Dynamic spawn vs static spawn: preference?

[Grimwell]

Easy, allow genocide. 

Allow the players to pick a group and win. If they all side up with the orcs and kill every damn elf in the world, let them. To Hell with your investment in art assets, it's a neat story.

The risk there is that the map eventually becomes monochrome though right? It does. But if you allow players who jump through the right hoops the opportunity to create an elf camp where none exist, they can nurture it and bring it back. Throw in some active GM support who do things to keep the world interesting, and it should work. Worst case possible? Declare the game "WON" and open up rifts to a new dimension/continent and have a mass of new enemies surge through to change the balance.

Pack that in a good story, and be honest about the reasons you are doing it and people will thank you.

Because, at the end of the day, every game we play has a lacking answer to "what's the point" of you don't twist things to keep them fun.

[pxib]

To Hell with your investment in art assets, it's a neat story.

That's a slippery slope, and a difficult sell.

Players may be upset they never had a chance to save the elves. Players may even be upset that others were given the chance to kill or save them, but now they no longer have the opportunity. The genocide of the elves might be a great story if it takes years, but not if it takes weeks. Either way, a year later it might not even be a footnote, especially if there have been multiple win states, strange invaders, and new continents since then. The story gets less and less interesting the more of those invaders (and occupants of those new continents) turn out to be thinly disguised elves.

All I'm asking is whether the thanks will be worth the extra effort. What makes this more fun than a PvP sandbox?

[Aez]

Wakfu is attempting this with their ecology system :

http://www.wakfu.com/en/discover/features/11-creature-families.  

[Grimwell]

To Hell with your investment in art assets, it's a neat story.

That's a slippery slope, and a difficult sell.

Players may be upset they never had a chance to save the elves. Players may even be upset that others were given the chance to kill or save them, but now they no longer have the opportunity.

There is a point, in any deign, where you have to answer these questions with a simple "So." and move forward. If you have budgeted appropriately and targeted the right people, not pleasing some folks should be a fair consideration - if they are outside your target/budget audience to begin with.

If you don't, you get into that "Let's make a game for EVERYONE!!! It will be great!" trap, and then you are screwed.

Plus, my point about letting people start a small elf camp, or invasions from another dimension, opens that door back up.

...and I'd kill my systems/design team if they let it happen in a week outside of beta. :)

[Malakili]

To Hell with your investment in art assets, it's a neat story.

That's a slippery slope, and a difficult sell.

Players may be upset they never had a chance to save the elves. Players may even be upset that others were given the chance to kill or save them, but now they no longer have the opportunity. The genocide of the elves might be a great story if it takes years, but not if it takes weeks. Either way, a year later it might not even be a footnote, especially if there have been multiple win states, strange invaders, and new continents since then. The story gets less and less interesting the more of those invaders (and occupants of those new continents) turn out to be thinly disguised elves.

All I'm asking is whether the thanks will be worth the extra effort. What makes this more fun than a PvP sandbox?

I dunno, I thrive off that kind of thing.  I LOVE lore, but not just like, lore written by a fiction writer, but actual lore created by the players through their actions.  If I was reading a "summary" of past events that had some sort of Elven Kingdom that was actually overthrown by orcs and was no totally off the map or reduced to rag tag bands of elves plotting their return to power, I would drop what I was doing, buy the game right way, and never look back.

I don't care if I never got to see the Elves in power if I started playing after that, who cares if I didn't take part in their overthrow, as a participant in that world its a part of your history none the less, not to mention the sorts of stories that get created going forward. 

Case in point, these kinds of stories about ISK stealing, spies in 0.0 space, etc, are what got me to play EVE Online in the first place.  I didn't really care about playing a sci-fi space based MMO, I cared about playing in a world full of economic and political intrigue, where the history of the game world is literally the history of player action.  In this way, the lore/history of the game is in a way very much "non fiction."   One difference being that in EVE there is still a lot of NPC factions that are effectively "static" (or at least, any 'movement' is developer determined) and not going to be effected by player fighting/schemes, etc.  A game that could take that to the next level would be close to my "holy grail" in MMO gaming.

