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[Haschel]

I disagree with pay to play models. They have benefits, but it's ultimately over-rated and only useful for big name blockbuster MMOs that generate lots of hype. Once a percentage of the user base decides it's not worth paying $10+ a month for, the community drags down to a slow and painful death. Freemiums constantly bring in new users without burdening every single player with a financial "investment" on top of the initial time they put into the game. I'm ok with P2P when a game is just starting out and has plenty of people lined up to try it out, but it's a model that fails in the long term (in my opinion at least).

Grind for items, not levels

What is the point of this? You're wasting time improving something, does it seriously matter if it's a +2 attack sword instead of a +2 str character?

[Tilla]

I disagree with the idea of grind-for-items fundamentally. In fact I believe in a player controlled economy. Star Wars Galaxies did this BEAUTIFULLY in it's prime. Players could customize the materials in ways that boosted specific stats, lowered others, and just made every weapon unique - and if they got one design they really liked could mass produce a bunch with those same stats, but it would always be worth trying to experiment and make it better.

[Kadzar]

If there was some way I could just play with my friends, rather than having to spend an hour or so trying to find someone around my level and possibly of a certain class, that would be great.

I want there to be some abilities and items that I have to earn, rather than getting them automatically from leveling or random drops. And I don't mean just from raids; a person shouldn't have to come anywhere near a raid party unless they really want to. I want to see more things like Anarchy Online's Fixer quest: in order to get access to the Fixer grid (a form of fast travel only available to the Fixer class and those they allow inside), a Fixer has to complete a quest in which they must find and talk with several NPCs in different cities in order under a certain time limit. It is partially a test of how well you can buff your speed, but mostly a test of your navigational abilities, especially since, if you're with Clan or Omni-Tek, you have to avoid the guards in the enemy's cities. It's pretty tough; even as a Neutral, I only just made it in time (granted, I was pretty low level at the time; a higher level Omni or Clanner could have probably managed some way. I recall a guide mentioning getting a higher level Fixer to use Team Grid to help, or having a friendly Engineer in position to cast Beacon Warp, or just using a Yalm (a rather pricey but very useful personal flying vehicle)).

Players should have access to useful noncombat abilities other than crafting. Also, crafting should be a useful ability.

[klingon13524]

Also, crafting should be a useful ability.

Name some games that have a crafting ability that isn't useful.

[Kadzar]

Also, crafting should be a useful ability.

Name some games that have a crafting ability that isn't useful.

I probably just included that last sentence because the second-to-last sentence made my post feel unbalanced, and I didn't feel like it ended my thought in any way. Anyway, I guess I was sort of echoing the sentiments of Nevyn here,

My BIGGEST pet peeve is Crafting vs Quest Rewards...

As a high level Weapon Crafter, who can mod and adjust their weapons via augments and such, I don't want to hit the level of my Newly crafted Weapon thats say 40, and then still find it inferior to that Quest Reward of a Sword which I received 4 levels ago and it is 3x more powerful then I could ever make even with a Augment that has a 1% chance of success...

that random drops shouldn't invalidate the utility of crafting. If all the weapons you can get from drops are the same or better than what you can get from crafting, why even bother?

[Muz]

I disagree with pay to play models. They have benefits, but it's ultimately over-rated and only useful for big name blockbuster MMOs that generate lots of hype. Once a percentage of the user base decides it's not worth paying $10+ a month for, the community drags down to a slow and painful death. Freemiums constantly bring in new users without burdening every single player with a financial "investment" on top of the initial time they put into the game. I'm ok with P2P when a game is just starting out and has plenty of people lined up to try it out, but it's a model that fails in the long term (in my opinion at least).

I hate the $10 per month games. It *forces* me to play for the whole month, otherwise, I'd be wasting my money. It's certainly not going to pull casual players in, which is where the money is. That encourages me to get burnt out on it and never touch the game again.

But I hate the microtransaction games even more. They're literally pay-to-win games, if you want to win, just throw in more money. You don't win by skill or intelligence, you win by gushing in cash. It's a good model for a sucky game, but it doesn't really make it a fun one.

