Support NeoGAF

[Enter the Dragon Punch]

So... Over the last few years, content drought in MMOs has become a fucking mess. Nearly every MMO you can think of probably suffers from it, more than ever.

World of Warcraft started having real issues when patch 3.3.5 dropped. Aside from a single boss being added that dropped nothing of note (jewelry), there was a year between Icecrown Citadel and Cataclysm.

During Cataclysm, we suffered from two droughts. Once, from November 2010 to June 2011 - there were no new raids added, only 3 retooled 5mans. After that, we got Dragon Soul, which lasted roughly ten months.

Mists of Pandaria? Same shit, but longer than ever. 14 months of Siege of Orgrimmar before the launch of any new content.

Now, we're facing the exact same problem in WoW as we have before, despite having the "biggest dev team ever" and "yearly expansions". Warlords of Draenor, which is the expansion with the least content of any released before it, got its third raid "Hellfire Citadel" in June 2015. Legion, the next expansion, will launch no earlier than June 2016 and is "expected" no later than September 21st, 2016 - the last day of summer. That's 12-15 months of content drought in an expansion where they already bled half of the subscribing players.

Then, we have WildStar... Jesus, what a fucking mess this game is. The Datascape, which is only the second raid in WildStar, was released roughly halfway through 2014. That is nearly 2 years ago! We're still waiting on the new raid, Red Moon Terror. Not only that, but the next content patch, Drop 7, is still under NDA - no release date ETA for the public, and it doesn't include Red Moon Terror. Meaning that the game will continue to have two raids, and nothing to bring new players in to a struggling - to say the least - MMORPG.

FFXIV is in this, too. I'm not an end game player, so my research into this may not be 100% accurate, but from what I have gathered - since the launch of Heavensward in June 2015, there has been a single "actual content patch" in the 8 months elapsed since then, with another larger one coming... Soon™? I see a lot of people complaining about a lack of proper content to do, but it doesn't seem awful.

Same with FFXIV, Destiny is another game I see people saying lacks content at end game. Again, I'm not an end game player for this title, so my look into what's going on may not be 100% accurate. In fact, there isn't much I can find going in depth as to why Destiny is suffering from a content drought. I'd love to hear from some actual players about what's going on with the game.

Star Trek Online - I don't know what the situation is like nowadays, but I know for a fact that it was suffering hard during early to mid 2011. There was nothing added since Winter that year until, like... September, I believe? Yikes.

Guild Wars 2 is another one I've seen a lot of complaints about in terms of drought, but I haven't played enough to form a proper opinion. Would love to hear from some players.

Why is this? Is it because development has become harder, more expensive? Has the push of free-to-play and microtransactions made making tangible content less appealing financially versus a few mounts on a cash shop every month or three?

Really curious what lesser known titles have had content droughts that you all would have stories about, along with opinions on the topic at hand.

 

[Sophia]

FFXIV is in this, too. I'm not an end game player, so my research into this may not be 100% accurate, but from what I have gathered - since the launch of Heavensward in June 2015, there has been a single "actual content patch" in the 8 months elapsed since then, with another larger one coming... Soon™? I see a lot of people complaining about a lack of proper content to do, but it doesn't seem awful.

A big big reason for FFXIV's content droughts is that they don't make content built to last. This has been a pretty consistent problem since FFXIV re-launched with A Realm Reborn too. It's just more amplified because the state of the endgame is worse. To use Patch 3.1 as an example: the story barely takes more than few hours, the dungeons they did add get repetitive, the trial boss fight they added is too hard for the average player and it's only one fight anyhow, there is no new hardcore raid, and the mid-tier raid (World of Darkness) they did add doesn't last forever. The one new type of content they did add, The Diadem, has been left to to rot basically as the developers have not fixed fundamental flaws with it.

 

[Zareka]

FFXIV poured a ton of time and development into a crap RTS no one touches with a barge pole. Couple that with the actual dungeons being 'eh' at best and you've got the reason for the complaints.

I'd like to know this too, though. I love MMOs but I'm sick of the content drought problems. FFXIV was nailing it last year too. Such a shame.

Edit: yeah more in depth take on it above. Lords of Verminion, though. Freakin' WHY, Yoshi?

