f13.net

I'm just curious. What is the perfect MMO? People are so passionate about these games, and yet most MMOs fail constantly on multiple levels. I don't mind long-winded answers, either. You can even use this thread to let out all of your pent-up frustrations on the matter! Or, you can call me an asshole for asking.

Ok.

Yeah, I like that.

How about you browse a bit? I think all your questions have been answered.

K so I'm an asshole then. I do browse a bit and I think there's so much info to sort through that most of it gets lost in translation. But if MMOs are such mega-projects, why do so many have to blow? With all the people working on them, you'd think all the bases would get covered.

Being well funded doesn't matter when the industry is super-incestuous and hires out of the special olympics.


You can't cover all the bases if you need a map to find first base.

Here's the deal. This industry, specifically online gaming in the west, is a big f'ing mess. Bad designers, bad writers, bad musicians, and - somehow - bad artists (for the most part). Putting all of those things together on one team doesn't suddenly make good games. In fact, it never will. So, for the most part, we'll have to see people start DYING to get good MMOG design out of the west.

On the flipside, I'm slowly beginning to believe that we'll Never see good game design out of Korea. Those people are stuck in a completely different kind of box.

Welcome stu.

There is no perfect MMO. There's only the perfect MMO for you. And even that perfect match is only going to last as long as you don't change and your life doesn't change.

Any game can be perfect for you. If it's perfect for enough people to keep them paying to play it, then it's worth checking out.

The passion comes from the belief that there should be one game to rule them all. But eventually people realize this is not nor ever will be the case.

Darniaq, I like my answer more.

Subspace/Continuum, the first and only!

I think those were the morning coffee I was looking for. So, what I get is that the games aren't the problem. The fact is that while there are a select few, very talented people in the field, the ones who are really needed are outside of the industry. And, taking on an MMO is a downright impossible task since everyone is different, so the best you can hope to do is please the majority of the players a majority of the time. Can't say I'm really comforted. I'm pretty much a lurker here, but I figured if I asked anyone, this would be the place to do it.

At this point, I wouldn't even say there are a few talented people in the field. I'd need to see the next round of MMOGs. There are some very good PR and business people in the industry though. But a good game they do not make. Right now there's The Blizzard Hivemind and everyone else.

The Perfect MMO = Lie.

Hasn't grunk already established that FFXI is the perfect MMO? :headscratch:

frankly it's not a perfect mmo i'm concerned about, because I can't really picture it well.
What i want is something fresh. A new survivalist concept. No currencies please. Take this whole 'loot & sell junk at store' away replace it with: 'let's trade. maybe u have something i need etc'

it doesn't have to be gears, just components. Materials like wood, leather, ore and basic necessities like food & water. Then you refine them, and build better stuff with it. Like a sharper spear, tougher leather armor, longer lasting & more filling food.

Add in some non-power levelling mechanics. Enforced character breaks else they will end up with a 'fatigue' debuff' to prevent multi-user power level services. Let the casuals have their chance. Don't make it a super grinder's paradise.

I'd also like to see some GM guided events that affects the whole server. That'd be cool. This should give players some sort of motivation to login. 'I want to participate' instead of 'Hmm what should I do when I login'. Have these events affect the direction where the whole world is going. Like...formation of a new town. Have people vote where to settle etc. Then form a NPC town there. Or something like that. Create future scenarios based on that.

That'd be fresh enough to play IMO.

... and World Peace!

The features you've mentioned have been implemented (or attempted) in other MMO's, and the results were dismal.  GM events being ruined by jackass players, lag, or circumstance - and you want them to result in world changes that affect everyone!  Yeah, imagine the outcry.

Fatigue debuff - WoW tried that and everyone whined to high heaven.  They had to reword it into "rested XP buff" to make it palatable.

Trade with no currency - exactly how is a player going to find what he needs?  You're imagining 1 to 1 trade, when in a MMO with thousands of users per servers, it's an Auction-House or public market type of thing - money is definitely needed.  Yeah, we didn't invent it for a reason, back in the Stone Ages.

Ajax, I'm getting some real harsh vibes from you man, like, murder vibes, and thats not cool.

What the man posts is a brilliant idea, I know whenever I workshop a new business idea, the first thought that comes to MY mind is "how can I get people to only use my product a little bit?".

This concept should be applied to other places as well, take Vegas for example.  Think of all the revenue casinos would be raking in if they only let people gamble for 30 minutes at a time, and then forced them to do other things! Can you say "Ka-ching!"?

