End game? Raids?

[Mrbloodworth]

Endgame is just another way of saying "something to do for those of you who hate leveling"

Leveling + Quests are not really fun unless they lead somewhere for many people. And "end game" is a solid goal where you get to fuck off the grind and enjoy the things you want to do, not the ones you have to.

"I want to go to fight dragons!" "Sorry, you have to crawl through 30 hours of collecting pumpkins first." "But will I ever get to do it?" "Sure you wiil! Dragons and all your other desires are what awaits you in the End Game, when you can finally say goodbye to all this shitty other stuff we have you do and just do what you want!"

Which is not to say that all, or even most, people dislike levels or quests and shit. But for those that do an "end game" promises something else that might actually be fun - because it's different.

The last part of that brings me right back to this: "I have always felt, if an "End-game" is required, then something is seriously wrong with the "Body" of the game. As in, the journey must have sucked if the destination is the only goal."

[tazelbain]

I agree that end game shouldn't be a cop-out for unfun journey.  But having an unfun journey isn't the only reason to have end-game.  The journey can't last forever;  the rate at which players consume content vastly outstrips it's production. So either you give them an endgame or basically tell them to piss off.

The end game doesn't have to be raids.  But it is the easiest.

[Venkman]

And again, the point is that it's the player that determines what is fun, for them. The devs just provide the tools for them to make that call. Think about how many people play in the endgame versus those still along the leveling curve, on their main or alts. There's a wide disparity, heavily leaning towards people not living these games at the cap, even if they achieve it.

[Tannhauser]

You know, I would almost welcome a 'You Win!' graphic for the end game.  This gives you a clear indication that you have conquered the game and can get on with your life or reroll. Every time Turbine adds more content, they can push the ending after it.

It might prevent a lot of mental illness. 

Still have traits, crafting and houses (soon) to keep you somewhat busy until the next content patch.

[pxib]

Guild Wars: Factions and Nightfall both had very solid, satisfying storyline endings after difficult, impressive boss fights. I'm not saying the storylines were solid or satisfying (though I was quite pleased with several parts of Nightfall), but they ended well. The giant congratulation orgy at the end of Factions is something I wouldn't mind seeing copied because it's relaxing and fun. The video game equivalent of a curtain call. I've actually heard that the Draenei get something like it at the end of their starting area.

You weren't done with the "game" but you were definitely done with the storyline and got some special goodies to show for it. Now go farm or PvP or run people between the missions, or do challenges, or whatever.

You don't automatically decimate your playerbase by offering a YOU WIN graphic. You may actually bring in a few gamers who wouldn't otherwise be interested in getting involved in your game, and you can keep the other ones by having fun non-storyline objectives and gameplay.

[Mrbloodworth]

And again, the point is that it's the player that determines what is fun, for them. The devs just provide the tools for them to make that call. Think about how many people play in the endgame versus those still along the leveling curve, on their main or alts. There's a wide disparity, heavily leaning towards people not living these games at the cap, even if they achieve it.

Developers made "The end game" a goal.

They couldn't figure out how to keep "Games that never end" , from ending... (I blame liner, vertical power progression)

The "End game" or even that word on players mouths didn't exist until they continually made it so, by creating such activities, instead of creating a more compelling, horizontal progression, or expanding the body of the work to offer different progressions (Such as many different story lines, instead of one direct one start to finish, or course, you need to get rid of the metric of levels).

I am quite sure that the whole concept was to appease the minority of players that consume content beyond the normal progression curve.. As in, "Hard core" players.. (I'm not talking about people that "Really like games" as brad from vanguard tried to coin it, im talking about thoes with 30+ hours a week to play..etc..).

Point being, people think an end game is fun, because its something that developers started making THE goal for (MMO) games, and that makes everything else that came before it, Trivial, and thats bad (Not saying the individual feature/mechanic are not fun, they can be, but why make it so you can only particeapate, or be completive at "The end"?). Sometimes i feel bad for writers of quests, because i know not a single person is going to read what they worked on, no wonder the "Kill 10 rats" is such a constant...

