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Op Ed

GamesRadar - Are expansions ruining World of Warcraft?
So how could more content possibly be a bad thing? Well, most complaints we’ve heard seem to stem from the general way MMO expansions tend to funnel a majority of the population into its new areas, rendering old content obsolete. For example, The Burning Crusade provided players with a new level cap of 70, and introduced Outland, giving level 60-plus players a new – but comparatively smaller set of zones to play in. A mass exodus to Outland was partially balanced by the addition of two new races and classes for both Horde and Alliance players. Since both factions had brand new options for starting a new level one Paladin (for the Horde) or a Shaman (for the Alliance), there seemed to be a healthy amount of players to group with on the way to level 60 in “classic” WoW when TBC released.

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21. Re: Op Ed May 20, 2009, 18:10 Zadig
 
Expansions don’t ruin MMO’s. Constantly raising the level cap kills them. New players are put off by taking longer to get to the ‘good stuff’ so leveling is made faster. This leaves fewer people available to group with in the early and middle levels, so leveling is again made faster for players to bypass the dead zones. This leads to players that reach the end game before they’ve acquired good gear or a reasonable grasp of game mechanics, so the game gets simplified for them. Every subsequent expansion makes this worse. All because most developers keep forcing their games into the Everquest template and are too stupid to think of any other way to do things.

The only online games I know that don’t follow that model are Eve and Guild Wars. Eve has no leveling at all and GW has a perfunctory cap of 20 that is achievable by anyone in about a week. They’ve released about a dozen expansions between them, but the early areas are still well populated and they haven’t been turned into games for the recently lobotomized. Of course those 2 aren’t bringing in Warcraft revenue either, so get ready for another batch of generic fantasy MMO’s where you grind to 80 by killing bears/wolves/boars...
 
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    Date Subject Author
  1. May 20, 11:01 Re: Op Ed Fion
  2. May 20, 11:10  Re: Op Ed Kajetan
  3. May 20, 11:32  Re: Op Ed Verno
  6. May 20, 13:04  Re: Op Ed Ray Marden
  4. May 20, 11:53 Re: Op Ed Endo
  5. May 20, 12:04  Re: Op Ed Kxmode
  7. May 20, 14:05 Re: Op Ed Xombie
  8. May 20, 14:28  Re: Op Ed Verno
  20. May 20, 17:47   Re: Op Ed Xombie
  9. May 20, 15:10  Re: Op Ed Endo
  10. May 20, 15:30   Re: Op Ed Fion
  13. May 20, 15:48    Re: Op Ed Endo
  14. May 20, 15:58     Re: Op Ed NKD
  12. May 20, 15:47   Re: Op Ed Agent.X7
  11. May 20, 15:39 Re: Op Ed Verno
  17. May 20, 16:35  Re: Op Ed Cutter
  19. May 20, 17:04   Re: Op Ed Dades
  15. May 20, 16:05 Re: Op Ed Verno
  16. May 20, 16:17  Re: Op Ed PHJF
  18. May 20, 16:42 Re: Op Ed PropheT
>> 21. May 20, 18:10 Re: Op Ed Zadig
  22. May 20, 18:19 Re: Op Ed Dades
  23. May 20, 18:34  Re: Op Ed Xombie
  24. May 20, 19:30 Re: Op Ed Wallshadows
  25. May 20, 19:30 Re: Op Ed Dades
  26. May 21, 00:35  Re: Op Ed Kxmode
  28. May 21, 09:50   Re: Op Ed Xombie
  27. May 21, 06:49 Re: Op Ed Dades
  29. May 21, 11:18 Re: Op Ed Verno
  30. May 21, 14:00 Re: Op Ed dryden555


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