Where you buy electronically as is the norm these days it is common to have an activation code sent, and you do not have the new content until you enter it.
There are other ways they could do this, of course and they probably aren't spending a lot of time deciding how to handle expansions quite yet.
So why coun't you just not go to the new areas until you are satisifed with the current stuff?
Makinelly said: I was thinking about expansions and how some people might feel too overwhelmed with new content when they are trying to finish the original content. I want to be able to “complete” the base game before I move on to expansions, but I might want to buy the highest edition of the expansion. So to remedy the problem, I was thinking a button to activate the expansion when a player is ready to move on? The reason being, is to have the control of when you consume content. For example, you have a guild that has the strict rules of their personal progression server. Or just your player that doesn’t want the urge to skip content or get lost from new content coming into the world.
Your first mistaken assumption. That there is a "complete" for content. That's not the way that this game works. It's not WoW. There is no linear content progression in the game.
With that said, what is the problem? You get a new expansion, and you just don't do it until you feel ready. Nobody is pressuring you to dfo anything. If you let someone "pressure" you into doing content that you don't feel like doing, maybe you need to re-evaluate who you align yourself with. Buttons aren't going to help with self-control and/or peer pressure. You already have control on whether or not to consume new content by virtue of your choice to do it or not do it.
MMO's like this would never be able to stop and go when you press play and pause. It is really impossible unless you design a game RTS around it under the MMO.
Your thinking is based around games like skyrim. MMO's really differ when you have others running by you with different content. Your client has to download some of that information such as gear, and other features.
I see where and why you want this, i too feel sometimes we never get to fully finish the content before going forward. Then when you want to play the expansion backwards nobody wants to return backwards to help you.
Even when you don't purchase an expansion, everyone's client still gets updated with fixes and enhancements to support what the current game with the expansions might want to do. These are mixed in with all the new content data.
I doubt they have any incentive to trouble themselves with trying to make a literal Everquest Classic client install play nice with Kunark or Velious expansion-aware servers as-is. You may not realize they are patching old client stuff under the hood, but they are. I'm pretty sure they would deny any client from connecting that has an old protocol version just so the server can assume a myriad of things about your client side.
Now. you might not license/enable said new content, in which case you wouldn't enter those zones. But they are still there, and subte changes to the landscape reflecting the new content's presence are still going to be there - like a zoneline that wasn't there before the expansion - or new mobs in cities to hint that you should visit these new places.
I have had this idea in my head and I don't think it's really feasible in the real world but it basically goes like this:
For every era of the game, there are 2 servers - a "dumping ground" server which is basically an era locked server that exists forever and a live server that is reset anually.
So at the launch of the game, there would be the "classic" server that everyone plays on. Next year, they launch the "Kunark Server" and on launch day, you may choose to move your character to the new kunark server, or to the classic dumping ground server, that perpetually exists in the classic era, giving you as long as you want to experience that content. Your character is stuck there until the next expansion launch at which point you again have the choice to stay, or move to kunark at that point. At the same time, the classic server is then wiped, essentially allowing latercomers to the game to start off as if it was day 1.
This would basically go on for each expansion, so you could essentially pick which era of the game you were playing in, and stay in that era as long as you wanted until you were ready to move on. You really loved PoP? Maybe you stay on the PoP dumping ground server for 3 years until you're decked out in full time gear, then to move on to the LDoN era server.
Quintra said:I have had this idea in my head and I don't think it's really feasible in the real world but it basically goes like this:
For every era of the game, there are 2 servers - a "dumping ground" server which is basically an era locked server that exists forever and a live server that is reset anually.
So at the launch of the game, there would be the "classic" server that everyone plays on. Next year, they launch the "Kunark Server" and on launch day, you may choose to move your character to the new kunark server, or to the classic dumping ground server, that perpetually exists in the classic era, giving you as long as you want to experience that content. Your character is stuck there until the next expansion launch at which point you again have the choice to stay, or move to kunark at that point. At the same time, the classic server is then wiped, essentially allowing latercomers to the game to start off as if it was day 1.
This would basically go on for each expansion, so you could essentially pick which era of the game you were playing in, and stay in that era as long as you wanted until you were ready to move on. You really loved PoP? Maybe you stay on the PoP dumping ground server for 3 years until you're decked out in full time gear, then to move on to the LDoN era server.
Thus making VR pay more for server costs to keep a node alive for a few people when they can already just stay in the Pop era and get time geared? I just dont get this line of thinking lol.
