Most important: No PvP without consent, and no progression (gear, skills, etc) which are only obtained through PvP, without PvE equivalents (requiring PvP if you want to progress is just as bad as no consent). If it has forced PvP, I won't even consider the game. I don't care what fantastic arguments can be made for PvP being good for a game; I can't stand it.
All other points are irrelevant. I won't enjoy playing in the world if I have to constantly look over my shoulder when the whole world is potentially against me, even when I'm away from the computer, or simply minding my own business. Even worse, is when I have a chance of loosing any of the stuff I have to those enemies.
Cost: I can't pay for more than one or two subscription MMO's at any given time. (0 currently, and looking) I've tried a few F2P games, and enjoy a couple now and then. I won't pay more than $10 a month, given the track records of any MMO I've seen out there, the content just isn't good enough for me to justify more... given the variety found in the F2P games I can play and for the same cost of 1 monthly subscription, I could buy 2 offline RPGs that I'd probably enjoy more - I still go back and play my offline RPGs now and then.
Closely related: in F2P cash shops, I should be able to progress without buying anything from it through normal gameplay. Speed up exp gain, new appearances, whatever, fine, but no cash shop inventory expansion, no exclusive access to areas or gear... and Cash Shops should sell the actual item you're paying for, not a random chest that *might* contain what you want. Deal-breaker stuff there. I'll eventually say "What's the point?" if I can't continue progressing. Maybe that's just me.
Next major point: A Responsive Development team. (both in creation or modifications in game content, and direct communication with the players) They have to understand how their game is being played and know that people actually playing the game know what they're talking about when they present well-reasoned proposals for change. Not all requests for change are good, or if they are good, they may not fit the direction the MMO team wants to go. So if the answer is "no", it would be good to give reasons why; not just ignore. With this information, future requests can be put into context with the vision of the game's team.
The following aren't my biggest selling points on what I look for, but each one gives the game a higher chance that I'll go back to it, rather than to another:
Quick Access to content for limited play time. I don't want to be running around the world for 30 minutes just to get to play for another 30 before I have to stop.
Classes that fit my personality and combat style. (Polearms, twin-bladed weaponry, dual wielding weapons without penalty (weapons made for it, and the combat system designed to take it into account), martial artists using claws) Generally with limited self-sustaining abilities so I don't have to rely entirely on items to stay alive.
Active combat that requires using abilities strategically, and enemies whose attacks can be read and either countered or avoided. (very few abilities should have recharge times of 30seconds or more.)
Solo content that is meaningful to the game world and other players. (to me, the MMO part is playing in the same world as other players, not playing "with" them the entire time.) Accomplishing group goals is good. Buying items made or gathered by other players is good. Chatting with them is ok.
Content that makes me WANT to be in a group, when I feel like it. Bonuses for being in a group, perhaps allowing classes access to combined abilities that require multiple players to perform - maybe just increasing the strengths of abilities based on other classes in the group, not necessarily different classes. Do not reduce experience gained in a party. Do not make solo progression agonizingly slow to make group leveling appealing.
Closely related: Limited penalties for dropping out of groups when life outside the game requires it, so the rest of a group does not have their time ruined... which means, an easy way to bring in another member somehow.
Easy ways for people who want to accomplish the same goals to find each other, without being in the same guild/clan/whathaveyou. (perhaps tied to the above group dropping problem.)
Massive, easily accessible storage that you don't have to pay extra for. I'm a hoarder of trophies from my adventures, be they combat or exploration, not always useful. And I like to try many styles of playing my character, so I like sets of gear that each cater to each style.
User created content and customization is something very few MMOs have embraced, and I'd be drawn toward. Closely related: Once I find a good look based on the gear I've found... I want to keep that look, regardless of the new gear I eventually find with better stats that looks dreadful... you know it happens. And I hate the mix'n'match appearance that plagues games where gear from different sets is collected as 'best in slot'; if I want to be Gogo, I'll play FF6, thankyouverymuch.
