Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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World of Warcraft: Current Year
- Thread starter hodj
- Start date
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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DAOC (Shrouded Isles; Foundations; Trial of Atlantis; New Frontiers; Catacombs; Darkness Rising; Labyrinth of the Minotaur)
EVE (1 per year or even more)
Anarchy Online (Notum Wars; Shadowlands; Alien Invasions; Lost Eden; Legacy of Xan)
LOTRO (Mines of Moria; Siege of Mirkwood; Rise of Isengard; Riders of Rohan)
EQ2 (8+)
You can count "A Tale in the Desert", but each "expansion" (or Tale) restarts the world from scratch.
I think that's it. Basically, any old game that managed to stay active and profitable to develop for a 6+ years.
Kreugen
Vyemm Raider
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When the gameplay no longer resembles anything from the first few years due to the overabundance of abilities and systems added on. EQ2 doesn't count because it was bloated from the very beginning. You can hardly point at now and say "oh, look at all that bloat!" when you had two hotbars of shit by level 20.
Of course if you mean more than just character abilities, you can look at EQ1, where they add features in every expansion that are never updated or used again.
Of course if you mean more than just character abilities, you can look at EQ1, where they add features in every expansion that are never updated or used again.
Flipmode
EQOA Refugee
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Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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I was only talking about the games I did play (and kept a bit tabs on them). Otherwise, I'm pretty sure games like Lineage I, II and its ilks have had lots of expansions as well. One old-timer thatdidn'tget 4 expansions is Asheron's Call. I think having new content every month alleviate the "expansion" syndrome. Oh, and GW1 had almost 4 expansions, if they had not dropped everything to develop GW2.
I'd be surprised if DCUO had 5 expansions. It hasn't been around long enough for that to happen...
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4 fucking raid difficulties with 2 versions of each and who knows how many ilvls. That's 8 different ways to raid the same fucking content. Multiple tiers of 5 man dungeons with 2 difficulties and more ilvls. If that's not bloat I don't know what is.
Should just stick to 2 raid difficulties and 1 set number of player. Stupid fucking game.
4 Raid difficulties, with the exact same mechanics and loot just 'bloated' number difference in damage to compensate for the additional player slots. Hardly two distinct raiding experiences as you're insinuating. 1 tier of 5 mans currently, all providing the same tier of loot (463) with the chance at a pre-raid epic on the end boss (476). Scenarios that gave 450-463 loot from a randomized loot chest doesn't count as a tier. Even when we had 3 tiers of 5 mans (4.3), only one was viable and ever run and the previous ones were left in the dust. The mid-tier 5 man content was a bridge for those less skilled to get into normal mode raiding, which is essentially what LFR is now rather than additional 5 man content that trivializes prior content completely as we saw in Cata.
And how does multiple difficulties provide bloat? Because there's so many copies of the same item, just different ilvls and coloring? Because the green text that says 'Raid Finder' or 'Flex Raid' or 'Heroic' is totally bloat.
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Think the point is that its;
Lots and lots of ways to do the same thing
vs
Lots and lots different things to do.
Lots and lots of ways to do the same thing
vs
Lots and lots different things to do.
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Pretend you're a new player and you know nothing about the game. Do you think it's good design to have all these different options to essentially do the same thing? Have items named the exact same thing only different color or even just a different ilvl? Not everyone is the MMO pro you are.
Yes.
Cybsled
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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It isn't going to impact a new player much. Flex system and regular/heroic raiding all require a guild or manually put together groups (both of which would probably check the person's gear and tell them to queue for LFR/Heroic dungeons if it wasn't up to snuff). The game is pretty careful about letting random people queue for harder stuff...that's why you can't auto-queue for heroic scenarios, challenge dungeons, etc.
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You seriously are going to sit there and tell me that 4 difficulties for the same content isn't bloat?
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Sorry but there is no path to follow if you want to play at whatever difficulty you want. Also, there aren't 10000 different menus and options for you to figure out when you pick up the game. It's a simple difficulty choice at the beginning of a game. Let's also not forget you're comparing different genres and that game is over 30(?) years old now. Sorry but you wont win this argument. The game is shit.LOOK AT ALL THE BLOAT IN LIKE EVERY GAME EVER:
Stave
Potato del Grande
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I quit around 5.1 or 5.2, and came back to see whats new and it is already confusing to me. Brawlers guild, a few new daily hubs with epic rewards, PvP supposedly way changed, and now new raid tiers, confusing.
Flex raids definitely is not a feature to get players to return, but seems more a method to stop the bleeding by giving small guilds something more to do.
Flex raids definitely is not a feature to get players to return, but seems more a method to stop the bleeding by giving small guilds something more to do.
Stave
Potato del Grande
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Earlier today, I was thinking to myself, what would make me and my wife and friends come back to WoW and had what I think is a pretty decent idea.
What WoW really needs to do, if it wants to draw in numbers again, is release a different type of expansion, all focused on the "other stuff" to do in the game that isn't raiding. No new level cap, no new continents. Totally scrap the time they would use making these normally, and do the following instead:
-Player housing
-Guild housing
-Ways to decorate your house (items from raids, to 5 mans, to quests, etc, and ways to show this off as a badge)
-Find a way to make all the old raids relevant again (whether scaling up or down).
-Tons and tons of transmog gear scattered throughout old content
-Tons of new pets to collect
-Rare unique items off of new super rare spawns scattered throughout the world, everything from vanity to special clicky items, etc (Think Jboots, mounts, rare pets, etc)
-A new raid tier for the hardcores and lfr users
-A good chunk of new 5 mans
-Actual battleground ratings for individuals when queuing normally
-Maybe make an actual good battleground matchmaking system based off said ranking
-Actual good unique PVP rewards that dont just require honor/conquest points
-A trading card game or something along those lines (integrate hearthstone?)
