Guild Wars 2

This is the first time I will have posted in a forum in a very long time, the last time that comes to memory is two, to three years ago. My question spawns from me being curious about what makes other people stick to an MMO, as I haven’t been able to stick to one for a few weeks for about three years. From Aion, to Rift, to DC Universe Online, to Lord of the Rings Online, to Age of Conan, all the way to SWTOR, I haven’t been able to play it past getting to level cap.

When I think back to the only two MMOs that have been able to hold my attention for years at a time (Those being WoW launch through the first month of Cataclysm, and FFXI) the main reason I kept playing is because going into those games I had friends, and as soon as we all hit cap I had a schedule already in place for me to do end game, and didn’t have to worry about finding people to play with.

What all the other games had in common was I never met a single person while playing the game, I always did everything on my own, and never had a single person to play with. The other reason why I ask this is because right now I am going to try to get back into GW2 after I haven’t played in a few months, because much like those other games I never had a chance to do anything after leveling because I never had a group of people to play with. This time around I am going to try to find a guild, or at least some reason to keep on past leveling, and the main reason I am giving this another chance is because after playing it pretty much no other MMO matches this, it just feels so ahead of it’s peers, like the real next gen MMO.

Friends, I however have no guild and have yet to realy meet anyone in the month I have been playing.

I tried one guild but it was a drama infested crap fest, the fact that I can pretty much do everything alone in GW2 has helped this problem greatly, but it would be nice to have a good guild.

Grind, tons and tons of grind. Please add more

For me it’s community. Being in a good guild and having people that I know in real life playing the game helps a lot.

It may vary from game to game, for some it might be grind (gear etcetc), friends, lore, gameplay, whatever.

Best ones have all of those.

Content that’s polished.
Content that’s balanced.
Content that has depth and variety.
Content that makes you feel a sense of character progression and increasing power and ability.
Content that rewards you for being knowledgeable and observant.

Community, my guild, and developers/moderators with human emotions. I want a dev team that’s super open with the community.

The best example of this I can give is from Mythic and Warhammer Online. Even through all their hardships, I’ve never met another company that I can say I was able to join their Dev vent and actually talk to the developers of a game. I even remember one time after a PTS test where Andy, the community moderator at the time talked to us about working at Mythic and what drove him, all off the clock.

1. Fun
2. A guild of good fun people.

For me, personally, the looks are pretty important. Not in that “Aw yeah antialiasing and anisotropic filtering on top of bloom and super-hyper-realistic water”-way, but rather the look of my avatar, the surroundings, armor and animations, that kind of stuff – I want to feel like I’m controlling a little ‘puppet’ in a coherent world. I personally think Guild Wars 2 did a pretty good job with that, especially with the little character details; engineers actually drinking their elixirs from little flasks and tossing them away, or bows having noticeable bowstrings, that sort of thing.

Its not a simple question.

• Im a builder, i grow as player with the community of neverwinter night, and building character mixing 3 different classes was a lot fun. So one of the things that stick me with a game are: build variety and equipment planning. When a game start to release new equipment in short time, i start to become bored baceuse i cant plan my character.

• Contents for solo players, because i play a lot with my friends, but not always, and have something to do alone in an online game, help to mantain people active, instead of simply play something else when there is no poeple on your guild, or on you friendlist.

• Environment and story. Even if an online game its all about play with other people, have a cool story and maps is a good thing. the old GW shine on this

1. End game content.

2. Grind. Lots of grind to keep me occupied.

3. Game must have a purpose. What I mean by this is theres gotta be a point to gear up. Guild Wars 2 has no point. Why bother trying? To sit around in Lions Arch and try and look cool? You know I actually miss the traditional MMO double faction system. At least you could gear up, do world PvP, and pick fights on your server. This allowed you to build rivalries and fighting friends. This MMO does not have it and its boring.

4. Locked in community. The server you choose is the server your character stays on. No guesting, realm transfers are allowed but on a very long cooldown(forces you to get to know your community server) and NO stupid race/faction/character changes.

