I feel, that one of the main problems with MMOs is found in the way that expansions or new patches change what the game is about.
A prime example is wow with it's many expansions. When Burning Crusade came out, everyone left the old world for Outland, causing the amount of players in Azeroth to shrink dramatically. Granted , this wasn't as bad during BC because there were still many new players coming into the game to populate it, but it has only gotten worse with later expansions. Any time there is a new expansion, they add a new area and that is where the vast majority of the current players will be. This makes all the effort put into the previous areas mute, as hardly anyone is interacting with them.
It also leads to the need of constantly inventing new threats to fight, as the old areas remain unchanged. This has lead to players fighting literal gods, which is always silly.

What if, instead of alway tacking on new stuff, the landmass stayed the same, but with every new expansion, a couple zones get updated.

Zone 1 used be low level, with players trying to combat an invasion of beastmen. They thinned the numbers, but it seems it wasn't enough, as the beastmen have now taken over half the zone. It is now for mid levels and has a new dungeon.
Zone 2 used to be endgame content, but as the raid has been cleared many times the danger has been removed and it is now a low-mid level questing zone.

This way, over the years every zone gets its content and story updated, without needing to shift the players to new areas. And if you want to play through an older version of a zone, there could be a system like chromie-time, where you get to choose which version of a zone you want to play in.

I know wow specifically tried something like this with cata, but those changes were all destructive in nature and didn't continue the story of the zones, but instead just replaced them.
What do you think? Would this be a good change? Is it marketable? Does it actually fix anything?

>>1882292 (OP)
>players leaving the old zones to go to outland/northrend etc = bad
>players leaving the old zones to go to the new zones = good?
>"does it actually fix anything?"
no

>>1882292 (OP)
you have identified something you deem a problem, but provided an alternate solution which would lead to the same outcome.

>>1882292 (OP)
I'm actually doing this RIGHT NOW in my MMO dream game (I've never made a game before and don't know how to program) Like comment and subscribe!

Horizontal progression is the best and only solution, if content isn't evergreen then the problem recurs.

>>1882391
Additive expansions only add content for max level players. New players have to play through old or outdated content, which incentivises them to rush through it. By changing zones and stories in every level bracket, even new players get updated content, which should help them get into the game. Everyone leaving for the new area is shit for new players because they are stuck in a ghost town.

>>1882456
In which ways would the outcome be the same?

>>1882867
people will only go to the new content zones.

This is a terrible idea because nobody wants any old content to be removed. Instead you can go the route that turtlewow did and add new content/areas to old zones. This refreshes and revitalizes the game without taking away the things that made it so special in the first place. The goblin city added near org is a great example because it occupies a normally empty space so nothing is removed by adding it. There's even a few new quests like one that has you kill a goblin in the mines where you get the cats eye emerald from. Just adds content to the game without affecting the classic world that everyone loves so much.

Also you could do something a little more interesting like add a new quest that pops up after you finish all the quests in your starter zone that has you fight off an invasion of enemies along side npcs and other players.

>>1883443
But the new content is now spread out over all level ranges. So to see all the new content, players are incentivised to start a new twink, thereby populating the whole game instead of just the endgame. And since the new content is a rework of already existing zones instead of the creation of brand new ones, it should take less resources to develop. This makes it possible to focus on more than just the endgame stuff.

>>1883760
I agree that for wow, this is true. Especially vanilla has so much nostalgia attached to it, that any change will probably be received badly.
But in a new game that uses the proposed concept from the start, I don't think this would be the case. Also, old content stays accessible through chromie-time.

>>1882292 (OP)
The secret to a true next gen MMO is dynamic gameplay and horizontal progression.

The linear forumla at this point has proven to be a folly, the only company that can keep up with linear player progression without loss on death mechanics is WOW, and thats because they streamlined the game around pumping out a new raid every 6-8 months, no new MMO studio will ever be able to do this, even Square Enix can barely put out a new raid on the same development cycle and their raids are litterally just one circle/square room and a single boss.