I don't recall an "End game" being required in earlier MMO's, That is, required by the players to define a "Full" game.

End game to me is a flaw, not a feature. As most endgame solutions are nothing but time sinks, grinds, and things that require an insane amount of repetitive actions. There is nothing compelling about current "Endgame" solutions, aside from the possible competition that comes from it, but then again, that could easily be a "During the entire game" Feature, and not one only at the end.

Again, End game to me is a flaw, not a feature (Just like binding items). I feel its bad for the industry that its now required to have, no one even tries to make a compelling, fun, non-ending mmo... Because of a minority.

A lot of my friends play wow, and they all say the game doesn't start till 60-70.. To me, im like "WTF, game must suck then".

To its credit, i think i have enjoyed the body of LOTRO content more than any game i have played yet (Save for SWG-Pre-CU, but that is a different beast). I couldn't care less about it NOT having an "Endgame", i having to much fun reading the quests, and questing and adventuring in the "Mid-game" to care..

I'm sure i haven't explained my thoughts on this very well. 

EDIT: then again, "Endgame" is a great way to keep subscriptions... Especially if you keep raising the "End game" starting point by 10 levels every time you tack on an expansion (And the 10 levels are exponentially expanding XP, Grinding, or IRL time requirements! YAY!)  :-D

[Venkman]

What bothers me about the use of "endgame" is that people think it's a label for some specific experience. It isn't. Worse, the assumption that because EQ1 had it and then WoW ripped it off, the entire genre is defined by leveling until Raiding (or sport-PvP raiding by a different name).

Every game has some sort of experience the veteran players play once they're done learning the game. And that's what the pre-endgame levels technically are. You're learning new skills while advancing your character through a series of story-based scenarios, RPG-style. The big departure from the RPG game so many anti-endgame folks seek is that an RPG is a linear game with an ending in an environment where you're the guaranteed hero. But they're in the wrong genre for that. MMOs are virtual worlds in which you play a role alongside a bunch of random other people doing the same. The concept of MMOs implies a virtual lifestyle but the RPG-trappings guarantee the need for an ending. So what you get is the dichotomy between metaphor of "learning" and the lack of need to actually quit the game when you're done with that learning.

Think back to Morrowind. The Second Coming of Robot Jesus. Where is it today? A wonderful nostalgiac trip for fans, but it was designed to be consumed and then for people to move on. To Oblivion for example, which will go the same route. These games have start, middle, and ends.

MMOs do not have that. They can't unless they kick people off the servers once they reach the last level. And nobody wants to do that. So instead of creating content for 50-80 hours of a typical big RPG, they need to create content for 500 hours and still give you something to do when you get to the end of the levels. Or they tweak how long it takes to reach the cap.

But you need to keep in mind that every game takes a different amount of time to "learn", and that only some games (albeit the biggest subscription-based) use "levels" as a metaphor for learning (as in, here's new abilities you learn and maximize and then here's the endgame in which you apply that learning). For example, EQ2 takes much longer than WoW and therefore has far less a percentage of total players at that endgame.

And heck, this is just covering the DIKU-inspired games. Habbo? Club Penguin? The concept of "endgame" doesn't really exist in those games because their more an aggregative of mini experiences than a linear progression through static content.

These worlds are designed to last forever. But you need something to do in them too. The content eventually dries up because players progress much faster than new stuff can be introduced.

[Glazius]

Think back to Morrowind. The Second Coming of Robot Jesus. Where is it today? A wonderful nostalgiac trip for fans, but it was designed to be consumed and then for people to move on. To Oblivion for example, which will go the same route. These games have start, middle, and ends.

...um, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I seem to remember that after you "beat the game" in Oblivion you can still, for example, walk around the Imperial City with the endgame damage having happened, and take the capper quests for the Fighter's, Mage's, or Thief's guild, or do some more assassinations.

It wasn't the same way in Morrowind? You couldn't still play the game after you'd ridden the Plot Train to the last stop?

[Venkman]

Yes, but did you? And if not, why do you stick around after you hit the level cap here?

