The Digital Continuum: Expanding horizontally part 2

For every hardcore raider, PvPer or what-have-you playing the game regularly there are probably ten or so people not playing, who just wish Blizzard would do something for the older world content. Their reasoning in simple: they're still stuck there, in Stranglethorn or Burning Steppes. They never really got past that content, and nobody can really blame them for being stuck because, well, even Blizzard seems to agree that the old content needs a revamp. This is actually a problem with just about every MMO I've played over the years. It's not an unheard of concept, but I can't think of a single case like Cataclysm where it's been taken to such an interesting extreme.

It gives me hope, because if there's one thing about World of Warcraft we all know, it's that other developers look towards it at least a little as a barometer. Will we see future expansions for all other MMOs have a little more horizontal content expansion? I certainly hope so, but I suppose that kind of outcome will be determined by the sales success of Cataclysm – although the past two data points don't really give cause to worry.

Blizzard doesn't seem to be interested in following the standard (shocking, I know) on visual updates. Instead, they prefer to incrementally improve their graphics. Most of the time, big visual overhauls come several years post-launch, which is why I found the lack of one in Cataclysm a little surprising. At the very least, I was hoping for a small polygon boost to the original races' models. Let's face it, the newer races have a sharper image. Yes I know the water looks better, which is to be expected when an expansion features some underwater zones.

This is the strangeness of a fifty-fifty -- give or take -- horizontal-vertical expansion. Yes, there's a bevy of fresh new content for levels 1-60, yet there's plenty of dungeons, new levels, equipment and high level content as well, just not as much as TBC or WotLK. Yet certain things seem a little half-cooked where they might've not been in a more focused expansion. It's hard to say, and I very well could be wrong about this, but I think splitting an expansion into two very different focuses has this effect.

What I'm most curious about are the long-term effects of this kind of expansion on two very different games. On one side of the spectrum we've got a highly successful MMO, and on the other we've got one that had a strong start followed by some turbulent waters. Of course, since then Age of Conan has improved and stabilized. Likewise, WoW has continued to do incredibly well over the years, but seems to have declined faster post-WotLK than it did after TBC.

I personally think both expansions are likely to be well received, and will challenge a lot of future expansions to do more than just toss some new content on top of the pile. There's so much else to do other than add a bunch of new zones, levels and sprinkles some tertiary features that may or may not be interesting to anyone more than five levels away from the cap. Horizontal is good, and so is vertical. I just hope that developers begin to realize that there's more to do than build upwards.