Many MMO developers seem to be of the opinion that character’s don’t have a ‘life span’, because they want to keep their players playing.
Of course, this causes its own problems, and they are the ones we’ve been discussing in the thread. But even if it takes, say, a year to level a character to max (and not even EQ of old took that long), after 2 years you’re still going to have a lot of characters hanging around at max level wanting something to do.
Fair enough, fair enough 
But you got my point. Of course, as you said, it’s all got its own problems, and that’s the thing- as with anything you’ll need to iron it out. But I think you’ll have more success trying to iron out issues in a system where max-levelling takes a year, rather than a system where this takes a month.
Where a char takes a month to level, you’re just going to end up over-saturating the game with redundant gear. I have a solution to this issue, of course one which I will not discuss publicly, but let me tell you, it’s better to have a character running for a year and then worrying about what you’re giving him to do.
And don’t forget, in your argument(not that this is one), you’re referring to “after two years” - Sheesh dude, I can’t remember when last an MMO hooked me for that long
Wait, yes I can.
EQ
The reason I suggest limited final death is so you don’t throw away that 99% of the player base. If someone doesn’t want to risk death by ganking or poor internet connection, they can still play the game in the safe areas. But if you’re growing bored of your character and are considering rerolling, or if you want to go out in search of glory and treasure, you can. It also provides a sink for the economy, depending on how much of the carried items are destroyed on death.
It’s most definitely something to consider Grumman
This is a good point, of course. I think there’s definitely room on the MMO market for different things, and the only thing in your list at the start of the thread that would stop me playing the game would be #3, Forced partnership.
I never PvP anyway in games anyway, so #1 is functionally irrelevant, and the other two would depend on what you did with them.
There are skill-based* MMOs out there (GW2, for example), but if I found a game too hard to progress, I’d likely give it up.
The food-based question is a difficult one to answer without playing. I certainly wouldn’t play a game which forced me to hang around not doing anything for long periods - those were the parts of playing EQ that I really didn’t enjoy, and wouldn’t go back to.
*by which I mean ones that require player skill to progress, not ones that give your character skills.
Then you need to look into the game that was called “Glitch” - a non PVP/fighting MMORPG - it was more exploration and tradeskill and making friends than go out and kick monsters for leet loot. Yes there were quests - one was spotting rogue DNA strands hidden around, and the sleeping giants would make appearances. Yes you could ‘grind’ collecting tradeskill materials and exploring all the zones, or you could hang out and chat and make friends. You could even die and explore hell 
It seems that most games these days just have “Here’s your direct damage, your AoE damage and your defense/healing spells”. EQ had a lot more utility spells, things like summoned weapons and armor, light items, mod rods, summoning food & drink, identifying item lore, sense animals, sense corpse, True North, memory wipes, charms, enhance factions, illusions, various forms of invisibility, shrink, summoning a character, sending a creature back to its spawn point, travel speed enhancements, levitation, water breathing, etc.
Base skills had a lot more too them. I remember trying FFXI and my thief had like four class skills vs EQ’s Hide, Sneak, Evade, Backstab, Pick Locks, Pick Pockets, Sense Traps, Disarm Traps, Disarm Weapon, Apply Poison, Safe Fall and so on.
Even for items, EQ had more equipment slots than any other MMORPG I played which gave more opportunities to mix effects, go for resists vs AC vs stats or whatever.
I’m sure some of those effects I listed are in other games. But I noticed most games after EQ were much more streamlined to “hurt/heal” and had fewer interesting things you could do. I think a lot of that goes back again to the “design a world” mentality of the original game where it felt like they were trying to replicate an AD&D style fantasy world with lots of different effects rather than “design a game” where all that matters is DPS vs Hit Points.
I can not agree more. It was the little touches. Do you think the gamers of today would still be interested in something like this being revived somewhat? Yes, I am aware the real money lies in commercial garbage, as 90% of CoD players won’t consider themselves gamers even, but I’m talking about the real gamers, they don’t have to be die-hard per se, but just, real.
What is a real gamer?
