The Daily Grind: How much content should an expansion have?

I will have to agree with Uldon, LoTRO I found to be much more friendly than WoW, I liked WoW while I was playing it simply because of the guild I was in. They are a bunch of awesome people.

Then I took a long break from MMOs and them went on to play LoTRO now, and its awesome, it fits in with me more than WoW did, may it is because I love the world that has been created by JRR Tolkien, and the people in LoTRO that I have met seem more community based and willing to take things slow rather than sprint to the finish line as fast as they can. Again I attribute it to the Lore of LoTRO, that is why I am extremely excited for SWTOR.

Not that I need to hammer the point in any more, but consider that Nymh guy that got to 80 first didn't actually experience any dungeon or most quests along the way. All he did was grind in a zone where mobs kept spawning (which has been hotfixed since to not give any XP now). I think that it's kind of a disservice to the player base to imply that the game is too easy because a player found an exploit to get him to 80 in 27 hours and lump that together with the hardcore raiding guilds that have already cleared the game's high-end content, thus calling everything too easy.

My guild is raid-conscious, but we're also casual, and most of us are in our mid-70's. We're enjoying experiencing all of the early quests and events that make the game so satisfying and eventually leveling to 80 will be the icing on the cake. Progression in the game where we're concerned is still a challenge, regardless of whether some European guild somewhere already beat Malygos or not.

So, to try and come around and tie this discussion of whether WotLK is too easy into the overarcing discussion over how much content is the right amount for an expansion - it sounds like the original question's discussion of WotLK is nought but a straw man. WotLK is not lacking in CONTENT, regardless of what some people may feel about its DIFFICULTY, which is another discussion altogether.

Getting back to the question of content - I'd say the metrics for how much content is right are fairly simple in concept. (if difficult in execution) But you have to first figure out if content that is patched into the game at a later date but only accessible to expansion-flagged accounts is considered part of the expansion. If not, then the right amount of content is however much content will keep most of the playerbase busy and happy until the first content patch, while also creating a framework of larger, extending concepts (tradeskills, stories, recurring NPCs, unused terrain) from which the content patches can be hung. If future patches DO count, then the right amount of content is however much content is completable by most players in slightly less than the time before your next expansion - LESS so that they have time to get just a little bored and suffer a little attrition that really makes the desire for the next expansion particularly clear to them.

Does Litch King still feature the same tedious grinding, mindlessly rote combat, poorly-thought out PvP, non-existent class balance, and terrible user base that WoW has had since launch? From what I've seen on this site, it sure does.

Wake me when the game involves more than clicking a number key, waiting 2 seconds then hitting another.

Originally I thought The Shadow Odyssey was going to be abysmal. Turns out that while the content is smaller in amount, the quality of it's pretty good. Right now we're all waiting to see who takes down Anashti Sul (she's the girl on the box art.)

I wish I could say something about WOTLK and MoM but I haven't gotten a try at those yet. They both look great, though.