Well heres some of my ideas since it's in the topic of this thread, just copy and pasted bits from here and there on my hd.
New ideas for the game
Farming/plants
All plants should spawn on their own accord. You must ensure plants/trees have a water source or they will not spawn. I originaly was thinking they will die but it will be hard to get water to all plants so you can still do it the old way and they will go through the usual growing phase. I was thinking it is possible to completely farm out a species of plants but in a pre determined area of the world each plant in a different location of course one will always be available to avoid them being extinct. Weeds maybe could sprout up MODIFY: on unclaimed land. and be cut down with a farmers scyth and somehow used as fertaliser to help your plants grow faster. Compost bins may be made with carpentry and 4 bits of board with hammer and nails.
Mining
The rarity of ores should be greatly reduced and you should only be able to mine them once. Once they are gone you have to mine elsewhere to find them. The mining map should be auto reset every week and ore spots randomised so next time the map resets it will show a different ore in the same spot. The elevation of the land above the spot you are mining should be reduced by 1.
MODIFY: Artifacts from old quests may also be found
Guild
Guild leaders have the power to purchase 4 pieces of land as ther guild hq or "base". Each member of a guild can buy 1 piece of guild land at the cost of 10k so one can make guild towns.
Animals
A male and female of the species will be required for an offspring. The animals need a source of food/water and warmth in the winter to reproduce successfuly. Originaly I was thinking that animals can become extinct but if it gets to the stage where there are for example no cows left there will be auto spawn spots of 1 male and 1 female in pre determined spots in farms around the world. Maybe some wild monsters could re populate in this manner but of course re spawning in their corresponding lairs as opposed to farms.
MODIFY: Animals also eat grass to feed
MODIFY: And of course wild monsters may find other things as food like themself or other monsters.
Weather
Flood/droughts will offer a new experience for farming and floods may have the power to change the shape and elevation of the landscape, reducing towns to ruins while drought lands may cause plants to die or not grow at all. I am thinking that plot land may auto recover after a day or 2 when in ruins or a player may use the /fixwall command to rebuild on plot land. Claimed land will most probly wipe your land perhaps.
MODIFY: The grass may also not grow in a lack of water causing there to be a desert like world in areas with time of drought.
Towns
There should be one centralised town and all other towns be totally player made. An admin may be required to convert it to plot land and add appropriate npc's. I always thought it was nice to let the players decide what kind of world they wanna live in. A general rule to avoid over crowding would be maybe 1 town per sector.
MODIFY: In the centralized towns npc traders never run out of money which makes trade skilling worth while.
Quests
1 quest for every sector
Some more thoughts
Quanth, Quanthsars and Quansith are much rarer but once you use them on the item you may take them out and whatever enhancemnt it provides it will become that kind of gem upon removal. eg: use quanth on hessite plate and it becomes a hessite plate +12 melee def. By using your hand on the plate again the quanth may be removed and become a gem of +12 melee def. The enhancement is still random but the gem may be removed and becomes that kind of gem upon removal.
MODIFY: of course the gems will wear out with use and cannot be recharged and removing them from the item turns the item back to normal
2nd level on house
Monsters spawn under ground and ability to dig under ground. Eg: when a mole chief is almost gonna die it could go back under ground.
Sky level and deeper ground level. Also maybe a sea level and hell level where you'd need special equipment to enter.
Desert area you need water in your inventory and it uses 1 every 5 minutes or something. You can get water out of cactuses and such with the apropriate farming level MODIFY: and cooking knife. Wearing anything with a warmth value will increase how often you need water. MODIFY: while in the desert
Support from ground level by using support beams or walls from the normal ground etc would have to be required for like balcanies and second floors and such for houses since you can't build a wall in mid air.
Mining needs more than just one ground level, the deeper you go the rarer the gems. And a larger array of preciouse and semi preciouse gems eg: onyx, amethyst, opal etc which may be made into variouse other weapons or armor. A black onyx would be perfect to make the blade of an onyx scythe with the black smith skill. MODIFY: or perhaps the jewlery skill.
