The Perfect MMORPG

[unsubdued]

Trey and I started talking about the ideal mmorpg and the elements it would incorporate, and here's what we came up with:

Character Customizations:

Your characters physical appearance should be largely customizable (face, skin tone, hair color, hair style etc. in the manner of EQ2/Star Wars Galaxies)

Choosing handedness/the off hand. I've never seen an mmorpg allow you to choose left/right handedness for a character, but Trey and I both agree that it would be a nice option. Hey, not everyone is right handed!

Customizable clothing in the manner of DAOC. This means not only being able to choose clothing that is strictly asthetic (such as a nifty cloak/hood), but also the ability to dye the different pieces of armor that you own to create your own unique style. (see also, Ultima Online)

Multiple voice options. It would be nice to have a couple options per gender and race, rather than a set gender/race voice. As Trey just said, "I should be able to decide if my character was once slit in the throat. See Highlander!"

Options:

You should start with a map. Not necessarily a great one (see EQ2), but at least a decent one (see DAOC)

A worldwide banking system. A place for you to store and access all that nifty stuff that you don't want/can't carry with you, but still want to hang on to. All that coin can really weigh you down, and the last thing you want is to be encumbered!

A binding system. The ability to bind to certain locations in the event of death/use of transport spell.

Skills/Abilities:

A summon spell for certain character classes. It would really be nifty if a spell existed that would summon a group member to the caster. This would cut out all that wasted time waiting for a recently resurrected group member to fight their way back to you. (Trey thinks WoW and maybe FFXI may already have this feature).

Every scout/ranger type class should have the ability to track people/mobs. What kind of ranger CAN'T track!? I mean, honestly.

Skill/ability chains (see EQ2's heroic opportunities, FFXI's skill chains, and DOAC's combat chains). This is when a sequence of moves/events has a synergistic effect, leading to an additional ability/move/event (buff, damage, debuff etc).

Racial attributes. EQ2 got this one right on the money. We all know that certain races have the ability to see in low level light/complete darkness etc. An mmorpg should stay true to the racial advantages/disadvantages universally accepted.

Distract. The rogue-type classes should have the ability to move a mobs attention in a desired direction using high-tech devices such as thrown pebbles. (See DAOC, and possibly WoW)

The ability to use different combat styles, such as thrown/ranged weapons or dual wielding should be a trainable skill, even if the class does not begin with it. Eligibility for training should be based on a character's stats (ie. a character must have a certain strength, dexterity, intelligence or wisdom etc. to be able to receive the training).

Environments:

Instanced dungeons (for groups and/or individuals)

Scaling dungeons, aka the difficulty of the mobs inside increases with your level/the level of your group.

Miscellaneous:

Crafting. Someone has to be able to make crafting better than it is now. Not necessarily as fun as adventuring, but at least worthwhile. (see a Tale in the Desert)

It's dinner time so I'm going to go ahead wrap things up. We'll add more to this later as we think of things. Feel free to chime in and add your ideas to this via comments.