You have leveling in the original TES game, why would you expect a MMO version to be very different?
They are not making a totally new IP MMO. They are making TES MMO .. so obviously it is going to be like an elder scroll game with other people.
lol...no.
In TES if you hit level 2, so do the mobs...everywhere making 100% of the content 100% viable 100% of the time.
In TES you can max out ALL crafting skills to max, in this game you cant, you can only max 2.
In TES you can max out ALL combat/magic skills, so far, no word on skill point limits.
In TES you can go anywhere in the game world any time you want (story limits are outside the main world)...plain to see that you cant in this one.
In TES you can be any race and join any faction with it, and in some...switch sides....not here...not even close.
In TES Elves are freaking alienbutt ugly...in this, they are beautiful.
The game isnt even sticking to lore!
TESO isnt for TES fans, its for DaoC fans and there is a TON more outrage on the offical TES forums and mod sites about the new details, the only announcement made the last two days that got any love was the 1st person announcement and the HOPE that classes are not going to be limited with skill points thats going to take away any real sense of character class freedom and make it nothing short of a lame attempt at freedom only to lock people into limited rolls anyway.
False. go make a noob in skyrim and head to Riften, or whichever that city is off far to the east. The bears will whip your ass. Become level 20 and return to the starting area. The wolves will beat on you until the sun goes down and do nothing.
Originally posted by Kushkut"Leveling up your character and building him or her through a game is one of the most important elements in MMOs. Its what ties us to the world, more than anything."
Sounds like a quote from a textbook to me. An old textbook. I bet the next line of the book reads. "Fantasy rpg games must have elves".
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
I"m going by just what you wrote here, I did not yet read the article or have I really investigated TESO.
However leveling does not mean class levels. Skills is also levelling. Horizontal progression is also levelling, just not vertically.
Any form of progression is basically a level in some shape or form.
Levelling doesn't mean quests. Levelling doesn't mean end game.
Levelling just mean progression. And IMO they are right, progession is the best way to tie you to your character and the world.
Everything you wrote is specifically aimed at class levelling, which is only one of several types.
I've got to agree with this one. Leveling is just not the number that you can see below your character in the UI.
Levelling has to do with progression. For example, at level 1, you only have these outfits that make you look like a homeless traveller who doesn't have any money or anything.. once you reach level 20, you get to dress up your character a bit more to look more prestigious. you know.. something a little bit like this:
anyway, as you level, you also get access to different dungeons, maps, and special quests. you can join clans, turn on PK, go on PvP, get unique gears and items and other features in the game, which players are actually looking forward to.
We're talking about general progression here and not just the process on how you level up i.e., quests and grinding.
Beautiful, another "Your vision of what I wanted the game to be differs from mine so now I'll moan like a child."
They are 100% correct, leveling, progressing, whatever term you want to use, ties you to the world and your character. Leveling up teaches you when/where/how to use your abilities. I'm sure you're amazing without this, however not all of us are obviously as gifted as you.
The best part is, if you don't like it; You don't have to play.
Just because every car has similar features doesn't mean that Ferraris are copies of Model Ts. Progress requires failure and refining.
Originally posted by Dihoru The day any developer says "leveling is important in our MMO! because we believe it ties you to the game/world/universe!" is the day I know that MMO will flop hard and the day I decide not to touch it even if paid to do it.
I guess you missed out on the success of EQ and WoW (among others)
I guess you missed out on where I said I played WoW back in the day and I've talked to people who were rabid EQ or Lineage 2 fans.
Progression via levels is a clear reward for effort system which works but neither EQ nor WoW were games solely based on their leveling system, the leveling system was merely there to give the players structure and a clear cut goal to aspire to but in and of itself it was not the way in which the player was tied to the universe because if you get bored of leveling you quit, it's the experience you have while playing the game (be it while leveling, corpse running, etc) that either ties you to the game or makes you quit it eventually and a key part of this experience within MMOs are other players and how you relate to them. This is why most modern MMOs fail, because they focus too much on the goals and too little on the journey and the adventures one could have getting to those goals.
You are basically agreeing with me (and the original quote) with your statement in red. They are equaiting 'leveling' to 'the journey'. Because they are interchangeable. Journey, leveling, character building, however you want to phrase it. The journey is what bonds you to the game world.
