WOW Promotions: Manifestations of the DBZ effect

An Anonymous recently posted a comment in The Dragon Ball Z effect. What follows is the comment:

Ok, so I wanted to know what people thought of the following thing.
So its obvious that the number of people playing WoW has dropped considerably in the last year or so, and blizzard has made a wide variety of attempts to improve the number of people playing. These attempts include playing for free up to level 20, commercials starring Chuck Norris, getting a free copy of Diablo 3 with a one year subscription to WoW. These are at least the ones that I've seen, and come to mind when I think about an aggressive advertising campaign to improve subscribers. But now there is a new one that I think is worth mentioning.
So the next "upgrade/promotion" I've seen is something called the scroll of resurrection which is when a player gets a super pimped out mount, in return for getting an inactive player (not a new player, but a player who has been inactive since march 4th). The returning player gets the following stuff
7 days of free game time, a optional free character move (to another server), a FREE upgrade to cataclysm (the most recent massive game update), and in my opinion the most interesting thing of all, is a free upgrade to boost a single character to level 80!
I'm curious to know what people think about this, having a character instantly moved to level 80. That seems...pretty crazy.

This is interesting. I had seen the free to 20 promotion. And it is true that WOW has lost a significant portion of its player base recently. The last promotion indicates that Blizzard thinks ex-players is a significant enough market to directly target it. I like the structure of the promotion as odds are good that some current player knows the person, either a real life friend or guildmate. Though I agree that a free level 80 character is very interesting. I think that it signals there is a barrier to entry of some sort. Whether it is new players getting discouraged and quitting or old players not wanting to grind up to max level with an older character or new class they want to try.

In any case this seems like the WOW monolith is starting to collapse under the weight of years of new content and playtime. I wonder if there will be another MMO that becomes such a market force? I doubt that one will given current MMO designs. In particular any game like WOW will suffer a similar fate. As I have indicated before, I think something new is needed for there to be a really enduring MMO.

Specialization and Trade, the Opposite of DBZ

The recent post on Power Creep (The DBZ Effect) sparked a fair amount of discussion and it deserves to be revisited. One thing mentioned in the comments that I will discuss in much more detail later is the issue of why people play that Matt M brought up. This question is very important to whether power creep is a problem, but I can't adequately address it in this post.

The basic idea of power creep is as an MMO progresses and new content is added, the cap between new players and the top tier increases. This is entirely natural as veterans demand new content. The problem is this increases the barrier to entry of the game though increased time required to be able to play at the top level.

One solution is what Magic: the Gathering uses: restart the game every so often. (Actually this is what all games did before the advent of the MMO.) Using this there is no gap in availability of items or character level, but veteran experience still matters through play skills instead of in-game statistics. This model definitely is feasible as evidenced by the Diablo II ladder system which resets every so often. (FoolHardy1729) This solution does not work for all player types though. Consider someone like Matt M who has emotional investment in the character. Constantly making a new character takes some of the fun out of the game. Resetting the game is geared for players who are mostly interested in testing their mastery of the game.

Another solution is shortening the time between the beginning and end of the game in response to new content. This is the approach that WOW has taken. This solution has the benefit of players keeping their characters and new players take as long as veterans took to reach the top. There are three issues with this plan that I can see. The first is this sort of change is fairly invisible to the untrained eye (new player), so whether they will see that the barrier to entry has not changed is ambiguous. Though this is a minor quibble,. The people who will notice this change in speed are the veterans who could conceivable be annoyed that their effort is worth less due to the new system. The final problem is subtler, by packing everyone near the top through increased speed, there will be a bigger competition for any marginal improvement in statistics. Players want to stand above their piers even if only by a mole hill's amount. This solution exacerbates the already present phenomenon of exponential price increases for the same marginal stat bonus.

I think that the fundamental problem is players are essentially driven by their statistics, which are just a bunch of numbers. In essence players are looking for how to have the highest set of numbers. One way to combat this is to simply add new systems to the game. This way, the old and new players start on the same footing in the new system, which the old players still have their area which they dominate new players. This is analogous to specialization and creating new markets. Everyone has a level, or at least more level, playing field and new entrants can specialize in the new product, which the established players keep their power in the old market. The trick from the game design perspective is how to add a new system in a balanced manner so that it is relevant, but not so that everyone must switch or be completely left behind. The other concern is this solution does not preclude increasing the potency of players in old systems, so power creep could still enter. Though is gives added valves to mitigate its consequences.

The Dragon Ball Z effect

I was chatting with my roommate last night and he mentioned how the definition of a big number in WOW has changed. What was once considered an amazing amount of damage is now commonplace and the frontier of power is many orders of magnitude bigger. This is exactly like Dragon Ball Z. The power of the fighters starts low and keeps climbing to 9,000 and beyond.

This steady climb is required for the already invested player. Without it the game loses its appeal as there are no new mountains to climb. Imagine DBZ where Goku fights Vegeta over and over again. Bad example, I mean Goku and Piccolo fight Raditz repeatedly without any of the three getting stronger. It is not interesting as we already know the outcome. (Spoiler the Saiyans both die.) Clearly this power creep must exist for combat games to be interesting.

Now imagine you're a new player to an MMO that has been around for awhile. The gap between you and the top tier is so much bigger than it would have been if you had started earlier. There is a big feeling of uselessness because you can't affect the world the way the veterans can and it takes so long to reach the veterans' level. Look at Hercule in the Cell Saga. Completely useless and can't even process how powerful the Z fighters are.

This power creep increases the barrier to entry of new players, which is clearly detrimental to the health of a game. The question is then how do you balance the needs of veterans for new heights with beginners feeling the game is accessible?