Use code IDYL50 to get 50% off your first Factor box at bit.ly/3Q0ghnC! What do you guys think of expansions? Love them? Hate them? Do they scare you? Are you a little baby who can't even look an expansion in the eye because you'll pee yourself??? let me know :)
I think the most egregious aspect of the expansion model is the way it invalidates old content. Imagine if in an OSRS update they just said "you no longer have any good reason to go to Varrock. Varrock is old and sucky now, don't go there anymore, there's new better stuff." Especially in the case of WoW and the classic zones of the old Azeroth, it's such a shame to have deleted the beautifully crafted, highly intentional leveling journey originally envisioned by the vanilla wow team. Expansions by their nature are selling you on what's new, which in turn deprecates what's old
I've been saying this forever. They work so hard on making these dungeons and then there's no reason to do them in like, a patch sometimes let alone expansions. ESO managed to stop this in a way.
I think something you didn't really cover about early expansions was that the internet wasn't nearly as fast back in the late nineties and early 2000s, so if you had a big game you had to buy the disc and install it, there wasn't much in the way of online downloaded games of that scale, because for a ton of people they would be almost impossible to download. I think expansions helped cater to those people as well, because it meant very little data was spent keeping the game up to date, which could severely impact how much you could play the game. RuneScape, being a low poly browser based game, didn't really have that issue.
Never thought about it but I agree. The expansion model seems like a product of the times as a means to deliver massive updates via CDs rather than over 56k but that's obviously not an issue anymore and mostly just splits playerbases now. It also forces devs to make sweeping changes to the game to warrant charging extra $$.
It makes sense, each expansion that is released creates a system where you completely leave the previous expansion, making all prior content irrelevant. It’s basically making a new game.
@@tlew360I mean, that’s how modern MMO’s treat expansions but if you look back at games like Everquest that have something like 30 expansions now, they’re more or less just new content and quests added to the game.
I've never thought of this either, but completely agree. Also I had an epiphany about WoW.. One of the main reasons why the game has sucked for the past ~8 years is that it has too many Systems. But obviously the hands of the devs are pretty much forced, as they kind of have to make new Systems for each expansion 🤔
I'm glad this was the top comment. Came to point out exactly this: Expansions got started because to add a substantial amount of content required an installation. Which was physical media. That had to be shipped to retailers. In a store. Runescape didn't have expansions because it required so little local file space.
@@IdylOnTVyes but the beauty is, they ASK players if they think their changes will be a good addition, and if a huge majority is against it they don't pass it. Blizzard just says "fuck it, some weirdo will keep buying pets and mogs off the shop who cares if they enjoy the gameplay?"
@@IdylOnTVthe quality used to be good back in 2007 and the mechanics are still good but compare any quest from 2007 to any quest set in kourend. Their lore department or whatever you want to call it just sucks now. Kourend doesn't feel like a fun real fantasy world it feels like a theme park for them to add new events into. The quests just dont feel the same. And no I'm not wearing rose tinted glasses. There are literally NO interesting cool useful quest rewards from the kourend quests the only reward from any kourend quest that's useful is the arceus spellbook which has some cool ideas but still just isnt good enough and also again its THE ONLY REWARD besides xp or coins for ANY kourend quest. Their quest writers have gone down the drain
@@petermartinson5483 the thing is.. asking players first is NOT the be all end all suggestion, sometimes a dev has to put their foot down and say "no, we will do this" Players are RARELY a good way to actually gauge if a particular feature is a good or bad addition to a game
One thing I wish he touched on is that expansions, or at least the WoW model of expansions, typically come at the cost of destroying existing systems and progression. Burning Crusade gave a lot of items nonsensical MAXIMUM level caps, where you would reach, say, lvl 63 and an item would no longer benefit you. This was all to ensure that the only endgame content that would ever matter would come from the newest expansion, all for this process to repeat itself every time Blizzard decided they needed 40 dollars
In rs3, before it was rs3, Prifddinas was released. Alongside it was a grand exchange in the centre, with a teleport lodestone. The Max guild was also released, with it's own teleport and grand exchange. All of this resulted in a slow decrease of population at the main grand exchange, it's features and teleports were inferior to the new ones. I remember starting a new account and visiting the ge and it felt almost abandoned. Room for a thousand charackters but there were more npcs than actual ppl. Of course Prifddinas needed to have something big to keep people there, a new and improved hub. But I believe it's important for new players to see an active hub to see max players , high end gear, stuff they can also reach one day, or just to see that the game is thriving. Expansions like you mention in the video have a same ring to it though I must say I have no experience with other MMO's.
I agree, but one more point to add is that the grand exchange is much bigger than it needed to be. They wanted to make it look impressive when they released it, but now it looks empty.
@@ialphasoul2460 Honestly surprised J1mmy hasn't done some sort of video collab with Idyl yet, tbh. Idyl's content about OSRS/MMORPGs in general is always spot on, if a little generic sometimes
Do you mean that the developers of critically acclaimed Final Fantasy XIV made a mistake when they expanded the story of A Realm Reborn with the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60?
I think the major difference between XIV and other expansion-based titles is that they keep the old content in tact for new players to experience mostly the same as day 1 players. (excluding 1.0 ofc) Everyone takes the same journey.
Exactly, and although the grind to catch up can be tedious, it's just as rewarding an experience that you can relate to with both veteran and new players alike.@@Excendre
@@Excendre Isn't WoW the only mmo out there with this expac model, the most popular mmos atm are WoW? FFXIV, ESO and like OSRS, I dont really know abt guild wars but i dont think they raise the gear cap every xpac considerinh they dont treat the gear grind like wlw
@@toxicginger6916 FFXIV releases by expansions like WoW does, with the newest one Dawntrail coming next year. The major difference is that you are required to play every expansion in the game as a long storyline that unlocks the content as you progress through it.
There is a reason why WOW classic and EQ classic are so popular- I remember when TBC released, 45 mins into Outland, a green dropped that rivaled my T2 gear. This is the problem- developers have no idea how to scale a game. You don't create an expansion and make the previous content irrelevant. On the contrary, you should expand on the game and move it forward in a progressive manner. Being that Blizzard screwed the game up once, I have little faith that they will not ruin Classic if they do indeed release Classic plus.
Another reason that basically anyone who plays that clip of Brack saying "you think you wanted, but you don't" tends to forget is just how bad retail WoW was at the time that Classic was finally launched. Yes, *some* people wanted Vanilla/Classic servers at the time of that Blizzcon. However, the Classic wouldn't have been *nearly* as big of a success had it been launched at that exact moment in time. Classic was finally announced during the Blizzcon just after the launch of Legion. Legion, while arguably one of the better expansions of the game, didn't really have the time needed at this point - only 2-3 months into the expansion - to bring back the playerbase from the massive decline that Warlords of Draenor caused. Classic was then launched in 2019, square in the middle of Battle for Azeroth - one of the *worst* rated expansions in the games' history. Retail was, at that time Classic launched, essentially at an all-time low point for the game. Would Classic have been a success had it been launched in 2013? Quite possibly. WoW was still extraordinarily massive at that point, and no doubt a lot of people would have gone to see what the hype was about. But, would it have drawn nearly as much interest when the retail game was still in a decent state? Very doubtful. EQ progression servers kind of fall into the same boat. By the time they were eventually launched, the retail game had gone through a couple expansions that were not well liked. WoW had also launched a couple years prior, and a significant portion of the playerbase - like basically every other MMO and MMO-like game at the time - had moved to that game. So, like retail WoW above, the state of retail EQ at the time was not super fantasic. So many people miss this absolutely massive fact about these types of classic/vanilla/progression servers when talking about them.
An OSRS creator said Rs3 is still Runescape 😮 Beautiful. It really is still runescape, just different than OSRS obviously. But the real question is, why no mention of ESO and its fairly rough and expensive update schedule and cadence? Major chapter/expansion every year with 3 other (mostly) paid updates a year.
Most expansions now don't feel like they, y'know, EXPAND the game. Instead they are mostly self-contained content zones with some new patches before it all repeats and aaaaaaalllll the years, or in WoW's case, DECADES, of previous content is left to rot and be irrelevant. WoW has gotten to the point where each expansion makes the game feel smaller and smaller.
All I do is play old content in retail wow. It is not rotting thanks to the both the scaling system and pure tons and tons of content. I hardly ever get bored. I had to stop myself because I wanted to catch on some current content for patch 10.2
@@TheBaldr Running things for transmog and mounts when the bosses pose 0 threat to you and die in 1-10 seconds is not "keeping it relevant". Keeping it relevant, in the way it was designed to be interacted with, would require a very different approach.
There are some that are theorizing that at Blizzcon, they are going to reveal WoW Classic +, which will add small updates to that time era, instead of expansions. Maybe like a split multiverse moment, which is maybe similar to what is done in Runescape and will put the game in a new direction while keeping everyone in the zones and era they enjoyed.
