There are games that present challenging and interesting player based gameplay mechanics.
They have meaningful PvP (consentual or non consentual) that has an impact on the game world. They have a deep and varied crafting system and a player run economy. They have player controlled territories. They have areas to raid and do large PvE encounters. They have a detailed housing system allowing you to gather treasure and trophies. These systems keep the game in flux and don't necessarily present an endless treadmill. You keep playing because you're invested in the world and because its fun. You're not playing because some devs are patching in ever greater helmets for you to aquire.
Other, much simpler, poorly designed games have one thing. An endless raiding treadmill. It's set up in tiers so you need to do them in a certain order. Once you have all the goods, they add a new dungeon making all your stuff worthless. You keep doing the same raids over and over because other than the raids, the only other thing to do is a really bad tacked on meaningless PvP system.
The first system I described is primarily based upon Dark Age of Camelot. Some elements of Star Wars Galaxies, Eve, and Darkfall too.
The system under it, is WoW and all the other EverQuest clones.
Comments
The guy above me hit it on the head
Mess with the best, Die like the rest
There are games that present challenging and interesting player based gameplay mechanics.
They have meaningful PvP (consentual or non consentual) that has an impact on the game world. They have a deep and varied crafting system and a player run economy. They have player controlled territories. They have areas to raid and do large PvE encounters. They have a detailed housing system allowing you to gather treasure and trophies. These systems keep the game in flux and don't necessarily present an endless treadmill. You keep playing because you're invested in the world and because its fun. You're not playing because some devs are patching in ever greater helmets for you to aquire.
Other, much simpler, poorly designed games have one thing. An endless raiding treadmill. It's set up in tiers so you need to do them in a certain order. Once you have all the goods, they add a new dungeon making all your stuff worthless. You keep doing the same raids over and over because other than the raids, the only other thing to do is a really bad tacked on meaningless PvP system.
The first system I described is primarily based upon Dark Age of Camelot. Some elements of Star Wars Galaxies, Eve, and Darkfall too.
The system under it, is WoW and all the other EverQuest clones.