The Daily Grind: Do expansions cheapen all that hard work?

the new EQ2 expansion has no level cap increase ;)

Initially I love expansions. However, in my limited experience they are also what prompt me to quit the game. It is the seemingly endless and arbitrary set of end-standards that make me feel the treadmill acutely. So for they're a double edged sword for me in that way. Clearly, people like them and it keeps the game going. I always crave more end-game content (and early game new zones/quests) so its an exciting time in a game. You just end up identifying with the hamster.

Expansions are to MMOs what sequels are in just about any other game. The main differences are that you keep the same character(s) and that new players still have to get through the "early" game to reach the new content.

The first leads to people believing their effort has been for nothing (their uber character suddenly finds him/herself 10 rungs down the totem pole again). The second makes it more daunting for a new player who is looking at the climb to the top.*

Blizzard has already experienced this in WoW through one expansion and has taken steps to lessen the blow of both issues. Will they be able to keep that up through more cap-raising expansions? I don't know. There is a limit and they may have reached it. The next expansion may have to be horizontal rather than vertical.

Turbine is heading into new territory with Moria. Right now, I don't see how they will avoid the same pitfalls, but I'm willing to give them room to try. I hope to see good things from them because the road LotRO is on is a long one and I want to follow it to the end.


*I should mention that neither issue affects me much. I don't get too attached to gear (although I wish WoW had cosmetic-only gear slots so I could have a consistent look once in a while) and I still like the early content.

around my friends I am known as an expansion hater, I usually quit right before or right after an expansion because things feel like such a treadmill. Now, I do try to judge an expansion by the expansion's merits, but that expansion has to improve and introduce new meaningful concepts for me to like it.

With EQ, I didn't care much for Kunark. We got a new race, but for most things it was just another 10 levels of the same stuff. Velious though, my god the ground that was broke in that game was intense. They introduced not only meaningful factions, but you had to choose your path! And it wasn't just good or bad, there was a love triangle of factions to choose from. It introduced, for good or bad, a dynamic world where the players could actually change the world permanently.

With WoW and Burning Crusade it just looked like rehash to me. More like Kunark, it opened some possibilities with new races and availability of a new class to each side, but essentially it was the same. Raid one area to unlock the next. WOTLK looks more of the same to me, but I havn't played WoW in over 2 years so I haven't the best grasp of what WOTLK is adding... but I havn't seen anything extraordinary aside from the "1/2" class(I subscribe to the theory that they made death knights 50+ because its less work than making a full new class).

Ok, so I'm playing LOTRO. Moria is the first expansion I've been excited about since Velious. The Legendary weapon system is above and beyond anything I've seen when it comes to weapons. Its like the customizable weapons of DAOC, but like a whole new character that fits in your hand. Its not just tacked on like the Enchantments of WoW, its integral to the story, its built now into the game's veins. The 2 new classes are fully new classes with drastically new playing mechanics that reuse nothing from previous classes.

So yeah, its obviously a case by case basis, but for me can not just be a upping of a level cap, and raids with added hitpoints and mitigation. You can't just tack on another upgrade for existing skills, or throw a new skill or two in there. Give me something NEW, not something recycled.

Crap, talk about off topic on my last post. Sorry about that, fell into a rant trap.

Ok. I hate when the next day my gear i worked so hard for is crap. When an expansion comes up, everyone has to recheck their attitudes and some find that maybe they cared too much about getting what they have. I have seen the new Moria gear, and while cool, it doesn't look too big a leap to make me feel like my items are terrible. Its more of a progression than a leap like most expansions have done.

Its about the curve. Put EQ's equipment on a chart from Luclin to POP... put WoW's equipment on a chart from core game to Burning Crusade... The curves are STEEP, they fly to the sky in an almost vertical arch.

Keep the curve gradual, leave room for the next expansion for your gear to expand logically.

I don't have an essay to write, but I believe Blizzard has admitted it learned from those mistakes - and from what I hear (don't take it at par) the Badge level gear (which every guild who has been in Karazhan for the past 10 months) will outlast anything 'til you start getting blue quest rewards or dungeon drops.

I for one welcome better gear, but it looks like this time they aren't beefing up one stat more than others (spirit maybe?) - like the big jump from +1 +10 stam to +20 +40 stamina like in TBC.

I just wish they would introduce a mechanic to defeat resilience, so that PvP isn't so one sided to all the early adopters ;)

Any time you raise the lvl cap in a long standing MMO, there will be people who WERE top end raiders who are no longer top end raiders and will be pissed. We saw that with Burning Crusade and I totally understand the process. The issue I have with this xpac is that Blizzard has actually gone back and devalued items ALREADY earned by players, so that they can make the players earn them again. The infamous green armor value nerf for druids is a great example. Druids who had spent MONTHS raiding/doing heroics for badges to get top quality tanking gear suddenly had that gear's armor value basically halved, all with the notion that at "some time in the future" (read, at higher lvl in the expansion) they will be able to get armor with equivalent value.
I used to complain that all Blizz did with BC was give us a new treadmill to run on, well in WotLK, they didnt even bother with that, they just recycled the old treadmill.

Moria is the first MMO expansion where the community is actually eager for it as a whole and not too worried about their gear changing. I think the Outfit option helps this some as you can always look how you want to look no matter what.

As for the content, a lot of people are eager to get their hands on the Legendaries, as posted above. I alos am a EQ vet and Moria has me more excited than I was when WOW released.

I actually quit WOW right before 3.0 due to finding out that it is just more of the same stuff (Dialy Rep grinds, Level grind, gear grinds...etc) that made the game lacking. Too bad they couldn't add the stuff in that a lot of people actually wanted (housing, outfits, solo instances...etc)

I'm not convinced anyone actually likes MMOs.

Okay, that's a lie. Still, I think the vast majority of MMO players spend far more of their time playing because the stuff they haven't done yet bothers them, rather than because they're actively having fun doing it.

I mean... if you're having fun, then why is more fun a bad thing? Except, you're not are you, you're grinding to get further. Play for fun, not for grind, and it becomes a non-issue.

Really this is only a problem for people silly enough repeatedly run "end game" content.

Expansions bring new content. I play the "majority" of the content and then cancel. Ending are good, dragging out a game sucks. I have better things to do then run the same dang instance 100 times. *rollseyes*

Part of me says it's the nature of the beast so deal with the changes, and part of me says I wish they'd think of somethin different in regards to those who sink countless hours into acquring gear. As long as my legendary weapon will get cap increases in the next LOTRO expansion, I'll be happy. Because getting those legendary weapons customized, titled, levelled and made to be the perfect companion is going to take a looooong time.

Does someone taking a helicopter to the north pole cheapen the hard work of the explorers who walked there originally?

Just because everyone and there granny will be able to have a look around sunwell when they are level 80 doesn't make our achievements are any less great.

No, we did it because it was there and given the choice we would do it again.

It's a game. It's about having fun, not hard work. The expansions are released to keep things fresh and give people more ways to actually have fun.

If the game begins to feel like hard work and you're having trouble letting go of past accomplishments to move forward and have fun, you probably should try something else for a while.

I stopped playing WoW for this very reason. It became more of a chore than recreation. I looked ahead at the expansion and saw the potential for a few weeks of fun and then back to the daily chore list. I finally broke the cycle. I'm still frustrated when I hear my friends who still play talk about not having much fun but they have so much time invested they can't quit. That's missing the whole point of playing a game.