5. Open World PvP.

6. NO FLYING ALLOWED! NO FLYING MOUNTS!

P.S. Why is it when I swear, the word appears as kitten? Wtf is this?

If I enjoy myself I’ll keep playing, whether that be in pvp or pve. So far I’m really enjoying all these things in GW2.

Gorphentos.1907:

This is the first time I will have posted in a forum in a very long time, the last time that comes to memory is two, to three years ago. My question spawns from me being curious about what makes other people stick to an MMO, as I haven’t been able to stick to one for a few weeks for about three years. From Aion, to Rift, to DC Universe Online, to Lord of the Rings Online, to Age of Conan, all the way to SWTOR, I haven’t been able to play it past getting to level cap.

When I think back to the only two MMOs that have been able to hold my attention for years at a time (Those being WoW launch through the first month of Cataclysm, and FFXI) the main reason I kept playing is because going into those games I had friends, and as soon as we all hit cap I had a schedule already in place for me to do end game, and didn’t have to worry about finding people to play with.

What all the other games had in common was I never met a single person while playing the game, I always did everything on my own, and never had a single person to play with. The other reason why I ask this is because right now I am going to try to get back into GW2 after I haven’t played in a few months, because much like those other games I never had a chance to do anything after leveling because I never had a group of people to play with. This time around I am going to try to find a guild, or at least some reason to keep on past leveling, and the main reason I am giving this another chance is because after playing it pretty much no other MMO matches this, it just feels so ahead of it’s peers, like the real next gen MMO.

I have to agree with you, I played both FFXI and WoW, and I sticked around the longest because of friends. FFXI forced you to have friends, because you were forced to party all the way to 75, there was no way getting around it. You build up your reputation, you even know who the good paladins, or white mages, to call on just in case you need their help. You know their names by heart, their personalities, their shortcomings.

In WoW, even though I was not forced to party, I started to have fun with my guild when we were getting raided in Tarren Mill / Southshore area. We defended one another. And then we hear Orgrimmar getting raided, so we all defended it again. So all these activities built me some groundwork for friends, and roots to stay in the game. Also, after the WoTL, we did the 5 man dungeons in Northrend.

Besides FFXI and WoW, you are correct, I cannot stick around any MMOs after getting to the max level. I have tried Aion, Rift, Age of Conan, LOTRO, SWTOR, EQ2 (this was the longest, since I got a nice guild, and we decorated guild hall).

So I would have to say, what makes you stick are friends and the activities that force you to do things together with your friends, and the activities that force you to know your friends well, and not just to carry through a dungeon, but activities that make you say, “hey, I need this guy again to help me with this”

Gorphentos.1907:

This is the first time I will have posted in a forum in a very long time, the last time that comes to memory is two, to three years ago. My question spawns from me being curious about what makes other people stick to an MMO, as I haven’t been able to stick to one for a few weeks for about three years. From Aion, to Rift, to DC Universe Online, to Lord of the Rings Online, to Age of Conan, all the way to SWTOR, I haven’t been able to play it past getting to level cap.

I’m very similar, instead of cap, I try to see the majoriy of content, usually that is a little past cap. I call it a game and move on, there has yet to be such an awesome game to me that I can just give it all up and live just on that. I am one that does come back for content updates if I like the game a lot.

1. quick bug fixes
2. great balance in pve (notably no bugs/nerfs preventing a primarily dps class from soloing)
3. easily farmed crafting loot
4. easy ways to make decent money
5. in game drops of keys for chests/special items usually found in stores.
6. relevant crafting
   — which all leads to having fun because when you don’t have to think about those things or spend time wondering “what in blazes the devs were thinking when they did that” or wondering how you are going to afford things you need (not want need like runes for your armor to complete it or even the exotic armor itself) then you can spend the rest of the time having fun with your friends without harming their progress in things like dungeons etc.

Depends on the design of the game.

Games that rely on groups to get stuff done (like getting gear and so on), friends. Once my friends are gone, I’ll probably go too.

