Support NeoGAF

[Melubas]

Problem with your argument is you're living in a fantasy world, either that or you are incredibly selfish. Raid content takes by and far the most time for Blizz to create, huge environments, more complicated bosses, multiple unique armor sets + weapons, etc. and no one was participating in it during vanilla. Blizzard gave us the stats years ago, by the time TBC came out only a few thousand people had cleared Naxx 40 man. So over the course of 6 months about 0.5% of the player base actually bothered to go through the raid they made. That is the definition of a waste of development resources.

It's ironic really, you moan on and on about how adding multiple difficulties dumbs down the game (which is factually untrue, all it does it make it harder) when the reality is those extra difficulties are the only reason they can justify spending so much time making the raids as good as they are. You seem to think that if there was still only 1 difficulty we'd be getting the same quality of raids we are now when anyone with half a brain can tell you they'd either stop making them completely or scale back the development so much that every raid was essentially Dragon Soul (90% reused assets with only a handful of bosses).

You're attributing correlation to causation where it doesn't exist - Vanilla WoW was popular but not because the raid model it had. It was popular because it was a super accessible game to get into where anyone regardless of age, time, experience, etc. could progress to level 60. It was less of a time commitment than the MMOs before it. The raid model didn't match that at all, it was super grindy and required a huge time commitment, which is why most people never saw that stuff.

My point still stands that I believe MMOs needs to have content that is hard to access, because without it it doesn't feel like a world. I never really cared that I couldn't access Naxx or any of the raids after that, since I heard about it and thought that maybe, some day, I would be able to see it. It didn't bother me that it didn't happen because as I mentioned before, the "everyone is the chosen one"-syndrome didn't exist as much back then and I was fine with being a mid-level player. Having several difficulty levels for every raid takes away from the immersion since you know basically everyone at max level already killed the big bad boss. That it was in LFR is irrelevant.

Vanilla WoW was popular because it actually was fun regardless of where you were in the leveling process or what you wanted to do. There was a playfulness in it that doesn't exist today where everything is about min-maxing (they even removed abilites that wasn't "necessary" a couple of months back).

 

[mclem]

Yet WoW today is much more accessible to the point of severely dumbing down nearly everything in the game. You can't really compare ZG and AQ20 to LFR for example, LFR is way too easy and as I said before makes it so that the magic is completely removed from seeing a new, challenging instance since everyone has already seen it in easy-mode. Raid difficulties is one of the worst things to ever be implemented as far as I'm concerned.

Why not just not see it in easy-mode?

I've run LFR wings maybe... 5 times in WoD? Total? Something like that. I might be wrong, but I don't think I LFRed any of HFC.

I like the magic you describe. So I work to preserve it for myself.

 

[ZenaxPure]

My point still stands that I believe MMOs needs to have content that is hard to access, because without it it doesn't feel like a world. I never really cared that I couldn't access Naxx or any of the raids after that, since I heard about it and thought that maybe, some day, I would be able to see it. It didn't bother me that it didn't happen because as I mentioned before, the "everyone is the chosen one"-syndrome didn't exist as much back then and I was fine with being a mid-level player. Having several difficulty levels for every raid takes away from the immersion since you know basically everyone at max level already killed the big bad boss. That it was in LFR is irrelevant.

Vanilla WoW was popular because it actually was fun regardless of where you were in the leveling process or what you wanted to do. There was a playfulness in it that doesn't exist today where everything is about min-maxing (they even removed abilites that wasn't "necessary" a couple of months back).

So you're admitting to living in a fantasy world then? Like dude, do you not see how locking away content to less than 1% of the player base is a bad idea? Specifically when that content takes the most amount of time to create in comparison to everything else? It's really not rocket science.

And lol no - Vanilla WoW was all about min-maxing as well. Just because you had blinders on to avoid it doesn't mean it didn't exist. I saw plenty of people get kicked out of my guild or denied for being an idiot. We had a rogue in my guild who was obsessed with some fucking hybrid assassination/sub spec and he was firmly shown the door when he wouldn't spec combat.

