Content? Content!

"I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content."

~ Robert E. Howard, 1933,"Queen of the Black Coast"

The inimitable MMO Gamer Chick has returned to the question, "What Do You Consider Content?" I participated in a discussion somewhere about this a couple months after Rift came out. I don't think my take on it has changed, though hopefully I've articulated it a little better here.

To me, content is whatever the devs create in an effort to make players want to continue playing the game. From that perspective it is not only objective, but quantifiable. For instance, SWTOR has over 200,000 lines of spoken dialogue, as verified by Guinness World Records. Every MMO has a countable number of zones and quests (or whatever), PvP zones, group oriented dungeons, craftable items, lore objects, "shinies," etc. Players can contribute to the content of an MMO, either through direct interactions, or through content creation tools like the Foundry in STO.

Now what of that content is of value—or rather, what will actually keep your butt in the seat, so to speak—is subjective, and highly so. I think GeeCee is right in discussing content in terms of hours /played. Between people's varied interests and their ability/willingness to "consume" subjectively interesting content at a given rate, we get a wide variety of opinions on whether a given game has "enough" content. Some people will blast through limited portions of the content at ten hours per day and be "done" with the game after a few weeks. Others will mosey through the content until their interest peters out months or years later, never having "finished" the game. Some are willing to repeat content like PvP battles or PvE raids ad nauseum. Others always want to experience fresh content and never do anything twice.

Most players fall somewhere between all these extremes. Where do you stand? How much MMO game content are you content with?