if some staff at mmorpg.com have already seen the game behind closed door and know all about it then why do you have a wishlist? are you telling us your wishlist is for stuff you didnt see in the game? one mmorpg.com staff member said "youre gonna poop yourself" after seeing eqn. after making a statement like that you come up with a wishlist?
This list feels more like a Nostalgianistas dream than an actual list of game features. Most important of all, casualness and difficulty are not mutually exclusive. I can play any number of single player games on their most extreme difficulty, and yet that very same game can be played casually. MMOs can be designed with difficult challenges that are also casual-friendly.
Expecting anyone except the soon-to-flunk-out-of-school crowd to play more than a couple hours a day, a few days a week is ludicrous. Time sinks for the sake of sinking time prove nothing of skill.
while all on the wish list is OK.. You have to take into consideration the budget of the title. Which nowadays is a major, major factor in MMO development..
1) The old days work because budget was small enough for a mmo to survive on maybe 70K+ subs or free players.
2) Sorry but MMO are all about appealing to the masses and offering a certain level of convenience...
3) EqNext can't be hard to the point of requiring a group, group play wont last for the longevity of the game unless you have a convenience tool set in place to make it easier. Can you imagine i'm on a so so server with no one wants to group with me... PFFT
4) Have 3 types of MEGA Servers, PVE, PVP, and roleplaying.. Enough with this single server tech, then your gonna ask use to pay for transfer when population gets low..
5) Please do away with raiding being the top reward content.. @ max level there should be quest that one can undertake that strecthes for a week or 2 because said NPC to continue the quest only appears 1per wk for each week in the month...
6) Not too demanding game engine, and a customizable UI.. WoW worked because most of, if not all pc could run it...
#1. Fast access to PvP instancing, cross-server, including PvP servers and all others so I get the fastest playtime. I want to play, not wait.
#2. More Solo-friendly content. I like to be able to solo when my friends aren't online.
#3. A world that isn't so big that it's always empty of life. Vanguard had a huge world, and even when it had 250,000 subscribers, it was a deadland. It felt empty even when full, and NPC's weren't very common.
#4. Player Housing like in Everquest2. I loved customizing my own house and being able to invite others inside to show off my hard earned loot.
#5. Make the genre a little bit easier. I have a hard time with some of the content because it is too difficult. I would like content to be easier so I can have more time having fun and less time being punished for a mob having too many hitpoints.
I happen to really like quest finder tools and quest hubs. I don't think they make a game less "hard" just faster to get done when my time is short. Think about this. Take a game like FFXI. It's a pretty unforgiving game and it's quests take some research to figure out how to do. I personally always just used a guide or online guides to get them done. Imagine if they had just put quest tracking in the game and showed folk where the quests are yet didn't change the actual quest itself or it's objective. Guess what? Still hard as hell to accomplish. Which means, these extra tools DON"T make the game EASIER. Really wish you "challenge" nuts would stop speaking for "most gamers" when it's not a universal desire.
Just had to pipe up on your number "5. Make it Hard again." The rest are ok I guess.
In writing, there is a concept called "Show, Don't Tell". Basically what it means is that it is preferable to show the reader something and let the reader come to his/her own conclusions, rather than tell the reader what he/she should think. "John was mad" tells the reader how John feels, but "John's face turned red and a vein pulsed on his left temple" shows John's reaction and the reader is left to interpret the meaning. This engages the reader and gets him/her involved in the story.
The same thing is true in games. If we take a quest and get a marker on our map to the quest location, we are being told where to go. We don't even need to read the quest text . Take away the quest marker and instead put clues in the quest text, now we have to use our brains a little. It doesn't need to be hard to figure out, it just needs to engage us, to make us part of the story.
So many game companies these days talk about story, but fail at some of the most basic concepts of story-telling. Readers (and gamers) aren't stupid. Don't treat us as though we are.
QFT, A MILLION TIMES QFT!!!!!!!! Thank you! Finally someone nailed what the problem is! No sarcasm, totally agree, and I think that THIS is why the older games were awesome, it's because they got these basic principles right. SO EVEN when there were no systems in place, or crappily designed ones, or buggy ones, the games still engaged the player, it managed to capture the imagination of the player. These days all companies want to do is improve the graphics, improve the systems, provide more systems, but they fail at the basic level of storytelling, and engaging the player by giving them clues instead of shining the light direct to quest objective.