[tmp]

Players may be upset they never had a chance to save the elves. Players may even be upset that others were given the chance to kill or save them, but now they no longer have the opportunity.

The counter-point to that would be, trying to ensure every bit of content is always available to everyone locks your game in the form of amusement park where nothing ever changes no matter how many blowjobs the NPCs give you for your great deeds. Which is also something the players (not necessarily the same group who gets upsed over missing out) don't appreciate much, which makes it one of these "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenarios.

They're trying to work around that with the things like 'phasing' in WoW and such but i'm not convinced this is good route to go given in the end player still knows it's all faked and nothing they ever do makes any actual difference.

[Koyasha]

Yeah, these are basically two audiences that want different things, and there's no telling how large the audience that wants a changing world is, because nobody has done that really well in my opinion.  WoW has done the static world reasonably well, and their execution, budget, polish, and marketing allowed them to expand the market to a point that nobody even imagined back before it released. 

A similar level of execution has not been reached for a 'changing world' game, perhaps partly because the technology to make a really good 'changing world' with really logical behavior on the part of the AI and long-term planning and changes simply isn't here yet, and partly because to do it to the same degree of 'quality' that WoW has, I believe the needed budget would be considerably larger than what WoW had.  Someday a game of this sort may be made, executed and polished well enough and people will flock to it in numbers thus far unimagined for that type of gameplay.

As for 'eventually,' technology could reach a point (and this is probably quite some time away due to various things, especially the massive cheap storage that would be needed) where the game could essentially record everything that ever happens, allowing you to go back in time and participate in 'historical events' that actually happened.  You might be restricted from altering those events, but for the players that want to have a chance to participate in everything, this would create a living history full of events to go back in time and participate in.  Or run in a 'simulator' or whatever.  That concept seems like the eventual 'best of both worlds' dream scenario.

But yes, a world in which I can actually affect things in some way and those things actually become part of the history, shaping future events, is exactly what I would like.  It's why I wish EVE was a game that I didn't totally hate the mechanics of, because it seems to be the closest we've ever come so far.

[Malakili]

They're trying to work around that with the things like 'phasing' in WoW and such but i'm not convinced this is good route to go given in the end player still knows it's all faked and nothing they ever do makes any actual difference.

Frankly, I think phasing is actually worse than purely static, but each "phase" is still static, and on top of that, now if I am in the same exact spot of land in the game world, but in a different phase than someone, its as if they aren't there.  Its basically like little time travel bubbles in the world.  Didn't like it when I heard about it, and I still don't after experiencing it.

[Venkman]

But yes, a world in which I can actually affect things in some way and those things actually become part of the history, shaping future events, is exactly what I would like.  It's why I wish EVE was a game that I didn't totally hate the mechanics of, because it seems to be the closest we've ever come so far.

Yea. In my opinion, the only way the "changing world" model can really work is in an open world setting with full land ownership and warfare like Eve. Since the development process of skill needs for making AI do this is so unique to how the industry is otherwise set up, it makes more sense to shed the responsibility back onto the players themselves. You just need to get them to realize they are the story, the history, and the content.

Eve so far is the only one that has been able to figure this out. SWG and UO both tried it but then the teams changed and the direction of the games changed.

[UnSub]

Random points:

 - Ryzom tried to have a more organic ecology and it looked good, but it's not enough to make the game interesting. Having predators attack prey and herds move in formation are really just nice cosmetics. I'm aware that people are discussing real, meaningful impact, but that can have some far-reaching consequences (such as: if all the orcs are dead and a key quest has a "turn in 10 orc bones" as a requirement, you are going to have some very unhappy players).

 - ChampO has the system where citizens run up and give missions to players in a much more 'normal' way than having contacts just stand around. In beta, a lot of players complained that they didn't want citizens bothering them, then the missions were too far away and what the hell kind of role were they playing anyway - did they look like a superhero? Players want to play the game their way (which is also why players really hate smart / realistic AI).

