Mmo not built around combat

#1 I would look at something like a cross between Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, Legend of the River King, and Viva Pinata! where the emphasis is on community building, working on your piece of the pie, gaining a reputation, etc.

#2 A Tale in the Desert is another example.

#3 You might check out the music lounge.
we're basically a social networking MMO. no combat.
it may also be interesting because it's based on TGE and we regularly have over 100 users logged in to a single server.
there will be more actual gameplay in there in the coming year.

#4 Most MMOs implement non-combat play as crafting puzzles or head-to-head games (such as poker). There's a world of options they've barely scratched, though.

Consider competitive games, cooperative games, abstract games, word games, logic puzzles, visual/3D puzzles, creative games, trivia games, arcade/twitch games, merchant/empire building, manufacturing, socializing, exploring, world building, accessorizing avatars, pets, vehicles, dwellings...

For examples, Music Lounge and ATITD are great suggestions. Second Life and Sims Online come to mind for social MMOs. Yohoho Puzzle Pirates substitutes head-to-head games for swordfighting and naval combat.

Be aware that non-combative MMOs enjoy far less popularity than combat-oriented games. The "typical" MMO player is still a junior high school student with an excess of testosterone and a desire to smash and burn, and most mainstream MMOs reflect that. I've seen a significant upswing in the numbers of female players and mature players in recent years, however... That's a trend that I hope continues!

#5 Sports MMO? Could be fun...

#6 Second Life has some combat, but mostly not. It's got some e-commerce, concerts, and lots of creation-centric activities. Worth taking a look at.

#7 A Tale in the Desert is interesting. (I've been trying it the bast day or so.) I was disappointed to realize it was a subscription game, not a free one, when it doesn't mention fees anywhere on their main page or client download page or new character creation page. The graphics are nice, the controls are ok, the theme and tech tree are interesting. One thing that seemed strange to me was how unsocial the game was for an mmo - the density of players to maps was very low, and there's no advantage to working together (at least in any of the activities I could get to in 24 hours of gameplay, it looks like some higher-level activities are group tests and tournaments.) There's also no introduction to the story for n00b players, and without a story I felt like I was mucking around with no real purpose. Seems to be a lot of grinding with no effective use of story (or mini-games: crafting is not a puzzle, didn't find an opportunity to spar or hunt...) to break the tedium. Takes a really frigging long time to walk across a map which has a lot of areas of useless desert or mountain. Doesn't succeed at being a MMO Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing. Actually it was much more like Warcraft without the war and only one peasant.

I guess it was a good one to study specifically because it has lots of flaws, lol; I wrote up 2 pages of notes on what I would do differently. I'll probably try Second Life next.

#8 I think the biggest challenge that non-combat focused MMO's face is that they tend to offer little to nothing in the way of content for "achiever" type of players, which is a problem since those are one of the biggest player groups. Sims Online, There, and Second Life all suffer from this (imho). They tend to cater to the socializers almost exclusively. I think a sports MMO could be brilliant if done correctly. I would also love to see someone do sort of an "open box" type of MMO like Second Life, only put a lot of effort into providing some type of literary framework. Make it a game based around ancient Rome, or Greece, or whatever, and then let players fit into that framework how they see fit.

#9 Puzzle Pirates is another MMO that does not focus on combat and when there is combat it's a puzzle battle. You can even get to the point where you can hire your own crew of players and go pillaging. Or you can set up shop to make and sell things like cannonballs and swords. You can even blockade an island and, if you win, you capture the island and own it. Overall it's pretty cool and appeals to casual gamers.

#10 The sports MMO concept is interesting. I think it could be accomplished using the concept of a park. Think of the days when you were a kid (ok some of you still are). You went to the park and had pick up games (Basketball, wiffle ball, football etc). I think this concept could be used to make a sports based MMO where people came on and went to a certain section of the park based on the sport they wanted to play. You could even go as far as keeping track of stats (win % being the most obvious) and running tournaments where people turn in teams of players and compete against each other.

Anyway thats just a thought off the top of the head but I think it definitely could be refined into a fairly neat MMO concept.

#11 This may have already been written, I havent read the replies yet - sorry!

In an MMO without combat I would circle it around community building, jobs, environment, social networking and the ability to become an employer etc. just circled around community, yeah.