[Slyfeind]

Someone needs to cut out all that levelling crap. Problem solved. Unfortunately, character advancement is so ingrained into peoples' minds that the idea of this makes smoke come from the ears and makes people say "Illogical illogical FAULTY FAULTY OMG FAULTY!!!"

[Venkman]

So to me, what we do and how we apply what we've learned is merely wrapped with a metaphor in any game. Many MMOs use levels, but there's other ways too, some not defined by the game itself. Like in SWG, I wasn't rewarded by the game itself for the number of clients I had for my Energy business. And yet I had still definitely "advanced" to some "level" of business acumen to have achieved what I got. In fact, at the time I was barely competent with a Carbine and had merely lowbie level surveying skills since that's all I needed.

Other examples might be elder Guild leaders of large guilds. No game-applied reward there, but definitely a big achievement, to run a large guild of many personalities, keep things together when people leave, form alliances.

Still others are what players learn in terms of playing, notably an FPS game. You could play the exact same map over and over and become better at it in time. Learn more tricks, learn your opponents. The game isn't rewarding you for this in any statistical/mechanical form beyond kill count, but you definitely feel the improvement.

So how can we migrate from easily digestible stat-based obvious advancement to making people feel their improvement while still being part of an ongoing story, with soloable PvE, and wanting to partake of content 100s of hours long?

[Glazius]

Yes, but did you? And if not, why do you stick around after you hit the level cap here?

What is this "here"? I haven't played LotRO since the beta.

All I'm saying is that Oblivion didn't have a game over screen. You could still play it when its plot ended, in a post-plot world with a post-plot character. The "end of Oblivion" is much more likely to be player-determined, not game-determined.

[Venkman]

I meant "here" in this genre.

I'm curious why anyone who would complain about the endgames in an MMORPG has no similar complaint about playing an RPG after you finished the storyline. And corrollary to this, if you weren't focused on finishing Oblivion to do that endgame exploration, why would you feel focused on finishing the levels of an MMORPG rather than playing it for the pseudo/light RPG it's trying to be?

(and I mean "you" in the general sense :) ).

[Phred]

I meant "here" in this genre.

I'm curious why anyone who would complain about the endgames in an MMORPG has no similar complaint about playing an RPG after you finished the storyline. And corrollary to this, if you weren't focused on finishing Oblivion to do that endgame exploration, why would you feel focused on finishing the levels of an MMORPG rather than playing it for the pseudo/light RPG it's trying to be?

(and I mean "you" in the general sense :) ).

Morrowind I loved so much it's the first single player RPG that I've  immediately restarted with a new character after accomplishing the main plot's goals. Oblivion not so much, though after saving the world I went back to an earlier save and wandered around doing a lot of quests I missed the first run through. Your point about end game in games like that is well taken, IMO. people sure as heck aren't going to be power leveling to max level in those games.

I don't understand the people who say the game begins at max level or feel like questing in WoW is a grind. Maybe because I am a fast reader and can read the quests and npc conversations in a few seconds most times so don't tend to skip them or something but I enjoyed most of the way to 60 on several characters, and even leveling those characters now to 70 isn't that bad. There's so much content I even vary my routes to 70, skipping terokar on one char, skipping instances on another. I took my mage to 70 without even leaving nagrand, but that was working on faction.

[Mrbloodworth]

I meant "here" in this genre.

I'm curious why anyone who would complain about the endgames in an MMORPG has no similar complaint about playing an RPG after you finished the storyline. And corrollary to this, if you weren't focused on finishing Oblivion to do that endgame exploration, why would you feel focused on finishing the levels of an MMORPG rather than playing it for the pseudo/light RPG it's trying to be?

(and I mean "you" in the general sense :) ).

I think the guys at AOC said it best in a recent Q/A:

Isvind: Will there be factions available for us to earn reputation with (in relation to the city gang wars you have been talking about and/or other parts of the game)?

No, we did away with factions early in the game, as we unanimously agreed that faction grinding was never fun and was a cheap mechanic for a time sink.

