So I just wanted to ask peoples opinions on this subject.
We all know the dev team is working hard on Pantheon at the moment but at some point Pantheon is going to be finished and released to the public and at that point the dev team is going to start thinking about expansions for the game.
Given that the rate of expansion releases is limited by the speed of development and therefore the success of the game (the more successful the game the more money VR have to hire new devs which will speed up expansion development) what do you think is the optmum time between expansion releases?
Personally I think if an expansion was released every 8 to 10 months it would give the player base plently of time to experience current content without leaving them without anything new to do for some time. The really elite guilds will probably complete all the available content in that time and then when a new expansion is released the elite guilds will move onto that leaving the old expansion for more casual guilds to experience meaning that everyone wins.
So what do you think? Should new expansions come out often or do you prefer expansions to come out more slowly?
I think expansions are publisher mechanics, and ideally the game should just grow and evolve.
But if somebody needs to pay the light bill, those expansions should come out right about the time it takes the median player to digest whatever you consider a "meaningful" amount of content. Holding back just long enough for people to start threatening to quit, building some buzz, and then bam drop the content you had planned the whole time just waiting for the right moment.
Whatevz.
Amsai said:Im for slower times for huge expansions but with smaller updates more often. So small additions of content features (even as simple as a few new quest lines or some GM content) every 1.5 to 2 months. And very large expansions every 1.5 years or so.
I'd certainly enjoy it if small update content came out every couple of months. As you said even if it was just some new quests lines or a mini dungeon or something. But I think 1.5 years seems a bit slow to me for the time between expansion releases. Elite guilds are going to complete an expansion in a few months (unless the expansion really is massive) and then they are going to be left with nothing to do but farm existing content for a long time while they wait for a new expansion to come out.
Plus it would mean that the more casual guilds wouldn't be able to break into the higher end content for a long time because it will be on lock down by the elite guilds. That is unfortunately one of the very few disadvantages of not having any instancing.
If they released a new raid once every 6 months and then released a massive expansion once every 18 months that could work I guess.
I hear what you are saying Crom. My primary concern would be not ramping up the power creep too fast, and making gear replace other gear too fast. A new Raid every 6 months makes me think of the newer MMOs in which we are always looking for the next piece of gear to the degree that no gear is really that memorable. Thats what I would be worried about. However, I suppose if the new raids came more often but only added side-grades (situational gear) more often than upgrades. Or just offered horizontal progression in place of vertical most of the time. Then I wouldnt complain though bleeding edge types might o.0
Amsai said:I hear what you are saying Crom. My primary concern would be not ramping up the power creep too fast, and making gear replace other gear too fast. A new Raid every 6 months makes me think of the newer MMOs in which we are always looking for the next piece of gear to the degree that no gear is really that memorable. Thats what I would be worried about. However, I suppose if the new raids came more often but only added side-grades (situational gear) more often than upgrades. Or just offered horizontal progression in place of vertical most of the time. Then I wouldnt complain though bleeding edge types might o.0
That makes sense. Seeing as Pantheon puts a lot of emphasis on things like climate and perception you could certainly get new gear that while not a massive upgrade in terms of stats gave you an advantage in certain types of climates that would be useful. You could also get gear that helped your perception as well.
Based on what the devs have said though gear in Pantheon isn't going to be like it was in EverQuest or Vanguard where you had one main set of gear that you kept because every item was best in slot and you therefore remembered what each item was. In Pantheon it sounds like you'll have multiple sets of gear based on the situation you find yourself in. That would probably mean you don't feel the same sense of attachment to each item you are carrying around but you would need to spend longer collecting gear as you might need 2 or 3 full sets of gear that are best suited for different situations.
That could work out quite well because new expansions could add different situations which would require a new set of gear but that wouldn't add massive extra stats to the new gear. So you have a new set of gear but you would still roughly be of the same strength you were before. That way you could add more situations to the game without suffering from massive gear strength inflation.
Cromulent said:Amsai said:I hear what you are saying Crom. My primary concern would be not ramping up the power creep too fast, and making gear replace other gear too fast. A new Raid every 6 months makes me think of the newer MMOs in which we are always looking for the next piece of gear to the degree that no gear is really that memorable. Thats what I would be worried about. However, I suppose if the new raids came more often but only added side-grades (situational gear) more often than upgrades. Or just offered horizontal progression in place of vertical most of the time. Then I wouldnt complain though bleeding edge types might o.0
That makes sense. Seeing as Pantheon puts a lot of emphasis on things like climate and perception you could certainly get new gear that while not a massive upgrade in terms of stats gave you an advantage in certain types of climates that would be useful. You could also get gear that helped your perception as well.
