What this game should do to increase longevity

[AnimaAnimus]

And that would be jarring because you're potentially leaving plot points unresolved or you'll mess with the timeline of the story too much.

Not if each story was its own thing. Going back to my previous example. If you wrote a book about a political coop or existential threat set in India that was happened in the same time line as the US Civil War, how could there possibly be any unresolved plot points? Even if the main protagonist was American, there would be no cross over because the story you are reading occurs completely in India.

Many games handle story telling like this and it actually works incredibly well.

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

Conclude. No one is asking them to just stop it bluntly. Just bring it to a conclusion so we can have something a bit more refreshing than "ascians did it" "garlemald did it" or "allagans did it". Every story needs to have a conclusion, otherwise you get the author adding ridiculous things to keep the story flowing. This is why many TV shows are stopping after 3 or 4 seasons even if they are highly popular. Because they have a natural stopping point and if they just keep adding and adding it becomes convoluted and actually destroys the story they wanted to tell.

[linay]

Not if each story was its own thing. Going back to my previous example. If you wrote a book about a political coop or existential threat set in India that was happened in the same time line as the US Civil War, how could there possibly be any unresolved plot points? Even if the main protagonist was American, there would be no cross over because the story you are reading occurs completely in India.

Many games handle story telling like this and it actually works incredibly well.

I'm thinking from the present state where there is an overarching story. If they manage to resolve everything, then we can start fresh.

That said, I also wouldn't like it if every expansion is self-contained with nothing to link from one expansion to the next. They can do it after every few expansions, but there should be continuation and even recurring characters and such between several of the expansions.

[SamRF]

I'm thinking from the present state where there is an overarching story. If they manage to resolve everything, then we can start fresh.

That said, I also wouldn't like it if every expansion is self-contained with nothing to link from one expansion to the next. They can do it after every few expansions, but there should be continuation and even recurring characters and such between several of the expansions.

I'd say have 2 or maybe 3 expansions for 1 saga. Give free level boost to the start of each saga. E.g. current saga ends at 6.0 --> 2nd saga starts 6.0 and will end 8.0 --> only give free boost to start of 6.0, even when current expac is 7.0.

Boost to the start of latest saga, not the latest expansion.