BTW: i have not read everything about what the developers are planning for this game, so im sorry if i state things that are already mentioned... but i think myself and many others will love to have these features in the game.
When I first look at this game, it simply looks amazing. It\'s not something that will be outdated within a few years, because it\'s definately possible to continually upgrade the graphics and underlying systems of the game.
One of the main things that should be implimented (softly at first, but more and more as game progresses) is the PLAYER CHOICE. Players should have absolute freedom of choice, and they must take responsibilities for those choices. If they wander off and get lost, they must get out themselves. If they die or get stuck when they go down a dungeon, that\'s their fault and they need to figure it out themselves. There should be no \"safety nets\", like an automatic system that saves someone who gets into trouble, or being able to \"save\" in a particular spot and if you die in a dungeon you reconnect in that spot.
Another thing that should be adressed is the landscape and structures, being able to go ANYWHERE in the game without unrealistic obstacles. Suppose walking down a forest path surrounded by trees, and its dark. Some games would not allow you to move into the trees, but for this to be realistic you should be allowed. The problem is, you would move slower and easily get lost in this forest - it would be a player choice to attempt something. The plus side is that it would create realistic opportunities for ambushes to be setup.
There should be no limit to where someone can go - even scaling massive towers if they so choose - of course they risk falling off and in doing so suffer the concequences of such a dangerous act.
Climbing should be controlled. Traits come together - stamina, agility, even strength to determine how high, how long, how fast you climb. Your climbing skill will determine the \"chance\" of you falling - if you climb extremely high, you have a better chance of falling, and in doing so you may die - a safety that a character could have himself may be something like a rope - he throws a rope that can hook into a structure so that when he climbs he cannot die if he falls. Also, the type of structure determines the chance of falling - and info is given on you\'re screen of the climbing ability you have for this structure - low (no problem), medium (you should make it), high (very risky).
All hills should be completely ROUNDED - none of the triangle stuff and pointy hills (looks extremely annoyingly unreal). Climbing should be realistic, as well as interactions with walls and objects. Your hands find places they automatically grasp so it looks real - sort of like spiderman crawling up a structure. You should be able to jump and grab ahold of the top of a fence if it\'s too high, and climb over. You should be able to run at a wall, jump, kick off it, and possibly reach the roof of a house. The roof will not be something hard to climb, a seperate animation will be needed - sort of crouch - walk with diagonal feet angles.
Walking speed should be increased. I know its realistic the speed we walk now, but its simply too slow. Hundreds of the people in town will simply be sprinting from place to place, which would look much more stupid than simply walking faster - walking speeds should increase by like twice in a town - outside, characters will have to run if on grass, but walk the same speed as in a town on a path. Running should take some sort of agility - which slowly diminishes. This same agility should be used when climbing. It fills itself automatically with you\'re health.
An NPC Police system should be implimented to control certain things. Characters are ALLOWED by the code of the game to ride a horse through a town, but if in-game police see you doing so they may fine you or simply take the horse to a stable while you\'re in town. Player interactions must be realistic - no running through each other. If you bump into each other, you actually bump into each other and pause for a minute. If two people collide head-on while sprinting, they will fall down and have to take time to get back up - this will cause tempers to flare between players like in real life. Constantly running in town should be frowned upon and hard to manouver.
Sprinting should build up speed the further you go and the straighter you run. Turning around a corner will slow you down a bit, moving to the left or right to dodge something (like running around a carraige) will cause you to slow down. - Chasing someone through the streets will be very interesting this way.
Another thing - an overhead type map in the top-right corner of your screen that displays people as dots, with yourself as a dot in the middle. Something such as a horse or your winged beast, or your carraige, or whatever will appear. You can add anything you want to appear as certain color dots - like red - while all other citizens will be displayed as relatively greyish dots that are harder to see. For example - you can put a friend on your map as a red dot (or color-code if you like. Friends - green, enemies - red, guild - blue, etc.). You will not be able to see them on your overhead map unless they are within RANGE of your screen.
Another feature: if someone steals something from you, you must maintain a visual on him for a certain amount of time. After doing this - he fails to get away quick enough - his name pops up on your text box and he becomes a red dot or something distinguishable. Because many people will look the same in this world, its a good idea to be able to distinguish with these dots. All important dots that you designate on your screen will have their NAMES displayed above their heads when you actually see them.
If the theif gets out of range of your overhead view, his distinguished dot goes away for about 5-10 minutes. You can still add his name as a bold dot to track him down, but it will not appear until 10 minutes after he stole from you.
Character models can look a bit better when moving, but they are fine for now... They just need more clothing and BACKPACKS that they carry around with things in them. The more things they have, the bigger their backpack. If they find something such as a sword or shield, it will be wrapped up and place somewhere like above the backpack/attached on the outside. No one will be able to see what the sword looks like, but they will know you\'re carrying something that looks like a sword. Everything you carry should be visible, but when carried on your back (not equiped), it should be wrapped up and possibly smaller, so that no one knows exactly what it is. Equiped weapons such as sword should be strapped in its case to your side and visible. Your shield will either be carried or hung on your back with your backpack. All armor will be visible as well, so that the certain things you equip change your appearance. And of course, some people will unequip items like helmets, and maybe equip standard clothing like pants and shirts in town, just to make themselves more presentable/less dangerous looking.
In town, there should be different modes you go in. If you\'ve just been in a battle, you are in offensive mode - if attacked by a player, you are injured normally and experience normal combat. If you are in a neutral mode, you are harder to attack, harder to select for attack, maybe harder to steal from, maybe faster running, and you will have much of your battle equipment off to enable this mode.
There also needs to be different distinguished classes of players. Players should also be able to choose DARK races. Dark races can be powerful demons that mean to harm the good races. Dark races can only befrend the few other dark races and monsters, of which they cannot control, but only tell them to follow them on hunts and such. Only certain players can become dark players, and this only happens after a certain QUEST you do when you get to a certain level, which is very difficult. This will keep the number of dark players to a minimum, but also make sure that they have much knowledge of the game. Dark players will be VERY hard to train, all skills they previously had will be taken away, as well as items. Dark players must live in the shadows, and although evil must remain neutral as much as possible, so that when they one day reach fame and glory, they can rise up and become a dangerous foe to heroes of the world. The heroes must then set out on quests and massive battles to destroy the dark players, whom have humanlike traits that will add much to the game, including drama (ex. a dark player appologizes for doing this, he suffers as he is hunted, he wants to become good - people won\'t let him/don\'t trust him, etc...)
Massive battles need to be organized - like huge monster armies raiding cities, where the inhabitants must rise up together to defend, or risk losing their houses and everything they worked for. Some cities will also become under siege by much larger armies organized by powerful bosses of the game, where some hundred of warriors must be recruited to defend in these massive battles, where even battalions of a hundred horsemen are recruited to charge at the army and destroy all of their enemies. Massive army attacks can also be organized by the hero players that emerge - powerful warries - that summon warriors to attack a monster base. If successful, all of the riches will be gained by the players, and the entire base be whiped off the map. In this way, the heroes have major impact on how the world is. Developers will have to keep on top of this, creating balance. If monsters or players begin to dominate too much, the game may get boring.
*A vampire race would be very cool to create.
