So, I was thinking yesterday about how an MMORPG could come out and be better than WoW. Most games these days that try to beat WoW always just try to emulate it, now there are others out there that don't, but they still follow a lot of the same formula that WoW uses. WoW beat out Everquest by doing something new. Everquest was a grind heavy MMORPG, then WoW came out as a quest heavy one, and completely beat out Everquest by having a much better leveling system. So essentially to make an MMORPG better than WoW you can't just keep doing the same things, so I came up with my own ideas for an MMO.

First thing I decided should go was the quest leveling system, in place for a system less focused on leveling, and maybe even getting rid of leveling overall. Instead the game would be more focused on getting better gear(More inspired by Dark Souls than it might be by Diablo 3. In Dark Souls you could wear high level armor at a very low level, and use a lot of high damage weapons at a low level. The only 'real' determining factor was skill.)

Gear would also change. It would still follow the casters wear cloth - the tanks wear plate scheme to some extent, but it would involve a weight counter. This means that a tank wearing heavy plate has less maneuverability than a rogue wearing leather, but take less damage. The rogue on the other hand would be faster, but take more damage. The gear would be changed drastically to fit this, and would probably work more on a gear-set system in which each set has certain bonuses, and sets can be mixed to spread stats around. Meaning you could be a mage-type character wearing plate, yet you would have near no maneuverability, and none of the correct stats. You'd be able to take more hits, but your spells would do only base damage, and you wouldn't be able to move much.

The weight counter also factors into another system I think would be good to see in something like this. A manual dodge/block. An enemies weapon would only do damage if it connects. This would help get MMOs away from the traditional DnD style that they always go for with warrior-tanks, mage-casters, and priest-healers. Rather this would make the need for a solid tank a lot less, and the need for a healer significantly decreased, if the guy who hold most of the threat is a good player.

There's a lot more things than I thought of that can be said here, so if you have any ideas for improving on this post 'em.


This whole thing is a lot less refined than I'd initially intended for it to be, but yea. Just a few ideas for some mechanics that might help an MMO beat WoW.