The second issue is not allowing players to engage in the game world themselves. Westfall in WOW will always be westfall until a developer decides to change it. A guild can't conquer Sentinel Hill and put their banners on it and rebuild it causing new events to spawn in the zone, once you're done with a zone, you have no reason to return.

This is the issue with a pure themepark MMO, especially one like WOW where there is so much unused game space.

Another thing is the way WOW and its clones do dungeons, they're just hallways that you blitz through and run over and over again until either the items you want drop, or you're locked out and have to do it next day/week.

Instead dungeons, and raids, especially raids, should be zones sized affairs where guilds go in and explore, and the entire zone repopulates with new stuff every few hours, influenced by what has already been cleared in the dungeon, instead of a static instanced hallway with set loot tables forcing players to rerun them until they get the drop they wanted and to never touch it again.

And they just need to get rid of lockout systems and fixed group/raid sizes. If 2 friends want to duo a dungeon, regardless of how slow it is, if they can overcome those challenges, they should be allowed to, if a guild wants to zerg a dungeon, let them, there will be less loot to go around sure, but just let them, no one wants to be benched because there were 6 people online

>>1883808
A dynamic world with player interaction really would be a next step for the genre, but I'm not sure if it might lead to bigger problems. If players can interact with the world in a meaningful way, this means that zones will run the risk of loosing their identity. If you can construct things in the world, you need limits in place, or you'll have player spamming cheap constructions everywhere or making obscene buildings. If player constructions have a gameplay impact, this will lead to a meta, where every zone might start feeling the same.

What you described in regards to dungeons reminds me of guild dungeons in Ragnarok Online. If your guild was able to conquer a castle during the weekly WoE, you could enter a special area below it with strong enemies and rare treasures. The following week you had to defend your castle to keep access to the dungeon. How do you think these dungeon-zones could be differentiated from regular zones?

>>1883768
why would I as a max level, BIS character, go do some bullshit leveling dungeon?

>>1883856
yea I had this experience in either BDO or New World, can't remember
you start the game, go into the first city and some guild named "Femboy Lovers" fucking owns it? this shit ruins the entire initial experience and your impression of the game world

>>1883808
sounds a lot like GW2 at least when it comes to open world maps and World versus World
basically almost every map has events and some of them have meta events that engage the entire map
and WvW is interesting because it's like an infinite content machine that the devs almost never touch
most people just play it to have fun since the rewards take so long to get that you would have to be insane to grind it

>>1882554
This. The solution to this problem is horizontal progression and level scaling (down, not up) so players still have the 1-60 journey and leveled zones but also the ability to go back and play through all the content they 'outleveled'.

Players should be chasing gear because it's fun to use and looks cool. Not because it has higher numbers associated with it. Guild Wars 1&2 don't have these problems.

When you have 25 years of precedent of games with the same issues over and over and over and two games exempt from that, it's time to pay attention.

>>1882292 (OP)
You're not wrong this was a issue in everquest also, vanilla everquest and its very first expansion actually didn't clash much and people spread out at a healthy pace between norrath and kunark with items still being useful even from the main old continent.
Velious is when they hit major league powercreep comparable to vanilla wow vs TBC with massively inflated item stats.

>>1882292 (OP)
People don't like recycled content.

>>1884240
People don't mind reusing old content if its new things to do, its when there is so little content that you're stuck doing the one thing over and over and over again.

Should be that every time you revisit a zone, something new is going on, this makes the world more interesting to engage with, but the worlds are completely static and the way WOW and its clones do gameplay progression the world really is just a massive time sink of filler on your way to 'end game', with FFXIV being the worst version of the WOW formula where they don't even pretend there is a game outside of dungeons and raids, they just turned it into a cutscene simulator

>>1882292 (OP)
Turtle WoW seems to have addressed this and fixed it directly.
New expansions always create new social hubs for convenience and this along with new zones enforces an attitude of needing to move to the new expansion area.
if instead you simply kept the level 1-max world instact and only added new raid zones, new low-mid level dungeons, new items, etc youd find a healthier world experience.
I sincerely trhink that turtle wow has found the answer to mmorpg creep and dead world issues.
By design, no matter where a player is at, Stormwind, Ogrimmar, etc should always be to central social hub for players.
New players should see and interact with ancient vets all the time thru these central hubs, instead of constantly pushing the space between newbies and vets further and further apart.

