Think you pretty much nailed it.

Hit the nail on the head but i would like to point out the main ones and add some

Do's
Multiple Paths: This would improve the game lots! It would be a lot more realistic and would stick to the story.

FMV endings: We need some action in the endings, its not good when you climb up and kill the boss and you get a couple of photos and hardly any infromation.

Dont's

Make Chracters that lack originallity and completeness: We need exciting ones that can fit into the deep storyline. They must have a large bio and we should be told us a lot about him/her to encourage support for them.

&

Forget to hide things from us

These are some things i think:

Do Make single player mode where you can choose your oppenent and dont have to try and complete the game.

Do Include team tournuments, would be good to example fight Black Dragn Vs Red Dragn

Do include 8 man tournaments like on MK T where you get all the kewl stuff when you win.

Do improve gameplay and speed it up

Don't bother with Chess and puzzle create something other things more exciting

well u said keep the krypt , but u said dont have keys to unlock them , im intersted in how we open them then....

Signed.

As much as we all would favor FMV endings for the characters, it's just not going to happen. It costs a pretty penny to do the intros themselves and the MK Team do have a budget they have to work with. So... *shrugs* that's the deal on that I'm sad to say.


Ghostdragon

I HATE when people complain about not getting ending movies. Do you guys know that the intro movies like Deadly Alliance and Deception takes 5-6 months to make.

I say keep the endings the ways they are, and focus on the fighting engine, as well characters.

If Armageddon is Trilogy 2. Then i say scrap the Konquest Mode, Chess Kombat and Puzzle. They too time consuming, they should use the time for bug testing.

Over all i really don't care its a Trilogy 2, I just want it to be Deadly Alliance + Deception with online. I'll be happy

Can someone explain to me why DOA and Tekken can have intro movies AND FMV endings for each character, but MK can't? Really, I'm not being sarcastic, if someone could explain that, then I'll stop pushing for FMV intros for EACH character as well as endings. Here's my list:

DO:

Fix the buggy, glitch filled gameplay.

Give us multiple costumes for each character. Two is not enough. Most fighters these days allow a level of customizability that MK is simply light years behind.

Give us some more single player modes PLEASE!! I'm talkin survival mode, story mode, tag team mode, small tournament mode (16 players), large tournament mode (32 players), time attack mode, etc etc.

Give us a create a character option that puts Soul Calibur 3's to shame.

As others have said and give us more secret characters. Stop putting them on the select screen all shaded out. We know who they are before the game's even released.

Give us unique styles that actually reflect real life styles. In other words, make Judo like real Judo.

Give us unique special moves, no rehashed animations or moves stolen from other characters.

Give the characters some depth. No one has to be outright good or outright evil except for the main protagonist and the main villian. Give some characters inner conflicts, put characters in new situations that force them to make decisions we wouldn't expect. Surprise us, not just for the sake of shock factor, but really show us you guys can write a good, engrossing story.

DON'T:

Focus on peripheral crap. I don't need to play modes that have no bearing on the fighting game. If you think the fans want party games like puzzle, test your whatever and chess, than make MK: Party or something like that.

Give us the same characters repackaged. Put the old characters in unique situations and change their looks a bit. Be original and surprise us, most of us can take it.

Come back with the same fighting engine with an upgrade or two. Most MK fans know how broke the fighting system is. We want flexibility with character movement and animations. We want to kip up, roll around, dodge, and do everything that other fighting games have been doing for years in regards to freedom of movement.

Bring back the DK. That plot has run its course. Give us something new and unexpected. Something that turns the MK world upside down. Maybe have the Elder Gods be the enemy? I've said this before, but how cool would it be if they decided that Earth has corrupted itself past deserving to be saved. It would throw alliances completely out of wack.

Go big for the sake of going big. We want quality over quantity. If the MK team can handle 50 characters, giving them all good stories, good, unique moves, and cool looks as well as customization options, then fine, great. But if the overall quality suffers because you can't help yourselves and you have to add five more characters in a short amount of time, then don't bother.

That's my list so far. Great thread!!!

Youre the best .