I don't mind an "end game"... I just do not enjoy ANY of the mechanics currently used.


As a side note, i enjoy the early stages of any RPG (Of any type) better than the later stages. Its more fun to be "Up and comming" and "Poor" in RPGs, than when your hitting yet another mob for 99999.

[Glazius]

Well, I play CoH, where the endgame is "roll an alt". I have... um... at least a dozen, but I only regularly play about 5 of those, two on dedicated nights with dedicated teams. They're not at 50 yet.

My two 50s are both tanks. I pop back into them to look at new stuff expansions open up for 50s to do, even if it's just a few badges or taskforces. In a month or two when my SG pulls through heavy RL workloads I'm probably going to take my 50 tank with them around the Rikti crash site, since you can do everything there when you're a 50 and it's all pitched to 50.

[Soukyan]

End games ought to be like the older text-based MUDs. Remorting or, hey... here's a thought... hero classes that become immortals who must then WORK for the game. Muhahahahaha! Imagine the amount of development that could occur with a few hundred thousand immortals. Heh. Imagine the shitstorm. It's a thought though.

[cmlancas]

I very much agree with you and have on multiple occasions posted stuff like that. I think it's a better alternative to a true "endgame."


Just stretch out the max level to include sublevels. :)

[Mrbloodworth]

End games ought to be like the older text-based MUDs. Remorting or, hey... here's a thought... hero classes that become immortals who must then WORK for the game. Muhahahahaha! Imagine the amount of development that could occur with a few hundred thousand immortals. Heh. Imagine the shitstorm. It's a thought though.

Not having played anything like your speaking of.

But isn't that what LOTRO does? you can play as a monster... While it may not be the "arenas 2 factions" system we see, i can see this as an endgame where most content is created by players.

I bet they will expand this out more..especially when they get to things like helms deep ETC.

[Phred]

End games ought to be like the older text-based MUDs. Remorting or, hey... here's a thought... hero classes that become immortals who must then WORK for the game. Muhahahahaha! Imagine the amount of development that could occur with a few hundred thousand immortals. Heh. Imagine the shitstorm. It's a thought though.

Fortunately by this point everyone has read The mythical Man-Month.

[Soukyan]

End games ought to be like the older text-based MUDs. Remorting or, hey... here's a thought... hero classes that become immortals who must then WORK for the game. Muhahahahaha! Imagine the amount of development that could occur with a few hundred thousand immortals. Heh. Imagine the shitstorm. It's a thought though.

Not having played anything like your speaking of.

But isn't that what LOTRO does? you can play as a monster... While it may not be the "arenas 2 factions" system we see, i can see this as an endgame where most content is created by players.

I bet they will expand this out more..especially when they get to things like helms deep ETC.

Yes, that's quite similar, but they could expand it further and make it quite a good system. If you remember the whole Ryzom Ring project, Turbine could capitalize on the way they have their game set up. What I am getting at is that they can ramp up and get players into generating content for the game, but build upon it as time passes. If they at some point down the line provide a toolkit for players to create content, as the Saga of Ryzom did, then they might be on to something new and potentially more fun than the neverending grind or ubiquitous raids. Possibly. It was popular amongst the player base in Ryzom, but it did not make Ryzom a major contender in the MMOG market. I think with the LoTR license, Turbine has a chance to make this type of end-game work. I hope they expand it out, but ... what the hell, I'll throw caution to the wind and call upon my oracular powers here... Turbine will make a better end-game that focuses on player created content and other gameplay mechanisms as time goes on. But, it will not allow them to unseat WoW as the subscription leader in the genre. Not that it matters... you can check my prediction in a year. ;)

[Phred]

End games ought to be like the older text-based MUDs. Remorting or, hey... here's a thought... hero classes that become immortals who must then WORK for the game. Muhahahahaha! Imagine the amount of development that could occur with a few hundred thousand immortals. Heh. Imagine the shitstorm. It's a thought though.

Not having played anything like your speaking of.