 

[Leafhopper]

After not playing Guild Wars 2 for an entire year (2015) only to come back to it and purchasing Heart of Thorns I am glad I came back. Arenanet managed to streamline an already pretty streamlined game to something that just makes your entire account feel like it's one account. To the point that making a new character and wanting to try out new things is easier than ever. The complaint that people, including myself was that they added content but, not a lot of permanent content, and as of late they are trying to change that. I have not finished the story path in the Heart of Thorns but the amount of stuff that is added in that expansion is extremely nice.

Oh why didn't I play it for a year? I knew it wasn't going anywhere, I just took a break and kinda forgot to come back. 630 something hours and I decided to take a break and now that I am back I expect to clock into the thousands probably.

Only complaint at the moment is the new areas they added in Heart of Thorns, even with the new movement options of the glider, it's kind of a pain the ass to get through some of the areas, then again plot wise that's the point. It's tough at parts but, that is something that was needed anyway.

 

[IvorB]

The FF XIV drought following Heavensward was an exception. I really don't think anyone can fault their content delivery up 'till that point. And there is a pretty meaty patch coming in a week or two I think. Definitely nowhere near that WoW situation you described which sounds rough.

 

[Sai-kun]

This is basically a thread about Destiny, right?

I remember that drought of content between WotLK and Cata. Shit was fucking awful, for real.

 

[nubbe]

MMOs should maybe try season and reboot yearly
It is kinda nice to start all over again with everyone else

 

[lazygecko]

Big part of the problem, not counting the very inherent problem of the games being fundamentally dependant on these content treadmills, is how the theme park MMO genre moved further and further with its obsession of pretending to be a single player RPG experience. That comes with raising the standards for the presentation and production values.

At some point having fully voice acted NPCs with scripted ingame cutscenes/events and everything became a higher priority than merely focusing on getting comparatively barebones content out which mainly serve to facilitate engaging multiplayer scenarios. And shit like that generally takes significantly longer to develop.

I mean, Molten Core in World of Warcraft was literally made within a week, and if you actually take the time to judge the production values with the quality of the scripted events and voice acting and everything, it comes across as quite laughable. Yet somehow the playerbase at the time didn't really deem those elements that important, and this content was enough to keep players engaged and satisfied for quite a while. I think that provides a pretty clear contrast to just how much development priorities have shifted.

 

[Enter the Dragon Punch]

This is basically a thread about Destiny, right?

I remember that drought of content between WotLK and Cata. Shit was fucking awful, for real.

Well, imagine Wrath had less than half the content it did, and add 3 more months to the ICC > Cata drought.

That's the Warlords situation.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

If the game was still chewy enough to last, the playerbase couldn't stand it.

If the dev team was big enough to sustain that level of production and inhaling, they couldn't stay in business.

Hence, other genres eating MMO's lunch.

 

[diffusionx]

It's hard because MMOs want players to get hooked and engaged, but those people tend to fly through content and demand new content. The problem is that good content takes more time to make. Think about it, a 8 hour COD with a bunch of maps takes 3 years to make these days, but developers are expected to constantly churn out high quality stuff for MMO players to zip through. I wonder if developers throw their hands in the air when they spend a long time making a new dungeon and Kotaku posts about the ace guild beating it in a weekend.

 

[Sophia]

FFXIV poured a ton of time and development into a crap RTS no one touches with a barge pole. Couple that with the actual dungeons being 'eh' at best and you've got the reason for the complaints.

I'd like to know this too, though. I love MMOs but I'm sick of the content drought problems. FFXIV was nailing it last year too. Such a shame.

Edit: yeah more in depth take on it above. Lords of Verminion, though. Freakin' WHY, Yoshi?

Lords of Verminion is interesting because, if the endgame progression wasn't so screwed up, it would be just fine.

But yeah... the biggest problem the FFXIV team has is making stuff last. Three to four months between content patches is not actually a bad timeframe. They just need to make sure that content is actually going to last that timeframe, instead of casual players finishing stuff within the first month, and the more hardcore players banging their heads on the same boss for the remaining two.

The FF XIV drought following Heavensward was an exception. I really don't think anyone can fault their content delivery up 'till that point. And there is a pretty meaty patch coming in a week or two I think. Definitely nowhere near that WoW situation you described which sounds rough.

It wouldn't have been a problem if the release of Alexander hadn't made the existing endgame in Heavensward almost completely obsolete. Remember how everyone just kinda stopped running Bismarck and Ravana EX because the rewards were no longer worth it?

