Content Treadmills
One staple of modern MMOs is a consistent stream of new and better loot added in with every patch or expansion. You’ll run through everything there is to see, get everything you want to get, and then you wait for the next update to give you something new to chase. Lots of games do this. It’s very common in Destin, for example, to see a surge of players dive in for a month or two when new content comes out. Some will hop on that treadmill and chase the new, hard to get stuff, and the rest will move on until new stuff is released again once they’ve given everything a try. Hopefully, Fallout 76 steers clear of this.
All of the recent mainline Fallout games didn’t need any DLC. They were complete experiences out of the box, offered up countless hours of worthwhile content, and all the DLC did eventually release, was just a cherry on top. Fallout 76 hopefully won’t lean too heavily on player-driven activities being the main thing that keeps people busy. It’s exciting that we’re finally going to be able to interact with real-world people in a Fallout universe, but it would be quite disappointing if turns into a situation in which that interactivity takes the place of actual content. I don’t want to have to play the waiting game for weeks on end because I’ve finished everything there is to do in a short space of time. Again, it works for some games, but it would feel at odds with a franchise that has always prided itself on boundless amounts of quest and activity content.
