What surprises me more is that there seems to be a standard some are holding this game up to that others MMOs aren't meeting either.
Even considering the MMOs that do shake things up more between expansions (in my experience these changes tend to fall into either changing class abilities/design around or a shift in how content deals with rewarding players), most of it feels more like a fresh coat of paint instead of more substantial changes.
I certainly can't fault players for wanting fresher coats of paint, but I also believe the level of change that goes on (outside of the major type meant to save a game that is in sink or swim mode) gets overhyped. Think about this - when was the last time WoW's approach didn't consist of leveling, then running dungeons to get gear to run harder dungeons, then running raids to get gear to run harder raids, mixed in with some sort of daily quest progression on the side? Those were either in at launch or added years ago, and it's still the core of the gameplay loop there (I think they've been at the point of changing for the sake of change, which is bad game design, for at least the last 3 expansions, but that's a different discussion).



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