Games that are soloable where most of the content (including endgame) are solo friendly, I might stay on long after my friends quit the game if the storyline and gameplay is good.

Variety, community, decently polished game play are the two biggest things that keep playing an online game long after my real life friends quite (sadly, my friends are the “flavor of the month” type of players that don’t seem to stick to a game for more than a couple weeks… ).

Give me lots to do and a variety of it; minigames (like fishing, jump puzzles, etc.), exploring, combat, etc.

Community makes bonds that make a game fun to play long after the actual game play isn’t.

Polished game play just makes a game, well, enjoyable to play.

The next two biggest things would be theme and style.

Freedom, non linear worlds. No set “rail of progression”. In other words, no mmo so far in the past few years. Can’t stand Eve, only for the idiotic reason that I want to play as a person, not a spaceship.

Out of the “new gen” theme park mmorpg’s Rift holds the record for holding my attention, played it almost exactly for 1 year, and only reason I lasted that long was the raid content and that it was kinda funny to never use a macro and still outshine the other raid healers with long discussions as result. :P

WoW lasted me 5 months and holds second place, pretty much all other non indie mmo out there, (sadly indies never last,) have failed to get me past the free month.

My number one mmo in time spent overall is the old oooold mmo, Star Wars Galaxies.
Content sucked pretty hard in that game, no “epix!!1” at all, in fact pretty much all loot was either vendor trash for money or bonus mats to use in crafting, since everything was player made.
Oh well, would take ages to explain how much freedom and all you could do in that game before the patch of doom. Well, played it for 4 years, from release all until that one fateful patch when pretty much everyone left the game. :P

For me it’s simple really.

I’m a social player. I can raid with the best of them, but at the end of the day, I like being in a game where I feel like I’m part of the world. I like getting ready to raid, doing dailies and all that. But I also like just logging in, taking in the sights and hanging out with players.

The other part is being treated with respect and not insulting my intelligence. This applies to both the game developers, community managers and to other players. I’ve left MMOs for this sole reason before.

Friends make a multiplayer gameing experience better.

Other than that haveing end game goals that I can reasonably meet. A year long grind to get one weapon is not reasonable. If the carrot is too far away I just lose interest. Work is what I do for a living, when I play a game it should be fun.

1. Community driven Crafting/Sharing/Selling
2. Easily Grind for Crafting
3. Worthwhile rewards for events
4. Guildplay
5. Open world PVP

During the 1925 serum run to Nome, also known as the “Great Race of Mercy”, 20 mushers and about 150 sled dogs relayed diphtheria antitoxin 674 miles (1,085 km) by dog sled across the U.S. territory of Alaska in five and a half days, saving the small city of Nome and the surrounding communities from an incipient epidemic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1925_serum_run_to_Nome

I keep looking for an mmo that tells a great story for each sled team member: sled, musher, wheel dog, team dog, swing dog, lead dog.

tangible way to measure ‘pulling your weight’
something to distract you from for the kitten clinging to the dog in front of you
a well reasoned world
world rational path-finding progression
any path becomes worn and full of dropped kittens, new cities worth saving

There needs to be something fun to do that isn’t rewarded or needed. I like helping players. My first time enjoying MMOs was playing classic WoW. I never raided or did dungeons. All I did was go and hunt down, camp, and harass gankers. This was very fun for me. I quit when the pre-BC 2.0 patch came out as world PvP dried up and I was no longer needed. No one needed my help anymore, PvP turned into an easy but long grind for epic gear

I think in GW2 the equal would be hunting eternal battleground jump puzzle griefers and helping people do random things around the world.

Not resenting the company, and people to play with.

1st it has to feel like a MMO, sadly, this does not. (Not any more! – Maybe in some patch about 2 years from now!).

I guess to keep it short… and from a purely MMO standpoint (regardless of FPS, RPG or what have you), an MMO that I could easily play almost non-stop should have a good balance between various game aspects, especially between classes/opposing sides yet being distinct (no cheesing), challenging content (in FPS games more a change in maps and mode and again no cheesing), and a decent story to drive the content (depending on the genre).

