What’s Your One MMO Must-have?

I was inspired to write today by @DominusMMO‘s (follow them!) tweet asking people to name a deal breaker. Name one thing that has to be in a MMO for you to play.  Can you do it?

The more I really think about this question, the more I realize how difficult it is to answer, and how far I will bend my standards over time.  If you asked me that question ten years ago I might have had an answer.  On second thought, ten years ago I may not have realized what it was about the games that made them special.  I may have said something like, “character progression that requires true effort.”  There was a time when I might have said I would never play a MMO without three faction pvp or territory control.  I remember thinking I would never again play a game without an economy like SWG.

As much as I want to try and pin down an answer, I always come up with an excuse to marginalize my own response.  Last year I swore off -ever- trying an MMO with a cash shop again, and here I am preparing to try Guild Wars 2 because I want to experience some of the features that GW2 might offer that I have never experienced. It’s just this once.  This time will be different.  Maybe the next game doesn’t have to have that feature.  I think we all rationalize that way from time to time.

In this exact moment, perhaps I can best answer the question by saying that an MMO must have a persistent world without unrealistic restrictions on the number of players or their ability to interact with one another.  A non-persistent world is a deal breaker for me.  It ceases to be a MMO.  Oddly enough, call it something else (like an action RPG) and I’m fine.

Are levels a must-have? Do you absolutely require character progression?  PvP? PvE? Raiding? Itemization? What concessions will you make, what self-imposed regulations will you bend to try the next best thing?

Where do you draw the line — or do you?  Feel free to comment here or tweet @DominusMMO.  I would love to see the responses and maybe even strike up a discussion about some of them.

  • One that I predict to be the top answer (Family Feud ding sound), Pay to Win cash shop micro-transactions, no explanation needed.

    On a more contentious note, supposed “hardcore” PvP feature such as full looting and perma-death. These are reasons that I won’t play EVE; I have no intention of building a ship up with months of play, only to lose everything by getting gang ganked to death up my thruster exhaust port by people who have played for years with massive ships in even more massive fleets. Games like this feel like a second job instead of recreational time.

    Another breaker are theme-parks that are hodgepodge constructions of poorly connected token economy grinding mini-games, such as SWTOR. Such a model is fine for a Super Mario console game, but not for a supposedly immersive MMO world.

    Then there are deal discouragers such as products offered from companies that have burned me in the past such as Funcom, gPotato, and EA; I specifically didn’t buy ME3 at launch due to my unfavorable experience in SWTOR.

  • @Gankatron: My fault for how I worded the third paragraph, but what is one feature a MMO -must have- in order for you to want to play? I suppose we could just spin it to say “a mmo must have a subscription model and not a cash shop” or something like that, but it loses something in that translation.

  • Deal breakers:
    1) the game is a buggy, unfinished mess.
    2) the game is may nice looking, but totally lacks content (can be a Theme Park without much story and with crap quests or a Sandbox without tools to shape the sand).
    3) the end game totally lacks variety and involves repeating the same crap for months before you get new things to do.
    4) character progression is dumbed down to a one way path with little player decision or research involved. Example: the down dumbing of WoW’s character progression.
    5) the world doesn’t feel like a world. Worst would be GW1 (but is it even a MMORPG? nope of course), but Age of Conan for instance was pretty bad at it too. SW:TOR isn’t very good either, it was saved by the story, but not for long. WoW, despite its theme park features, feels more like a world than any of those games, or even many older games like DAoC (I HATED the 3 separated kingdoms where you could not go to explore, it was so artificial).
    6) combat is slow or sluggish. LOTRO comes to my mind first (the combat there is really awful), but the game has, or rather had (back when I bought lifetime) qualities that redeemed it. Warhammer, DAoC and Rift are other examples of sluggish combat. The game that did combat the best is sadly… WoW. You feel connected to your character like in NO other MMORPG. SW:TOR after the fixes comes close too. But no other game in 17 years has achieved that yet. Maybe GW2?

  • Any of these would be a deal breaker for me.

    1: Pay to win cashshop.
    2: Game that requires me te to raid to be competitive in pvp.
    3: Graphic style that does not appeal to me.
    4: (if known in advance) Bots or Goldsellers that run amok.
    5: Game that launches without substantial features promised to us before release. (guess more people been there. done that..)
    6: A game without innovation and a fresh feel to it.. example: Rift = wow + public quests from warhammer online.
    7: Subscription + cashshop. (They expect me to pay them monthly and still not get access to everything? no thanks.
    8: A game that is 80% instanced. (whats the point of an mmorpg if you do not meet other people?)
    9: Game that launches in beta state with bugs and glitches.

