So I'm wondering what the people here think would be the bare minimum features a game would have to have at launch to be successful enough to allow time for the devs to create and bolt on new systems and features.
But it's not always clear what is a self contained "feature/system", and when that is considered complete.
Take something like "has a class based system". How many times have we seen game launch where some classes are not implemented, or half done, or full of bugs, of imbalanced to hell and back? And yet in those same games some percentage of the classes do work. So to avoid the overpromise, underliver issue, you would only hype the classes you KNOW will be done, which equals marketing suck when you ad's say "now with 4 base classes...and more to come that are still in testing!" As a business, you wouldn't want to do that, even though that may well be the truth. It seems to be rare that many classes get added after launch other than via expansion pack, so you'd better have all the ones you want in no matter how incomplete they are.
Same thing with "3 continents of jaw dropping content!". You have to have content, but is 1 million sq miles of randomly generated landscape with zero interesting things in it considered a "feature"?
In terms of my personal minimum systems required, i finding mine are a bit broad. It doesn't really matter to me if a game has player housing, or pvp, or crafting out the wazoo, or an auction house per se. I do know enough about myself to say i much prefer a directed game experience rather than a free form virtual world, but that mainly a function of time; since I don't have a lot, i don't want to waste it creating my own fun. So the below are more "rules of thumb" for what I want and they can be very subjective.
1.) Technical competence
The game must be stable, not laggy due to crowding, decent graphically on my rig without upgrading, with minimum number of bugs that stop my play session from progressing (broken quests, falling through world, bad mob pathing, chat system that works, etc)
2.) Logical and functional game systems
If you have a class system, they should have diversity and purpose for each and presumably, some stab at balance
If you have a skill based system, there should be no skills worthless to have, and no overpowered skills; try to avoid templating, have some form of skill reallocation
If you have combat, combat itself should be engaging and thought provoking beyond "hit a and grab a sandwich" or even "hit 1, 2, 3, 1, 4, 2, 3, 1, 4" over and over; also try to have more combat resolutions than just "you win, mob dead" and "mob wins, you're dead"
If you have combat that is level based i.e. a lvl 50 always will be a level 10, don't try to put players into unwinnable fights unless they choose to attempt them i.e. stop putting lvl 50 wandering elites in a newbie zone
Try to avoid a straight power curve that makes a level 30 unkillable by a group of level 10s no matter how good their tactics
Decide what you want to be and stick to it; if you want to be solo friendly, be solo friendly through out the game; if you want to be group required, do so from newbie levels - don't bait and switch
In the same way, decide if you want to be a "time(avatar skill) > skill" game or a "player skill > avatar skill"
Decide if you are a game with world trappings or a virtual world with some game like systems in it; basically is there directed stuff in game for me to do or am i having to make that up on my own
If you have combat PvP, make it opt in in some fashion; if you have economy pvp (i.e. a guild cornering the auction house on rez potions) try not to allow it to be absolute so others can't play
Don't make me do unfun things to unlock fun things
Have multiple rewards for advancement; where do I earn exp/skill gains; have more than 1 way
Decide on your stance for an in game economy and how out of game stuff can factor into that from design day 1 and plan accordingly (i.e. loot transference, farming potential, character sales, bots, 3rd party add ons etc)
Know who your target audience is, and what your game strength is supposed to be and stick to that
Make sure every feature has a reason for be in game, not just "WoW has a mail system so we need one too"
Damn, im getting long winded, but basically if I were giving advice, it would simply be "pick your focus, start small, and do that WELL, then come back and add other well done features"
I'd much rather see a well done niche game with few features in it than a huge sprawling game that has 20 half asses ones.
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