I think we’re still a few years out from Classic+ considering a few months ago Brian Birmingham said that the Classic team didn’t have the staff nor the budget to develop and write new content.
There were many things already developed from alpha, but were cut before the beta. Some things in beta were also cut before release. A lot of those developments are things people want to see in the game. They'd have to find out where it is, dust it off, clean it up, and add it back to the main client. That is a significant amount of work. To develop everything fresh with their already existing assets would probably be easier and faster at this point.
But they could announce it, release the servers, and start to slowly add content. There would be a lot of hype for it and people would be preparing like crazy
To be fair, in the 90's the expansion pack model was pretty standard for a lot of successful PC games of the era. Spend a lot of time making the engine and want to get more out of it? Design a few new areas, new units, new campaigns etc. and sell it all to the same install base who already bought your game. While it was really big with RTS games, it wasn't unheard of for other games to follow the same model. MMOs being longer form games with a more known install base, it just made sense for them to pick up a then-common model and use it to their advantage. In the modern world of DLC, microtransactions and battle passes it makes sense why the expansion model has all but disappeared, which I guess does beg the question as to why it's still the assumed standard for MMOs.
The xpack model arguably fits the MMO genre the best out of any other genre. A constantly-playing installbase is literally the perfect format for that model; you outlined it yourself.
@@jackalo34it's only bad for the game when a game has been going on for a long time with a lot of older xpacks devs don't do anything/enough to compensate pricewise for newcoming players.
@@MastaGambit I'm talking more about how xpacs tend to render older content obsolete by creating entire new zones where all the action gets moved to as opposed to just refresh/revamp or expand upon existing systems n content then companies are charging for narrower focused gameplay in the form of the said xpac. Also every game will eventually have a plethora of xpacs if they go on long enough thus the new player dilemma always becomes a thing.
@@jackalo34That's a phenomenon that newer MMOs have been working hard to address, especially Guild Wars 2. So that's not a problem with xpacks in MMOs, that's a problem with individual games and how they choose to handle progression. It's a game design flaw.
If expansions are done the way Blizzard has done them then yes. It absolutely wrecked wow. In case of FF14; they are absolutely required and have only made the game better. Sure there are issues, but overall it has become better every time.
Honesty, I never played Runescape as kid (didn't play any World of Warcraft either). My first MMOs were Wizard101 and Elsword. The first time I ever tried OSRS out was during the early months of the pandemic and I quit on tutorial island because it took like 2-3 minutes to kill a rat because I kept rolling 0's for damage. I don't quite get the appeal of the game as a new player.
im like 90% sure they changed the tutorial so that you dont miss on the rats because the last couple times i did it i didnt miss i never played runescape until 2017 and i absolutely loved it, no nostalgia, the appeal is that its an amazing game with real quests, fun content, exciting reward system for everything (you do a quest and the reward is more content), updates are polled and players vote, updates are frequent and free, very social game, you never run out of things to do but not in the sense of mindless tasks, in the sense that theres just that much content, so if you get bored of something you have a lot of other fun activities to do, and idk this is pretty long already but there are more reasons you should give it a go again, maybe with a friend who plays it, since its so open and sandbox you can feel lost when youre finally thrown into the game after the tutorial
@@ultratronger "im like 90% sure they changed the tutorial so that you dont miss on the rats because the last couple times i did it i didnt miss" that's not the point. The point is that if they have to change the tutorial so you don't miss, they should probably change the entire combat system.... fix the root cause instead of the symptoms....
@@zirtofion5982 its not a problem, are you dumb? Its the way the game works, they had to change it not because it doesnt work but to make new players understand it, how would they change the combat? Make you unable to miss? Then health would have to go up by like 50 times, so now health numbers will be in the thousands and thousands, whats next, adding abilities like in wow? Congratulations, you just suggested the exact update that ruined the game (Evolution of Combat) and is the reason why there are 2 different versions of the game (oldschool has 5x the player count)
I feel like eso is the Voldemort of mmo since no one ever seems to mention it in discussions about MMOs. I quite like the dlc model that game has, there's the main stories which are all base-game and the dlcs just either have their own story or follow the main story. This way, new players and people without the dlc don't feel like they're in the middle of a story they don't know the start of, while still expanding the lore of the universe. Also you get all the dlcs with the monthly subscription so you don't have to buy them all just to play the content
One thing I will always praise Jagex for, is how they keep almost all the low level gear worth farming in OSRS. Whether its used in pvp as a low cost option so when you die you don't lose much, being dump with High Alchemy to train mage or being made via skill training So even at end game, you still see people buying and farming low - mid level gear. which intern keeps old content relevant indefinitely. That doesn't mean that every old content in OSRS is utilized but the majority of old content is still relevant. My take may be a bit bias because I used to play OSRS during the Golden Era of 2004 - 2006. I also played WoW during its Golden Ear of BC - Wrath Then I quit when Mop came out.
Yes the high alch value of items has basically ensured that even a mithril scimitar is worth picking up and alching. Because you can hold 2.1 billion coins, but can only hold 28 mithril scimitars. OSRS IMO is one of the best MMOs that you can play currently.
I honestly love that about how high alch acts as a floor for item prices It’s remarkable how well the OSRS economy models IRL economies; there’ve been a few studies over the year comparing it to IRL models
When talking about older MMOs, Ultima Online and EverQuest always comes up, but somehow Asheron's Call is never mentioned. Asheron's Call released the same year as EverQuest, it had 2 expansions over its 18 year lifecycle, and went with monthly updates.
Thanks for the fantastic content. Awesome video as usual, really appreciated how personal all these videos feel. All your videos, you really feel educated and know what you’re talking about, and I feel represented. Thank you for making these.
I think the arguments posited here against expansions in MMOs are weak. There are good arguments against the widespread practice of MMO expansions, but Idyl's arguments here are incomplete, don't address all of the issues, & are full of hard-and-fast assumptions that are so poorly thought out or incomplete. 1) Regarding Runescape as an example of a successful MMO without expansion: Runescape is just a bad example of a 'modern MMO . Straight up. It's such an obviously bad example that I don't think I should even have to explain why it's a bad example of a "modern MMO," but here's one reason: Old School Runescape (OSRS) is not a modern MMO. OSRS's success clearly stems from the fact it is NOT a modern MMO. There is actually so much less overlap between Runescape players & modern MMO players than Idyl's argument seems to be assuming. Runescape is arguably not even in the same genre as modern MMOs like World of Warcraft. 2) There is little discussion of the benefits of MMO expansions. In fact, Idyl appears to realize one benefit while describing the hype behind WOTLK's release in 2008; MMOs are social games, and having a ton of players picking up the game all at once (whether joining or re-joining) can be a GOOD thing. Sure, the nature of expansions involves peaks & valleys in player count. But some people really enjoy that hyped environment with tons of people around. It's an MMO, as in "MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER." These online worlds feel better when there's more people in them! It's one of the things that made WoW Classic so special. He even comes close to fully addressing the fact there is more to this issue when he talks about how popular Wrath of the Lich King was as an expansion. The fact he fails to address any potential benefits of expansions in MMOs suggests the possibility confirmation bias affected his view from the start. At best, his arguments are made weaker from the fact he never addresses the benefits. At worst, he appears to assume there are no benefits of expansions over rolling releases. 3) Idyl never attempts to argue why expansions are objectively worse than rolling releases in MMOs in terms of fun or player experience (as far as I can tell). He relies on highly sujective anecdotes from former WoW players to do the job (and these user reports can often be summarized as "lulz Cataclysm bad"), as if these short subjective reports can detail an issue like this in all its nuance. For one thing, these subjective user reports are comparing expansions to previous expansions - not expansions in general to anything else. Besides, these anecdotes can be dismissed with simple logic: why would you condemn expansions in general based on just the bad ones? 4) No thought or discussion seems to be given to the capitalistic or productivity reasons behind MMO expansions as a business decision. I'm not saying I agree with the expansion-based business model for MMOs or the reasoning of corporate game studios in this regard, but not bringing them up feels like Idyl is shrugging at the idea of expansions, like there's an unwritten message behind the video unironically saying, "Why would these powerhouse MMO developers make expansions instead of rolling releases? Are they stupid?" I feel like there's way more I could bring up, and my own arguments could be bolstered with more examples & details, but honestly this is a UA-cam comment, and I already feel like I wasted my time being in a UA-cam comment section. If we wanted discourse, we wouldn't be here lol. I think just pointing these things out is probably enough for most of the people here to realize there is more to the story here with expansions in MMOs.
