I'd like to suggest fl dungeon crawls. Basically we get new large dungeons that players can choose to enter with rewards scaling based on level, and chosen difficulty. Maybe an easy dungeon is gonna be like a faction, where a hard one may be more difficult like desolation. Give boss mobs advanced progs like barbarian skills, bmg, or permanently slowed undead kinda thing. These dungeons could be pretty simple to make, and the eq could be identical to high end stuff we have now. As well as quest markers for completion of x y and z dungeons. Some encounters maybe don't even need you to kill a boss. Imagine being inn a huge labyrinth with a mob chasing, and you have to find a key to unlock a chest and that chest has what you need to exit. Things like that
Rotating dungeons
A similar idea shamelessly stolen from another mud: mobs with brand-new items being implemented for a limited timespan (one-two months before they disappear again and something else shows up).
For example:
A note is sent out about a group of nomadic druids appearing in the Everwilds to attempt to purify the Witch Woods. 3-4 brand new items are brought into the game: let's say an unique caster mask (-ac, hp, and mana), a rare one-handed spear, a rare tribal necklace (svs vs mal, hit, and dam), and a decent pair of non-rare boots. The druids aggro undead/demons/avatars but are otherwise standard strength level 50 mobs.
There's no major RP surrounding their appearance, they stick around, and then leave (people who still have their eq won't lose it, but you won't be able to gain it again in case it's sacrificed). Might even want to make the better items rotdeath.
Next set of items come from pilgrims arriving to the Cloud Giant kingdom and they carry special monk beads, noremove/nouncurse torso robes spellforged with bless arms, and a pair of earrings.
There are some really neat benefits of implementing a system like this:
- You can put brand new equipment into rotation that won't make or break the game because they won't be around permanently. This allows staff to experiment and make interesting progs/spellforged/etc without it being around forever.
- We create a world that is changing and adding new minor things every so often without putting a huge load on imms. Write up a mob or a few, add items to it, and send a note to all.
- We can experiment with weapon types/nouns/armour benefits/etc and if something is well-received by the playerbase it can find its way into the game in a more permanent fashion. While a permanent inclusion of spellforged bless arms is a bad idea, having an unique around for a couple of months that allow it might be a neat thing.
It's just something that crossed my mind recently but I forgot to post it.
We are already discussing things similar to the above suggestions.
Id just like to see a mob like the laconic linguist kind of mob that asks if you would like to embark on a quest to clear out the blah blah of blah blah blah. Or to find the secret behind the great blah of blah. Maybe create just a pool of 10-15 dungeons of varying flavor, and the "linguist" mob randomly selects one per world shift for everyone to try.
Or for the Destiny players (I know there are a few here from discord) something like the prison of elders where you have maps that rotate each week with specific objectives.
I want all of this in my life.
I'll throw in my two cents: I'm rather partial to something as simple as an upscaled guild quest to hunt down some mob - rather than just target you at something that exists, have it spawn a demon or whatever with stats based on the PC's level and have it just be a wandering mob within, oh, say four areas. If the PC hunts down and kills that demon within a day, it drops a procedurally-generated unique item with random stats/naming that is owner-only and rotdeath. There'd need to be an upper limit on successful hunts to prevent this from becoming just a better way to equip than party dungeon crawls - say no more than three such items per character at any time, and the quest can only be done once every few days - but it'd give people a productive option for filling downtime and introduce some extra equipment flavor, as most characters would over time start picking up a small handful of items that are truly unique to them without getting too much power out of such. Particularly long-lived characters could take pride in how long they've wielded their Mace of Doomnessness, and knowing for certain that death will cost you such items adds just a bit more risk when engaging in dungeon crawls and PK (and a bit more sweet catharsis when you take down that fully insured enemy and know you've still cost them something that mattered to them).