That playfulness only existed to casual players, and guess what, that is still there today.

 

[squall23]

Oh man, the final months of SD Gundam Online in North America were stupid because of this. For the final 6-8 months of the game, monthly updates became irregular updates alongside GMs deciding to put more things behind paywalls when those updates actually came.

The worst part was that because North America was a year or so behind Korea, everybody knew what sort of content we should be getting and at what time. Despite all the bad management, this wasn't the reason for the shut down of the game. It was because Bamco decided to publish their own new version of the game just so they retained more rights (and gained more money) from it so the older game got shut down even though the older version had hundreds more units.

 

[mclem]

Problem with your argument is you're living in a fantasy world, either that or you are incredibly selfish. Raid content takes by and far the most time for Blizz to create, huge environments, more complicated bosses, multiple unique armor sets + weapons, etc. and no one was participating in it during vanilla. Blizzard gave us the stats years ago, by the time TBC came out only a few thousand people had cleared Naxx 40 man. So over the course of 6 months about 0.5% of the player base actually bothered to go through the raid they made. That is the definition of a waste of development resources.

You know, there's something that's struck me that doesn't really get talked about all that much: In Vanilla, there was another attempt at small-group progression outside raids, the Dungeon Set 2 chain. I'm curious how many people did that fully through to killing Lord Valthalak, the unique boss at the end of it - no-one ever seems to talk about him, while lots of people talk about Naxx-40. I'm not sure I know anyone who finished the entire chain, but maybe I was talking to the wrong people (I, at the time, was an aspiring raider; Dungeon Set 2 wasn't particularly useful for progression at the level I was at)

I assume Blizzard regard that as another unsuccessful design choice, given there's not really been anything similar since, but since it was released prior to the achievement system, there's not a great deal of information out there on how many people participated in the chain right to the end.

(Actually, on saying that, has there really 'not been anything similar since'? Or do we, maybe take that as a precursor to the design mentality that went into the Pandaria legendary cloak, the Warlords legendary ring and (presumably) the Legion artifact weapon?)

 

[Felessan]

There was a playfulness in it that doesn't exist today where everything is about min-maxing (they even removed abilites that wasn't "necessary" a couple of months back).

Sorry, but no.
It was not readily posted on forum what is the best (at least first half an year with detailed drill-down what and why). But min-maxing existed right from the start, you'll be asked if you are in sub-optimal build and will be kicked if your performance was perceived as "not good enough". Recount became mandatory practically from the beginning.

 

[Jarnet87]

I'm playing Everquest again on one of the new progression servers, for being such a big and expansive experience back in the day it's a lot less so going back and playing it hardcore this time. Being in the top guild on a server we raced to level and kill the raid content. All of the raid content was killed within a few days in classic era, and the 2nd expansion killed within a week. It's 6 months between expansions or so it was voted that way so that is a crazy time period before a new expansion unlocks. It's much easier now then it was back in the day but this still fits casual players more then hardcore. In most cases of these types of games it's the most hardcore players who have the loudest voice but we don't make up a large percentage of the player base.

I think WoW actually has a decent amount of content per expansion (patches not so much) for the casual player.

 

[Melubas]

So you're admitting to living in a fantasy world then? Like dude, do you not see how locking away content to less than 1% of the player base is a bad idea? Specifically when that content takes the most amount of time to create in comparison to everything else? It's really not rocket science.

And lol no - Vanilla WoW was all about min-maxing as well. Just because you had blinders on to avoid it doesn't mean it didn't exist. I saw plenty of people get kicked out of my guild or denied for being an idiot. We had a rogue in my guild who was obsessed with some fucking hybrid assassination/sub spec and he was firmly shown the door when he wouldn't spec combat.

That playfulness only existed to casual players, and guess what, that is still there today.