I'm not seriously playing any MMO's right now, ever since I let my subscription to FFXI drop about a year ago, before they practically forced everyone to move off the PS2 to the computer to play the new expansion which I didn't buy. The few Free to play games I still can play on my old and getting older PC are dwindling, so a minor feature I'd look for is low PC spec requirements.
The quality of the Virtual World that the Game is built into.
If the game and gameplay is great, but the virtual world sucks, then I am outta there. Virtual world must be to my liking, immersive, able to make me forget real life and time spent in game, and make me want... even need... to explore it to it's limits.
For me it isn't just about "fun" even though that is important to me, it's about satisfaction.
The quality of the Virtual World that the Game is built into.
If the game and gameplay is great, but the virtual world sucks, then I am outta there. Virtual world must be to my liking, immersive, able to make me forget real life and time spent in game, and make me want... even need... to explore it to it's limits.
For me it isn't just about "fun" even though that is important to me, it's about satisfaction.
I dont know what kind of 2 handed sledgehammer you are wielding but you nailed it pretty nicely .
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014. **On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
Depth of the game is a huge thing for me nowadays. It is one of the primary things I look into when buying a game any more. A game with a huge variety of activities is a must. From fighting to crafting, character development to side activities, and so on and so on. If I can figure out and experience everything in a matter of days, then it doesn't have depth. It is shallow. I prefer a game that will take me weeks just to learn all the options i have to look forward to in the future. Once I know what is available, it will take me months to get into the nitty gritty and really start to understand just what I can do with all of the options.
1. Provide me with MMORPG experiences I enjoy and am already getting in my current game.
2. Additional experiences that i will enjoy and am not already getting in my current game.
For example, I like challenging group content. But I am already already getting awesome group content in my current game (EQ2). So if you want me to switch to a new game, it has to give me challenging group content which is just as extensive and just as good (or better) as EQ2, PLUS it has to give me something I'm not getting in EQ2.
This is why i'm on fence about EQN - i know it will provide me with new experiences that I am not getting in EQ2 (destruction, rally calls, etc.) - but atm, I am extremely skeptical about it being able to provide me with challenging and extensive group content. (I also f***Ing hate the character models, but that's a separate issue).
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
I want a world to explore with little to now boundaries, rewarding content for being willing to take the time to find those hidden places the dev's had fun making. I want a vibrant and social community, a reason to group and people to group with. For me too many MMORPGs have become solo games with a social afterthought. I don't want to be spoon fed quest locations and details. Let me learn and make mistakes. Stop holding my hand and treating me like a spoiled brat.
As far as the gameplay itself, I generally have gotten to the point where if a game breaks down into too much of a pattern recognition game I get bored and annoyed very fast.
There's more that can be done and more that occasionally does get done. To a small degree the 'director' AI in Left 4 Dead is such an example in that it operates to remix the encounters of the maps so you aren't facing the exact same situation each time you run through a place.
Sims is an example here. Yes, it's basic game play level is a lot of pattern recognition and routine fulfillment. However, that is only one aspect that serves to expand into handling a variety of potential personalities as well as a pretty large dose of creative play through customizing the avatars and everything in their homes, the home included.
I personally desire a game that expands on this element within the behavior of creatures themselves. Adding a basic Sims-like mechanic to them really where they have some unique physical traits and personality quirks that adds a degree of unpredictability and variance to any given unit type without changing them dramatically.
Not everything has to boil down to a simple pattern recognition memory game. I value strategy, action, creativity, and improvisation all for their own reasons and contributions. It bothers me when people think the solution is to give us the same memory puzzle repackaged in a different skin, because there's much more variety to what can constitute entertainment. It's a failing in logic to pretend otherwise.
I do not advocate anarchic randomness in a system, but I do believe variability and at least a minor degree of variability adds an element to any game that would go a long way in making it a much better long term experience.
