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General: MMOWTF: Expansions
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
This week in his MMOWTF column, Staff Writer Dan Foriter tackles the subject of expansions to popular MMORPGs.
When it comes to releasing expansions to the original game there is little deviation from the standard “Pay us $39.99 for five more levels and a new race” offering. Throw in some more zones, PvE epic raids and a handful of new spells and you’ve got a package that no one could do without right? This week my baleful glare falls on the current system of expansions, their content, and their effects on the game as a whole. On with the show!
The whole idea of an expansion is centered around the evolution of the game along the path imagined by the developers. This general involves adding features and areas that were part of the original plan but were unable to be completed before release. To be clear, I don’t consider fixing broken features or incomplete game mechanics from previous incarnations to be new features. That sort of thing should be part of the normal patching process not thrown in as part of a paid add-on. The problems arise when the expansion becomes an end unto itself and not a means to move the game closer to the original vision. I’m not naive enough to think that money and subscription numbers aren’t prime motivations when it comes to expansion, but it would be nice to see a Dev team actually build on their existing game instead of piling random features and zones on top of each other like a stack of Tetris pieces on level 99. Props go out to EA/Mythic for pulling the plug on Trials of Atlantis code from test servers. It’s well past time to remove the legacy of the 3rd worst patch ever.
Read the whole column here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Expansions for me are a real killer, take Everquest for example, fine game in it's day (still is ofc for those that still play it) but with each passing expansion (think it's 14 now) you found yourself going deeper and deeper into new zones and meeting new mobs, when you take the time to stop you suddenly realise you have just bypassed half the game and by the time thats happened it's all irrelevant to your current lvl.
It's about time they utilized what they already have, yes add in new mobs and new content but build it around the current game, you won't feel as if your being cheated. I've wanted to restart my old EQ account many times over but each time I take a look at the sony forums I rarely see guilds willing to go over old content, new content is king and there is no going back for many players and who can blame them when the new expansion your about to play supercedes all of your epic loot in the trash zones!! what a winner eh?
I can only say: Play City of Heroes/Villains. We're coming up on the eleventh (yes 11th) free expansion for these games. CoV has been argued by some to be a conventional expansion, sure, but it's a stand alone game in its own right, too. So an expandalone? And that's once in three and a half years.
At any rate, we CoH players don't pay for our expansions (called Issues), they just become freely accessible to us upon release. This also means that while new zones have a period of "oo, shiny!" to them, play returns to the 'old' areas, too. As well, CoH/V players are notorious for their alt-itis. Rare is the player with only one character, and many have entire server allotments maxed out (8 or 12 characters per, depending on if you have one or both games). So there's always a fresh throughput of newbies to play with.
CoH/V has been around for years, and is likely to stay around for years, because it's not static - it evolves. The timeline advances with the Issues, latest in Issue 10 which saw a resurgence of a certain group of enemies and an old zone refurbished to fit them. Issue 11 will give us new missions and task forces to play, as it introduces the long awaited time travel system(!). Issue 9, for its part, introduced crafting in a very sane and balanced manner, while avoiding the tendency to chase 'phat lewt'. Every issue, so far, has had a number of cool new features - power sets for various characters, new zones, new enemies, new storylines, etc. etc. And every one has been free.
Anarchy Online's expansions have been a natural progression with the storyline (Shadowlands/Alien Invasion esp.), and their more recent patches (free) have been adding new content back into the game's original areas. I've been very happy with the pace and direction of their expansions.
~\_/~\_O
"Little deviation", hmm? It's easy to see the few companies that still do this kind of thing and assume that they're all the same way. But please don't assume that EQ, Final Fantasy XI, WOW (and maybe a few others) are the only games out there. It is a reason I tend to stay away from the P2P games, though some of the F2P are just as bad (time-limited clothes you pay for, anyone?) I haven't had the time or money to keep up with the high level chasers, and I never will. I wish these Friday blogs (and they are blogs, not just comments) would come up with something very few see, instead of the blatantly obvious. No more comments from me.