Yeah well done man great points.

I also wonder about your comment about Tekkens FMV's? Anybody know?

I think Midway's animation team is sub-par perhaps. Looking back at MK4, FMV endings are doable, but also looking at those endings, would you want them to?

It's actually an interesting thing to note with all the 3D MK games. All the mocapping has always been bad for all the moves, sometimes in the actual motion and most of the times with the speed. Therefore creating the problems with the fighting system. With MK4 FMVs, we had chars standing in idle animations most of the time, which looked really odd, but its problems stem from mannerisms and such from mocapping as well.

Now if we factor in the fact that FMV endings require really good models, clothwork, hair work, etc. of every character as well as backgrounds which won't be used anywhere besides FMVs, I'm sure Midway finds it hard to justify the cost whereas Namco and Tecmo would gladly do it because they have very large art teams that are.. well more talented than Midway's team, whether that is due to experience or size.

That's not to bash Midway at all as I don't really care for FMV endings, but I hope they do something about their mocapping team or at least the person who decides to "speed moves up" if it was mocapped correctly.

FMV endings are doable, but also looking at those endings, would you want them to?

Hell no!
Mortal Kombat 4 endings sux.
Its more appealing, if the endings are pictures being told by a narrator

For online game play no useless chatting unless you go to the loby. I just cant stand seing people getting their feelings all mellow because they lost a little fight, when your trying to have fun.

Making a fight contract : It would be much more enjoyable if you could fight your opponent a series of times without having to say yes or no at the end of the battle. For example five battles in a row none stop or like a online tournament play, elemination style like in mk trilogy.

Do: Bring in Sektor,Rain,Stryker, and Tremor

Don't:Bring back Kobra,Kira,Darius,Dairou,and Shujinko

I forgot to add this since its a Do and Don't

Noob Saibot without Smoke

Smoke without Noob Saibot

Do:


Keep the throws unblockable, even while ducking you should be thrown but make sure that there is a throw escape to keep them fair and eliminate all infinites in the game.

Add a wake up game so that a grounded charaacter can quickly rise up off the ground and attack any would be follow up attempt, therefore eliminating the 50/50

Add in a foward dash and/or run feature. Theres nothing more frustrating than not being able to catch turtling opponents trying to run down the clock. It also will add a more legitimate rushdown game

Give the special moves a bit more priority than a basic attack. Special moves require more complex joystick/button combinations to execute, having my Mileena's Rolling thunder stooped by a simple jab is annoying! The moves should only have priority on start up and become vulnarable afterward. That makes for a more logical use of the special attack.

Add in a simple to use but hard to master counter/reversal system. An easy way to execute the counter would be to tap back for both high and mid attacks, and down for all low attacks. You must anticipate your opponents move and time the tap as soon as you see the attack. A successful counter should give you a small window of time to react leaving your opponent still stuck in his/her attack animation. The risk in attempting this counter is that if missed you will eat whatever they were trying to hit you with in the first place. Easy to perform, hard to master.

Multi throw combos should be added but can be countered as well. For intance; Jax's multi slam could be followed up with a piledriver, in order to break the piledriver follow up, you must input the counter as soon as the piledriver begins. There will only be a fraction of a second to break it.

Remove the canned combos and make them string combos that are not guaranteed on first hit, only after a stun or counter hit. The max should be three hits guaranteed from a non-stun or non-counter.

Allow two in one combos, in otherwords if I hit you with Kobras 2,1, 1, I should be able to cancel the last 1 into ant one of his special moves. This allows for more creative combinations and set ups.

Some characters should be based around different play styles such as defense, speed, and power. Chracters like Liu kang can be the "speed" type and bigger characters like Hotaru can be based around power ect. Defensive characters will lack good offensive ability but the counters they posess should be quite strong. Power characters should have plenty of stun moves and grapples but lack speed, Speedy characters should not be able to do any damaging combos due to their speed. They should not be too week however.

Keep the three breaker system, this will keep the power characters juggle combos in check if you are caught.