OSRS has been the only game that’s continued to add new horizontal content without devaluing the legacy content. I’m still doing occasional KBD sessions for the pet.
the only good way to do expansion packs in MMORPGs is to have them include additional non-vertical content that doesn't invalidate the progression that players have already made, and among its new features, only include features that weren't even imagined for the original release and wouldn't conflict with existing game design, and if they didn't have time, features that had to be scrapped should be included as well, granted that they also don't conflict with existing game design that said, I haven't actually watched the video yet
I think Lotro could also give an example of good expansion, like before the shadow, which introduces a new starting arena, and new low-level zones. I don't think many MMOs add new low-level zones, which gives life to the old world.
Wow totally replaced it's whole leveling system. Starting with the first 10 levels in a new zone(or given the choice for old starting zone), then let players(even new players now) choose which expansion to level up to current expansion.
And this is why I chose rs since back in 05 lmao, sure the 19k hours in rs3 were "wasted" in terms that I couldn't bring them to osrs, but man was it fun, could go back anytime, and did help me learn the game anyway. Never understood how the "WoW" model was so popular with it's fetch quests or kill x amount of mobs quests...
Pre-BB Maplestory does that for me, I can't do the grind but everything else about the game at the time just made the world that much better. Private Servers really saved old Maple
ESO has expansions, but they're distinct for a few reasons: 1. They DO NOT impact the main story, at all. There is literally zero impact on the main story, so the stakes never really raise, they remain the same across all regions. 2. They very rarely change the underlying game itself, they're just adding a new region with more of the content people want. Sometimes they add mechanics and sometimes those mechanics are locked behind the expansions, but not always. 3. They're meant to be played in any order, so you never have this disconnect of "Oh, I was supposed to complete Morrowind before Vvardenfell? No one told me!!" You can just play it in any order you want.
As I former diehard WoW player, I was really hyped for cataclysm back in the day, because I love the idea that they were going to update all the core zones and progress the core storylines of the world. I really hate what they do now just releasing a new expansion pack with a new zone, and you never have a reason to play the core world any more. This the world of Warcraft doesn’t feel like a living world if they had of done something like cataclysm every time they had an expansion pack. It may not of been so bad. The other problem is the one you mention which is kind of like inflation of stakes. After battle for Azeroth, they release Shadowlands, which is set in the afterlife, which is just an insane departure from the level of storytelling that had been done up to that point. It is started to change the way the world feels it doesn’t feel like it sort of normal swords and sorcery, fantasy world any more, but some sort of bizarre cosmic Sci-fi instead. I hope they will do what you said with classic and just make it better instead of ruining it like they did with retail.
I've gotta say, I've been loving your recent vids so far man, genuinely might be the most excited I get on UA-cam when I see you upload a new vid. Those back in time skits and especially that ian nonce joke destroyed me destroyed me! Keep it up
As someone who played WoW from Cata to mid-Legion, picking it up for some of Dragonflight then dropping it all; The CORE issue will forever be the 'We must up the ante' mentality. No, you DON'T need to go from nation-wide threat to world-ending threat to galaxy-ending threat. You can make logical issues that are the end-all. Garrosh was an example of something that wasn't a world-ending threat, BUT he was a threat on such a large scale that the Alliance knew they had to step in and help the rebellion. Garrosh in power of a ruthless army that would die on his word are far greater of an issue than a Horde that could negotiate.
I tried WoW retail a few months ago and couldn't get into it like I could back in 2010. It's too massive now and it is way too overwhelming and the story feels too disjointed since I'm mainly a story player
I played WoW since classic up to the big exodus to FFXIV. Take your time and do the story, pretty good... FFXIV I mean, you know the one with catgirls...
I disagree. I think wow's leveling overhaul did a great job, though it can be overwhelming because they don't explain it very well. The first 10 levels should be done in the new player zone. Then you can visit Chromie in Stormwind or Orgrimmar and choose which expansion to level in. If your not sure, do one you have not played or Battle for Azeroth as it is the recommended one. This should give you some story. You can do this(~5-10 hours) until the current expansion, which is level 60 at this time. Then you fully get the story of the current expansion.
@@TheBaldr as someone who started playing in BFA, didnt do shadowlands, then came back for Dragonflight, BFA really shouldn't be the recommended thing, because you're already a major champion by that point, on first name basis with the king etc. If you're a new player you earned none of it. It pulls in all this stuff with the Titans etc and all these characters you're not familiar with and have no connection to. It was confusing af and it sucked not being able to follow the storyline from the very beginning and get to know the characters in their own right, because the instant you hit the level cap for old content you kind of have to go to the new content. Not only for levelling rewards but also social pressure if you're playing with friends. The current method of managing expansions via Chromie is *serviceable*, but it's definitely not GOOD. I doubt it can be, purely because Blizzard have the incentive to only let you level to current level in the latest expansion.
I always had this opinion about expansions. Thus the only form of monetization that makes sense in an MMORPG is a subscription fee with no expansions. The most recent case now with new world: I always invited friends to play new world, some tried. Those who tried just needed to buy the game and that was it, not so expensive. Now, with the new expansion, it's obvious that no one will be interested in testing the game anymore, after all, every MMORPG player knows that just buying the base game doesn't get you anywhere - you need the expansion. Buying a game + expansions without knowing if you will continue playing is simply not worth it, no one will even test the game and it will slowly die because players like me that won't buy an expansion for a MMO to play alone will quit too. If it just had a sub fee it would be a lot easier to get into for a month and try the game before commiting to it.
Yeah, the payed expansions on top subscriptions are a little bit much, but there are also games which have no sub, only payed expansions, and that's an approach I can get behind to! ...that's how I discovered and fell in love with Guild Wars 2, which had free updates too, but didn't provide the push to the player base that expansions do...
I was literally thinking the same as you said in the end, why don't they make the best version of WoW that everyone loved, and instead of just re-running expansions people are frankly tired of, do the OSRS model of adding content to "that" era, content that doesnt or didnt exist back then, make it fresh and community driven, I think they could benefit alot from it :) FF14 for me still does expansion based things with patches here and there well for me, since the story, music and all is so incredibly good, I can't put it down anytime theres a new drop
Fans: “Paying $60 for a game that also has a $15 monthly subscription AND micro transactions is ridiculous and predatory!” Also fans: *Buys every $60 expansion and pays the $15 monthly subscription for 20 years while indulging in the micro transactions for cosmetics happily.*
If you're familiar with the software development cycle at all it seems very similar to the Waterfall method, with big documented updates happening infrequently (which is the older method) compared to Agile method, with smaller updates happening at a much higher frequency
Cataclysm was only a continuation of wrath. Blizzard tried their hand at making the game more casual friendly in wrath, took those notes, then made Cataclysm. Especially in comparison to today's xpacs, Cataclysm was a good expansion. Fighting Deathwing ON DEATHWING? Coolest thing ever. Also Mists was a good xpac too for overworld content and leveling. Endgame raiding was kinda dookie tho...
@@V2ULTRAKill That didn't take long... Siege was the only decent raid from MoP, the rest were pretty mid. Cata basically fixed horde leveling and improved on what Wrath started minus the raiding which was fun but not as good. Either way, GW2 kinda knocks it out of the park for endgame PvE. Fractals > Mythic+
@@grumplo3321 something something dragon soul is still the worst raid blizzard ever made and fighting deathwing by picking the warts on his back and then clipping his toenails only for thrall to snipe the kill was dogshit
Only white dudes? Dude, you have no idea how successful WoW was in my Middle Eastern country, and many Asian countries. I was a college student when I've started (2006, right before tbc hit), but my cousin was at highschool, and literally all the dudes and many girls in his class were playing this game. They've had a guild with somewhere around 200-250 people, and 99% of the people in the guild were from his school. After all these years, I still see a lot of people having character names in my native language while playing, and many of my fellow countrymen I know irl still play in EU realms. So, I don't know about the demographics of US servers, but EU servers had, and still have a lot of variety.
Something to cover in this topic if you do another part to this. Players are actively leaving expansions on purpose. Consider WoW Classic and Everquest TLp/Project 1999/Project Quarm.
Ya know I'd never thought of this before. My long running mmo obsession is pretty good at not completely invalidating old content, but I do certainly feel the game changer type issue. I'll probly never get a fun DoT job again and I still haven't gotten over it completely.
1.) No Man's Sky - Buy once get new updates forever for free 2.) FFXIV - > A. Base game and 2 expansions For Free with no sub. > B. Monthly sub you get constant updates with new content on a fixed schedule but you also do get a new expansion with a whole new mountain of content (that does cost money). With amazing stories and fun things to do.
I don’t think expansions are bad, it’s the way it introduced itself to the game, mostly what happens is that people get excited for the expansion but the moment the next expansion comes your work and time on the previous expansion becomes reset or completely irrelevant to go back to, I myself are in fault when I got excited with the expansions but when I put my time to get in even numbers with other players, my work doesn’t matter for it will become irrelevant when I’m loosing most or even all of my power in the next expansions.