I dont think EQN is going to be the throw back MMO people think its going to be. Im looking forward to trying it and hope it does well but people are expecting to much and maybe upset when we see the full picture. Think we gona see a lot of upset people this week. Just hope Im not one of them.
I think gamers are a lot like 5 year olds. They may know what they want, but they don't know what they need. Developers need to act like the parent and give gamers what they need and not necessarily what they want. Everquest was great at this in the beginning. And then gamers wanted faster travel, so the dev's introduced Planes of Power (and all of a sudden druids and wizards were not quite as utilitarian as they once were) and thus began EQ's decline.
This gives new meaning to the axiom, "Always leave them wanting more". Emphasis on the 'wanting'.
There are many things in life that I want, but I don't need any of them; a mansion, a butler, a maid, a cook, a chauffeur and a gardener come to mind, but I don't 'need' any of these things. My life isn't any less rich because I don't have those things I want. I have everything I need and I'm quite happy. Dreams are made up of things we want, so let us dream.
Not true about no mmo that ever did updates that "changed the world."
Because to me Asheron's Call did just that with "updates" that actually changed the world. Perhaps the writer of the article didn't play AC.
The updates could come from having story elements that you could visually see change the world to smaller things that changed part of the world.
Like one example was an invasion by "shadow" beings. You could encounter these new beings in the wild, roaming around the world. Likewise during this update you also could see these giant "hive" like ships that appeared over the major cities in the game.
Another example was simple season changes. You'd login one morning and in a town that was normally spring-like, green grass, etc it started to snow with just a light covering on the ground and things. Then later that night you'd login and the snow was falling more heavily and now the buildings/tree's were covered in it.
AC was the only mmo that to me felt like it did that "Right" and made the world feel so alive and dynamic, ever changing.
If you "missed" the event that was it, they didn't make them static, you missed it then you missed it. The events and stories came and they went, and that made the entire world feel more dynamic then any other mmo I have played since then.
I think part of the problem these days is so many players feel "entitled" and the developers play into this. They don't want people to miss things,t hey don't want people to not be the "hero" of the stories, imo this needs to change.
Just to be fair, Quest hubs are fine for those who do not wish to take alot of time out of your day. I personally would love to delete them from every game I have ever played and go back to the EQ1 questing system. I loved spending time researching quests and Yes if you like quest hubs go play games with quest hubs and quest tracking. EVERY game out there seems to have them you should be fine playing other games. For me give me the old system with just one game so it is harder again.
EQ1 approximate play time to level 55 : 80 days and some odd hours and so much fun socializing I had to have a reprimand from my wife.....
EQ2 Approximate play time to level 55: 15 days and no socializing required because the down time to regain my Mana was off the charts fast.
Remember having to hunt down the cleric to rez your body so you had a 30% exp loss instead of a 50%.
If you wanted fast travel you better have a friend who was a druid or a wizard.
You would go up against a dungeon and camp for days to get one stupid item to give you an extra +2 intelligence above the current robe you already have?
I loved that stuff. I feel every game has been dumbed down to the point of boredom.
Please Sony, rescue us this time... please. And don't release the game before it is done like you so often do.... great things are worth waiting for.
Just to be fair, Quest hubs are fine for those who do not wish to take alot of time out of your day. I personally would love to delete them from every game I have ever played and go back to the EQ1 questing system. I loved spending time researching quests and Yes if you like quest hubs go play games with quest hubs and quest tracking. EVERY game out there seems to have them you should be fine playing other games. For me give me the old system with just one game so it is harder again.
I too would love to delete quest hubs from the MMORPG genre.. For 2 major reasons: 1) It removes gear rewards, which hopefully will put more emphasis on buying or making crafted gear.. People today are rewarded too much, too often from quest rewards, why even bother searching for crafted items.. Crafting today is treated like a hobby to waste time on.. (PS, I would nerf the hell out of random gear drops, again putting more value on crafting) OR go buy it from a vendor.. NO more freebies so to speak..2) reason: Quest hub lines segregate the playing community.. People often will not group up because they are at different intervals along the quest lines.. This is not a bonus, but an anti social mechanic that needs to be abolished..