Apparently it worked in the early days? Like, I get it from a pure economical standpoint, but it still absolutely destroys the immersion for me to know that everyone already saw the epic boss I'm about to encounter because they saw him in LFR. The awe is gone.

If you raided it was about min-maxing sure, but you still had the option to go with wacky specs, you had the option to try out weird abilites. Now they took most of that away for no reason other than "it was superfluous". Not everyone wants to min-max.

 

[Melubas]

Why not just not see it in easy-mode?

I've run LFR wings maybe... 5 times in WoD? Total? Something like that. I might be wrong, but I don't think I LFRed any of HFC.

I like the magic you describe. So I work to preserve it for myself.

Because it's not the same. If you made it to The four horsemen in vanilla you could be sure that the majority of the server hadn't seen them before in-game. It felt like an achievement to get there. Having everyone able to hack through the epic end boss with little difficulty makes it seem less like a world and more like a game, and that is a bad thing.

 

[mclem]

Because it's not the same. If you made it to The four horsemen in vanilla you could be sure that the majority of the server hadn't seen them before in-game.

And why does that matter to me?

 

[Melubas]

And why does that matter to me?

You personally I can't speculate about, but I feel it adds to the sense of scale. There should be content that is hard to reach, and not just due to a changed difficulty level.

 

[Jolkien]

Because it's not the same. If you made it to The four horsemen in vanilla you could be sure that the majority of the server hadn't seen them before in-game. It felt like an achievement to get there. Having everyone able to hack through the epic end boss with little difficulty makes it seem less like a world and more like a game, and that is a bad thing.

It shouldn't matter that someone else did not see it before you. There was plenty of hard achievement, the one were you have to clear LK Naxx and Ulduar without dying, I got all those achievement. Now a days back when I played you had ahead of the curve feat of strenght things like that.

In my opinion wanting to prevent a large portion of the player base so that you can feel like a special snowflake, is not the way they should go at all it's just not a good business decision.

 

[Forkball]

It's an inherent flaw of MMOs. They rely on subscription money or in game transactions to maintain a flow of income, and thus have to push the idea that the gameplay is infinite. However, even if they make 100 hours worth of content, which takes a lot of manpower to create, people will eat through it in a week and say "What's next?" Player expectations can not be met with what MMOs promise. The genre really needs to undergo a revolution, or another MMO title that's not an RPG needs to shake things up.

 

[Speely]

Crowfall, Camelot Unchained, Lost Ark Online, Lineage Eternal, The Repopulation. Those are just off the top of my head.

These don't follow the Theme Park Model.

Yep. Camelot and Crowfall look interesting as hell. AAA MMOs are a big risk, and I don't see many if any publishers going in on truly interesting concepts going forward. The KS model makes more sense: Judge your audience and gauge interest; build accordingly. Shoot for the Moon and do it right.

ESO actually has been on a pretty consistent schedule of new content since they released Imperial City over the Summer. Orsinium followed it a few months later and now Thieves Guild comes out next month, with Dark Brotherhood likely hitting beginning of the Summer (just a guess but would make sense).

Amen. This game has been dismissed too soon by so many. It's excellent right now and the content keeps coming. Good content, too. Orsinium is ace. Imperial City is really pretty unique and interesting. Thieves Guild looks great. Not to mention that they are constantly working to improve the base game itself. Some iffy stuff in regard to class balance on the PTS right now, but that is the case with almost any MMO that balances PvE and PvP. They will work it out, which is the benefit of a game with constant updates. Best MMO I have played since DAoC and the best ES game since Morrowind imo.

 

[Sölf]

You know, there's something that's struck me that doesn't really get talked about all that much: In Vanilla, there was another attempt at small-group progression outside raids, the Dungeon Set 2 chain. I'm curious how many people did that fully through to killing Lord Valthalak, the unique boss at the end of it - no-one ever seems to talk about him, while lots of people talk about Naxx-40. I'm not sure I know anyone who finished the entire chain, but maybe I was talking to the wrong people (I, at the time, was an aspiring raider; Dungeon Set 2 wasn't particularly useful for progression at the level I was at)

I assume Blizzard regard that as another unsuccessful design choice, given there's not really been anything similar since, but since it was released prior to the achievement system, there's not a great deal of information out there on how many people participated in the chain right to the end.

