There's a lot of good features and ideas out there in various games, some are just 'fluffy' some are truly great for adding depth to a game. I'm going to look at five things that I have seen in games and would be good in WAR. This list is in no particular order, just a oooh that's gud!
1) Weather effects. (see Oblivion)
I've already touched on this subject before and still would like to see it. The world can feel quite static with no sense of weather or natural events happening. Would a downpour of rain be that hard to put in? A flurry of snow in Kadrin Valley or the dust storms in the land of the dead... Even Ultima Online from over 10 years ago had the weather changing...
2) Epic Encounters. (see DAoC Dragons)
Yes.. yes.. It's an RvR game... But still, 200 people raids on Dragons and other monsters are just epic.. Seriously, imagine a Daemon Prince or Emperor Dragon on an instance that takes an alliance to kill, drops a couple of bits of epic loot and of course is within reach of the other side so you have to risk going into say Order lands to take it on. one eye on the dragon.. one eye on the approaching Order...
3) Improvable Banks (see World of Warcraft)
Oh to have a smaller bank space on start.. BUT to be allowed to purchase more spaces for the gold we save up. I'm a cultivator, apothecary and tank.. I have multiple sets of armour (rvr, dps in pve and tanking) so my bank is full of stuff, not to mention tokens, trophies and bits and bobs from live events. I seriously need more bank space and I hate making bank alts... Gief more space!
4) Truly destroyable and upgradable keeps (see Medieval: Total War 2)
There is one point of attack at keep in WAR.. The door. That's it.. Nothing else, no strategy involved in assaulting a keep. Just zerg it until you break down the door or give up because the defence is too heavy. Let us truly siege the keeps, break down walls and towers and give us multiple choices in what we do. Though to counter this, give the defenders more upgrades, more powerful siege weapons and towers that would protect them from aoe and snipey ranged DPS. Finally, when you take the keep, whoever claims it has to rebuild it depending on the damage done. So if you destroyed all the towers then let the claiming guild repair them or leave them as basic platforms on the walls. A keep which is taken with the minimum of fuss (IE, through the doors with no damage done to the walls) would only need the doors to be repaired and upgraded as the claiming guild could then keep the existing upgrades (barring NPC's of course). Speaking of NPC's, how about allowing us to purchase wall defenders that can shoot arrows down rather than just trashy NPC's that disappear in the aoe. Don't punish guilds after they have upgraded and taken a keep, make the initial cost expensive but the maintenance lower, and once a zone is captured then there is no cost for maintenance.
5) Quick Start (see Star Wars Galaxies / DAoC)
Can't find a picture of this and have to admit it's been a long time since I played SWG but I'm pretty sure they had the quick start option as well (know for sure DAoC did). Quick start basically gave you the option on the login screen to go straight to your character. You have your username and password, then you just pick the character you want to go to and it would immediately load you into that character. No loading up the full character select screen, or anymore rubbish you don't actually want. I only play one character so I know who I want to play when I login, I don't want to 'make sure' by having to hit play once I've logged in.. Just let me log straight in and smush stunties!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So that was my five things from games I'd love to see in WAR, how about yours?