If we instead would convert NON repeating quest like we have now to "repeatable" bounty reward system, it would open up new opportunities for people to group up.. This removes that invisible wall that keeps people separated.. So instead of Mr NPC saying, "go kill 10 rats" one time only and get a new uber dagger as the reward.. He instead offers anyone coin and XP for each 4 rat hides turned in.. So now I can farm rats all I want solo OR with others, with no limitations.. PS this also brings back open world consensual PvP as well.. Imagine a NPC that rewards for each enemy badge you turn in.. So if you are human in WoW, now you have real reason to go farm "The Barrens".. I would have no objection in having limited NPC vendors that sell limited gear like they do in GW2
Originally posted by Stiler
Not true about no mmo that ever did updates that "changed the world."
If you "missed" the event that was it, they didn't make them static, you missed it then you missed it. The events and stories came and they went, and that made the entire world feel more dynamic then any other mmo I have played since then.
I so agree.. One of the things I love/hated was missing out on a rare spawn.. People are too entitled today.. I played EQ for 5 or more expansions, and during that time I never killed Lady Vox and many other random spawns.. It is what it is.. Just bad timing, but I never let that ruin my love for the game.. One thing I did like was when EQ and WoW would do their seasonal events or special events.. In effect changing the world, even if only for a few days or weeks.. I just wish we had more dynamic changes in the code on a regular basis like day/night cycles..
I hope when you die you have to start from last 10 level and you lose all gear. Full loot. Also I want crafting where I have to spend atleast 10 hours to gather and 5 minutes of mini game to complete items, with change to lose it all. I want every class to be truly meaningful. You want to get mana up, well you need warlock, you need get HP up, well you need priest. I want open world raids only, so I can spend 5 hours clearing to first boss just see some guy from other guild tagging the boss. I want hard game, I want to see people fail to take down first enemies unless they have friends or great skills. Get social or get out. I want mobs that go down on minutes instead of seconds. I don't want game, I want fricking lifestyle.
1. Make it an MMO experience, and not a single player game with others who are just there to annoy you. Make Grouping have meaning.
2. Enforce player interaction, like having to listen to a bard to gain a cool buff, eat foods prepared by others to gain buffs etc. Make player trading interactive, looking for enchanter, bard, black smith etc. to get things crafted.
3. Let people choose their "path" towards how they want to play. Think SWG here, where you could change classes by training/killing/playing music/dancing etc. All of this - Oh another warrior/mage/priest bla bla. think of Skyrim choices.
4. Make people/guilds etc. put down houses, make towns of their own on certain slots placed around the maps.
5. Introduce randomness in crafting, make crafting mean something, the item can either be inferior or great depending on the items put into crafting the item. Inferior ingredients and you get grind item, good ingredients and you could get something useable for lvling/endgame etc. Introduce epic ingredients for that chance of making something truly epic.
Not a very good list there. Make it hard? That's like saying my checklist includes make Everquest fun to play and interesting.
Problem is difficult to whom? I may find something difficult and you may find it easy. Many games force play styles on you to make the game 'hard' but by doing so you lose the larger market.
Maybe they are targeting niche markets but personally I can't see them doing that unless the game is pretty lame.
If you are going to make an article again try adding in meat to it. Don't just say, make it fun and hard without adding in an original idea. How are they going to make it hard? Permadeath? Corpse runs? Those are long past ideas and you can find a ton of games that fail at doing those ideas.
The real interest in Everquest next isn't rez old eq 1 up form the dead. The interest is what are they going to do that was never done before. MMO video on this kind outlines it without saying one detail. I personally am excited and realize I will be disappointed at the same time. It's sony right?
I agree with all of your points, however one thing worries me. I have two jobs and a two year old to take care of. Time is limited for me. I don't want to be left in the dust just because I can't commit 15 hours a day on the game. I'm lucky to put in 3-5 hours a day. With that said I don't want to see hard be a system that favors gamers that have more time than others.
Originally posted by Yavin_Prime I agree with all of your points, however one thing worries me. I have two jobs and a two year old to take care of. Time is limited for me. I don't want to be left in the dust just because I can't commit 15 hours a day on the game. I'm lucky to put in 3-5 hours a day. With that said I don't want to see hard be a system that favors gamers that have more time than others.
Why shouldn't somebody who is able to put 40 hours a week into his gaming not be rewarded for his effort? Sorry but just because some cant put lots of time into the game doesn't mean it should be easy .Their is hundreds of easy WoW clones out there what a lot is saying is we want for once a hard game that we can grow with not a game we pick up and play for a hour when it fits our schedule.
Originally posted by Yavin_Prime I agree with all of your points, however one thing worries me. I have two jobs and a two year old to take care of. Time is limited for me. I don't want to be left in the dust just because I can't commit 15 hours a day on the game. I'm lucky to put in 3-5 hours a day. With that said I don't want to see hard be a system that favors gamers that have more time than others.
