Traits of great mmo's

I have played many a game in my day, currently in college, and I have been playing since I could walk. I notice that games with a lot of money thrown at them seem to succeed above all others, but is this because of polish etc? or just because of population and community. Is it accesibitliy? maybe it just has to do with the theme, and the way it is executed. I have put down a few ideas of things that make games great, I hope this sparks some contructive debate, as I plan to make a video game if i ever get rich and have the money to. Not likely, but the more people that plan to, the greater the chance that a great game comes out.

What makes a game great?

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Polish : no bugs, all the graphics are clean, lots of man hours spent refining the mechanics etc (big money games)

Advertising : everyone and there brother has seen a comercial or add, lots of people will try this game, it becomes a bandwagon, people play, because people play.

Complexity vs simplicity : the game is simple to understand, and play, and is easy to learn, but as you advance it can become very complex, allow for a infinite skill ceiling.

Pvp : we all love it, and a few of us hate it, but it adds alot to a game.

Pve : we all have done it, some of us love it, some dont.

Constant Action : the world pushes you to be constantly doing things, and guides you, this is the opposite of free will, but can be fun, if you cant play often and just want to jump into something, but generally is disliked.

Total sandbox : the world is just there, like a lifeless corpse, and can only come alive if you will it to. opposite of the constant action idea, and is great for people who want to make it there life, but this extreme is generally disliked as well.

(Where is the balance between sandbox, and themepark, I found swtor to be to much of a themepark, while minecraft in single player is just to much of a sandbox, and gets boring quickly. I think elder scrolls games show us the perfect balance. darkfall, and wow fall within the tolerances of this perfect amount I feel as well. darkfall being more towards sandbox, wow being more towards themepark.)

Class Mechanics : perfect balance, or great variety, is it possible to have both?

(A strange thought I had related to this, when writers start a book, they start with characters, then create a setting, then write the story, video games seem to develope differently, if you started with creating balanced characters, and built the setting around them, and then put them into the world, would it create a more balanced game?)

Crafting : pretty much mandatory in my eyes. Skyrim yet again did this just about perfectly, for a real mmo it should take longer to max skills, but darkfall takes to long in the eyes of most people. Is the pace in wow just about right?

Leveling rate : I know elitist want it to be harder, and casual players want it to be very easy. When i play games, the leveling up time, seems more like the time it should take to have a firm grasp on how to play your character, and develope them in a more roleplay focused game. I feel like it would be better to have a low max level, and require players to do quests etc to explore, and give rewards, but not be required for leveling. People should not quest just to level, they should quest because the quests and story are compelling, and the rewards should be fitting, but should not be the entire objective. I feel this would remove the kill 10 goblins quests all together, unless they were the most challenging, skill requiring quests, no go kill this quest should be easy, on the edge of not being soloable?

Economy : I think a great mmo would have people who play just for this part of the game, and never even see the front line of combat, as per crafting, this part of the game should have its own skill tree, and not require a certain combat level to be able to make a better cloth bag, or piece of jewelry.

Politics : This has not been clearly flushed out in any game that I have played. I know darkfall had some metagame politics and spying etc when it was early, I have seen wow guilds bicker at eachother as well, where does politics fall in line here? I know its just a game, making this very difficult to do, but I think a game that can capture this, and enthrall the community would succeed, in at least having a strong core of base players. If anyone has played battlemaster, it is only politics for the most part. I would not consider it an mmorpg, but It is fun to play, and easy. If you could layer battlemaster onto something like darkfall, with the polish of wow, and the control and building ideas of mortal online, then you would have a pretty legit game.

The Epic Factor : I know when i first started up skyrim, I was filled with this feeling of omg this is awesome I cant wait to do everything. Same when I first started playing wow. The feeling of newness, that seems to have faded. If a game could find a way to make you feel that everytime you log in, it would never falter until another game did it better. I am sure other gamers know what I mean by this, but you cant really detail the feeling. You get it when you win a really close pvp battle as someone is trying to gank you, or you clan vs clan battle ends in a victory. You down that huge boss for the first time, or you finally realize you are really good with your class.

Community : This is one of those that is very dependant on the players. I find that when a game starts, it has a community, and the overall mood is measureable by playing, and reading the forums. Darkfall is known for having trolls. I do not think this is because it is a pvp full loot game, I think it just developed in the wrong direction. Just as wow is an elitist epeen battle. The community is a living thing, and needs to be nutured as such. How do you create a strong community though? one that will support new players, yet be competitive and active.

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Thanks for reading long post I know, if you have any ideas or feedback let me know. I would like to develope some sort of system for creating a great game, to hopefully benefit the entire mmo community.

tl:dr "What makes games great, qualities and attributes etc, discuss please"