  • There’s a bunch of good answers ranging from cash shops to 2 faction PvP. Let me give you one that is truly a deal breaker for me personally, above all the rest.

    UI and movement interface. No matter how bad Allod’s cash shop was or how terrible SWtOR’s Pvp was I tried both of those games. . .MMOs with a ‘click to move’ interface and no mouselook get uninstalled IMMEDIATELY. If you can’t move your toon the way you want I don’t care how good the game’s design theory is.

  • Good story driven content… I can not imagine wasting hours upon hours of grinding away in an MMO if the only thing to experience is the grind. This is of course why I do not play many MMOs these days. I did enjoy my first few sessions with SWTOR and the bounty hunter class in particular because it had a more involved and compelling storyline, but once it fizzled out on me I lost interest in progressing any further.

    So for me… an MMO without any ‘personality’ is the deal breaker. It may be the smoothest and best looking MMO out there, but if at the end of the day all it is is simply a numbers game under that appearance then I am not very interested in playing.

  • @iLkRehp: That’s actually an awesome answer. I am 100% in agreement about mouselook and controls; even if it’s in, if it isn’t done well I’m out.

    @nuke: Personality is important in an MMO. I often refer to a game’s “soul” in the same context. I don’t really care about story, though. I remember playing EQ and DAOC, neither of which had any real story to them. You were just another soldier, just another person living in the world. In a way, the stories these games have today mess with immersion by trying to make everyone the contextual hero.

  • 1) Female characters à la TERA or Lineage and overall silly characters
    2) Pay-to-Win (main reason to dump Allods)
    3) More solo content than group content
    4) Broken group/setup play (main reason to dump AoC)
    5) Grindfest for money (main reason to dump FFXI)
    6) Horrid graphical style and music (main reason to dump most MMOs)

    …there’s more, but these are from the top of my head.

  • I’m seeing lots of lists of things you don’t like in MMO’s. What about the one thing a MMO -must have- for you to play or else it’s a no-go?

  • Must have PVE end-game like raids. PVP is okay, but its more of a thing I do, when I dont PVE. And it must be hard, so it feels like a big achievement when your guild finaly downs a boss

  • @keen That is a good point and I think using the word story was perhaps a poor choice. I said ‘personality’ in my 2nd paragraph and think that is the better term to use for me. If I want to be the absolute hero I play offline RPGs like Dragon Age. I want my MMO to have content that is more then just a stepping stone on the way to ‘end game’. I pay each month to run on a treadmill at the gym, I do not want to pay even more to run on a virtual treadmill!

    This reason is one of the main points that has me interested in The Secret World… they claim a rich world filled with very involved content… so fingers crossed that they can deliver.

  • Deal-breakers
    1. no dungeon-finder or other type of grouping tool
    2. bad crafting system
    3. Allods online like cash shop
    4. laggy unplayable PVP

    Must-haves
    1. good story
    2. open world PVP
    3. good community
    4. fun dungeons

  • I find each time I play a different MMO, the thing that draws me to it is something unique to that game. In World of Warcraft it was the beautiful crafted world, in Age of Conan it was the realism and fluid combat, in DCUO it was the fast paced action orientated combat, in Eve Online it was the huge unscripted sandbox. But really what does this all boil down to?

    1. Is it fun. Introduce new features or reintroduce old mechanics, I really don’t care as long as the game is fun to play.

  • a jump button… that’s pretty much the only true deal breaker for me… if i can’t jump, then the game just feels artificially limited an un-immersive to me.

    everything else can be outweighed by a games’ other positive features… not jumping is a deal breaker though.

  • @Keen: I think people are answering the question in your title, which is what I did. Maybe if you edit it to say “What are your MMO must-have features” you will get more answers that you are looking for? 😉

  • “I’m seeing lots of lists of things you don’t like in MMO’s. What about the one thing a MMO -must have- for you to play or else it’s a no-go?”

    Solid coop play is a must for me personally.
    that starts with things like class and setup balance and actual combat dynamics and synergies. and of course the game needs to make grouping a strict requirement to advance. I don’t play any MMO that is basically about soloing questlines.

  • @Keen
    “I’m seeing lots of lists of things you don’t like in MMO’s. What about the one thing a MMO -must have- for you to play or else it’s a no-go?”

