Loading... No-Growth Improvements

[Ethec]

In this issue, we'll look at the right decisions for aging MMOs. There's no doubt that a number of yesterday's top-tier MMOs continue to improve, but does improvement guarantee growth? Can you generate new players and excitement over content patches designed only for level cap players? How can tomorrow's games avoid falling into the same trap?

That plus a special look at what makes Fallen Earth's setting unique among post-apocalypse MMOs, and guides for Mabinogi and World of Warcraft in today's Loading... No-Growth Improvement !

[Loktofeit]

New servers don't seem like a good road to travel down when trying to 're-release' or stimulate interest in the game. A new server will create a short term burst in activity on that server, but in the end doesn;'t it usually fade quickly and end up more desolate than the existing servers? Existing servers are also negatively impacted as the veteran players that migrated to the new server and stayed there are now just that many fewer players in the pre-existing server communities. An example from history would be the Asheron's Call Verdantine server.

I think developers put too much stock in the vocal minority's 'concerns' about "few servers = game doing poorly". Turbine did an excellent job with LOTRO of assessing how many servers they would need AFTER the initial hyper-playing of release, so they might be one of the few devs that could pull off a new server release.


The new retail expansion seems like a great idea and there are several great ways that can be done - retail box product, Steam, Direct2Drive, etc. I really think it could even be as simple as a CD Key that gives some extras to new accounts like accelerated xp for the first x levels or some other perk that gets people past the major concern of "I want to try it again, but I'll just be playing catch up for months."

A mount is a great example of an incentive. Not some super cool one that the player cannot use until level 40, as that is little more than a reminder to the person that they are "behind the curve." Some kind of trinket or tool that can be used from Day One.

Any call out to get players to return seems to need but new content expressly for new players and an item or mechanic to allow new players to quickly catch up to the existing playerbase. While those may seem contradictory - create content for low levels while helping them to race past it - it seems there's more positive to offering both than there is in avoiding the possibility of the short term conflict of them. In the end, the guys that wanted to catch up could, and the guys that wanted to a new toy/item/gear in order to combeback or try the game got one.