When creating a video game, is it better to build a stable Static environment that every player can experience in the same way? Or rather a Dynamic environment that changes over time to provide the illusion of development in-world? Is there an effective compromise that works to change the environment without destroying the immersion of new players to starting areas and overall story?

Thank you for your time and any suggestions.

41 minutes ago, 91stCenturion said:

is it better to build a stable Static environment that every player can experience in the same way? Or rather a Dynamic environment that changes over time to provide the illusion of development in-world?

Players can usually see through an illusion.

1 hour ago, 91stCenturion said:

Or rather a Dynamic environment that changes over time to provide the illusion of development in-world?

Is it an 'illusion' though, if the world changes over time? Or is that actually a development of the world due to time and player influence?

2 hours ago, 91stCenturion said:

Is there an effective compromise that works to change the environment without destroying the immersion of new players to starting areas and overall story? 

That's an interesting question.

World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion is probably the poster-child for this sort of thing, seeing as they re-modeled the terrain of significant portions of both main continents, merged/split several zones, and even moved some racial starting areas to entirely different zones.

I don't know that it makes any real difference in the long run. Because the content in an MMO of such age has grown massively, they've also sped up leveling to the point that no one is actually experiencing the full starting zones as they would have earlier in the games development - you can level in a couple of days through content that would have taken weeks or even months at launch.