While I see a lot of great potential in what Anet has, the direction they seem to be taking the game has only created a further lack of interest for me to play the game (though I still pop on from time to time).

For me its the sense of community and the interaction of the players. Its what makes an MMO an MMO. I like being able to actually go out into the world and talk to other players, help other players, ask questions and get help from other players that know more than I do in game without reading a strat website or guidebook.

Most MMOs in the post WoW era have forsaken this format and moved towards solo content which is why most MMOs now dont hold my attention for long. I enjoyed the MMO aspect of the games and being able to do things in game that didnt necessarily require you to chase the ‘carrot on the stick’ which all mmos have moved towards since the success of WoW. GW2 was supposed to move away from this has gone this route now too.

I really enjoyed it when MMOs basically required you to work/group with other players because not only did it create a sense of community it also policed the community. When MMOs actually took a year+ to reach level cap and you had to have manners and server etiquette or get blacklisted and no one would group with you. I dont miss the long grinds in FFXI, EQ or Lineage, but I do miss the actual communities those games had before the “me, me, me phat lewtz epixz” mindset took over.

The biggest mistake besides making the games mostly solo now that most MMOs are making in the post WoW era is not actually putting real value on the actually time sink elements of the game.

For example crafting. Why make crafting a huge expensive timesink if crafting really isnt valuable in the long run since all of your gear can be replaced by drops or vendor gear? In the old school MMOs you could play and just be a crafter. But in the post WoW era, crafting is just a goldsink that basically might give you enough to start the carrot treadmill at level cap.

Also a good MMO should have another goal to aspire to besides just having the best gear, which sadly is all this game really offers. I know GW2 just launched and it will get better, but right now its fallen into the same ol trap of being just like WoW with end game gear grinding and everyone sitting in LA waiting to run fractals which is exactly how WoW was in Cataclysm.

Since I cant really do the end game PvE since I’m behind the fractal curve (takes too long to get groups and people wont group with you without experience) and the PvP doesnt really have a ranking system/ladder theres no real goal for me to aspire to in this game. You can level alts but half the classes are kinda broken and its not really worth the time to level when you might wind up shelving them til they are fixed anyway.

IMHO they really shot themselves in the foot introducing the fractal system the way they did. Not because of vertical progression but because it basically splintered the community pretty hard too soon and forced people into running on the FotM treadmill for fear of being left behind.

You used to be able to log in and have fun at 80 running around farming in Orr. Once FotM dropped its a ghost town, so new 80s cant really get group events done there since no one is there they are all in LA waiting for fractal groups.

Honestly, I’m still waiting for a DAoC v2.0. WAR came sorta close but dropped the ball hard in their original implementation requiring PvE to do city seiges.

Lately I’ve been playing Wrath of Heroes and Forge, games with fun pvp that actually dont even have the timesink grinding side. The timesink in those games is actually the pvping.

And I’m not against grinding. But at least make the carrot on the stick worth chasing if you are going to have that as your motivating factor. Grinding + RNG is very bad.

It’s the combination of several things. I’ll talk about the few MMOs that I’ve had a long term relationship with and elaborate on what made them special.

1. Guild Wars 1

While my first MMO was Everquest, it was GW1 that really stole my heart. I remember reading about it in EGM and becoming instantly enthralled. When I got my first taste at the E34E event, I was hooked. It took some time to find a group of players I liked, but those friendships are still alive today. Despite living in different countries, I met two Canadian brothers who made the game for me. We play games together to this day. Having friends to explore and learn with was the best gaming experience I’ve ever had. That’s what make Guild Wars so special. It was the combination of an enthralling game and great friends.

2. Lord of the Rings Online
I was drawn to this game because I loved the stories. The chance to explore that rich world was not something I wanted to miss. I jumped in the game shortly after release, starting out with a Loremaster. For me, this game was good (at the time) because of the lore, the richness of quests and the overall friendly community. Once I found a solid guild, I became more interested in end game. Once again, it’s community that makes it for me. The little touches like class quests, crafting, housing, and the music system gave this game an extra boost. Unfortunately, the game went f2p and is far less enjoyable now.