Wait..no..it's my idea, any of you sons of bitches try to steal it I'll sick the simian horde on you, I'm packing everything right now, Vegas, here I come!


I cant believe that while typing that multi-paragraph post, rk47 didn't stop and think, "wait a second..this is a bad idea!"

That was my point, but in a good way. There is more than one car in the world, more than one style of house, more than one brand of HD-TV, more than one MMOG. The reason for this is because everyone is different and because people change. What one likes in their teens changes in their 20s, 30s, and so on. Marriage, mortgage, money, it all affects what you like. Nothing is static.

That's how the genre should be perceived. People don't find one MMO and stick with it forever. Six months, six years, they're eventually gone. And if they stayed for that long, something was done right. You may not think much of the CCPs or the SOEs or the Cryptics of the world, but they're making lots of cash by giving some people what they want at that moment.

Oh, and nowadays, you can make your own MMO (http://maidmarian.com/sherwood.htm).

It's a mistake to assume broad wrongness with this genre when so many people are enjoying it. And it'd take a special type of snobbery to assume they're all sheep :)

Find what you want.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Gamecock now that they have real outside investors (as opposed to what they tried to do with G.O.D.).   I'm not quite sure they are going about things in a way that will improve the quality of product this industry produces but outside investors promoting new business models in this industry could have unexpected domino effects.

Err, have to agree with Schild.  Until there is a war centered around online games, there is no impetus for the industry to change the way it does business.  Perhaps when a government official complains that there is a MMO-gap, we may see action.  Hell, it has taken them this long to realize that there is a broadband gap, so do not hold your breath...

As for a Perfect MMO, that concept seems flawed.  An M.M.O.R.P.G. is perfect to the observer for that fleeting moment just after DING!, RING!, PURPLE!, RANG RANG! or whatever floats your boat.

So, if you have experienced the evanescent feeling of elation while playing an online game... well, then that would be perfection for you, my little snowflake.

You mean, like, a surprise Blitzkreig (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com)?

That's the reason there aren't any more AAA MMOs actually coming* than there were prior. A lot of companies that thought they could spend, charge and rake in the cash got religion, and either refocused their efforts or had it refocused for them.

The industry is already changing, first by having broadened it's definition, then by broadening the audience.

* as opposed to the usual list of games five times longer than what will actually launch.

I don't think WoW is going to have any effect on the core problems that have afflicted the industry for decades now.    The industry won't change much but their target features/goals for an MMO will change.   In the end they will still use the same broken method to create their products.

The audience is changing as well IMO. Maybe even more significantly than the industry. The average player's bullshit tolerance has plummeted in recent years. shaky launches, lack of frequent content updates etc. don't fly like they used to. Is WoW mostly to thank for this? Certainly. They created a new standard for MMO production expectations, and thank god for that because the genre sorely needed it.

Amaron, Falwell did a better job with my point, so just read his :)

The audience has changed. We will not get serviced by the still-impossible dream of a game that combines the concepts behind SWG, combat of CoX, immersion of SB, and player-impact of Eve. Rather, what it means to be in an MMO is going to continue to change. Just as the Korean market is different from the U.S., the EU and the Chinese markets, so are they different between age groups. We are all older now. Today's pre-UO Trammel is at best pre-BC WoW, when Hunters ruled PvP. You think those people are waiting for SWG/CoX/SB/Eve "done right", spamming Stratics, IGN, and Allakhazam with their pet wundergame theories?

We're old school. Worse, we're high risk because the genre already has enough games for us. And worst, we require the most expensive methods of development this industry has. So part of the industry is "stuck" in the past. The rest are off chasing new less-risky propositions.

Shit continues to sell just as good as it used to, I'm going to be bold enough to guess the market has expanded enough in recent years to offset the increasing sophistication of the players. I don't have any numbers but I just played some cabal and very recently some 2moons, 2 very diku low content/rough grind games and they were flooded with players. Cabal is at the point where all their servers are full and it's hard to get in. The ongoing 2moons beta is crowded as hell and that game offers nothing new at all ( same goes for cabal ).

How's this for oldschool?  :heart:

(http://users.on.net/~svandore/pics/ssteam.jpg)

I started playing in early 1996 at alpha 0.79. I was called "bc" in Armageddon squad which won the first championship - one of our members, Rincewind, wrote the strategy guide they turned into the official manual. A lot of the players were Doom kiddies awaiting Quake 1.

