What top 5 points make a great MMORPG?

[Ihazpaws]

If it has to be only 5 things then:

- World has to be open and interesting.
- Freedom you must be able to do anything normal person can in that world (swim and climb. No invisible walls).
- Interesting races that look apart of eachothers (I am so bored to see 8 different colored humans with names like "orcs, trolls" etc).
- Free combat, lots of skills and talents to chose from (No just 4-6 skills and no just few talent choses. But also no talents like "increases dmg of (??) by 1/5%).

- No flying or BGs. 2 factions. Focus on their fighting and alot wpvp situations and all pvp rewards etc you can get from wpvp only. Ganking protection for low levels (target is grey = you lose honor and fame that does not benefit you in any way). Game does not have pve servers so others don't have to listen pvers whining about getting ganked. They can just leave the game since it's not made for them.

^ Pretty much Arcehage if it would not been suchs a shitty pay to win bot farmer simulator :/

[Rukh]

Meaningful progression - doesn't have to be levels or power, but some sort of feeling of progressing towards goals
New interesting content - if you don't do this, make a great single-player game or online multiplayer. Its not a MMORPG.
Meaningful social interaction - again, if you don't do this make a great single-player game. A MMO needs a reason to interact with other players
Challenges - People need to feel like they've accomplished something
Snappy title - Need people to be interested in your game! Ok this one might not be so important but I couldn't think of a fifth.

[theWocky]

Thanks for the responses. I am making a list and sifting through, removing duplicates. I am doing a bit of research for a video. Any other comments?

[Kazgrel]

- Engine: This affects just about everything, so a great engine is a must. From character development, world design, gameplay, you name it, engine is part of it. Shit engine will repulse me quicker than anything, and to be blunt, WoW's engine, for all the flak it gets for being ancient as all fuck, still makes most MMOs run and feel like hot garbage.

- Character/class development: Variety of choices, without most/all of said choices being an "illusion of choice". Examples of the latter being the old prime glyphs in WoW, cross class skills in FF14, and everyone's favorite, talent trees (from various games). Classes that are unique, yet relatively balanced in terms of what they bring to the table. Not a fan of races/genders being locked to specific classes, either.

- World design/development: As much as I like FF14 and GW2, one thing they lack is a seamless open world, a la WoW (and from what I recall in my brief time playing it, Wildstar). Having things out in said world to do also helps. People are confined enough to instanced dungeons/raids in this genre as it is; put stuff out in the world where everyone can enjoy it. Hell, have some difficult world bosses that actually have a bit of bite to them; I still laugh every time I recall my server's first Oondasta kill back in MoP with the hundreds of dead bodies/skeletons it produced.

- Character customization: While I suppose this is a subset of point 2, I wanted to separate them because the former is more about class/character mechanics. This is more for appearance. A wardrobe system the likes of which GW2, Wildstar, and even WoW have; each could benefit from bits and pieces from the other. Lots of face and body customization, body art, physique, you name it. Black Desert character creator was almost a game in and of itself for that very reason.

- Crafting: One can pretty much resign themselves to crafting and gathering exclusively in FF14 if they want. Having such crafting systems in place where people could just dedicate themselves to their crafts and not having to be ye ol' hero of the world killing dragons every day is pretty cool. Have the crafting be meaningful, too; I like the fact that one can craft best in slot gear in Guild Wars 2 and never have to worry with touching a raid or dungeon if they don't want to. Granted, gear isn't quite as impactful in that game compared to others, but that's a different story.

[ItachiZaku]

1. Balance. I want balance in terms of everything. I want good leveling and I want good end game. End game should never be vastly more important than getting to max level. PVE should not be vastly more important than PVP. Raid/Dungeon drops should not be vastly more important than crafting. I'd like to be able to do anything possible in an MMO without being forced into doing everything. If I want to build and design a great house, some awesomely cool things that you can only get from PVP or raiding should be available (as in NOT bind on pickup, can be traded/sold etc).

