Quote:
Originally Posted by Ukerric  It's not just level. It's the whole character power that does this. It's why it's almost useless, unless you're real hardcore, to start after two-three years in any progression-based MMO. After two years, the hardcore are firmly lodged at the upper end of character power, but the casuals have had time to get to the upper end.
Unless your MMO manages to attract a significant proportion of new population each month (i.e. it's growing by a two digit % per year - even after two years OR it's suffering from massive churn), there's little to expect from early levels. Stopping and restarting is the same : you just shift the (re)starting point.
It doesn't matter if it's levels, items, whatever. Starting on your own in a progression MMO after a year is doomed to failure (unless you're modestly hardcore, and enjoy soloing - you can slog, catch up to the casuals, and start enjoying groups reasonably) |
This can be easily solved by the strategic use of new servers. I remember I stared EQ Christmas 2000,a year after the oigonal on a new server, and I basically had the same experience that someone had starting back in 1999.
Look how popular new WoW servers are, and look how popular the EQ progression servers were. I thik this is an overlooked feature that MMO companies dont take advantage of enough.
Im willing to bet that if a new EQ "progression" server opened up tomorrow, it would still recieve a huge influx of players.
In a lifecycle of a game like EQ,when they merge servers, they should open up 1+ new server, and always starting form the beginning of the life cycle of the games progression. I think EQ progression proved that this model does work and was quite popular.
