I most certainly would love to see something like this to happen, especially that there is no real post-apocalypse MMO out there. But it would have to be handled properly, better than any other MMO out there even WoW.
There are major factors that need to be considered in order to have this project successful. So I took my time to prepare these ideas that perhaps would work. It’s only my own ideas guys, no need for severe hate if you don’t agree with it.
First and foremost we need:
New Universe - not named after actual places in real life such as Boston or Vegas. However we can still base it on US culture (Nuka-Cola, newspapers, American signs, car styles and all that). The idea is to have all kinds of environments in one Universe close to each other but without making a complete nonsense due to names and locations for example NV environment was rocky desert, so it would be kind of stupid having area locations named after Boston right next to it because we know the Boston is based on the West Coast. We can add some tropical areas, jungle, underground cities, snowy areas, skyscraqer towns, lakes – literally everything what we saw from post-apocalyptic movies such as Planet of the Apes, Mad Max, Escape from LA, Rats: Night of Terror (pretty cool horror), The Thing, Book of Eli, Waterworld, The Road, I am Legend, Snowpiercer etc.
Lore and interesting and engaging storyline – Lore that will make sense but also the lore that will leave plenty room for game development in expansions. How world looked like before, what cause destruction, how radiation affected animals and humans. What new threat emerged, new factions, monsters etc. I think it would be nice to hire some known writer to help out with that.
Zones – We need a lot of zones, I say around 20 zones of the size of Fallout 4 map should cut it. Each different with environment, monsters, factions and different with experience gain as well. I know we can earn 60 levels easily in Fallout 4, but I would like to see maybe 5 levels per zone.
Starting Area – 4 vaults to choose from to avoid over-crowding areas when game come out. Class would be based on character occupation chosen in pre-war world. More about it in class related point.
Quests - The quest model in F4 is really good, I would tweak quest rewards a bit, let players choose what they want, weapon, armor, supplies or caps. Group quests, dungeon quests, clan/guild quests, daily quests. I would introduce same quest model from WoW, not only kill and loot. But also gather 10 of these, escort and so on.
NPC’s – There is plenty room for imagination here. Animal and animal-mutants, humanoids and humanoids-mutants ect. We can use same scheme that WoW use. For example Super Mutants to me reflects Ogres in WoW. We can have differently looked super mutants, differently named, armed, inhabiting different areas, hostile, neutral or friendly giving quests and rewards. All monsters whether hostile or neutral factions would respawn after certain time of being killed.
Factions – Known factions from previous series to tailor main quests around them and also lesser factions with daily quests awarding reputation and on the highest possible reputation awarding certain traits to character for example better armor, guns, vendor discounts, skill related bonuses etc.
Scavenging – More of a bonus I would say. In addition to monster drop, I would like also to see buildings with containers that can be looted BUT the loot would respawn inside containers after x hours after looting in world map. Low level area respawn rate could be a bit faster, while high level areas bit more slowly but at the same time contains higher quality and better value items. Still quests, monster loot and professions would be as a main way to gain wealth.
Healing – Stimpaks for instant in-combat healing with use cooldown. Other than that, out of combat food and drink, maybe bandages.
Traveling – Scrap fast travel, introduce “hearthstone”. And car mounts which require to be fuelled in order to drive it. At the same time make fuel scarce and one of the most valuable and expensive items.
Currency – keep bottle caps, introduce currency sinks like gear repairs, standard wear and tear as well as -10% durability on death as penalty.
Main town hub/ Bartertown – One big town of the size about 10x Diamond City. With possibility to buy own house to store items and of course auction house.
Survival elements – Introduce mandatory eat, drink and sleep. If character is depleted with food it would deal less damage up to say 50%, if character is thirsty then health pool would be depleted up to 50% and lack of sleep would cause character to receive up to 50% extra damage. Each element would drop by 1% every hour. Of course it just a suggestion, but it could be played around.
Weapon and Armor – 9 piece armor, helmet, chestpiece, gloves, bracers, shoulders, belt, pants and boots, rings and necklace, different kinds of armor as well, leather, mail, metal . Physical, poison, radiation, projectile resistance, maybe more mods added to armors. With weapons we would have melee weapons for fast, medium and slow from simple melee weapons such as clubs to army knives, hatchets. Bigger variety I would see on projectile weapons. I really like the weapon progression in F4, however I would add more kinds for example Desert Eagle with magnum ammo as ultimate pistol, jackhammer as ultimate shotgun, more sniper rifle options as well. And energy weapons as the ultimate kinds of weapons with scarce ammo. So basically the more powerful the item is, the ammo is more difficult to acquire.
Junk – junk items that are used for crafting. Some rare and some common. Either acquired from drop or from professions such as skinning dead monsters, picking flowers or glowing mushrooms etc., maybe introducing mine nodes. I believe the good old say “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” would have a good use in here.
Character classes and skills – well, most certainly we can’t have mages, warriors, paladins or warlocks, so that idea would have to be considered thoroughly. My initial thoughts was to pick a class based on pre-war occupation, for example doctor who will be able to patch wounds, heal crippled limbs, create stimpaks and so on and military would have experience in fire arms thus able to create ammo from raw materials and better use of weapons. Each occupation (class) would have own skill tree where it can further develop in specific way.
Races – The “Horde and Alliance” idea seems to be pointless in this case. I would prefer one Universe for all. So play as Human, Super Mutant, Synth and something else.
Strongholds sieges/End game content – instances for 3-5 people or raids for 10 people with more loot, chance for fuel, special items, more experience.
Item rarities – Normal, commonly dropped from any enemy. Uncommon, moderate chance to be dropped from a pack leaders. Rare – normal chance to be dropped by stronghold bosses also as low world drop. Unique – normal chance to be dropped by 10 man sieges, also very low world drop. Legendary – Very low chance from top bosses in 10 man sieges.
Guild/gangs/clans – Own clan settlements with farms and water supply which would require players to work on farms to grow food.
PvP – PvP arenas, PVP servers (that would be funny especially when camping by oil rig for fuel to respawn ;D), duels. I am not a big duellist enthusiast but I would suggest some melee arena in underground of barter town where people can place bets on themselves, something similar to brawler guild in WoW but against each other or PvE.
Crafting – Different professions, health drug maker (stimpaks,radx,buffout), armor maker, weapon maker, item mods maker, mount maker, cook and so on. Lots of options here.
And last but not least…
World map suggestion
http://imgur.com/ZfAREGF
I fully understand that most of the ideas are heavily based on World of Warcraft, however the WoW model proves to be the most successful due to extreme variety that suits all kinds of people, however there can be also a lot of other unique ideas, not present in any other MMO. And I do believe trying to cross the line and create “next gen” MMO would be one of the biggest achievements, and it would be definitely huge success for Bethesda, which actually care about their customers.