MODIFY: Artifacts that can be dug up there is a 1 in 10 chance of a bone/undead type monster spawning at the mysteriouise dirt covered hole that you unearth. Some monsters to include as examples for bone would be: Bone drakes, skeletal mage, skeleton, skeleton warior, skeleton miner, reanimated bones, bone golem, bone gorvor etc. Some example for undead would be, zombie, ghost, specture, wraith, corrupt soul, bone soul etc.
Law/government system
Public hangings for criminals when caught. The town guards will attack anyone who is a criminal and when defeted you will either be jailed or hanged depending upon your criminal level.
MODIFY: You will need a friend to bail you out of jail
Killing an npc is equivilant to killing a player consequently adjusting your criminal status acordingly
Have different levels of criminal status depending upon how much you pk. Like white is normal, yellow 1-5, orange 5-10, red 10-15, purple 15-20, black 20+. Different levels effect how much stuff you lose and penalties etc when you die.
MODIFY: There may be a system to decrease your criminal status or it may simply fade over time
Alignment system depending upon who or what you kill. Ranging from fiend, malevolant, unkind, neutral, kind, virtuouse, paragon. Differnt alignment have different advantages/disadvantages and a symble system next to your name may be used to identify your alignment. MODIFY: Note that The Devil and Angelic alignments may only be aquired by performing special tasks for certain npc's and give you full benefits of your alignment.
*The Devil: Devil symbol
Fiend: red skull and crossbone
Malevolant: White skull and cross bone
Unkind: angry face
Neutral: normal face -
Kind: smiley face
Virtuouse: green plus
Paragon: White plus
*Angelic: angelic sumbol
Each time you kill a good, neutral or evil monsters you gain or lose alignment points depending upon the alignment of the monster. Say for example you have 100 alignment points and you start killing good monsters your alignment adjusts acordingly. Monster power may effect amount of alignment you get say for killing a cockroach you get 10 good alignment points where as killing a dog or cat will give you 10 evil alignment points. A scale of -10000 through to 10000 may be used where 0 is neutral.
With this in place it is quite possible to be a paragon player who's a criminal of black status
Town guards attack all criminals
With the alignment system maybe prayors may be the reward subject to discussion
Runecrafting (scratched)
Macro preventative measures
Of course we all know the grayvn clones and bandit ambush. For training something like say a crazy man walks up to you called The Crazy Man and you have to talk to him by clicking on him otherwize he will cause you massive damage. He will be some rediculouse level like say 550. If you talk to him, he gives you a crystal fragment and then leaves. Get say like 12 of these and it makes something like a sith or something. Ignore him for more than 30 seconds and he attacks. This is a very good way to stop macroing and rewards those who do not macro while punishes those who do. To prevent somebody else clicking on him he just simply says I'm not talking to you or something along those lines if you click him and he is not yours.
Animals also feed by eating grass to live
Magic (scratched)
A new system of magic where as opposed to learning the spell a list of the current spells show all greyed out with graphical representation of each spell as opposed to just words. Simply by having required runes in your inventory enables you to cast the spell. A new rune system could maybe be in place. And of course having each rune having a different definition which is already in place. (screw this it's fine as is)
Under ground water
No jewlery making. Jewels reserved for monster drops and quest rewards. The gems you mine may be used for other purposes.
No potion making. Potions reserved for monster drops and quest rewards.
Golems multiply when theres a chance of fragments falling from them much like trolkins.
Lave floors damages player
Water acts like real water eg: you can't dig caves or plow water. And water doesn't have any trees or plants growing on top of it. And it flows down hills etc as opposed to just appearing below a certain elevation point. MODIFY: The trees turn into dead trees and any other plant you plant on water turns to garbage I will try to do something that makes them sink or just maybe unable to plant here water in the way message.
/nowarp option so players cannot warp out of jail or into your house. Admins may set this command in the desired areas and land owners may turn the option on/off on their land plots.
Ability to weild a weapon in the shield spot MODIFY: for dagger and unarmed only since these skill suck
Bard Skill
Expanded musical instruments for use with the bard skill. Lutes, triangles, xylaphones etc could be used in the weapon spot and each one requiring a certain amount of bard skill to use. Perhaps missile/magic type damage will result on the targeted enemy making this a unique type of skill for a fighter to posess.