 - MxO had the experience in using a live team to try to generate events that they'd just as often run into players who didn't care as those who did. So they would waste a lot of time setting up a situation for a player - engaging them, trying to run an event in front of them, which was responded to with a "wtf u wat i log of".

In conventional terms, I like dynamic spawning because I enjoy playing a game. The odd static spawn is fine.

What more MMOs should be aiming for is the Diablo-mix of dynamic and static spawns / locations. Or EvE's single huge universe with a mix of everything, shaken up by player PvP.

[Venkman]

The Ryzom system could be seen in SWG as well if you happened to be in the right place at the right time. EQ1 experimented with it in the Shadows of Luclin expansion. There were two different zones that had mob rotation (as one was hunted down, the other shows up).

I think the key here is that the quest ecology would need to be as dynamic as the zone/area ecology. If you took the quest to kill 10 orcs and there's no orcs around, then the game should give you credit for finding any 10 orcs in the game world. And if they've been eradicated from the game server altogether, then you simply missed your time at helping so move on to another quest.

Your ChampO example reminded me of the spawning note from earlier. I love the little touches some games make when they spawn creatures in another room but you don't know it until they open the door and jump you. Or you seem them climb out of the ground or teleport in with sfx or anything other than just fading into view because the game said it was time to.

Finally, your MxO comment reminded me of the GM Events from UO way back in the day, particularly Yew and Vespar invasions. Those were good times. Constantly going battles with associated quests that eventually ended. A lot more fun and fluid than collecting 10,000 wool to open the AQ gates in WoW.

Overall, I'd want a mix of dynamic and static in the way SWG intended plus having a Live team that was about Live content rather than just being about keeping the servers from eating themselves.

[Malakili]

I guess part of the problem is that audience then?

I remember playing Neverwinter Nights on a PW server that had a very strong community.  The admin/devs for the PW worked with the player base very closely.  They ran DM events that players were always incredibly eager to get in on.  When the players did something that should change the world, they opened up the editor and changed the world to reflect those things. It was enforced RP, all chat was in character (except for whispers I guess).   It was always my dream for MMOs that I would have that kind of experience, but with 1000s of players, instead of dozens.

Everything was static, but the fact the the DMs were able to pull the strings at opportune moments made everything feel great.

[Venkman]

Yes. The ratio between DM and player has long been the problem though. Companies spent so long funnelling resources to keeping the game live that players became accustomed less and less interaction, until eventually "DM" was just some blue name who keeps the forum riffraff in line.

The audience isn't the problem. They just aren't the same that the genre started with, the 70s-80s era ex-D&D players who were looking for enough of that experience but in a graphical environment. Those people still exist, but they're the minority of the playerbase these days.

[Sheepherder]

No. In WoW I start off killing level 1 wolves, then I move along to level 5 kobolds, level 20 ogres, level 40 wolves, level 50 dragons, level 60 ogres, and finally I finish up killing level 80 kobolds that would totally anklebite those pussy dragons to death if you ever put them together.

It was completely jarring to me when I started playing WoW that any given creature comes in dozens of varieties, some dozens or hundreds of times more powerful than others.

And 40 levels of nothing but ogres is the answer?

[Malakili]

No. In WoW I start off killing level 1 wolves, then I move along to level 5 kobolds, level 20 ogres, level 40 wolves, level 50 dragons, level 60 ogres, and finally I finish up killing level 80 kobolds that would totally anklebite those pussy dragons to death if you ever put them together.

It was completely jarring to me when I started playing WoW that any given creature comes in dozens of varieties, some dozens or hundreds of times more powerful than others.

And 40 levels of nothing but ogres is the answer?

I think Darkfall Online actually handles this pretty well.  There is enough variety though that it isn't just "Murder goblins, then the next thing, then the next thing, and then when I'm sttrong enough, I'm just killing X all day."  Though there is a bit of that.  Then again, that isn't a level based game to begin.  My point is though, you can manage variety while still making the world seem somewhat logical, instead of having level 80 kobolds that look in every way like the level 5 kobolds, except slightly bigger and bluer.

[WindupAtheist]

Yeah, the trick is to have a wide and shallow power curve where 98% of the game's content isn't either worthless grey or suicidal red at all times.