Best Wishes
The kinds of expansions you are describing seem to be more for the linear MMOs. More non-linear worlds tend to drop a little into each expansion that's suitable for many levels. If you don't have level-dependent zones, then you don't run into the problem as much. LotRO is going to be as you described, because its areas are level-dependent, so each expansion (free so far) is going to only apply to the higher level players. UO, however, scatters the critter levels pretty much all over the landscape, so a new continent should have something for everybody, plus a new "epic" dungeon to try and challenge those at higher levels.
Can't really tell about SWG, but JtL (imho) was a great expansion, adding completely new gameplay that was missing but, undoubtedly, was part of the original vision, and also adding a few quests around the original galaxy. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, the game changed completely, so we'll never really know what could have been.
AO does a great job with expansions, but also partly because of its random mission generation system. Shadowlands introduced not only extremely high level stuf, but classes that could only begin life in the new zone, so there, by necessity, also had to be some lower level content. The newer alien invasion expansion was very much tied to the random mission generator, so you pretty much got what your level could handle. Like UO, AO has it's critters scattered throughout the landscape, so you don't really feel as level-challenged. Or at least, the zones are filled with enough variety and content that you don't notice it as much. True, there are much tougher areas than others, but you keep returning to the lower areas for essential crafting supplies and such.
I don't mind paying for an expansion that adds a good variety of stuf for all levels. I'm an altaholic, so I usually have some toon that can take advantage of the new goodies. I'm not as fond of linear games, so the changes to SWG really hurt. Not only did I feel Wookiee World was garbage, but it completely changed the feel of my beloved game into something I didn't like at all. I didn't want to pay for the expansion, and that's the point where I started to think I didn't want to pay for the game AT ALL. O_O
-- Xix
"I know what you're thinking: 'Why, oh WHY, didn't I take the BLUE pill?'"
The creators of these games see big dollar signs, but what they don't see is that new expansions pose a barrier to old players returning. I have an everquest account and have considered going back to it, but I don't want to have to find and purchase all of the expansions that I've missed. Meanwhile, I can't convince my wife to take up EQ 1 because she feels that the graphics are just too outdated for her. If Sony want to release a new expansion, they should make it include all previous expansions and they should create an expansion that updates the graphics and quests of the old-world zones.
Played many expansions, have you?
Arenanet has issued just one expansion for Guild Wars and its purpose is neither to become an end unto itself nor to move the game closer to any original vision, but to move players into a whole new game! I'd call that a pretty damn good use of an expansion!
BTW, before anybody tries to play the Factions or Nightfall card: these were fully independent, stand-alone games, not expansions. Eye of The North is Guild Wars' first, last and only expansion released to date. It's the bridge between all the current iterations of the GW franchise and the upcoming Guild Wars 2.
paid expansions are fine it stops game stagnating.
39$ is sod all, and the excitement of installing it is value.
however, neglecting old zones is bad, they should re-do the old zones and encourage people to hunt there.
slide
I don't like the expansions on MMOs, because, almost always they're more expensive than the original game itself (I'm looking at you, WoW).
With games like Guild Wars, it's completely acceptable, It even makes sense, but $39??
Take WoW for example, yes, they add new monsters, new and amazing new areas to explore, new level cap, raids, items, blah, blah, blah... You play it with excitement the next 2 or 3 weeks, finish it, and SO?, you get bored and almost feel that you were cheated because it was most expensive than the original game itself.
I think the expansions need to be part of the game, with the game itself, I mean, they need to be completely FREE, that's why we're paying $15 a month. I may sound like a fanboy, but that's why I like EVE so much, it's upcoming expansions are amazing (I drooled
at my keyboard) and they're completely FREE.
