Welcome to Tuesday, there are trays at the front of the line and plenty of tacos to go around. Due to the past few weeks sucking up most, if not all, of the Greenlight and Kickstarter MMOs, you may be glad to hear we are shifting paradigm to having a real discussion. So on to today’s top 5:

Aventurine today announced Darkfall: Unholy Wars, a total revamp to just about every aspect of Darkfall, from the graphics to gameplay, user interface and beyond. So for today’s topic, let’s take a look at some MMos that could use a fresh facelift, new coat of paint, and perhaps a less rusty engine.

4. City of Heroes 2

Did anyone see that pander bear just walk by? There is a pretty unified consensus among players and the press, as well as hinted from Paragon Studios, that City of Heroes was still quite profitable, and fell victim to corporate restructuring. And since the game isn’t quite buried in the ground yet, let’s discuss digging up its corpose and reviving it via electricity.

The show of support for City of Heroes should be enough for a small (or large?) developer to either pick up the City of Heroes IP or create their own roster of notable villains and heroes, and set to work creating a new super hero MMO with a focus on slower combat and deeper strategy, alongside a deep character creation system. Think Champions Online but not as arcadey.

So what are you waiting for, indie developers? Get off of your generic, WoW-ish fantasy MMOs and listen to the pleas of the internet.

3. Warhammer Online 2

I know what you’re saying, “Omali, EA wouldn’t give Mythic the funding to buy a Snickers, let alone fund a new MMO based on Warhammer Online.” You are correct, and that’s why part one of this plan hinges on someone tearing the Warhammer MMO license from Mythic, not unlike Lucas and Star Wars Galaxies. Nothing personal, and Mythic could even keep Wrath of Heroes.

How do you create a new Warhammer Online? First, by not programming it on the gamebryo engine. This is an important factor, because it will prevent the mass exodus of your players over the engine not being capable of handling basic systems, and you won’t have to worry about disabling certain portions of the game or cutting mass swaths of content.

Who wouldn’t like to see a new Warhammer Online? Perhaps with three faction PvP, open world combat, and territory control perhaps?

2. Earthrise

Tell me you didn’t fall in love with Earthrise…on paper. Of course I’m talking about the version we were advertised, where thousands of players would battle in an epic science fiction sandbox MMO, dictated by one’s skill on the battlefield. Not the one where perhaps a dozen or so players battled the forces of lag, game breaking bugs, and unfinished features in a game that provided little more than quest grinding without a community to provide it purpose.

Imagine, if you will, if Earthrise was more like Darkfall but in a science fiction setting. So instead of swords, spells, and archery, you would have guns, nanotechnology, and big heavy stuff to hit other things with. On the other hand, I’d settle for an Earthrise that just wasn’t

1. Ultima Online 2

That pander bear just won’t go away. I must say that out of the items on this list, Ultima Online 2 is likely the only game with even a wink of likelihood. For that matter, it’s the only one that has officially been mentioned, by Jeff Slaski telling players to show EA that they want a sequel. So I’m being optimistic with this list, but I’m not dense. I know that the odds of most of these games even making it past the drawing board are slim.

I love Ultima Online as it is, but I will admit that the code that the game is built on is likely ancient and very obsolete and likely difficult to work with. If the folks at EA were able to upgrade Ultima’s underlying engine, they would likely be able to push the MMO to do far more than it is currently capable of, without sacrificing much if any of the features that the loyal community has come to love.

So it wouldn’t be as much of a sequel as it is a reboot. Like Funcom upgrading Anarchy Online to the Dreamworld Engine.