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The Daily Grind: What do you expect from an MMO expansion?
When World of Warcraft's Warlords of Draenor expansion was revealed last month, I was stoked to see what will be included but disappointed to see what will not -- namely, a new class or race. Admittedly, not every WoW expansion has seen these two additions, but each one has seen one or the other. It's not a rule, spoken or otherwise; it's just become something that folks expect. Thinking it over, I also found that I expect several additions in any expansion for any games: some sort of new landmass to explore, new gear to wear, and usually some new mechanic or skill for character development. In WoW, I'd certainly expect a level cap bump too, though I'd grumble about powercreep in most others (don't go getting any ideas, Guild Wars 2)! Let's put aside quibbles over the line between expansions and patches today and just focus on expansions. What, specifically, do you expect out of a content release that a studio labels an "expansion"? 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!
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: The growing, creeping power
City of Heroes is a rarity. It's a well-established game that hasn't yet raised the level cap even once. Oh, sure, the Incarnate system is cheating a couple of extra level-like improvements out, but you hit the cap at 50 now just like you did when the game first launched. Compared to World of Warcraft, which ups its top level biannually, the game provides a real sense of security that the cap hasn't changed. Level 50 content is still relevant because the top end of power has remained stable. Of course, there's a downside to that as well. While having a forever-rising level cap has its own issues, a firm cap has left us with an endgame that's grown bloated as only games with entrenched caps can. We're not constantly having to relearn the entire endgame so much as we're getting new widgets added on, and we're finding ourselves stuck with a growing problem of old-fashioned power creep.
The Daily Grind: Should MMOs balance for PvP, PvE, or yes?
The original concept for Guild Wars is right there in the name: guild wars. There was no question that regardless of how much PvE content the game planned to feature, there'd be at least as much or more GvG content for the competitive folks. But as more and more skills were added to the game, the devs ran into serious balancing problems and began tweaking the skills so that the PvP meta was less affected by the powercreep slowly taking over PvE. Eventually, ArenaNet split the skills, giving some skills different effects depending on whether they were being used against players or monsters; some newer skills were designed to be PvE-only from the start. Do you think Guild Wars offers a pragmatic solution to the PvE/PvP balance problems that plague so many MMOs? Or do you think games should strive to balance their gameplay without creating skills (or gear) that do different things in different situations? 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!
