Things that other games did right~

[Nakiamiie]

What drew me in those MMO...

WoW:
- Fully explore-able world and seamless, almost no boundaries and no limits, the map itself can even kill you! [i.e. falling a tremendously high cliff or tree branch, drowning from swimming at the bottom of the sea]. Can you imagine having to be careful when passing on the cliff edges in Thanalan or eastern Black Shroud? E P I C! I sincerely hope we see boundary-less maps like that in 2.0, it makes exploration a real adventure (and a good laugh at people AFK while running full speed on their chocobo).

- The potential threat of enemy players in certain zones. The thrill of not knowing if you'll be ambushed or if you'll ambush someone while adventuring in certain zones. How can this be included in 2.0? Players can flag themselves for PvP or not. Players that do not want to get involved in PvP simply keeps it toggled off and play normally, while others with their PvP flag up can be ambushed by other players. Even more, what if that open world PvP was possible only with members of other Grand Companies? People from the same Grand Company would truly feel like brother in arms when their PvP flag is toggled on. Obviously, it would impossible to PvP in towns, hamlets and in certain areas. Rappelz has/had a similar PvP system with open world PvP toggle on/off (with a 10 second timer to activate/deactivate) which worked wonders when I tried the game a long time ago.

- Free flight with flying mounts. A must nowadays, FFXIV need that too, no exception.

Ragnarok Online:
- Each class evolve into one or more enhanced classes. We will already see something similar with the job system in 1.21. Congratulations FFXIV devs! Keep adding more jobs too.

Final Fantasy XI:
- Realism and beautiful graphics. FFXIV already has that, congratulations devs!

- One character for all jobs. Once again, in FFXIV one character can experience all the classes too. Congratulations devs!

- Cross-platform servers and international servers. We also have that for FFXIV, thank you devs!

Flyff:
- Free flight and aerial combat. Definitely something FFXIV needs to become the most awesome game ever.

[Reyn]

- One character for all jobs. Once again, in FFXIV one character can experience all the classes too. Congratulations devs!

This is something I think most MMO's could take a lesson from. Being able to do everything on one character eliminated the need for multiple characters - alts were just storage boxes or curebots. As a result, I think everyone that played XI ended up far more invested in their character than most players do in other games. You've put years of work, built a reputation and made friendships all on one person. The community was a lot stronger for it, and it's that much harder to let go.

+ Storyline progression + Realistic graphics, some of the things I loved about XI.

Of course, I love the open worlds in other MMO's, and flying mounts. Swimming. So much fun to really explore every inch of your MMO's world and not get stopped by an invisible wall.