What this game should do to increase longevity

[SamRF]

....

I'm actually genuinely curious why my suggestion sounds so ridiculous to you, I have the feeling you may be misunderstanding what exactly I mean cause what I'm suggesting really isn't that radical of an idea (also unoriginal probably).

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I don't see how this adds longevity.

What I'm hearing is basically. Stop the main story and just make a different story. That in no way adds longevity.

Plus, it alienates those who like the continuous story, while there is no guarantee of people coming in for new different story.

[SamRF]

I don't see how this adds longevity.

What I'm hearing is basically. Stop the main story and just make a different story. That in no way adds longevity.

Plus, it alienates those who like the continuous story, while there is no guarantee of people coming in for new different story.

The endgame community will get less and less newcomers if things go forward the same way. The MSQ is stacking with each expansion, it already takes hundreds of hours to reach endgame. Players at endgame will stop playing for variety of reasons (bored, switching game, dying irl) while there will be less and less new players coming into the endgame because they're stuck in ever increasing MSQ. I'm sure many players don't make it past the MSQ and stop playing (long) before reaching endgame, a few 100 hours is a lot of dedication.

To give an example, I can't imagine the average WoW player who is used to fast combat having the patience to go through those hundreds of hours of MSQ to get the point when combat will start getting faster and more interesting. Hell, they might not even have the patience to reach lvl 50 with how incredibly slow combat is in this game in lower levels. If they use a story boost right now, they won't enjoy or understand latest expansion because they didn't experience past story and character development. This is why I suggest starting a new saga so there's a point you could safely level boost your character to while still being able to enjoy and understand given story.

[Daemius]

Ascian crud is being wrapped by the end of 6.x patch series. 7.0 will be a fresh saga, maybe not with ALL new characters, but we'll be done with empire vs alliance and ascian machinations by then most likely. So your suggestion of people not having to go through all the current storyline to enjoy things is already kind of solving itself

Source: Yoshi-P has alluded to 6.0 being the end of the Ascian arc countless times over the years in live letters and interviews, here's one for the sake of having a direct link.
https://gamerescape.com/2016/11/15/f...-fan-festival/

Specifically within that article he states towards the end of question:

At the current state, we will need up to 6.0 to finish everything. (laugh)

[Jaelommiss]

It's not inaccurate to say that the story presents a very real obstacle that blocks new players from end game content.

Consider an MMO player who starts playing the game after hearing great things from his friends. He pays $60 for the complete edition and starts playing. After a few quests he takes a look online to see what the fastest way to reach end game (where his friends are). Imagine his shock to learn that he has 694 story quests, plus another 30 or so class quests before he can do ANY of the content that he wants to participate in. MMOs are known for the grind, but even so that's a huge 100+ hour requirement that can't be avoided. There's no alternative leveling process. You can't do things your own way. SE tapes you to the train and railroads your entire progress to cap.

The good news is that there's a level boost for $25. It brings you up to the end of the previous expansion. That's fairly standard for MMOs now. The bad news is that it does nothing for that mountain of quests you have. You can skip those too, but you'll need to pay another $25, plus you still have no choice but to do the 106 quests from the latest expansion.

So here are your choices as a new player:
1) Spend $60 and 100-150 hours following an undeviating path to reach end game
2) Spend $110 and 20-40 hours following a segment of that path to reach end game

Both of those present massive obstacles to someone who isn't sure whether or not they'll enjoy end game, and the problem grows with every new expansion. When is it unreasonable to expect people to complete the story before they can participate in harder content? Clearly some people here don't think 700 quests is too much. What about next expansion when it reaches 850? Or 1000 in the expansion after that?

Why do we need to force people to go through the story? Why isn't someone allowed to level up by grinding dungeons or fates if that's what they want to do? With all the optional content in game, why aren't people allowed to say "no thanks, I'd rather do something else to level up"?

I enjoy the story on the whole and I don't want it removed from the game, but I can't understand why some people feel that it must be forced on everyone who plays the game. Unless something changes, the inflating obstacle to entry will gradually restrict the number of new players reaching end game.