It's interesting that someone would single out WoW. I pretty much guessed they would, but just so you don't confuse the expansions, with patching. Blizzard adds most content through patches. Recently they brought back Harvest Fest, added Brewfest, and brought back All Hallow's Eve, with the addition of the Horseman. In the next big patch, they're adding:
Zul'Aman, a new instanced raid dungeon
Guild Banks
Revamped Auction House
They're adjusting levels 20--60, so more people can enjoy the Burning Crusade content
Adding new daily quests throughout the game
Adding all new content to Dustwallow Marsh
Adding to Alterac Valley
Adding a new combat stat
Adding Spell damage from bonus healing
All of these are adding to the existing game, and expanding on the ideas they had before. Yes, they're planning on adding the Lich King as a paid add on, but, like Burning Crusade, it is going to add large amounts of new area to the game, not just fixing things that couldn't be added before. Seems like that is addressing the writer's concerns about the game company not continuing to improve the existing content.
Why don't you give us a ' Free ' MMORPG site, one without any adds. Heck, we have all seen the adds at least once, right? You have your money's worth out of them. Give us the site content now for free for the rest of time with no adds.
Also, please make sure we don't see any more of those annoying defects in the site. Like the one that posts a screenful of HTML code. We want a perfect site for free, please.
EQ2 has a new expansion coming out this coming week, I would have looked twice at buying it but I think its worth a shot as they are bringing in some new content which i feel is worth paying for to see. For example zones will be much MUCH bigger and the new technology behind this as well as a new in game mapping system will hopefully mean that the money generated by this release will have gone towards really adding serious new features rather and just glossy new mobs a few levels higher than the ones already available.
Completely agree with the author. For some reason rather than adding onto existing areas by expanding upward, downward, or outward, there's a need to justify having all those graphics people by making whole new areas every single time. Hey, sometimes you need to create new areas, but with every expansion?
But, the good thing with expansions are the new levels and other forms of advancement as well as certain other new content. Advancement is important and unfortunately is tied to expansions in most MMOs. Would love to see a game with an extreme bell curve and core advancement system that didn't top off, but c'est la vie. As far as content, new mounts, new quests, new gear and the such is great for adding to the game in large amounts with expansions.
As far as the period of expansion releases, even SOE has recognized that no one likes an expansion every 6 months and is starting a 9-12 month expansion release system. Along with this, many developers realize the importance of continuing updates to the game. EQ2, LotRO, and CoH/CoV have almost monthly updates (Note to above poster who mentioned CoH/CoV for this, they're not the first or the only ones with this type of 'updates' and they're not called expansions).
What truly needs to happen, though, is for the overall design of MMOs to change. Purely Level-based systems of advancement, rat-trapped zones, and single-concept achievement recognition is keeping MMOs bogged down in doing the same thing all the time. We may have a surge in MMO gamers in North America and Europe due to WoW, but that will quickly go away if the genre isn't truly advanced in the next two to three years. Console games are advancing every year and will continue to do so with the added capabilities of the consoles available today. Heck, you can freaking play the guitar on your Nintendo DS...
Dan, you bring up a lot of good points. I am not sheltered from the world of business, so I know the motivation behind pushing out an expansion that costs money. However, I agree that our subscription fees should cover that cost. We all have a pretty good idea what it takes to run a MMORPG by now. EA/Mythic has on average around 9k players logged on at anyone time in DAoC. Lets be safe and assume they only have around 20k subscribers. EA/Mythic makes 3.6 million a year off of subscriptions alone. Not counting the other money they bring in from their merchandise and fan fairs. That is a lot of dough. EA/Mythic has started creating expansions for free now, which is great. Turbine and the EvE makers also release free expansions. I'd say the worst in the market is SOE. They release around 2 expansions per year, and also charge $5 for content patches. They literally milk you for every cent you got. Hell, they even require you to pay for extra features that allow you to look at your character, guild, and etc. online. These are problems without even touching on what is released with an expansion and the effects the expansion has on the original game.