(Actually, on saying that, has there really 'not been anything similar since'? Or do we, maybe take that as a precursor to the design mentality that went into the Pandaria legendary cloak, the Warlords legendary ring and (presumably) the Legion artifact weapon?)

I think one of the complaints back then was that this "new content" was still farm massive amounts of gold in order to run the same dungeons again. Yeah, there were new bosses, but you still visited the same places and inbetween those steps you had to farm quite a chunk of gold. I never got past upgrading my second or third piece back then, because aside from farming like 40 scorpion blood in Silithus, which didn't even drop 100%, I also had to bring back I think 15 gold or 20 gold or even more, just to complete the quest. Back then, I simply didn't have that gold. Not sure about others. I would really like to see something like this again. I am also one of those people that has no problem with going back to old regions/dungeons to do new stuff in it.

 

[Veldin]

And why does that matter to me?

I'm not going to go as far as to say "it should", but I believe the idea of going somewhere few, if any, have gone before is a very commonly compelling motivation. It's often dismissed solely as a self-centered desire, but I find that highly reductive. For a world to be fully realized and dangerous it absolutely needs places that the faint of heart can but won't tread. In order for it to really work, the danger has to show in how it affects the players, not just by how much the NPCs insist.

 

[mclem]

I'm not going to go as far as to say "it should", but I believe the idea of going somewhere few, if any, have gone before is a very commonly compelling motivation. It's often dismissed solely as a self-centered desire, but I find that highly reductive. For a world to be fully realized and dangerous it absolutely needs places that the faint of heart can but won't tread. In order for it to really work, the danger has to show in how it affects the players, not just by how much the NPCs insist.

The intriguing thing is that it seems the actual content itself... kind of doesn't matter? Everyone who says this seems to be enamoured with the idea of that content being there as something to aspire to more than the idea of them actually doing that content. Which I find fascinating - but I don't see how I can reconcile that against the fact that people don't seem to say the same thing about, say, Ra-den, or Lady Sinestra, or even the Mythic version of Imperator Mar'gok, which adds one major new and lore-heavy element.

It's the cutoff I don't comprehend. All those are new and involved fights that - yes - I absolutely aspire to have the opportunity to enjoy. So why aren't these lauded by such critics in the same way as Naxx was?

 

[Zelias]

You're never going to make good content faster than it can be consumed, not even close. And that's not even a new thing either.

That said, Blizzard do seem to have issues. They keep telling us that the WoW team is bigger than ever, that they're targeting yearly expansions, that they're looking to cut down on the end of expansion drought, but after several notable failures it's obvious they either can't or won't do it. To be honest it'd just be better now if they held their hands up and admitted to it, but I imagine that'd be pretty terrible PR for them.

I'm not a fan of the yearly expansion concept either - I worry that if they managed to do that we'd just end up with WoD again. Except we'd have to pay for it every year. I'd rather have two yearly expansions with a hefty amount of patch content (like MoP, which did a lot right bar the end of expansion drought).

Blizzard seem happy to have people sub and unsub cyclically so I doubt this problem is going away anytime soon, at least not for WoW. Is more sandbox-style emergent gameplay the answer? Maybe, but that's not easy to make and with WoW's emphasis on the loot treadmill I wonder if it would even work.

 

[ErrorMacro]

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.

this, this, THIS.

This ia completely an issue with modern mmo design. Not only the complexity of content makes it take much longer to develop, like you said, but also because players rely on that content to have fun.MMO's designed with Massive Multiplayer online, like they were 10, 15 years ago, had in their basic design enough reasons for players to keep playing and enjoying the game, even despite the lack of new content.