I went travelling overseas for 15 months, returned and it was still in beta ... Nobody remembered me so I took a new name (Tale) and played for Outlaws squad which won the first powerball championship - but not before they kicked me out because I never made practice sessions due to my time zone.  P.S. I suck at SubSpace nowadays.

(edit) Perfect MMO for me would involve large-landmass team PvP warfare with major rewards for territorial control, no resets or timeouts on control, and somehow manage to keep it all balanced, functioning, dynamic (as in, fighting back against complete dominance is practical) and fun.

Damn that was a fun game. I was fairly OK, but I was no god at it.

I'm hoping for an MMO that allows combat ala BF2 or Doom or something similar. The over-the-shoulder or orbiting views are too boring.

I remember when the idea of twitch combat in MMO would spark cries of 'heresy!' and 'burn the witch!'.

Thank god those days are gone.

Oh - and check out SOE's The Agency for a potential MMO that does this.

For that Huxley may be the next hope. If it doesn't suck.

Darniaq,

Webzen has canceled more games than they've released.

Love,
Schild

P.S. I'm not counting rinky dink localizations as released games. A team of monkeys can translate a game from squares and circles into a civilized language. hohohohoh tiny korean joke. and by tiny i mean the font. keke ^_^

I can see something like that for Parfait, but Huxley seemed pretty far along, and already in English, to cancel the way they usually cancel things. I'm not saying a) it's guaranteed to launch; nor, b) it's going to be awesome. I just think it is one to look forward to more than, say, Firefly MMO or Atriarch :)

And, forgot to mention Lost Colony, of indie fair.

I'm not saying Huxley won't launch.

I've just given up hope that it will be good.

Given the diversity of tastes that you'll get if you take into account every asshole with opinion, that's practically impossible. To give rough example, if you made game literally blow the player for their $15 a month, some would complain it's not deep-throating, some would complain it *is* deep-throating once that got implemented, and if you made it switch in options then they would start complaining about overcomplicated interface. And how boring that blowjob gets after a while.

In Australia, we still say that.

Right like I said before you and Falwell have pointed out correctly that their target audience will change.   What you are forgetting is that the industry really sucks at hitting their target audience with a non crappy product.

End Result: Most of the stuff that gets released will be total buggy crap with bad ideas poorly implemented.

When I say "industry" I mean all companies past, present, and future. I completely agree that some of the veteran companies (SOE, Funcom) have not done a bangup job of targeting their markets. But at the same time, new companies have come into the fold, completely from the outside, and become extremely successful without consulting the veteran set. Basically, they changed the rules by not being shackled by them.

For example, New Horizons Interactive launched Club Penguin. This game came outta nowhere really. Not a DIKU, not microtrans, Flash-based (using a relatively-new-then backend tech in Smartfox), low-end graphics, free for the most part unless you want to decorate your igloo, targeting a younger audience but attracting an older one, blah blah blah.

• They didn't call up SOE to help launch their MMO.
• They didn't target veterans of Naggy raids.
• They didn't talk to FoH.
• They basically ignored us and the whole "industry" we had followed.

And they just got bought by Disney for $350mil (with another $350mil if they hit milestones) after talks fell through with... SOE. This is not a game for anyone here, but has proved even more than WoW that there's a whole crapload of new people out there. And it is not alone. Sulake launched Habbo without consulting anyone in this "industry", and it was them that Disney talked to about launching the very-successful Virtual Magic Kingdom, which was only supposed to be live for a short while and instead is still going. Gaia Online is huge and growing as well, ignores the veteran industry. Virtual MTV talked to the There people instead of Funcom or SOE or Mythic about their needs. Dofus, Ragnorak, Viacom pulling in Nexon titles instead of talking to Western developers. Ganz, a toy company, went with what amounted to an advergaming service to launch Webkinz. The list is endless.

My point is that yes, the old guard is still acting like the old guard, both on the player side and on the industry side. We'll accept however AoC or PotBS launch because we're used to crappy games from the days when having just one realm complete through level 25 was enough for us to love DAoC and forgive the industry for the mess that was AO.

But the new companies targeting new people are doing so with new games, built on new methodologies. They ain't for us, ain't coming to us from companies that work for us, and are by and large a future of the genre many here will likely ignore. And that's not to say that's a bad thing. I personally don't find much enjoyment in any of these not-for-me titles, except Webkinz when I'm getting more KinzCash for my daughter to spend on her growing mansion :) But it's important to understand what's going on because already "MMO" does not mean "EQ/AC/UO" to people dolling out the cash to make them.

