Rather bold topic to cover, and no small task either, however having experienced a very wide range of these game I thought I would weigh in on this problematic genre. Now I say problematic simply because games on this scale have to sacrifice in order to actually be produced, well mostly (I think Guild Wars 2 will have that problem on a lesser scale but its besides the point). These sacrifices often come from the strangest of places where some games have their entire focus, others are a commonality shared with other genres and have yet to be solved. What I offer isn't always cold cut solutions but areas of focus I believe are lacking and need exploring to find a suitable middle ground in the fight between scale and quality.
Combat
Thud. Thwack. Bam. Crunch. Effects often missing from combat in MMORPG's. When I swing a sword I want to not only see my impact but feel it. If I swing a two handed mace into an Orc's face I want to have that collision knocking them back ten foot. More often than not this doesn't happen. I think the closest I've felt to satisfying combat in an MMORPG is Funcom's Age of Conan. In the game you could choose between swing directions of weapons, performing combo's to up the strength it was considerably more involved with the player. The animations worked well, the sound effects were top notch but there was still something not quite right. That missing element I attribute to the reactions NPC's often have on impact. In most MMORPG's NPC's will just stand there whilst you pound on them until they suddenly drop dead. Why? This is such an outdated game feature, like stock death animations of the early 3D games (I mean 3D as in N64 / PS1 Era not the crap glasses "3D"). I understand that it would be an awful drain to resources to have ragdolls but what about just more extensive or adaptive animation trees? Detection of where hits are coming from, how much force behind the blow. I'm sure there are some 'cost effective' solutions out there to reactionary combat, and I think they could be found by examining systems from sibling genres such as the hack'n'slash or action adventure.
More visual feedback
As much as I enjoy staring at a nicely laid out user interface panel this is another area I feel has been dated. Health Bars, Mana Bars, Energy Bars, Equipment Durability: what if all these things were displayed intuitively as well as classically. The more mana you have the more your weapon glows, the more damage you take over time the scrappier your gear looks. One minor thing I really liked about Rocksteady's Batman Arkham games is that during the course of the game Batman's armour slowly filled with rips, dents and scratches, why not have a similar system for MMORPG's? Well the answer may be kind of obvious with the hundreds of items that any good MMORPG will have. What if there was a way to procedurally handle that? When armour is fitted to multiple races quite often it will be scaled and shifted to match the character thus saving making 10 versions of the same item could the same be done with a damage model that procedurally adds dents and dirt? MMORPG's most frequently opt for the numbers, which favours the 'min-maxers' (like me!) but doesn't cater all that well for new players learning a new game.
Meaningful Character Choices
Having reached level cap in multiple titles across the genre I'm not sure I could tell you a single anecdote that is specific to a character. Most of my anecdotes from MMO's will relate to the players that I am playing with but not my character. Skyrim has this down to an artform in its side quests and multiple choice endings to them. If your character is an arsehole then you can play as that and be rude to NPC's during conversation arcs. I understand Bioware has featured this kind of thing in The Old Republic and it will be a pleasing sight to see at the least. My point relates not only to narrative interaction but the 'life choices' of your character, also known as choosing your friends. At the start of many character creation processes you will select what faction they belong to and even in some answer biographical questions however most of the time these are irrelevant to developing your character. In Skyrim I chose to be an unlawful character, falling in with the thieves guild early on, but I never joined the Dark Brotherhood as I saw that choice as a step too far: "Woah, I will steal people's stuff and forge ledgers but I'm not killing for money!". What if there were more choices to be made in game as to who your friends are and how that might affect role-playing styles. In fact it may even go some way to people actually role-playing in an mmoRPg.
Questing without the grind
Pretty self explanatory - see Warhammer Age of Reckoning and Guild Wars 2 for (slightly) improved quest systems. I think there is considerably more work to be done in this area but it is a difficult cycle to break from really.
Long Term Goals
Most long term or ongoing goals in MMORPG's are "reach level cap" "get phat loot". What if quests took longer to complete? What if an investigation took an entire game to get to the end of? What if players had emotional motivation to explore a certain section of lore? These are the types of questions that should be asked, that might ultimately create better investments for games and gamers.
User Generated Content
I can think of very few examples where an MMO has opened its gates to the public and allowed them participation in creating. This is a concept I would love to explore deeper as it could be a vast wealth of possibility. Player owned servers, player created buildings, player made sections that do not affect character stats but allow them to test skills, hone their tactics and train for the real thing. Second life is an MMO with a huge amount of user generated content and I believe that it is an area MMORPG's are lacking and could prove to be innovative and profitable. With the introduction of real money markets in games how hard would it be to sell server space so that players can make their own content and share it with other within the confines of a separate entity? A question worth exploring.
Maybe I will come back to this subject a few years on and everything I have said will be irrelevant. I hope so. It is a genre well in need of a good shake up to modernise.
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