Devs of games with large player bases need to realize before they release a new expansion, that everyone is still playing the OLD game they are speaking to radically change. They are playing the game, as is, with its current mechanics. This push to revamp a successful game in an effort to make it even better is driven by gread. That is why OSRS hit its peak player count a decade after its release. It’s not constantly bleeding players with new content sending people away. And constantly adds new players, or draws old players back. People play OSRS and Will always get the OSRS experience, plus with new content. Can’t go wrong with that. OSRS has the largest player base in proportion to its overall subscriber count compared to any other MMO. WoW has 3 times more subscribers then Rs, yet has only slightly higher daily player counts. Thus MOST subscribers to WoW are not actively playing the game.
I feel that gear is an issue now too, i think you said this before in another video but with more people playing rare equipment is less rare because there are more people getting said gear so if a game doesn't make mega rare loot most people can obtain the best gear but this mega gear problem can turn away casual players, look at Black Desert Online
I think a way to solve this is to no longer have gear as drops. I feel that every piece of gear should be made by crafting skills by players, beyond low level starting gear like a level one sword you get in a tutorial maybe. Raids should just be the place where the best mining and gathering spots are located. This would also give more of an incentive for large scale raids as you would need to bring non combat classes into raids, such as a miner, and would need to keep them protected from the bosses. Raids are too static how they are now, and you could introduce a system where every week the properties of the gathered materials could change. Maybe one week the ore is lighter and thus more suited for faster weapons, maybe one week the ore is charged with magical energy and is more suited for making a staff or wand. Crafting should be integral to playing. And all gear should degrade and be unrepairable to keep the economy circular and every raid relevant for all time.
Final fantasy XI had expansions but they existed alongside the previous ones and base game, so the available content that was "Current" kept expanding. I feel this is the best model.
FFXIV is also similar to FFXI in that old content is evergreen due to the existence of DF and for new players with the trust system. Even older raids can be synced to as close to the levels the devs intended (well as close as they can due to potency changes, mechanic changes, design philosophy, etc but the fact is you can do content from the first base game even if you are at EW due to the level sync and item sync system). Also though some things have been removed (usually because they were outright bad or revped into something more well received) most content that originally released are still present and still have players doing such content.
Expansions as they existed. Before MMOs. Were supposed to be like sequels to the same game you were playing but for new shit to do with your maxed out character. Hence expanding the game. The problem with MMO expansions is they often expand nothing and then take things away to make room for the new thing. Also have a bad habit of making all past content pointless because new thing.
I finally tried OSRS this year, I'm not an avid player or even that high leveled, but it killed most other mmos for me. Hate having to do everything all over again every expansion
My issue with expension is mostly what Idyl said: it need to rise the stakes every-time to a point that it get unsustainable. I think that's why dragon flight seem so chill IMO.
I think if MMO's are going to have expansions AND a subscription, the expansion should be free with a sub. It's ridiculous to pay $50-$90 for an expac when you already pay $15/month to play the game. And then the content from expansions are useless. FF14 has content that is challenging based on your level, but if you play WoW and level in an older expansion, you curb stomp everything. I completely agree with you. Why did I HAVE to pay for Shadowlands?? It was dogshit, no effort, and flat out the worst expansion made by blizz.
Expansions in mmos have always felt so strange to me and i think they've stuck around this long just because "that's how it's always been" Expansions for older pc games were optional but with mmos they really aren't, no one is gonna play with you if you don't have all the expansions. They're also inherently double dipping because you're already paying for the sub
is it really double dipping tho given that the expansion and the sub pay for diferent things overall? Yes part of the subscription money is put back into the development cycle for the games next expansion, but a big chunk of it gets eaten up by server cost, maintenance costs, support staff costs, developer costs for bug fixing and current content updates etc. Like people really need to understand that running(and developing) an MMO is not cheap. Like looking at FFXIV and SWTOR as inherent examples, SWTOR started as pay to play and subscription based game. it had 2 "big" expansions and went free to play at some point with an optional subscription. After it went free to play it gained 2(i think 2? ts a while since i last played SWTOR) decent big expansions, but they noticably went down in length and quality... These last 2 where noticably also not a "buy them" but a "pay for the subscription and you get them" deal. meanwhile FFXIV for all its MANY flaws has several dozen hours of new content, story and otherwise, with each expansion... and for 60€ you basicaly get 2-3 years of new content guranteed with the Sub money going towards making sure the game can remain operating for the next 3 years and beyond.... Expansion packs are single time profit spikes, but a game needs to remain profitable troughout its lifespan to keep servers, and if the expansions where 100% paid for by the subscriptions then you would end up with a situations where the game may nto generate enough money via subscription to booth pay the ungoing costs, create profit for the company(its a product) AND finance the development of the next expansion ontop of that
I think the problem really is theme park MMOs vs sandbox MMOs. The reason OSRS can have no expansions is bc its a sandbox and they can just add stuff to the world and the core game isn't going to change it just adds new or 'other' stuff to do. Theme park MMO's like WoW are doomed to have an increased level cap, new zones, new raids, new items which will invalidate older content-and thats the problem with even Classic + right now is how will they incorporate that properly and make it sustainable without making older content useless or older zones useless. In OSRS the whole world is relevant even if you have 10 hours into the game or 1000.
In FFXIV all zones are relevant. There is at least one dungeon in each zone that is unlocked or unlockable, and when you level crafter or gatherer you will have to go there either way because of the materials. Not to mention FATES farming and Hunt trains.
I've always preferred MMOs where the updates/expanions were free. Like City of Heroes, which always released new zones, story archs, classes, and so on as updates called Issues (Like comic book issues), and their only expansion being the stand-alone expansion of City of Villains, which didn't need City of Heroes to play and in 2008 owning either CoH or CoV gave you access to the other game's content for free anyways.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot and totally agree. The expansion model sucks. I just got back into WoW after playing OSRS, and man do I think OSRS just does it better. Not having expansions let’s you build off of the world and improve it instead of forcing everyone into new zones. Makes the game feel more dynamic instead of like you’re running on a treadmill chasing what’s new.
Use code IDYL50 to get 50% off your first Factor box at bit.ly/3Q0ghnC!
What do you guys think of expansions? Love them? Hate them? Do they scare you? Are you a little baby who can't even look an expansion in the eye because you'll pee yourself???
let me know :)
Yes
No body tells me what to do
Man this video is really well investigated and informative, and only after 22 years since 9/11.
I think the most egregious aspect of the expansion model is the way it invalidates old content. Imagine if in an OSRS update they just said "you no longer have any good reason to go to Varrock. Varrock is old and sucky now, don't go there anymore, there's new better stuff." Especially in the case of WoW and the classic zones of the old Azeroth, it's such a shame to have deleted the beautifully crafted, highly intentional leveling journey originally envisioned by the vanilla wow team. Expansions by their nature are selling you on what's new, which in turn deprecates what's old
Like Destiny 2.
Isn't that exactly what happened in Runescape 3?
I've been saying this forever. They work so hard on making these dungeons and then there's no reason to do them in like, a patch sometimes let alone expansions. ESO managed to stop this in a way.
"UA-cam hadn't invented Logan Paul yet."
I fucking love your brain bro lmao
I think something you didn't really cover about early expansions was that the internet wasn't nearly as fast back in the late nineties and early 2000s, so if you had a big game you had to buy the disc and install it, there wasn't much in the way of online downloaded games of that scale, because for a ton of people they would be almost impossible to download. I think expansions helped cater to those people as well, because it meant very little data was spent keeping the game up to date, which could severely impact how much you could play the game. RuneScape, being a low poly browser based game, didn't really have that issue.
I sometimes still get nostalgia to play RuneScape in a browser
Never thought about it but I agree. The expansion model seems like a product of the times as a means to deliver massive updates via CDs rather than over 56k but that's obviously not an issue anymore and mostly just splits playerbases now. It also forces devs to make sweeping changes to the game to warrant charging extra $$.
It makes sense, each expansion that is released creates a system where you completely leave the previous expansion, making all prior content irrelevant. It’s basically making a new game.
@@tlew360I mean, that’s how modern MMO’s treat expansions but if you look back at games like Everquest that have something like 30 expansions now, they’re more or less just new content and quests added to the game.
I've never thought of this either, but completely agree.
Also I had an epiphany about WoW.. One of the main reasons why the game has sucked for the past ~8 years is that it has too many Systems. But obviously the hands of the devs are pretty much forced, as they kind of have to make new Systems for each expansion 🤔
I'm glad this was the top comment. Came to point out exactly this: Expansions got started because to add a substantial amount of content required an installation. Which was physical media. That had to be shipped to retailers. In a store.
Runescape didn't have expansions because it required so little local file space.
That's actually really smart, I never thought about it that way
Thats why i love so much the way they develop content for OSRS
It really is impressive how much they put out and the quality of it all
@@IdylOnTVyes but the beauty is, they ASK players if they think their changes will be a good addition, and if a huge majority is against it they don't pass it. Blizzard just says "fuck it, some weirdo will keep buying pets and mogs off the shop who cares if they enjoy the gameplay?"