Like I said, you brought up a lot of good points and I agree with you. Because of the way SOE does business, I won't play their games anymore. I give props to companies like Turbine that give players free expansions. That's a way to show us we are appreciated.
Note: I don't play Turbines games, so I say this without any bias. I actually play Guild Wars now. Giving up grinding games until something worth playing is released.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
Oh another thing. I am not cheap. I am the type that can afford more than one subscription, while keeping up other hobbies outside the game. But I still look at each purchase I make and weigh its worth. To me, an expansion to a game that costs $50 is not worth another $50. It should be half that if not a quarter of that price. On top of that, there should be several decent expansions released for free between every pay for expansion. Someone mentioned CoV as an expansion already in this thread. I think 1 pay for expansion is pretty fair for how long CoX has been out. Not to mention that it is a stand alone game.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
*chuckles*
You do know that both EQ and EQ2 are on 9-12 month expansion release schedules now? And all of their games now focus on giving regular content updates of one sort or another (generally on a monthly basis)? Heck, even Vanguard, which is barely limping alone, is getting content updates alongside bug fixes.
People were giving SOE money for everything they put out with EQ because that's what people were used to doing. Over the years, though, they've realized that this isn't what the general majority of players liked and changed with the times. The funny thing is that Turbine and other, smaller development teams would have been right along with producing massive amounts of expansions like SOE if they had the money to invest in such things.
And I know Issues aren't called expansions. But that's what they are, in everything but name. New zones come in Issues. Both games were expanded from level 40 to level 50 with the first Issue after launch. New powers show up in Issues.
Patches fix bugs. Expansions expand the game. Call it what you will, that's how I, as a programmer and burgeoning games developer, see it. And if you pay a subscription to a magazine, you're not paying to be sent the same issue every month, but a new one. I don't see why MMOs should be different there. We pay our subscription so that the game is maintained, yes. But then having to pay for an expansion as well... It seems like a bad deal to me.
Now I'm not stingy. I paid the extra cash to get the goodies from the Good vs. Evil edition of COH/V. I preordered COV. I gladly pay my subscription. But I don't find it palatable to be expected to pay extra for every little addition.
I believe an expansion must not only give high lvl players some new areas to explore, monsters to fight, and more levels to attain, but must also appeal to new players, and give vets a reason to play through old areas, by adding new content of all levels to the original landmasses. A lot of devs lose sight of the importance of these requirements, and the community becomes segregated, discouraging cooperation between toons of various levels and/or skill masteries. The "leet" players are too busy raiding, or doing whatever the game offers as end game content, leaving newbies trying to play catch up, and getting frustrated at the lack of people to group with, and having difficulty getting questions answered. This is especially true of any mmo that is more than a couple of years old. Devs must strive to give higher level players a reason to group with newbies, or some kind of incentive for mentoring lowbies. Also if a new expansion offers new areas and gear for the leets, and new content in the old zones for them also, then it is more likely that these vets will interact with new players in the original areas.
*chuckles*
You do know that both EQ and EQ2 are on 9-12 month expansion release schedules now? And all of their games now focus on giving regular content updates of one sort or another (generally on a monthly basis)? Heck, even Vanguard, which is barely limping alone, is getting content updates alongside bug fixes.
People were giving SOE money for everything they put out with EQ because that's what people were used to doing. Over the years, though, they've realized that this isn't what the general majority of players liked and changed with the times. The funny thing is that Turbine and other, smaller development teams would have been right along with producing massive amounts of expansions like SOE if they had the money to invest in such things.
