So I'm not seeing how this is them changing things up from 2.0/3.0

[Yun_Tsuri]

Gonna quote myself, a post I've made on another thread, so I am in topic here;
MMORPGs are basically dead imho today, the only way FFXIV survives is glamour (servers been literally empty for weeks since few months ago now) and the dressing-up feature the game is too focused on. So calling FFXIV devs the best ones because they sell glamour to make money cause we have no new or interesting contents is ways too much. Been playing FFXI since its NA release in 2003 (and I am from EU, I assure you making a NA account ready while living in EU at its time was harder than any FFXIV raid out there today), that game (and same goes for the original WoW team) had the greatest MMORPG dev team of all time with immense expansions giving you months - or even years of playtime with no catch-up patches and everything being fair and hard when it comes to gear especially. A great MMORPG is your second life, where dedication, skill, design and OST comes together and gives you memories you'll collect and bring with you forever. FFXIV, the way it is now since ARR, runs around comic micro-events, glamours and tons of old FF references with literally no innovation. Tomestone system is actually the worst point / gearing up system in MMO world where you need to repeat the same old contents in order to get cheap gear everyone has access to. And I don't even want to talk about the relic system which is literally a joke, on FFXI it required the highest amount of gil, a couple of years of various farm and clearing the strongest Dynamis bosses in game. But man, you had the fucking strongest weapon in game 10-15 people a server only obtained.

[OcieKo]

It's the same Runescape. Currently on, "Runescape 3". A similar huge leap from when it was a 2d isometric game (Runescape 1), into the 3d java game we all remember, (Runescape 2.)

The older races (from vanilla WoW) Were most definitely a massive/complete Overhaul. Heck. Cataclysm is so 'old' at this point, they'll likely be revamping the models for Goblins and Worgen by the next xpansion. Old MMOs is old.

From what i can research quickly it looks like theres up to 4 runescapes, from 1 to 2 (Runescape Classic > Runescape) an entire engine rewrite happened and they run concurrently so they are separate games. Seemes like 3 crashed and burned, DarkScape (Runescape PVP) version crashed and burned as well, then worked on another upgrade which may be Runescape 4 per say. If there was a graphics update from RS2-RS4 that may qualify, but RS1(RSC)>RS2(RS) those would fall under the EQ1>EQ2/RO>RO2 examples of whole new games.

[Moonlite]

snip

People are cranky or at least seem cranky. The expansions are glorified patches. If you remove the actual adding of the zone everything that has been described is a patch. The only thing that patches don't have are the new skills and animations that leveling up brings.

To the people that want pop items. Wouldn't a gate item like Aquapolis work better? gather the stuff and instead of an open world spawn you can enter an instance. I just worry that you might end up with something like odin fate. In older games skills didn't have so much dependency on other skills. So open world lag just ment fire took longer, not that you lost stacks and buffs.

[Talraen]

People are cranky or at least seem cranky. The expansions are glorified patches. If you remove the actual adding of the zone everything that has been described is a patch. The only thing that patches don't have are the new skills and animations that leveling up brings.

It's funny, I remember the first game expansion I ever played, Covert Operations for Command & Conquer. It didn't add any new mechanics or units, a new mission tree, or new cutscenes. It just added a bunch of individual one-shot missions. Meanwhile, in the same time frame, a "patch" was literally that, fixes for issues.

Now what we call a "patch" is more substantial than an expansion was then, and what we call an "expansion" is expected to be an entirely new game. How times have changed!

[Vexander]

People are cranky or at least seem cranky. The expansions are glorified patches.

Or, you could say the patches are mini expansions.

I mean, we get a LOT of content with each new patch when you compare other MMOs. WoW takes up to 6 months to deliver a new patch (FFXIV does that in half the time), and you wind up with stuff like 6.1 featuring twitter integration, or 7.2 with its, "MORE CONTENT THAN ANY PATCH EVER," which is -1- new quest a week that amounts to, "Go pick up twelve fel boar rumps." Meanwhile when FFXIV launches a patch you get two new dungeons, new hairstyles, new MSQ, new side quests, new raids/trials, and other new stuff on top of that. We've gotten Verminion, Diadem, Stone-Sky-Sea, Palace of the Dead, Aquapolis, new PvP modes, etc...