A title that can give me the basic game play elements, and gives me the choice to restructure some of these elements to tailor them ( like Saga of Ryzom). An AI for NPC's and mobs that doesn't just have a sense of intelligence and life as far as daily activities, but malleable parameters for their behavior so that they can adapt to our play as well as we adapt to theirs. Activities that mesh together across types of game play, rather than activities that feed into a single form of game play (aka focus isn't in feeding everything eventually into combat).
EDIT: To perhaps be more clear, I somewhat mean the potential of what an MMO can be is what grabs me more so than what it is. Some come closer than others when you talk about titles like Saga of Ryzom, which is a game that hit many of the things I wish 'mainstream' MMOs would dare to attempt.
A virtual world. Something that can grow over time not simply by developers chucking content updates at it, but as a direct response to players interacting with and in the world. An MMO is a framework that is uniquely suited to this endeavor, yet it's a goal set aside to create a very different kind of game, one that I have gotten very annoyed at seeing produced a nauseam.
I don't want to hear a broadcast announcement that some named monster died and applaud the heroes just for the exact same loop to play five minutes later for another group. I want a formula that isn't so mindlessly simple as memorizing a dungeon and running it twenty times for loot. I want to see my actions be novel and consequential to the game I am playing, a sense that what I have done isn't an element that is going to simply be forgotten by the game in a couple seconds just for the next hundred people to pass by and do the exact same thing.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I thought about this for a while. Sure, there are several features from housing to skirmishes and chronicles (LOTRO and RIFT) I love to see in a game but they are window dressing. None of it will make a huge impact individually regarding how playable a game is. The main thing we do in MMORPGs is kill things and take their stuff all day to progress a character. So, I am going to answer that the biggest selling point a game can have for me in truth is "fun" combat no matter how much I whine about everything else that's missing.
A large community and a competitive aspect, doesn't exactly have to be pvp but something that puts you against other players, like raid progression. There's a few other aspects that are important to me, but those are the two biggest.
The first thing is freedom of choices, too many of these upcoming batch of games since TOR and GW2 forward are upping the ante on linear hand holding. Its almost like new mmorpgs have been made to not offend anyone and give everybody 20 percent of what they would actually like to do. GW2 felt less like an mmo and more like some kind of Socialist commune. I am at the point now that Neverwinter Nights is more enjoyable than most new mmorpgs. People on the same server are not even playing the same game half the time because of phasing and invisible walls to prevent them actually confronting each other.
I do not want to play a console game on my pc, again I do not want to play a console game on my pc, more than 5 skills and a few buttons please. No homogenized skills and something for everyone in every class. Also dont over simplify classes I know kids like cut and paste Steet fighter style character "creation" but again, I do not want to play a console game on my pc.
AI needs to be more than mob aggro. I have yet to find an mmo that did npcs as well as Fable, Chronicles of spellborn was not bad, but that game is dead, go figure. Ai mobs need to move around do things on their own, trade goods, have utility skills besides making some grunting sound and running at me with knives.
The "environment" needs to be more than a texture map over the ground, I think thats self explanatory. What ever happened to putting items on the ground and camp fires? You mean to tell me new mmorpgs are not as advanced as LP muds?
Fun things that annoy some people but are needed. Believe it or not some players do not want to play nice on these games, which is the entire reason they play games like this. Some form of free roaming world pvp, and sending a summoned creature over a starting player town. Now new games are boring because everything has become a hand holding session.
I'd like to say it's the game world, or the lore, or the depth of crafting. Even something 'gameplayey' so that I could pretend that I care more about fun and function than form. Alas, the reality is that the biggest selling point is the art style. It's always the first filter, and if a game doesn't pass that then it rarely gets a second look. Wildstar, for example, fell at the first screenshot. Ditto every Korean MMO populated by boy-band himbos with over-sized weapons (compensating for something?). Not sure why this is the case. In other genres I can appreciate a more stylised look - I adore the graphics in Legend of Dungeon for example - but when it comes to this particular genre, it just has to look so.