 

[Soulflarz]

As I haven't played TTK (1.0 was trash as far as endgame is concerned) so I'll obly comment on 14 and GW2

14, and probably WoW too, if my memory serves me correctly, suffers from the developers making content that doesn't last. At any given time, the most recent patch is all that you can justify doing. All the old content is varying levels of pointless, and as such, one clear is all anyone can justify. Some people repetitively grind item levels on the new content, while others instantly drop it until a few more patches hit. The issue moreso comes down to the fact that no content is ever justifiable for doing today versus in two months. If it's clearable with randoms, it's too easy, but if it's not too easy, they intentionally make the content something that players have to find a group and learn over multiple sessions in some cases. There's not really many situations in which the way they have the game set up makes the effort justifiable worth your time. I promise you can find something more enjoyable for your time than sitting around all day getting a group together and trying to clear this new content, without a doubt. You aren't even missing content in the end, since they intentionally nerf the difficulty and give you better items by the time you come back in a few months. As such, FF14 is the definition of a game which you have no real incentive to pay month over month, considering you're getting less bang for your buck than coming back every 4 months, disregarding the heavy timesinks for doing current content.

GW2 suffers from nothing to inherently work towards in endgame that is clearly explained. I remember people telling me that you make your own fun in GW2 endgame, and I fully agree. There isn't really a good reason to do X or Y in many cases.
I understand why some people love playing with their friends, and I also understand why people drop the game the second they hit max level and say "I'm bored".

 

[panama chief]

Destinys problem is the devs charged us to play the content that should've been on the disc. They saw the profits and put every body to work on destiny 2. Now we're stuxkbwithba small live team and a company that can't keep up the 3 month dlc model we got spoiled by while putting work into part 2.

 

[omlet]

FFXIV poured a ton of time and development into a crap RTS no one touches with a barge pole. Couple that with the actual dungeons being 'eh' at best and you've got the reason for the complaints.

I'd like to know this too, though. I love MMOs but I'm sick of the content drought problems. FFXIV was nailing it last year too. Such a shame.

Edit: yeah more in depth take on it above. Lords of Verminion, though. Freakin' WHY, Yoshi?

Huh? An RTS? I recently resubbed

Spoiler

to keep Yoshi from demolishing my house I spent 20 mil on

to see some of the new stuff that's been added since second coil of bahamut and haven't heard anything about an RTS being part of the game now?

 

[Cleve]

Well, imagine Wrath had less than half the content it did, and add 3 more months to the ICC > Cata drought.

That's the Warlords situation.

The really fucked up part of the situation to me is that in Cata they explained they were dropping a raid tier (it had one fewer than each previous release) to speed up expansions. That just never happened, we just got less content.

 

[Sorian]

The FF XIV drought following Heavensward was an exception. I really don't think anyone can fault their content delivery up 'till that point. And there is a pretty meaty patch coming in a week or two I think. Definitely nowhere near that WoW situation you described which sounds rough.

Basically this. 3.2 drops on 2/23 with a new raid. They are now in make or break mode so we can see if the Heavensward-caused delay was the norm or the exception.

Huh? An RTS? I recently resubbed

Spoiler

to keep Yoshi from demolishing my house I spent 20 mil on

to see some of the new stuff that's been added since second coil of bahamut and haven't heard anything about an RTS being part of the game now?

Go to the Gold Saucer, ignoring people's whining it's actually a pretty good mini-game.

 

[Mr. RPG]

I've heard that people are leaving Final Fantasy XIV in droves since Heavensward. Was Heavensward that bad?

 

[Fireye]

FFXIV is in this, too. I'm not an end game player, so my research into this may not be 100% accurate, but from what I have gathered - since the launch of Heavensward in June 2015, there has been a single "actual content patch" in the 8 months elapsed since then, with another larger one coming... Soon™? I see a lot of people complaining about a lack of proper content to do, but it doesn't seem awful

FFXIV puts out major patches about once a quarter, they aim for 4 a year. In each patch, there's generally 2 new dungeons, and either a new 8-man raid (serious raiding), or a new 24-man raid (casual raiding).

Unfortunately, that isn't a lot of content when you need to grind out tomestones (currency used to buy items). They try to make the older content relevant by adding a daily Roulette system, which will reward you tomestones, but it doesn't help make the old content fun to clear.