Make each characters basic attacks diferent from one another. There were too many repeat moves between characters such as Kobra/Darrius, Millena/Tanya/Sindel ect. and make them more useful. Each character has about 6 or so really usful moves out of all three styles, not good.





Don't:

Forget to add everything that I mentioned above


Peace

DO:
Fix all the gameplay glitches. Like the fatality glitches. It would probably take more time but it would probably be worth it. Deception and MKSM had WAY too many glitches in it.

Switch back to the movie-like endings. Those two pictures and someone nararating the ending just didn't work that well.

Make better characters. Hotaru sucked more than Stryker imo.

Put in more unlockables. More arenas. Whenever i opened a koffin and found some concept art, I got really mad.

Make it feel more like an MK game.

DON'T:
Please just leave Noob and Smoke as a seperate character. That idea was just stupid.

Leave out konquest. If they leave that out, they'll have much more room to put in better stuff, like a create a character mode. Or even more mini games.

Don't waste time puting in stupid characters like Hotaru, Hotaru, and hotaru. He sucks. Instead of puting that guy in, they should put in better characters or new characters that aren't stupid like Hotaru!


That's what I think

Do:

-decent fighting engine,
-balanced gameplay,
-leave chains, and autocombos
-keep 50/50 games on variable height attacks
-a bit more elaborate fighting styles
-keep and flesh out new characters from MKDA and MKD.
-permanently terminate old syuckass characters that don't feel MK at all or did their time as one shot failures. (Stryker, Sheeva, Rain, Reiko, Kai, ...)

Don't
-elaborate basis on MKD's storyline
-keep the Dragon King for one game at least
-drop the allmighty Shao Kahn or remake him, he is quite a palette for
repetitiveness. And Fan Service sucks.
-overweight the roster with ninja characters despite different looks.
-make unnecessary characters.
-don't listen to raving fanboys on homage sites.

p.s: Hotaru pwns.

Stuff that hasn't been mentioned in this thread in particular:

Do:
- Intuitive Control Scheme. (Maybe go back to BL,HP,LP,HK,LK system)
- Something that I've always been a stickler for, have characters with vastly different builds. Every character in MK has like the same body. Make some characters more scrawny, more masculine. More shorter, more taller, etc. There is no need to use like the same base body model for almost every character.

Don't:
- Waste time on mini-games.

DO

1. Fix The Gameplay - If you don't know what I'm talking about then you obviously have not been reading these forums for the past 3 years.

2. Bring Back The Characters We Care About - Midway, you know the chars we hate to love or love to hate, so give us them. Sub-Zero,Scorpion,Reptile,Goro,Ermac,Shao Kahn,Liu Kang,Kung Lao,Raiden,Fujin,Sektor,Cyrax,Smoke,Kitana,Jade,Mileena,Sindel,Kabal,Johnny Cage, Kano, Shang Tsung, Quan Chi,Kenshi,Noob Saibot,Smoke,Rain,Sonya and Jax. That's 28 chars. Add 5 new ones and I think it'd be hard for fans to complain.

3. Super Secrets - This is one of the best parts about Mortal Kombat. I'd consider Liu Kang a BIG secret in MKD, but due to the internet that was discovered rather quickly. I say you don't make the super unlockable a character, but rather something dope. Perhaps episodes of Defends Of The Realm? I can't imagine fans not LOVING the idea of making MK1-MK4 unlockable and compataible with online play as well. I another super unlockable should be the old school costumes..more on that in a second.

4. Give Each Character Who's Returning 3 costumes - All the chars that are not new I feel should have 3 costumes:

A. Default costume - A new, dope look for the characters we've grown to love. Think Sub-Zero's MKD costumes or Sonya's MKDA costumes.

B. Alternate costume - I think these should be more leftfield and interesting, and I kind of feel that's what you guys were going for in MKD, anyway. Sub-Zero bald, Sindel in her Queen outfit and Tanya's short hair look are all good examples.

C. Old Skool Costume - These costumes should an almost EXACT replica of that character's most adored costume from MK1-MK4. These should be super unlockable and very difficult to find. Examples of this could be.