Based on what the devs have said though gear in Pantheon isn't going to be like it was in EverQuest or Vanguard where you had one main set of gear that you kept because every item was best in slot and you therefore remembered what each item was. In Pantheon it sounds like you'll have multiple sets of gear based on the situation you find yourself in. That would probably mean you don't feel the same sense of attachment to each item you are carrying around but you would need to spend longer collecting gear as you might need 2 or 3 full sets of gear that are best suited for different situations.
That could work out quite well because new expansions could add different situations which would require a new set of gear but that wouldn't add massive extra stats to the new gear. So you have a new set of gear but you would still roughly be of the same strength you were before. That way you could add more situations to the game without suffering from massive gear strength inflation.
Exactly!
P.S. Sorry didnt mean to turn this into a gear thread, but it just sort of popped in when I thought of a Raid every 6 months. LOL...... modern MMOs have really scarred me.
Amsai said:Cromulent said:Amsai said:I hear what you are saying Crom. My primary concern would be not ramping up the power creep too fast, and making gear replace other gear too fast. A new Raid every 6 months makes me think of the newer MMOs in which we are always looking for the next piece of gear to the degree that no gear is really that memorable. Thats what I would be worried about. However, I suppose if the new raids came more often but only added side-grades (situational gear) more often than upgrades. Or just offered horizontal progression in place of vertical most of the time. Then I wouldnt complain though bleeding edge types might o.0
That makes sense. Seeing as Pantheon puts a lot of emphasis on things like climate and perception you could certainly get new gear that while not a massive upgrade in terms of stats gave you an advantage in certain types of climates that would be useful. You could also get gear that helped your perception as well.
Based on what the devs have said though gear in Pantheon isn't going to be like it was in EverQuest or Vanguard where you had one main set of gear that you kept because every item was best in slot and you therefore remembered what each item was. In Pantheon it sounds like you'll have multiple sets of gear based on the situation you find yourself in. That would probably mean you don't feel the same sense of attachment to each item you are carrying around but you would need to spend longer collecting gear as you might need 2 or 3 full sets of gear that are best suited for different situations.
That could work out quite well because new expansions could add different situations which would require a new set of gear but that wouldn't add massive extra stats to the new gear. So you have a new set of gear but you would still roughly be of the same strength you were before. That way you could add more situations to the game without suffering from massive gear strength inflation.
Exactly!
P.S. Sorry didnt mean to turn this into a gear thread, but it just sort of popped in when I thought of a Raid every 6 months. LOL...... modern MMOs have really scarred me.
No worries. Gear is an important consideration with new expansions. Look at EverQuest now where you have items with 1000+ health points (or more) and other ridiculous things.
Personally I would prefer long cycles between expansions. I also don't like smaller content updates that happen too often...those feel sort of like quest markers to me: "Hey, come on over here, there's interesting new stuff here!". Especially since these areas are usually promoted when released, so instead of exploring and discovering them, you are lead there by the hand.
I'm very much for frequent updates (patches) that improve existing content or fix problems though!
You can not say that yet. It always depends on how much potential your own content contains. Every month starting a new dungeon is morose if you need 2 weeks to get into the dungeon at all. But I find it so great every 2-3 months a small patch and every 1-2 years another storyline. And since the world of Pantheon will live and always start new events, it may take half a year no patch.
after the release of Pantheon you can give the first estimates when it needs the next patch, not before.
PS: And if the content is sufficiently sophisticated, a raid can remain exciting for months.
It would be nice if there were overlapping expansions, split by sphere. I am not sure how this would work in terms of money though.
I.e. : Expansions for ...
1. adding depth and options in crafting
2. adding some new dispositions and mob types
3. putting in a 'change' in the world (E.g. King of the Goblins decides to march South...)
4. adding small set of spells and 3-6 NPC who may offer them (Quest/faction)
5. adding new/changed mechanic (eg add Diplomacy, fine-tune perception)
6. adding new set of quests (quite a few regular and/or a few big ones)
7. adding/opening Dungeon/Raid area
While conventional XPACs are large things incorporating many of the above ... I don't see (beyond a charging structure) why they cannot be small, narrowly focused packs only covering 1-3 of these.
"Look out for the BARD expansion pack coming in just 6 Weeks!
NEW Bard instruments : Cow Bells, Kazoos and Triangles!
NEW Bard Epic Quest: 'The Sound of Muzac' !
NEW Bard options: Evil Bag-Pipers, Gnome-skin Bongos and Scarlet Tights!
NEW Bard songs: 'The Sound of silence', and 'Have you finished tuning yet?'
all this and more more more... "
Evoras, still does not play Bards...
I'd love it if there was a crafting mini expansion for instance that added loads of new recipes as am example that needed to be discovered by the players and maybe a quest mini expansion that added loads of quests. The important thing about something like that is that the release notes don't tell the players where to go or what to do. The players would have to discover what was actually new on their own.
