What kind of MMO consciously kills its open world?

As my toons gear up, I miss the open world more and more. I miss toons being able to start out in PVP phase also with the huge street fights that used to be so much more common. I remember way back when, I was soooooo looking forward to unlocking Central City to explore more open world content and being so disappointed at how small the new "open world" really was. It turned out to be more like an open alert. See I like the content and as a subscriber I've got access to plenty but.... I was hoping for so much more. I really wished Central City would've been expanded, and maybe have more of the bounties in CC rather than Gotham and Metropolis along with more open world missions added in a later episode.

The open world content has a very different feel from just hanging out in the Hall of Doom all day grouping up for Alerts and Raids or skipping through 1-player ops. At least when I first hit 30 all those years ago, the solo challenges were assigned missions you picked up and you'd go to them in the open world. I get why that was inconvenient for the instant gratification crowd but I enjoyed going out there and fighting my way through heroes to get to my missions on the PVP server for my solo misisons and remember even wishing there were open world multiplayer instances where groups would have to get together and travel to an alert style instance.

Hell when I first played this game I was disappointed you couldn't go from Gotham to Metropolis without using a teleporter. Obviously I still love the game, I'm still playing it. But there is sooooo much that could be better. And instead of being a long time subscriber, I'm a 3 month and quit subscriber. I play content for 3 months and move on, going back to other games which have more of a big world feeling where everything exists in the open world and instances are just a part of it. DCUO feels like an instance game where there's also an intro in 2 open cities with a few follow up missions later during the end game gear grind. I eventually come back, pay my 3 months and do it again, but without more open world play the game just can't hold my interest much longer than that without taking a break.

Someday maybe the devs will be inspired to expand Central City adding a few instance missions there. Maybe open a third major city..... who knows..... for now..... wishful thinking.

RIGHT.. because people always join MMOs to get a pat on the back (alternate reward box) instead of the actual REWARDS they need to advance their characters. Don't get me wrong I spend time doing exactly what you suggest but only because the game is designed to allow us to increase CR so fast your at the next tier and the next long before you complete the feats associated with those previous ones.

For example: I have a fairly new CR 103 Fire Tank/DPS that is still doing daily missions at Ace Chemical and Stryker's Island because ... By doing the available raids and alerts I got so many good armor drops I had advanced far beyond that tier before I completed a single feat at either location. Still have not been assigned all ten available missions at either location, have only completed the solo challenge available at each once, Have not even gotten the mission to attack the GIANT PURPLE GORILLA so no where near defeating 100 of them.. GET the idea?

At CR 103 I am 1-2 combat ratings away from the missions available in the Wastelands will also be irrelevant and just like ACE not done with most of the feats there either.

Oh and of course like countless other players I am STILL long from being done hunting the 500 Rogues needed for the final feat in that chain and THOSE became available at CR 53.

Sure its busy work but its not doing a thing to help me advance my alt's combat rating. Open world accomplished a number of things. It allowed players to BE the super hero out there battle evil on his or her own bot just part of a huge team. It provided a player with a means to gain marks and feat fairly quickly when they didn't have enough time left before they had to log off to TRY and join a raid or whatever. It provided something to do while waiting to join friends or just for the Q to find you a team and do an alert or raid.. something that would also get that player MARKS they could use to buy better armor and to work on added feats to enhance their STATS.

Idea for an open world scenario:

Anybody read Superman: Lois And Clark? There was a story in there about a TV crew that created a super villain and had him cause trouble. For ratings. Something similar would be cool in DCUO. TV crew vans spotted at various bridges, go there, take down their manufactured villain.
To make things more interesting the villain could be a generic villain. Or if you have villain alts, it would be a randomly generated villain from your alts list. Kinda like the league hall instances. Defeat villain to win.

As a villain you'd be recruited to cause mayhem until a generic (or your alt) hero shows up. Defeat hero to win.

Another thing the devs seem to completely ignore is that long time players will inevitably create a new character. (no matter how many we already have there will always be another power/weapon combo or theme, name, whatever that we want to try). Is it that terrible an idea to add some new content that isn't CR million and only applies to what is already the highest level in the game?

I mean, I for one, would love to discover some new stuff at lower levels or at least if the 1-30 grind doesn't change maybe add something to Tier 1, Tier 2 content. Make feat grinding a little more fun by adding some variety. I dunno, I haven't had my coffee yet this morning.

Ironically the game is kinda upside down we begin our life with a whole world to explore (even though we are barely able to cover the area) but then the more you play the less reason there is to do anything other than stand in a queue for the odd totally disconnected and totally non DC like rush through an irrelevent isolating mission, a problem that becomes disillusioning and self defeating in intensity as we scale t7 and above

A much better approach is to feed the player more and more of the game and environment to encourage them onward to make it a part of the reward for progression. The early content when you are low level is much more appropriate to be instanced so as to cosset the developing player....preparing them for the time when they are fully a hero/villain and can step into the real wider DC world. Open world should be the cities that work to make us feel we have arrived and envelop us in the that sense of being a part of or character in a DC Comic. Progression should be about opening the game out, gaining freedom and choice and variety, things that work to make play and time feel worthwhile or fulfilling...ie all the things that mark/content relevancy consign to the scrap heap.

the same kind that disincentivizes playing more [by removing benefits like SP] in favor of everyone-is-the-same-because-of-CR. our devs have a fundamental understanding of how MMOs work and care primarily about how they can make microtransactions more profitable. i've started playing more MMOs since DCUO has just stopped being fun and every single one of them has some kind of mechanic that rewards players for logging in often and getting more than the minimum done. DCUO rewards you for logging in once a week for a raid and spending money.

Because an endless string of instances just takes the massive out of MMO. It really just becomes a 2-player, 4-player or 8-player game.

This in a nutshell, it should also be noted that instances by their nature not only isolate players from one another but also from any sense of resonance or meaning in terms of the theme....the very DCness of the game, so beautifully realised in the open world cities, is entirely absent in 90% of the instanced content.

I don't think they consciously killed the open world. I think they just didn't think through the implications of their new monthly content model. There's no space in it for things like dailies, for example.

I don't understand why Central City keeps coming up as open world. It is not open world. Open world (like Gotham and Metropolis) includes the possibility of running into players of the opposing side. If heroes and villains cannot bump into each other it is not open world. It is simply a shared villain instance or a shared hero instance.