[tmp]

Yeah, the trick is to have a wide and shallow power curve where 98% of the game's content isn't either worthless grey or suicidal red at all times.

As i understand it the opposite approach (i.e. grey/red 98% of the time) is there to enforce players proceed through their rides without straying off-path and going to places out of order, turning the whole carefully crafted illusion of ongoing storyline into mess.

[Venkman]

That's the theory. But there isn't an MMO I can think of with a narrative so tight going off the rails is a bad thing. Most of the modern games only want to put you in a certain order to ensure you don't get steamrolled by red-con stuff in a zone too high for your level. Maybe there's a story in there, but it's usually restricted to the zone or merely to serve as the reason to get to the next one, never both and never a binding narrative from level 1 to cap.

Again, this is because the players have evolved to not expect it.

[tmp]

Most of the modern games only want to put you in a certain order to ensure you don't get steamrolled by red-con stuff in a zone too high for your level.

But isn't that reversing the cause and effect? I mean, if there's no intention for the player to follow zones in certain order then there's no reason to make the zone that's 'too high for your level' just steamroll you in the first place (instead of just being mildly higher challenge)

[Malakili]

Most of the modern games only want to put you in a certain order to ensure you don't get steamrolled by red-con stuff in a zone too high for your level.

But isn't that reversing the cause and effect? I mean, if there's no intention for the player to follow zones in certain order then there's no reason to make the zone that's 'too high for your level' just steamroll you in the first place (instead of just being mildly higher challenge)

Yes and no.  I mean,  the idea of levels isn't just to make people follow a narrative.  Look at the Dungeons and Dragons monster's manual.  Monsters generally have a single level, or a smallish level range.  There is a reason there are jokes about killing goblins and kobolds by the 1000s.  CRPGs have adopted levels because it was in pencil and paper games, and then the MMO genre did the same thing.  It seems to me the reusing of monsters is mostly just a matter of keeping art assets down.

My point being, yeah, they do want to keep you from going to the red stuff, more than the other way around.  In Dungeons and Dragons, the DM can just put in whatever monster he wants in a certain spot, but in an MMO, the level 50 stuff is in a certain area, and you CAN go there at level 3 if you want.  Its just going to ruin your day.  Hell, anyone who has played alliance side WoW can probably attest that they accidentally wandered into the Burning Steppes their first time through Red Ridge mountains only to find a near end game zone.   

RPG basically just means "character progression" these days anyway, and the modern MMO is basically just about guiding the player through that progression, not about story, or anything else.

[Venkman]

Most of the modern games only want to put you in a certain order to ensure you don't get steamrolled by red-con stuff in a zone too high for your level.

But isn't that reversing the cause and effect? I mean, if there's no intention for the player to follow zones in certain order then there's no reason to make the zone that's 'too high for your level' just steamroll you in the first place (instead of just being mildly higher challenge)

The reason it's set up this way is to separate players from content inappropriate for their levels. The only reason that is even the case is because of the reliance on levels to provide progression through a game.

You could have a game entirely based on narrative progression and not have levels at all (finish a story segment> choose from X abilities instead of finish a story> get XP> get level> get abilities). But that's risky when it's been proven that the diku-inspired XP>levels>class system sells so well.

[Koyasha]

Random points:

 - Ryzom tried to have a more organic ecology and it looked good, but it's not enough to make the game interesting. Having predators attack prey and herds move in formation are really just nice cosmetics. I'm aware that people are discussing real, meaningful impact, but that can have some far-reaching consequences (such as: if all the orcs are dead and a key quest has a "turn in 10 orc bones" as a requirement, you are going to have some very unhappy players).

 - ChampO has the system where citizens run up and give missions to players in a much more 'normal' way than having contacts just stand around. In beta, a lot of players complained that they didn't want citizens bothering them, then the missions were too far away and what the hell kind of role were they playing anyway - did they look like a superhero? Players want to play the game their way (which is also why players really hate smart / realistic AI).