I'm not really sure where you're going with that.  Your original argument that I replied to you used WoW as a "blitzkreig" and you refrenced AAA MMO's.   None of the things you are talking about are AAA MMO's so they don't really pertain to my original argument.   Falwell's post also sounded like he was talking about traditional MMO's having their production values raised to compete with WoW due to the audience having their tolerance for crap lowered.  You said he said it better than you so I think this got confused somewhere along the line.

I don't really have anything to say about things like Penguin Club of course nor do I think they will have much affect on the things I was discussing.  My point is simply that companies which attempt to produce AAA PC games of any sort all have some horrid flaws in human resources and engineering principles.  WoW will not change that even if the market for traditional MMOs (ie not penguin club stuff) broadens.

I understand where you think this doesn't relate, but to me it all does. And it's highlighted by how you've refined what you're referring to. You''ve gone from "MMO" to sub-categorizing exactly what sub- part of the genre you're talking about (by using terms like "AAA" "traditional" "PC", etc) in much the same way the industry has. That is the core of my point.

Five years ago we knew what an MMO was. Nowadays that definition has changed and we're getting up to speed.

What WoW did in their blitzkreig was to give companies a better understanding of what is needed to launch a AAA traditional PC MMORPG targeted at us. This has scared some companies straight and has forced others to rethink what they're offering. And it has forced money folks to look beyond the resources available in the AAA traditional PC MMORPG industry to see what else can be done to offer. BarbieGirls.com is based on technologies that weren't seen as necessary back in the days when people thought the MMO genre was only to grow incrementally. That project was impossible even to envision. Heck, even browser-based Runescape is more a traditional MMO than the truly different modern ones.

The genre is evolving, and part of that is its evolving beyond what we expect.

And of course, this is all just my opinion. I hope it's clearer now. Sorta hard to go lateral in a linear discussion format :)

Hell yeah, I beta tested that bitch ......decades ago :)

I remember you, I was E_Dog 420 back in the day (dont laugh too hard guys). Played on a few good crews (darkslayers being the best of them).

Powerball was the ultimate subspace game.

No you've misunderstood me again.  Im saying that originally your post gave the impression of only talking about AAA MMO's meaning the traditional sort.  My reply was to your post.  In other words I only had something to say about you talking about AAA MMO's.   That was the only thing I wanted to discuss.  If you want to talk about non AAA MMO's none of my posts refer to that nor do I have anything to say about it honestly as it will not affect me much.

I was simply clarifying to you that if you meant this from the start that you should ignore all my posts as we seem to have been talking about different things from the start.

Duly ignored. Sorry to bother you.

My Australia is obviously different to your Australia.

My better MMO would be a MMO that replaces these retarded whack-a-mole mechanics with a mix of adventure, exploration and first person shooting elements, and focusing more on player skills than some dumbass numbers.

I want a game with monster killing, large-scale player warfare, trading, crafting, housing, and farming.  Ability to change fashion/clothing/appearance.  Mounts and pets.

And of course,  :hello_kitty:

That already exists, its the nuances about definitions of those terms, and how they should be implemented that will make it never happen.

No one will ever agree.

What is your idea of "adventure" and "exploration" when translated into computer game?

I.e. when I hear these it makes me think of jRPG-like running around the map following a pre-written story that casts you as pivotal figure(s) in BigAssPlot (tm)  Is this what you mean, or something different?

Tell me how you get <300 ping to an mmog please.

Telstra Liberty ADSL2+ (Bundled) 20 000 kbs  12 GB Shaped Counted Dynamic $89.95 /mo

I don't know what my ping is exactly, but it's pretty low.

90 A MONTH ?


I hope that comes down to something reasonable when translated into real money.

Ouch.

The answer to the sub-300 ping in Australia to a MMOG is probably that someone looked at WoW and believed its ping meter. The WoW ping meter tells lies.

I'm on Internode (very good ISP) and WoW used to tell me I had a sub-200ms ping. Given that there is about 150ms of undersea cable between the US and Sydney before any other overheads, I never believed it.


Ah, you've set me off now. That's about US$77 and is a bad, expensive Internet plan by Australian standards, with utterly anal conditions placed on it, such as including uploads in the volume allowance. It may be necessitated by geography: in a US-sized landmass with only 20 million people, most of whom are in a few cities on the eastern edge, some areas simply cannot have cheap broadband or a choice of providers.