I do NOT understand people who think FFXIV is not -overachieving- in the MMO market. There is so much content every new patch that each trailer video Square Enix puts out for them lasts between 8-10 minutes with each new thing given anywhere from 10 seconds to a full minute to showcase the preview. Assuming for a moment that even at the maximum minute focused on everything with the minimum 8 minute long trailer, that's still 8 new things over a wide array of interests (PvE, PvP, MSQ, Story, Raiding, etc...)

[Berethos]

WoW did a few character model updates after either Cata or Mists but for the most part it wasnt a complete overhaul.

I take it you missed the big deal that was made about "new character" models for every race except Worgen, Goblins, and Pandaren, that was a hot topic for months before the release of Warlords of Draenor?

[Vexander]

Gonna quote myself, a post I've made on another thread, so I am in topic here;
MMORPGs are basically dead imho today, the only way FFXIV survives is glamour (servers been literally empty for weeks since few months ago now) and the dressing-up feature the game is too focused on. So calling FFXIV devs the best ones because they sell glamour to make money cause we have no new or interesting contents is ways too much. Been playing FFXI since its NA release in 2003 (and I am from EU, I assure you making a NA account ready while living in EU at its time was harder than any FFXIV raid out there today), that game (and same goes for the original WoW team) had the greatest MMORPG dev team of all time with immense expansions giving you months - or even years of playtime with no catch-up patches and everything being fair and hard when it comes to gear especially. A great MMORPG is your second life, where dedication, skill, design and OST comes together and gives you memories you'll collect and bring with you forever. FFXIV, the way it is now since ARR, runs around comic micro-events, glamours and tons of old FF references with literally no innovation. Tomestone system is actually the worst point / gearing up system in MMO world where you need to repeat the same old contents in order to get cheap gear everyone has access to. And I don't even want to talk about the relic system which is literally a joke, on FFXI it required the highest amount of gil, a couple of years of various farm and clearing the strongest Dynamis bosses in game. But man, you had the fucking strongest weapon in game 10-15 people a server only obtained.

Forgive me for being harsh, but after reading this, I received two impressions from you.

1) "New content isn't New content unless its content I'm interested in! SE should only update the parts of the game I enjoy!"
2) "How dare everyone have the opportunity to earn gear and enjoy every part of the game?! These peasants should not have the option to be able to stand next to me, just beneath me as I stand around AFK being admired with my Raid Gear that requires 12 hours a day of playtime commitment!"

[Averax]

You in the wroooooooooooooooooong genre with that sentiment.

I've been playing wow for years, and not once have they failed to make things different from expansion to expansion. The things they've done haven't always made some people happy, but they were different nonetheless, and not treading the well worn path they always had been.

[OcieKo]

I take it you missed the big deal that was made about "new character" models for every race except Worgen, Goblins, and Pandaren, that was a hot topic for months before the release of Warlords of Draenor?

Pretty sure in my reply to that earlier i mentioned it not going over very well with the community. But yes, i remember the whole "They're ruining my beloved character" tirade/angry pitchfork mob response to them working on it. Tho it settled down later and people accepted it pretty well. Tho give credit where its due, blizzard did a good job of maintaining the character of the faces through the upgrade. Other developers have been a bit less... gentle? on the subject.

That isnt to say im against having more face/facial features/racial features options for all the race/genders, just that i accept its a far more difficult undertaking than people seem to make it out to be. Sometimes the current options feel kindof pidgeon-holed and that im mostly playing with like 3 sliders and a paintbrush rather than all the options there are, tho that could have more to do with my personal aesthetic preferences.

[Kling-Klang]

I've been playing wow for years, and not once have they failed to make things different from expansion to expansion. The things they've done haven't always made some people happy, but they were different nonetheless, and not treading the well worn path they always had been.

I actually agree with this, that is why I am so underwhelmed with SB. It doesnt look like there are any real changes to anything so far.
I am just used to expansions really changing a lot of things and how one plays the game.