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Your view on expansions
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 7,081
Expansions have never sat well for me with mmorpgs. It's even to the point I'll not play a game I'm interested in starting or replay a game because of them.
World of Warcraft, Everquest 2 are my primary examples, theirs are simply too many of them to bother catching up…. I don’t want to put in the energy.
-World of Warcraft not so bad.
-Everquest 2 is a jigsaw puzzle where the player would have no clue where to begin. So many starting zones, some out dated some enhanced… where is the population?... that’s not a question, I don't even care to know. It's too butchered.
-Guildwars 2 and especially Dungeons and Dragons Online and so many others are the same but for different reasons. Guildwars 2 is dumbed down considerably simply to get players caught up to the point I don’t want to play AT ALL. Dungeons and Dragons Online is a butchered mess between expansions and "pay-for zones". Again I don’t want to play at all.
WHATS THE PROBLEM:
Well, it can be broken down to simple mathematics….. It's a math problem with seemingly no answer !!!..... As long as you have levels in an mmorpg it can't be fixed.
Problem one:
Playable zones 1-60+10+10+10
Problem two:
Class progression… Abilities are accumulative and same with gear…. Attempting to add to a game seems to be Butchered and a bad attempt with no solution.
EXPANTIONS ARE NOT BAD FOR EVERYONE:
Hardcore and die hards that keep the Mojo running benefit from expansions…. But many don't !!
I have no alternatives…. I don't think there is one…. How about you ?
Optional reading:
Several months ago I decided to dive deep into retail World of Warcraft just before the upcoming expansion "Battle for Azeroth".
But I was faced with a dilemma….. How do I do it, at what point do I want to do it ?
Blizzard offers a few choices
-Power level dumbed down content 1-110
-Take a 110 boost and ignore the leveling, leaving a small game.
Both choices were God awful….. Both options gave me a feeling of dread for many reasons I'll not detail. I spent days pondering how this would work. I even talked to a wow fan at work… He actually talked me out of it.
Comments
The conversation is moot.
At this point just give me a static MMO that I know I love (Classic WoW!), because I don't trust game devs to add new content I'll enjoy.
None of this makes sense. If you are new most MMO's now include a boosted toon with their expansions so you can jump right in. WoW and EQ2, your two examples, both do this. So your point is baffling with that small fact alone. Do you even play these games or were you bored and needed a new thread? Because if you played you would know this.
Without expansions every MMO would die, period. They keep the game fresh. The only "alternative" would be to change the very foundation of MMO's, which typically involve some sort of progression and exploration along with story elements. If you don't add to that (or expand on it...pun intended...but is it really a pun?) interest in the game dies.
Now I am not saying I like every expansion or how they change crap, but the expansions themselves are typically a very exciting time for those who are fans of the game.
Its true many mmos would die without expansions... I'm giving my reasons for not liking how they are done. Just like you gave your view. I also talked about it being exciting for the fans and die hards. " I ".... think boost suck, I covered that too...... maybe you should read the post... it's all in their.... If you disagree, thats ok, but it doesn't stop the fact that it's covered.
The point of this is not that expansions are bad, but wishing their was another way. BUT the math of how it has to be done prevents that.
If you want people to read your entire post I would recommend not putting in a bottom line up front (BLUF). If I disagree with the premise of your argument there is no reason to further hear it out. You don't want expansions because they make you have to catch-up, they put in boosts to help you catch-up but you don't want that either. Maybe you just don't like MMO's?
The engine is already tooled,the systems already coded,pretty much everything is already in place.However over the years,i have seen some really good expansions,the next problem however is that they are forced purchases in a subscription game.If i am paying for your ongoing production,every month,i expect a nearly free expansion.
Bottom line,you have to weigh in with our own idea on value and is this a fair business transaction.I have lots of little things i look at to determine if the subscription/developer is trying to rip me off or is fair value.Then we have the f2p models,i am in no way in support of cash shops,i have always found that if you try to attain everything the game offers from a cash shop,meaning the ENTIRE game as meant to be played,it would cost way more than a subscription.
I feel cash shops need to be way over the top scams because devs/publishers have no guaranteed income,so they aim big.So in this situation the answer is very simple,if the game is making too much revenue,expansions should be FREE,if the cash shop is not,then they obviously would be forced to sell the xpack.However,don't expect any cash shop devs to have morals,...ok we really ripped off our customers,let's show our appreciation and give them a free xpack,that is NEVER happening,greed is on full alert.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Keep things the same as before and your audience might get bored. Change things too much and you might alienate your audience.
There is also a progress problem. With most games you fight wolves first and end up fighting the big bad evil (except you LotRO, there we always fight wolves, no matter how powerful we get). But when an expansion hit you will need to fight an ever bigger and badder evil or you won’t have that feeling of progress. Take that too far and things get silly. Remember TBC in WoW? Now you were fighting boars from hell, with spikes and flames just to show the player that they weren’t those ordinary boars from 30 levels ago. Do that for three expansions and you’ll be fighting god at the end, or the entire universe.
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
ESO actually has "levels" - pretty long thread on scaling in which ESO was discussed to death! Its just very gradual - and takes a long time. What was touched on at the end as well was its squished nature.
Squished since whilst there are minions and super hard mobs there is no such thing as a "grey" mob that will ignore you because the level cap has been cranked up.
I brought up CoX late in the thread - very different example of scaling - but as with Archeage after 50 all progression is "horizontal" (done differently but levels stop). And in both games all (max level) mobs remain potentially dangerous.
(And whilst it didn't have expansions it had lots of quarterly updates. (CoV being a companion to CoH rather than an expansion).
I wish their were a better way.
Seems like a losing proposition.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The more successful long term MMORPGs such as ESO (post One Tameril) or EVE manage to expand core content without drastically altering the experience most players enjoy.
Even Blizzard's devs have acknowledged how expansions have lead to undesirable power creep and are exploring ways to flatten it somehow.
If successful, WOW Classic might become the ultimate testimate of how expansions can be "bad" for a game considering how many appear to be clamoring for its return.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I can name some MMORPG expansions that don't fit OP's description.
Adding new lands to explore and adventure in or new races to experience are good things, in my opinion. Having a strong story to start with leads MMOs down a road that will keep the bloat growing, in my opinion. Each new "chapter" needs stronger, tougher bosses to try to outshine the old bosses.
I understand the reason for expansions, eloquently put by DMKano. Many of the players that move on come back for each expansion, as WoW has shown. But they leave again when the content is consumed and don't log in again until the next expansion comes out.
I guess it really just depends on the game and what its focus is, like raiding or PvP or PvE activities.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Aloha Mr Hand !