THIS^
@@IdylOnTVthe quality used to be good back in 2007 and the mechanics are still good but compare any quest from 2007 to any quest set in kourend. Their lore department or whatever you want to call it just sucks now. Kourend doesn't feel like a fun real fantasy world it feels like a theme park for them to add new events into. The quests just dont feel the same. And no I'm not wearing rose tinted glasses. There are literally NO interesting cool useful quest rewards from the kourend quests the only reward from any kourend quest that's useful is the arceus spellbook which has some cool ideas but still just isnt good enough and also again its THE ONLY REWARD besides xp or coins for ANY kourend quest. Their quest writers have gone down the drain
@@petermartinson5483 the thing is.. asking players first is NOT the be all end all suggestion, sometimes a dev has to put their foot down and say "no, we will do this"
Players are RARELY a good way to actually gauge if a particular feature is a good or bad addition to a game
One thing I wish he touched on is that expansions, or at least the WoW model of expansions, typically come at the cost of destroying existing systems and progression. Burning Crusade gave a lot of items nonsensical MAXIMUM level caps, where you would reach, say, lvl 63 and an item would no longer benefit you. This was all to ensure that the only endgame content that would ever matter would come from the newest expansion, all for this process to repeat itself every time Blizzard decided they needed 40 dollars
In rs3, before it was rs3, Prifddinas was released. Alongside it was a grand exchange in the centre, with a teleport lodestone. The Max guild was also released, with it's own teleport and grand exchange. All of this resulted in a slow decrease of population at the main grand exchange, it's features and teleports were inferior to the new ones.
I remember starting a new account and visiting the ge and it felt almost abandoned. Room for a thousand charackters but there were more npcs than actual ppl.
Of course Prifddinas needed to have something big to keep people there, a new and improved hub.
But I believe it's important for new players to see an active hub to see max players , high end gear, stuff they can also reach one day, or just to see that the game is thriving.
Expansions like you mention in the video have a same ring to it though I must say I have no experience with other MMO's.
I agree, but one more point to add is that the grand exchange is much bigger than it needed to be. They wanted to make it look impressive when they released it, but now it looks empty.
Drspite it's flaws, Runescape remains the epitome of what an MMO should be imo. Only game I've played consistently for damn near 20 years.
My favourite OSRS propaganda channel. Love it
He has that J1mmy Vibe
@@ialphasoul2460 Honestly surprised J1mmy hasn't done some sort of video collab with Idyl yet, tbh. Idyl's content about OSRS/MMORPGs in general is always spot on, if a little generic sometimes
It’s literally the peak of the mmorpg genre
This video wasn't meant to be OSRS propaganda, but it very quickly turned into that (and i'm not mad about it)
@@IdylOnTV I for one embrace the propaganda
Do you mean that the developers of critically acclaimed Final Fantasy XIV made a mistake when they expanded the story of A Realm Reborn with the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60?
I think the major difference between XIV and other expansion-based titles is that they keep the old content in tact for new players to experience mostly the same as day 1 players. (excluding 1.0 ofc)
Everyone takes the same journey.
Exactly, and although the grind to catch up can be tedious, it's just as rewarding an experience that you can relate to with both veteran and new players alike.@@Excendre
Apparently our “mmo president” is out of touch.
@@Excendre Isn't WoW the only mmo out there with this expac model, the most popular mmos atm are WoW? FFXIV, ESO and like OSRS, I dont really know abt guild wars but i dont think they raise the gear cap every xpac considerinh they dont treat the gear grind like wlw
@@toxicginger6916 FFXIV releases by expansions like WoW does, with the newest one Dawntrail coming next year.
The major difference is that you are required to play every expansion in the game as a long storyline that unlocks the content as you progress through it.
There is a reason why WOW classic and EQ classic are so popular- I remember when TBC released, 45 mins into Outland, a green dropped that rivaled my T2 gear. This is the problem- developers have no idea how to scale a game. You don't create an expansion and make the previous content irrelevant. On the contrary, you should expand on the game and move it forward in a progressive manner. Being that Blizzard screwed the game up once, I have little faith that they will not ruin Classic if they do indeed release Classic plus.
Another reason that basically anyone who plays that clip of Brack saying "you think you wanted, but you don't" tends to forget is just how bad retail WoW was at the time that Classic was finally launched.
Yes, *some* people wanted Vanilla/Classic servers at the time of that Blizzcon. However, the Classic wouldn't have been *nearly* as big of a success had it been launched at that exact moment in time.
Classic was finally announced during the Blizzcon just after the launch of Legion. Legion, while arguably one of the better expansions of the game, didn't really have the time needed at this point - only 2-3 months into the expansion - to bring back the playerbase from the massive decline that Warlords of Draenor caused. Classic was then launched in 2019, square in the middle of Battle for Azeroth - one of the *worst* rated expansions in the games' history. Retail was, at that time Classic launched, essentially at an all-time low point for the game.
Would Classic have been a success had it been launched in 2013? Quite possibly. WoW was still extraordinarily massive at that point, and no doubt a lot of people would have gone to see what the hype was about. But, would it have drawn nearly as much interest when the retail game was still in a decent state? Very doubtful.
EQ progression servers kind of fall into the same boat. By the time they were eventually launched, the retail game had gone through a couple expansions that were not well liked. WoW had also launched a couple years prior, and a significant portion of the playerbase - like basically every other MMO and MMO-like game at the time - had moved to that game. So, like retail WoW above, the state of retail EQ at the time was not super fantasic.
So many people miss this absolutely massive fact about these types of classic/vanilla/progression servers when talking about them.
Your gollum Impression was awesome! It's like you were born to be him!
Kinda true, hence the phrase “You don’t play the game. You play the expansion.”
Shoutout to my boy Guild Wars 2 for horizontal progression.
An OSRS creator said Rs3 is still Runescape 😮 Beautiful. It really is still runescape, just different than OSRS obviously.
But the real question is, why no mention of ESO and its fairly rough and expensive update schedule and cadence? Major chapter/expansion every year with 3 other (mostly) paid updates a year.
Most expansions now don't feel like they, y'know, EXPAND the game. Instead they are mostly self-contained content zones with some new patches before it all repeats and aaaaaaalllll the years, or in WoW's case, DECADES, of previous content is left to rot and be irrelevant. WoW has gotten to the point where each expansion makes the game feel smaller and smaller.
All I do is play old content in retail wow. It is not rotting thanks to the both the scaling system and pure tons and tons of content. I hardly ever get bored. I had to stop myself because I wanted to catch on some current content for patch 10.2
@@TheBaldr Running things for transmog and mounts when the bosses pose 0 threat to you and die in 1-10 seconds is not "keeping it relevant". Keeping it relevant, in the way it was designed to be interacted with, would require a very different approach.
There are some that are theorizing that at Blizzcon, they are going to reveal WoW Classic +, which will add small updates to that time era, instead of expansions. Maybe like a split multiverse moment, which is maybe similar to what is done in Runescape and will put the game in a new direction while keeping everyone in the zones and era they enjoyed.
I think we’re still a few years out from Classic+ considering a few months ago Brian Birmingham said that the Classic team didn’t have the staff nor the budget to develop and write new content.
@@brandonkruse6412 they already developed the content with the first expansions 15 years ago😂. It's basically a remake with minor changes.
There were many things already developed from alpha, but were cut before the beta. Some things in beta were also cut before release. A lot of those developments are things people want to see in the game. They'd have to find out where it is, dust it off, clean it up, and add it back to the main client. That is a significant amount of work. To develop everything fresh with their already existing assets would probably be easier and faster at this point.
But they could announce it, release the servers, and start to slowly add content. There would be a lot of hype for it and people would be preparing like crazy
hearing that little "hello" from mod mark sent shivers down my spine xD
To be fair, in the 90's the expansion pack model was pretty standard for a lot of successful PC games of the era. Spend a lot of time making the engine and want to get more out of it? Design a few new areas, new units, new campaigns etc. and sell it all to the same install base who already bought your game. While it was really big with RTS games, it wasn't unheard of for other games to follow the same model. MMOs being longer form games with a more known install base, it just made sense for them to pick up a then-common model and use it to their advantage.
In the modern world of DLC, microtransactions and battle passes it makes sense why the expansion model has all but disappeared, which I guess does beg the question as to why it's still the assumed standard for MMOs.
The xpack model arguably fits the MMO genre the best out of any other genre. A constantly-playing installbase is literally the perfect format for that model; you outlined it yourself.
@@MastaGambitindeed it's good for money making but bad for the game itself.
@@jackalo34it's only bad for the game when a game has been going on for a long time with a lot of older xpacks devs don't do anything/enough to compensate pricewise for newcoming players.