But isn't that what LOTRO does? you can play as a monster... While it may not be the "arenas 2 factions" system we see, i can see this as an endgame where most content is created by players.

I bet they will expand this out more..especially when they get to things like helms deep ETC.

Yes, that's quite similar, but they could expand it further and make it quite a good system. If you remember the whole Ryzom Ring project, Turbine could capitalize on the way they have their game set up. What I am getting at is that they can ramp up and get players into generating content for the game, but build upon it as time passes. If they at some point down the line provide a toolkit for players to create content, as the Saga of Ryzom did, then they might be on to something new and potentially more fun than the neverending grind or ubiquitous raids. Possibly. It was popular amongst the player base in Ryzom, but it did not make Ryzom a major contender in the MMOG market. I think with the LoTR license, Turbine has a chance to make this type of end-game work. I hope they expand it out, but ... what the hell, I'll throw caution to the wind and call upon my oracular powers here... Turbine will make a better end-game that focuses on player created content and other gameplay mechanisms as time goes on. But, it will not allow them to unseat WoW as the subscription leader in the genre. Not that it matters... you can check my prediction in a year. ;)

How the heck are you going to rely on user generated content when your whole game has to be approved by the Tolkien estate?

[Venkman]

User-gen and IP-based directed-play experiences do not mix. But LoTRO is at least going in a different direction from WoW first with Monster Play and soon with Houses. In time I expect it to be a DIKU-spin on the old SWG concept where you give players enough tools and they'll go figure out an endgame for themselves.

Monster Play, Houses, Music, maybe in time some vamped crafting system and NPC underlings, you could have a virtual-lifestyle game with a thin DIKU veneer, never having to worry about advancing the storyline at all :)

[Soukyan]

End games ought to be like the older text-based MUDs. Remorting or, hey... here's a thought... hero classes that become immortals who must then WORK for the game. Muhahahahaha! Imagine the amount of development that could occur with a few hundred thousand immortals. Heh. Imagine the shitstorm. It's a thought though.

Not having played anything like your speaking of.

But isn't that what LOTRO does? you can play as a monster... While it may not be the "arenas 2 factions" system we see, i can see this as an endgame where most content is created by players.

I bet they will expand this out more..especially when they get to things like helms deep ETC.

Yes, that's quite similar, but they could expand it further and make it quite a good system. If you remember the whole Ryzom Ring project, Turbine could capitalize on the way they have their game set up. What I am getting at is that they can ramp up and get players into generating content for the game, but build upon it as time passes. If they at some point down the line provide a toolkit for players to create content, as the Saga of Ryzom did, then they might be on to something new and potentially more fun than the neverending grind or ubiquitous raids. Possibly. It was popular amongst the player base in Ryzom, but it did not make Ryzom a major contender in the MMOG market. I think with the LoTR license, Turbine has a chance to make this type of end-game work. I hope they expand it out, but ... what the hell, I'll throw caution to the wind and call upon my oracular powers here... Turbine will make a better end-game that focuses on player created content and other gameplay mechanisms as time goes on. But, it will not allow them to unseat WoW as the subscription leader in the genre. Not that it matters... you can check my prediction in a year. ;)

How the heck are you going to rely on user generated content when your whole game has to be approved by the Tolkien estate?

It is possible to do. Mind, the players would not have as much freedom as they would in a generic MUD with no license to maintain, but they could create mobs, items, etc. Rather than adding their own names and stats to these things, they might just have to pick from a pre-approved list of suggestions. Surely someone could write an estate approved name generator. Hell, I know of several Tolkien MUDs that can already suggest appropriate names. But that's just one aspect. I never said it would be easy, but it is definitely doable if they take their time and do it right. I stand by my prediction.

[Khaldun]

The general problem of the endgame will not be resolved until the emphasis in MMOs is on what happens to and in the world rather than making the only measurable unit of change through play being in the individual player-character.

If my character very rapidly progressed to the point where I was as powerful as I could become and I had made some branching linear choices about my development (what kind of skills I wanted, factions associated with) and then the real game was about working to make things happen in the world that were permanent and substantial, and the world therefore evolved dynamically, there would be no need to invest endless developer hours trying to desperately get ahead of the players with more content.

