CyanHB wrote:

What do you think are the most important aspects of MMORPG's?

depends on what point of view.

money, maybe, from a developer's standpoint. can you get rich on this game?

CyanHB wrote:

The question is in regards to the player's point of view.

environments(zones, levels, whatever.)

if the environments suck, then the game presents itself as a total POS to me.

From the player's point of view, the most important aspect is gameplay earned versus money spent. If the game forces you to delay your actions, you have to feel as though you are still being enriched as a result of it.

For instance, World of Warcraft is largely described by critics as being the purest money-sink ever invented. Everything takes time: characters run slowly, and to get a horse to allow you to move faster, you have to invest several hundred hours of gameplay to earn the 50 gold coins necessary to buy one! Even worse, since you have to spend those 50 gold coins entirely, you have to spend even longer online in order to earn some more to buy the other things you want, like weapons, armour, spells, etc.!

However, ask any non-critic what they think of World of Warcraft, and they'll tell you it's an incredibly well-done, well-polished game. World of Warcraft is a good example of gameplay earned versus money spent.


Now picture Planetside. Although it's not a MMORPG, it is an MMOFPS. Many people largely claim that the game is completely impractical. Aside from a die-hard clique of gamers who swear by it, Planetside just didn't get the gameplay earned versus money spent equation quite right. Sony has already cut back on the number of servers it's hosting and in my best guess, Planetside won't last for more than a year or two longer.