design - Dynamic world, night and day cycle, seasons, weathers.

3. NPCs - NPC seems alive, they have routine cycle like sleep at night, work at days, etc. Every NPC has dynamic quest, even random generated npcs.

4. Quest - Dynamic quest. Or we call it radiant quest in tes 5 skyrim. Its an auto generated types of quest. Some quest required players to kill high level monsters, it is dependen on players luck

5. Sandbox - Developer team will create the world. Story is player driven. Game has lore.

Developer will patch update that has new class/skills, new map, new quest types, etc (end game stuff so everyone will have different experience based on randomize systems.)

6. Economy - Developer controls, player cant trade between players. Trading using Trade House.

7. Cosmetic Shop - Player can buy cosmetic using real life money or convert ingame gold to cosmetic shop points.

8. Business model - Buy to play $100. Free trial for 30 days. Subsribtion $10 a month after purchasing. Premium and Sub players get advantage in game PVE.

9. PVE+PVP Combine server - PVP thru flagging systems. PVP players cant touch PVE players. PVP players can capture nodes, PVE cant. PVP caravans give more gold than PVE caravan. Capturing nodes will give more golds to guild.

10. PVP Matchmaking Lobby Game - Or we call it SPVP. 5vs5 with ladder and ranking systems. Player can represent their guild as they play. They will also Guild ranking. Fair pvp systems with same max level and max gear.

Similar to gw2, it was short 15 minutes games with PVE elements. There is monsters to kill there to. Its depends on who last hit kill the monsters and MVP boss that give huge points to the team who slay it.

11. Level systems. - Level 1-100. Every leveling area has boss monster and MVP monster. 

Example at level 1 area, they will have lv 1 boss lurking around. Level 1 boss can be killed by 10 level 1 players. Same goes to level 2 boss, can be kill by 10 level 2 players. Same with all other levels.

They will also MVP level 100 monster that can only be kill by 10 level 100 players. A reason for player to come back to lower level area.

Boss and MVP monsters also drops a precious items required for class ranking systems.

12. Class ranking systems - Every 10 level, player can increase their classes rank by defeating boss monsters. Example at level 10, 20, 30 ,40 ,50,etc

Player need to kill all level 1-10 boss monsters to increase 1 rank at level 10.

As player increase rank, they getting stronger in PVE.

13. Classes - Classes is just a template of skills. Player need to gather golds and talk to the trainers to learn skills in PVE.

Players can mix and match skills to create a custom class.

In SPVP, player just mix and match skills to make custom class and play

With this system, an assassin can wear a light and heavy armor and a mage can wear a heavy or medium armor and a knight can wear a light or medium armor. However, Full plate armor still has advantage over light armor againts sword. Light armor usually has more magic defend.

14. Camera systems - 1st person, 3rd person and can be zoomed out like top down/isometric.

Player can walk with left click and change camera view using right click. Making the game hybrid between 3rd person and isometic. Player can walk with wasd too, space bar for jump, double tab to dodge roll.

15. Combat - Tab target. Like gw2 and isometric like dota 2/ragnarok online.

16. Graphic quality - At low setting, a toaster can run it. If u can run wow or runescape, you can run this game.

at high setting, it looks good like black desert, assassin creed syndicate and witcher 3

17. Art styles - Realistic. Like GW2, grand theif auto 5, black desert, witcher 3, assassin creed syndicate.

18. Crafting systems - Profesion systems. Player can work with NPC at start. Craft 3 items a day for free exp, gold and materials. To craft more you need to gather materials yourself.

Crafting is simple, just gather items and click craft. To craft a better items player need to craft more. There is RNG.

As player get richer, they can start their own shop and hired npc.

19. Nodes system - Player can create town after capturing nodes. Players can tax other player who come.

20. Megaservers. Player can switch server freely. Depends on players to play on high or low population server.

21. Travel. There will be no fast travel, player travel using horse/mount to arrive faster.

There will be auto path (like black desert) but better. Player just click the destination on world map and character will go there.

Only sub players can have flying mount

22. Life simulations - Player can eat, drink, set up camp, sleep for buff.

sunandshadow

@nerovergil ; For pity's sake, don't use the same set of numbers for a completely different set of informaton.

Caffynated

1. Open World
2. Inventory Loot
3. PvP-focued
4. Crafting-intensive
5. End Game
6. Single-shard
7. Class-based
8. Voiceover Questing
9. Action Combat
10. Story-light
11. No Penalty
12. Equipment Breaks
13. Realistic Inventory
14. Conventional Travel (Except Wizards)
15. Level-based
16.  World-based Content
17. Multiple Races/Species
18. Gear-Progression (but gear enhances the character, not make or break)
19. Limited Characters
20. Jog 7-8 MPH
21. Multiple factions and no factions (Eve)
22. Traditional Roles
23. Player Housing

Redfeather75

1. Open World
2. Build Changing Loot. Not stat progression loot.
3. PvE-focused
4. No crafting beyond swapping upgrade components
5. End Game, but only like an infinite tower type thing.
6. Single-shard (mega-server)
7. Skill-based (Class-less)
8. Voice-over Questing and Text-based Questing
9. Action Combat
10. Story-light
11. No Penalty
12. Equipment is Permanent
13. Realistic Inventory
14. Conventional Travel
15. Level-less
16. No groups. Free-for-all help each other.
17. One Race/Species
18. No Gear-Progression (build changing loot, not stat progression)
19. Limited Characters (1-2)
20. Default Movement: Running/Sprinting
21. No Factions
22. Non-traditional Roles (no Trinity)
23. No Player Housing