 - MxO had the experience in using a live team to try to generate events that they'd just as often run into players who didn't care as those who did. So they would waste a lot of time setting up a situation for a player - engaging them, trying to run an event in front of them, which was responded to with a "wtf u wat i log of".

In conventional terms, I like dynamic spawning because I enjoy playing a game. The odd static spawn is fine.

What more MMOs should be aiming for is the Diablo-mix of dynamic and static spawns / locations. Or EvE's single huge universe with a mix of everything, shaken up by player PvP.

This is what I mean by this sort of game being for a completely different market.  The issues you note in ChampO and MxO are issues of the player being there for a different kind of game than that mechanic/interaction is designed for.  Of course, most of the game is still designed for the market that doesn't want these things, so these small changes are unwelcome to most of the players.  This doesn't seem like something that can be worked into gradually, but something that the game has to be entirely designed for from the start.

The quest issue you mention only exists with static quests.  A changing world cannot have static quests, the quests must be generated in much the same logical, evolving manner as the rest of the world.  If there are many orcs nearby, the human settlement would be giving orc-killing quests.  If the orcs are all gone, the orc-killing quests would go away too, because the humans aren't worried about orcs.  They'd be replaced with quests about whatever the humans are worried about at the moment.  Now if we build a world where NPC's can level in a way, we get a more interesting setup here where the quests can actually be interesting and relevant.  An orc pawn kills someone - a player or an NPC of a faction that is an enemy of the orcs, and levels into an orc centurion.  The orc centurion then needs to kill several more people in order to level into an orc captain, which eventually levels into an orc chieftain.  At that point he gets a randomly generated name and either founds his own orc camp, or takes over an existing orc camp without a current chieftain.  The nearby human settlement, in response, puts out a quest asking for the head of the nearest orc chieftain.  Once that chieftain is dead, the quest goes away, switching to the next nearest orc chieftain, or just disappearing until another orc chieftain is close enough to be an issue.

But in order to work and attract a large audience (if one exists), all of this has to be done really well.  So far the games that have tried haven't done it really well, partly because the technology doesn't exist, and partly because the development budget for this kind of thing is hard to come by.  UO tried it, I think, and either the technology or the amount of time spent on the programming of it was insufficient to do it really well, so it came out in a state that nobody liked.

The obvious issue is that without any way of actually knowing how many players such a game would attract, there's no way to know how much to spend on making it, and certainly no justification for spending the tens or hundreds of millions it would take to make it huge, highly functional, and polished to a shine.  Perhaps in time there will be an evolution of this kind of game that leads to its own 'WoW' type that shows people that a market exists for them.  Or perhaps not.

But overall I don't buy that the audience that wants this kind of game is the minority, not necessarily.  That's the same thing people said about MMOG's in general before WoW came out, then someone did it well enough to attract a huge audience.  I expect there's a similar possibility for this type of game, if it were done well.

[Malakili]

But overall I don't buy that the audience that wants this kind of game is the minority, not necessarily.  That's the same thing people said about MMOG's in general before WoW came out, then someone did it well enough to attract a huge audience.  I expect there's a similar possibility for this type of game, if it were done well.

Look at EVE, I mean, I guess the accepted number is 300k.  Lots of people have multiple accounts too, so who knows how many individuals are playing it.  But lets say it is 300k. Thats a very polished game, and it doesn't have Dynamic PvE content, but the PvP is very dynamic.  I guess you could argue that it is a PvP/PvE divide more than a static/dynamic divide, but I think its pretty clear that most people don't like EVE, regardless of how much I, or anyone else, insists that its the best MMO on the market for a variety of reasons.

[Koyasha]

EVE would be great if the mechanics of, well, everything - moving, fighting, understanding shit all about your own character - weren't so horrible in my opinion.  I've tried their free trial a couple times due to interest from things like reading the EVE threads around here, and the game is so obtuse I can't even begin to play.  Everything feels like a chore to do.  Some people enjoy it somehow, but when the most basic mechanics put me off of the game, the depth and dynamic content can't capture me because I never get that far, even if I am already very interested due to what I've heard.

