Why can’t MMO’s be like this too? Why do MMO devs have to keep pumping out new expansions with new landmasses?

New content is not always the answer. The solution is creating MMO mechanics that allow for dynamic change. That will require boldness and vision that is sadly in short supply. All we can really hope for is that the millions of WoW players will someday wake up and be hungry for a deeper MMO experience. Doing the bidding of NPC’s with gold question marks over their heads is not my idea of fun anymore.

-Wolfshead

If your focus is on the “game” virtual world, as we see with the PvE environment of most MMORPGs in the market today, then the game designer bears the responsibility of making sure that all of the content that exists in the game is palatable to SOMEBODY and that as many different play-styles are accommodated as possible within the scope of the world theme. When I say “content” I don’t just refer to things like zone geometry, mobs, or spells/items. I’m actually referring to enabling different things to DO in the world that are fun and iterating upon things you can ALREADY do to keep them fresh. Evolving storylines are one area that also makes sense to change, and to involve the player in that evolution as it takes place.

Let’s face it, there’s a TON of cogs in the wheel of a successful MMORPG and any one of them could be re-visited from time to time to keep the equation just a little bit more interesting than the last iteration. It’s really a balance of development, design, programming, and artist resources to have a certain amount of time devoted towards iterating on older content vs. the next expansion, for example.

Another difficulty in providing ever changing content lies in the business-side of things. Unless you provide all of these content changes as free game updates, it’s really tough to apply changes that only owners of the purchased expansion pack can see. If you try, you end up having to do sketchy things like maintaining instanced versions of the zones and the like. I’m personally still working out what would be a good plan of attack for this sort of thing… because that’s the kind of stuff I geek out on.

Thanks for the comment Tesh! =)

Cheers,

Nick

An MMO is a weird sort of hybrid beastie that needs to split the burden, methinketh. Of course, if the only thing that players can do is /chat, /craft and /emote, their power is limited. PvP adds a few things, but I think what’s lacking is a sense that players can (and do) make a difference in the world.

…but yes, I agree, leveling doesn’t need to be boring. Good game design, and continual improvement/shuffling on the part of the devs, can go a long way to making an MMO worthy of continued attention.