Finally! Someone that's not a negative Nancy and understands how much Henrik has done right.
Oh absolutely.
I love the ideas of MO. I used to say that MO is my favorite MMORPG of all.
Local resources, local banking, no teleportation. These things are not just "hardcore" for the sake of being hardcore, or realistic for the sake of being realistic, but because they introduce a new dimension to the game. If all the resources are pretty much available throughout the map, or if you can teleport from city to city, or if you can put something you bought or gathered in a bank in one town, and the magically access it from another town, that pretty much kills any need to travel. Might as well have a small map.
Other things like all the metallurgy stuff. You don't just dig some rocks from the ground, go to a forge, and magically get ingots. There are processes and tools that you need to use to get what you want.
Even tools are not local. For instance, blast furnace was only available in Gaul'kor. Totally great.
No in-game map. Again, it's not just hardcore for the sake of being hardcore. It really gives you the feeling of exploring, and actually trying to learn your way around the map, and not just rely on some GPS style in-game map (like they had for instance in DarkFall).
So, idea-wise, this game (subjectively, I guess) is the best.
Also, let me say a word about implementation.
Yes, it was lacking. But hey, think about it for a moment: it's an indie MMORPG from more than a decade ago!
People in game dev communities used to say, and still say to this day, that if you don't have many million dollars of budget, forget about it.
MMORPGs are only for billion dollar studios.
But here, an indie team pulled off a decent MMORPG that while it had lots of problems, was more than playable and was great fun.
So, now they have an opportunity to re-implement these great ideas with better, more modern tools (UE4) and more experience!
So, let me just summarize my hopes for MO2 as many people did since the forum came live:
1. Retain the local aspects. No teleports, local banks, local resources.
2. Don't treat crafting, resource gathering and generally all the non combat gaming styles as a secondary aspect of the game, meant to enhance combat. Treat them as legitimate gaming styles in their own right!
3. Boats, ships, islands! Generally, a bigger better map perhaps?
4. I gotta add: you had (in my opinion) a bad riding system at first. Then post Dawn, it was great, and then it reverted to the old one!
I personally think that there should be a way to ride a horse, at a reasonable speed without having to stop for stamina. Having to stop really kills the whole traveling experience.