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MMOs And Expansions - Solving The Story Barrier Of Entry - MMORPG.com
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MMOs And Expansions - Solving The Story Barrier Of Entry - MMORPG.com
As Bradford has been playing through Final Fantasy XIV for the first time recently, a thought has been circling in his head, especially since The Elder Scrolls Online's Greymoor event. One thing that has always bothered him was the barrier of entry with expansions, especially for new players.
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Bradford is addressing a conundrum that has beset MMOs since they moved on from subscription. Back then it was just how good and how regular the expansions are. Now it is how are they gated, can you jump in and do they make sense? That last one (does it make sense) is a problem particularly when you have campaign style DLC's in a MMO which goes on for several years, the longer the MMO goes on the more of an issue it can become.
ESO or the Lotro model are my best in class for how this should be done, players really get something with a DLC not just cash shop items and some new gameplay mechanics, maybe a new class if you are lucky. They harken back to when DLC's were called expansions because they expanded the MMO.
I don't think the negative he decides is a huge problem though, many players are not interested in story so it does not matter to them if they jump into an expansion and do not know how "we" got there as it were. But for those of us who do like story it is an issue, my own opinion is that if I like the MMO enough I will start at the beginning. If for some reason due to friends or a guild I do not start at the beginning, well that's my choice and if I end up doing an alt I could always start in the "starter zone" and experience that initial story.
It's probably more along the lines of "what will be in the main game, what will be in the expansion."
And then hopefully making a balance that makes sense.
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EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
EQ1 launched as b2p plus subscription plus paid DLC every 6 months. Downloadable content as well - hence DLC!
So the question about gating and making sense is not new .
(Content provided as part of the cost of subscription was - well AC had monthly story content and then NCSoft added regular quarterly content in 2004 with CoH and Lineage. And ultimately led to "subscription free loaders" - people buying a months sub, getting all the expansion stuff and then dumping the sub - part of the gating mix.)
Believe me I know. Currently chugging through patch 2.2 making way to first expansion, all while doing all the side quests, dungeon hard modes and a few other class unlocks. Yes I read the all the text boxes. So far it's taken about a month just to get to that point. Not only that I'm ranged DPS so queues are a thing. Either way I like the game so no complaints. I really want to take my time and just enjoy a game for once.
Its funny that they created this problem and then sold people the solution to it, now they say 5.3 will 'revamp' the ARR experience. This whole problem could be 'fixed' if they just disabled the level restrictions. Hit 50, go to HW if you want or continue ARR.
I know the knights in white will say "but then they wont understand what's going on in the story" unfortunately, they dont seem to understand that not everyone cares about the story or at least certain parts (to me most of post-50 story was really weak and honestly didn't tell you much).
Hell, even SWOTR lets you skip between certain arcs and I personally feel it does a better job at narrative (this will always be subjective) but they aren't forcing it down your throat if you just want to do certain parts.
Giving people options to progression through certain things shouldn't be seen as a negative since its ultimately their choice how they want to play. In a MMORPG I have very rarely ran into a raid/dungeon group that just wants to discuss the story up to the part, so its honestly not that much of a problem if people just want to skip certain parts.
The struggle is real. It's taken me weeks to get to nearing the end of the main story. The thought of having bridge content and then two more expansions before the latest stuff is daunting.
I wouldn't even care much if the questing/storying process was interesting, but it's simply not. A lot of the Main Scenario quests are awful and flat out not fun to do, and the bits that actually touch on the (okay) main story and characters are surrounded with so much filler nonsense that it doesn't make up for it.
Luv the points the article brings up cause it definitely is an issue for mmorpg's.
The problem with ESO is that they don't give you a manual or a tutorial or anything like that when you're new. They just drop you into the game world and assume that you already know how to play. For good measure, they hide or disable most of the UI, so you can't readily find help by clicking through menus like you can in a lot of other games. You can try pressing keys to figure out how to open a hidden menu that lets you adjust your keybinds, which at least lets you see what controls are available to use, even if it won't tell you when or why you should use them and some of them aren't obvious. But that's the closest thing to a tutorial that a new player is going to get. As a way to introduce new people to the game, that's catastrophically awful.
People have told me that the original starting area for ESO has an actual tutorial. But that doesn't do a new player any good if he can't get there without already knowing how to play the game. An introductory tutorial that you probably don't find until you're max level is useless. That might work fine for veteran players who already know how to play and creating new characters later, but it's an awful way to pick up new players.
That's not a statement about how well ESO works once you get past that stupidly high barrier to entry. I didn't get that far. It's literally the only game that I've ever demanded a refund for, though the awful new player experience wasn't the primary reason for that. (False advertising was, but when a new player's introduction to the game consists of the company telling him that it won't give you what they promised and what you just paid for, that's not a good start, either.)
The expansion problem is a serious problem for a lot of MMORPGs. When you have vertical expansions like WoW or EverQuest, adding content at the top, you can make it so that players have a very long road to catch up. That commonly leads to companies trying to streamline or remove content, or letting you pay to skip it. Sometimes it leads to companies making it stupidly easy, but saying that you have to spend a ton of time slogging your way through it anyway. Vindictus is the worst example of this that I've seen, but there are quite a few others, and WoW is a pretty bad offender, too.