The latest dungeons consisted of Pharos Sirius (Hard) and Saint Mocianne's Arboretum, which follows their "1 dungeon is new, the second is a rehash" standard. So, even with the new content, it tends to re-visit older locations. They're still fun, and introduce some really cool new patterns/bosses/etc.

It feels like a lot of the money that FFXIV makes is being funneled away from the development of FFXIV.

I've heard that people are leaving Final Fantasy XIV in droves since Heavensward. Was Heavensward that bad?

It isn't so much that Heavensward is BAD, it's just more of the same. The story is quite enjoyable, but they haven't innovated like they did from 1.0-->2.0. Crafting/Gathering is more grindy than ever, and a lot of small quality of life tweaks haven't come through.

 

[Sophia]

Huh? An RTS? I recently resubbed

Spoiler

to keep Yoshi from demolishing my house I spent 20 mil on

to see some of the new stuff that's been added since second coil of bahamut and haven't heard anything about an RTS being part of the game now?

It's in the Gold Saucer. It's called Lord of Verminion, and it's based off the RTS trading card Arcade game that Square owns. Except instead cards you use your own minions.

FFXIV puts out major patches about once a quarter, they aim for 4 a year. In each patch, there's generally 2 new dungeons, and either a new 8-man raid (serious raiding), or a new 24-man raid (casual raiding).

Unfortunately, that isn't a lot of content when you need to grind out tomestones (currency used to buy items). They try to make the older content relevant by adding a daily Roulette system, which will reward you tomestones, but it doesn't help make the old content fun to clear.

The latest dungeons consisted of Pharos Sirius (Hard) and Saint Mocianne's Arboretum, which follows their "1 dungeon is new, the second is a rehash" standard. So, even with the new content, it tends to re-visit older locations. They're still fun, and introduce some really cool new patterns/bosses/etc.

It feels like a lot of the money that FFXIV makes is being funneled away from the development of FFXIV.

Saint Mocianne's Arboretum is a fantastic example of the problem with dungeons. It has a fantastic location, great art direction, good boss battles.... and it's actual dungeon layout would not be out of place in Final Fantasy 13. Almost a straight line from beginning to end.

 

[Enter the Dragon Punch]

The really fucked up part of the situation to me is that in Cata they explained they were dropping a raid tier (it had one fewer than each previous release) to speed up expansions. That just never happened, we just got less content.

They do this every single expansion since the ICC drought. "Oh, we're going to do yearly expansions, oh we have the biggest team ever, oh we're going to have so much content in the meanwhile" etc, etc.

It's just gotten to the point of being unbearably bad with WoD.

 

[Pantaghana]

While many wouldn't count it as an MMO, Warframe has had pretty regular updates throughout its lifetime, there are several major updates a year (~6) and there are many weekly updates between each major update.

Major updates are a mix of reworks of old/bad systems, major content and lore updates.
Weekly updates contain new weapons, balance changes and further refinements to systems introduced in the major updates.

I've been very impressed with its development, and I like that there is a nearly constant trickle of content and improvements.

 

[Aztechnology]

Snip.

This is why I simply don't play MMO's anymore. I'm a co-op player primarily so I grsvitate towards PVE heavily. The trend however is towards PVP focused MMO's because they're require less effort on the developers end (yielding greater returns from smaller teams.) Thos isn't going away anytime soon and there's plenty of people content with that so there's no need for them to do otherwise.

I've resigned myself to believe the "golden years" of MMO's with catered end game PVE content have passed.

 

[Parham]

Are there any active MMOs that release a steady stream of content?

Edit: To be clear, I'm not trying to excuse any of the games listed the OP. This is a legitimate question.

 

[IvorB]

It wouldn't have been a problem if the release of Alexander hadn't made the existing endgame in Heavensward almost completely obsolete. Remember how everyone just kinda stopped running Bismarck and Ravana EX because the rewards were no longer worth it?

Yeah... I don't get why they did that. Previously you had to at least clear all the ex primals to fight the new one so there was always reason for people to do them but now they've stopped that. That said though, Bis Ex is still a cool, entertaining fight that people can do. It didn't just disappear because the gear it gave was no longer top drawer. With all the complaints about end game, if you are a fresh level 60 right now there's actually quite a bit to do.

