Greatest MMO features that somehow never got copied

[Dandain]

FFXI:

Skillchains
Subjobs
Exp Chains
Missions/Level Cap BCNM Boss Fights

[Runnen]

I don't have many ideas about things that were not implemented in any other games, but there are some things I do wish more MMOs had.

Dark Night : night is way too light in most MMOs, I miss the pitch black nights from EQ where you HAD to have a lightstone or be an elf to see anything other than the stars in the sky.

Player Collision : It kinda kills the immersion to walk trough people, though I admit it makes it easier to navigate without Barbarians and Ogres blocking the path into the Bazaar (ugh)

Cut-Scenes : Guild Wars (I hate that game but man that one idea was good) had tons of nice cut-scenes that drove the storyline forward. Granted the system could not be copy / pasted into WoW because the storyline in Guild Wars was mostly done solo while the main stepping stones in WoW's storyline are global worldwide epic events.. but it would be really nice to see more interactive cutscenes in dungeons and raid zones.. though I suppose they have begun to implement that judging by the Scrying Orb in Magister's Terrance that gives you a glimpse of the monsters in the Sunwell Plateau instance.

[Asmadai]

EQ: 1st person view that actually shows you fucking DOING SOMETHING when you are in combat. I know 3rd person is all the rage now, but if a game out there implemented a 1st person view that showed your arms/weapons swinging, as well as the whole movement of the camera with your body, i'd be all over that shit in a minute.

[...]

Guildwars: Mission system. Missions in guildwars were like moving action based dungeon crawls. one example is where you move down a coastline and take a fort. bosses thrown in, absolute tons of monsters thrown at you along the way, story driven and very mobile. I would love a similarly fast paced, mobile, non static, 'faceless goon' killing mission set in any mmo.

Difficult to describe, but extremely fun. more fun than most dungeons in most mmo's.

[Tenks]

WoW:

Fun gameplay

[Zerai]

Originally Posted by ...

Guildwars: Mission system. Missions in guildwars were like moving action based dungeon crawls. one example is where you move down a coastline and take a fort. bosses thrown in, absolute tons of monsters thrown at you along the way, story driven and very mobile. I would love a similarly fast paced, mobile, non static, 'faceless goon' killing mission set in any mmo.

Difficult to describe, but extremely fun. more fun than most dungeons in most mmo's.

Durnholde in WoW is about the closest I can think of to that but I agree. I like that. Hence I like Durnholde more than typical dungeons.

But fuck, I fully agree with Mentoring systems. NEED IT.

As for cut-scenes, I really liked LoTR's implementation. The Book quests were brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Giant overarcing questline that progressed the mainstoryline. It's what moved you through zones, culminating in dungeon crawls for each main zone. This was finished by a cutscene. Just great.

[Grave]

Originally Posted by Asmadai

EQ: 1st person view that actually shows you fucking DOING SOMETHING when you are in combat. I know 3rd person is all the rage now, but if a game out there implemented a 1st person view that showed your arms/weapons swinging, as well as the whole movement of the camera with your body, i'd be all over that shit in a minute.

Vanguard has this as long as you enable First Person Rendering in options.

I agree it's nice to have, I enjoy mixing playtime between first and third person view. I was disappointed when I zoomed to first person in WoW and couldn't see my own actions. Maybe there's a technical limitation or some trade off that must be made that caused Blizzard to feel it wasn't worth having. Who knows.

[Ninajrr]

Everquest - Mechanics which favored the use of the first person perspective.

[AladainAF]

Cut-Scenes : Guild Wars (I hate that game but man that one idea was good) had tons of nice cut-scenes that drove the storyline forward.

Pretty sure FFXI was first to cut-scenes that I can remember, unless there was an MMO pre-2002 that had them. The only thing I don't like about FFXI is that they don't use voice-overs in the cut-scenes. If GW has voiced over CSes (I've never played it so I dont know) then yeah I'd consider those more of a cutscene than what FFXI has. Good voiceovers add a lot to an MMO while going through storylines.

[Neric]

EQ: Dungeons

[Jubee]

Yes, no other game has ever had a dungeon.

[Neric]

No other game had that type of dungeon. You can be sure about that.

[James]

What? What type of 'dungeon' are we talking about here? The type where you get raped up the ass by Bobo the Gimp? The type that issues spiked leather, ballgags, and whips upon entry? Pretty sure Furcadia is the game for you, slick. You can jerk off as many three-tentacled aliens as you want in that shit.

Specify your shit so that you don't look like a flaming fucking faggot in the future. Chances are if you're plopping down steaming turds like Kedge Keep on your list of non-Quineloe-me Dungeons, your opinion on other shit is NULL and VOID.

[Slayder]

He's probably talking about Sebilis/Velk style dungeons that aren't instanced nor linear. While I think that is an archaic style that will probably never be used in future, I found the danger inherent in that kind of dungeon very fun in retrospect.That being being said:

EQ: Death penalty that stung, unlike most systems now a days which a little more than glorified FPS-style respawning.

[Neric]

Here is another feature that I haven't seen or better heard anywhere else.: