Best/Worst MMORPG Expansion?

Kenichi

Not talking about sales, but more about personal opinion. What do you consider the best and worst expansion for an MMORPG?



No expansion, to me anyway, changed any game for the better, but there have also been plenty of them that have caused the game to go spiralling downward, so it's hard to choose for either title. Maybe later I'll lean towards one or another after reading some responses...

AutemOx

I always thought SWG: Jump to Lightspeed was pretty impressive seeing how it added a whole space simulator to a game that was all about avatar combat.  If we are counting CoV and GW: nightfall / GW: Factions then I would have to go with GW: nightfall, even though it cost more than normal expansions it was damn amazing.



The worst expansion I would have to say was Planetside's expansion...  It added a bunch of huge ass caverns that even directly after the expansions release no one played in, and no one plays in them now either.  It was pretty damn pathetic, and for me the expansions release was when the game started going down hill.  I still think its a good game, and its not like they did something to PS like they did to SWG, but after the expansion they just really slowed down updates to the game and thats when all the players started leaving.  Now Planetside is pretty empty and very very few updates, and it just seems to trace back to the release of that expansion.



The last SWG expansion might be up as the worst too because two days after it SoE sprung the trap known as the NGE.    They did give refunds for that expansion though, which is nice.

afroman7181

I would say the best expansion was Ultima Online the Second Age. Becuase it helped the game become more stable, added wealhs of new content and meant the main start of a great game.

The worst is not doubt Jump to Lightspeed. The reason i say this is becuase i remember making a  ton of friends while waiting for the shuttle to dock. The 10 min wait was one of the best things that made the community of SWG and JTLS destoried that. It also would lead to the end of a once great game.

healz4u

Good question.





I would have to say either Planes of Power (timesink flagging and zerg-raiding) or Gates of Discord (zerg-raiding) in Everquest.  I never really was very happy with any expansion, but I somewhat liked Kunark and Velious for EQ 1.  I love, and currently play, a Beastlord for EQ 1 in the Luclin expansion.





So, PoP and GoD for the zerg-raiding ... were the worst and might have killed EQ as many of us know it. 

evilastro

Echoes of Faydwer for EQ2 was a very nice expansion. Added new deity lines, new achievements, a completely new way to level up to 70, a new race and new tradeskills... cant ask for much more from an expansion.

Burning Crusade.... while it added nice stuff, it just didnt make me go 'wow thats impressive'.. it seemed like something id expect from monthly updates.

Not sure about the worst, im always a sucker for new content.

rbrickley

Originally posted by afroman7181


I would say the best expansion was Ultima Online the Second Age. Becuase it helped the game become more stable, added wealhs of new content and meant the main start of a great game.
The worst is not doubt Jump to Lightspeed. The reason i say this is becuase i remember making a  ton of friends while waiting for the shuttle to dock. The 10 min wait was one of the best things that made the community of SWG and JTLS destoried that. It also would lead to the end of a once great game.

Ok....IMHO the Jump to Lightspeed was one of the best expansions ever.  It opened up a whole new realm of gameplay.  If your socializing was limited to the 10 minutes waiting for a shuttle, I can't believe you have ever made friends in an mmo.  Something large and gloomy killed SWG and it doesn't take an extensive search to find out what it was...:)

AutemOx

well I think afroman7181 has a point though I always enjoyed waiting for shuttles too   I was always a little sad after JTL that the shuttles became sorta useless to most players.



Bare in mind I still think JTL was an amazing expansion, but I really wish they would have planned for it ahead more and made the land based game on a 3D grid and made it possible to have people fly ships planet-side.  Also maybe they could have made our ships more physical by making it so our ships didnt follow us around in our datapad or whatever, and if we left them somewhere then they stay there, a la EVE. 



Doing that might have improved the shuttle situation and would also be fun because there would be ships landed in the world much like how there are buildings placed around the world (although I would suggest that ships landed on the ground without landing pads would be damaged over time as to keep the whole world from being covered in ships, and also the ships would probably need to take a building slot for the same reason).



But like I said before, JTL really pulled a lot off, especially compared to most mmorpg expansions which think adding a couple new races and uber-itemed dungeons warrants an expansion.



I was especially upset to hear that both WoW and EQII raised the level cap with their expansions, as that means all the time players wasted getting the top gear was for naught. 



How my brother spent the last 4 months getting the top gear in WoW and then threw it away for level 65 gear only a day after the expansions released...  I will never know.

Lustmord

Best Expansion Ever- EverQuest: Ruins of Kunark.



Worst Expansion Ever- Ultima Online: Renaissance





Period. Point Blank.

Swafdawg23

best: ultima online: the 2nd age

worst: ultima online: age of shadows

homeskillet

Best for me was EverQuest: Ruins of Kunark with the worse being EverQuest: Planes of Power and every expansion after that.

Eichenkatze

Alright, so i'll jump on the bandwagon here..



Best: Jump to Lightspeed for SWG.

My reason? Since the beginning of the game the expansion pack had been rumored and hinted about, then the website decked up a nice "Space expansion coming soon!" showing an X-wing and Tie-fighter brawling above an imperial star destroyer. Until the expansion was released people flamed and debated over what could be in the expansion. The community was wild about it! And when it finally hit? Boy oh boy did it deliver. All of the big-time star wars ships were in the game! Even EU content ships were for the taking! Each planet had its own space sector and there were even two more for space pvp. New ground content also opened up, bringing new quests and stuff to wear around the town.

I had so much fun in JTL, it was no doubt one of the best expansions in my mind.

Sure it killed the wait time on shuttles.. but oh well. Stuff changes, and SWG continued to prosper after JTL so it couldn't have been THAT big of a blow... that 'big' blow came much later down the road as we all know..



Worst?

Burning Crusade for WoW.

My reason? I was one of the ones hyped up for the expansion pack. Woo! New post-60 content, new places, flying mounts, and new races! Awesome! Something to excite the dulling WoW-grind.

However, thats not what i got for its extremely expensive price tag. The two new races were nice, but got boring fairly fast. Their stuff looked awesome but that was it. The new regions pre-60 stopped after you left your new race's land.. how dull... now its back to the same old grind in the Barrens... this sucks.

And the post-60? I know it'll calm down eventually.. but even after a month it was crowded to the brink with other people (at least where i was) and the new stuff just wasn't all that "Awesome" as they had told us it would be. Something lacked... big time.

xephonics

best - EQ2: echoes of faydwar



worst  -  Anarchy Online: Shadowlands - this is the worst freaking expansion ever, it freaking ruined the game.  It turned the game into 180+lvls of killing the same damn monster over and over again in different zones.  Great job funcom, REALLY great damn job.  If you are too lazy to come up with better content than killing hecklers for 180 lvls then you really should give up on the damn game.



ps -  yes i know you can lvl other than off of hecklers, but EVERYONE wants to just grind them, so they completely screwed over the teaming fun in the game.

Vaah

Best:

EQ1's Kunark - First big mmo with its first expansion.  It added a whole new world to play in as well as a new race.

Worst:

EQ1's LDON - Instances.  I personally hate and don't believe in the use of instances in mmo.

Omega3

I rather lliked PoP, it had a velious feel to it with nice lore, but the reflagging was an horror.



For me the downright worst expansion of EQ that basically made me quit the game was Gates of Discord: it was uninspired, bland, just an excuse to add more raiding content.

Shadrak

Best Expansion - Echoes of Faydwer

Worst Expansion - Trials of Obi-wan

Werppa

Best: DAOC - Catacombs

Best because it added some easier ways to level than before. Also the new dungeons and instance system was also a nice breeze of fresh air for daoc imo.

Worst: DAOC - Trials of Atlantis

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that it totally sucks but I just don't like what it did to the game. It just added even more levelling to daoc and made competing without ML's rather difficult and didn't really give any chance for casual player to compete thus making the gap between hardcore and casual players even greater.

kakarotrage

Worst MMORPG Expansion?

 

TBC By far :

This expansion just took the magic out of the game(which was the only left for me there) in exchange of boring instances,tons of quests(we've done all the quests before..flying can only get you so far),uuuuohhh PVP BG ... ye that's what was missing from the game... not.

Praetoriani

Strangely, I find Jump to Lightspeed to be both the best and the worst expansion pack. It had lots of new, refreshing content, at the cost of some of the old community building content.

nomadian

Er as an exEQ player, worst expansion was PoP for me. I quit just before GoD so didn't see that.
Best, probably Kunark as well. LoY/LDoN get favourable mentions from me.

healz4u

Originally posted by Omega3

I rather lliked PoP, it had a velious feel to it with nice lore, but the reflagging was an horror.



For me the downright worst expansion of EQ that basically made me quit the game was Gates of Discord: it was uninspired, bland, just an excuse to add more raiding content.

Exactly.





I agree, my Friend.  To be honest, there are aspects to PoP I liked; but the flagging was atrocious.  I am still flagging at the time of writing this on the progression server in EQ (it burnt me out, so I am quitting EQ for good until a new, preferably classic server, is released).





Great discussion.

Kyleran

Worst Expansion is pretty easy for me - DAOC Trials of Atlantis... totally took the game away from its core RVR premise and threw players into an arduous raiding grind....



I'd also put TBC right up there, it made me decide to leave WOW for good before it was even released once I realized what it brought (or didn't bring) to the game. 



Best Expansion is a bit tougher, usually dislike any/all expansion it seems.  I guess I enjoyed DAOC's SI expansion the most, kept me playing a good long time.  

Faythbreaker

Personally, my favorite expansions were in Final Fantasy XI. Haha, don't throw stones, but I like the game. Anyway, for the worst expansion, I'd have to agree with The Burning Crusade.... World of Warcraft has just fallen from my respect, and so has Blizzard...

tylerwick

EQ1 , every expansion after luclin

Zarraa

Best: EQI SOV (Scars of Velious)



Worst: EQI  Gates of Discord (GOD=Biggest piece of crap EVER)

Worst Runner up  City of Heroes (Issue 5= defensive & ED nerfs)



EQI's Planes of Power (POP) holds the distinction of being both the best & worst expansion at the same time.



Best:  IMHO, POP is one of the most compelling story lines in an MMO POP also lays the ground work for the shattering pre EQII.



Worst: Because it virtually destroyed the casual mom & pop guilds via stringent flag requirements.

healz4u

Originally posted by Zarraa



Best: EQI SOV (Scars of Velious)



Worst: EQI  Gates of Discord (GOD=Biggest piece of crap EVER)

Worst Runner up  City of Heroes (Issue 5= defensive & ED nerfs)



EQI's Planes of Power (POP) holds the distinction of being both the best & worst expansion at the same time.



Best:  IMHO, POP is one of the most compelling story lines in an MMO POP also lays the ground work for the shattering pre EQII.



Worst: Because it virtually destroyed the casual mom & pop guilds via stringent flag requirements.

Well said, Zarraa.  I agree.   I remember some EQ guilds I was in Pre-PoP felt like a family... well, a genuine community.  It was a very attractive feature of the game, the network of friends in a Guild. 





Edit: I still talk with friends in old EQ guilds for years now.





Good post. 

Obraik

I only really have experience with SWG expansions, so:

Best:  Jump to Lightspeed

As has been said, it basically added an entirely new game to the original game.  They weren't seperated though, there are many tie in's between the ground and space game.  Maybe one day we'll get atmospheric flight to complete that.

Worst: Rage of the Wookies.

Was pretty buggy upon release and took a few months for most of the bugs to get worked out.  Kashyyyk went against everything we knew about planets in SWG, having walled in paths and open areas as instances when there really wasn't much need for it (Ryatt trail, Ettyyy hunting grounds, Dead Forest, etc).  Thankfully, most of these complaints were taken into account for Trials of Obi-Wan.