I really hate it when I try to play an MMO with my friends, but the game won't let me:
- We are on different servers
- We are on different factions
- We are too far apart in level
- We are not at the same places on our quest chains
- It takes too long to walk or fly across the world to find each other
- One of us doesn't have good enough gear
- One of us doesn't have enough reputation status
We addressed all of these in Realm of the Mad God, with great success. In Realm, you can log in to any server with your character, and switch servers any time, instantly, for free. Tells work across servers, so you can talk to your friends no matter where they are. Realm has no horde/alliance split, and there are no level gates for content. If a player is skilled enough, he or she can take a level 1 character into the toughest situations, and with a group of friends, a newbie can advance quickly. Powerleveling is built into the game.
Realm doesn't have traditional quest chains and doesn't require quests for efficient leveling. Realm has no "gear check" dungeons or rep grind. The game lets players teleport to any other player on the map, with no level restrictions or permission required -- the ultimate in instagrouping.
We eliminated all of these pain points with a little rule-breaking and creative thinking. Things don't always have to be the way they have always been.