MMORPG Design Idea

One thing that I have always enjoyed about MMORPG's is housing. We started these games with housing in UO, SWG, and various other ones, and then summarily lost this come launch of WoW, and the clones thereafter. With WoW it was only acceptable at release, because they said they planned on potentially releasing an expansion with housing. There was also the catch that the game was extremely sculpted and the potential for playerhousing urban crawl would destroy the feel of the world.

With later MMORPG launches the issue of player housing has been a major topic of debate for potential buyers of the game. Many games before release tout that they may or may not have housing at release, or will launch it at a later date. This is, personally, a problem. One of the best ways you can keep a player coming back is not the quest, level, or exploration aspects, but rather the social parts, such as crafting, housing, and the like. Without this cornerstone of the original MMORPG idea the games are a shadow of what they were before.

This isn't a hit on the many mechanics games like WoW have. On the contrary, I find WoW and the others to be extremely fun, but they always have that X factor, the catalyst that keeps many people hooked for a year or longer missing. I guess, in closing I'm trying to say that for me the X factor is is the Socialbility in the games.

What, dear reader(s) is your X factor in games?

~Xi