Last month, an MOP reader named Swifty replied to our Daily Grind about the last MMO he’d quit by calling out EverQuest II – a game “broken by massive powercreep.”
That startled me – I hadn’t ever considered EverQuest II as a game particularly plagued by powercreep. I always think of it as a game with a lot of top-heaviness, especially as pertains to zones and systems, but it also pioneered one of the more interesting horizontal leveling mechanics, so in my mind SOE/Daybreak was actively working against powercreep – but that doesn’t mean it’s been effective, of course.
To me, no MMORPG has suffered the effects of powercreep more than World of Warcraft, to the point that developers have repeatedly had to revamp scaling of multiple systems (especially gear) to bring it all back in alignment. Guild Wars 2 also leaps to my mind, not because its powercreep is massive compared to something like WoW’s but because its powercreep betrayed the game’s original philosophy and structure so dramatically. Most readers here won’t know it, but Ultima Online has also struggled with a considerable powercreep problem for the last 16 or so years, and it’s worse every time I return.
Which MMO suffers the most from powercreep?
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!
