When a game gets "to big" to return to

Chiram

I am sure some of you have returned to a previous MMO after a 6 month, year, 2,3,4 or 5 year absence. Maybe it was to seek that old feeling or see what's changed. I have noticed a trend in how I think when returning and this just seems to be the reality behind what my friends think also. The games...get so big and content filled it overwhelms some people returning. A lot of the time I figure to myself.. what's the point? everyone else is years ahead, everything is so confusing why isn't the game simple anymore?

The games get so overly content stuffed that it doesn't seem worth the effort to start anew or return on an old game. Why spend 6 months catching up when you can just jump to the newest game?. For example, I jumped onto Ultima Online. I was ripping it up with my mage/necromancer. I had what "used" to be a lot of gold in my bank. A whopping 10 million. The amount of content the game has now is so overwhelming and to see a power scroll that you (need) to advance costing so much it would take you 400 hours + to farm the gold needed...ended up making me feel deadlocked into a pre-expansion state.

My only option was to dedicate to the game or buy gold online. So I did some math and I concluded that in order to experience the "new content" I'd have to invest literally 4 hours a day for the next 5 months... to finally get there. This coming from a game I once considered casual. I won't even get started with everquest 2, vanguard and other MMOs.

So my question is, do any developers truly cater to the experience of the returning vets?. Has anyone actually sat there and tried to play their MMO they created through a returning experience?