@@MastaGambit I'm talking more about how xpacs tend to render older content obsolete by creating entire new zones where all the action gets moved to as opposed to just refresh/revamp or expand upon existing systems n content then companies are charging for narrower focused gameplay in the form of the said xpac. Also every game will eventually have a plethora of xpacs if they go on long enough thus the new player dilemma always becomes a thing.
@@jackalo34That's a phenomenon that newer MMOs have been working hard to address, especially Guild Wars 2. So that's not a problem with xpacks in MMOs, that's a problem with individual games and how they choose to handle progression. It's a game design flaw.
If expansions are done the way Blizzard has done them then yes. It absolutely wrecked wow. In case of FF14; they are absolutely required and have only made the game better. Sure there are issues, but overall it has become better every time.
Honesty, I never played Runescape as kid (didn't play any World of Warcraft either). My first MMOs were Wizard101 and Elsword. The first time I ever tried OSRS out was during the early months of the pandemic and I quit on tutorial island because it took like 2-3 minutes to kill a rat because I kept rolling 0's for damage. I don't quite get the appeal of the game as a new player.
im like 90% sure they changed the tutorial so that you dont miss on the rats because the last couple times i did it i didnt miss
i never played runescape until 2017 and i absolutely loved it, no nostalgia, the appeal is that its an amazing game with real quests, fun content, exciting reward system for everything (you do a quest and the reward is more content), updates are polled and players vote, updates are frequent and free, very social game, you never run out of things to do but not in the sense of mindless tasks, in the sense that theres just that much content, so if you get bored of something you have a lot of other fun activities to do, and idk this is pretty long already but there are more reasons
you should give it a go again, maybe with a friend who plays it, since its so open and sandbox you can feel lost when youre finally thrown into the game after the tutorial
@@ultratronger "im like 90% sure they changed the tutorial so that you dont miss on the rats because the last couple times i did it i didnt miss" that's not the point. The point is that if they have to change the tutorial so you don't miss, they should probably change the entire combat system.... fix the root cause instead of the symptoms....
@@zirtofion5982 its not a problem, are you dumb? Its the way the game works, they had to change it not because it doesnt work but to make new players understand it, how would they change the combat? Make you unable to miss? Then health would have to go up by like 50 times, so now health numbers will be in the thousands and thousands, whats next, adding abilities like in wow? Congratulations, you just suggested the exact update that ruined the game (Evolution of Combat) and is the reason why there are 2 different versions of the game (oldschool has 5x the player count)
Love the Golem impression. Very professional!! Much love!
I feel like eso is the Voldemort of mmo since no one ever seems to mention it in discussions about MMOs. I quite like the dlc model that game has, there's the main stories which are all base-game and the dlcs just either have their own story or follow the main story. This way, new players and people without the dlc don't feel like they're in the middle of a story they don't know the start of, while still expanding the lore of the universe.
Also you get all the dlcs with the monthly subscription so you don't have to buy them all just to play the content
One thing I will always praise Jagex for, is how they keep almost all the low level gear worth farming in OSRS. Whether its used in pvp as a low cost option so when you die you don't lose much, being dump with High Alchemy to train mage or being made via skill training So even at end game, you still see people buying and farming low - mid level gear. which intern keeps old content relevant indefinitely. That doesn't mean that every old content in OSRS is utilized but the majority of old content is still relevant. My take may be a bit bias because I used to play OSRS during the Golden Era of 2004 - 2006. I also played WoW during its Golden Ear of BC - Wrath Then I quit when Mop came out.
Yes the high alch value of items has basically ensured that even a mithril scimitar is worth picking up and alching. Because you can hold 2.1 billion coins, but can only hold 28 mithril scimitars. OSRS IMO is one of the best MMOs that you can play currently.
I honestly love that about how high alch acts as a floor for item prices
It’s remarkable how well the OSRS economy models IRL economies; there’ve been a few studies over the year comparing it to IRL models
When talking about older MMOs, Ultima Online and EverQuest always comes up, but somehow Asheron's Call is never mentioned. Asheron's Call released the same year as EverQuest, it had 2 expansions over its 18 year lifecycle, and went with monthly updates.
I'm loving those MMORPGs essays. Surely will vote Idyl again for MMORPG President next year
Thanks for the fantastic content. Awesome video as usual, really appreciated how personal all these videos feel. All your videos, you really feel educated and know what you’re talking about, and I feel represented. Thank you for making these.
Also WEEWOOWEEWOO
I think the arguments posited here against expansions in MMOs are weak. There are good arguments against the widespread practice of MMO expansions, but Idyl's arguments here are incomplete, don't address all of the issues, & are full of hard-and-fast assumptions that are so poorly thought out or incomplete.
1) Regarding Runescape as an example of a successful MMO without expansion: Runescape is just a bad example of a 'modern MMO . Straight up. It's such an obviously bad example that I don't think I should even have to explain why it's a bad example of a "modern MMO," but here's one reason: Old School Runescape (OSRS) is not a modern MMO. OSRS's success clearly stems from the fact it is NOT a modern MMO. There is actually so much less overlap between Runescape players & modern MMO players than Idyl's argument seems to be assuming. Runescape is arguably not even in the same genre as modern MMOs like World of Warcraft.
2) There is little discussion of the benefits of MMO expansions. In fact, Idyl appears to realize one benefit while describing the hype behind WOTLK's release in 2008; MMOs are social games, and having a ton of players picking up the game all at once (whether joining or re-joining) can be a GOOD thing. Sure, the nature of expansions involves peaks & valleys in player count. But some people really enjoy that hyped environment with tons of people around. It's an MMO, as in "MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER." These online worlds feel better when there's more people in them! It's one of the things that made WoW Classic so special. He even comes close to fully addressing the fact there is more to this issue when he talks about how popular Wrath of the Lich King was as an expansion. The fact he fails to address any potential benefits of expansions in MMOs suggests the possibility confirmation bias affected his view from the start. At best, his arguments are made weaker from the fact he never addresses the benefits. At worst, he appears to assume there are no benefits of expansions over rolling releases.
3) Idyl never attempts to argue why expansions are objectively worse than rolling releases in MMOs in terms of fun or player experience (as far as I can tell). He relies on highly sujective anecdotes from former WoW players to do the job (and these user reports can often be summarized as "lulz Cataclysm bad"), as if these short subjective reports can detail an issue like this in all its nuance. For one thing, these subjective user reports are comparing expansions to previous expansions - not expansions in general to anything else. Besides, these anecdotes can be dismissed with simple logic: why would you condemn expansions in general based on just the bad ones?
4) No thought or discussion seems to be given to the capitalistic or productivity reasons behind MMO expansions as a business decision. I'm not saying I agree with the expansion-based business model for MMOs or the reasoning of corporate game studios in this regard, but not bringing them up feels like Idyl is shrugging at the idea of expansions, like there's an unwritten message behind the video unironically saying, "Why would these powerhouse MMO developers make expansions instead of rolling releases? Are they stupid?"
I feel like there's way more I could bring up, and my own arguments could be bolstered with more examples & details, but honestly this is a UA-cam comment, and I already feel like I wasted my time being in a UA-cam comment section. If we wanted discourse, we wouldn't be here lol. I think just pointing these things out is probably enough for most of the people here to realize there is more to the story here with expansions in MMOs.
OSRS has been the only game that’s continued to add new horizontal content without devaluing the legacy content.
I’m still doing occasional KBD sessions for the pet.
the only good way to do expansion packs in MMORPGs is to have them include additional non-vertical content that doesn't invalidate the progression that players have already made, and among its new features, only include features that weren't even imagined for the original release and wouldn't conflict with existing game design, and if they didn't have time, features that had to be scrapped should be included as well, granted that they also don't conflict with existing game design
that said, I haven't actually watched the video yet
So guild wars 2. Unfortunately most people like the gear treadmill that comes with every expansion. That's why it's so common
I think Lotro could also give an example of good expansion, like before the shadow, which introduces a new starting arena, and new low-level zones. I don't think many MMOs add new low-level zones, which gives life to the old world.
Wow totally replaced it's whole leveling system. Starting with the first 10 levels in a new zone(or given the choice for old starting zone), then let players(even new players now) choose which expansion to level up to current expansion.
Just gotta say I love your content man. Such a breath of fresh air. You are original and I appreciate that a lot
The golem skit was golden. I wanna see more stuff like it.
And this is why I chose rs since back in 05 lmao, sure the 19k hours in rs3 were "wasted" in terms that I couldn't bring them to osrs, but man was it fun, could go back anytime, and did help me learn the game anyway. Never understood how the "WoW" model was so popular with it's fetch quests or kill x amount of mobs quests...
Preach
Idk what I liked more the Golem impressions or the fact that the cataclysm part sounded like a spoken word metal song (9:58 for start).