Why shouldn't somebody who is able to put 40 hours a week into his gaming not be rewarded for his effort? Sorry but just because some cant put lots of time into the game doesn't mean it should be easy .Their is hundreds of easy WoW clones out there what a lot is saying is we want for once a hard game that we can grow with not a game we pick up and play for a hour when it fits our schedule.
Seems like you are confusing amount of time with challenge again. I really wish all you pundits of "challenging" games would define what you mean by challenge, hard and easy mode. I've played most every MMO out there and besides F2P, they all have their own level of "hard". Even WoW. I never saw every Raid boss due to how challenging they were. But that had nothing to do with time spent playing the game. I've never raided in EQ2 yet I have a max level toon and still had a rough time in the high end zones due to the challenge presented when one arrived there in sub par gear. So, all of you who are so quick to say easy mode or wow-clone, had better start bringing examples to your opinions and defining your words, because so far all I see are a bunch of whiny tantrums because certain games don't fit your flavor of gameplay, whatever that may be since we never really know based on comments like the above.
1. Make sure you make trains a part of the game for those who remember mistmoore and cazic thule haahah I miss those days of death and de-leveling!
2. No bottle feeding make quests so you have to think about what your doing, quests to unlock zones etc when everything is handed to you, you never appreciate it.
Travel: You want thinking outside of the box - how about this. You want to travel off your contenent to another land - your city needs to build a boat, like an Ark. Gatherers need materials, craftsman need to work the wood, clothiers need to make sails.
You get the achievement of making this first vessel and it embarks on a distant land - return times are set - want to lessen return times and travel? Find a rare faster boat recipie. Build that boat and it runs in the boat cycle that you have. Soon they will run like trains -
Well, in the sandbox dynamic world - they run until they sink, or get pirated and you need to fight to get the boat back, or it is never serviced by your craftsmen - etc.
Travel would be what your people make it. -and have earned.
Comments
Absolutely no public portals (ie: nexus), ... just Wizard/Druid portals.
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
This list feels more like a Nostalgianistas dream than an actual list of game features. Most important of all, casualness and difficulty are not mutually exclusive. I can play any number of single player games on their most extreme difficulty, and yet that very same game can be played casually. MMOs can be designed with difficult challenges that are also casual-friendly.
Expecting anyone except the soon-to-flunk-out-of-school crowd to play more than a couple hours a day, a few days a week is ludicrous. Time sinks for the sake of sinking time prove nothing of skill.
while all on the wish list is OK.. You have to take into consideration the budget of the title. Which nowadays is a major, major factor in MMO development..
1) The old days work because budget was small enough for a mmo to survive on maybe 70K+ subs or free players.
2) Sorry but MMO are all about appealing to the masses and offering a certain level of convenience...
3) EqNext can't be hard to the point of requiring a group, group play wont last for the longevity of the game unless you have a convenience tool set in place to make it easier. Can you imagine i'm on a so so server with no one wants to group with me... PFFT
4) Have 3 types of MEGA Servers, PVE, PVP, and roleplaying.. Enough with this single server tech, then your gonna ask use to pay for transfer when population gets low..
5) Please do away with raiding being the top reward content.. @ max level there should be quest that one can undertake that strecthes for a week or 2 because said NPC to continue the quest only appears 1per wk for each week in the month...
6) Not too demanding game engine, and a customizable UI.. WoW worked because most of, if not all pc could run it...
My wish list:
#1. Fast access to PvP instancing, cross-server, including PvP servers and all others so I get the fastest playtime. I want to play, not wait.
#2. More Solo-friendly content. I like to be able to solo when my friends aren't online.
#3. A world that isn't so big that it's always empty of life. Vanguard had a huge world, and even when it had 250,000 subscribers, it was a deadland. It felt empty even when full, and NPC's weren't very common.
#4. Player Housing like in Everquest2. I loved customizing my own house and being able to invite others inside to show off my hard earned loot.
#5. Make the genre a little bit easier. I have a hard time with some of the content because it is too difficult. I would like content to be easier so I can have more time having fun and less time being punished for a mob having too many hitpoints.
MMO's cannot give you a beautiful, young overly-busty woman who is also a sexaholic with only eyes for you.
Not yet anyway. Wait until Shadowrun becomes a reality and we get BTL chips.