    There would be two… will you forgive me? They come out from my negatives…

    – The world must feel like a world, and I must feel immersed in it.

    – Character control and combat must “connect” to the person behind the screen. That joins what you guys said about mouselook above. The game must have a good “eye/hand/keyboard/screen/eye” (full circle actually) coordination. A “WYSIWYG” gameplay. If you have to wait several seconds after pressing the key to see the result on screen, the game already has a big negative point for me.

    That would be the two BIG things a good MMORPG MUST have for me.

  • Great piece, interesting to read about other peoples opinions on MMOs

    1. Input lag, delay, awful controls, mouse only etc
    Although I dislike WoW quite alot in it’s current state it’s still the number one MMO with best fluididity (?) in its combat.
    2. Any kind of cash shop, F2P
    Why would the developers allow you purchase experience boosts and that? Do they want you to skip the game? Would you skip the first level in Half Life just because it contains alot of walking? If the game gets boring thanks to it’s grind then it’s something wrong with the core of the game. And I haven’t seen any F2P MMO that have interested me.
    3. Instanced world, 100% themeparks, instant teleports around the world
    Nothing more boring than playing in a fully static world without the possibility to affect it.
    3b. No world PvP, only PvP is avaible in instanced battlegrounds/arenas
    Just another thing I dislike about themeparks. And no, it’s not about me wanting to gank some low level. It’s about having a living world, filled with danger and random encounters. One of many reasons I’m not interested in GW2.
    4. Awful, plain and boring art style
    Sorry, asian MMOs, I am not a fan of your art styles. Flashy combat with lots of glitter, unneccessary huge weapons and armors, huge bulky characters etc.
    5. Lots of boring, simple and mind-numbing grind
    Sorry again, asian MMOs.

    What I’d like to see in an MMO is one without any numbers to grind. The purpose is just to explore a world, solve quests, meet bros etc. Take levels and experience out of the game. Make it about gaining new abilities or something instead. A sandbox where the focus is around exploration, territorial control, crafting etc.

    You wrote a post about questing a couple of months back. What MMOs do you find have a really good quest system?

    I still haven’t played one with better quests than Tibia (or old Tibia, haven’t played it in years). You had to chat (actually write keywords) with NPC to get information. Listen carefully and write down any valuable information since there was no questlog. Travel. Read in-game books. Too bad everything else in the game was pretty damn bad. How were the quests in Ultima Online? Tibia was based on one of the old Ultima games IIRC.

  • I don’t think there is a SINGLE deal breaker for me. Too many factors are needed for me to enjoy an MMO. But I can easily overlook some things I don’t like, if it does a lot of the other stuff that I enjoy.

  • If I am desparate (which I usually am) I willing to try all kinds of different models but a list of must-haves is more suitable for games where I can see committing myself to the game beyond 1-2 months.

    Minimum Deal “Maker”

    – Open World PVP in a game with a PVP focus
    – One continuous world
    – A variety of skill choices
    – Freedom

  • Giving it another try, since you want to hear must have instead.

    1: Most important for me is that it needs to feel fresh.
    2: competitive pvp. I can not see myself play a pve only mmo.
    3: Build to last a long time.. You know the trend of 1 or 2 month lasting mmo’s lately
    If I read on forums fun for a month or 2. I’m no longer interested.
    4: I agree with others on smooth controls. Once your used to the way the camera and your avatar moves in wow you are gonna notice worse controls.
    5: the first M in mmorpg. I need to see people everywhere when I play and able to interact with them. (unlike for instance SWTOR)

    Thats about it.

  • The only thing that ALWAYS turns me off from MMOs is the possibility to buy in-game advantages for real money. That’s it. I can’t really name any must haves, though, since they’re all pretty much optional, a game just needs to have more good features than bad ones – I can look past mediocre graphics if the core gameplay is interesting, I can deal with no PvP if the PvE is sufficiently epic etc.

  • @h: The best questing I’ve seen is in the original EverQuest. Quests were epic adventures that took days, weeks, or months. They were for items only, not as a form of leveling up.

  • Meaningful pvp.. ie no battlegrounds, no farming pvp for loot open world non instanced with real world objectives that affect the world..

    ie old DAOC

  • Thats easy, the one thing an MMO _has_ to have for me to play is “fun”. The minute I don’t have that, I’m gone, no matter how “good” people say it is or what systems they use in it.

    I don’t particularly care what actual systems they use (2 way Vs 3 way PvP, Cash shop, whatever), if I’m having a “good time” I’ll even put up with some bugs (as long as they aren’t game/immersion wrecking).

