You know what impresses me greatly? When a video game developer puts in the extra effort to provide little touches and features that exist for no other purpose than to make the world feel more alive. Watching my character’s feet shuffle to adjust to a varied surface height, or seeing a flock of birds take off, or watching puddles form in a rainstorm aren’t technically needed to make the game function better — but they sure do suck me into its world.
I’m sure we could point to numerous small touches like this that already exist in MMOs, but today I want us to brainstorm together to think of ones that we’ve never seen before. What about vanity pets that could scurry up to your shoulder? Or waves of varying height on beaches? Or battle wounds if your character was greatly injured?
Now that the ball is rolling on this topic, what say you?