Wasn’t the point of Vanguard supposed to be a spiritual successor to Everquest? A return to “hard core” MMORPG gaming?
But the longer it stayed in beta, the more it became “casual” based on player feedback. And then the game bombed anyway.
Yeah, but Brad McQuaid was a jackass who only succeeded with EQ by mistake, so the game was pretty much doomed anyway.
You’re making the classic error of conflating “grind” with “repetition”. All computer games are repetitious, by necessity. Grind is a particular sort of repetition: the boring sort. And, yes, that is entirely subjective.
I never played EQ, but the usual descriptions of waiting for a spawn, or sweeping an area dozens of times simply to accumulate some experience sounds very boring to me. On the other hand, GW2 goes like this:
I reached max level after going through about half of all the zones. On a high level it looks repetitious, but each area is different enough that it doesn’t feel like it. And there’s about twice as much content as a single character needs.
So even if it looks grindy to you, for many players it’s about as non-grindy as MMOs come.
I think my “ideal” MMO would have these elements:
I’m thinking of some combination of The Sims, Crusader Kings, Ars Magicka, and Planetside. And maybe I’m the only one in the world who would play this game.
You’re using terms in a strange way.
I’d call the current crop of MMOs to be very “gamey”. They focus on gameplay above all else. EQ was not so much a game as a simulation. It focused on world creation.
Better terms are “theme-park” (as perfected by WoW and SWTOR) vs “sandbox” (like EQ or SWG). The problem with EQ (or SWG) was that although the sandbox part was nice, the games were not anywhere close to perfected. Almost all the MMO development has been towards improving the theme-park paradigm. Sandbox games need a similar iteration of multiple games with years of development before they can hope to catch up to the polish that state-of-the-art themeparks have.
Sandbox MMOs need to be as simple to play as themepark MMOs, but without losing the depth of play that makes them sandbox. It’s a tough problem.
I do. My biggest complaint about Saints Row 2 is that it is possible to run out of game in a sandbox game.
That is not an MMO. That is an empty wasteland waiting to happen. What, are you going to have orc bag limits to stop them being hunted to extinction?
Yeah, with the most popular single-player RPGs being the Bethesda stuff, I think most people DO expect infinite play time these days. Maybe not infinite new things to do but, if you want to spend your years humping across the lands like a shadowy wanderer, beating up random orcs and giant, that’s something you can do.
No need for limits because there’s no need to go out and kill them all. No experience gained by killing and orcs are not known for their fabulous wealth. Why risk permadeath to hunt them? For the same reason we kill them in the “real” world: to protect our families and homesteads.
This MMO already exists, more or less. Go look up Haven and Hearth. You spawn in a new character with only some clothes and a few very basic skills. Everything in the world except the NPC animals - which area also the only NPCs- is made by players. Permadeath is always on, experience is gained through using special items you make or find, killing gives you no exp. Exp is limited carryover between lives. Its a very niche game.
Well, the classic ‘sandbox’ is EVE Online - PVP always on, you start with skills and a ship and it is up to you to make the world. You can kill anybody you are able, but if you do their corp may decide to terminate your character with extreme prejudice, you earn your reputatipn and quests are not as important as all that once you are out of the baby training mode.
never heard of it. ill have to look it up.
Thanks for the pointer; I’ve never heard of this game. It has a lot going for it and I may try it at some point, but it’s still in alpha testing.
I’ve tried EVE, it has three things going against from my point of view: 1) it’s too hard in a way I don’t like, 2) the setting doesn’t really capture my imagination, 3) it’s missing the Sims/CK2 character interactions.
It might never get out either. Its been in Alpha for at least a few years, and the two guys who make the game are busy working on a similar game called Salem. Waiting for any thing more complete is fairly pointless. last I looked the current HnH world map had been in place for over a year, and nothing to indicate anything changing in the near future.
i recommended Haven over Salem since they play very similar, but Salem’s start and growth curve is very much steeper than Haven’s, which is already steep. But Salem is more like a finished product, but still is going to be slow with only 2 guys making it.
For something to do? As a self-imposed challenge? To make a permanent mark on your world? To grief you?