    A lot of modern MMO’s (and a whole bunch of players as shown here) are focused too much on systems, and not enough on “is it fun?”…

  • lol now that you changed the post title my first entry (along with others) sounds horribly wrong! 😀

  • A world that I care about.

    It’s why I could play a terrible Warhammer game for so long and couldn’t play an objectively much better RIFT. I just didn’t care about the world, story, lore or anything like that.

  • I agree whole heartedly with Logan.I must be able to jump.

    Other then that I want a reason to interact with others in the community, with or against them doesn’t matter, but otherwise there is no point to being online.

  • I have several Deal Breakers:

    1. If an MMO is FFA PvP or Full looting PvP I wont play
    2. If an MMO is marketed and designed in Asia I wont play
    3. If an MMO is not designed with 3rd person, isometric and 1st person are deal
    breakers.
    4. If an MMO does not allow me to remap hot keys I wont play.
    5. If an MMO is a WoW clone (meaning end game consists of only gear treadmill raiding and only form of PvP is Battleground) I wont play.
    6. If an MMO does not use a person as the avatar(this means I dont like games like EVE, World of tanks, World of Airplanes or any of the Mechwarrior games coming out in the future)I wont play.
    7. If a game is Free to Play or not designed by a AAA company I wont play.
    8. If a game is lobby based with instanced worlds I wont play.
    9. If a game is designed around as “forced Grouping” I wont play.

    Those are jsut some of the deal breakers I can name off top of my head.

  • Characters need a reason to interact with each other. This can be done tons of different ways. My favorite is building a city sandbox-style with other players.

    Enemies can be made tough enough to make you think about bringing your friends, but not so tough that going it alone is suicide.

    Crafters should need goods made by crafters of different professions.

    It seems obvious that a MMO game, with the words massively multiplayer actually in there, should promote character interaction but the new Ironman challenge in WoW just shows how easily you can singleplayer the game from 1 – 85

  • It’s interesting we have a much easier time expressing what we can’t stand vs. what we need.

    I need great music and sound. TOR does an awesome job creating dramatic music swells before the awesome vista, and of changing music in combat or flight or a number of different things. Of course WoW’s music has always been 1st rate. And AoC.

    Now that I think about it, the games I played most had my favorite scores. I guess I’ll be playing TOR for a good while after all.

  • For the time I’m willing to invest, it must be “FUN” for me.

    Seems obvious, but I’m not playing another MMO where I’m “waiting for the fun”

    “Oh, fun comes at Max level”
    “Oh, the game really opens up around level 20”
    “Oh, just wait till you grind out your PVP set, then you’ll really get into it”.

    Never again.

    Progression? Sure. Effort? Not a problem. But I’d better well be having fun the whole time, or they can forget it.

    Life is too short to waste recreation time on something that’s suppose to be “FUN”.

  • I could play the worst MMO in the world but if I am with people I enjoy playing it with then I would be happy.

    That and good PvP – Skillful PvP like DAoC where its all about locking down the correct classes to win.

  • I don’t have one, I have a few:

    The controls must be clear and very responsive, including keyboard movement not enforced mouse movement.

    The interface (menus and chat) too must look clear, respond fast and feel solid – this is a major failing of many games.

    Combat must follow from the above and not just feel responsive but you must feel like you really are slapping your enemy not waving in their general direction.

    Setting, story, levelling, gear etc are all things I will only consider if the above 3 work.

    I don’t even need to play any games by Cryptic anymore because they all fall over on all 3 of the above points. WoW did all of the above best, WAR was OK after they worked on the input lag and Rift was nearly there. SWOTR ticked 2 of the boxes but the combat was very iffy.

    Guild Wars 2 for me interests me primarily because it appears to meet all 3 requirements.

  • I require a day/night cycle. It doesn’t even need to be linked to real time, I think the cycle in City of Heroes is about 2 hours. But I need one, otherwise there’s nothing to hide how static things can be.

  • Class balance
    I just can not enjoy pvp when some classes can one shot others… usually from range. Or others can 3 v 1 people because they have so much healing. Etc

    Developers who think grind equals content.
    This is a big mistake of many games.

  • Difficult choices, with consequences and trade-offs for your character and (in my ideal dream MMO) the game world.

    They can exist at any level, from the broadest strategic customization and social decisions, to the tiniest moment-to-moment actions. But I’m sick of games – like WoW – which offer you false or trivial choice. Games where micro level play often boils down to memorized rotations, and macro level strategy involves finding the optimal build, or choosing from a handful of optimal builds based on your role.