1. Noob Saibot - MK1 Sub-Zero costume.
2. Scorpion - MK2 costume
3. Johnny Cage - MK1 costume! The Van Damme look returns!?!?! SWEET!
4. Jax - MK2 costume
5. Reptile - MK2 costume
6. Kabal - MK3 costume
7. Liu Kang - MK1 costume

You guys get the point. I think fans would adore this idea. Back to the do's...

5. Bring Back Konquest - I don't know why people hate Konquest for. I enjoyed it very much. It was a bit repetetive and dull in terms of variety, but I enjoyed the story telling aspects. I gave it a 7/10. I feel a new Konquest mode would be dope with more freedom. Perhaps give every character their own Konquest similar to MKDA but with MKD's gameplay kinda. Start that character off when they first appeared and end their Konquest with MK7. Because of this big time characters like Sub-Zero would have a huge Konquest while less important characters like Rain would have a much smaller one.

6. Bring Back Online Play - If online play does not return in MK7 I would be shocked. Midway knows better than this. Flawed it was, but it's a must. Give us more options such as a spectator mode and tons of other modes and leader boards. Also make sure people who cheat,pull and boost are punished severely.

DON'T

1. Act like you can put shit in a box with a pretty cover and sell it for 50 dollars. That idea wore thin when MKD came out. Fix the gameplay and make MK compareable to Tekken, Soul Calibur, Dead Or Alive and Virtua Fighter in terms of gameplay

2. Give us stupid characters that are not interesting. Hotarau,Ashrah,Havik and Shujinko, for the most part, were welcomed by fans. Kira,Dairou,Darrius and Kobra were not.

Do:

- A balanced gameplay without infinites combos.

- Create your Character is a must.

- A big, but again, balanced roster. Bring back all fan favourites as in MKDA plus most MKD characters.

- Add all the classic moves from past MK's to the returning characters from MKDA. I want to see Cage breaking nuts again.

- Revamp Shujinko. The guy has potential to be a much better character, not just a Pai Mei rip-off. He doesn't deserve to be killed right now. I loved his 45-50 year old aspect from Konquest.

- An Arcade mode related to the story of the character you chose. The One Being is the final boss for all chars, and the sub-boss is different for everyone.For example: Sub-Zero's sub-boss is Noob. Kitana's is Mileena. Shang Tsung's is Liu Kang... and so on. And a bit of text dialogue between them (ala SFAlpha3) would be uber-cool.

- Bring back Konquest mode similar to the MKDA one. I loved how it told MKDA's story from each character. Make it more complex, but not as complex as MKD's.

--------------------------
Don't:

- DON'T rewrite the stories written in past MK's. We are still shocked due to how MKSM twisted the story. Be extremely careful with consistency.

- Bring back Onaga on his MKD look. Probably he fused the Kamidogu and became the One Being, so you have a good chance to make him look a bit smaller but way more menacing.

- Bring back more dead people: Jarek, Sheeva, Mavado, Hsu Hao, Motaro are dead, and should stay dead. We know the MK Team said "nobody really dies in Mortal Kombat", but they should reconsider that. If you are going to resurrect a character after killing him, don't kill him.

- I don't think we need so much death traps in huge arenas as in MKD. MKDA's arenas were smaller, but much prettier.

- Waste time creating multiple side-games. Create another "Test your XXX" and leave it that way, this is Mortal Kombat, not "Scorpion's Party 4".

- Don't forget to include real secrets (secrets found out of the Krypt). For example: after 90 hours of gameplay, Shinnok appears in the character selection screen.

do:

keep ashra.

have the enitre mk1 cast as playables.

keep havik.

keep the kript.

keep chess and puzzle.

have someone from unreal tornament.

don't:


keep bo-rai-cho.

keep sujinko.

keep style branch combos.

keep conquest.

have keys to unlock chars.

keep raydin dark.

keep kobra.

Do:
Keep Chess mode and Puzzle mode. U don't need to make them too indepth, but keep them. I loved to play Puzzle when I wanted a break from the fighting, and the chess mode provided a new twist on the regualar vs mode. Keep what you have now, just add the abiltiy to play with new characters. I appreciate that you went and tried something new... So don't take them away from us.

