No More Ghost Ships... (MMO)

So, I've been meaning to finish up part two of my post 'We've lost some steam'. Basically just some ideas that I think would be really great to see in future MMO games. I'm sure we all have our list of things we would like to see in MMO games but this is more of a list of improvements rather than a true wish list.

If we are going to have the Holy Trinity then out with the days that healers and tanks are useless other than this role. Sure, today most games make sure not to do this but still add in limitations. What limitations? I'll get to this in a second. Remember in the glory days of EQ, Clerics could barely solo but they rarely sat long looking for a group. Today most can solo or group whenever they feel like doing so and even DPS if they please.

Just because I can, does it mean I really can? Sorry I don't have a healing set... Add viable options for the healing and tanking classes, especially when it comes to gear. While you can respec in WoW to heal or tank the gear suffers, lacking stats needed for one spec or the other (which is changing to a point in Cata). I think we should be able to dps as these 'specs' but not at a high rate as a pure dps class. I'd love to see a stop on stupid stats in games that either help dps or healing, tanking or just dps. These need to be incorporated better. I'm tired of farming different gear sets.

Looking for group tools. If we are going to go the way of automated groups in future games then please don't use the cross server idea. Another thing I am tired of and see it still ahead in upcoming games splitting the community in half for imaginary legions of good and evil. I don't know how many times I've griped on this.

A base for the economy. If you don't have a way for players to sell items, even when offline, you're in the dark ages. This is something that really irks me about Everquest. While Everquest 2 has a great broker/auction system Everquest still requires you to leave your character on to sell. Ok, so most games add this. However, some add a limit of items to be auctioned. Don't make it such a low limit that people vendor the stuff. While we're at it stop making people nickle and dime everything.

PvP needs to be seperate from the PvE aspect. Please don't nerf my character in order to balance PvP. Change how the mechanics work in PvP.  I'm not going to beat this dead horse any longer.

Henchman, mercenaries and companions. These are fantastic, SW:TOR is really going to blow us away with these, or at least I hope they do! I hope to see more of this in the future. It really helps a lot in EQ, though these mercenaries suck away my gold at a rapid rate, only to run away if you run out of money (or SC tokens), causing you to have to buy another- with the initial lump sum. I want Companions I can take on my journey and fill a spot if I need or back me up that won't run away or 'take' the item that I hope drops. I do hope to see more of a companion role in the future instead of the gold digging models we have in most games.

I do hope future games also consider the fact that players like fresh new content at a steady pace. An expansion a year sounds like a good deal to me. Please don't milk content for several years before deciding to get off your bum and add new content. Keep us entertained and we will stay with you!

There is no best. When you start to do this, you start to generalize the classes and just make them all pretty lackluster as a whole. There should be a best at this or that, in some cases. When you don't want one class to excel past others you end up nerfing said class to compensate for the others lacking. Sure they could boost the other classes but in most cases it's the nerf bat which strikes. I'm not saying leave other classes out in the cold. Though when designing classes this should be considered, what can this class offer that makes it unique and wanted?

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What I am seeing a lot of lately is people being stagnated by games lately. For some it is the lack of new content in a game. Others get tired of bad communities some which are a result of bad game mechanics. Some games end up almost dying off and when developers try to step in, it's already a sinking ship, left with a ghost crew of players. 

There won't ever be a perfect game but we can hope to see some improvements made to keep us happy in the future.  think there are a lot of ideas that can be incorporated to keeping players happy such as housing and other fun things which many games now do offer, but those are simply wish list ideas!

Feel free to share any ideas or thoughts. Safe adventures!