Which gameplay features actually have "mass appeal" ?

[Shiyo]

[citation needed]

I think AuctionGirl and Nipa nailed it.

Google.com - > Any MMO after 2004.

[HunkaMunka]

i would say cash shop and rideable rainbow ponies.. or telletubbies.

You and your teletubbies...who put the extra mushrooms in your salad???

[Chezen]

monopoly is different every time you play it.. why cause you are competing against luck (roll of the dice, and players roll of the dice) your strategy has to change every time you play. When you fight a marmot and it goes atk, atk, skill, atk, atk, skill and its a repeat of the same thing 10000 times over and over.. that's not a challenge... at least not the 1000th time you kill it.

Monopoly is still the same game though. It does not have updates, expansions, changes of monster's tactics, etc. A good monster should be like monopoly as you describe, where your strategy adjusts and changes with it. Marmots sure don't do it, no argument there.

Road blocks are needed, but not too large between content. FFXI did this very well, where you changed camps every 3-5 ranks usually or changed the mob you were grinding on constantly... this made battles not as bad, because the mobs got harder and/or new challenges. Right now in XIV... there isnt much to just go grind on (required to change places) because its just not there. You also arent challenged to save up/gather your next equipment because you can buy the highest one (even though you are semi-gimped) and just rank up to it. This needs to stop, you must make people set goals and change the challenge constantly. You must TEASE/TAUNT players on what they can get, or what unknown they will get when they reach X, Y or Z on the path. Road blocks cannot be 50 ranks before you get something or do something cool, but maybe 3-5 ranks is probably a good portion, and once a person invests enough time into their character they are more like going to keep playing.

FFXI did not get the numbers in subscriptions. Not bad numbers, but not staggering. So it's not the best example to look to when talking about the masses. The roadblocks in it were too huge, and made the game inaccessible to the average player. I would certainly agree though, it's pretty silly to be able to get to level cap in a week on any game, although there are those who want to (Why? ).

As for goals, I never argued that. The issue is the level of challenge/roadblocks in a game. People have to feel like they are making progress, and they generally have to be having fun on the journey. 3-5 ranks between major reward, be it boss battle and/or cutscene, etc, sounds good to me, but how long before you get there, and what was the requirement to reach it? If it's two weeks of just grinding (or leves), thats not going to attract masses. Which, ironically, is exactly what's going on in FFXIV. Not enough content. Not enough to do between major goals. In that respect, needing more minor goals, I agree.

[Elexia]

You forgot number #0 A decent engine and interface.

CT is a great engine. XIV is badly optimized.

[Speeral]

I dunno about most of you but i do grind parties alot instead of leve's and its not marmots either. There dobs, efts, boars, peistes, gnats, goats, grabs, puks, skele's people need to utilize the mobs in the caves there's terrific sp and fun to be found that actually have some challenge to them and reward great drops and need some skill to fight. Take a rank 30 group to tam tara or min tauy and u'll see how much fun that is. U only need four or five ppl there

[AlexiaKidd]

The thing was in FFXI it was about the journey to get that next milestone as well, just getting to cap was a fantastic journey well for me anyway and hitting all those milestones and the sense of achievement when you accomplished something felt great. I just don't get that at all in FFXIV and that is my main problem with it.

Once you hit cap which took a fair while, it was like the game was just beginning because there was so much to do.

[TonyMontana]

PvP has mass appeal.

[Randis]

Any feature that is well designed, executed and not too diluted by over-compromisation

[Aion]

in short,we want to feel we "GROW" our characters

[Seif]

Story, AH, goals worth fighting for. Interesting environments.