What I would like to see in a MMO

[Axis]

Kind of long

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I'm not an expert on MMOs, I've only played World of Warcraft, but this is what I would like to see from playing it.

Different ways to level up.
It's hard to get in the mood of a benevolent holy priest or paladin that only fights to protect the innocent when I find that the only way to level up is to go out and slaughter thousands of random animals.  I would have several different trees to level up from.  Craft, battle, scout, healing, and maybe diplomacy. 

Most are self-explanatory, but scouting seems important to me from my many self-made adventures on my druid while exploring areas that are far too high a level for me.  So that's why I would add missions that involve exploring and spying and recon. 

Diplomacy would be an umbrella term for talking.  Learning new languages, haggling with merchants, and eventually negotiating treaties for your faction.

Shifting factions and class
Instead of alliance or horde, and set classes, everyone would begin as a peasant with several schools of choice to go in to.  Magic, melee, clergy, and hunting.  These would then split further and so on and so forth. 

For example
Melee->Shield or Sword
Magic->Damage or support
Clergy->Light or Darkness
Hunting->Bow or Tracking(Tracking including stealth-type abilties)

Eventually you would be able to cross over to other schools to further specialize.  However, the deeper you go into one school, the shallower you can go in another.  Certain schools would favor different ways of leveling.  Craft would be, however, a much more open path.

Your faction would shift based on your class path.  A dyed-in-the-wool dark clergy would be smote down by the wrath of God if he got anywhere near a holy shirn, and a tracker that went into assassination wouldn't be invited to any Lord's manor.  Certain classes(e.g knights) would require a Lord to obtain their rank.  This would put them in a faction that based on the actions of other players(Diplomats, assassins, raiders, etc.) would shift how others react to them.  Assassins would rarely have a set faction, instead working on basis of money, however other factions might have a vendetta against him for killing someone.

NPCs that can die.
Your Lord is a little incompetent?  Well, that can be taken care of.  Borrowing from Total War, your leaders would have bonuses and negatives based on the action of your faction.  A young king put on the throne because someone knocked off the old one may not have a lot of experience and might become attached to an old crone making him easy to manipulate, another might be keen on cutting off the heads of his enemies for looking at him wrong.

Along with NPCs that can die, the castle can be captured.  If one faction loses his last one, he'll become a faction-in-exile and continue on as rebels.

Player quests
From having someone killed, to sending martial or material aid to a besieged allied Lord.  Players could offer up rewards for quests for others, and, depending of their standing with factions, the completer of said quest would gain esteem with one, hatred from another. 

******
Yeah, they would probably need a super computer to play it, but it's nice to dream.

[Reese Tora]

There's one game I can think of that fits your idea for advancement (more or less...)

I'm not sure I'm allowed to just come right out and pimp the game, though.

You should still have to do something related to a skill to advance it, though; I don't think any game should allow advancement in areas that you don't use to earn the advancement.

For instance, I think it would make no sence to advance combat skills on experience earned in diplomacy, scouting or crafting.

I like the NPC thing, but the problem with that is you'll have every kingdom with child kings if you use that, because someone will decide it's more fun to kill the king, and without factions it will be pretty easy for someone to walk up and try to kill him or her.(the first time, anyway...)

One thing in game design that needs to be very clearly defined in at the very begining is how to take into account that, if you let a player do whatever he wants, he WILL do whatever he wants, whether you imagined or intended that they would or not.

I'd like to see more "realistic" inventory systems, involving volume and stacking as well as or instead of weight.  I'v actually ahd some thoughts on that.  you could still use abstract numbers to determine everything, because noone likes playing tetris to get at stuff in thier in-game backpack, but the idea that I'm limited in carrying things by thier volume, and that large stacks of some items would be volume efficient, it just makes sence to me.  Alas, it's not exactly 'fun' so would be unlikely to be included.
High-level items might include bags of holding with exceptional volume capacities, or with no volume limits at all.  WoW suffered from a similar market for bags as high level players coveted exceptionally large abgs to hold thier inventory, since they were limited in how many bags could be equipped,a nd in how many bank slots they had... I was always just at the limit of storage capacity.

[Fuyudenki]

there are only two things I'd really like to see in an MMO, and they're linked.

1: no level cap.  Everything is a derived value, so you can take your derivations into the stratosphere and beyond.

2: player-made equipment, to go with the lack of a level cap.  You can take a job as a blacksmith, etc..., and custom-build armor and equipment for target level ratings.  The effectiveness of the equipment would be based on the crafter's skill and the craft "roll" he got, and the look would be totally custom, built with a relatively simple set of polygon shapes, and painted with a set of textures.  You'd run into some really ugly, and really cool-looking armor and weapons.

[Boog]

I while ago some friends and I were toying around with the idea of not so much a class system as a reputation system. Your stats and rep change based on your play style, and certain reputations will give you access to certain other Abilities. For instance, if a warrior character starts playing like a rogue (sneaking through areas with beasties several times his level, accumulating loot via various inscrupulous methods, etc) then their dexterity will increase while other stats lower, thieves will start to show them more respect and maybe teach them new moves, etc.
Also, more non-humanoid playable characters. Just for the hell of it.

[Xuzaf D]

I want a game where I can pimp overweight elf chicks out to needy dwarfs. Also, I could video tape the action to blackmail the dwarfs away from their precious metals. 

[Metal Juggernaut]

* MGS soldier exclamation thing that goes ding and he chases you* WHAT?! dont do that to dwarves they're  awesome

[Xuzaf D]

You wouldn't think they were awesome if you saw those blackmail tapes...

[Netami]

I want player housing.

[Axis]

I don't, I've played a Tale in the Desert.  I could walk to the deepest part of the desert and not find any real-estate worth anything that hadn't already been taken.  Trying to find river-front property was out-of-the-question as it was basically one unbroken line of player property that started as soon as one ended.

[ITOS]

MMOs needs apartments, not houses. It's really much better to live in a city. It's closer to transportation, shops and other services.

If only your own apartment (or one you've been invited to) loads you can have hundreds of attractive apartments near a city center or even in the same building. You just choose who's apartment you want to visit before you enter the building.

[Reese Tora]

The most successful MMO housing I've seen took the form of a 'house' in an instanced space you could invite your friends to.  All players used the same portal (or one of several portals), bu the actual house occupied an are off of the main map, which provided unlimited space for plaeyrs without cluttering the landscape.

[Kryptic]

I want to see a real version of "The World" from the .hack games. I liked the way they worked the "field" system in the game. There were literally hundreds of seemingly random play areas, based on key words.

And I always say yes to player customization. That's why I love Morrowind and Oblivion - you can customize, mod, and change just about everything. Specifically character looks. Call me vain, but I really can't stand some of the weird graphics in some of those games... I don't like the look of WoW. And Runescape... they don't even have faces.

So, "The World", and Elder Scrolls online.

Actually, everything in the original post, you can do in Morrowind/Oblivion. And there's housing.

As for Axis' complaint - I think the better idea is to have it as everyone's "house" in the same location, but customized to the character inside. I think the closest I've seen to this (dare I say it) is something like Puzzle Pirates... *gag*

[Aridas]

what doesn't have faces?

[Kryptic]

Players - like, when they're walking around... It's freaky. I don't want to live in a world of stick figures. >,<

I'm just a graphics person. I'm picky.

[Aridas]

I don't think we're talking about the same thing, because I definitely see nothing like you describe it.