Actually thinking about it when a new expansion comes out it would be awesome if there was actually no patch notes at all! That way players would have no idea what the expansion added and they would have to discover everything on their own. That would make it really exciting for the players.
Cromulent said:I'd love it if there was a crafting mini expansion for instance that added loads of new recipes as am example that needed to be discovered by the players and maybe a quest mini expansion that added loads of quests. The important thing about something like that is that the release notes don't tell the players where to go or what to do. The players would have to discover what was actually new on their own.
Actually thinking about it when a new expansion comes out it would be awesome if there was actually no patch notes at all! That way players would have no idea what the expansion added and they would have to discover everything on their own. That would make it really exciting for the players.
For big updates a promotion is fine (perhaps in form of a story). But I agree, other smaller content updates shouldn't be announced. Players will easily notice when the patcher begins downloading megabytes of data, and begin to speculate :) Perhaps only give a confirmation a while AFTER the update?
Sarim said:Cromulent said:I'd love it if there was a crafting mini expansion for instance that added loads of new recipes as am example that needed to be discovered by the players and maybe a quest mini expansion that added loads of quests. The important thing about something like that is that the release notes don't tell the players where to go or what to do. The players would have to discover what was actually new on their own.
Actually thinking about it when a new expansion comes out it would be awesome if there was actually no patch notes at all! That way players would have no idea what the expansion added and they would have to discover everything on their own. That would make it really exciting for the players.
For big updates a promotion is fine (perhaps in form of a story). But I agree, other smaller content updates shouldn't be announced. Players will easily notice when the patcher begins downloading megabytes of data, and begin to speculate :) Perhaps only give a confirmation a while AFTER the update?
Yeah a story would work or perhaps the start of a story told through the eyes of an NPC in the game and to see the end of the story you actually have to go and talk to the NPC and from there you are given small hints about what might be added but nothing specific. That way people would have to work out amongst themselves what to do next. It would increase social interaction in guilds and on forums as people try and work out what to do.
You might have to go and talk to multiple NPCs scattered across the world to find the answers to the hints the original story giving NPC gave you. Things like that would really increase the interaction of players and given this is meant to be a social game that can only be a good thing.
Cromulent said:So I just wanted to ask peoples opinions on this subject.
We all know the dev team is working hard on Pantheon at the moment but at some point Pantheon is going to be finished and released to the public and at that point the dev team is going to start thinking about expansions for the game.
Given that the rate of expansion releases is limited by the speed of development and therefore the success of the game (the more successful the game the more money VR have to hire new devs which will speed up expansion development) what do you think is the optmum time between expansion releases?
Personally I think if an expansion was released every 8 to 10 months it would give the player base plently of time to experience current content without leaving them without anything new to do for some time. The really elite guilds will probably complete all the available content in that time and then when a new expansion is released the elite guilds will move onto that leaving the old expansion for more casual guilds to experience meaning that everyone wins.
So what do you think? Should new expansions come out often or do you prefer expansions to come out more slowly?
If there's free content released regularly with the subscription I think the optimal time for an expansion is whenever it''s ready. Expansions should be well-thought out and expand the world while at the same time not killing it. It should be a revitalization and infusion of fresh new content and features. It's something that shouldn't be rushed and the pros and cons need to be extensively evaluated by the devs. Expansions should have a goal to make the game better in some way, but sometimes they can do the opposite. Lost Dungeons of Norrath, for example, was pretty much the death of open world dungeons in EverQuest. Whether intended or not that was one result as all the older dungeons that you would find lively with people became ghost towns.
So expansion timeframes for me is whenever the devs have fully fleshed out what the expansion should do, evaluated it's impact on the world, and thoroughly tested it prior to release. That can vary in time, so it could be 6 months, it could be a year and a half.
Interesting question. I would like to see bug fixes and quest lines updated regularly. Story advancements and new environments every couple of months or so and a major release a couple of times a year. On top of this I would love to see in game events and special occasions. But all this is dependent on the depth of the content. I would rather have less updates as long as they were full, interesting, deep and fun.
Hopefully there is more content than just raids to keep Folks interested, motivated and playing. :) Perception system would be one of those things for certain, I plan on exploring and finding everything possible. And there's that Keeper title that goes with it. And what Chenzeme mentioned...game events ..will we have GMs doing those events, I have fond memories of EQ1 GMs..we got to know them and I think it was another thing that was community building. :) As far as expansions go, hope there is a test server where some of us can help with testing new content before release, ala EQ. :)
Every 2 years for an expansion containing features like :
- new continent / set of zones
- major gameplay improvements
- new race / class
- etc...
I prefer an awesome expansion every 2 years than a crappy / average one every year, so I'd like dev team to have time and no pression.
