One of the things that WoW uses in it's simplest form is the "hardcore quests" (or high-level quests). Adventures targeted to high-level characters, usually requiring special equipment (which means raiding again and again dungeons to get it).
But for me that's not a "hardcore quest", is just a hard-difficult quest. The difference is that a "hard quest" can be just a simple "kill all of them" with high-level monsters, while a hardcore quest is one that puts the intelligence of the adventurers to test, as well as their skills and combat habilities.
For example, in Eye of the Beholder there was a level plagued with teleporters. The map was apparently simple, but you were teleported (and switched direction for further disorientation) from one part to another.
In Berks Worlds, there were just a few "hardcore elements", and still quite simple: Get some runes to be able to access the boss chamber, hidden passages in some dungeons.
But all of this is changing. With the latest patch, some new dungeons are in place and being polished. Dungeons not only for high-level players, but with hardcore quests, true "RPG" quests.
I can't tell you details, but one dungeon is going to be specially hard. Very very hard to finish. With lots of smaller quests that will give you access not only to new sections of the dungeon, but to lore about the creatures that inhabit it.
And not only that... the server is getting some non-dungeon quests. Without giving details }:) There will be some very very hard-to-find-and-complete quests, really hidden and hard to resolve...
Things like "dice rolls" for dexterity, environment-aware objects (to allow complex interactions), advanced enemies (with complex patterns and uncommon properties and skills)...
Amazing things that I haven't seen in other Ultima Online Shards... But things that I've always wanted to see in Computer RPGs.
After reading this Escapist article about escort missions in videogames, I can't agree more with the author...
Escort missions with computer NPCs is just nonsense... almost every time it becomes a pain. It is not entertaining nor "fun" to become desperate just because the computer is in suicide or stupid mode (the two most common cases).
Recently, in The Witcher game, (playing at normal difficult level) I've had to give up one escort mission just because the stupid lady I was escorting home was aggroing all the monsters towards her, making impossible for me to "protect" her (of course she had quite small life, so few enemy attacks and pum! dead).
After more than 7 attempts (trying different tactics and paths), I had to just leave the girl die and fail that quest :(
Please, until we can get really smart AIs, forget about escorting missions!
There is an old, hidden cathedral. In that cathedral, there are no living beings as we know it.
If you could enter inside it, you would see ghost-like figures walking among it's walls and columns. But they are not normal people.
They are the data monks. Neither human, neither machine. They wear grey monk robes and hoods. They move silently, but yet you can hear whispers, but not human whispers...
The work day and night, gathering data from the world, classifying it, collecting it, coding it. Building all the world information like a mirror.
They have no senses, no fears, no thoughts. They just build their exact copy of the world.
But they dream. When they sleep, they dream with being able to live that world they keep building and building. They dream with being normal people, with having all those feelings and sensations they try to mimic in the digital copy.
Reading The Escapist Magazine, I've come across an interesting article called "Are you evil?". The author writes about playing evil characters, distinctions between just being evil and "really evil" (for example, killing low-level players, being nasty, and so), and about how people in real life can be good, but the environment can transform you into an evil person (or at least, behave like a bad person and do bad things).
This reminded me how real are the things said in the article. At Berks Worlds, after around 5 years of playing either as a player or a GM (administrator), I've seen lots of examples of good and bad behaviors.
We've had a big variety of players:
I'm sure I'm leaving more categories, but it's a good example. One interesting "special" class that usually appears at online communities are the players that behave good or bad at the game but become really evil at forums (insulting other players, being too prepotent, flooding with stupid posts, and such).
They can be really nice in real world, but the semi-anonymous feeling of internet makes them behave bad when posting at a game forum.
As a conclussion, even now, in single-player games the option to be good or bad can be achieved. In Bioshock you can harvest the little sisters (young girls) or save them. If you harvest them, you get more Adam (a special liquid used to get better powers, more life or "mana"); if you save them, you get less. Will you be greedy, or noble?
I choosed being good for the first walkthrough, and now I'm playing bad.
My motivation? I don't know, in other games like Star Wars: Kotor (I & II) I always play the Dark Side, because I love the idea of being a powerful dark-jedi/sith, being able to do my will even if it's being evil.
Maybe that's why I choose being true neutral at AD&D/DnD...
Yesterday I had an argument with one member of the staff at our UO Shard about "what if you lose everything?", referred to tangibles (money, objects, the house,...).
It was interesting to notice how many of the players and at least one of the staff members calculate their sum of "gameplay experience" just based on those tangible things.
But at least for me it's different. One of my friends, Radagast, taught me that tangibles are the least important things in an online RPG. All that you get in your virtual life in an online game are pals, friends, good times, an "old" character with good stats and skills, knowledge, adventures, stories to tell others... and at the end of that, a pack of possesions that come and go, volatile things, whatever they are (money, armors, weapons, a house...).
Possesions are mere tools to enjoy the game, not the most important subject of it. If you lose a good armor, bad luck, but you could also win a enemy armor, equal or better than yours, and that's the only way to trully feel the adrenaline pumping in your brain while PVPing. Or the risks of trying to defeat that fearsome red dragon that lives deep inside the mountain, if you prefer PvE.
That's my point of view.