QFT, A MILLION TIMES QFT!!!!!!!! Thank you! Finally someone nailed what the problem is! No sarcasm, totally agree, and I think that THIS is why the older games were awesome, it's because they got these basic principles right. SO EVEN when there were no systems in place, or crappily designed ones, or buggy ones, the games still engaged the player, it managed to capture the imagination of the player. These days all companies want to do is improve the graphics, improve the systems, provide more systems, but they fail at the basic level of storytelling, and engaging the player by giving them clues instead of shining the light direct to quest objective.
http://sigs.griefwatch.net/index.php?kb=LESTUS&name=lestus&template=chaos
I think gamers are a lot like 5 year olds. They may know what they want, but they don't know what they need. Developers need to act like the parent and give gamers what they need and not necessarily what they want. Everquest was great at this in the beginning. And then gamers wanted faster travel, so the dev's introduced Planes of Power (and all of a sudden druids and wizards were not quite as utilitarian as they once were) and thus began EQ's decline.
This gives new meaning to the axiom, "Always leave them wanting more". Emphasis on the 'wanting'.
There are many things in life that I want, but I don't need any of them; a mansion, a butler, a maid, a cook, a chauffeur and a gardener come to mind, but I don't 'need' any of these things. My life isn't any less rich because I don't have those things I want. I have everything I need and I'm quite happy. Dreams are made up of things we want, so let us dream.
Perfect list.
+1
Not true about no mmo that ever did updates that "changed the world."
Because to me Asheron's Call did just that with "updates" that actually changed the world. Perhaps the writer of the article didn't play AC.
The updates could come from having story elements that you could visually see change the world to smaller things that changed part of the world.
Like one example was an invasion by "shadow" beings. You could encounter these new beings in the wild, roaming around the world. Likewise during this update you also could see these giant "hive" like ships that appeared over the major cities in the game.
Another example was simple season changes. You'd login one morning and in a town that was normally spring-like, green grass, etc it started to snow with just a light covering on the ground and things. Then later that night you'd login and the snow was falling more heavily and now the buildings/tree's were covered in it.
AC was the only mmo that to me felt like it did that "Right" and made the world feel so alive and dynamic, ever changing.
If you "missed" the event that was it, they didn't make them static, you missed it then you missed it. The events and stories came and they went, and that made the entire world feel more dynamic then any other mmo I have played since then.
I think part of the problem these days is so many players feel "entitled" and the developers play into this. They don't want people to miss things,t hey don't want people to not be the "hero" of the stories, imo this needs to change.
Just to be fair, Quest hubs are fine for those who do not wish to take alot of time out of your day. I personally would love to delete them from every game I have ever played and go back to the EQ1 questing system. I loved spending time researching quests and Yes if you like quest hubs go play games with quest hubs and quest tracking. EVERY game out there seems to have them you should be fine playing other games. For me give me the old system with just one game so it is harder again.
EQ1 approximate play time to level 55 : 80 days and some odd hours and so much fun socializing I had to have a reprimand from my wife.....
EQ2 Approximate play time to level 55: 15 days and no socializing required because the down time to regain my Mana was off the charts fast.
Remember having to hunt down the cleric to rez your body so you had a 30% exp loss instead of a 50%.
If you wanted fast travel you better have a friend who was a druid or a wizard.
You would go up against a dungeon and camp for days to get one stupid item to give you an extra +2 intelligence above the current robe you already have?
I loved that stuff. I feel every game has been dumbed down to the point of boredom.
Please Sony, rescue us this time... please. And don't release the game before it is done like you so often do.... great things are worth waiting for.
I too would love to delete quest hubs from the MMORPG genre.. For 2 major reasons: 1) It removes gear rewards, which hopefully will put more emphasis on buying or making crafted gear.. People today are rewarded too much, too often from quest rewards, why even bother searching for crafted items.. Crafting today is treated like a hobby to waste time on.. (PS, I would nerf the hell out of random gear drops, again putting more value on crafting) OR go buy it from a vendor.. NO more freebies so to speak..2) reason: Quest hub lines segregate the playing community.. People often will not group up because they are at different intervals along the quest lines.. This is not a bonus, but an anti social mechanic that needs to be abolished..