3. World of Warcraft
I bought WoW before Guild Wars came out because real life friends joined the game. Unfortunately, they didn’t stick it out and I hadn’t built any real affection for the game to keep playing. However, years later, other friends would pull me back into the game. At this point, the classes were smoother and the game was far more polished. While I enjoyed exploring and leveling, raiding was never my cup of tea. As friends fell in and out of the game, I lost interest and moved on.

So, in retrospect, there are a few things that keep me an MMO:
1. A well designed world. This can make up for poor combat or tide me over until I find a group to play with.
2. Solid and fluid gameplay. WoW and GW both have great combat systems and GW2 shines above both. Even if I didn’t have real life and online friends in GW2, the gameplay alone is enough to keep me here.
3. Community. Having a support system is quintessential to getting the most out of an MMO.

Definitely the feeling of autonomy and freedom. As soon as my arm gets twisted to be more social more often than I want to be or to socialize in ways I don’t find fun, I quit. And yep, sooner or later I have quit every single MMO I’ve ever played that wasn’t complete garbage over this issue. Well, that and end game repetitive dungeon grinds (WoW).

I enjoy being able to depend on myself for everything I need in an MMO (like levels and gear) and I will only socialize: 1. When I feel like it and 2. When it’s voluntary.

I played FFXI a lot, not consecutive though. I got bored and the only reason I kept coming back was because friends kept playing it. I have to say the ‘grind’ that everyone loves doesn’t appeal to me… in fact in FFXI the grind was so much I didn’t play large portions of the game.

So if I had to say what makes me come back it’s because I had fun, at the times I played whether I was solo or with friends I was having fun. When it wasn’t fun I stopped.

I’ve definitely not been playing this with the intensity that I did that game, but tis due to the lack of a subscription fee. If I’m not wasting money then I don’t feel bad about coming back in a day or two. For me the fun still exists in this game, and I don’t have to bother with a grind since it never appealed to me in the first place – that’s why I’ll keep coming back to this game.

Well, so long as the new content remains playable – any more of this ‘requires ascended’ bullkitten and I might stop. Old content has a replay value but it’s not infinite.

What keeps me in an MMO?

Mainly not being in any rush. You treat any MMO like a console game you will quit.
:ext, alts. Trying out different thing.
this has kept me in MMOs for at least a year to a max of five years

Ultima Online was the only MMO I played for a long time and never really got tired of, but I ended up leaving for good as the game’s population dwindled and those that did stay just sat in Trammel all day, so anyone who wanted to experience the risky side of the game was kind of left in the dust as Felucca became a ghost town.

I enjoyed Dark Age of Camelot until it became a dungeon raiding EQ clone, which was not long after release.

I enjoyed WoW for the above reason, the early days had so much world PvP, no stupid incentives because the honor system did not exist yet, people PvPed to kill the other faction, they camped dungeon entrances, killed quest NPCs and forced battles to happen. This all got incredibly boring once the honor system first came out because people stopped PvPing for the fun of it and got on a treadmill, then came battlegrounds which were just designed to make those players want to play there to maximize their honor grind.

I quit WoW and waited for Age of Conan and Warhammer Online. Both were quite enjoyable, AoC moreso, but the population dropped steadily and, like UO, the gameplay I desired basically died.

That brings me to 2009 and Darkfall, a game I’d been waiting for since about 2004. Amazing game, made me feel like it was a 3D Ultima Online. Played that for years and then a lot of my guild left, some out of boredom, some wanted to play other upcoming games. I stuck with Darkfall by myself for a while and then started playing FPS again while waiting for GW2 (oh and when Mortal came out in 2010 I played it for all of 5 minutes before realizing it was horrible).