Call me an MMO(RPG) Boomer, but I always enjoy playing the exact update/version of the game that got me hooked to it in the first place
Pre-BB Maplestory does that for me, I can't do the grind but everything else about the game at the time just made the world that much better. Private Servers really saved old Maple
ESO has expansions, but they're distinct for a few reasons:
1. They DO NOT impact the main story, at all. There is literally zero impact on the main story, so the stakes never really raise, they remain the same across all regions.
2. They very rarely change the underlying game itself, they're just adding a new region with more of the content people want. Sometimes they add mechanics and sometimes those mechanics are locked behind the expansions, but not always.
3. They're meant to be played in any order, so you never have this disconnect of "Oh, I was supposed to complete Morrowind before Vvardenfell? No one told me!!" You can just play it in any order you want.
As I former diehard WoW player, I was really hyped for cataclysm back in the day, because I love the idea that they were going to update all the core zones and progress the core storylines of the world. I really hate what they do now just releasing a new expansion pack with a new zone, and you never have a reason to play the core world any more. This the world of Warcraft doesn’t feel like a living world if they had of done something like cataclysm every time they had an expansion pack. It may not of been so bad. The other problem is the one you mention which is kind of like inflation of stakes. After battle for Azeroth, they release Shadowlands, which is set in the afterlife, which is just an insane departure from the level of storytelling that had been done up to that point. It is started to change the way the world feels it doesn’t feel like it sort of normal swords and sorcery, fantasy world any more, but some sort of bizarre cosmic Sci-fi instead. I hope they will do what you said with classic and just make it better instead of ruining it like they did with retail.
You act like WoWs story wasnt always some bizarre cosmic scifi
(It was)
@@V2ULTRAKill That's just nonsensical. There's no difference between the storytelling level of vanilla wow compared to Shadowlands? Whatever.
Can't believe you actually got the Gollum VA to help you out with this video!
Edit: WEEEWOOO WEEEWOO
I've gotta say, I've been loving your recent vids so far man, genuinely might be the most excited I get on UA-cam when I see you upload a new vid. Those back in time skits and especially that ian nonce joke destroyed me destroyed me! Keep it up
Closed my eyes at the beginning like you said idk if it worked... In retrospect probably shouldn't have put this on while driving :p
As someone who played WoW from Cata to mid-Legion, picking it up for some of Dragonflight then dropping it all; The CORE issue will forever be the 'We must up the ante' mentality.
No, you DON'T need to go from nation-wide threat to world-ending threat to galaxy-ending threat. You can make logical issues that are the end-all. Garrosh was an example of something that wasn't a world-ending threat, BUT he was a threat on such a large scale that the Alliance knew they had to step in and help the rebellion. Garrosh in power of a ruthless army that would die on his word are far greater of an issue than a Horde that could negotiate.
I tried WoW retail a few months ago and couldn't get into it like I could back in 2010. It's too massive now and it is way too overwhelming and the story feels too disjointed since I'm mainly a story player
Same, it sucks :(
Play Classic or Classic HC! HC brought me back and has been a blast so far.
I played WoW since classic up to the big exodus to FFXIV. Take your time and do the story, pretty good... FFXIV I mean, you know the one with catgirls...
I disagree. I think wow's leveling overhaul did a great job, though it can be overwhelming because they don't explain it very well. The first 10 levels should be done in the new player zone. Then you can visit Chromie in Stormwind or Orgrimmar and choose which expansion to level in. If your not sure, do one you have not played or Battle for Azeroth as it is the recommended one. This should give you some story. You can do this(~5-10 hours) until the current expansion, which is level 60 at this time. Then you fully get the story of the current expansion.
@@TheBaldr as someone who started playing in BFA, didnt do shadowlands, then came back for Dragonflight, BFA really shouldn't be the recommended thing, because you're already a major champion by that point, on first name basis with the king etc. If you're a new player you earned none of it. It pulls in all this stuff with the Titans etc and all these characters you're not familiar with and have no connection to. It was confusing af and it sucked not being able to follow the storyline from the very beginning and get to know the characters in their own right, because the instant you hit the level cap for old content you kind of have to go to the new content. Not only for levelling rewards but also social pressure if you're playing with friends.
The current method of managing expansions via Chromie is *serviceable*, but it's definitely not GOOD. I doubt it can be, purely because Blizzard have the incentive to only let you level to current level in the latest expansion.
I always had this opinion about expansions. Thus the only form of monetization that makes sense in an MMORPG is a subscription fee with no expansions.
The most recent case now with new world: I always invited friends to play new world, some tried. Those who tried just needed to buy the game and that was it, not so expensive.
Now, with the new expansion, it's obvious that no one will be interested in testing the game anymore, after all, every MMORPG player knows that just buying the base game doesn't get you anywhere - you need the expansion. Buying a game + expansions without knowing if you will continue playing is simply not worth it, no one will even test the game and it will slowly die because players like me that won't buy an expansion for a MMO to play alone will quit too. If it just had a sub fee it would be a lot easier to get into for a month and try the game before commiting to it.
been enjoying your new content style lately. Keep it up buddy
I sure do love looking at the moon since I can still do that because it's only 2023.
Banger of a video, man! I think you're really getting the hang of the youtuber thing 😀
is that a mic duct taped to another mic? If so, awesome.
Your example is just like fast and furious trying to one up each movie. From heists and racing to doing whatever in space saving the planet
Oh no not the cops
wow, who knew this video would be a contender for best video of the year - well done and well said Idyl!!!!
Always jazzed to see another Idyl greenscreen video. You nail this content, gj
Yeah, the payed expansions on top subscriptions are a little bit much, but there are also games which have no sub, only payed expansions, and that's an approach I can get behind to! ...that's how I discovered and fell in love with Guild Wars 2, which had free updates too, but didn't provide the push to the player base that expansions do...
Guild Wars 2 is the only MMO I've played where expansions actually felt like expansions.
I like how you are able to fit some information about MMORPG's in between your jokes
21:49 this implies that Andrew and Paul knew that Ian is into children. or is aware that christmas of 2020 is a canon event.
weo weo gotta stay for the end for the extremely insane Idyl content
I was literally thinking the same as you said in the end, why don't they make the best version of WoW that everyone loved, and instead of just re-running expansions people are frankly tired of, do the OSRS model of adding content to "that" era, content that doesnt or didnt exist back then, make it fresh and community driven, I think they could benefit alot from it :)
FF14 for me still does expansion based things with patches here and there well for me, since the story, music and all is so incredibly good, I can't put it down anytime theres a new drop
Fans: “Paying $60 for a game that also has a $15 monthly subscription AND micro transactions is ridiculous and predatory!”
Also fans: *Buys every $60 expansion and pays the $15 monthly subscription for 20 years while indulging in the micro transactions for cosmetics happily.*
nah no way, that fight was fought 15 years ago. its a lost cause, so people don't talk about it anymore.
People are stupid, more news at 10.
If you're familiar with the software development cycle at all it seems very similar to the Waterfall method, with big documented updates happening infrequently (which is the older method) compared to Agile method, with smaller updates happening at a much higher frequency
Cataclysm was only a continuation of wrath. Blizzard tried their hand at making the game more casual friendly in wrath, took those notes, then made Cataclysm.
Especially in comparison to today's xpacs, Cataclysm was a good expansion. Fighting Deathwing ON DEATHWING? Coolest thing ever.
Also Mists was a good xpac too for overworld content and leveling. Endgame raiding was kinda dookie tho...
Your takes are awful
Dragon soul was a garbage raid, and every MoP raid from throne of thunder-siege was some of the best raid content ever released
@@V2ULTRAKill That didn't take long...
Siege was the only decent raid from MoP, the rest were pretty mid. Cata basically fixed horde leveling and improved on what Wrath started minus the raiding which was fun but not as good.
Either way, GW2 kinda knocks it out of the park for endgame PvE. Fractals > Mythic+
@@grumplo3321 something something dragon soul is still the worst raid blizzard ever made and fighting deathwing by picking the warts on his back and then clipping his toenails only for thrall to snipe the kill was dogshit
@@V2ULTRAKill Not in it for the story, fighting a dragon while it's flying will always be cool no matter how hard you straw man it
@@grumplo3321 you werent fighting him while riding him
You were fighting adds
Only white dudes? Dude, you have no idea how successful WoW was in my Middle Eastern country, and many Asian countries. I was a college student when I've started (2006, right before tbc hit), but my cousin was at highschool, and literally all the dudes and many girls in his class were playing this game. They've had a guild with somewhere around 200-250 people, and 99% of the people in the guild were from his school. After all these years, I still see a lot of people having character names in my native language while playing, and many of my fellow countrymen I know irl still play in EU realms. So, I don't know about the demographics of US servers, but EU servers had, and still have a lot of variety.
But don’t you know, only America exists and matters in the entire universe?
@@patrickhenry1249exactly
@@patrickhenry1249 and don’t ya know, all Americans are white!
Idyl was making a joke there, so no need to get all "muh IDpol" ITT
@@mcfarvo nah, he was talking about his own experience, and I was talking about mine. No need to act juvenile.
