The Daily Grind: Do you prefer patches or expansions?

To often the word expansion is a misnomer, because while there is a new raid or zone to experience, it means another area is being abandoned. I would argue the vast majority of MMO players play to get the best loot, not to experience content, so of course as soon as a new zone opens up, its going to have new loot to replace the old, so thats where everyone goes. I would love to see developers do whats mentioned above where not only do they give you a new zone to play, but they also retool currently existing zones to make them relevant.

*all the time

Sorry for typos, written very fast (real life summons). Check also new page of D&D Online, pretty amazing:
http://www.ddo.com/

Though I play here, in EU version, really encourage to try, as it's not wow clone you know. It's really more demanding and different:
http://www.ddo-europe.com/

In fact, that's exactly how it is in DDO, mko ; ).

This a very good point. I guess many people are turned off if a game has a huge number of expansions that make the older content obsolete. A big mistake in WotLK for me was that it didn't include new races nor starter areas making it a type of expansion only for people that already played the game.

I believe that both paid boxed expansions and free content patches are necessary with the content patches bringing new stuff between boxed expansions.

However, a boxed expansion should include new quests, dungeons and activities to do in the original areas of the game so that they don't start to be deserted. I feel that most developers neglect thei older contentt when they release new one. They should update it as much as they can in expansions.

I would have to beg to differ, in my view it's exactly the opposite.

In WoW the expacs reset the game. It doesn't really matter how epiced out your BC character was (and two of my seventies were basically BiS), when Wrath hit all of that became junk and the race started again. Even now, six months in, someone just starting WoW could be as well geared as someone who's been playing the game for four years in a month or two -- less with RaF. Ding 80, jump straight into Playskool Naxx (not much reason to bother with heroics for most classes, sadly) and VoA/OS, you'll be ready for Ulduar in no time.

Granted, some of that is because Wrath instances have been dumbed down to the point where you can do raids in quest blues, but even the transition from Vanilla to BC wasn't that different. Step into Hellfire, do a couple of "take this across the street" quests and you're in quest greens and blues that blow the socks off of all but the best gear from vanilla.

Basically the only advantage there is to being a long term player in WoW is experience (and given how much some classes/specs have been chanced with Wrath -- bears, for instance, are nothing like BC now -- even that's questionable) and, likely, money (and given how gold drops like rain in Wrath, that's not really much of an advantage).

In Eve, on the other hand, the game never resets, newbies are never on an even footing with longtime players. Because of how the skill system works those who have been in the game longer have an inherent advantage. There is no level playing field, nor the possibility of one -- an especially odd aspect to a game that touts itself as being PvP-centric.

One can debate whether that's good, bad, or indifferent -- and frankly, in part because of that aspect (or lack thereof), I'd debate whether Eve even has 'expacs' in the sense that the term is generally used -- but it's undeniable that the lack of anything like a natural reset point puts off many potential new players.