Must and Musn't Haves

NeoWolf73

So I'm curious..

When you look at a new MMO or even an MMO in development, what are your own must and must not have criteria?

We all have them.. what features must your MMO's have and what features absolutely put an end to any interest you would have had in a game?

Goatgod76

Originally posted by NeoWolf73


So I'm curious..
When you look at a new MMO or even an MMO in development, what are your own must and must not have criteria?
We all have them.. what features must your MMO's have and what features absolutely put an end to any interest you would have had in a game?

 

Must Haves:

- Deep, rich story line

- Meaningful quests. (Actually story behind them, not just "Collect/Kill X amount of X" quests.

- Engaging crafting system with meaning (Everything is useful from the beginning)

- Big, open world

- Some actual challenge. (Unpredictable AI) (Slower leveling)

- Outstanding game mechanics (Manageable UI, or ability to customize it)

- Fantastic character customization options (LOTS of options to make a truly unique character)

 

Must not have:

- Meaningless story that is just thrown in to give a thin atmosphere to the game and cover up some of the time sink.

- Played off the first one under this category, and #2 under the must haves, 8 billion "Collect/Kill X amount of X" quests.

- Meaningless crafting system where you make a million useless items before you can make something worth the time and money.

- Small and linear world (See AoC)

- Predictable and easy mobs and battles. Mobs that stand in one place waiting for you to attack and kill them. Fast leveling (where you get to top level in a month or less (See WoW, as well as several other more recent MMO's)

- Shitty game mechanics they try to cover-up with pretty graphics. Game mechanics > Graphics.

- Limited character creation. Hate games that make it look like SW: Attack of the clones.

solistus

Kudos on the topic idea.

 

Must-haves:

-An interesting setting: There are FAR too many generic fantasy settings.  If there are elves, dragons and goblins in your game world, there had better be something to make it unique.  If a game had everything else I want and a boring fantasy setting I might still try it, but odds are I'd never bother to read about it to discover how much I would like all the game mechanics.  Post-apocalyptic is cool if done well (I'm cautiously optimistic about Fallen Earth), ditto with sci-fi.  If I have to think more than two seconds to classify the setting in a genre label like that, I'll be rather impressed.

-Interesting combat mechanics: crafting, trading, exploring and all that jazz are cool, but what I ultimately expect to do most of the time is fight stuff.  As such, the process by which I fight stuff needs to be interesting.  I'm bored in general with WoW-style combat; I don't think any other studio can out-Blizzard Blizzard and produce a better system with the same core mechanics, so if I want that I'd still be playing WoW.  Real-time combat systems intrigue me, although they are rarely done well in my experience.  Some mechanics that requires players to do more than spam one or two damage skills on mob after mob before healing and repeating the process is necessary to make the grind less... grind-y.

-Some form of appealing PvP: there are many wildly different PvP implementations I like.  What's important is that PvP is prevalent in the game, both at the endgame and earlier on.  My ideal game would probably be whichever one can manage to sustain small-scale world PvP - my best MMO experiences have almost all been impromptu 1v1 PvP fights.  Instanced PvP isn't a turn-off in and of itself but it has to be implemented in a manner that makes it neither pointless nor just another faction grind like in WoW.  PvP that substantially affects the actual game world is awesome, although Shadowbane is a case study in how difficult it is to maintain balance of power in such a game; a small handful of super-guilds almost inevitably seems to dominate any game with such dramatic world PvP.

-Lots of character customisation: I want to make meaningful choices as I advance that will differentiate my character from others of the same class.  If by endgame there are only a handful of viable builds with only minor tweaks from player to player, I will be unimpressed.  

-Soloability: I don't dislike grouping per se, but I don't like games that are entirely group-oriented.  Sometimes, I just want to log in and quest/grind for an hour or two on my own.  I want a game in which I can do that.