    I also prefer these choices be baked into the mechanics of the game, rather than universal questions such as “run or fight?”

    To visualize my ideal, imagine traits whose bonuses are linked to penalties: “high metabolism – heal and become hungry faster”, “muscle bound – you do more damage but move slowly”, “forgettable – you blend into the crowd, but fail to impress those you meet”. At its most ambitious, the world itself would react to your choices through basic AI routines, or scripted consequences rippling through the world. I.e. when your team “raids” an AI keep, there will be random guard patrols, and how you deal with them (bribe, kill, stun) will impact how the scenario progresses, which will further be determined by other choices you made: attacking during the day or night, whether the keep was put on alert earlier, whether their patrols had been ambushed over the hill or are currently sleeping in the barracks, etc.

    GW2’s events comes close here, but fail to create real choice – just some win/loss states as far as we’ve seen. And I’m not convinced the character customization will involve many hard choices either.

    I feel like everything else I care about in the MMO sphere will fall into place if the above is laid out right. But given current financial and technological constraints, I don’t see it being likely to happen.

  • There’s just ONE thing that a MMO MUST have for me to be initially interested, and that’s a high fantasy setting. ^^

  • @bonbons

    Yeah thats one area where I think the old d20 systems were better. You put a lot of points in one area, you suffered in others. There was some consequence.

  • 1. A living breathing world – I can’t believe a game with as big a budget as SWTOR has such a sterile world, mobs that stand stock still, npc stuck in tight action loops (there was a NPC on coresant that just constantly claps like an idiot). Look at WOW – Stormwind, child NPCs running around playing, guards walking on patrol. In the forests you see wolves chasing rabbits and dear…

    2. Tight combat system. Fast/responsive, not repetitive (ie: I don’t want 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4)

    3. Open world, for a non-space MMO, I want to be able to walk/ride seamlessly from one side of the world.

    4. First Day mounts, first day skills. I’ve played lots of MMOs and the chances are when a new MMO comes out, everyone who is going to play it has already played an MMO, I don’t need a 20 level learning curve to work out how to press 1,2,3,4 and I don’t want a graduation process where I have to grind out 25 levels before you reward me with a 100% speed increase. I want to keep playing your game because it’s enjoyable, not because if I get a new level, then I will get a new skill.

    5. Give me some sort of sandbox: I want to be part of the world, let me build a house, a ship, let my guild build a village or a castle. I want to be able to build something have it continue to exist after I have logged out.

  • Wow, there are some really AWFUL responses to your post:

    “Name one thing that has to be in a MMO for you to play. Can you do it?”

    Apparently most of them can’t! The one thing that is a must for me is that the game have a COMMUNITY. No amount of graphics, audio, or gameplay can override the desire to simply ‘have a good time with friends.’ Some of my favorite games had horrible graphics or no graphics at all (going all the way back to MUDs if you can consider that MMO).

  • “Wow, there are some really AWFUL responses to your post:

    “Name one thing that has to be in a MMO for you to play. Can you do it?””

    Opinions are like arseholes… 😉

    The best community in the world won’t make up for a crap game full of bugs and with no decent content, be it Theme Park stuff or Tools to shape a sandbox. If I want to talk with friends, I can do that on Facebook, via mail, on MSN, or on blogs like here. A game is also meant to be played, and if it sucks, people will leave, no matter how good the community is.

  • Addendum (grrr, edit function, where are you?)!
    A good community can make up for an “average” game though, on that I agree… if the game isn’t neither very good, nor really bad, people may stay for the community. A good example for this would be LOTRO in my opinion.

  • Purposeful Sandbox elements that provide community and greater things to look forward too or well designed and varied questing or friends and alcohol being involved.

  • I guess I’m the same case as Keen. Either that, or I only switch when I’m bored with the concept the game I’m playing is built on and want to experience something really different.

    I strongly prefer colourful/lush graphics many Korean/Taiwanese games have over the grimdark pseudo-realistic style popular in the West but – similar to you – I decided to make an exception for GW2 hoping the game will be fun enough to play despite the graphics.

    However, I guess if I had to name a single deal breaker, it would probably be input controls. I used not to mind it but WoW’s controls are really smooth. There is no forgetting of key presses, no character flinching due to delay jitter on the network etc. It is largely invisible if you switch from a game with bad controls to game with good controls but try to switch in the opposite direction and it becomes obvious as I found after trying Prius.

