If you created an MMO, what would it be like?

[Kaitara]

It's no secret the MMO genre has been struggling the past several years. None of them are doing as well as we saw WoW at its peak sell, and many on the net are saying that the MMO is basically dead. Community mindset is suffering with the onset of mobile games and their promotion of the feeling of instant gratification. Some prefer certain payment models over others, and there are so many online multiplayer games now it's hard to pick an MMO out of the huge crowd of otherwise-multiplayer games.

So imagine you were going to try to "revive" the genre with your own MMO - what would it be like? What would you base it around - an existing franchise, or a new one? What subscription model would you put in place, and what kind of playerbase would you try to attract? I know it's a lot to think about but I bet there are people around here who have thought about this before.

 

[Honeymoon]

I would probably focus a lot on the story and the gameplay experience rather than focusing on the classes. I've noticed that most MMO (or well, MMORPGS) focus more on how the characters look than the story. They're more worried about how big the swords are and how explosive the spells look. That's good at and all and I agree that every game needs that, but unfortunately for most developers they seem to be ditching the story to focus on that, and players are left with grinding. No one likes to grind all day. Ragnarok Online is a good example of MMORPG with a good balance of story and classes focus. Seal Online is pretty good too, but unfortunately both still requires you to grind.. a lot.

Ways to reduce the amount of grinding players have to do while still allowing them to do it if they want to would be great.

 

[Sylar]

I strongly disagree with your main idea of this argument. The MMO genera is still booming. Sure there has been a decline, but it still accounts for a massive amount of sales in many major companies.

If I were tasked to create an MMO today, I would be hard-pressed to create one that challenged the current creative curve. Sure, some MMOs aren't fun for some people, but I honestly believe there is one out there for everyone. Almost every idea has been explored, and if you were to create one today you would probably just be re-iterating an idea that has already been created.

 

[SunnysideUP]

MMOs as they are, are not bad at all, but sometimes I just get bored out of my wits by repetition and grinding.

I'd make an MMO where there's a mediocre difficulty setting on the storyline and the quests, but every now and then the server is programmed to make random events appear at random times and wreak havoc all over the world map, or on smaller areas. Like the random events on Don't Starve like the meteor storm that inflicts damage and drops materials, or the frog rain that's just a pain in general, but also beneficial random events.

They would be untimed and unpredictable but 30 seconds before the event takes that map by storm there would be a minor warning on the world chat for whoever is looking. It wouldn't affect players in instances, keeping them safe but also detached from the opportunity to gain from the random event.

 

[The Fezz]

I dunno,
My computer cant handle any big MMO but, I if I were to make one it would be some kind of Arma: Life type of thing.

 

[Tronikart]

Would love to bring what was going to be EverQuest: Next, few skills slots per class but a lot of skills to choose from, this way the combat is always different depending on what youre going to fight, plus the thing where the map is destructible and was going to be always changing was pretty amazing, shame they cancelled it

 

[Jeric]

Hi, I agree with the grinding it gets boring sometimes, so I would add a bot system where you can auto-grind (like Jade Dynasty) I would also keep the hitpoints of the character lower and the amount of damage done. It seems like game gives your character 1,000's of hit points and you do damage in the 500+ ranges which is two to five hits to kill anything. so I think I go back to the old style of doing combat on the level you get like around 10 to 200 hit points and you do damage in the +1 to +25 range, it still takes a few hits to kill anything.

I would also get rid of classes altogether and just have one class, and all characters would have skills and spells they could spend points on as they level, this way if you wanted to focus on being a fighter or tank class you could, and if you wanted to be a spell caster you could. or if you like to be a little bit of both you could. I would only put out an expense every two years that way you had time to complete an expansion before the new one came out and I would also make so the glitches were fixed before the new expansion was released.

I think I would do I more modern setting or maybe something in the new future, I think this would be a fresh experience from all the fantasy settings!