 

Mustn't-haves:

-Really ugly/dated graphics: everyone says gameplay > graphics and that's true to an extent, but I'd accept slightly less ideal game mechanics with a beautiful game engine to a slightly better game mechanics-wise with original UO graphics.  Small differences in graphics quality are unlikely to affect my choice of game, but I expect basic features of a modern game engine like widescreen support, not distractingly ugly graphics, etc. 

-Annoying gimmicks: I don't want random crap thrown in the game for a bullet point on the box or a stupid preview reel if it doesn't add anything of value to the game mechanics.  A lot of F2P, lower budget games seem to do this to try to differentiate themselves.  I'd like to see games differentiate themselves through meaningful game mechanics instead.  If I'm gonna have some weird pet, body part, exotic travel option or what have you following me around all game, there had better be a good reason for it to be there.  Crap like this in an otherwise attractive title would make me question the quality of developer changes and support over the life of the game.

-Anything but the most limited of game-affecting item shops: This is why I typically avoid any so-called F2P title.  If it costs money to perform optimally in the game, particularly in PvP, it had better damn well be a flat amount.  Any game in which more money can always translate into game-affecting rewards are automatically ruled out.  Games where money can be a huge shortcut are viewed with suspicion.  I play MMOs with the endgame and PvP in mind from the get-go, and if I know I will always be at risk of losing to someone because they paid more than I did and got a better item, some combat bonus or what have you, it will spoil the entire game for me.  I can tolerate the unavoidable evil of power-leveling services, but if that "feature" is built right into the game as its core profit model, count me out.  I'd rather pay a flat monthly fee and have all the in-game incentives and game mechanics designed with the goal of making the best game.  The more influence micro-transactions have in-game, the more game mechanics become compromised by profit incentive.  This is one of the primary reasons I've avoided DDO.

dreamer05

Everyone in this genre is SO different (which is why I believe developers have issues making us happy) but mine are:

 

Must Have:

- Unique character creation (everyone can't look the same)

- Grouping, preferably group centric.

- A variety of classes

- An option of some PvP would be prefered.

- Absolutely can't be linear. (Have to follow a certain path)

 

Must Not Have:

- Solo though most of the game content

- An item or cash store provided by the company making the game

- Quick and easy leveling.

- Absolutely no death penalty

Demonyk

I think I must be quite forgiving:

Must haves:

- Fun gameplay.

- Interesting Setting. For the reasons above really, there are far too many generic, completely uncompelling settings about.

- Good social features. At least some encouragement of the social side of the game. After all, we play MMOs to play with other people right?

 

Must not:

- Overly intrusive MTs. Because able to buy character transfers, renames, hell, even change appearance (to the level avaliable at creation anyway), is fine in my eyes. Buying game currency or items is a big no no for me.

- Overly grindy. A little bit is alright, but I don't want to grind several hours a day for a mildly better ring.

Ragnaven

must have:

lots of solo content I hate most other players cause you annoy me. ( I soloed through most of EQ as well so no I am not some WoW generation reject.)

good story, I must feel like I am part of the world.

lots of different armor looks.

A tank class that can actually do dps and isn't just to sit there and get beat down slowly.

Must not have:

forced pvp

bad voice actors

grinding for useless reasons. (I soloed through EQ I was okay with having to grind faction to talk with iksars, and get my ot malet.)

Dawnsinger

Originally posted by solistus

-Annoying gimmicks: I don't want random crap thrown in the game for a bullet point on the box or a stupid preview reel if it doesn't add anything of value to the game mechanics.  A lot of F2P, lower budget games seem to do this to try to differentiate themselves.  I'd like to see games differentiate themselves through meaningful game mechanics instead.  If I'm gonna have some weird pet, body part, exotic travel option or what have you following me around all game, there had better be a good reason for it to be there.  Crap like this in an otherwise attractive title would make me question the quality of developer changes and support over the life of the game.

lol Aion.

drbaltazar

 epic story

3 type of server

rp,pvp,veteran

veteran being the hardest a la everquest 1

random world pvp chosen by server

like your going on a quest and server make you and another player become red  pvp is active etc no choice there if you dont cant progress etc

thats my minimum requisite