2. Customization. I just tried Devilian this morning and i'll uninstall when i get home. Only 4 classes and they are all gender locked. Sorry, done with it. I like a really detailed character build process (if you wish) as well as a really diverse post creation customization. You can take very, very weak games like WoW or SWTOR with that, they are extremely cookie cutter. I like something like Rift that offers a massive amount of post creation customization to how your character turns out.

3. Housing. Ultima Online has always been my favorite MMO and every game I've played that has tried to do player housing has failed epically at it. I like being able to do nothing, yet I've been playing for hours and hours, simply building and designing, decorating my house.

4. Something new. I want any new game I invest time and money into to have something new. SWTOR was the last to me that legit had a ton of new things, while maintaining the "normal MMO" style to it. It brought your star cruisers, your aerial combat, your unique story telling, the companion setup. It really offered a lot.

5. Game play. I need to be able to play the damn thing. It needs to be smooth. to be honest, this is the only thing WoW does well. Other games always feel a bit choppy, easy to get caught in things/stuck (legion is TERRIBLE for this, but wow had previously been really, really good about it).

bonus 6: Lore. I like wow's lore. I like knowing NPCs. Of all the time I've played Rift, I still only know 2 NPCs. Asha Catari and the Faceless man. No fuckin' clue who anyone else is. Wow, I'm attached to NPCs. I felt legitimately connected to Hamuul Runetotem, General Nazgrim, etc. SWTOR does a good job of building up some things, but then those people are all quickly wiped out at times.

[Sencha]

- Gameplay : hard to master to give an advantage to skilled players
- Loot/reward in line with challenge difficulty (no challenge = no loot) with strong emphasis on group play vs solo play
- Fun and engaging crafting system
- Beautiful graphics
- Server responsiveness

[Deleted]

-immersion
-customizaion
-world/exploration
-pvp
-design

[DeadmanWalking]

1- Character customization - 1/2 the fun of superheo mmo is making your own superhero look.
2- Immersive story
3- Playstyle in fun, just standing there while tabbing through targets and doing a rotation is not as fun as leaping, sliding and trying to avoid damage while dishing out as much as you can.
4- An endgame which keeps you busy - Too many eastern MMO's endgame is just collecting stuff and I want raids.
5- All of my friends like it so I have people I like to play with.

[callipygoustp]

Character development
Regular world events
Lots of content for small groups (ie dungeons)
End game large group content (ie raiding)
Story/Lore

[Spiral Mage]

Art Direction.
Compelling Gameplay.
Diverse Classes.
Enjoyable Endgame.
Unique Customization.

[Shinzai]

Just wanting some ideas.

What top 5 points would you suggest make a great MMORPG similar to Warcraft?

eg. of things I'm looking for and other suggestions for areas of more importance. What top 5 things are most important to you?

• Graphic Fidelity
• Graphic Engine performance
• Aesthetics
• Animation
• Polished Content
• Lore
• Group play
• Gameplay
• Questing Experience
• Endgame

your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

1. The only thing that requires numbering: Good gameplay/gameplay mechanics. You have to have a solid combat system, that feels rewarding to use, even if it only consists of 4 abilities. Just look at Diablo 3 and any major MOBA for inspiration here. Add to and build on that core idea. In FFXI, timing and carefully using cooldowns was the central focus of the combat system and although it was fairly slow paced, it made all the difference in the world to your damage/healing/tanking. It rewarded clever usage and timings and well used abilities would benefit the entire group. Same goes for WoW to an extent, though WoW's only problem was a flood of similar abilities across too many classes. This in turn caused classes, such as Druids to feel irrelevant at times. Their abilities were generally secondary to existing classes and mediocre across the board for a fairly long time, give or take certain patches. You don't need a game flooded with classes; You just need a group of classes that solidly compliment each other and play well together.

A good progression path, with a carefully thought out rewards structure. - The reason why WoW's earlier expansions were so popular, is because they rewarded every minor amount of progress. When they removed seemingly pointless talents, such as +1% crit, a lot of people found a hollow progression, where you just chose a random skill every 5 levels or so, or you were just given random abilities every so often. It was no longer rewarding, or involving. Even if choosing between 1% crit or 1% hit only gave the illusion of choice, it was at least an illusion. As soon as it was streamlined, it ceased to have any relevance at all.

