I knew an MMORPG that:
1. Had over eight years' worth of content and updates
2. Was the first, and still the most popular, MMORPG of its genre
3. Didn’t limit you to only playing one realm per server
4. Never went through a server merge
5. * Had 14 different classes from which to choose
6. * Gave you access to 192 characters slots right out of the box, with the option to quadruple that amount
7. * Had over 1200 different ability set combinations for each of those 768 potential character slots at character creation, with nearly 3 billion total different combinations available
8. Allowed each character to have three different builds, enabling even more customization of ability sets
9. Let you customize the visual effects of your abilities, completely independently from their effectiveness
10. Let you preview your abilities during character creation and costume modification
11. Didn't affect your character's abilities by simply wearing different clothes that didn't match thematically
12. Decoupled your character's appearance from its abilities, providing complete creative freedom during the character creation process
13. * Had literally trillions of costume combinations available right out of the box, with hundreds more costume pieces you could earn, unlock, craft, or purchase, making over 4.5 quindecillion (4.5 x 1048) total combinations per costume
14. * Allowed each character to have up to 10 different costumes/appearances that you could switch to at any time, even during combat
15. Allowed you to write publicly-viewable bios/backgrounds for your characters
16. Allowed you to create an actual evil character rather than one who was simply opposed to another in-game faction/alignment/race
17. * Allowed you to change your character’s alignment from "good" to "evil" and back again, or stop at multiple points in-between
18. * Gave you special abilities that were only available to your character's current alignment
19. Didn't base your character's advancement on gear that could break, get lost, need repairing, or be stolen
20. Didn't involve politics or endless rolls for loot distribution – all drops were 100% random for every member of your party and dropped instantly directly to your character, privately
21. * Had a cross-server auction house with complete anonymity between buyers and sellers, and opacity of selling and asking prices
22. * Allowed you to obtain any drop you wanted or needed through the market or through regular play within a reasonable amount of time
23. Allowed you to convert unwanted drops into something useable for your character
24. Allowed you to save up in-game rewards to be able to purchase specific drops without having to use the market system at all
25. Didn't require membership in a guild to participate in any specific content
26. * Allowed you to build massive guild houses with medical, crafting, storage, and transportation facilities
27. * Allowed you to bring guests into your guild house to visit and look around
28. * Had 20 different methods of transiting between game zones, including across realms, resulting in some of the fastest play and travel times of any MMORPG
29. Didn't force travel along explicitly-defined paths as a time sink for traveling between quests and their NPCs
30. Gave you the ability to call quest NPCs directly rather than having to return to them upon completion, or for obtaining your next quest
31. Gave you your own travel abilities instead of using super-expensive mounts – or offered one for purchase cheaply at level one if you didn't want to take an ability
32. Was the first MMORPG to allow your character to be capable of fully unrestricted and untimed flight, without gliding or using mounts
33. Allowed your character to fall from any height without dying or swim in any water without drowning
34. Didn't place unrealistic restrictions on your character’s movement around terrain in game zones – "You want to climb that hill over there that you’d be able to in real life? Sure, go ahead!"
35. Didn't have XP loss or make you run back to your body when you died
36. Used a system of XP debt that was paid back after death, but still allowed for level progression
37. Left your characters with all their stuff when you logged back in – nothing decayed
38. Had over 30 different types of in-game locations (i.e., auction houses, hospitals, arenas, transportation hubs) where characters could earn temporary buffs simply by being logged out for a period of time
39. Granted temporary abilities based on being logged out in specific combinations of those locations over time
40. Didn't require spawn camping for specific kills/objectives – quests were your own private instances for you and your party
41. Didn't automatically force you to group with other players simply because of where you were or what you were doing
42. Didn't require you to "gather ten of those plants to make a good soup" or "kill five of those creatures to protect my herd" – 99% of quests were combat-oriented "go punch somebody in the face"
43. Used actual opening and closing doors for quest instances, providing more realistic immersion in the game world
44. *Had a crafting system that anyone could use without grinding raids
45. Didn't penalize your character's advancement or participation in content for not using that crafting system
46. Always gave you entirely new abilities when you leveled up, rather than just more powerful versions of old ones
47. Scaled your abilities' effectiveness as you leveled up, making them just as useful at max level as at level one
48. Allowed you to enhance specific characteristics of your abilities (i.e., damage, accuracy, endurance/mana cost, cooldown time, range, buff/de-buff strength), either with or without using the crafting system
49. Provided multiple opportunities to re-specify your character's abilities and enhancements, without spending any real money
50. Had complete transparency of your abilities' stats and costs so you could see exactly what they did and what you wanted to enhance as you leveled up
51. Didn't require your character's build to be min/maxed to be effective, though you could do it to your heart's desire if you chose to
52. *Had over 140 levels of content across three different realms that could be soloed at will by anyone willing to do so
53. Allowed free accounts to play characters up to the max level 50
