In the expansion please please......

[Barimu]

What your wanting actually makes the overall MMO's lifespan a lot shorter. Making your long and meaningful a lot shorter as well. I think you need to go look up and study what happened in WoW Vanilla, when things were long and meaningful.

That's not true, FFXI had the same level cap for 7 years and all the content in that game had its uses. 7 years at the same level doesn't seem like a short lifespan to me.

[kyuven]

That's not true, FFXI had the same level cap for 7 years and all the content in that game had its uses. 7 years at the same level doesn't seem like a short lifespan to me.

FFXI was from a different time. Back then you could get away with having a high enough level cap and an absolute grindfest to reach it.
Also level caps are nearly meaningless if they're above a certain point and take long enough to reach. If you just add new abilities, armor, weapons, etc. into the game you can artificially inflate the game without increasing the level cap.
Modern MMO developers are strongly encouraged to NOT make the disparity between a new player and a veteran player insurmountable, as scaring away the new player means less money for them.
And this IS a business.

[Codek]

That's not true, FFXI had the same level cap for 7 years and all the content in that game had its uses. 7 years at the same level doesn't seem like a short lifespan to me.

XI had the ability to swap gear pieces in combat (which opens a can of warms with balancing) which meant that a single character could farm an indefinite amount of pieces that could have 'some' use.

This game supports I think 13 slots which kind of forces the issue of only having 13 relevant fights at any given time.

You are entering a debate of pro's and con's between two very different systems...

[Fornix]

That's not true, FFXI had the same level cap for 7 years and all the content in that game had its uses. 7 years at the same level doesn't seem like a short lifespan to me.

Not just FFXI, many MMO's have had static level caps during the entire duration of the game or for a very long time. There's upsides and downsides to such a system though. Yes, it creates a larger quantity of content accessible at the same time. However, there's commonly a high level of grind involved to get players at the top end.

Whereas with periodic increases newer players can very rapidly catch up due to steps of new gear being easily accessible. Making games like this more welcoming to newer players.

[Xystic]

Whereas with periodic increases newer players can very rapidly catch up due to steps of new gear being easily accessible. Making games like this more welcoming to newer players.

It also made sure that hardcore players had a steady pool of geared people to recruit from. During my hardcore days during vanilla, it was annoying that we would have to turn around to gear newer recruits, which took months, before we could return to the forefront of progression. By that time, you would lose people and would have to repeat that cycle of recruiting/regearing. When content was shortened and up to par gear was provided, it removed the problem of small recruitment pools and huge gear gaps.

It benefited newer players and hardcore players alike.

[kyuven]

It benefited newer players and hardcore players alike.

That reminds me of the old days of content, where content was locked via keys and only a finite number of keys could be produced on the server at any given time.
You were either in the elite of the elite guilds, or you never even got to see one. Nothing in-between.
Dark times, dark times.
Nowadays if Joe Tank leaves the game or finds his true calling as a longshoremen and can't play during raids, you can gear up John Tank in a week or two and not lose any progress.
I don't miss the old system at all.

[Xystic]

That's not true, FFXI had the same level cap for 7 years and all the content in that game had its uses. 7 years at the same level doesn't seem like a short lifespan to me.

Just because it was around for 7 years does not mean it was thriving. WoW, could have survived for a long time on Vanilla style designs but it became evident that if you made content long and lengthy, you formed this gigantic pit in the community that slowly caused the MMO to decay and die off. If it was as viable as you claim, we wouldn't be here, discussing whether long and lengthy is viable or not.