  • The Thing(s) an MMO MUST have for me to keep playing…

    1) Other players, that I can actually interact and chat with.
    (DCUO is an MMO, but not being reasonably able to chat with others and waiting on a group for an instance for more than a week was a dealbreaker, however fun the game was)
    2) Decent controls/interface.
    When I cant get my character to do what I want or find what I want I get annoyed, thats not why I play a game. (looking at the tiny EVE Interface made my eyes hurt)

    Theres plenty of other reasons why I’m not playing certain MMO’s, like forced PVP, certain settings, lore etc, but those I could change my mind on, if everything else on my “wishlist” was completely awesome.

  • Must have: A working user interface. As a minimum, functions can be assigned to certain keystrokes. I get angry if the game reacts to me pressing the ctrl-key instead of only reacting to ctrl-X, ctrl-F1, ctrl-whatever. I get mad if the interface is designed for console controllers. (That’s five levels of Skyrim talking here)

    Turn-off: Child-like races like Tera’s Elin and any race wearing plaid super mini skirts.

    Must have: A world to explore, to be able to say “Oh, shiny”

    Must have: More than one leveling path, multiple zones to pick from in order to level up. Once I reach max level, I want to have at least 2/3rds of the world still unexplored.

  • In order to make that MMO a log-in every nite sort of thing, it has to have a believable world design that supports its lore visually and gives the player the ability to feel like he is taking part in it. Themepark is fine, but great themparks bring you into the world with a strong visual style and make you want to come back every day just to experience it. This is what always brings me back to LOTRO, and how WoW still leaves fond memories, but ultimately where Rift failed.

  • Must have: level-scaling/sidekicking. I will never again let a game punish my husband and I for not playing the same way at the same time forever and ever, amen.

  • More in the spirit of the question:

    Interesting Combat

    Combat determines everything and ultimately affects your interest and enjoyment. It tells a story of the lore game, the characters, the world, the hierarchy of players, the classes, etc…

    This is my must have. You spend so much of your time in combat, having dynamic and entertaining combat is important. WOW combat is not dynamic. It is fluid and can be challenging, but it is not dynamic. It is scripted and gear dependant. Blizzard controls what your character can and can’t do down to the smallest percent.

    I think this is why I have drifted to pvp lately. Players present dynamic challenges. However, I tend to get frustrated with the control the developers exert over this area, making the combat as scripted as possible.

    Things that affect this –
    Control over your character’s skills selection. Games seem afraid to let me choose skills. More and more they choose my skills for me. I have no attatchment to my character.
    Mob placement and skills. Having mobs that are either bashers or throwers and that’s about it is lame. How you place mobs of different skills and attack types can make or break combat. Typically, mmos lump dozens of the same creature into an area and viola a big pile of boring crap.
    The nature of boss fights. These need to be more dynamic. Changing the creature’s skills, maybe making a skill random, having them go off at different times, changing the adds each time.
    Progresion of gear and its impact on fights. Gear should be fun to get but it shouldn’t be the be all and end all of combat.

  • My must-have for an MMO is a set of community-fostering tools (guild system, server-wide events, group content, living world…) It doesn’t matter whether the game is a sandbox or a themepark, although the former tends to encourage player-grouping better; it doesn’t matter if there is PVP or PVE or both, or just a world to pace up and down. Not even if the quests are story-deficient, as in vanilla WoW. As long as grouping is encouraged, and a sense of collective goal is furthered, the MMO will succeed (unless it did horridly in other aspects which some people commented as being deal-breakers).

    If it does well in other fields, but fails at building a community, it is ultimately not an MMO. It is a massive single-player experience which lasts as long as the content does, as if it were a normal RPG.

  • Very hard to just name one thing but a absolute must for me is open world PvP.

    There is nothing I love more than being able to gank and be ganked in a non-instanced environment. The constant knowledge that enemy players might be around the next bush is what makes these games exciting for me.

    Honourable mentions:

    *Instanced PvE content designed for 3-6 people. ( So me and my 3-4 IRL friends with whom I play with can be challenged and play without randoms unless we want to)

    *Big world and infrastructure that can handle alot of players roaming around

    *Lasting items, not the loot pinata that WoW has become. I want to wander of and find a weird looking treetrunk and click it, finding some item that starts a long questchain that requires both solo work and some teamwork with friends to complete. And at the end I get properly reqarded with something that wont be “tiered away” in the next patch.