Further, I will pay somewhere around $45 ever quarter to my MMO of choice. That is better income than a single box sale of any game to the developer. There are server costs, yes, but no packaging, no distribution, and no marketing to keep me paying.

So I still ask the same question from UO days… if I am going to pay $15 a month, then why would I not expect enough content added to double the game world at least every 4-6 months? After all, I can take that $45 and instead buy a whole new game.

I look at non-subscription games from Bioware and I think if those guys can create such compelling gameplay with only a single box sale, then what in the world are MMO developers spending their money on? Oh yea, rocket trips into space.

Different people value different updates. A huge PvP change is meaningless for folks who don’t PvP, as a random off-the-cuff example. Part of the fun juggling act is to see how varied companies handle this.

To me, Turbine does a good job in its games of presenting regular changes/patches with a 1-3 month turnaround time, with the meatiest documented patch update ever (funny asides included). Now how far they reflect actual reality, and how often they break things accidentally in their patches, I’m not so well aware of as I haven’t played LOTRO or DDO in a while, but I admire the professionalism displayed in the regular schedule/documentation.

Turbine also has a habit of offering “something for everyone,” most player types will find something they like or appreciate in reading the meaty notes, be they soloist or group-oriented, an achievement-bar chaser or RP-focused. Tradeoff, any overall significance becomes diluted with this strategy.

CoH stretches their Issue updates a little longer, 3-4 months between them, and tends to devote each update to a specific theme. Sometimes it caters more to Heroes, or to Villains, or to PvP etc. Most involve getting one new innovative system or major tweak out – the success of which can be overwhelming or less so, depending on each player’s personal preference. (Arena focused issue for non-PvPers = “worthless,” Villain epic ATs for someone who refuses to play a villain would be equally so, etc.)

My personal preference is for companies that will check regularly for the pulse of their community and react with quick (not more than 1-3 month stretches) changes if need be, and display dedication in constantly correcting the direction of the game. Hence, I’m happy to offer money to Turbine and NCNC.

Other regular updated games like Eve and Warhammer also match this criteria of mine, if I felt like playing the games in question. I’m far more wary of MMOs who offer blockbuster change in big blue-moon packages, mostly because I don’t like being bored for long periods of time and then caught up in a mad scramble to adjust. For others, this might be perfect, enjoy a stable professionally built game for a year or so, and just as things get stale, enter a massive patch to shake things up, readjust the rules of the game and turn it into something new to learn and master. S’ all subjective.

Ultimately, the real issue seems to be that players need to be aware of what they are paying for. Really aware. Not just listening to any hype, but checking if the service/content the company is liable to provide matches up with one’s expectations.

Anyway, just to be fair and to take a look at the dark side too (from here: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/implemented/ ), from November 2004 to August 2006, a similar time frame to the one that we’re dealing with here, Blizzard released Maraudon, Dire Maul, Battlegrounds (AV and WSG), Blackwing Lair, the Darkmoon Faire, Zul’Gurub, another battleground (AB), Silithus, the four world dragons, Ahn’Qiraj, Naxxramas and cross-realm battlegrounds.

We didn’t give Blizzard the lap dances Turbine has been getting in some places. Personally, I pass on the lap dance, but fair is fair and if we’re gonna count “Hey they added a whole dungeon here!”, we need to count it when the bad guys add their whole dungeons too.

And the numbering is going to get weird for people who do not know that Book 7 comes after Book 12. We’ll need to start calling them 1.12 and 2.7 or something once the later Volume Two books start coming out.

What I would count as worthwhile updates (just personal opinion) are:

Book 9: Evendim (even if I hated the zone I’ll be the first to admit it was a large update)
Book 10: Annuminas
Book 11: Housing (and I’m being generous here. Housing is all well and good, but doesn’t really compare in my view to new zones and a bigger world)
Book 13: Forochel
Book 14: Eregion
(However Moria is designated. Is it Volume 2?)
V2 Book 7: Lothlorien

So it’s gonna be 2 years old in April and in these two years people got one pretty large update (Moria) and five zones with their accompanying questage. Is it good? Yes, of course it’s good when a dev updates his game. All I’m saying is that it’s not as stellar as some people make it look.

The initial game world at launch was on the smallish side (and Angmar was halfway finished, by the way). The above mentioned releases were juxtaposed with lean stuff. And so on. When you average it all (subjective, I know) considering how heavy the new content is and how long the game’s been out, I don’t think Turbine is better or worse than any other house in this regard. They might disguise this fact by offering it all in smaller chunks, faster than others (Blizzard and ArenaNet come to mind) but in the end when you look at it, it doesn’t stand out that much.

We -could- start arguing what’s a ‘worthy’ update and what isn’t, but I purposely remained clear of that becase it comes down to personal tastes and we could be here all day.

My only strong disagreement with all the comments (besides no one echoing my sentiment about L4D ;)) is about Guild Wars being “dead.” I agree that it’s day to day player base is definitely going down (negatively, “dying”), but their Live Team is, has been, and will be pumping out more upgrades and content. They have 3-4 big updates set for this year.