Quests and its basis

[localman]

However, all of this assumes a rock solid heavy world. You live the zones and the world, so to speak, and are really connected to your character because you don't just walk over everything.

The monsters are on par with the player and the fights last longer than they do currently. The mobs also get different good AI's missed and are from clumsy and stupid, to "use many talents" interrupt, run away and get help etc. all represented.
Wolves hunt in packs and are only feasible for solo players if you are 8 levels above say... and then they give but less EP....

Levlen takes a long time, but there are very nice long class quests, with a lot of story and well crafted stories well conveyed. The talent trees are more complex, because as I said, talents can still be developed in itself and you have to decide.
In addition, there is also the specialization in the classes with reaching the maximum level then in 2 new final classes. And again, the path continues in terms of real development and without these sports arenas that we call instances.
This all takes place on a completely different level, because it's exactly these things like end-game isis, solo play and itemization that destroys the RPG in its foundations, or better said it doesn't take place and therefore converts these games to these sports games.

The MMORPG genre is actually built completely differently from the ground up. And that would work great, if it would be approached properly and the genre would develop there.

There is so much bonding power in it and it promotes in this dependency system with co-op principle and not competition, extremely the friendships and thus ultimately also the guilds.
This has worked 1000% better before WoW and was lifted with the competition and solo play principle within a few months to a year completely out of the seams and has caused serious damage in the community.

[localman]

Of course, you can no longer clumsily bring a pure mobgrind today. At least not obviously, because it still has to serve as a basis, of course. It is just hidden much more skillfully and with a better adventure feeling and rewarding and motivating game experience and no longer seems like a stupid grind.
In addition, the development is also constantly coupled to it and the world, as it is typical in an RPG, is only given a kind of reward in the form of a quest, including a good story behind it, when you explore and reach certain passages.

In addition, so many things are feasible today that could be implemented much worse back then.

There are a massive amount of players who would love this kind of MMORPG, and even more players who have been waiting for this kind of MMORPG for ages and don't like the current endgame and solo games at all.

It's high time to bring back a real MMORPG. Proper in the sense of how it actually means the genre.
As I said, today's modern MMORPGs are not really MMORPGs according to the genre.
Even the many aRPGs tend extremely in this end-game tunnel around bosses and items.... D3 has also ruined itself, among other things, and D4 will meet the same fate, if you think to forget the actual RPG game and build an endgame game.
D1 and D2 were successful for a reason... They were still real games, without an endgame and that's why they were so good.

Endgame eats up RPG and its content and solo quest games massively prevent all the typical elements that make MMORPGs MMORPGs in the first place...

[Seera1024]

And again:

Your changes would likely be the death of this game.

People play this game for what it is. You drastically change that and you risk alienating the player base.

This game has spent 10 years being what it is. You don't change drastically this many years into the game unless things are desperate. Like numbers are way down and no sign that they are going to increase any time soon.

Your changes would be better suited to a new game.

[Iscah]

"Things that define the genre" do not matter. The creators of an individual game get to decide what they do with their game, and if people like it, they've made a good decision.

[Tierala]

while I do like a lot of these suggestions and would love such a game...I have to go with what others have said that its generally a bad idea to change a game so drastically this late in its life.
this is more like a suggestion for a new game.