In most games I pick a class that defines my general abilities.  In UO I could pick from several skills, but the list of possible skills wasn't anywhere near as huge as that of EVE and I could generally understand what they all do.  Going through character creation in EVE made me feel like I need to go to a class for a week just to understand my options.  EVE has some of the concept down pretty good, but it's behind one of the least friendly games to actually play that I've ever tried.  If someone made a similar game that was well-polished and most significantly, easy to get into and play even if it has tremendous depth, it would be closer to what I'm talking about.  EVE just drops you into the middle a pool with no shallow end, and says "here, learn to swim."

[ghost]

It seems as if the only way to have a true unique experience every time you log on would be to have perpetual new content or with PvP.

It does seem pretty damned silly to have to hack your way through a bunch of wolves milling around aimlessly.  Maybe there is a better way to have the mobs interact with the environment once they spawn to make it more interesting.

[statisticalfool]

It seems as if the only way to have a true unique experience every time you log on would be to have perpetual new content or with PvP.

It does seem pretty damned silly to have to hack your way through a bunch of wolves milling around aimlessly.  Maybe there is a better way to have the mobs interact with the environment once they spawn to make it more interesting.

I just... I mean, I'd love all these grand world changing ideas and mobs taking resources and unionizing and holding teas to do diplomacy and all that, but I feel like you just need combat that feels solid (so many MMOs miss this), that has enough levels of interaction to make it interesting (bye, CoH), and scales in difficulty to # of people/difficulty setting/power level/current situation. This is not so tough, especially in a genre that people are totally used to creatures spawning with no rhyme or reason.

Plenty of non MMOs have hit this difficulty curve of letting the players win, but pinning them just at the edge of their skill level just fine, and give the players tweaks (difficulty settings, grinding for added help) to make up for unexpected differences in player skill. Most MMOs start from the premise that hitting 1 a lot is what their average player can handle.

[Malakili]

Most MMOs start from the premise that hitting 1 a lot is what their average player can handle.

More to the point, most MMOs start from the premise that most of their players aren't playing for the engaging combat.

[Rendakor]

Most MMO players are barely capable of pressing 1 a lot.

[statisticalfool]

Most MMO players are barely capable of pressing 1 a lot.

I'm doubtful. I'm pretty sure if you limit the population to just people with an 80, a group of median skilled WoW players would tear through a level 80 MC. Sure, you need to have a difficulty level  for the player who hasn't played video games before, and you need end game for people who are hopeless. But playing trains.

[WindupAtheist]

I'm firmly of the opinion that you could do a modernized UO, grab several hundred thousand people easy, and then keep them basically FOREVER. Or if you prefer, an Eve with less spreadsheet but more tits and house decorating. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

The only thing is it would have to be an actual professional game with well-designed systems. It can't be a semi-vaporware indie shitpile that courts nothing but griefer faggots ala Darkfall. It can't be SWG with its ill-fitting IP and stupid beardy shit like HAM and permadeath alpha classes.

[UnSub]

EvE with more tits and house decorating? Bring on World of Darkness Online. 

More seriously, you can't do a modernised UO because what UO was isn't going to attract that couple of hundred thousand players at launch. EvE has worked out by slowly growing through word-of-mouth and having the time to get over a horrible start.

I see a lot of people in this thread calling for more emergent game systems and I really like that idea... in theory. The reality is that MMO history has repeatedly shown that handing emergent systems to players is much the same outcome as handing orphaned altar boys to Catholic priests. Again, EvE works because CCP allow for a lot more of the extremes at the edges and shrug off player complaints.

[WindupAtheist]

More seriously, you can't do a modernised UO because what UO was isn't going to attract that couple of hundred thousand players at launch.

Any heap of shit with decent marketing muscle seems to sell half a million boxes these days. They just can't keep anyone.

[Xilren's Twin]

It seems as if the only way to have a true unique experience every time you log on would be to have perpetual new content or with PvP.

It does seem pretty damned silly to have to hack your way through a bunch of wolves milling around aimlessly.  Maybe there is a better way to have the mobs interact with the environment once they spawn to make it more interesting.

