Alright so you've been playing that wonderful MMO for a long time, you love it but its showing its age.

Suddenly the dev team releases news on a sequel to your favorite MMO.

If you have a choice would you rather have a sequel of your favorite MMO or a graphics/UI Overhaul to bring the game up to speed with other MMOs out currently?

I personally feel MMOs should be played over the long haul, I never agreed with sequels like Eq2 or AC2.

I believe MMOs evolve overtime, this evolution should happen within the original game not in some spin off.

Anyway, I would like to know what you think.

Here's a poll:

If a sequel means the end of expansions and the like for the original game, I'm in favor of the sequel.  That will prevent the company from going all New Game Experience on you with the original game.  They can do whatever they want with the sequel and if you hate it, the original game will still be there. 

Originally posted by Quizzical

If a sequel means the end of expansions and the like for the original game, I'm in favor of the sequel.  That will prevent the company from going all New Game Experience on you with the original game.  They can do whatever they want with the sequel and if you hate it, the original game will still be there. 

Hmmm so your saying if the old MMO stops being supported (no expansions) then you agree with a sequel?

If they did that there wouldn't be an original game to go back to, A mmo with out dev support through new content features is a Dead game.

Also upgrading a Existing MMO doesnt Equal NGE, SoE are just a bunch of idiots.

Sequels almost always suck in any type of application.

There comes a point in the life cycle of a game where it just is a dead husk of it's former self. The concepts of the game are sound, but the client and server mechanics are 10 years of spaghetti coding that is 5 development cycles away from anyone who first touched parts of every system.

Sometimes it's best to take a good formula themed game and hit the reset button on it. For instance, I'd like to see DAoC II, not DAoC 2.0.
 

Originally posted by Z3R01

Originally posted by Quizzical

If a sequel means the end of expansions and the like for the original game, I'm in favor of the sequel.  That will prevent the company from going all New Game Experience on you with the original game.  They can do whatever they want with the sequel and if you hate it, the original game will still be there. 

 

Hmmm so your saying if the old MMO stops being supported (no expansions) then you agree with a sequel?

If they did that there wouldn't be an original game to go back to, A mmo with out dev support through new content features is a Dead game.

Also upgrading a Existing MMO doesnt Equal NGE, SoE are just a bunch of idiots.

I didn't say stop supporting the old game entirely.  Still make minor bug fixes and so forth and keep the servers running, but no huge content additions after a few years.  The huge new content additions go into the sequel.  That way, players who later become nostalgic for the way the game used to be can go back and play the game as it used to be, because it is still that way.

It's not just Star Wars Galaxies.  How many UO players post on this forum about how they want to go back to pre-Trammel?  How many WoW players want pre-Burning Crusade?  I thought Guild Wars was better before the addition of GWEN than after.

AC2 was great sequel it was just not a grafhic overhaul of ac1, that you guys did not like it i dont care,you had small part in failor of ac2 but biggest was it was to early released and MS screw it all up.

They should have make it clear that it was more of spinoff and not a sequal to ac1.

But i also agree for some games a huge update on original grafhic wise and gameplay wise why not.

Ac1 would also have been a good move to upgrade it with new grafhic engine and maybe some improvement along the way.

But this can be tricky if you upgrade ac1 you have stay for most true to orginal and not to todays standards becouse thats mainly casual themepark crap.

If an MMO has a sequel it's like saying the first one was a design failure.

The guild wars team(areananet) did get one thing right about going sequel,  they basically admitted that there were a lot of things they wanted to do but couldn't in the current engine.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by Z3R01

Originally posted by Quizzical

If a sequel means the end of expansions and the like for the original game, I'm in favor of the sequel.  That will prevent the company from going all New Game Experience on you with the original game.  They can do whatever they want with the sequel and if you hate it, the original game will still be there. 

 

Hmmm so your saying if the old MMO stops being supported (no expansions) then you agree with a sequel?

If they did that there wouldn't be an original game to go back to, A mmo with out dev support through new content features is a Dead game.

Also upgrading a Existing MMO doesnt Equal NGE, SoE are just a bunch of idiots.

 

I didn't say stop supporting the old game entirely.  Still make minor bug fixes and so forth and keep the servers running, but no huge content additions after a few years.  The huge new content additions go into the sequel.  That way, players who later become nostalgic for the way the game used to be can go back and play the game as it used to be, because it is still that way.

