Hi guys,
I'm a new member only joined today.
Started playing MMORPG's back in 99' and I'm currently an IT Manager while also involved with IT Project management.
I've played a lot of MMO's back in the day, only playing a few in recent times. The genre is pretty dried up so it's difficult to come up with new things, and more importantly to cater/pander to everyone's needs.
From what I can see discussed, its mostly the journey (leveling, pet systems etc), which is of course important, but there are bigger issues to think about too.
The issues that mostly face MMORPGs is end game content and the pay structure of the company, and listening to the player base.
From what I can gather, the MODs are very open to ideas and want to listen to player feedback, so that is already a great start... hopefully that two way communication can stay the same.
There are a lot of P2W games out there, that have a great core/base but ultimately fail due to the P2W factor and lose their player base. If this game just wants to squeeze money out for a year or two through P2W and die away than that's fine, that's obliviously you have a right to maximise profits, but eventually it will die out as it always does.
Thirdly, the end game content is the hardest part, it needs to keep your player base interested for a long enough period of time, before you release new content. And the new content is a whole other kettle of fish - where you need to try and find a balance between making previous content relevant and new content attractive enough - unless you can pump out new content every few months.
Anyway, that's from my experience of playing MMORPG's where I see companies usually struggle, I'm sure you already know all of that, but sometimes it can be forgotten...
From my personal experience, the aspects of a game that appealed to me was:
1. Unique world bosses (mini bosses) that spawn in random locations at random times and drop rare loot (such as a golden box) - makes exploring the worlds more exciting, fun, and rewarding
2. Leveling curve - most difficult to appeal to, but personally, I like a challenge and feel more rewarded when reaching milestones (lvl 40, Lvl 50)
3. Coincide with leveling curve, but major levels (lvl 40. etc) should be rewarded with loot/spells/unique abilitys that is of worth to the character
4. Talent system - seems to be the bread and butter of every game, but keeping it simple and relevant
5. Loot - these days, you don't acquire rare/unique item from trash mobs - this takes the fun out of grinding mobs but in the old days (mu online, gates to haven) you could receive an 'excellent' item with rare stats - of course this was a 1 in a million chance, but still a chance. This was probably my most missed memory of the early 2000s, where you could grind trash mobs for hours or weeks and not receive anything of worth, but that one time you do is an amazing feeling :)
That's pretty much my top 5, thanks for reading and good luck with the game! I'm sure I'll be creeping around these forums every now and again.