Since it's the interactions between humans that provides the best kind of dynamism I think it's clear why the closest examples of world altering games all had PvP as a major part: Eve, UO and Shadowbane.
But, it also seems that the PvP game style itself brings with it so much extra baggage that I wonder if you could at a layer to make a PvE game with players dealing with content structured by other players.
Cloud shaping time (sorry for the length)

A game where your hero starts in a capital city to learn some basic skills and resources (money, gear, equipment).  The goal is to head out into the frontiers of the realm to explore and eventually, found your own homestead with the goal being to build it into a prospering town.  So you leave town either solo or with friends, heading out of the safe areas into the wilds looking for a good place to stake your claim.  You could have fairly standard open world with wandering mobs part here, but also the landscape itself should have resources that would obviously effect any place you want to build: forest could provider lumber, lakes and streams water and fish, mountainous regions mining, plains for farming, rare stuff, etc.  You claim your land which gives you a say 10 mile radius where other players cannot enter unless invited, you build a house and deal with any critters in the immediate area.  At that point, your goal shifts to defense of the homestead and resource gathering to expand.

This is where the vs part kicks in.  The challenges you face each day would be "encounters" made by GMs (or even other players) that are suited your level and home base size.  Maybe initially when it's just a house you have to deal with local logical predators like your typical single wolves, bears, mountain lions and the like, with the occasional chance of a bandit, poachers or enemy humanoid thrown in and the rare chance of something stronger: oh crap, and owlbear!  When not fighting, you could do resource gather (mini games is what I'm thinking) in order to grow your homestead.  Think of it as a combo of typical mmorpg first person stuff with civ style building on the shadowbane town level.

As you grow your home, you would employ npc's to take on more of the typical gathering process, and have to defend your space from more challenges.  If you say are harvesting the local deer for yourself, perhaps the pressure throws staving wolf packs and mountain lions your way, or lumbering might lead to fights with dryads and elves.  Perhaps a goblin or orc scouting party from nearby caves finds you. etc.  You could keep ramping this up as your character and town continues to expand; larger towns get more area (say your 10 miles becomes 20), then you may be dealing with more structured challenges like heading to the goblin cave and taking out the local tribe, or fighting off a pack or rampaging wyverns, or discovering a necromancer haunting an ancient burial mound.  From the city building side you could have your own shops and trade goods, and send carvans to other towns, invite other players in to yours to help deal with stronger challenges, pay taxes to your nation (or even eventually rebel).  Or you could leave your npc's/guildmates managing your town and head to higher level towns to lend your skills.  This could ramp all the way up into collections of towns banding together to form their own nations and dealing with challenges of invading armies, or your armies invading other places.

Any way you get the idea.  Giving people their own mini sandbox to play in as part of a larger overall sandbox.  The encounters would be random, but pulling from a set of ones that were designed by people rather than pure RNG.  A level 5 town could have any one of say 20 encounters depending on what buildings they have, resources, land area and character who runs it, so each characters "story" would be different.

[ghost]

an Eve with less spreadsheet but more tits

Eve with any tits at all would probably double its player base immediately.

[Dren]

I'm new to the thread and didn't read through all the responses, but here's my immediate thoughts:

1.  Dynamic based on character level, gear, etc. would help with the issues WoW has for me.  Older instances now look silly because the "powerful" villains are now chumps and worth nothing.  The storyline still works somewhat if everytime I go there the instance is a challenge rather than a race to get the same old thing at the end.

2.  If the instance changes according to your level, gear, etc. then it better scale the rewards too.  The race for emblems in WoW heroics now is pretty silly if you look at it from a macro level.  I'd much prefer hitting fewer instances per night if they were challenging and gave greater rewards.  As it is now, I hit multiple instances as quickly as I possibly can to get the same emblems from each.

Example:  Since a group consists of characters with item levels of 215-230, there will be 1.5 more mobs and their hps/power will be tweaked by 1.125.  However, each character will be rewarded with 5 emblems rather than 2.  Take the time to pull correctly, use CC, etc. and it will take maybe 30-40 minutes.