It's not just Star Wars Galaxies.  How many UO players post on this forum about how they want to go back to pre-Trammel?  How many WoW players want pre-Burning Crusade?  I thought Guild Wars was better before the addition of GWEN than after.

It's just my opinion really but I feel if a game doesnt get solid content updates it isn't being supported.

I mean the whole reason we pay sub fees is so the game could continue to grow and Evolve.

Sure certain games have been messed up do to developer incompetence but thats no reason to not add content.

Who wants to go back to a game knowing there wont be new content. look at GW until recently I've stayed away from the game since the GW2 announcement, knowing that my game wouldn't get anymore Xpacs sucked all the motivation I had for playing the game.

Now that they're adding content due to GW2 long dev schedule Im going to go back in a more casual role.

Lets say blizzard announced WoW2 but said the Original WoW wasn't getting anymore content updates, do you think people would still play it??? no way, it would be a dead game. Its like playing Tabula rasa now knowing it closes in 3 days, why bother?

If devs are going to release a sequel they should atleast keep supporting the original game with fixes and free content patches if they don't want to put effort into expansions.

Just leaving a game to die for a sequel is an asshole move and a slap in the face to the playerbase that supported you during the more active years of your first mmo.

Originally posted by paulscott

If an MMO has a sequel it's like saying the first one was a design failure.

The guild wars team(areananet) did get one thing right about going sequel,  they basically admitted that there were a lot of things they wanted to do but couldn't in the current engine.

No, it means the original has run the course of it's life cycle, yet the design has enough merit to be redone with current tools and client tech. If there are a lot more people with past memories than current, doing a sequel might be what is needed to make the IP viable again. I do think, however, it's a mistake to leave the original still open after the sequal is released though.

Originally posted by Z3R01

I mean the whole reason we pay sub fees is so the game could continue to grow and Evolve.

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Its like playing Tabula rasa now knowing it closes in 3 days, why bother?

 

The reason we pay subscription fees is that that's the business model that companies use.  The subscription fees have to cover the pre-release development cost of the game, not merely future content.

I don't know about you, but I usually play content after it is released, not before.  What matters is what the game is like after the content is released, not what it is like before it is released.

As I said above, would you absolutely refuse to play single player console games, knowing that they'll never get future updates if it is technologically impossible to make future updates?

Tabula Rasa is not much of a comparison.  The salient factor there is that they're pulling the plug so that you can't play the game anymore at all.  ArenaNet has said that they'll keep the servers for Guild Wars up so long as people play it--and said they'll still keep a server up in 2050 for the last 5000 players still hanging around (and realistically, that will only take one server and not much bandwidth for 5000 non-concurrent players with the technological advances likely to come by then).

Originally posted by Ghimpi

Originally posted by paulscott

If an MMO has a sequel it's like saying the first one was a design failure.

The guild wars team(areananet) did get one thing right about going sequel,  they basically admitted that there were a lot of things they wanted to do but couldn't in the current engine.

No, it means the original has run the course of it's life cycle, yet the design has enough merit to be redone with current tools and client tech. If there are a lot more people with past memories than current, doing a sequel might be what is needed to make the IP viable again. I do think, however, it's a mistake to leave the original still open after the sequal is released though.

Paulscott, unless you'd care to elaborate on what you mean by "design failure," I'm going to have to go with Ghimpi on this one.

As quickly as technology is advancing, games get dated. The graphics get old, the stories get old, old players start leaving and new players stop coming. More and more expansions get more and more cumbersome to maintain. I am a very casual gamer, and even my beloved CoH is starting to wear thin. At least I still have CoV.

Depends on a lot of factors, mostly whether the sequel would only be an graphical update or a content polish as well. If the release basically was a version 2 of the game where they fix graphics, bugs, and things people have complained about as well as adding some additional tasty things too I'm in favor. The problem is that that sounds more as an expansion that a new game to me...

To justify creation of a sequel you have to bring something new, interesting and not just copy paste and clean up a little. But since it requires something new it also makes it hard to speak of it generically as a yes or no question: it depends a lot on whether the developers seem to be creating something new, and if that new seems promising.

Considering that sequels have a tendency to be much worse than the original game I'm leaning towards not a sequel. Personally I prefer expansions since that allows me to keep my characters. If you necessarily need to make a new MMO, then skip sticking to your own franchise and name and do something new, that way you're less restricted and can make something truly new.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by Z3R01

I mean the whole reason we pay sub fees is so the game could continue to grow and Evolve.