 

[TheYanger]

It's funny you mention it starting with Wrath, because BC was when it started. The difference? Content so hard that nobody but the high end saw the drought. Black Temple was on farm for basically a year before Sunwell came out for good guilds.

Blizz has come to accept that people tend to be cyclical with their subs anyway, I'm not sure if that's healthy or not, but I think it's certainly the way that things tend to play out.

I actually think the amount of content released is fine for the span of time, but it's always poorly spaced out. I think it would be better to sit on a patch a few more months than release it quickly and have a REALLY long wait for an expansion. Last two expansions both bore that out for me: Mists of Pandaria had an EXCELLENT first tier that we barely had time to enjoy, Throne of Thunder was close to the right amount of time, wouldn't have hurt to have another month of it though. Maybe 3 months between the two tiers to cut into the year of siege, I think that would have been fine. Same deal with the current: Highmaul was over so fast that nobody even really did it. It's a problem with the split tiers in general, there's no reason to do the 'lower' zone once the higher one releases.

FF14 on the flipside had more frequent patches, but the content in them is so fucking small and worthless it's painful, I think wow size mega patches are the way to go but the scheduling needs to be better.

 

[Haroon]

Part of the reason why I got into the MMO games was because of the fact that they were constantly being updated. At least that's what I thought. But sadly, that was not the case.

What sucks about these long droughts is that if you're playing the PvE content of the games. You will need to join a guild to see a lot of the content at its intended difficulty (Depending on whether you play normal, heroic, or mythic). And you can't really take a long break during these droughts because others in your guild might want to continue farming it for their alternative characters, or for people that are still missing gear. So you end up subscribing for the entire drought, and hope that the new expansion comes out soon. If they end up pushing out more content monthly. I might consider coming back, but I don't see myself coming back with the current state of affairs.

 

[KRaZyAmmo]

Are there any active MMOs that release a steady stream of content?

while I don't play MMOs that much....I wanna say FF14 online. Isn't that gonna get an update soon?

 

[Enter the Dragon Punch]

Are there any active MMOs that release a steady stream of content?

Doesn't SWTOR get fairly often updated?

 

[knitoe]

The reason I quit was because I knew FFXIV would have issues since the beginning with need to replay the same end game bosses encounters on different difficulties. Gotta be the cheapest way to try the "add" more contents.

 

[Kintaro]

I've heard that people are leaving Final Fantasy XIV in droves since Heavensward. Was Heavensward that bad?

Main Story wise? Nah. Gameplay/Content wise? Very hit and miss with few hits and more miss. Their current raid doesn't hold a candle to Binding Coil of Bahamut in any way, shape or form. To top it off, they didn't even test it right. Diadum is a wasted opportunity, Void Ark is pretty neat, but it'll be six months of the same thing before another section is released and they slid from three dungeons per patch to two so it feels like we're getting less. Top it off with some weird design choices (Lord of Verminion) and some scummy tactics (taking houses away from people instead of expanding the housing system over a YEAR ago), it's pretty rough.

HW is just kind of boring. =/

 

[Interficium]

For the hardcore, it's literally impossible to make "enough content" for them. If you create a MMO with a 1000 hours of content at launch, you can be assured that someone, somewhere, roughly 41 days later, will be bitching about how there's "nothing to do."

 

[VanillaCakeIsBurning]

Thing is these kinds of MMO's put out content that quickly gets chewed followed by people asking for more.

There's no longevity to it before people get bored and want something new. Things like good PvP can add longevity because the content itself is player generated, but implementing stuff like that and having it be successful is difficult.

 

[Pellegri Testament]

The content delivery in FF14 isn't so much how long it takes at times, it's more of just how much actual content there is and how lasting it is. If you are a hardcore raider, you get 4 bosses every 6-8 months and that is it. While casual raiders get their own faceroll raid every 6-8 months (which is also 4 bosses), easy mode Alexander (which is the easy mode of what hardcore raiders get) and they get multiple dungeons in each patch, along with maybe a primal. Even as a casual raider none of the content has a very lasting effect, it's all easy enough that even the derpiest of players can one shot it within the first few weeks of release.

I mean sure, waiting 12+ months for a WoW expac is fucking awful, especially when there is no throwaway content inbetween, but at least the raids have some meat to them if you play at anything above the bottom tier. I'm also amazed it took them 3 expacs of doing the same shit after the final raid to really feel the effects of just how awful of a design decision it is. WoW may still be the king when it comes to mmos, but it deserves the flak and sub losses it gets for making players wait that long for something new. There is no reason that they can't plan something ahead when it comes to lessening the content drought. They know these expacs will take a year or longer to release after the final raid, why don't they have a team to work on the current expac during that same time?