So I guess that brings me to GW2, which I had fun taking a few classes to 80 for a while and playing WvW and S/T PvP, but this game feels more and more grindy and the PvP continues to show imbalances, gear dependance and little raw skill. I like that it has no monthly fee and will always be able to log on at my leisure, but right, Darkfall Unholy Wars is coming out in 2 days and I will leave GW2 behind in search of the true MMORPG experience I had so many years ago in Ultima Online.

So, what keeps me interested in a game? The PvP, but not just any PvP, the open world, high risk PvP. The type of game that makes me feel like I’m in a dynamic, unpredictable world, instead of feeling like I am just progressing blandly through each zone and having my hand held.

If Unholy Wars doesn’t work out for me for some reason, CCP’s World of Darkness may hold my interests in the future or maybe I’ll come back to GW2, I don’t know. I feel we need to get the “RPG” back into MMORPG, the “RPG” which denotes the world is player driven and risky and unpredictable, one that does not feel like a job, but an adventure.

I let $5 a month keep rolling off my credit card when I played freerealms (a kids game, mind you) and the main reason for this is that they have so much kitten fluff content. They update their cash shop once a week on the same day with new items. They have pets, housing and items for your houses, mounts, a ton of clothes and virtual tadig card (and a really fun game/tournaments to go with them) Guild wars has none of this and I still LOVE this game but honestly, if it did, I’m pretty sure I would never stop playing and be thousands of dollars in debt.

—a fun, meaningful, non frustrating, profitable crafting system.
—housing (non-instanced) for social fun , and showing off our treasures
—something original for end game besides 1-3 hour dungeon grinding.
—to feel like after im leveled and geared that i am powerful and find loads of treasures.
—frequent events and holiday fun.

I would especially love to see a modern version of Ultima Online.

Tyr.2489:

Blackwolfe.5649:

1. Fun
2. A guild of good fun people.

This

This. I used to play much grindier games but with a good guild made out of good and fun people, even without things to grind for, it kept me playing. Once good people quit it can be felt across the whole community. The current community is terrible in it’s ME ME ME mode. Fotm is especially awful, and all other dungeons to come in the future will make things worse. Make us work together and help eachother instead of demanding gear checks and dps parsers.

lisamee.2408:

—a fun, meaningful, non frustrating, profitable crafting system.
—housing (non-instanced) for social fun , and showing off our treasures
—something original for end game besides 1-3 hour dungeon grinding.
—to feel like after im leveled and geared that i am powerful and find loads of treasures.
—frequent events and holiday fun.

How could you make housing non-instanced?

Do you mean that it’s an instance with a small outside area such as a garden and not just an indoor cube of boredom like some games do?

I picked up EQ because it was a way to keep in touch with my High school friends when I moved to college and they stayed in high school. I picked up EQ 2 because most of us were out of college, and we all lived apart, and we wanted to get back together online. Since then I haven’t tried a MMO, I was just burned out from them. GW2 was a breath of fresh air, player friendly and fun. I am now playing with my Wife, however my friends either won’t try it, or they tried it and didn’t like it, which has left me very disappointed.

I have been really happy with my guild, I love the graphics (I refused to play WOW cause I hated the graphics, and the more grind I heard from my friends who played, the more it drove me away) and I love the Vistas showing off the beautiful graphics.
You can play this game at your pace, and if you can return to lower level areas to experience it all, including dungeons. One thing I regretted in EQ was leveling past an area, and missing that experience. That change is one of the best changes in GW2 in my opinion.

Lastly, this is also the only MMO I have ever played more than one character on. EQ1 was a Enchanter, EQ2 was a Thief, and that’s it. This is the only game I played that I wanted to re-play the world, or explore new professions.

My experience has been with the positive change in everyone earning experience from a fight and no one kill stealing, people don’t group in normal PVE, which has been a huge dissapointment, as I value friends I made from PUG’s in EQ. I wish people formed more groups, because it greatly improves gameplay, although the game is solo’able, which is a nice feature to have as an option.

