As much as I love the current version of Final Fantasy XIV and want the programmers to be able to visit their families, part of me is occasionally sad that we’ll never have anything like the version shift again. It was undeniably really cool when the game had a whole event dedicated to the end of an era… followed by what is, for all intents and purposes, a new game. Sure, you could import your character and your stuff was still there, but in practical terms Final Fantasy XIV right now is wholly different from Final Fantasy XIV at launch.
Of course, thinking about that just got me thinking about how cool it would be if every expansion had a similar effect. What if a new expansion to World of Warcraft or Guild Wars 2 or whatever game you choose didn’t just functionally rewrite the game, but actually started things up again? What if you faced the end of the in-game world and then had to start picking up the pieces? It’d give designers a chance to really re-anchor the game on a regular basis, and it would certainly lead to the feeling that the game was really changing.
It would also be insanely expensive and probably wildly impractical, too, but let’s think about the cool parts for the moment. Would you be into an MMO with regular reboots? Or does the idea of a large-scale reboot make you get twitchy to begin with?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