I can support a PvE game (like Die2Nite) where you pay for an advantage against the env, but not against other players. Or some system where the alliance as a whole can pay on behalf of others, and benefits from paying are minimal, like with Cyber Nations.

[Sergius]

Every P2P game that I started playing, I always stopped because it wasn't sustainable for me on the long run (had less time, so it didn't make sense financially, or just had problems getting money). So far, I've abandoned two games that I enjoyed way before I had become bored of them: Eve Online and City of Heroes (I heard CoH is going F2P soon but without the going rogue functionality thingies... also there doesn't seem to be a way to have more than 2 character slots other than going full subscription, not even a way to buy slots. Bit of a letdown but I might go back to play it once in a while).

[Sowelu]

Fuck quests in the ear.  Acknowledge "grind": Our players are going to do SOMEthing that isn't sociaizing and exploring.  Let it be repetitive but make the repetitive fun.

In these days of wikis, the joy of discovery is lost.  With high populations, likewise.  Either go back to the old days with complex puzzles and SMALL POPULATIONS, or push ahead without mystery.

My favorite MMO was SimCorps.  It was a meta game based on the honor system: Get a quest on the website, download the HOMM3 or SMAC map or the settings for a UT match, play it, submit your results with a brief after-action report.  Sometimes you team up for co-op matches, or versus against your enemy faction.

Friends are real friends, not ephemeral.  You wind up practicing together sometimes.  The grind is limited because assignments only come out weekly.  And, each match occurs in an established "fun" game.

[Kadzar]

Fuck quests in the ear.  Acknowledge "grind": Our players are going to do SOMEthing that isn't sociaizing and exploring.  Let it be repetitive but make the repetitive fun.

I say there should still be quests, but they shouldn't be your main means of acquiring loot or experience, and there should in fact be no reason for you need to repeat a quest. A good quest should leave room for you to solve problems creatively, rather than having one specific thing you must do at each step of the quest in order to finish it. And I won't even call killing bears and bringing back their asses a quest, that's more like an errand, and it's contemptible to fill a game nothing but this reflavored for different levels. So a good MMO would have just a few very good quests to complete and more than ample opportunity to just grind outside of that.

[Haschel]

I hate the $10 per month games. It *forces* me to play for the whole month, otherwise, I'd be wasting my money. It's certainly not going to pull casual players in, which is where the money is. That encourages me to get burnt out on it and never touch the game again.

But I hate the microtransaction games even more. They're literally pay-to-win games, if you want to win, just throw in more money. You don't win by skill or intelligence, you win by gushing in cash. It's a good model for a sucky game, but it doesn't really make it a fun one.

This pretty much sums up the issue. Ideally we could get a microtransaction environment that doesn't ham-string the non paying audience, but it's simply easier and less financially risky for the developers to add content that gives people an advantage, because the majority of people will suck it up in the name of competition (Not everyone will do it happily, but a lot of people do).

I think a decent compromise to this issue would be to sell top tier equipment for cash, while still allowing the exact same items to be obtained by non paying methods. The question comes down to balancing it in a way that people will want to buy it without being forced due to crippling drop rates that make it virtually impossible to get otherwise. Another reasonable option is to design nice, useful utility consumables that don't actually hurt the balance of the game but are still good enough for people to want them. (My personal favorite example is Ragnarok Online's Giant Flywings. NPCs sell "regular" flywings that randomly teleport you around the zone, the giant version teleports your entire party along with you)

Making cash shop items not account or character binding is also an intelligent decision in my opinion, it can encourage the inevitable "in-game currency for real cash" without forcing the people that actually do it to buy from questionable gold farmers. Just buy the current item of the day, and sell it to people in-game.

Again though, this would be stuff that's nice for us- the discontent, and not so much the companies that manufacture these games. It's basically their choice on how badly they want to suck the life-blood of the masses. Not everyone falls for it but the majority does. I can only hope that some day either some maverick developer decides to change the playing field by proving a game can be successful without preying on the consumer, or the masses finally start wising up. I'm guessing it'll be the former, and I doubt it'll happen any time soon.