We still have a near-monopoly telco that has been semi-privatised and is run by American millionaires and regulated by a net.illiterate Tory government. Telstra gets away with murder, charging other Internet providers $30 per month per customer for access to the copper wire network. All Internet use is then volume-charged. The rest of the Internet is very far away via stressed undersea cables, so volume charging is slightly justified, but mostly it's gouging. Volume charging has been going on for so long that most Australians are unaware it's abnormal. There is also a $20-$30 monthly line rental for simply having a copper wire phone, before the ADSL even starts. I mean ... how much does having a copper wire be a copper wire cost Telstra?

My father's Telstra "broadband" is 256K ADSL with a 200Mb monthly data allowance (lol) and a 24-month contract. It's 15 cents per megabyte over that ($150/Gb). Unbelievable! Fortunately he's at the "better remember to check this week's email ... hey, why do computers have loudspeakers?" stage.

My Internode broadband is 1500/256 ADSL with a 10Gb monthly allowance for A$54.95 (US$47), but that still kind of sucks because my local telephone exchange has only Telstra DSL ports. If I lived in an area with an Internode DSLAM at the exchange, I could have ADSL2+ (up to 24Mbps) and a 20Gb allowance for A$59.95 (US$51).

Unbelievably, again due to Telstra gouging, broadband prices have actually been rising in Australia. I used to have 10Gb peak (9-5) and 10Gb offpeak monthly (so effectively 20Gb) for A$59.95 and my ISP used to have its own premium Usenet server mirrored from Giganews. Plus if I exceeded my download limit I could keep downloading as much as I wanted to, but shaped to 64Kbps speed. Now the offpeak and the news server are gone, and signifcant downloads while shaped incur a charge.

There is competition appearing from 3G phone providers but ADSL or cable is what you want as a real Internet user/gamer. Oh yeah, there's cable too (only in the cities) ... but it's a joint venture between Telstra and News Ltd. Hardly anyone has cable TV, and the Internet plans on it are more evil than for ADSL.

Yes, we're fucked. So the perfect MMO would come with free broadband for Aussies.

Yes, I remember you too. The E_Dog part at least ... I couldn't have told you the number :) I remember darkslayers were our big scary rivals, and sure enough they won lots of seasons after the first. The only other person who has ever remembered me is Durabolin, who I ran into a couple of times on MMOG boards or on a return to SubSpace.

Did you ever watch the careers of SubSpace creators JeffP (Jeff Petersen) and Rodvik (Rod Humble)? Straight into the EverQuest team after SOE bought Infantry - Rod even became the new Brad when Brad left. I've lost track again now.

Powerball was amazing. It was so intense and tactical, but so few people appreciated it. When I go back to SubSpace I tend to go into Powerball and spec the ball, and just watch the action. I've joined in a couple of times but I always end up in a goal-scoring play where I screw it up through the Xs or miss a shot, and the veterans go nuts.

I can't say I've talked to anyone but you that played PB in 5+ years.

Yeah, I remember my brother wouldn't even play it (probably due to vets being brutal in the zone). He enjoyed watching me play. Nothing better than making a mid slide on a defended goal, outnumbered, alive only cause you saved your rocket. Well, that and portal saves on a SURE goal. Anticipation and timing were so huge in that game. I stopped back in just the other day to have a look, seems like population numbers are down. Its a shame, I probably would start playing again due to lack of anything else to do.

I loved being able to setup slow bomb traps, stopping a rush on your goal. Anticipating where the ball would go. Battles in the X's.   Fuck, I miss that game.

Was that game 'Infantry' thats on the SOE station pass made by the same people? It felt a lot similar, just in the physics of the engine.

Infantry was another one of those games I really enjoyed.

Yep same people. They started a company called Harmless Games to make Infantry, something happened with the finances of their financial backer, and SOE picked it up.

Since this is called Perfect MMO, I gotta say I'd love to see a mix of

Subspace
Star Control 2
Privateer

for the ultimate space MMO

Ok, I'm in.

Eve with Freespace 2 flight system, Raid-level huge-ass-ships to fly (goddamn some of the Eve ships are ginormous) and Planetside ground game. Make that even half functioning and I'd be in for half a year.

PS ground game, nice addition.

I think "The Perfect MMO" would make a great name for an MMO. A Korean one.

Not without a colon and further words after it.

Such as:

'The Perfect MMO Dream World: Your Fantasy Come Alive!!!!'

The Prefect: MMO

I have exactly the same plan as you. I thought that was interesting.