 

[omlet]

Go to the Gold Saucer, ignoring people's whining it's actually a pretty good mini-game.

It's in the Gold Saucer. It's called Lord of Verminion, and it's based off the RTS trading card Arcade game that Square owns. Except instead cards you use your own minions.

Ah, okay. I did the tour quest then left and have never gone back. Ain't got time fo' that.

I've heard that people are leaving Final Fantasy XIV in droves since Heavensward. Was Heavensward that bad?

I dunno, I'm not there to most of the new content yet (thanks weeks worth of item level gating!) but my server was one of the most heavily populated legacy servers and it is a total ghost town these days compared to when I was playing more seriously a little over a year back.

 

[The End]

While many wouldn't count it as an MMO, Warframe has had pretty regular updates throughout its lifetime, there are several major updates a year (~6) and there are many weekly updates between each major update.

Major updates are a mix of reworks of old/bad systems, major content and lore updates.
Weekly updates contain new weapons, balance changes and further refinements to systems introduced in the major updates.

I've been very impressed with its development, and I like that there is a nearly constant trickle of content and improvements.

Having largely quit playing Warframe, this wasn't always the case: frames, weapons, and skins used to be released regularly because they generated cash from the whales. Then DE got bought out by Sumpo Food Holdings Ltd

Now it seems there's actual content. Sigh, might as well reinstall, right?

 

[Sorian]

Doesn't SWTOR get fairly often updated?

lol No. They haven't gotten a new raid since December 2014 and there are no plans for a new one at this time. They have completely switched gears to standard bioware single player storyline.

 

[Levyne]

Guild Wars 2 is another one I've seen a lot of complaints about in terms of drought, but I haven't played enough to form a proper opinion. Would love to hear from some players.
.

Guild Wars 2 had two week updates for nearly the whole life of the game (at least one per month) until around the start of 2015, when "Living Story Season 2" ended in January (iirc). Then the Expansion, Heart of Thorns, was announced early in the year with a big blowout at Pax East, and while little patches and events floated here and there, all content release was held back for the expansion in October. Since the expansion release, there's been one Raid wing added shortly after, and the game is seemingly now in another drought. They are working on another expansion so I am not sure there's any reason to expect things to change, except supposedly the living story is coming back in some fashion in March. It's not sure what form it will take. The last season was 8 updates with two pauses, so not eight straight.

So it had a steady stream of content releases until going to an expansion model where it seems like it's staying for now.

 

[Enter the Dragon Punch]

It's funny you mention it starting with Wrath, because BC was when it started. The difference? Content so hard that nobody but the high end saw the drought. Black Temple was on farm for basically a year before Sunwell came out for good guilds.

Blizz has come to accept that people tend to be cyclical with their subs anyway, I'm not sure if that's healthy or not, but I think it's certainly the way that things tend to play out.

I actually think the amount of content released is fine for the span of time, but it's always poorly spaced out. I think it would be better to sit on a patch a few more months than release it quickly and have a REALLY long wait for an expansion. Last two expansions both bore that out for me: Mists of Pandaria had an EXCELLENT first tier that we barely had time to enjoy, Throne of Thunder was close to the right amount of time, wouldn't have hurt to have another month of it though. Maybe 3 months between the two tiers to cut into the year of siege, I think that would have been fine. Same deal with the current: Highmaul was over so fast that nobody even really did it. It's a problem with the split tiers in general, there's no reason to do the 'lower' zone once the higher one releases.

FF14 on the flipside had more frequent patches, but the content in them is so fucking small and worthless it's painful, I think wow size mega patches are the way to go but the scheduling needs to be better.

To add to your third paragraph, don't forget about Trial of the Champion. We got Ulduar in April 2009, and ToC in August 2009... Then ICC in December.

Why did Ulduar not get a full 6 to 8 months if we knew there was going to be a long fucking time with ICC? Why rush out ToC? Ulduar until November, TOC until early March, ICC until early December. Would have been much better and it's a crime we didn't get more time to enjoy Ulduar before it was swept under the rug.