If we instead would convert NON repeating quest like we have now to "repeatable" bounty reward system, it would open up new opportunities for people to group up.. This removes that invisible wall that keeps people separated.. So instead of Mr NPC saying, "go kill 10 rats" one time only and get a new uber dagger as the reward.. He instead offers anyone coin and XP for each 4 rat hides turned in.. So now I can farm rats all I want solo OR with others, with no limitations.. PS this also brings back open world consensual PvP as well.. Imagine a NPC that rewards for each enemy badge you turn in.. So if you are human in WoW, now you have real reason to go farm "The Barrens".. I would have no objection in having limited NPC vendors that sell limited gear like they do in GW2
I so agree.. One of the things I love/hated was missing out on a rare spawn.. People are too entitled today.. I played EQ for 5 or more expansions, and during that time I never killed Lady Vox and many other random spawns.. It is what it is.. Just bad timing, but I never let that ruin my love for the game.. One thing I did like was when EQ and WoW would do their seasonal events or special events.. In effect changing the world, even if only for a few days or weeks.. I just wish we had more dynamic changes in the code on a regular basis like day/night cycles..My list:
1. Make it an MMO experience, and not a single player game with others who are just there to annoy you. Make Grouping have meaning.
2. Enforce player interaction, like having to listen to a bard to gain a cool buff, eat foods prepared by others to gain buffs etc. Make player trading interactive, looking for enchanter, bard, black smith etc. to get things crafted.
3. Let people choose their "path" towards how they want to play. Think SWG here, where you could change classes by training/killing/playing music/dancing etc. All of this - Oh another warrior/mage/priest bla bla. think of Skyrim choices.
4. Make people/guilds etc. put down houses, make towns of their own on certain slots placed around the maps.
5. Introduce randomness in crafting, make crafting mean something, the item can either be inferior or great depending on the items put into crafting the item. Inferior ingredients and you get grind item, good ingredients and you could get something useable for lvling/endgame etc. Introduce epic ingredients for that chance of making something truly epic.
Not a very good list there. Make it hard? That's like saying my checklist includes make Everquest fun to play and interesting.
Problem is difficult to whom? I may find something difficult and you may find it easy. Many games force play styles on you to make the game 'hard' but by doing so you lose the larger market.
Maybe they are targeting niche markets but personally I can't see them doing that unless the game is pretty lame.
If you are going to make an article again try adding in meat to it. Don't just say, make it fun and hard without adding in an original idea. How are they going to make it hard? Permadeath? Corpse runs? Those are long past ideas and you can find a ton of games that fail at doing those ideas.
The real interest in Everquest next isn't rez old eq 1 up form the dead. The interest is what are they going to do that was never done before. MMO video on this kind outlines it without saying one detail. I personally am excited and realize I will be disappointed at the same time. It's sony right?
Why shouldn't somebody who is able to put 40 hours a week into his gaming not be rewarded for his effort? Sorry but just because some cant put lots of time into the game doesn't mean it should be easy .Their is hundreds of easy WoW clones out there what a lot is saying is we want for once a hard game that we can grow with not a game we pick up and play for a hour when it fits our schedule.
Seems like you are confusing amount of time with challenge again. I really wish all you pundits of "challenging" games would define what you mean by challenge, hard and easy mode. I've played most every MMO out there and besides F2P, they all have their own level of "hard". Even WoW. I never saw every Raid boss due to how challenging they were. But that had nothing to do with time spent playing the game. I've never raided in EQ2 yet I have a max level toon and still had a rough time in the high end zones due to the challenge presented when one arrived there in sub par gear. So, all of you who are so quick to say easy mode or wow-clone, had better start bringing examples to your opinions and defining your words, because so far all I see are a bunch of whiny tantrums because certain games don't fit your flavor of gameplay, whatever that may be since we never really know based on comments like the above.
1. Make sure you make trains a part of the game for those who remember mistmoore and cazic thule haahah I miss those days of death and de-leveling!
2. No bottle feeding make quests so you have to think about what your doing, quests to unlock zones etc when everything is handed to you, you never appreciate it.
Travel: You want thinking outside of the box - how about this. You want to travel off your contenent to another land - your city needs to build a boat, like an Ark. Gatherers need materials, craftsman need to work the wood, clothiers need to make sails.
You get the achievement of making this first vessel and it embarks on a distant land - return times are set - want to lessen return times and travel? Find a rare faster boat recipie. Build that boat and it runs in the boat cycle that you have. Soon they will run like trains -
Well, in the sandbox dynamic world - they run until they sink, or get pirated and you need to fight to get the boat back, or it is never serviced by your craftsmen - etc.
Travel would be what your people make it. -and have earned.