And yes our broadband is depressing. I read up on comments to videos and they're all "jesus it's going to take half an hour get a better server" and here's me on a relatively high plan for Australia chugging away at 2+ hours AND I'm paying more than them for the privelidge and if I download more than 10GB a month I'm shaped (which fortunately never happens).

And in regards to ping I can hit 20 on a local FPS server but until MMOGs bring servers to Aus I could have sub-zero speed internet and still chug away at 200-400 ping to american servers.

For the record, the plan I'm on is from Telstra because 1) I didn't trust iiNet with my phone service and they were the only other ASDL2+ provider in WA when I last checked and 2) Telstra bribed me to move away from AAPT, who weren't going ASDL2+ for the foreseeable future. Yeah, the plan has its drawbacks and Australia needs a more competitive telecomms industry, but until the Govt has the guts to carve Telstra's retail arm away from its infrastructure and privatise only the retail portion, that isn't going to happen.

That would be badass if you could manually pilot your ship from orbit-to-ground in real time. Imagine being part of a ground-pounder infantry division and watching a fleet of dropships fly in after breaking through part of a planetary barricade. Probly way too epic to get done properly but it would rock!

I would add perma-death but I don't think most people are into that aspect.

Perfect MMOs must run on a Mac.

You forgot the green text. I think. ;)

Atmospheric dogfighting is what I'm really looking for.

I wonder what the biggest technical hurdle is.

Networked semi-realistic physics models would be my bet. The more accurate your physics model is, the more cpu cycles and network bandwidth it takes to keep things synchronized. The military gets away with allowing for trusted clients (see the Distributed Information Simulation, example paper here (http://www-ece.engr.ucf.edu/~jza/classes/4781/DIS/project.html)), and therefore don't have to worry about authoritative simulation servers, but in an untrusted environment it's pretty difficult to have "massive" but realistic physics networked.

Motion prediction is where the real hurdle is at.  To synchronize separate clients over a network the server and clients attempt to predict your course of motion.   An enemy client would ask for your position and the server will respond with your course and heading.  The problem is how old the data is.   Say both of you have 400 ms ping.  He position data on you will be 800ms behind.  His response to your position data will come back to you 1600 ms after you move.  There are tricks to reduce this somewhat.  Some servers will ignore position updates if they deviate too much from where the server told the other clients you were going and thus you rubberband.

Of course you probably know most of this from FPS's most likely but I covered it just in case.  The difference for dogfighting is you have to deal with a the player having the ability to move in more directions.  On-top of that as far as motion prediction is concerned the speed of the airplane is yet another axis that must be predicted.   The possibility for error in the prediction method goes up dramatically and thus the maximum acceptable latency goes down.  If you add accurate atmosphere effects in the hands of a good pilot this can make it even worse.   I've never worked on an accurate atmosphere model nor do I know much about atmospheric piloting but I imagine there are lots of air braking and banking tricks that can allow a pilot to move in erratic patterns that would add another layer of difficulty to the motion prediction.

The latency requirements wouldn't be so bad that it wouldn't work in a typical FPS server style method but for an MMO it would require a lot of local servers to get the latency at an acceptable level.   Either that or compromises in the combat model could be used to lessen the impact of motion prediction failure.

Making it fun. Secondary would be making it fun without half of people bitching how it doesn't meet their personal idea of realism they were after.

Adventure game like elements, a la old school LucasArts. Exploration as in finding cool spots, that preferably offer more adventure elements. The issue here is probably to parallelize it enough, so that different players can go through the same story arc, but group randomly and go from there, so that the story adapts to the different knowledge states of the players.

Just get rid of that goddamn idiotic grind.

Ahh didn't even think of that angle. Not sure if this wouldn't be bit problematic since MMOs seem to use items quite different from adventure games and both can have plenty of them... but this kind of extra interaction with game world could be nice.

No, they you don't.

Don't you all in Australia have:

Babes,
Beer,
Beaches,
BBQ.
and the Bitchin' (but deadly) Ecosystem

So if you pipe in good internet people might come and stay (and too many fuck up anything).

But I do agree that not having it can drive you nuts.  My parents farm have nothing but a phone line, but it is 29 acre's of hills, has a creek, lots of trees and critters, and if fun as hell to do stuff out there.  One of my guildmates was like, "wow you went to a creek and caught crawdads, lizards, and picked blackberries and strawberries (both wild), took the kite out in the meadow, and road your bikes into some dirt...most people would pay to have that kinda of experience."  Of course I had to install two phone lines and dual dial-up accounts, made playing some games okay, but any FPS had to be in the midwest or it would suck.