For me the first thing you have to do is convince me I'm playing in a large, well-crafted persistent world. Current MMO design fails at this when every zone is a segmented isolated experience with level appropriate quests and items for 1-15, then 15-25, etc etc. It's even worse to me when the climate radically changes, like oh yeah I'm in Desert Zone 1-15, now it's time for Lush Green Forest 15-25 that transitions instantly once I step over the boundary into my nextcagezone where nothing of import carries over and everything I've accomplished in the last zone is replaced. They don't even try to hide the treadmill aspect, they embrace it.
And then pretending it's some seamless world because you can technically go from one zone to another through the tiny hallway that connects them (and fucking nowhere else on the map) is just such bullshit design. Even Everquest was better with actual zone lines, at least I could cross over at the location of my choosing for many of them.
I feel like there's some Build Your Own MMO Kit out there that everyone is following now, they just grab these pre-fabricated pieces and stick them together. Things have become so predictable and mundane in these games. Where's the magic and wonder in any of this? What's the primary goal when making your game? There's just no mystery of what's over the next hill in these games, you already know before you got there because you've done all this before. There's just no fucking adventure
