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voyager2001dl said
Oh, and there is elite dangerous, which had too many controls, (which normally I like filling the entire keyboard, but that was insane) and all the controls weren't even bound from the start, so I had to spend almost 3 hrs coming up with a control scheme that halfway worked, and still have to go tweak it when I find out I cant do certain things simultaneously, or didn't figure out what a certain control did before binding it.

If I was single and had no other time commitments I would have spent a lot of time on Elite Dangerous. Probably bought a VR headset just to play it. One of the most immersive games I've ever played, but...yeah, the time required to play it is prohibitive if you have other demands on your time.

Since no one else bit on this, I'm going to give a wider answer, not just MMO's, in case it's useful.

I did play League of Legends for over ten years, and will still play with friends on occasion. What kept me playing was the diversity of the gameplay loop - it's a perfect blend of frenetic, reaction-based moments that season the multiple layers of bigger strategy required for the whole game. And since every game has a unique blend of opponents, teammates and items every game feels just different enough to be interesting while remaining familiar and understandable.

I have also just started another replay of Alpha Protocol. It has many faults, sure, but it is one of my most replayed games because of the game's *responsiveness*. There has been much theorycrafting around what "interactivity" means, but for me the most compelling parallel is that of a conversation: each participant makes a statement, which is understood, considered and then responded to appropriately. When any of those steps fail, the conversation, the "interaction" suffers. You "talk" to a game via your inputs, and they respond via graphics and sounds. The step in the middle, however. where they "understand" you, and respond *appropriately* is where we still struggle. The interactions rarely rise above "shoot them, they shoot back". Alpha Protocol did an amazing job on the world and characters in it responding in nuanced ways appropriate to behaviour and conversation choices. One character comments on the style of clothing you're wearing to a mission. Another lists the order in which you played through the middle section of the game. Those are quick examples that affect nothing but your immersion, but that level of detail applies all the way through allowing an incredible variety of endings and that's keeps me coming back.

My third, and oldest game I still play is the original UFO: Enemy Unknown. The remake is good, but I still prefer the depth available in the original. And again, it's the sheer variety in how the game plays out that keeps me returning. Every single mission is different enough to never get boring. It runs the thin line between chaotic but controllable. You're never quite sure what's going to happen but with practice and skill you can be confident you'll be able to deal with it.

In summary then, what keeps me playing games is a variety of experiences. Small and large scale decisions made within a responsive world. City of Heroes was so much more fun to play than other MMO's because you fought groups, not individual enemies. That meant every group you fought was slightly different depending on the composition. You quickly learnt to check for sappers when fighting Malta. Tsoo sorcerer's changed the entire way you fought. And so on. If you want Ship of Heroes to have longevity, then for me this would be the key - lots of different ways of changing how a fight feels. Enemies with keynote skills, environmental hazards or buffs, etc. Layers of combinatorial explosions that mean every single encounter is fresh *enough* to be interesting, and where different choices have different results.