Well, I posted something about this before, on the old board, but it got deleted in the Bobby Fatman attack. I'd like to see a Monster Rancher game that was a bit like Ultima Online. You'd start out with a plot of land and a bit of money, in an interactive 3D world. You'd raise monsters, but you could also go on expeditions in real looking "Natural Preserve" areas, possibly being able to capture wild monsters as well as finding items. When you went to town, you'd actually go to a real town with streets you could walk around in. You could interact with others and even trade monsters with them in the Market. At the various stadiums, you could battle against other people's monsters. The Item Shop would be a shop to visit in town. Errantry would also be a real series locales to visit. Of course, you'd be able to walk around your ranch.
I know this one's not everyone's cup of tea, but I think it would be fun to run around in. This way you could play the game and be chatting in a chat room at the same time in a real-looking Cafe!

An item for your ranch: Flags showing the major tournaments you've won so you can make visiting ranchers envious.

And of course there would be something along the lines of Fame, maybe a daily (or weekly) newsletter showing some of the biggest winners, the winners of the qualifying tournaments, any monsters doing anything else amazing, and so on. So that you learn the names/trainers of some of the best monsters, and you actually *do* get fame.

Of course, if the game were multi-player like this, it shouldn't be a matter of "each week is just one training session or whatever. Each day should be an hour of the real day, or some such, so that you can actually have scheduled tournaments that everyone can know about and attend at the same time (both competing and viewing), and that way your monsters would develop slowly enough for other trainers to really get an idea of the monsters in your stable. And yes, if the game would be "slowed down" this much, you should be able to train more than one monster at the same time.

Also, the game shouldn't (in my own opinion of course) have "offline portions," just you shouldn't have to interact with others until you're ready. Some of the tournaments should be "closed" or what have you, as would most of the training sessions (except for perhaps errantries... which could take on whole new aspects in a multiplayer setting), etc.

You know, this is a really neat idea. :)

Hey, and not to be the next person to post again after my post, but here's another idea... how about instead of just a multiplayer Monster Rancher game, how about a combination Monster Rancher/Gallop Racer game? Where you can raise/breed monsters and horses (and I'd think you should be able to breed monsters, instead of combine them, but you wouldn't be able to freeze them, either, they'd just have a certain lifespan and you'd have to do what you can with them... maybe only let you breed them every once in a while), and then you can do various things, like fight in competitions, race them, go on expiditions, have them work for pay (sorta like in the first Monster Rancher)... things like that. Maybe even have a "show" where just the ones with the neatest tricks, or even the ones in the best shape or just the "prettiest" monsters win...

i like this idea, laura. i think of myself as a trainer running a stable anyway when i play mr2, and anything that gets closer to that idea would be fine by me.