My three features that I always look for: economy, pvp and raiding/item farming. These features seem to be the most important for traditional subscription mmorpg that wants to hold people's interested in the game for extended periods of time. Everything else that fills the game is not hard to implement but time consuming nonetheless.
Comments
That's meaningless. You're being asked *what* gives your pleasure in MMOs?
All other points are irrelevant. I won't enjoy playing in the world if I have to constantly look over my shoulder when the whole world is potentially against me, even when I'm away from the computer, or simply minding my own business. Even worse, is when I have a chance of loosing any of the stuff I have to those enemies.
I'm not seriously playing any MMO's right now, ever since I let my subscription to FFXI drop about a year ago, before they practically forced everyone to move off the PS2 to the computer to play the new expansion which I didn't buy. The few Free to play games I still can play on my old and getting older PC are dwindling, so a minor feature I'd look for is low PC spec requirements.
There ya go.
The quality of the Virtual World that the Game is built into.
If the game and gameplay is great, but the virtual world sucks, then I am outta there. Virtual world must be to my liking, immersive, able to make me forget real life and time spent in game, and make me want... even need... to explore it to it's limits.
For me it isn't just about "fun" even though that is important to me, it's about satisfaction.
I dont know what kind of 2 handed sledgehammer you are wielding but you nailed it pretty nicely
.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
The new game has to do two things:
1. Provide me with MMORPG experiences I enjoy and am already getting in my current game.
2. Additional experiences that i will enjoy and am not already getting in my current game.
For example, I like challenging group content. But I am already already getting awesome group content in my current game (EQ2). So if you want me to switch to a new game, it has to give me challenging group content which is just as extensive and just as good (or better) as EQ2, PLUS it has to give me something I'm not getting in EQ2.
This is why i'm on fence about EQN - i know it will provide me with new experiences that I am not getting in EQ2 (destruction, rally calls, etc.) - but atm, I am extremely skeptical about it being able to provide me with challenging and extensive group content. (I also f***Ing hate the character models, but that's a separate issue).
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
This is my sig... nice huh? :P
Like other's note, a virtual world is preferable.
As far as the gameplay itself, I generally have gotten to the point where if a game breaks down into too much of a pattern recognition game I get bored and annoyed very fast.
There's more that can be done and more that occasionally does get done. To a small degree the 'director' AI in Left 4 Dead is such an example in that it operates to remix the encounters of the maps so you aren't facing the exact same situation each time you run through a place.
Sims is an example here. Yes, it's basic game play level is a lot of pattern recognition and routine fulfillment. However, that is only one aspect that serves to expand into handling a variety of potential personalities as well as a pretty large dose of creative play through customizing the avatars and everything in their homes, the home included.
I personally desire a game that expands on this element within the behavior of creatures themselves. Adding a basic Sims-like mechanic to them really where they have some unique physical traits and personality quirks that adds a degree of unpredictability and variance to any given unit type without changing them dramatically.
Not everything has to boil down to a simple pattern recognition memory game. I value strategy, action, creativity, and improvisation all for their own reasons and contributions. It bothers me when people think the solution is to give us the same memory puzzle repackaged in a different skin, because there's much more variety to what can constitute entertainment. It's a failing in logic to pretend otherwise.
I do not advocate anarchic randomness in a system, but I do believe variability and at least a minor degree of variability adds an element to any game that would go a long way in making it a much better long term experience.
A title that can give me the basic game play elements, and gives me the choice to restructure some of these elements to tailor them ( like Saga of Ryzom). An AI for NPC's and mobs that doesn't just have a sense of intelligence and life as far as daily activities, but malleable parameters for their behavior so that they can adapt to our play as well as we adapt to theirs. Activities that mesh together across types of game play, rather than activities that feed into a single form of game play (aka focus isn't in feeding everything eventually into combat).