 

[Azzurri]

MMO's need to be more of a Sandpark than a theme park or sandbox, having a bit of both worlds is I think the best for everyone.

If Trion didn't fuck ArcheAge it would probably be one of the best MMO's on the market.

 

[Candescence]

MMO's need to be more of a Sandpark than a theme park or sandbox, having a bit of both worlds is I think the best for everyone.

If Trion didn't fuck ArcheAge it would probably be one of the best MMO's on the market.

I can definitely get behind this idea. No Man's Sky would be an amazing template - an entire procedurally-generated universe as a foundation to build developer-made and player-made content. A realistically-sized galaxy would literally have more planets than the playerbase could mess around with. Planets without life could be terraformed and claimed by players or guilds (or at least part of the planet could be claimed, planets are big) and built on to their heart's content. The devs could create their own content that gives players more to do than simply build and explore. You could do a lot with that sort of setup.

 

[Velcro Fly]

The end of WotLK and the beginning of Cata caused me to quit WoW basically forever.

A lot of the people I played with quit then too.

I came back for a few months here and there but never to do max level things again.

I honestly don't know how someone can do that max level grind for more than a few months without some serious burnout.

At the time tons of people whined about ICC and not having anything for an entire year. I just basically stopped playing the game at that point. My main wasn't in some great guild so I really wasn't regularly doing ICC or anything. My main focus was making gold on the AH and I had just about maxed out what I could do there because demand for things began to decline once it was obvious that ICC was it. Hard to sell epic gems 9 months after the last real encounter of the XPAC is released. Hard to sell anything raid related for that matter.

 

[Galava]

I feel like MMOss need to implement seasonal servers or characters like Diablo. That way we could have our beloved character and then each season we can level up and equip other characters to compete in leaderboards and obtain exclusive transmogs, gears, items...

At least WoW needs it.

 

[Levyne]

No. It hasnt. I would say less that its life.

There IS a current content drought in GW2. The expansion DID have lacking content. GW2 has been ridiculously slow on the update front because they constantly want to establish 'SYSTEMS' which should have been there from launch or shortly after. When we do get content, its hardly ever compelling or significant. GW2 is great for one thing. Temporary content.

I wonder how long it will be till we get to explore Elona or Cantha. 10 years?

Um, I think you are agreeing with me? With the expansion announcement came a big drought both before and after. That's what I am saying.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

The trouble is the alternative: If you don't do that, the people who come in at the bottom of the ladder have a ton of content - but the people halfway up the ladder don't have new blood refreshing them any more. You're still going to lose members of your guild, your squad, your raid team, whatever over time due to natural attrition - where are replacements going to come from?

This is what makes it such an awkward issue to work around, I feel like most devs go with fast tracking players into the newest content which is an easy solution that I don't think is the best solution in the long run since it depends on the devs giving players new content as well as making TONS of old content entirely obsolete. But if you don't all the new people will just be trapped quite literally in the past and be unable to progress and quit, and even worse as you said are the middle ground people who have no new members to recruit from to do their middle ground stuff.

 

[Thorgal]

since we are discusing FF14 amongst others thought id post this :

PATCH 3.2 trailer is out .

Look amazeballs .

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Problem with your argument is you're living in a fantasy world, either that or you are incredibly selfish. Raid content takes by and far the most time for Blizz to create, huge environments, more complicated bosses, multiple unique armor sets + weapons, etc. and no one was participating in it during vanilla. Blizzard gave us the stats years ago, by the time TBC came out only a few thousand people had cleared Naxx 40 man. So over the course of 6 months about 0.5% of the player base actually bothered to go through the raid they made. That is the definition of a waste of development resources.

