I played TCoS this weekend for a few hours and walked away extremely unimpressed. The combat is fun, if a bit laggy for me, but everything else in the game felt like the stale old thing.

I long for an MMO where the first quests aren't "Kill five bears/wolves/rats/etc"

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I felt the same. I ran in the beta for a while and not only was I bored of the game quickly, I also found everyone around jaded and rude. Not much community.

Personally, I long for an MMO that encourages people to work together WITHOUT relying on the trinity. Most MMOs do ok in the crafting areas - for items you can't buy from vendors.

What I am thinking of is a game like Star Trek where you need a crew to operate a starship. If you don't have an enginner, gunner, navigator, etc... you just can't take full advantage of the ship. Yes, one person can pilot it, but just not as well by far. Same with a Star Wars or any sci-fi space game. Small ships/fighters/individual transports for the lone wolf. Big ships need a crew. And starbases can be build by guilds that need a ton of micro-games to keep functioning.

In the fantasy realm, having a team of players captain a ship. You need people to play a mini-game to keep the sails trimmed the best. People on canons. Someone plotting the course through the sea currents, etc... Even caravans where large wagons are pulled and guarded by a team of players.

In all games where players can combine abilities to form a stronger one. Not buffs, but literally mages combine their spells to create more powerful casts. LoTR sort of has this. But more so, fighters working back to back. If one player uses a skill and you use a complimentary skill it does more damage. Or you can combine attacks.

Same with crafting. Instead of making a person a gatherer, crafter, seller role - maybe multiple crafting in a mini-game to make a better item. Gathering where large items take a team of people to carry it back to a town. In space it might need a large vessel with a crew.

Basically, finding teamwork games that are not necessary, but are fun and provide a bigger reward. More incentive to play together - make PuGs more useful than just a dungeon run.

I remember a C-64 game where you took over robots, slowly building to more powerful ones as you went. Each time you took over you had to play a micro-game to win control. It was pretty darn fun. I think there are room for micro-games of skill to accomplish big picture things. A micro game like the one above would be a good start for interesting engineering challenged in a starship - like the challenge of re-routing power through the ship. Then you might actually look for people for your crew with *real* skill over some random number they have achieved through grinding.

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