Every 3 to 6 months for updates containing features like :
- new zone / dungeon with quests / factions
- revamp of existing zones / dungeons
- etc...
I think that the territorial evolution in an MMO must be well controlled, I did really enjoy how EQ managed it after Velious. Kunark and Velious were awesome cause it was new continents with an identity, a story, but with Luclin and its new moon ... beh ... I would enjoy Terminus continents not being completly "filled" with zones at launch, in order to keep a good potential of expansions without having to constantly add new continents and ruining the world cohesion. Regularly revamping old zones would be fine too, in order to keep interest for old continents.
I also dream about underground expansions, would awesome. Menzoberranzan power !
Khendall said:Every 2 years for an expansion containing features like :
- new continent / set of zones
- major gameplay improvements
- new race / class
- etc...
I prefer an awesome expansion every 2 years than a crappy / average one every year, so I'd like dev team to have time and no pression.
Every 3 to 6 months for updates containing features like :
- new zone / dungeon with quests / factions
- revamp of existing zones / dungeons
- etc...
I think that the territorial evolution in an MMO must be well controlled, I did really enjoy how EQ managed it after Velious. Kunark and Velious were awesome cause it was new continents with an identity, a story, but with Luclin and its new moon ... beh ... I would enjoy Terminus continents not being completly "filled" with zones at launch, in order to keep a good potential of expansions without having to constantly add new continents and ruining the world cohesion. Regularly revamping old zones would be fine too, in order to keep interest for old continents.
I also dream about underground expansions, would awesome. Menzoberranzan power !
If they did small updates every 3 to 6 months then I agree that having an expansion once every 2 years could work but there needs to be constant new features (even if they are only small) otherwise the game will stagnate and the new features need to cover different parts of the game as well. It would be a shame if they only added new raids as people who did crafting for instance would have to wait ages inbetween expansions for new content.
But yeah I'd certainly prefer quality over quantity so if they had a massive expansion every 2 years that would be great.
Cromulent said:So I just wanted to ask peoples opinions on this subject.
We all know the dev team is working hard on Pantheon at the moment but at some point Pantheon is going to be finished and released to the public and at that point the dev team is going to start thinking about expansions for the game.
Given that the rate of expansion releases is limited by the speed of development and therefore the success of the game (the more successful the game the more money VR have to hire new devs which will speed up expansion development) what do you think is the optmum time between expansion releases?
Personally I think if an expansion was released every 8 to 10 months it would give the player base plently of time to experience current content without leaving them without anything new to do for some time. The really elite guilds will probably complete all the available content in that time and then when a new expansion is released the elite guilds will move onto that leaving the old expansion for more casual guilds to experience meaning that everyone wins.
So what do you think? Should new expansions come out often or do you prefer expansions to come out more slowly?
There is no optimum time. The release of expansions should be dynamic, based upon the progression of the progression of the playerbase. Yes, developers can have a general gameplan for expansion release cycles, but still should be flexible enough that if they see the playerbase consuming content faster than anticipated and you have too many people crammed up at the current end content an expansion can be released earlier.
Great thread. Especially great because this is exactly what we need to hear from you guys. I don't think there is a release schedule that works for every game. EQ did very well doing 9-12 months expansions (at least while I was there). Over 80% of the sub bought the expansions.
Just to let you know, once we launch the team will split into an expansion and a live team. The live team will not only make tweaks and fixes, but they will add smaller amounts of content, revamp areas that are getting stale, etc.
But in recent years we've seen DLC take off and often it's released in smaller chunks but more frqeuently. We're not ruling out this approach either (in fact, not ruling out anything at this point). We need to release content at a rate that works for the majority of our playerbase, making sure the majority of players do not run out of content. That much is clear. The finer details are TBD and like I said, we appreciate threads like this and hearing from you.
My problem with olds school expansions vs new expansions.
Old School added stuff to the game, either classes, races, new places (higher tier loot etc) that added stuff to tha games.
New School addes stuff to the game that should have been there to begin with but that they lable as post launch DLC. By the time you buy the first years worth (usually 3-4 packages at 19.99-39.99 each or an extra 49.99 at purchase to save 10-20 bucks) you get what the game should have really been at launch and then they stop release any updates. Ubisoft and EA are particularly bad with this but are not the only ones that do it.
As long as expansions add to the game itself in meaningful ways, ways that dont completly demolish old content ala WoW, and are resonably priced one every 12-18 months seems about right for me. That also depends on how fast the core (not just the bleeding edge 100+ hour a week players) progress through content. By the time that 60%-80% of the core population is max level, has mostly max gear maxed out skills etc then it is time to add in more content via expansions. Whether that is 6, 9, 12, 18 months all depends on the pace of the game.