I think that the reasons for playing an online RPG are different for each individual who plays them. I myself play World of Warcraft nad before that have played many of those free korean developed and loosley translated into english games. For me the motivation to keep dropping $40 every two months (I live in AUS) is that I need to increase my overall damage output so I can stick my middle finger up to those elitist crackers and get a decent result on a raid. Raiding is probably the most fun aspect of any MMO as it usually gives you better gear which for me is pretty neat since my class gets a poor amount of drops...

Most MMO's have an overarching story or lore that governs or guides players. But it is usually ignored, I stopped paying attention to WoW's story at around level 15 and just pestered my guild as to where to go next to get decent experience and loot. The story itself isn't very interactive is generally shared through quest prompts and guess work by the player (If you skipped certain quests or whatever and cant be bothered going back for them). While levelling and exploring and experiencing the story it's easy to justify the $40 every two months but if there wasn't anything after that people would stop playing which is where end-game content comes in.

End game content (in WoW anyway) is essentially anything you do after hitting level 80. Basically this is doing random dungeons (and hard mode versions) for tokens so you can buy some better loot, do wintergrasp (100v100 pvp ... I think) which generates tokens for itmes to help level your alternative characters, and you can also do raids. There are different raids you got 10-man (which are easy-hard depending on which one you do) and 25-man (which are hard) which you run to earn loot and achievements to upgrade your character with. There used to be bigger raids a while ago, but that got nerfed...

Anyways, I hope I helped you answer your question with this post somehow... I'm sure I've just rambled on about nothing and in no way have helped.

-Linktheking.

Edit: I only play for roughly 2-4 hours a day. It isn't very demanding on my time.

You could alwyas uninstall the game, delete the game folder (mine defaults to C:\Unreal anthology\Ut2004[or somesuch]) then reinstall the game. Of course you'd have to reconfigure the options and that, but that's easy enough. Oh also, you will have to re-earn Malcolm and the rest of the unlockable characters, but you can .ini edit for that...

Dungeons that require most of your inventory to pass/complete.
A more actioney feel (I had a dream once that Zelda had a Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry Gameplay) this is probably not as important.

More exploration.

No Wolf mode... also no fetching light balls before/after dungeons.

Awesome story with a bit of a more adult feel (The fans that grew up this game aren't kids anymore, stop treating us like them! Especially like in Tp with the insanely easy boss fights and extra insanely easy enemies, did anyone actually die in battle in that game?).

An atmosphere of some kind (like a light comedy feel, or a dark tone... TP kinda was dark, but it wasn't exactly gritty).

Take it back to exploratory roots!

"Gannon"

Im all out of ideas now..

Freelancer, By Microsoft.

It has millions of mods and is simple to do.

www.lancersreactor.com