No I didn't know that. However, it doesn't really matter at this point does it? At least not for the already existing games. Because for a new player to start playing or an old player to start over, he would have to buy all of the existing expansions to experience the full game AND he would unlikely be able to experience the majority of that content since the majority of the community will probably be on the latest and greatest content releases. What about adventure packs? Are they still releasing those? That is content that any other company would release for free. What about the extra perks that cost a total of $5 extra per month? You know, the perks that allow you to view your character and your guild etc. over the website. Does that still cost money? You see, the little things like content patches (adventure packs) and the website stuff are things that should be offered as a part of our subscription fees. If SOE eliminated all of the extra costs, released regular content updates like most other games for free, and don't make vast changes to their games in the future, maybe I would consider buying one of their future games again. However, they've changed even their flagship MMORPG EQ2, so that leaves me to believe that no game is safe from their large changes. I am one of those that liked the old SWG, that liked the original class system EQ2 had, and that likes a company that offers me more for my money. I refer to Turbine, because they are the most recent company in the spot light when I use them for an example again of how a company should give more for less.
Just because they change their business practices doesn't mean we forget their old business practices. They still have a lot to atone for. Offering free updates, expansions, and not changing the games core mechanics for a couple years is a great way to prove to us that they are done with their old ways. You can't expect all of us to come running back to SOE just because they say they are going to start changing their ways and listening to their community. No, actions speak louder than words. SOE needs to act for as long as they have been screwing us before people like me return to that company.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
It seems that Mr. Fortier can't spell his own name correctly.
Maybe he has a split personality and maintains three different identities which span three different personalities. 
On Topic:
I agree that expansions usually add more endgame zones, increase the max level, and cost too much than they're worth, instead of following the storyline and structure of the game world. I'm sure this aspect will not change unless customers stop buying into the scheme. Free expansions that are deemed as updates have lessened the number of retail expansions, but to add more depth to such purchases would mean a whole new outlook on the views of MMORPG progression in general.
www.oblinq.com/SnowmonkeysTemple/
I don't bother with games that have paid expansions anymore unless it starts with "Guild" and ends with "War". The reason being is exactly like mentioned above. The content on an expansion isn't really more then what other companies patch in for free. Its even worse for noobies. They buy the game and there is an expansion/s for it. They cannot meet any other people unless they drop coin in the expansions as well. That serious amount of money will turn most away just looking at it.
Whats worse is companies who don't have expansions, are offering equivalent content in 3~6 month intervals.
expansion packs/paid add ons in a game with a monthly fee is a complete scam. I've thought this for a while and was planning on making my own thread here on it, but you beat me to it.
My blog:
If a new player comes into EQ2, they only need to buy the box set of ROK because it is a compilation of the base game plus all previous expansions and adventure packs. Alot of veteran players have alts of all levels so new players pretty much always have people to group with.
As for the guy who said he'd pay a higher subscription for free expansions, that's easy. Pay your $14.95 a month and put $3.50 away as your increased "subscription" price, at the end of a year you'll have your "free" $40 expansion and a dollar left over to have a "free gift" pack of gum with it.
can we say..
NEW GAME EXPIRENCE
JUMP TO LIGHTSPEED
Your right expansions arnt about making the game better, its just about adding track at the end of the line
I allways dread endgame is MMO because 50 level is exactly as mundain as 5hth level your still "rat killin" just the rats got 50,000 hp by the time your that high you should be working on your own kingrom or church or plantation. PVP or pointless raiding makes me gag I have a 60 level paladin in wow and shortly left after obtaining that level and I want a more diverse game expirence.
I left SWG because I got tired of the generic planets covered in spawn generators and the cardboard player activities not to mention griefers and the jump to light speed was a HUGE dissapointlent like some arcade shoot em up
went back and tried EQ1 freeport and commonlands were totally empty!
wish they had more to do in game besides kill/fetch quests or 2 dimentional craft grinding tired of smiths and tailors
wish they would make a MMO that felt like an alternate universe with weather/ climate,, and where food and water were important to daily life,, but the arcade/console players keep making MMOs run over the same exact cliff every time making crackwhore games
lets not forget you can also get a useless item to stick in your ingame room like preorder ruins of kunark you get a burnai instead of something really usefull and cool.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.