Horizontal expansions don't necessarily solve the problem. As demonstrated in both Guild Wars 1 and 2, when they add new content and new skills or features or whatever, game designers just can't help themselves from making them stronger than what was previously available. If they don't, then players will complain that they new stuff is worthless. But if they do, then after a few rounds of this, skills or gear or whatever from the latest expansion makes the original content completely stupid and trivial.
New content deprecating old by making it trivial can completely wreck a game for new players. Games like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2 likely have a smaller total amount of content that is interesting to play today than the day the games launched because basically everything available at launch and much of what came later has been made trivial by later expansions. If you're not already at or near the level cap, there's no point in picking up the game today, as you'll have a long slog to catch up. And no, a free level boost for one character and then the rest still having a very long slog to catch up isn't a solution.
The only game that I've seen really solve the problem of how to add new content without deprecating the old is Uncharted Waters Online. And that's a very weird game, so its approach probably isn't replicable by other games. But it is one of the greatest games of all time, so there's that, at least.
For the most part, I think that MMORPGs shouldn't add expansions at all. Rather, they should add sequels. For example, imagine if in 2007, Blizzard had launched The Burning Crusade, and officially put vanilla World of Warcraft into maintenance mode. Any character in vanilla could be copied to Burning Crusade, or you could make a new level 60 character in Burning Crusade. But you couldn't bring Burning Crusade stuff back to Vanilla. And then repeat that with every new expansion, and perhaps have server mergers for the old expansions.
A new player who wanted to start World of Warcraft today could play all of the old content in its original form, not the charred ruins of old content that has been nerfed into oblivion as is offered today. And then he could move on to the next expansion whenever he felt like it, or skip expansions he didn't like. Or create a level 110 character and play Battle for Azeroth immediately if so inclined. That would allow long-running games to accumulate enormous amounts of content to offer. It would also leave the game open to new players to join later, rather than perpetually having all but the latest expansion ruined by stuff that came later.
Does the ESO model here work? I don't know. I'm not going to find out for myself. I refuse to give money to scammers like Zenimax on general principle.
I actually felt something similar when WOW started doing previous max level boosts with each new xpac. It wasn't that I had to walk there and back in the snow uphill both ways, it was simply that I was going to have to put up with boosted noobs who had no clue how to play their class in my dungeon PUGs.
ESO usually does have that mix sort of, by adding a new end-game raid with every new chapter.
All in all I much prefer adding to the world without level requirement zones the way they do it than the exclusive high level zones the way most others do.
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With FF14 for example, it's true that ARR is a bit painful, but the story of the base game and its expansions are all linked together and it's leading to a single point, so it makes "sense". They're heavily focused on building up the game's main story line to the point that they have 'some' idea of where they're going 2 expansions in the future.
Taking WOW however, the leveling doesn't make sense. Every new expansions seems to break the story from the previous one in way, but the worst was Cataclysm which just made BC and WotLK story useless. Players basically have to grind their way through 120 levels of interrupted story threads. The good news is that they're hoping to fix that in the upcoming expansion, but I don't know that Blizzard won't find a way to screw things up given their subpar performance as a company lately.
As far as ESO is concerned, they can get away with it because the expansions are self-contained. It's a bit like putting Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim into a single game. If you visit Skyrim, well you're playing through the Skyrim story, etc. Is that bad or is that good? That all depends on how good the content is that people want to play it. They do risk confusing new players a bit though if they force new players into these areas without properly introducing them to the world.
Then why the fuck play the game?! FF14 IS the story! If there was NO story in FF14, it would be a totally mediocre MMORPG. The story TOTALLY makes the game.
Your mindset is flawed and completely wrong. It's not an opinion when it's just flat out wrong. I don't even play the game, so you can't claim white knighting, btw. I just know for a fact that FF14 is a story based MMO with an end game and a CONTINUING STORY per patch that keeps people around.
Spread your lies elsewhere.
LOL, "I don't play but you're wrong kthx."
As someone who does play the game, I'd love to be able to level how I want and do dungeons/raids with friends when I'm the appropriate level. For me, having that content gated behind dozens of hours of lackluster, mostly solo story missions isn't fun.
Story is certainly more important to FFXIV than it is to WoW, but Square Enix didn't figure out how to reconcile that to some players wanting to play more classes than others. Try to play one class and one only and you level way past stuff and it's stupid. Try to play a lot of classes and you spend a ton of time doing some awful grinding. And then the next class has to repeat that. It's nice to have a good story, but not if the act of trying to tell that story ends up wrecking gameplay.
Is this what's passing for objectivity these days? Stomp really hard on the ground and shout "I'm right you're wrong!" cause!
Quests tend to be pretty short 10mins to an hour. But similarly themed quests will tend to direct you towards other similar ones. IE: an undead "hate" chain directs you to a dozen different quests about killing the undead (ranging from purposeful necromancers, to good protections accidentally back firing on each other to cause a problem).
These chains can also rope a player into them if they get to an area early or late. Or give hints to alternative branches for your level if you really rather not kill the undead. There are also plenty of isolated quests/chains as well that you need to find yourself.
Generally the quests are a few times worse than self exploration in exp and gear rates. But tend to reward you by getting you to some areas easier, teaching you about the area, or rarely with fame (an end game resource used for unlocking high levels).
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