A well judged balance of grinding and questing. - I've said it before, I'll say it again. Millions of people who play MMOs want to grind, whether they know it or not. The second that you remove the necessity to grind, or aim towards anything outside of core progression, people get bored and start bunching up in safe havens, bored and waiting for the next LF queue to finish.

A level of freedom encouraged by having world bosses/unique roaming mobs and similar. - Have minor upgrade paths and slightly worse, alternative upgrade paths available for doing quests and dungeons that are not requisite to any central progression path. Again, referring back to WotLK, having dungeons and easier raids, with slightly worse gear, made sure that everyone had a chance at getting something worth having, without having to feel as though they were being babied.

Solo content that can be used to effectively fill time outside of parties. - Solo content should never supplant group content, ever. People who just want to solo through entire games should not be catered for. They tend not to be there for the MMO experience and instead just want to satisfy themselves, without participating in any group content. They basically just want a single player RPG, but demand it in a MMO setting, for no reason. These are the people that will abandon an MMO at a drop of a hat, especially if their demands are ever met. Look to FFXI/FFXIV for solo content that adds to the experience and allows you to develop in your own time, with the aim of being better when you get in a group. Also, WotLK again.

----

Everything else is optional, or comes later. Get the core of the game down, worry about the rest later. Some of the best MMO-type experiences I've ever had were in MUDs (text-based Multi User Dungeons), regularly reminding me that all the visual aesthetics and polish in the world are irrelevant if I don't like the core experience. Also, keep in mind that people will sink thousands of hours even into cow-clickers, if the experience rewards and encourages them to play for longer.

[Skayaq]

Lore
Immersion
Character Customization & progression
World design
Fun and diverse content for both groups and solo

[Cæli]

1. Good place design, chosen colors. wow is the best mmorpg I've seen for that.
2. good music compositions. wow is the best mmorpg I've seen for that.
3. gameplay. wow is the best mmorpg I've seen for that.
4. reward/feeling of accomplishment/completion/game pleasure. tied to point 1/2/3, it's also the "pleasure" of the game, when you play, the pleasure you feel
5. story

Maybe...


and of course gameplay is important, but you won't feel a similar video game pleasure between a zelda and tetris, even though both have good gameplay. so gameplay is far from being the only important thing in a video game.

[Greelix]

1) homogenization is unnecessary. Not everyone needs the same tools. The goal should be providing ample opportunity to use those tools to useful effect often enough that "swapping" would be tedious and unnecessary.

2) Unbalance flavor items are ok and fun. Hour long cooldowns on "toys" are not.

3) don't do what ESO did and restrict players from witnessing the world. It should be open and free.

4) mounted combat and rewarding long cast time spells are awesome

5) most useful item should be player crafted to encourage player interaction and driven economy.

Bonus:

Pay to win is big no. Cash shop of only aesthetics and toys are great.

Don't instance pvp rewards. Give all participants love.

Investment is a large part of the fun.

Exponential "ilevel" scaling is retarded and artificially inflates the "abilities" of players.

Template pvp is a necessity for balance period.

[Deleted]

-Gameplay
-Over 8 classes
-Garrison shipyard
-Need to group up with other players
-Garrison missions

[Vintersol]

1. Gameplay
2. Aesthetics
3. Immersion
4. Long Term Goals
5. Rewards

I like Legion in WoW, but it feels still like not as meaty as it looks like. Currently i'm playing Warhammer Online on a private realm, it's the complete opposite. Most games today tend to try to be flashy as fuck with quick rewards and fast character development. I'm enjoying the slow progression and feeling not to be forced to do tasks as quickly as i can (like dailys, maintenance tasks etc.).

[Lotus Victoria]

- Community
- Longevity
- Gameplay
- Lore
- Graphics

in that order, for me.

[Revik]

Actually you guys have it all wrong. A great MMORPG is not really dependent on the game itself. Instead what makes a great MMORPG is a large group of loyal fervent followers thumb's upping the brand. As long as you can keep that group thumbs upping the brand you will have a great MMORPG.