Some might argue 3. crafting, but it is mostly related to creating tools for no.2, fighting.

You mentioned it, building a boat. Stuff like that. I repeat myself, but Ultima Online allowed people to chop wood, mine ore, skin animals, take their meat, cook it on a fire. Even housing had more options that EQ2 and LOTRO have together combined.

The lure of progression and power, combat and fancier graphics won in the end, as EQ became the template of most MMOs today, not UO.

Going back to the roots and taking some aspects of Ultima Online when it comes to interacting with the world around your avatar could be a real enrichment to the virtual world.

Right now MMOs are time-consuming entertainment. The amusement park is paid for time spent ingame, so it does a lot of things to make sure you are kept busy playing and paying.
The whole story and things you can do in MMOs could be experienced in a fraction of the time, but then what? Game over?

Exactly. Because the player himself can do next to nothing to make the world more interesting. Especially with such a limited set of activities that evolve around fighting mobs or players or just talking. Talk can be awesome and entertaining, but I still say we need to be able to interact more with the virtual world to make them better.

SWTOR seems to take the story approach to entice gamers. I think this will work wonderfully till players hit the “endgame”, which is usually grinding or raiding or a mix of both nowadays.

Games need to offer more things for players to do and explore, and not put them even more on rails by giving them a list of achievements to do in lack of any better ideas or things players could do.

The best thing is actually dumping the whole game in this case and playing another one!

80s for me meant Vampire. And one of the reasons those WW games got so popular (and drew in so many more girls) was the more character driven style. Obv for a lot of people that played out as trenchcoats, katanas, and superheroes with fangs but people were more encouraged to RP than in the previous D&D type of game. Also indie games these days use game mechanics that try to encourage RP just by using them, it’s all quite interesting I think.

Roleplaying is part of a RPG, it’s not the only part. And there’s room for the rest also, but it isn’t really what I’ve been talking about here. Ideally the minmax and strategy side would all somehow feed into the immersion in the end. eg. I want to play a combat monster, I can tweak the stats to help me /perform/ the role more effectively, while still /playing/ the role via emotes.

People talk a lot about doing what you said, but when I look at the games that do, all that happens is players wind up full loot pvping each other.

Again using old SWG as a reference, I recall a great many players saying it felt more like playing Uncle Ben than playing Luke, Han or anyone else who was out having adventures.

It sounds more like you’re after a role-playing-encouraged Virtual World, minus the Game part.

Me? I want both. I want an awesome GAME with awesome gameplay, awesome character control, awesome (read: diverse and meaningful) character advancement, AND an awesome Virtual World where I can do more mundane things like building a farm up from a single field to perhaps getting multiple fields and starting a business. Building a boat so I can take the farmer’s daughter on a quiet RP date. But the GAME part needs to be there too, or I’ll quickly lose interest with nothing of any meaning to actually do in this Virtual World. It’s why I don’t touch things like Second Life. They are Virtual Worlds with no Game attached.

http://www.noobz-online.com/en/2008/07/31/rppvp/

No where does it every say (even worse on so-called “RP” servers) what is expected of a player in a MMO like WoW. There is no contract or instruction manual. There are no penalties for not following the rules because there are no rules.

Imagine any other kind of group, club or social group without some semblance of rules and organization. It would be disastrous and would result in anarchy and chaos. Yet somehow 11.5 million people log on each day without a clue of what they as players must give back to the virtual world.

Why does leveling always have to be the ultimate objective in a MMO?

Why can’t I just RP a farm hand, marry a pretty girl and settle down to a simple, pastoral life of tending the crops?

Well the answer is that companies like Blizzard don’t want you to do this. They want you to ride their amusement park ride on rails and experience their “story”. The only way to do this is via leveling: the more you level, the more narratives/quests/loot/geography becomes unlocked for the player.

Until we break this formula into a million pieces and scatter it to the wind, only then will we be free of slavery of the achievement mindset.