LP System:
The one we currently got isn't that bad, but it's giving a lot of advantage for botters. Regular increase in the ability of the things you do more should be working quite well I'd say, like in TES and other games stuff... The more activity in farming for example, the better skills you have, the more thing you do in combat then the better skills you got - that would be working fine with the Salem system togheter. You would be able to find curio exploring the world that boost your ability for example you find a stone which gives you exploration and a little of survival etc, etc.
The World:
The only limit here are us, the players. Because for 300-400 ppls there is no sense to make world bigger than 6x6 SG, really. It's too big and boring (how often you can pass the same area?) Unless... The world would change dynamically
With the addition of natural phenomena (subsidence cliffs, expansion of the marshes, independent development of forests, formation of lakes and ponds) and interference players (caves can collapse, create and delete cliffs, pond) which of course would cost a lot, respectively. Hence, you can add weather phenomena. Since the game we count in days, why not do the seasons? If the current 24h = 3 days virtual, it's ~ four months a year passes. In that case, each season would last one month, of which fall would be slightly shorter and summer a little longer. Each season would characterize something else. For example in the winter time we could meet the winter animals with unique skins to get from them and unique stuff to craft... Who missed the winter need to pay us a lot or wait until next one...
But rain and drought would be very cool. The rain would cause faster plant growth, however, would cause rapid destruction of some buildings / tools and so on. I mean, who holds the metal plow outside in the rain? And yet the wood does not like too much water... drought could result in the growth of the desert, which would result in a total loss of plant and worse conditions for life. This in turn would force people to regular moving, prohibits their most precious things in carts/wagons and move away in search of a better land to live. Left villages would be crumbled after some time because of the adverse impact of land. In case of rain, you can do so by analogy, the growth of the marshes etc, etc.
We got drugs in the game which is cool but the problem is that they are poorly developed... a pity, because they have the potential. Suppose every inflammation of cannabis would have a chance of falling into addiction. When we are high and addicted we need to smoke again otherwise we lose concentration, and certain skills will fall down a little... Much of this topic can be done here really
Game Mechanics:
Currently, the game is based on the fight and grinding quality, and only on this. You will not find any more interesting activities and that is a fact. Changes in the structure of the world would force the change of the way playing the game. Migrations would produce a lot more peace between players, trading the same... In general - focus on intervention in society and not share in several fractions/villages which is able to do everything on their own. Restricting game certainly would support this idea (much smaller deposits of ores, much of themselves less, a lot less high quality raw materials etc.) because you can not be a champ in each skill/thing you do in such a short time since the creation of the server. People who would focus on the fight will quickly surpass in another activity. This is because there would be no giant villages with double or triple brick (so and everyone had their role, and he could not do everything at once). Climate change would force migration, so building giants would be unprofitable. The ores would change dynamically as well... Moving from place to place would be so frequent (but not that much because it could get boring as well) that nobody would stay somewhere with the intention of being there permanently. In my opinion, this would result in the sharing of villages into several smaller ones which help themselves eachother. Lets say the village who has access to iron every week and its their main activity to be good because only this way you would have high QL ore/steel/equipment as mentoined above... Would receive from the village with a very fertile ground supplies of food and other types of equipment, and the farmers themselves would receive from them a precious metal plow repair or build houses... The trading would be big part of the game, the trading would be our second life because we would not be able to do EVERYTHING like we are able to do right now... and because the trade is DEAD because most of ppls currently trade only for sub-tokens, cuz they got everything else since they are able to do everything...
That's my little concert wishes, such a thing would have gladly played by me.
Although I know it never happens.
PS. My English isn't that good and sometimes I've used google translator, so sometimes the text might look "wtf" but I hope you understand everything! Take care!