>>1884248
I think that the problem with MMOs is that they have expansions in the first place. All I see you describing is the expansion model working as intended.

>>1882292 (OP)
Scope creep is a WOW problem, just stop trying to remake WOW. Adopt sandbox elements for your 'end game', and drop the linear exp grinding as core progression and replace it with milestone progression instead.

OSRS isn't perfect, but its got a ton of themepark elements in a sandbox world, and it works fine for a jank 20 year old clicking simulator especially if you're playing as an ironman, and because of this people have a reason to go do content until they unlock the things they want/need and move onto the next thing on their list, and the list of mid-end game progression unlocks are massive, and you can tackle anything you want in any order. The only issue OSRS has is that game mechanics are designed around solo play, which a new MMO can easily address. And because of the economy of OSRS you're incentivized to revisit content you've already completed just because it can be a good way of making gold if you're playing a normal account.

That's how you fix 'scope creep', everything in the world needs to have a purpose, and that purpose can't just be 'gives exp/gold/power points'

>>1884286
Litterally only a WOW problem because their expansions invalidate older content.

OSRS is constantly getting new content, but people are still running barrows. EVE online is stil getting new content, but people are still mining, buying, and building with Tritanium and flying tech 1 ships.

You can expand your game without invalidating content, thats a WOW model problem, and it ruins every game it touches because WOW is focused entirely around their raidloggers, not MMO players, and it shows in their numbers when they started introducing power leveling mechanics like hierlooms, RAF levels, dungeon finder, ect, in WOTLK, once Arthas was dead and Cataclysm released, people had no reason to play anymore

>>1884297
clicking a square every 15 seconds while watching a youtube video to avoid falling asleep is not what i would call the revolution the mmo industry needs

>>1884305
nither is mashing 1 2 3 4 5 to AOE down mobs in a dungeon

We're talking about world design and incentives to get people to do shit in the world again, not combat.

>>1884318
runescape is a grinder. it's entirely unrelated to expansion design where people play the game for 1 week every 2 years.

>>1884323
Glad we agree, WOW is dogshit design and should be ignored for MMO game design

>>1882292 (OP)
Closest thing we ever got was Storybricks/Everquest Next, and those projects were both shitcanned by that retard Smedley

Would have actually liked to see the game in action, events spawning in dynamically, giving access to new questlines, new classes, new dungeons and raid bosses, and could expand based on player engagement dynamically instead of a curated patch cycle

>>1891931
sounds like you want ashes of creation.

The ultimate issue is that leveling content is not evergreen. Even before BC, you had this issue where some regions of the map were drastically lower population as time went on because of the lack of new players. That itself is the core issue there. You either need to make this content evergreen in the sense it also provides value to players regardless of level. Or you need a constant stream of new players. Which never happens these days.

Gw2 actually tried to address this and people gave it shit for it. Its got level scaling and horizontal progression. Meaning all the content in the game is still applicable. People still aimlessly roam around some of the vanilla maps doing events. Vanilla world bosses are still completed to this day. Because they all provide value to the endgame. ESO and Gw2 are probably the two mmorpgs that have done the best job at keeping most of their game populated to some degree. Not perfect, still pop drops. But way less worse than say WoW.

Gw2 also experimented with your concept of a changing world. The early iterations of the living world/story. People hated it because of "FOMO". Where they missed content because they weren't playing at that time and such. So they stopped doing it. Personally I thought it was great and generated a lot of hype for the game. And people should stop being little babies.

Pic related. That areas was green hills and a nice clean lake at launch. Then it was invaded by a Krait faction.

>>1883808
>dungeons
most people have no idea the sovl that we once had

>>1904140
no people realized that they can't rely on random people they don't know to sit down at random times for multiple hours to enjoy a DnD campaign with. there's a lot of checks and planning that go into this for tabletop to be enjoyable.

>>1904161
That's EverQuest, anon

>>1904177
what do you think those old games are based on?

>>1904210
ok?