It's ironic really, you moan on and on about how adding multiple difficulties dumbs down the game (which is factually untrue, all it does it make it harder) when the reality is those extra difficulties are the only reason they can justify spending so much time making the raids as good as they are. You seem to think that if there was still only 1 difficulty we'd be getting the same quality of raids we are now when anyone with half a brain can tell you they'd either stop making them completely or scale back the development so much that every raid was essentially Dragon Soul (90% reused assets with only a handful of bosses).

You're attributing correlation to causation where it doesn't exist - Vanilla WoW was popular but not because the raid model it had. It was popular because it was a super accessible game to get into where anyone regardless of age, time, experience, etc. could progress to level 60. It was less of a time commitment than the MMOs before it. The raid model didn't match that at all, it was super grindy and required a huge time commitment, which is why most people never saw that stuff.

"Thise who forget the past..."

Its irrelevant zenax, even if my theory that this class warfare advocacy was a major factor in this kerfluffle is incorrect, the rapid loss of engaugement still stands and more of this "cure" is ineffective at fixing it.

The You of 2007 didnt care unless it went too far yet the 2015 does yet WILL NOT reward companies that diligently meet these standards.

 

[impact]

since we are discusing FF14 amongst others thought id post this :

PATCH 3.2 trailer is out .

Look amazeballs .

I dunno why I keep waiting for them to add a lvl 60 dungeon called Dynamis Jeuno

it would make too much sense

 

[Skulldead]

MMORPG need to remove Max level content philosophy, that's it. Make leveling process longer and don't unbalance everything because you gain 1-2 level. That make helping other player pointless. And Solo oriented MMORPG need to die, if you want to play a single player game there a lot of choice around !

I never had any problem with content in Ultima Online ever at release. Same with Everquest, because getting max level was like been a God, when we saw people with high level stuff we were like damn this guy play a lot !! Because the game were hard these kind of people were needed, no just there too look good. I can't remember how many time i got save in FFXI by a high level healer that was passing by and decide to help me on the road... I miss the old hardcore MMORPG...

 

[Loona]

I dunno why I keep waiting for them to add a lvl 60 dungeon called Dynamis Jeuno

it would make too much sense

If they wanted to be really cruel they could create Dynamis Elshimo - expert-level content based on FFXI's very own labyrinth island, where trying not to get lost is half the battle.

 

[Akuun]

I've been playing FFXIV since 2.0 launched, and run a raid group that has stayed largely unchanged for over two years. We're currently working on A4S final phase, for those who know the raid.

I have mixed feelings about the game. On one hand, the endless treadmill of new tomes is pretty predictable and tedious, and I agree the additional content such as Lord of Vermilion and Diadem have fallen flat at worst, or didn't have legs at best. Each new set of expert dungeons are pretty to look at, but usually aren't that interesting to run repeatedly, much less run endlessly several times a week for months.

On the other hand, I'm not upset at the pace of endgame content because my group doesn't raid as much as a hardcore group and we're not super pro, so we usually clear the final raid boss of the patch maybe a month or so before the next big raid patch. So the pace of new endgame raiding content isn't too slow for us. Alex Gordias in this case has taken longer both because of the raised difficulty and because of recent ISP problems. It's hard to progress through a difficult endgame raid when half your party can't function reliably for 60-75% of our raiding hours.

I think if I didn't enjoy playing with friends in the game, I would have quit long ago. But I feel like the group and the endgame raid is fun enough to keep me going.

 

[CHC]

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.

Very true, facilitiating cooperative experiences is a goal that is both fairly easy / cheap, and also very long lasting. Things like elite quests and non-automated interactions mean that yo get things done, you need to talk to and work with others - which inherently is a time sink (but a hopefully enjoyable one).

I still think vanilla WoW had the best mix of single player and multiplayer I have ever experienced. You could cruise by on easy quests and get mediocre loot that was suitable for leveling, or you could find groups to tackle some harder stuff and in some cases get a dungeon quality item. It was cool because if you only had an hour or two to play you could hop on and do some solo stuff, but if you really wanted to play the game to its fullest, you HAD to get your hands dirty meeting and interacting with people.