-A WPvP area like Wintersgrasp
-Multiple super long legendary quest lines different for each class (with weapon rewards etc, with unique effects like EQ that make them stay relevant, stuff like the fire cat druid staff)
-Make these mostly solable or small group content like the old hunter epic bow/staff quest, that are hard as hell but rely on skill and are solable only, and don't tell anyone where they start, or make the starting item randomly drop somewhere in the world so there isn't a farming for first item roadblock of 1000's of players.
-Can even make the quest chain go even further to make the item better (2 ilvl upgrades or whatnot), through hardcore raids etc to appease the hardcore.
-A bunch of new/revamped holiday events
-New world events with cool enough rewards to draw people out of cities more (think fishing event x10 with unique rewards)
-Multiple new armor model sets for each class
-Revamp tradeskills, and maybe do something cool with fishing
-PVP raid bosses, like raiding Org or Stormwind and killing bosses would give actual uber (legendary?) rewards.
-Maybe a new class unlockable by some long epic quest chain
-Some sort of bounty system, where you can put bountys on players? And maybe where NPC's can put bounties on rare spawns, for unique item rewards? All sorts of things you could do here.
-And last but not least, AA's! Well, something just like it. Grind xp/old quests for small perks, new talents, etc.
Just tons of other non raiding/non dailies stuff to do, the sky is the limit. This will give them a good base to expand on too down the road (adding new housing items, etc). This is honestly what I bet most WoW players would want, and what would get them to resub. Honestly all thats going to be left soon in WoW are the hardcores. Casuals eat shit up like the farm lands, pet battles, quest chains, fountain coin fishing, etc. They need the casuals back, and a new +gooder raid expansion with some new levels and raids isn't going to cut it anymore. And we all know as long as there is a raid on the horizon, poopsockers will never quit for good. Make WoW an actual "world" to live in again, rather than the same old action raiding game it has been for years.
What WoW really needs to do, if it wants to draw in numbers again, is release a different type of expansion, all focused on the "other stuff" to do in the game that isn't raiding. No new level cap, no new continents. Totally scrap the time they would use making these normally, and do the following instead:
-Player housing
-Guild housing
-Ways to decorate your house (items from raids, to 5 mans, to quests, etc, and ways to show this off as a badge)
-Find a way to make all the old raids relevant again (whether scaling up or down).
-Tons and tons of transmog gear scattered throughout old content
-Tons of new pets to collect
-Rare unique items off of new super rare spawns scattered throughout the world, everything from vanity to special clicky items, etc (Think Jboots, mounts, rare pets, etc)
-A new raid tier for the hardcores and lfr users
-A good chunk of new 5 mans
-Actual battleground ratings for individuals when queuing normally
-Maybe make an actual good battleground matchmaking system based off said ranking
-Actual good unique PVP rewards that dont just require honor/conquest points
-A trading card game or something along those lines (integrate hearthstone?)
-A WPvP area like Wintersgrasp
-Multiple super long legendary quest lines different for each class (with weapon rewards etc, with unique effects like EQ that make them stay relevant, stuff like the fire cat druid staff)
-Make these mostly solable or small group content like the old hunter epic bow/staff quest, that are hard as hell but rely on skill and are solable only, and don't tell anyone where they start, or make the starting item randomly drop somewhere in the world so there isn't a farming for first item roadblock of 1000's of players.
-Can even make the quest chain go even further to make the item better (2 ilvl upgrades or whatnot), through hardcore raids etc to appease the hardcore.
-A bunch of new/revamped holiday events
-New world events with cool enough rewards to draw people out of cities more (think fishing event x10 with unique rewards)
-Multiple new armor model sets for each class
-Revamp tradeskills, and maybe do something cool with fishing
-PVP raid bosses, like raiding Org or Stormwind and killing bosses would give actual uber (legendary?) rewards.
-Maybe a new class unlockable by some long epic quest chain
-Some sort of bounty system, where you can put bountys on players? And maybe where NPC's can put bounties on rare spawns, for unique item rewards? All sorts of things you could do here.
-And last but not least, AA's! Well, something just like it. Grind xp/old quests for small perks, new talents, etc.
Just tons of other non raiding/non dailies stuff to do, the sky is the limit. This will give them a good base to expand on too down the road (adding new housing items, etc). This is honestly what I bet most WoW players would want, and what would get them to resub. Honestly all thats going to be left soon in WoW are the hardcores. Casuals eat shit up like the farm lands, pet battles, quest chains, fountain coin fishing, etc. They need the casuals back, and a new +gooder raid expansion with some new levels and raids isn't going to cut it anymore. And we all know as long as there is a raid on the horizon, poopsockers will never quit for good. Make WoW an actual "world" to live in again, rather than the same old action raiding game it has been for years.
Dandai
<WoW Guild Officer>
- 5,909
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I can tell you put a lot of time and effort into making that list, so instead of an asshole, snarky reply, I'm just going to say that I strongly, but respectfully, disagree with your assertion that they will not only retain more subs, but bring back old players by completely ignoring progression and doing the sort of expansion you described.
If they released this as an in-between-expansions thing, I could definitely see it being a hit, but these assholes take 24 months to put out an expansion. Devoting that amount of time to nothing but secondary items that strictly effect the appearance of your character sounds like a great way to get players to try out other games.
If they released this as an in-between-expansions thing, I could definitely see it being a hit, but these assholes take 24 months to put out an expansion. Devoting that amount of time to nothing but secondary items that strictly effect the appearance of your character sounds like a great way to get players to try out other games.