You are easily my favorite person to watch atm. You've been putting out some great content. Also, "WEE-WOO-WEE-WOO, THE COPS ARE COMING"
the biggest problem with no sequels and never-ending expansions is in game bloat
my boy idyl out here stretching that snapback to its limit
Something to cover in this topic if you do another part to this.
Players are actively leaving expansions on purpose. Consider WoW Classic and Everquest TLp/Project 1999/Project Quarm.
Ya know I'd never thought of this before. My long running mmo obsession is pretty good at not completely invalidating old content, but I do certainly feel the game changer type issue. I'll probly never get a fun DoT job again and I still haven't gotten over it completely.
WEEWOOOWEEWOOO
Also i thought your gollum impression was spot on man
1.) No Man's Sky - Buy once get new updates forever for free
2.) FFXIV -
> A. Base game and 2 expansions For Free with no sub.
> B. Monthly sub you get constant updates with new content on a fixed schedule but you also do get a new expansion with a whole new mountain of content (that does cost money). With amazing stories and fun things to do.
I don’t think expansions are bad, it’s the way it introduced itself to the game, mostly what happens is that people get excited for the expansion but the moment the next expansion comes your work and time on the previous expansion becomes reset or completely irrelevant to go back to, I myself are in fault when I got excited with the expansions but when I put my time to get in even numbers with other players, my work doesn’t matter for it will become irrelevant when I’m loosing most or even all of my power in the next expansions.
Devs of games with large player bases need to realize before they release a new expansion, that everyone is still playing the OLD game they are speaking to radically change. They are playing the game, as is, with its current mechanics.
This push to revamp a successful game in an effort to make it even better is driven by gread. That is why OSRS hit its peak player count a decade after its release. It’s not constantly bleeding players with new content sending people away. And constantly adds new players, or draws old players back. People play OSRS and Will always get the OSRS experience, plus with new content. Can’t go wrong with that.
OSRS has the largest player base in proportion to its overall subscriber count compared to any other MMO. WoW has 3 times more subscribers then Rs, yet has only slightly higher daily player counts. Thus MOST subscribers to WoW are not actively playing the game.
I thoroughly enjoyed that Golum impression
I feel that gear is an issue now too, i think you said this before in another video but with more people playing rare equipment is less rare because there are more people getting said gear so if a game doesn't make mega rare loot most people can obtain the best gear but this mega gear problem can turn away casual players, look at Black Desert Online
I think a way to solve this is to no longer have gear as drops. I feel that every piece of gear should be made by crafting skills by players, beyond low level starting gear like a level one sword you get in a tutorial maybe. Raids should just be the place where the best mining and gathering spots are located. This would also give more of an incentive for large scale raids as you would need to bring non combat classes into raids, such as a miner, and would need to keep them protected from the bosses. Raids are too static how they are now, and you could introduce a system where every week the properties of the gathered materials could change. Maybe one week the ore is lighter and thus more suited for faster weapons, maybe one week the ore is charged with magical energy and is more suited for making a staff or wand. Crafting should be integral to playing. And all gear should degrade and be unrepairable to keep the economy circular and every raid relevant for all time.
Final fantasy XI had expansions but they existed alongside the previous ones and base game, so the available content that was "Current" kept expanding. I feel this is the best model.
FFXIV is also similar to FFXI in that old content is evergreen due to the existence of DF and for new players with the trust system. Even older raids can be synced to as close to the levels the devs intended (well as close as they can due to potency changes, mechanic changes, design philosophy, etc but the fact is you can do content from the first base game even if you are at EW due to the level sync and item sync system).
Also though some things have been removed (usually because they were outright bad or revped into something more well received) most content that originally released are still present and still have players doing such content.
@@coolyeh1017this is a straight up bad comparison. Nobody would use a button to “skip an expansion” in ffxi. People in Xiv do this all the time
As a white balding enraged middle aged man, I have the due diligence to criticize this vídeo!
It is very good.
Expansions as they existed.
Before MMOs.
Were supposed to be like sequels to the same game you were playing but for new shit to do with your maxed out character. Hence expanding the game. The problem with MMO expansions is they often expand nothing and then take things away to make room for the new thing. Also have a bad habit of making all past content pointless because new thing.
Solid Gollum impression honestly!
i feel the gameplay model for a game like runescape having 100k people just cant be the same as one trying to please millions.
I finally tried OSRS this year, I'm not an avid player or even that high leveled, but it killed most other mmos for me. Hate having to do everything all over again every expansion
I agree with everything, especially the use of Mario Sunshine music as a background.
How do you spell weee wooo were woo? The your in trouble sound thingy?
as a DougDoug watcher, I'm quite familiar with the "WEE WOO, WEE WOO!!!"
Thank you Goop! This has been very educational. :)
what's the background music with the piano melody?
My issue with expension is mostly what Idyl said: it need to rise the stakes every-time to a point that it get unsustainable. I think that's why dragon flight seem so chill IMO.
I think if MMO's are going to have expansions AND a subscription, the expansion should be free with a sub. It's ridiculous to pay $50-$90 for an expac when you already pay $15/month to play the game. And then the content from expansions are useless. FF14 has content that is challenging based on your level, but if you play WoW and level in an older expansion, you curb stomp everything. I completely agree with you. Why did I HAVE to pay for Shadowlands?? It was dogshit, no effort, and flat out the worst expansion made by blizz.
I've not watched LoK, but the trope of a bad guy stealing powers sucks so much that it confirms my suspicions about it.
I also want to say that expansions made a lot more sense back when you had to actually go to a store and buy a physical game
Wee woo! Wee woo!
The bit about Taylor was great btw lol
Expansions in mmos have always felt so strange to me and i think they've stuck around this long just because "that's how it's always been"
Expansions for older pc games were optional but with mmos they really aren't, no one is gonna play with you if you don't have all the expansions.
They're also inherently double dipping because you're already paying for the sub
is it really double dipping tho given that the expansion and the sub pay for diferent things overall?
Yes part of the subscription money is put back into the development cycle for the games next expansion, but a big chunk of it gets eaten up by server cost, maintenance costs, support staff costs, developer costs for bug fixing and current content updates etc.
Like people really need to understand that running(and developing) an MMO is not cheap.
Like looking at FFXIV and SWTOR as inherent examples,
SWTOR started as pay to play and subscription based game. it had 2 "big" expansions and went free to play at some point with an optional subscription.
After it went free to play it gained 2(i think 2? ts a while since i last played SWTOR) decent big expansions, but they noticably went down in length and quality... These last 2 where noticably also not a "buy them" but a "pay for the subscription and you get them" deal.
meanwhile FFXIV for all its MANY flaws has several dozen hours of new content, story and otherwise, with each expansion... and for 60€ you basicaly get 2-3 years of new content guranteed with the Sub money going towards making sure the game can remain operating for the next 3 years and beyond....
Expansion packs are single time profit spikes, but a game needs to remain profitable troughout its lifespan to keep servers, and if the expansions where 100% paid for by the subscriptions then you would end up with a situations where the game may nto generate enough money via subscription to booth pay the ungoing costs, create profit for the company(its a product) AND finance the development of the next expansion ontop of that
Idyl about to single handedly ruin OSRS with all these expansion ideas he's putting in Jagex's head lmao
Oh boy, there aren't that many subscriber. I find the format very nice, and proffesionnal though.
I think the problem really is theme park MMOs vs sandbox MMOs. The reason OSRS can have no expansions is bc its a sandbox and they can just add stuff to the world and the core game isn't going to change it just adds new or 'other' stuff to do. Theme park MMO's like WoW are doomed to have an increased level cap, new zones, new raids, new items which will invalidate older content-and thats the problem with even Classic + right now is how will they incorporate that properly and make it sustainable without making older content useless or older zones useless. In OSRS the whole world is relevant even if you have 10 hours into the game or 1000.
In FFXIV all zones are relevant. There is at least one dungeon in each zone that is unlocked or unlockable, and when you level crafter or gatherer you will have to go there either way because of the materials.
Not to mention FATES farming and Hunt trains.
I've always preferred MMOs where the updates/expanions were free.
Like City of Heroes, which always released new zones, story archs, classes, and so on as updates called Issues (Like comic book issues), and their only expansion being the stand-alone expansion of City of Villains, which didn't need City of Heroes to play and in 2008 owning either CoH or CoV gave you access to the other game's content for free anyways.
we need to talk about you breaking it down on stream, just a full stream of you break dancing
your Gollum impression was really accurate...
Ot's about damn time someone pointed it out other than me after eight damn years.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot and totally agree. The expansion model sucks. I just got back into WoW after playing OSRS, and man do I think OSRS just does it better.
Not having expansions let’s you build off of the world and improve it instead of forcing everyone into new zones. Makes the game feel more dynamic instead of like you’re running on a treadmill chasing what’s new.