| It's hard to say. I was speaking with a few editors recently after our Age of Conan Hands-On, and we pretty much all agreed that most developers right now are trying to clone the wrong things from World of Warcraft. In terms of game design, there isn't a single thing that makes WoW successful or unique -- it's their dedication to quality and perfection that makes the game successful, yet developers try to mimic the mechanics systems. If a developer were to mimic even a single thing from the game, the first thing I would suggest is World of Warcraft's beta process -- introducing content chunks at a time, in linear order rather than going back and forth between high level and low level content for different races.
I want to see a game designed in the same spirit as World of Warcraft, that's actually willing to take risks when it comes to game mechanics. It's about proper testing and taking baby steps with introducing content in beta, ensuring it's perfect before moving on to something else. That is your best bet of having a solid game. Well that and having game designers that understand the concept of enjoyable content.
More to the point about specifics, I'll be completely honest. I don't know what the hell I want in an MMO anymore as a gamer, and I think a lot of people feel the same way -- there have been too many failures lately that looked like they could have been promising and usher in a new era of concepts, yet somehow dropped the ball and collapsed during the development process.
The only thing I think I can say without a doubt that I don't want anymore is EverQuest. I'll see if I can think up some things though. | 