How Often Does New Content Bring You Back To An Older MMO? | MMORPG.com

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How Often Does New Content Bring You Back To An Older MMO? | MMORPG.com

Fate of Gundabad, and the new Brawler class in The Lord of the Rings Online, is sure to bring back some players who dropped off the Middle-earth radar in the years since the last major expansion, Minas Morgul. It got Bradford wondering how often our readers return to older MMOs when they get new content.

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Abimor

What drew me back to lotro was the legendary servers after playing on them for awhile I went back to the main server my wife plays on and have been enjoying the game since. I really do not plan on leaving again. Now that our toddler has a more consistent easier bedtime routine we get to play a few hours every day and it has been great.

slowz2secret

Never, when i leave, I leave forever.

Wellspring

The only time I ever returned to an MMORPG after I left was when EQ1 did the progression servers. And that wasn't even "new" content, but rehashed old content.

As a completionist, I don't like playing once I miss out on any limited one-time events and lose the opportunity to potentially unlock every achievement and obtain every drop.

Scorchien

I always have 3 MMOs in my rotation , and rotate out 2 of them every 3 months ..

  I still play each year

  UO ... always 25 years and running

   Eq .. EQ2 .. Anarchy Online .. AoC , DAOC .. Champions online ,Wow,SWL,Warhammer Emu,FF14 ..DDO Gw2, SWTOR,Rift ..  some others ..

  So i really dont miss much and catch every exp/update ..   Always fun and keeps thinmgs fresh ..

Ive removed ESO and LOTRO from my rotations for now as there are shit

Hariken

For me it's business models. I'm still waiting for Anarchy Online to be completely free to play.

Theocritus

Usually by the time I leave a MMO I am way behind so new content doesn't really do anything for me.

cameltosis

Never

When I leave an MMO, it is usually because the game is no longer fun for me. That can happen quickly - like with the release of a bad expansion - or slowly. for example, it took me 2 or 3 months of playing WAR before I'd really identified all the big problems with the game, then another couple of months to convince myself they would never be fixed.

I've also yet to experience an MMO get better over time. For my playstyle and preferences, MMORPGs always seem to get worse over time. That provides a very strong incentive to never return to an MMO that I've left.

Nebless

Really depends, there's some games I've just given up on so I'll never return and for the others I'm generally behind everyone else by a year or so, so pretty much everything is new content to me.

Now I do log into STO when a new episode drops as I did get to the end of the content there and I did go back to Neverwinter when they did their recent rework of the game and played through it into the first couple of campaigns.  I haven't hit my stop point there yet so it's in my rotation to play it some more down the road.

As to LotRO, Even after all these years I'm only in Gondor so knowing it's still getting new content is nice, although who knows when I'll see it.

jayheld90

Basically, never.

Ungood

The only MMO's I have returned to, have been DDO, and GW2. 

I went back to GW2, when they put out PoF, not seeing the new expansion pulling me back tho.

maskedweasel

I come back in very rare cases. Usually when there's an expansion. Each GW2 xpac brought me back and the new one will bring me back for a bit too.

The problem is, after the new content diversion I remember why I left in the first place and then go back to whatever other game I'm enjoying at the time.

Tokken

sometimes, but not very often. Only ones I have come back for are GW2 and WOW

Agent_Joseph

I am sometimes back to play ; EVE,AO,SWTOR,AOC

Just playing 11 years old game & have great fun ; Warhamer Online Return of Reckoning

Cleffy

The affect has worn off on me a while ago. The basic game remains the same, and I usually don't feel like I am playing something new. What has worked on me recently are limited time scoreboards/achievements for in game prizes. I am totally a sucker for those.

Scot

Never, I have always been thinking of going back anyway, an expansion not a dlc might effect when I go back. I need time to get my feet under me again so I have always gone back before a new expansion is coming out.

I imagine it is different for gaming journalists if they actually review and score the releases, MMOs must feel like Back To The Future for them.

cheyane

I went back to Everquest 2 for a bit. I've left now though because I want to play so many other games and EQ2 takes far too much time to play and this prevents me from playing other games. I know it sounds like a dumb reason but I kept missing out on good single player games.

Gobstopper3D

The only games I have left permanently have been Eve Online and ESO. The other mmo's I came back to from time to time. Just depends on what I feel like playing. Right now it's Lotro and EQ2.

deniter

Never. If a game has no replay value or players consume the content way too fast the game was not worth it in the first place. And if i didn't like it from the get go any new content won't change my mind.

Kyleran

Only once, I went back to WOW to see if Cataclysm and previous expansions had improved the game in directions I had hoped for, but it most definitely still had the same issues which caused me to leave just before BC went live.

I have gone back multiple times to a few select games including DAOC, EVE, ESO and some others, but never because specific content had dropped recently.

kitarad

I have gone back to games I have left so many times I have lost count. I go back because I miss the game or see someone talk about it and get hit with a feeling of nostalgia or pang that I'm missing something and that something will magically materialize if I go back and play it. 

It isn't because of new content, almost never because of that but just my feeling that I miss the game is all.

Theocritus

cheyane said:

I went back to Everquest 2 for a bit. I've left now though because I want to play so many other games and EQ2 takes far too much time to play and this prevents me from playing other games. I know it sounds like a dumb reason but I kept missing out on good single player games.

One thing I learned about myself as a gamer is I evolved into a player that likes to try many games rather than just focusing on one game. maybe as we get more experienced it gets to be a "been there done that" feeling and we just move on.

Viper482

I've often returned to MMOs, but typically because they revamped something I did not like so I wanted to check it out. I revisit older MMOs quite often, even if only for a few months.

Sovrath

It depends. If I'm "done" with a game then never. If I'm amenable to playing a game and they add something that is wholly unique or changes something that I thought was lacking, then sure, I'll try it out.

kitarad

Sovrath said:

It depends. If I'm "done" with a game then never. If I'm amenable to playing a game and they add something that is wholly unique or changes something that I thought was lacking, then sure, I'll try it out.

When you say "I'm done" does this mean you have gotten to max level and raided is it? I ask this because a lot of games I have played and never gotten to max or raided in and I was curious what you meant by 'I'm done".

I have however played some games and been turned off by something that happened and left even though I never got to the end game bit.

Djijin

I am playing a vanilla+ server. Old school Wow, with lots of new content (and not some expansion that kills the old game). So I speak of dead games with new content and not just old live games.

It makes ALL the difference. Blizzard should have gone this direction, but chose to follow the #nochanges meta crowd ... and look where it got them.

New content in old games is what is MEANT to happen. If games are still played, new content is what keeps players playing.

I simply cannot stress the impact new content has when playing an old mmorpg. Private servers are doing this across many old mmorpgs now. This lesson needs to be learned by the original developers. Either keep supporting a game, downscaled to it's new audience level (and not cancel it because it's not making BIGGY money only), or hand over games to the public domain.

Public domain old games are the future. Companies just haven't learned this yet. This can be done in many ways, even some methods where the company still controls some rights to the IP, but is no longer actively developing it.