Hellkaiser.6025:

lisamee.2408:

—a fun, meaningful, non frustrating, profitable crafting system.
—housing (non-instanced) for social fun , and showing off our treasures
—something original for end game besides 1-3 hour dungeon grinding.
—to feel like after im leveled and geared that i am powerful and find loads of treasures.
—frequent events and holiday fun.

How could you make housing non-instanced?

Do you mean that it’s an instance with a small outside area such as a garden and not just an indoor cube of boredom like some games do?

I think he means like SWG, where the houses are out there in the open world – and not in separate housing instances like most games do now.

There are problems that can arise from that, but I can also understand why people like it that way.

what i like about mmo’s is the adventure and story my characters will go on. once thats over i may stick around to do extra stuff but not for long usually. i dont like to grind to much because i start asking myself why am i even bothering wasting hours of my life on 1 game when ive reached the end of it and theres other games out there that i also wanna play. then i slowly realize its time to move on.

I played EQ for 7 years. At first, It was because it was EQ or UO… and EQ was so much better.

Over time however, it became about friends and being able to twink to level new characters… most current game don’t allow twinking… and don’t require friends to accomplish goals.

The online world is becoming a “Me first” world, where entitlement drives the bottom line.

I play GW2 and will continue to play it because it has really fun combat, the lore is excellent, and the graphics are perfect. I have been playing active combat since the days of EQ… I had 4 bards… one of each races that could be bards…

1. good graphics , hey its 2012 and all tat mmo got is cartoon-ish graphics?
2. no DR (only encountered this POS in this game)
3. the devs appreciates my time playing/grinding and reward me with something thats not involved RNG (aiming orbital laser cannon at trollnet)
4 fun, nice guildies (prefer guild dramas)
5 hard core content (not zombie mode 10 hours straight plinx grind)
6 good written scripts (WoW sucks at it, i mean seriously Alliance and Horde still killing each other in front of every arch villain?)
7 ranking system
8 any MMO which forum is much more entertaining than playing the game itself
9 any honest, straight forward and good willed communicating devs
10 freedom of moving (i stay away from any MMOs that don’t have jump)

Slyder.9215:

Hellkaiser.6025:

lisamee.2408:

—a fun, meaningful, non frustrating, profitable crafting system.
—housing (non-instanced) for social fun , and showing off our treasures
—something original for end game besides 1-3 hour dungeon grinding.
—to feel like after im leveled and geared that i am powerful and find loads of treasures.
—frequent events and holiday fun.

How could you make housing non-instanced?

Do you mean that it’s an instance with a small outside area such as a garden and not just an indoor cube of boredom like some games do?

I think he means like SWG, where the houses are out there in the open world – and not in separate housing instances like most games do now.

There are problems that can arise from that, but I can also understand why people like it that way.

I think the best we could hope for is shared block instances with players having houses in them forming neighbourhoods.

I stick to MMO’s that are well done , GW1 and now GW2 .

Hellkaiser.6025:

lisamee.2408:

—a fun, meaningful, non frustrating, profitable crafting system.
—housing (non-instanced) for social fun , and showing off our treasures
—something original for end game besides 1-3 hour dungeon grinding.
—to feel like after im leveled and geared that i am powerful and find loads of treasures.
—frequent events and holiday fun.

How could you make housing non-instanced?

Do you mean that it’s an instance with a small outside area such as a garden and not just an indoor cube of boredom like some games do?

Well, a game that is over 10 years old managed to do it just fine, SWG, completely open world housing, guild halls, city buildings like hospitals, bars ect ect, and the owners could decorate them in ANY way they wanted. (could be a pain typing alll those /move “Object” “distance” “direction” commands, but wow, the result could be sooo worth it.
One of the small pleasures in that game was to enter a player city and see if and how much work they put to decorating the city itself and the insides of its buildings.
Each servers city hub quickly became more and more decorated and a matter of pride for the guild that founded the city.

lisamee.2408:

I would especially love to see a modern version of Ultima Online.

It came out in 2009, it was called Darkfall. They’re shutting down the servers permanently though and have developed a new game in the series called Darkfall: Unholy Wars which comes out soon.

