FoMK == sexy.
If indeed it's an NC killer then I hope they stole a few things from NC that I like.
1) Constructors and Researchers are more than just dead weight, they can fight, sometimes very very well, and the quality of the items they make are better than those that are available anywhere else.
2) Rares. I have a lot of fun searching for rares, collecting them and trading them. Not to mention building them. (Having my name on a rare is a very cool status symbol) Having a pseudo black market player driven economy around rares is a lot of fun.
3) Vehicles.
4) A good variety of combat types. Many games really slack in this, only a very few of them have a "pet class" (remote combat, such as drones or elementals in AC2), and most often they're done poorly. While droning is rife with bugs, it's still a hell of a lot of fun. While I can't pick of a rifle and wade into battle, I have yet to be killed in an OP war. For variety in many games you're often limited to heavy, light, or ranged weapons with an occasional magic or support class thrown in, but often times the underlaying character is such that he can do any job with the proper training. I really enjoy the way NC limits the fields, and achieves this with a fairly good level of balance (though that balance gets hosed all the time).
5) Player controlled resources, in other words, OPs. Gives the high level people something fun to do
Things I hope they've avoided:
1) FREd
2) FREd
3) FREd
4) Did I mention FREd?
Okay, so I've skipped over a *lot* of things that NC has done wrong that I hope FoMK does right. I just hope that FoMK comes out late enough in '04 that we're all bored of BDoY, and can all make a shift over to FoMK and have all our friends there when we arrive