Return Konquest mode to it's MK:DA roots. I liked the new one for what it was, but I can't imagine which character would go through it for a second time. Or, possibly, keep it the same, but change characters as you go through it. Have a selectable list of characters and play through a bit of their storyline. Actually, I like that idea better than either of the current Konquests.

Get rid of keys. They were just annoying. Give us a better, less obvious way to find hard to unlock items.

If the previous Konquest mode is rejected, then at least give some depth to the arcade mode's story. I hate how you are presented with two aspects of the storyline per character: Why they are in this fight, and their ending, which is never canon until the next game anyways. Give us a story to go through, not just one at the start and a possible one at the end.

Bring back team tournaments! I loved picking 8 different guys and going at it against a friend.

Be extremely careful with consistency. Shaolin monks was a cool idea, but remember to keep the previous storylines intact. The way that Shujinko's Konquest mode, or the Dragon King's story arc, or (going back a game) Kenshi's deal with Shang Tsung, or (going even one more game back) Shinnok's war with Raiden, those all worked well, because they ADDED to the back story, as opposed to Shaolin Monks, which in many cases CHANGED the back story. Additon is good. Subtraction and changing is not.

Give Characters an interesting character, as well as an interesting storyline. Lets take Stryker and Kobra for example. Stryker was a pretty cool character to play as, but over all, he had no personality, no story, and no effect on the game. LAME. Kobra is similar, with one difference. He has a personality. He killed a man, got a thrill, and decided to become a murderer. Neat idea. Now, follow it up with a story. He joins the Black Dragon. Nice. so... what does he do then? See what I am getting at?

For the love of god, go into detail about the actual battles, and stop adding so many side stories that have nothing to do with the main storyline. The whole Chaos and Law thing is alright cause it's two main characters, Havik and Hotaru, effect the main storyline, and are interesting. Dairrous and Dairu... they don't. They are sorta doing their own thing, independant of the rest of the guys. That's sorta lame. Now, if someone like Sub Zero or scorpion has their own deal, that is different, because they are already established characters and players are attached. They will follow them. Characters just being introduced... not so much.

Clean up loose ends. Tell us where characters are. Shao Kahn was missing from MK:DA because A: we thought he was dead and B: because he was in hiding. Alright. Sektor is in Japan working on his techno ninja clan. Fair enough.
However, Rain, Reiko, Kai, what happened to these guys? Was Kintaro killed by Raiden? Where was Kabal during Mk 4 and 5? I'm not saying that we need to know the where abouts of every characer every second. Like, Cyrax was just in DA, but not DE. That's cool. We can assume that he is doing something with the special forces, and we should get some sort of info in the next game. But don't leave us in the dark for years (7 in the case of MK 4 guys)

Don't:

Include a create a character. Every other game is already doing that, so focus on what you have that they don't. An interesting storyline, characters that they can never approach, fatalities, etc. Don't jump on the bandwagon. Beat it with what makes MK MK!

Forget to include better hidden secrets.

Get rid of the crappy breakers and add some cool looking and gameplay effective variant counters, reversals and parries.
Make it like a movie fight!





^^^^^^
Unfortunately, probably won't happen...

Do:
This by far is my best idea, bring back Frost let her be unfroze by scorpion and subzero. And let them both Scorpion and Frost join the lin Kuei and be Subzero's partners/ left and right hands.
Bring back the following: Motaro, Kintaro, Shinnok, Sheeva, and Jarek.
keep shujinko, but make a better story.
Build off of his ending. he wasnt the champion but scorpion was.
Scorpion there for becomes good. Forming a truce with subzero.
Subzero and scorpion go after quan chi and shao kahn.
THEY win the tournament there by leading into the next one. MK Tag Team Kombat.
Bring back striker they were supposed to in MK4 but didnt.
Let the people be unlocked by beating the game with certain other people. Tie their stories together.

Don't:
keep dairou i wasnt interested n his story.
let the dragon king STAY DEAD!
no more lond ass konquest! it was fun but make it shorter.