The Daily Grind: Is 'maintenance mode' really a negative?
This week's news of Funcom naming Joel Bylos the creative director on all three of its MMORPGs was met with some predictable "maintenance mode!" and "yay, Funcom's failing" rhetoric in our comment section. While neither of these suppositions are based in reality, the former got me to thinking, and what I thought was that "maintenance mode" isn't an automatic negative to me like it appears to be to some folk.
For one thing, I play a ton of MMOs, and for another, I'm not exactly a content locust since it usually takes me several months to max out an avatar (and several more after that to gear him up). I can see why the hurry-up-and-beat-the-endgame crowd would be cross with a title that doesn't add new content every other week, but for me that's not only OK, it's preferable since it means that I might actually see all of the content, finish all of the story arcs, and get some use out of my gear.
Time between content updates also means time that I get to explore, socialize, roleplay, and do all the stuff that MMOs facilitate beyond the basic treadmill. What about you, Massively readers? Is "maintenance mode" a turnoff or does it give you time to catch your breath?
Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!?