54. Enabled players to find level-appropriate content with a single click, thus eliminating XP "dead zones"
55. *Gave players the option to travel freely to other realms to experience content on a non-PvP basis
56. Had PvP content but didn’t require you to participate in it to advance your character
57. Had compelling stories and quests to encourage players to enjoy the journey to the level cap – the game didn't "Start at Level X"
58. Allowed you to "flashback" and re-play lower-level content that you might have missed, with full XP credit
59. Allowed you to customize that "flashback" system with various handicaps for a greater challenge
60. Didn't have an ever-increasing level cap that invalidated or made obsolete lower-level characters, content, and equipment
61. Allowed you to create 8-person parties for basic quests and multi-quest "dungeons," or up to 48-person leagues for larger group content like trials and raids
62. Allowed you to group with anyone for most content, regardless of their level, and still earn XP credit
63. Allowed you to group with players of opposing alignments for cooperative content
64. Had an arena system with 15 customizable event types, from basic one-on-one duels to massive guild rumbles with up to 280 players
65. Didn't require the "Holy Trinity" (Tank/Healer/DPS) for party composition – any combination of characters was viable for virtually all content
66. Used Buffing and De-buffing support characters as "force multipliers," making your party much more powerful than you would have been without them
67. Had support classes with some of the strongest controls available in any MMORPG, allowing players to completely lock down even boss-level mobs
68. Had a Pet/Summoning class which could have buffs, de-buffs, healing, and damage all rolled into one fully-controllable "Army of Seven"
69. Allowed you to customize quests to be easier for the solo player, or as difficult as being in a full party by yourself
70. Let you call fighting 10-on-1 a fair fight, where you were the 1
71. Had a power-to-level-difference ratio such that your character couldn’t still be defeated by a mob five levels below you
72. Automatically scaled mob groups and ranks based on party size so quests weren’t pointlessly easy or insanely hard
73. Had multiple tiers of consumable buffs/potions (obtainable as drops or purchased from NPCs or the market) that increased your health, endurance/mana, accuracy, damage output, damage resistance, defense, or protection from status effects, or rezzed your character from defeat
74. Also had some consumables that affected multiple attributes simultaneously, or applied party-wide buffs
75. Allowed you to combine unwanted consumables into a specific one you needed
76. Didn't restrict consumable use to being in a resting or non-combat state
77. Didn't restrict repeated consumable use to a pre-defined interval
78. Allowed stacking use of consumables (either the same one or different ones) that could turn your character into a nigh-indestructible damage-dealing god for a short time
79. Would auto-rez your character if you leveled up while defeated on the battlefield, while also applying all top-tier consumable buffs simultaneously
80. * Had a highly-customizable quest creator system that allowed any player to make their own quests of whatever difficulty they wanted
81. * Had tens of thousands of solo-friendly quests made by other players up and available to play
82. * Had an end-game system that could be used by solo players
83. Allowed you to pause multi-quest "dungeons" to finish later at your party's convenience
84. * Had over 50 "dungeons," trials, and raids, ranging from level 1 to 50, and beyond
85. Provided a queuing system for those "dungeons," trials, and raids that could be accessed and teleported to from anywhere on the server
86. * Had nearly 1400 in-game achievements you could earn, the earliest of which pre-dated the Xbox Live Achievement system by over a year
87. Had a wide variety of rewards for earning some achievements, including permanent bonuses, temporary abilities, unique costume pieces, expanded storage capacity, or access to exclusive game content
88. * Had over 450 chat line commands that allowed you to do things such as interact with other players, change the UI, or activate powers
89. Allowed you to combine those chat line commands into powerful key-binds or one-click macros, providing an unparalleled system for customizing your game experience
90. * Had over 250 emotes your character could perform, including when switching costumes/appearance
91. Had a demo recording function that allowed you to record in-game activities, or edited to create your own off-line machinima productions
92. Allowed you to save/load costumes, preferences, and UI customizations for use on other characters
93. * Had global chat abilities that allowed you to talk to other players on other servers, regardless of the character names or realms on which they were playing
94. Allowed you to create your own and/or belong to up to 15 global chat channels
95. Had both local server and global friends lists, as well as a global ignore list for spammers or offensive players
96. Allowed you to take in-game notes and assign ratings on players that would be visible to you regardless of their current character
97. Had multiple levels of publicly hiding yourself from other players, allowing your gameplay to be as social or as private as you chose
98. Had developers who actually played the game, and who would occasionally log in as signature lore-based NPCs and roleplay them on the live servers
99. Would frequently have features added to the game that were specifically requested by players and implemented by the development team
100. Let you fight time-traveling alien Nazis with giant robots in Ancient Rome (yes, really)
101. Had one of the friendliest, most mature, and most helpful communities of any MMORPG yet to exist
Does it sound too good to be true for all these features to have been in a single game?
It wasn't. It was called "City of Heroes."
* Feature required micro-transaction purchase and/or active subscription to fully access.
** All features listed here were included naturally with the game and did not require any third-party add-ons to access.
[Edit: Restored list that was blanked out at some point.]