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Zuranthium, World of Warcraft is that way: ----->
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I feel the need to go off on a tangent on MMO design, or at least, an aspect of it that bothers me and is prevelent in every MMO since WoW came out (because every MMO since WoW has been a friggin' WoW clone):
People get way too bogged down on creating unique abilities for each class. Stances, Auras, knock downs, knock ups, stuns, CCs, heals, whether they are focused on DoTs or DDs, AoEs, etc... it's just getting way too cluttered. WoW, for instance, has gotten to the point where every class has TOO many abilities, so many you can barely fit them all on the screen at any one time, when you only use 4 or 5 abilities for any given role. That's too cluttered, and breaks one of the simplest design aspects for anything a person could be designing: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
EQ1 is a prime example of KISS in work. There isn't a huge list of abilities, there aren't any rotations, and there isn't a need for stances or any of that garbage. Every class has its own unique play style; it doesn't need to give 50 unique abilities to each of its classes to make them unique.
Is bloating the games with so many things really that fun? Forcing people to min/max rotations and patterns with RNG factored in (nearly every game, including WoW), or combos (Aion) really necessary? Some of the most memorable games like UO or EQ1 don't need that much bloat to be fun. If you want an action game, go play an action game; MMORPGs are RPGs, and should immerse you in the game world, it's people, and get you to play with other people who enjoy the same world. This is the reason Oblivion (and by extension, Skyrim) suck compared to Daggerfall and Morrowind: They turn the RPG into an action game and suck all the life out of it, and this is the reason there's people playing Project 1999 rather than some new-fangled RPG.
EverQuest 1 did it right. Could there be improvements? Sure, but the core of the game was, IMO, flawless, and that's why over a decade later, we're all playing a Classic experience and not one that's been tainted by WoW.