So why not do that? Two reasons. One is technical, the other is risk-aversion. The technical problem is that we can't have a game with a dynamic-state virtual world where things change permanently in response to player actions until we have strong autonomous-agent AI in such a game. E.g., creatures and NPCs will need to respond independently of developer control to things that players do, and their responses will have to be complex and at least have some element of randomness to them. Anybody remember the Against the Giants modules for AD&D? One of the things I loved about those was just the suggestions at the end about things the giants might do if the players went away to heal up and came back two or three days later--fortified guard posts, traps, movement of troop positions, ambushes. A dynamic-world MMO is going to need AI that can respond both tactically in a given location in that manner AND an AI that can handle long-term shifts in the way that particular agents behave in response to players. A dynamic-world MMO is also going to need deformable terrain, collision detection, etcetera: all very technically challenging.

The second reason, though, is what keeps anyone from taking even baby steps in this direction. Because an MMO that was oriented on trying to change the gameworld rather than levelling up your character would have to accept the possibility that the world could enter a structural cul-de-sac and need to be ended. This is one of the problems Shadowbane had when it was actually working: you could get a configuration of guild alliances that could effectively lock up the gameworld and make it lifeless and boring. Good design could prevent some of this--making a huge world helps (as with EVE Online), making it a closed economy with resources helps, good map design helps, but you'd still have to accept that a world could evolve to the point that it was no longer fun in any way, and needed to be rebooted. Until a designer can accept that this is the new meaning of live management--basically acting as stewards to a living, evolving world--nobody's going to start actually messing around with the technical work that's needed.

So instead they're all going to try and keep designing enough bells, whistles and raid dungeons to keep terminally bored levellers paying a monthly fee.

[Soukyan]

The general problem of the endgame will not be resolved until the emphasis in MMOs is on what happens to and in the world rather than making the only measurable unit of change through play being in the individual player-character.

If my character very rapidly progressed to the point where I was as powerful as I could become and I had made some branching linear choices about my development (what kind of skills I wanted, factions associated with) and then the real game was about working to make things happen in the world that were permanent and substantial, and the world therefore evolved dynamically, there would be no need to invest endless developer hours trying to desperately get ahead of the players with more content.

So why not do that? Two reasons. One is technical, the other is risk-aversion. The technical problem is that we can't have a game with a dynamic-state virtual world where things change permanently in response to player actions until we have strong autonomous-agent AI in such a game. E.g., creatures and NPCs will need to respond independently of developer control to things that players do, and their responses will have to be complex and at least have some element of randomness to them. Anybody remember the Against the Giants modules for AD&D? One of the things I loved about those was just the suggestions at the end about things the giants might do if the players went away to heal up and came back two or three days later--fortified guard posts, traps, movement of troop positions, ambushes. A dynamic-world MMO is going to need AI that can respond both tactically in a given location in that manner AND an AI that can handle long-term shifts in the way that particular agents behave in response to players. A dynamic-world MMO is also going to need deformable terrain, collision detection, etcetera: all very technically challenging.

The second reason, though, is what keeps anyone from taking even baby steps in this direction. Because an MMO that was oriented on trying to change the gameworld rather than levelling up your character would have to accept the possibility that the world could enter a structural cul-de-sac and need to be ended. This is one of the problems Shadowbane had when it was actually working: you could get a configuration of guild alliances that could effectively lock up the gameworld and make it lifeless and boring. Good design could prevent some of this--making a huge world helps (as with EVE Online), making it a closed economy with resources helps, good map design helps, but you'd still have to accept that a world could evolve to the point that it was no longer fun in any way, and needed to be rebooted. Until a designer can accept that this is the new meaning of live management--basically acting as stewards to a living, evolving world--nobody's going to start actually messing around with the technical work that's needed.

So instead they're all going to try and keep designing enough bells, whistles and raid dungeons to keep terminally bored levellers paying a monthly fee.