 

[Sorian]

The reason I quit was because I knew FFXIV would have issues since the beginning with need to replay the same end game bosses encounters on different difficulties. Gotta be the cheapest way to try the "add" more contents.

Funny because in most MMOs, it is just a straight copy and paste when they do different difficulty levels and the bosses just has more health and hits for more damage. FFXIV is one of the few where the skin is the same but the mechanics are usually largely different in different difficulty modes.

 

[Nokterian]

WoW drought is hitting me so hard i cannot be bothered to even play the game right now. People are still playing to me what is now old content..no new patch with new content no nothing. I will play Legion because everyone does but for now i will keep playing SWTOR and it is weird that game gets new content nearly every month Knights of the Fallen Empire is very very good yeah it is more single player stuff but i have fun with it.

To me not having new content for so long just doesn't give me a desire to keep playing it,yeah a game a like Diablo 3 isn't a MMO but holy damn does it get a lot new content,new season etc at least that keeps me engaging to keep playing.

And thinking about it nearly 1,5 year with no new content in WoW? Yeah i will keep playing other games instead.

 

[TheYanger]

Thing is these kinds of MMO's put out content that quickly gets chewed followed by people asking for more.

There's no longevity to it before people get bored and want something new. Things like good PvP can add longevity because the content itself is player generated, but implementing stuff like that and having it be successful is difficult.

It's kind of the end of the path we've gone down since everything started copying wow. People like to LOL HARDCORE about Wildstar for example, but the difficulty and grindiness associated with older MMOs is why content lasted so long. Even early wow, didn't have a ton more content, it was just not designed to be chewed through in a month by your average player. I don't actually even think the hardest stuff was harder, it absolutely was not, but it was grindier and didn't have an 'easy mode' for you to half experience first, which certainly adds something to the experience when you're going through it if it's REALLY new.

Compare it to like, EverQuest, it didn't actually have THAT much content, but it was obscure, it was unforgiving, and it didn't hold your hand in any way. Learning was the hard part, actually playing was completely trivial. It lasted a long time just due to how oppressive it was though, and that's the kind of thing that when people try it now players just laugh and quit. The market won't let that kind of game live anymore, and then becomes surprised when McContent gets chewed up for lunch at an unsustainable rate.

To add to your third paragraph, don't forget about Trial of the Champion. We got Ulduar in April 2009, and ToC in August 2009... Then ICC in December.

Why did Ulduar not get a full 6 to 8 months if we knew there was going to be a long fucking time with ICC? Why rush out ToC? Ulduar until November, TOC until early March, ICC until early December. Would have been much better and it's a crime we didn't get more time to enjoy Ulduar before it was swept under the rug.

Oh absolutely, Vanilla is pretty much the only time the release rate was 'right' but that's almost entirely due to how immature the player base was at that time. The fights weren't hard, but gearing was slow and it was hard to make a good raid group when very few people actually knew what kinds of things that entailed (mostly old EQ raiders). But the spacing of the content was good, 6ish months for levelling and beating molten core/onyxia (both very easy but slow and oppressive), then..a few months for blackwing lair, half a year of AQ, and half a year of Naxx. It ended up with not many epople seeing Naxx, but that's because every patch didnt' catch you up like we would get now, if you did that release schedule in present day it would feel PERFECT. Everyone would beat every zone if they wanted to, and just start to tire of farming it when the next released.

 

[Cleve]

They do this every single expansion since the ICC drought. "Oh, we're going to do yearly expansions, oh we have the biggest team ever, oh we're going to have so much content in the meanwhile" etc, etc.

It's just gotten to the point of being unbearably bad with WoD.

Yeah, but alt least with WotLK we got 4 tiers, even if one was recycled from vanilla. I actually kinda liked TotC other than running it 4 times a week. Heroic Anub was cool. They really gave ulduar an awkwardly short time given how much content and potential it had. Some pacing issues, but overall some good raids that xpac.

Cata just cut it down to 3 tiers and said deal with it. Heroic Rag was the only worthwhile fight that expansion. I'm kind of glad I quit with pandas, I heard that blacklock foundry has been the only content in ages.

 

[Aadrian1234]

I can only speak for FFXIV, but after reaching level 60 about 2 months before 3.1, i have nearly exhausted all the content there is for me to do already. There simply isn't enough to keep people satisfied between every patch, especially when the new content is mostly the same exact format as the content we already have.

