If I were an MMO developer these days I’d feel pretty backed into a corner. On the one hand you get a substantial crowd of players who become disinterested in any game that does not have substantial vertical progression in the endgame. On the other hand you have an equally substantial crowd of players who are offended by the idea of even having vertical progression in a game.
One group of players wants to have access (through effort, ideally) to things that other players do not have access to, while the other group does not want any content to exist that everyone can’t access. It’s almost impossible to design a game that will satisfy both of these crowds, and it is increasingly common for individuals to completely lose interest in a game if the devs move in a direction that isn’t in line with their personal stance on this issue.
Personally, I think player attitudes about this kind of thing is poisoning our experience of games. In the gaming community at large there is a real nostalgia for the golden age of gaming (8-16bit era). In my opinion, one of the major reasons for this is that we fundamentally experienced those games in a different way.
Many classic games featured elements of progression. All of the Legend of Zelda games, the Doom series, Metroid type games… heck even straightforward games like the early Mario games and shooters like Contra and Gradius had progression elements. You would collect items to empower your character (better weapons, more lives etc.)
The main difference in these games is that nobody really sees the progression elements as an end in itself. You don’t get the best sword in Legend of Zelda just to have it — you get it because it helps you beat Gannon. You want bigger and better guns in Contra/Gradius/Doom/etc. not because getting a certain gun is a goal, but because they help you achieve those goals.
In our early experiences with games progression was a tool.
For many gamers today, however, the opposite is true. Progression is the goal and the game itself is the end. The objective has nothing to do with the story of the game or even the actual gameplay but rather entirely with attaining a certain level of power.
And therein is the bombshell: it’s our fault. We can keep blaming developers for designing progression systems that aren’t to our liking, but I don’t think we will ever be satisfied until we shift our perspective back to focusing on story and gameplay rather than progression as the main goal. It’s not like developers aren’t providing a virtual world with it’s own story. They are putting the content out there, it’s up to us to enjoy it (or not, and to decide to play a different game because it has a more compelling story or better gameplay).
It’s deeply sad to me that players are so demoralized and disenchanted by a game — indeed that they feel a game has been ruined — because of some minor progression element or lack thereof. Perhaps it’s time for us to remember that tools are just tools and get back to actually enjoying games for the game.