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

if MMOs weren't so obsessed with constantly vertically scaling a ladder then they could slow things down and have more content with larger variety all handing out relevant gear

 

[ErrorMacro]

if MMOs weren't so obsessed with constantly vertically scaling a ladder then they could slow things down and have more content with larger variety all handing out relevant gear

Very true as well. I like to cite Ragnarok Online because, although it had a myriad of issues, it did some stuff very well, one of them being gear variety. Back in classic RO (before renewal), the bonus given by equipment and cards were so varied and situational, that you had to have different equipment for each build you planned and place you wanted to farm. It was not a matter of bigger numbers, but rather how you adapted your equipment to the mobs and map configuration you were about to face.

 

[Man Called Aerodynamics]

I'm still curious what the ratio looks like between hardcore progression people who blitz content quickly, vs. casual people who play a few hours a week, focus on the more casual content, and get to the high-end raids months later or never... Seems like that would offer a lot of insight into the real health of an MMO. Any way to find this out?

 

[Bisnic]

One thing that could "fix" WoW issue of the long year drought at the end of an expansion's life, is to make it so you can adjust older raids to your current level, gear and all, so you can do them just like the old days.

Tired of doing Hellfire Citadel? Why not do Icecrown Citadel with a 10 man group of lvl 100, with monsters and items balanced with the same difficulty and item lvl as of Hellfire Citadel?

Not sure how feasible that would be though. Classic raids would probably be too damn simple and easy compared to todays raid bosses.

 

[Acerac]

A lot of people claim that raiders will never be happy despite the fact that the main complaint of raiders is that the release schedules are inconsistent and have large gaps.

We don't need constant updates monthly, when Blizz gives Ulduar 4 months before rotating it out and soon after sticks us with ICC for over a year that is not a problem with the playerbase.

 

[Andiie]

As some have already hinted at or flat out said, with WoW, I feel in Blizzard's short sighted quest to get every player into raiding and to remove as many barriers in-game as they can they've also removed a lot of the depth of the game that may have contributed to every player's potential length of stay.

Even if raiding was all the content you could do in the past I feel the supporting systems that existed along side it and the design within the game itself helped provide potential different avenues and content outside of the game's main focus. I wonder if those things existed because of the broader approach of the older game which has slowly been eroded away.

My point is, with the removal of that depth, progression has become a lot like a short linear path. There aren't too many interesting distractions anymore and because of the encouragement to get to "the fun stuff" i.e. raids, anything interesting tends to be very short lived.

It's any wonder content is consumed so fast when there's not a hell of a lot supporting that content that they're not having to create.

 

[Griss]

I just don't understand the 'content drought' complaints.

Any other kind of game, and you accept that there's only so much content one team can make. So where does this 'I should be able to experience new content every month in perpetuity and if that doesn't happen someone is fucking up' attitude come from?

Play the game. Beat it. When you reach the end of the available content, stop. Is it rocket science? If it's a sub game, just cancel your sub and resub when a new patch / expansion hits.

The real problem is the skinner box design of these games is so strong that people won't walk away - they can't. They'll do the same repetitive tasks again and again, and they're basically just begging for something new to justify those tasks, to put the 'hit' back in their daily fix.

When you're done with the content... quit.

 

[Nabbis]

MMOs will continue to swim in their own mediocre shit unless they start adding robust user generated content and mechanics that force emergent gameplay.

Many so called "qaulity of life" mechanics are really bad as well. LFR for example completely destroys the community aspect in your own server and makes many "emergent gameplay" mechanics impossible. Things like fighting a different faction at the entrance and giving players a ride through some hard areas are gone. Yeah, you need to gather people for longer than a minute but at the same time you go to the forums and cry that all you do is grind dungeons.

 

[wildfire]

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.

What the op talks about is the norm. Content updates is hard. The only mmo with consistent patches was Eve Online.

They had patches twice a year but every major new system they introduced took 3 years to be fixed or they never fixed it.