EDIT: To perhaps be more clear, I somewhat mean the potential of what an MMO can be is what grabs me more so than what it is. Some come closer than others when you talk about titles like Saga of Ryzom, which is a game that hit many of the things I wish 'mainstream' MMOs would dare to attempt.
A virtual world. Something that can grow over time not simply by developers chucking content updates at it, but as a direct response to players interacting with and in the world. An MMO is a framework that is uniquely suited to this endeavor, yet it's a goal set aside to create a very different kind of game, one that I have gotten very annoyed at seeing produced a nauseam.
I don't want to hear a broadcast announcement that some named monster died and applaud the heroes just for the exact same loop to play five minutes later for another group. I want a formula that isn't so mindlessly simple as memorizing a dungeon and running it twenty times for loot. I want to see my actions be novel and consequential to the game I am playing, a sense that what I have done isn't an element that is going to simply be forgotten by the game in a couple seconds just for the next hundred people to pass by and do the exact same thing.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I thought about this for a while. Sure, there are several features from housing to skirmishes and chronicles (LOTRO and RIFT) I love to see in a game but they are window dressing. None of it will make a huge impact individually regarding how playable a game is. The main thing we do in MMORPGs is kill things and take their stuff all day to progress a character. So, I am going to answer that the biggest selling point a game can have for me in truth is "fun" combat no matter how much I whine about everything else that's missing.
What I look for in a game is decent graphics whether realistic or cell shading. Good crafting system, decent story.
Oh and if pisses off the eiltist pvp or griefing crowd then I am usually wanting to try it.
The first thing is freedom of choices, too many of these upcoming batch of games since TOR and GW2 forward are upping the ante on linear hand holding. Its almost like new mmorpgs have been made to not offend anyone and give everybody 20 percent of what they would actually like to do. GW2 felt less like an mmo and more like some kind of Socialist commune. I am at the point now that Neverwinter Nights is more enjoyable than most new mmorpgs. People on the same server are not even playing the same game half the time because of phasing and invisible walls to prevent them actually confronting each other.
I do not want to play a console game on my pc, again I do not want to play a console game on my pc, more than 5 skills and a few buttons please. No homogenized skills and something for everyone in every class. Also dont over simplify classes I know kids like cut and paste Steet fighter style character "creation" but again, I do not want to play a console game on my pc.
AI needs to be more than mob aggro. I have yet to find an mmo that did npcs as well as Fable, Chronicles of spellborn was not bad, but that game is dead, go figure. Ai mobs need to move around do things on their own, trade goods, have utility skills besides making some grunting sound and running at me with knives.
The "environment" needs to be more than a texture map over the ground, I think thats self explanatory. What ever happened to putting items on the ground and camp fires? You mean to tell me new mmorpgs are not as advanced as LP muds?
Fun things that annoy some people but are needed. Believe it or not some players do not want to play nice on these games, which is the entire reason they play games like this. Some form of free roaming world pvp, and sending a summoned creature over a starting player town. Now new games are boring because everything has become a hand holding session.
No more Pandas in any game.
I'd like to say it's the game world, or the lore, or the depth of crafting. Even something 'gameplayey' so that I could pretend that I care more about fun and function than form. Alas, the reality is that the biggest selling point is the art style. It's always the first filter, and if a game doesn't pass that then it rarely gets a second look. Wildstar, for example, fell at the first screenshot. Ditto every Korean MMO populated by boy-band himbos with over-sized weapons (compensating for something?). Not sure why this is the case. In other genres I can appreciate a more stylised look - I adore the graphics in Legend of Dungeon for example - but when it comes to this particular genre, it just has to look so.
My three features that I always look for: economy, pvp and raiding/item farming. These features seem to be the most important for traditional subscription mmorpg that wants to hold people's interested in the game for extended periods of time. Everything else that fills the game is not hard to implement but time consuming nonetheless.