Farseer Lolotea said:
I've said this before (albeit not here), and I'll say it again. An MMO with all of the following traits:
"Skill sets, " of which the player could choose any of a set number, rather than classes. (Levels are tolerable.)
A character advancement system that's not too grindy or repetitive, and gives you a wide range of possibilities. (Doing fetch and twenty-bear-asses quests would be possible, but not required.)
A wide variety of distinct (and occasionally weird) races from which to choose, but no race-defined faction system. Player characters should be highly customizable, with several different physique templates per race available.
Graphics that are smooth, consistent, professional, and somewhat realistic without sinking into the uncanny valley. The color palette should avoid either muddiness or over-saturation.
A highly interactive and dynamic environment. Smooth and lifelike character animations, and acrobatics of the sort that you'd see in a few console games that I could name (but which I've only really seen in one MMO, namely DDO), are a must. As for "dynamic," combine something like the "phasing" mechanic in WoW with Rift's plethora of world events.
Intuitive gameplay. The controls should be relatively easy to figure out.
And, of course: good writing.
As I've stated elsewhere: I'm sure the system reqs would be ludicrous.
At the risk of sounding like a fanboy: you may want to look into guild wars 2.
Skills: There are classes allright but they do have this system where each class has a big bag of skills but you can only ever have 10 at a time available so you have to mix and match. It works a little different for every class. For example: for the mage it depends on what kind of weapon you are holding (staff, wand,...) and what element you are attuned to. Both can be switched in combat.
This makes combat way more intuitive I think because you already made all the big strategy decisions when you picked what skills to bring. In games like WoW where you have 63 skills available I felt like I was trying to play a game of chess in 30 seconds: way too many options and way too little time. So you just end up facerolling.
Grind: hard to say until you play but they promised an even levelling curve which means it should take just as long to get from lvl 1 to 2 as from lvl 99 to 100. They also have this global contribution system for areas instead of just a series of quests. So instead of having to go find 10 doodads and killing 15 deedods there are a bunch of tasks available and you can do any of them for as long as you want and it all contributes to "completing" the area. In a demo they showed this area where there was a war going on and you could do things like just kill enemies, escort supplies across the battlefield, man a cannon and shoot guys, resurrect fallen friendly NPC's and so on. Random events also pop up like "building x is under attack! go help defend it!" Which seemlessly brings me to my next point which is...
Dynamic/interactive environment: the best thing about those random events is that they phase! Like if you do not defend building X, it will be taken over and you can try to take it back. It also affects the other tasks. For example: if the supply outpost gets taken over there won't be any supply carts to escort until you take it back. In another demo they showed this pirate attack you had to repel by manning cannons on the shore and firing back. If that fails the pirates will actually set up camp on shore and you have to destroy their camps before you can go after the ship again. If that fails they will attack a nearby town, which you can than defend and if you fail it will be taken over, and so on...
Races/character customization: No two opposing factions? check. Personally I think that's a shame though. Good customization with physique templates? Check. It's not as over the top as aion but from what I've seen so far it's way better than WoW or TOR. And unlike some other MMO's the physique types are actually different. Humans can be bodybuilders, mousy, and several options in between.
As for races they're mostly not that exotic except for one. There's humans (duh), charr (kinda like furrier taurens), norn (really tall viking humans), azura (really short and really smart, so basically WoW's gnomes) and sylvari. Now the sylvari are pretty cool: they are supposed to be sentient plants shaped like humans and they did a good job of showing that. For example their faces may look pretty normal from a distance but if you look closely you can see it's actually made of leaves, twigs, etc.
Graphics/animation: I think the graphics look amazing. And as for animation, I myself already noticed things like how your character does a little skidding move when you stop running. And the attacks also look really smooth. So yeah, I'd say they've definantly put some work into that.
But this stuff is really hard to describe in words so by all means, go check youtube for yourself. Seeing is believing! (See what I did there, farseer?
)
As for acrobatics, many of the attacks I've seen are pretty "kinetic" if you know what I mean. PvP seems to involve a lot of knocking people all over the place and all classes can do a rolling dodge to avoid attacks.
There is one disappointing thing so far though: the story. They promised a big personalized story with cutscenes and bioware-like choices. But what they've shown so far doesn't even hold a candle to TOR.
So yeah, there you have it. The bad news? No release date yet
Though it is in closed beta right now.