Content updates is hard.

 

[mclem]

One thing that could "fix" WoW issue of the long year drought at the end of an expansion's life, is to make it so you can adjust older raids to your current level, gear and all, so you can do them just like the old days.

Tired of doing Hellfire Citadel? Why not do Icecrown Citadel with a 10 man group of lvl 100, with monsters and items balanced with the same difficulty and item lvl as of Hellfire Citadel?

Not sure how feasible that would be though. Classic raids would probably be too damn simple and easy compared to todays raid bosses.

They have done exactly that with 5-mans with the new Timewalking feature. I'd be shocked if there wasn't an idea to do that with raids at some point. They've suggested in the past that the big problem for that is figuring out how to attach reasonable rewards to it, such that the old familiar content doesn't in turn end up making the new complex content not worth the time investment to learn. With the 5-man example they're still a few levels of quality bahind the best stuff you can get from the top-end 5-mans.

 

[TheYanger]

As some have already hinted at or flat out said, with WoW, I feel in Blizzard's short sighted quest to get every player into raiding and to remove as many barriers in-game as they can they've also removed a lot of the depth of the game that may have contributed to every player's potential length of stay.

Even if raiding was all the content you could do in the past I feel the supporting systems that existed along side it and the design within the game itself helped provide potential different avenues and content outside of the game's main focus. I wonder if those things existed because of the broader approach of the older game which has slowly been eroded away.

My point is, with the removal of that depth, progression has become a lot like a short linear path. There aren't too many interesting distractions anymore and because of the encouragement to get to "the fun stuff" i.e. raids, anything interesting tends to be very short lived.

It's any wonder content is consumed so fast when there's not a hell of a lot supporting that content that they're not having to create.

That content is still there, you just don't do it as much because you don't have to. Dungeons still exist, gathering and crafting still exist, that shit was all tedious busywork before, and given the choice people won't do it. So...what does that tell you about the 'content' you're pining for?

Rose tinted glasses are basically the only reason anyone can ever try to act like that stuff was better, the content was strictly inferior, it just demanded more of your time.

 

[Acerac]

Going through the thread, Melubas makes a lot of points I'd agree with. Multiple difficulty levels takes away from the "feel" of the boss. Seeing Naxxramas, even at 70, was something special for me. I never got past t5 in BC, and that was ok. Years later when I went back and beat Sunwell it was that much more special.

Being able to "experience" these bosses for the first time is far different if there are barriers ahead of them. It's a far different experience when you talk about an amazing boss fight only to have somebody tell you they pugged it down a week ago on easy mode.

Even worse is completing a raid and hearing that progression is beating all the bosses again. How incredibly lame.

 

[Felessan]

Look amazeballs

And the most expected feature across the board (of mu FC) is an ability to collect songs.
Even our most hardcore part prioritize it over raiding/

if MMOs weren't so obsessed with constantly vertically scaling a ladder then they could slow things down and have more content with larger variety all handing out relevant gear

Most people need to have a motivation and goal to continue to play a game - and gear treadmill provide them. It's about "what to do in a game that gives reasonable reward", and as current style theme-park imply that you can get up to 80+% of equipment cap with relatively easy (due it to be casual-frienfly) - you need a way to somehow reset progress regulary, as most people will just abandon diminishing returns of getting equipment of last 20%.

I'm still curious what the ratio looks like between hardcore progression people who blitz content quickly, vs. casual people who play a few hours a week, focus on the more casual content, and get to the high-end raids months later or never... Seems like that would offer a lot of insight into the real health of an MMO. Any way to find this out?

It's like the first group takes 3-5% in NA to about 10+% in Asia
It's a big reason why "I just want to see a story/boss looks" level of raiding was introduced.

 

[Wagram]

since we are discusing FF14 amongst others thought id post this :

PATCH 3.2 trailer is out .

Look amazeballs .

They always look great in the first few days. That's how they get you.