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Its like playing Tabula rasa now knowing it closes in 3 days, why bother?

 

 

The reason we pay subscription fees is that that's the business model that companies use.  The subscription fees have to cover the pre-release development cost of the game, not merely future content.

Thats one of the reasons, yeah.

I don't know about you, but I usually play content after it is released, not before.  What matters is what the game is like after the content is released, not what it is like before it is released.

You initally pay for a MMO for the content that they give you at release, then you pay sub fees so Devs could keep servers running and develope new content,fixes and balancing. If devs arent going to add new content then why pay a sub fee? what do you do after u play through all the content?

As I said above, would you absolutely refuse to play single player console games, knowing that they'll never get future updates if it is technologically impossible to make future updates?

Single player games are different, you pay for the content you get in the box, not future content.

Tabula Rasa is not much of a comparison.  The salient factor there is that they're pulling the plug so that you can't play the game anymore at all.  ArenaNet has said that they'll keep the servers for Guild Wars up so long as people play it--and said they'll still keep a server up in 2050 for the last 5000 players still hanging around (and realistically, that will only take one server and not much bandwidth for 5000 non-concurrent players with the technological advances likely to come by then).

If guild wars isnt going to get Content updates/Expansions then its an un supported game imo.

Do you seriously see no difference at all between saying,

a) we're pulling the plug and then no one can play any content, even what's already done, and

b) we're done adding major new content, but we'll leave up what is there so you can play it for as long as you like?

If a game says, we'll add new content in ten years, but not before then, does that count as unsupported?  What practical difference is there between that and saying no new content ever?

If that's unsupported, then how about five years?  Two years?  One year?  A month?  A week?  Are games only supported on patch days?  Or better yet, are games only supported when the servers are down for a patch?

In the end, MMOs dont do well with sequals (As you already noted). Basically MMO sequals are the paid content expansions and do much better. For me, Id rather conquer a new realm rather than rehash the same realm under a different name

Quite simple MMOs should not be like their single player counter parts when it comes to sequels.   Single player games have sequels because the world is done and ended when the player is.  

A MMO provides a platform where you can freely evolve the world forward.   Playing a different MMO with the same name as your old one is a little like swapping your old girlfriend for the younger sister sure not to the same severity but the same concept(creepy overserious examples FTW).

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As far as I'm concerned if you're going to evolve a world enough to have to make another one you might as well take a new name as well and have a few more levels of freedom when adding mechanics.  If it's a spiritual sucessor the player base of all your games will know so before it's even released anyways(these are MMOs and community games, not single player games).

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I mean seriously even SoE has admitted that name EQ2 EQ2 was a bad idea and something they won't do again.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Do you seriously see no difference at all between saying,

a) we're pulling the plug and then no one can play any content, even what's already done, and

b) we're done adding major new content, but we'll leave up what is there so you can play it for as long as you like?

If a game says, we'll add new content in ten years, but not before then, does that count as unsupported?  What practical difference is there between that and saying no new content ever?

If that's unsupported, then how about five years?  Two years?  One year?  A month?  A week?  Are games only supported on patch days?  Or better yet, are games only supported when the servers are down for a patch?

I think this whole debate boils down to why you and I pay for MMOs.

I pay for MMOs because I know the game Will evolve, story's will change, bosses will be introduced, Zones will be added, quests givers will be added, Basically the games Content will never End.

Seriously thats the whole point of Paying for me. Because the developer is giving me an ever changing world. If im playing a game that doesn't change, that doesn't have content flowing in then to me it's not even a mmo.

MMO for me = a game world with never ending content and changes to it. We pay for that.

So if you thought about MMOs the way I did, you would never suggest that a MMO be just left up with no content being further developed. A mmo thats not supported through content updates might as well be called a Single player game with a chat room and multiplayer option. Think Diablo.

Do you seriously think a MMO with no new fresh content coming in is worth playing? what do you do when you played through all the content?

I would rather see my favorite MMO shutdown instead of it just kept on life support with nothing new added for the players.

Oh and lets try to be realistic, no Dev house is going to say "were going to add content in 10 years". I will continue to play and Pay for a MMO as long as I know that my game world will always be added to.

Its the whole point of the MMOgenre to me.

Me and you disagree on the basic "why we pay for a MMO".