 

[cyress8]

Having largely quit playing Warframe, this wasn't always the case: frames, weapons, and skins used to be released regularly because they generated cash from the whales. Then DE got bought out by Sumpo Food Holdings Ltd

Now it seems there's actual content. Sigh, might as well reinstall, right?

Just restarted playing Warframe about a couple weeks ago, they seem to be trying to add more content but the same grind is still there. Take a look at the newest piece of content loot - Lens. If you do not setup the lens correctly, it will take forever to fill out just one of the focus tiers. These games need to stop adding content that forces you to grind constantly.

 

[oakenhild]

To add to your third paragraph, don't forget about Trial of the Champion. We got Ulduar in April 2009, and ToC in August 2009... Then ICC in December.

Why did Ulduar not get a full 6 to 8 months if we knew there was going to be a long fucking time with ICC? Why rush out ToC? Ulduar until November, TOC until early March, ICC until early December. Would have been much better and it's a crime we didn't get more time to enjoy Ulduar before it was swept under the rug.

Ulduar getting rushed was the beginning of the end of my 25 man raiding too. We were just really getting into a groove, but still struggling on the end bosses. It was a big raid, and a lot of fun. Then bam, ToC comes out early and it's just not nearly as epic as Ulduar was. Guild broke up during ToC.

 

[Sophia]

Blizzard's always had a problem with developing content in a timely manner. It's why a lot of the old world content that they revamped in Cataclysm is starting to look outdated again compared to the leveling content in Pandaria and Draenor. To say nothing of the Burning Crusade starting areas for those races. They just seem incapable of working on an expansion and also either updating the game's quality across the board or adding new content. :\

Guild Wars 2 had two week updates for nearly the whole life of the game (at least one per month) until around the start of 2015, when "Living Story Season 2" ended in January (iirc). Then the Expansion, Heart of Thorns, was announced early in the year with a big blowout at Pax East, and while little patches and events floated here and there, all content release was held back for the expansion in October. Since the expansion release, there's been one Raid wing added shortly after, and the game is seemingly now in another drought. They are working on another expansion so I am not sure there's any reason to expect things to change, except supposedly the living story is coming back in some fashion in March. It's not sure what form it will take. The last season was 8 updates with two pauses, so not eight straight.

So it had a steady stream of content releases until going to an expansion model where it seems like it's staying for now.

Yeah, Guild Wars 2 has always been consistent about updates. It's not always been even in quality, and there is the issue of Living World season 1 content going away when a lot of it was really good, but ANet has been consistently the best about delivering content in a timely manner.

 

[IvorB]

Having largely quit playing Warframe, this wasn't always the case: frames, weapons, and skins used to be released regularly because they generated cash from the whales. Then DE got bought out by Sumpo Food Holdings Ltd

Now it seems there's actual content. Sigh, might as well reinstall, right?

Well I hope their buyout payday was glorious even if getting bought by a food company is bizarre. They deserve every penny. I would definitely recommend checking into Warframe every once in a while. I was actually amazed at the the amount of stuff they've added since I used to play it heavily.

 

[Pantaghana]

Having largely quit playing Warframe, this wasn't always the case: frames, weapons, and skins used to be released regularly because they generated cash from the whales. Then DE got bought out by Sumpo Food Holdings Ltd

Now it seems there's actual content. Sigh, might as well reinstall, right?

What do you consider content? Because for many, warframes and weapons are content.
Don't know when you stopped playing, but in the last year saw the release of new tilesets, enemies, a new enemy faction, boss reworks, warframe reworks and tons of new mods, weapons and warframes.

Quest are still a bit underutilized and DE is well aware. They have major plans for the quest system.

 

[Aadrian1234]

Just restarted playing Warframe about a couple weeks ago, they seem to be trying to add more content but the same grind is still there. Take a look at the newest piece of content loot - Lens. If you do not setup the lens correctly, it will take forever to fill out just one of the focus tiers. These games need to stop adding content that forces you to grind constantly.

I also play warframe on and off. The biggest problem Digital Extremes has, is adding too much content and not polishing it. They need to go back and revamp more old features before adding in new stuff.

EDIT= To add to this, the new movement system revamp made me play the game much longer than the constant content updates. They are opposite of current MMO droughts, focusing too much on adding new stuff for people to grind and not fixing actual game mechanics