If you ever played UO, you should support Darkfall, it will be right up your alley. Just don’t expect Trammel.

Its a shame both housing and crafting have not evolved (improved) in 15+ years….

ashleydoll.8563:

lisamee.2408:

I would especially love to see a modern version of Ultima Online.

It came out in 2009, it was called Darkfall. They’re shutting down the servers permanently though and have developed a new game in the series called Darkfall: Unholy Wars which comes out soon.

If you ever played UO, you should support Darkfall, it will be right up your alley. Just don’t expect Trammel.

I did buy darkfall when it came out, but sadly the computer i had could not run the game. I bought the digital download and cannot remember any account info, or which site i bought it from.

Serina.8652:

Hellkaiser.6025:

lisamee.2408:

—a fun, meaningful, non frustrating, profitable crafting system.
—housing (non-instanced) for social fun , and showing off our treasures
—something original for end game besides 1-3 hour dungeon grinding.
—to feel like after im leveled and geared that i am powerful and find loads of treasures.
—frequent events and holiday fun.

How could you make housing non-instanced?

Do you mean that it’s an instance with a small outside area such as a garden and not just an indoor cube of boredom like some games do?

Well, a game that is over 10 years old managed to do it just fine, SWG, completely open world housing, guild halls, city buildings like hospitals, bars ect ect, and the owners could decorate them in ANY way they wanted. (could be a pain typing alll those /move “Object” “distance” “direction” commands, but wow, the result could be sooo worth it.
One of the small pleasures in that game was to enter a player city and see if and how much work they put to decorating the city itself and the insides of its buildings.
Each servers city hub quickly became more and more decorated and a matter of pride for the guild that founded the city.

Perhaps it would be something to look forward to if it was pursued, but I still haven’t the foggiest how they’d make that system work in this game, given that the obvious problem is that there’s a potentially massive volume of players, and a limited space to put them in, how without instancing could it be accomplished? :S

I have found all of your posts extremely interesting, and makes me want to say a few more things. I would like to differentiate what makes me drawn to an MMO in the first place, to what makes me stay.

Like I said previously the common denominator that makes me stick to an MMO for years is having a group of friends to play with. However some of the main things that draw me towards an MMO are…

- An original, and unique art style, that can’t be compared to anything else, and makes you think anything except generic. Guild Wars 2 is like this to me because it just looks so unique among it’s piers, I love the diversity of not only the races physical appearance, but fashion, and architecture.

- Bringing something new to the table, whether it be small, or big, or just taking all the loose ideas of other games, and bringing it to a whole new level. Guild Wars 2 does this to me in a way that just blew my mind the first time I experience it, and that is no tapped kills. It really feels like an experience where I can run around helping people, and being helped by people when I am taking on a onslaught of enemies, such a small thing really makes it feel like more than a game.

Another thing I love about Guild Wars 2, is the fact that it really feels like they have gotten dynamic events right, you can be walking through a zone when suddenly an NPC shouts at you that there is an attack somewhere, and as soon as you get there you see a battle unfolding before you, just one more thing that makes it feel like more than a game. I could list a million different ways that Guild Wars 2 has impressed me in this category, but I will leave it at that.

- Story, and lore are by far the most important things to me when entering an MMO. As someone who would love to be an Author one day (Which who knows, I may pull an Alan Rickman when I hit my 40’s.) it’s just something that sucks me into a game so much more than if the lore is not there, generic, or boring. The most important thing in this subject to me is a character arc, the idea of humble beginnings to saving your people, to fighting dragons, to saving an entire world is just absolutely breath-taking to me.

Thanks OP for starting this thread! What makes me stick to an MMO?

1. Plenty of fun solo activities even at max level.

2. All grind completely optional. I don’t want to be forced to do dungeons to keep up
with the pack. I don’t want to have to do daily quests that inevitably become stale
after a month or two.

3. A friendly and mature community where it’s not uncommon for the playerbase to
include people of all ages (even senior citizens).