The Daily Grind: Do you prefer content celerity to quality?

Good question. I have on occasion felt both responses to it. ;) I have at times felt impatient for new content, having exhausted the entertainment value of what's available. At other times, when I have been away from a game for a while, I've felt intimidated by how much catching up I had to do when I came back.

I think both problems might be solved by designing content that isn't so disposable. If the basic content of the game has some sort of replay value, there would be no need to frantically push new stuff out the door. We could get away from the "publish or perish" mentality.

I'm for BOTH sides. While I wish WOW would release content on a bit faster timeframe, the fact that RIFT has monthly updates and events does SUCk- I'll tell you why.

By RIFT releasing content every month, including some amazing events, A LOT of players miss out on content that WILL NEVER REAPPEAR if they unsub, even for a few weeks. So, as most will tell you - if you play RIFT on a regular basis, chances are you dont have time to play anything else!

WHich is good if you are craving RIFT. The good thing about WOW is while their content takes longer to release, ALL of WOW's content is PERMENANT and not monthly "special" events that fade away after the alotted timeframe.

I want tweaks, bug fixes and balance adjustments and that sort of stuff to come as often as possible, but i don't count that as "content". Actual playable content i prefer in bigger chunks and i don't mind waiting for that. Naturally i want that as soon as possible too but time is a tradeoff and i understand. I want that feeling of a heap of new stuff to explore not feeling i need to rush to keep up, instead of bite sized stuff dictating the pacing. Also if a game can't keep you entertained for two months without an update it's got bigger problems.

Both sides. Trion is proving it can be done. Quality and celerity. Of course, their server side technology is a large boon in this department, but oh well, it works. Time for other developers to use the same tech. Especially you, Blizzard.

I'm in favor of something in between. WoW's updates are far too spread out, to the point where when they do come out they never live up to expectations (that is, six to nine months for one update should result in a lot more than what we are given with those updates). On the other hand, Rifts' monthly updates seem haphazard, often just involve minor tweeks to Rift drops and feel a little shallow.

I'm thinking an ideal update would be roughly the amount of content we see with each WoW content patch but at a pace of three months between each patch.

Just my two coppers.

I've been amazed at the quality of the content Trion is pushing out. I only wish that my next MMO (TOR) would be able to keep up. That's just not going to be possible unless they keep that voice-over crew on full-time staff though!

I absolutely prefer quantity over quality. There is nothing worse than having to sit in a well polished, overtuned game (Wow) for months and months waiting for some small snippet of content that you can consume in about 20 minutes. I would rather be kept busy with constant and new content even if 80% of it had bugs. A great example of this is the modding community for Oblivion. That game has been massively popular because of the mods, many of which are not "polished" but omg are they fun! There are many other examples like Warcraft III and minecraft...tons of content, not necessarily polished but fun as heck! I think Blizzard has the wrong idea completely and Trion is the brilliant company.

Quality content at a reasonable pace should be the optimal. That is neither too long or too short but always good. So 2 to 4 months cycle would likely be ideal.

While I think Rift is putting out content a little too fast, and letting bugs creep in because of it, Blizzard's snail pace is much, much too slow. In the past, I have always liked how Cryptic, now Paragon, released big content chunks every few months. Granted, not all updates were great, and some were obviously better than others, but they've pushed CoX way beyond its original boundaries, and have pushed the capabilities of the genre forward. Even more impressive is that their staff was less than 15? people for a few years. How many people does Blizzard have? I was also impressed with Arenanet's ability to release an entire game in a year, adding new classes and abilities, and still able to have some of the most balanced PvP in the genre, while having no sub model.

I'm going to echo the previous posters, but I think you're doing the subject a disservice without talking about the systems as well. WoW is completely gear based progression, with faction treadmills that have no bearing whatsoever on the next bit of content to be released. As a result there is no focus on actually spending time in-game aside from gearing up, running the treadmill and then....what? Stand around in Ironforge and Stormwind spamming chat. Blizzard is never going to change this, it goes against their whole idea of accessibility, but it doesn't increase the depth of the game. So instead they labor to produce content that players will blow through in 1-2 months.

Maybe this is good business sense. Maybe they make their money on the dollars people pay for subs and don't log in, because it's too much hassle.

Alternatively, even Everquest 1 had a system that rewarded game play beyond gear. Sure, AA got a bit out of control, but there was a reason to play through content regardless of gear because you got something out of doing so that benefited the character (and not just your faction with your group and guild). EQ2 does the same thing, as does Rift. LOTRO has a huge deed system with in-game rewards for spending time on the content they've produced, no matter the age.

I'm not talking achievements, those are throwaway sparklies.

I've never left an MMO because there was too much content. I may have left because it was of poor quality, or I grew bored, or RL intervened, but never because there was just too much to do.