Sooo just a bit of background - I'm currently playing SWTOR and it's obvious that Bioware has never made an MMO before. There are some basic functionalities that are missing. Which got me to thinking about what absolutely has to be there for me to play and what just niggles me to the point of irritation if it's missing. Listed in the order they came to me, not in the order they would be show stoppers: a. Must have ability to use arrow keys for movement - usually if a game uses WASD it will also let you use the arrow keys - reason this is a big deal to me is that I mouse with my left hand. Since I play MMOs with my hubby the game also has to have WASD since he mouses with his right hand This is not a problem in SWTOR at all, but it came up recently in trying to play FTP Lineage 2 - it was a show stopper. b. Ability to ignore and friend players - unbelievably you cannot friend a player in SWTOR who is not online, very very irritating. I do have to say that I've had no reason to ignore anyone yet as gold spammers have not found me yet but I bet it works the same way. c. Windows that open and close and can be moved around like hmmmm windows. I swear whoever designed the UI in SWTOR (and several other games) needs to be sent to some real world training class on how normal people use computers. Honestly, if you want us to get immersed set up the UI for stuff that isn't particular to the game as close to how non game windows work, unless it is something involving combat is there any reason to reinvent the wheel? There are quite a few more but have to stop posting and get back to real life work - what kind of quality of life stuff drives you nuts if it's missing or implemented wrong in an MMO?
Agreed "b. Ability to ignore and friend players": In Champions Online, where you befriend the account not just the player, you cant ignore friends either. This gets really annoying, since you'll always pop-up in their friends window no matter which character you're playing as. Also, in Aion, you couldnt friend someone unless they were online, and agreed to it within a time frame. Yeah, really gotta make sure you wanna be friends, lol.
I've never used the arrow keys in a MMO or really any game unless it's required. Hmm.. I can't stand games that don't let you to really go "advanced" into the settings for graphics.
Games without WASD, that really drives me crazy. I'm not sure what you mean by C since I haven't played SWTOR. B sounds quite lame.
I can live without nearly anything if the game is worth it. Some things that I prefer to have, and make the game a better experience for me are... - Good FPS -- Having my screen stutter whenever another toon blinks, or even thinks of blinking, makes the game unbearable to me. If this happens I usually just curse myself while dramatically thumping my forehead against the desk for my inability of purchasing a good enough rig. - Full UI customization -- Resizing, dragging/dropping, importing HUDs, etc. really is a special plus for me. It allows each player to specially tailor their visual communication with the game world however they wish. I think those are my top two. I'll probably open hand slap myself as this thread grows, and I see several other functions that I shouldn't put on this list.
I didn't even think of that one but this is absolutely the most important, I need my fps above 30 at minimum at all times or I'll go insane.
For C and SWTOR - it's basic windows stuff that is missing. You open up your character panel, your inventory, and try to open crafting and one of the windows closes (can only have 2 open at once). You try to move windows around and you can't do that. Your companion comes back from a mission and all your open windows close. I guess I'm really spoiled by LOTRO - when you open up all your windows to craft and have multiple chat windows open - sometimes you need to move your windows around a bit, LOTRO lets you do that. Heck if you want to you can fight with windows open.
Several games I've played have a feature that lets you be anonymous (you are logged in but don't show up on friends list or on guild chat etc). Feature is fantastic for letting you get some play time in when you are feeling antisocial.
UI customization: resizing of windows, moving of windows, resizing of action bars & moving action bars, etc, etc. Should all absolutely be standard upon release for any MMO these day. Absolutely agree. Bioware really dropped the ball on this and thats why for the past 1.5 months they've been working steadily to fix that blunder. Luckily in the next good sized patch they will be implementing some of these things and then in the next a few more. The ignore/friend thing is also a little nuisance. Not something that bugs me too much but I agree its silly set up that way. Other things that should be in game the ability to search whatever version of an Auction House system is in your game by the exact name of the item you are searching for. Believe it or not this too is something BW did not put into SWTOR but rather they make you fill out all sorts of silly category requirements before you can even actively press the "search" key on the AH interface. This is a catastrophic fail imo. The AH is the lifeblood of the in game economy and if you make it difficult to use or annoying even, then people are going to stear away from it due to the poor design. This will only create a gap between those with the patience to utilize the subpar interface and those who get agitated by it. (You might not think this is such an issue but SWTOR has made it clear that it truly is).
Exactly. Honestly some of this stuff has never been on my must have list but once something you take for granted behaves differently than you expected it suddenly just niggles at you until you become very irritated. It's also kind of funny that if Bioware was going to use a drop down list narrowing method they should have let you also pick which character slot you wanted to search for. I'm guessing they don't realize that we are all used to shopping online and expect some of that same functionality in our in game auction houses.
1.) Report/Ignore with 2 clicks to eliminate those gold spammers. 2.) Account security measures that link in with your phone. (text validation number) I cannot slide into the old days of spammers/hackers and other things that can completely ruin a gaming experience.
