The Fundamental Issue With Themepark MMOS

A Theme Park MMORPG is a game that contains linear progression and you follow a set path there is not a lot of room to stray from the path you level, you get geared and you rinse and repeat this process. There is a fundamental issue here is that what do you do at the end game levels?

As you level in a game such as World Of Warcraft you are following a set of stories or instances that are together unlocking new abilities that make you stronger than you were before that is the point you see progression that is rewarding. However, at the higher levels what do you do? You start the second grind other than leveling and that is gearing your character up. In games like Aion they keep you in a state of this to force you to keep improving your gear for instance running Infinity Shard a billion and a half times is what most players do at that level. The worst example of this is Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 is by far the worst Theme Park MMORPG in recent times not because of graphics or story but because there is nothing to do. At launch it takes about a week to get max level, dungeon level gear, and to have it all socketed. So what did they do? They added instances with new gear for you to get but for what purpose there is nothing that requires the gear that you are getting.

So the fundamental design flaw is there is no end game content. And that content that does exist is a grind of rinse and repeat until the end of time and some players are fine with that but, it is a horribly stupid idea from the developers. Guild Wars 2 is a game you pick up play for a week and sit there with a what now expression. Aion you grind for your gear until you either get bored, realize its pointless, or just quit. Theme Park MMORPGS all face the same content related issue and there is not a whole lot that can be done other than adding a sandbox element which would be allow players to create their own content. Developers work months on new content that takes us a week to blow through so allow the community to create the instances, the dungeons, the warzones, anything to give meaning to the game and to add on to the higher level players or just have them quit and move on like so many before us.

Do you prefer sandboxes or theme park mmorpgs?