SirAgravaine

Caffynated said:

1. Open World
2. Inventory Loot
3. PvP-focued
4. Crafting-intensive
5. End Game
6. Single-shard
7. Class-based
8. Voiceover Questing
9. Action Combat
10. Story-light
11. No Penalty
12. Equipment Breaks
13. Realistic Inventory
14. Conventional Travel (Except Wizards)
15. Level-based
16.  World-based Content
17. Multiple Races/Species
18. Gear-Progression (but gear enhances the character, not make or break)
19. Limited Characters
20. Jog 7-8 MPH
21. Multiple factions and no factions (Eve)
22. Traditional Roles
23. Player Housing

Jog 7-8 miles per hour sometime and tell me how that goes. -_o

MMOExposed

1. Open World 
2. No Loot
3. PvPvE-focued 
4. Crafting-intensive
5. No End Game
6.  Multi-shard (multiple servers)
7. Class-based -AND- Skill-based BOTH
8. Voiceover Questing
9. Traditional MMORPG Combat
10. Story-driven 
11. No Penalty
12. Equipment Breaks (becomes useless) 
13. Unrealistic Inventory (9 bags of full plate)
14. Instant Travel -AND- Conventional Travel COMBO OF BOTH
15. Level-less
16. Lobby-based Content (Group Finders, Raid Finders, Queues, etc.)
17. Multiple Races/Species
18. Gear-Progression -AND- No Gear-Progression BOTH
19. Multiple Characters (per server)
20. Default Movement: Running/Sprinting
21. Opposing Factions (Horde vs Alliance) 
22. Traditional Roles (Trinity) 
23. Player Housing 

EDIT (MMOExposed added questions):

24. Solo Friendly -or- Group Requirement:
25. PvE Raids -or- Small Scaled PvE:
26. Realistic Weapons/Armor -or- Fantasy Weapons/Armor
27. Animation Locks for Combat/Movement(Aion, GW1, Blade and Soul) -or- Non-Animation Locking (WoW, Rift)
28. Add-ons -or- No Add-ons
29. Dynamic Event Centered(Guild Wars 2, Rift) -or- Traditional Quest/Stationary NPC Spawn centered(WoW)
30. Mobile Siege Weaponry -or- Stationary Siege Weaponry
31. Seamless World (WoW) -or- Zoned World (Guild Wars 2)
32. Long Distant Chat( Rift) -or- Local Only Chat (GW2, ESO)
33. Maps in UI -or- No Maps 
34. Voxels -or- No Voxels

Vermillion_Raventhal

1. Open World
2. Full Loot( easy to obtain gear)
3. PvP-focued
4. Crafting-intensive
5. No End Game
6. Single Megaworld multiple server continents connected.
7. (Class-less)
8. Text-based Questing
9. Traditional MMORPG Combat with action attacks.
10. Story-light
11.  No Penalty
12. Equipment Breaks (becomes useless)
13. Realistic Inventory (size/weight)
14. Conventional Travel
15. Level-less
16. World-based Content (Must travel, manual grouping etc.)
17. Multiple Races/Species
18. No Gear-Progression
19. Limited Characters (1-2)
20. Walking/Slow Jog
21. No Factions

EDIT (user added questions):

22. Traditional Roles (Trinity)
23. Player Housing

Theocritus

Im surprised how many are putting skill based...im guessing they want solo experience and not group? TO be honest Ive never played a skill based game that was any good....All the fun ones I played had classes.

SirAgravaine

Theocritus said:

Im surprised how many are putting skill based...im guessing they want solo experience and not group? TO be honest Ive never played a skill based game that was any good....All the fun ones I played had classes.

Skill-based games can have group content. Asheron's Call is a good example, while not as focused on end-game group based content it certainly encouraged group play, and was (*cry* past-tense) heavily skill-based. Star Wars Galaxies is another example, as it was arguably more skill-based than class-based (professions), and had plenty of group content. Perhaps it is a mixture of your breadth of experience and the fact that developers rarely stray from the time-honored path (P&P RPG) of class-based RPGs.

Steelhelm

1. Open World
2. Full Loot
3. PvP-focused (with large safe zones and travel options)
4. Crafting-intensive
5. No End Game
6. Multi-shard (multiple servers)
7. Skill-based (Class-less)
8. Text-based Questing
9. Traditional MMORPG Combat
10. Story-light
11. Perma-death (with account tied skills)
12. Equipment Breaks (becomes useless)
13. Realistic Inventory (size/weight)
14. Conventional Travel
15. Level-less
16. World-based Content (Must travel, manual grouping etc.)
17. Multiple Races/Species
18. Gear-Progression (horizontal and diminutive vertical)
19. Multiple Characters (per server)
20. Default Movement: Walking/Slow Jog
21. No Factions (with race hostilities)

EDIT (user added questions):

22. Traditional Roles (Trinity)
23. Player Housing