Right, but that evolving world model you described and the possibility for a cul-de-sac is something that even text MUDs of the past have encountered and dealt with. It's not a one or the other issue. You can still have developers making new content. You can still have hero players making content, or raise contributing players to "immortal" or player developer status to allow them more freedom to create (not destroy) the world. As the players contribute, so to do the developers. The two can work in conjunction. This allows for more time given to the developers to deliver new content and allows devs to make content/whatever to reroute cul-de-sacs or potential cul-de-sacs. There would still lbe a probability there, but then I suppose it would be up to the players to accept that there could be a "reset" as it were. That would not be pleasant for all involved, but is something that some players accept and embrace and something that can draw new players. There will always be turnover of the playerbase. You are correct that developers would rather go the safe WoW-style route and just keep pumping content. It's less risky for player turnover and certainly more lucrative. The ideas we're discussing are potentially lucrative, but not proven, except perhaps in pay-to-play text MUDs.

[Venkman]

UO and SWG had their share of static spawns, for the same reason any game does. But they also allowed for dynamic player interaction. Mob lair spawn patterns would (for the most part) change. Mobs all had rudimentary collision detection so they weren't roaming through houses. Any dynamic element originally placed where houses/structures could be placed were affected by the placement of that structured because at their foundation, they were based on formula rather than static conditions.

The best examples are Mission Terminals from SWG and Treasure Hunts from UO. Both are dynamically generated missions that point to dynamic locations in the world. They provide rudimentary directions to that location and then respond by spawning level/mission appropriate content to fight.

Both games also went one step further. In outdoor public adventure spaces, the games would dynamically spawn mobs to fight you based on your level, whether you were grouped/etc. It was within reason (so like a newbie zone wouldn't spawn level 90 stuff if a level 90 group happened to be passing through). The closest I've come to this outside of SWG and UO is CoX, which does similar both outside and within instances.

The above two examples show games that had formula-based foundations light years ahead of even WoW.

The problem is WoW is way much more popular. And there's a very basic reason for this:

Well-conceived and designed content, no matter how arbitrary, feels much more fun than any formula system could ever reproduce. Formula systems feel better for simulation environments where the goal is to engender immersion. Static spawns are XP and money gates. The average player can feel the difference and so far tend to prefer the latter.

[Khaldun]

Well-conceived and designed content, no matter how arbitrary, feels much more fun than any formula system could ever reproduce. Formula systems feel better for simulation environments where the goal is to engender immersion. Static spawns are XP and money gates. The average player can feel the difference and so far tend to prefer the latter.

The lesson of this point still goes unlearned for MMO designers. Namely, if you're going to go diku, if you're going to make all of the persistent aspects of gameplay center on the progressive empowerment of a character rather than the dynamic alteration of a world, you're going to need more than just "content". You're going to need:

a) a lot of content at launch
b) really good content at launch, e.g., content which is both aesthetically satisfying AND game-mechanically satisfying (in terms of character progression)
c) a model for generating lots of content after launch.

All of that can only be done in an artisanal fashion, e.g., you can't just roll out generic piecework content. Meaning, it's going to be expensive.

Add it up. A company that's planning an MMO is ultimately not "playing it safe" if they decide to imitate WoW unless they've got the same deep pockets as Blizzard, the same willingness to pour a lot of money and time into content design. If you're going to cut corners, you might as well go for a dynamic world-oriented design where at least some of the content comes from player actions and some of it comes from more automated or emergent sources.

I feel like this is one of the key mistakes that Turbine has made with all of their post-AC1 MMO projects: they're going with a content-centric design template but they're not resourced to keep up with what that means. So the content they do have is more threadbare, and the time sinks are way more screamingly obvious. Just the trash clearing involved to get into some of the later LOTRO instances is enough to underscore just how underresourced they are as designers. With WoW, you really had to get pretty deep into its endgame in the first 18 months or so to find the place where the designers were crying uncle and admitting they'd run out of content. (Molten Core, for example). With LOTRO, some of that shortfall shows up visibly well before you hit max level.