Nope, I do not because it is dumb to consider the two interchangeable because you can build a character in some games to be as effective as it'll ever be without ever hitting "the level cap", EVE Online is based around this (sure there is a level cap in EVE too but it would take if I am not mistaken 50 to 60 years to reach it under ideal circumstances) and Albion Online looks to be doing away with leveling completely (progression will be primarily community based with items coming in as a 2nd means of progression by what I've seen). In those games progression, what ties you to the world, is your relationship to the community, the roots you put down and, if applicable, the patch of space you claimed as your own, not the level of your character.
The next time any developer says leveling is what ties you to their games I want you to imagine what that actually means to the game itself (it is ok for a player within a game to say "right, my aim is to be max level, that is my goal" but that same player could take being max level as a tertiary concern to their actual goals, ex: being the best weaponsmith on the server or exploring the entire in-game world on foot, etc) because to me it just sounds like a game with very few choices in terms of gameplay all focused on leveling your character which for those who want to leave it as a tertiary concern means they're gimping their experience within the game (the more focus given to leveling the more they have to incentivize it which in turn means the less things you can do before level cap, if their focus would fall on say the community then they'd focus on offering many possible activities to let you progress in one way or another within the game without forcing you onto a leveling rail).
Also as a aside: The person who said even Ultima Online had levels never played before Trammel and should feel bad for spouting what he/she did (leveling in that game came as a secondary concern to increase your overall effectiveness in-game but what you chose to do was completely up to you and level cap within Ultima Online could be hit within 4-5 days of grinding).
If leveling is ever considered more than a goal in a game then that game has a serious handicap from the very start
Lineage II did it right. It took you months and years to hit level cap, it was that slow. But that's what was actually good about it. People forgot about grinding to level cap asap because it wasn't really possible to do it all that quickly. So that's how the "journey" became more of a focus itself. The way to the top is the actual fun part. After all, isn't PvP for a leveling spot much better than PvP at "endgame" (I hate this word too).
People were grinding four hours and days in one area and it was actually damn fun and awesome! Getting the best leveling spot encouraged PvP, you had to fight for it, you met new people that had to grind just like you, it was fairly awesome and being an actual 'high level' still meant something back then.
Oh good old times... screw all those MMO's where you can rush through content to cap in just one or a few months, it sucks and it doesn't do the devs and game designers any justice imo.
Came across today's article on TESO leveling and it made me yet a little bit more depressed about the whole AAA MMO industry once again. Here's the article if you didn't get the chance to read it yet:
What struck me the most were the first lines of the write-up:
"Leveling up your character and building him or her through a game is one of the most important elements in MMOs. It’s what ties us to the world, more than anything. Elder Scrolls Online has fused the best possible systems from both MMOs and the Elder Scrolls RPGs to make progression fun and interesting."
I know that the subject of "End Game" or "Content Skipping" has been grinded to death, but why does it have to be either black or white?
Am I honestly the only one who could not care less about the endless stream of quests where you have to deliver X item to Y zone or kill Z amount of the same mobs zone after zone? I can understand that the progression from point A to point B (let's use levels, 1 to 50 as an example) makes the players "ready" for end game and enables them to learn their characters. But who takes several days or even weeks (of playing time!) to sufficiently handle their shit? Storyline is different, if all quests/missions related to the actual story, the whole process would feel a lot less forced.
And what goes for "content skipping", why is "leveling" still the most invested part of today's major MMORPGS? Why don't storylines enable players to get briefly acquainted with their characters before releasing them to the actual content which happens when you are able to interact with the majority of the other people? Why is there such a huge cap between "content" and "end game" (jesus I hate those words)? Most of the people I interact with usually fast "grind" to cap and I know we are not the only ones in order to get in the actual gameplay. Shit loads of resources (time and money) spent on awesome content creation which is only used to the fullest by a potentially small group? (Think SWTOR, a MASSIVE amount of cash used on voice actors only to realize the game is fucking bad when you hit max level.)
Another thing that upsets me with the current direction MMORPGS are evolving to is the amount of resources wasted on zones that are deserted pretty much right after the launch. Why do you spend days, weeks or even months modelling regions that players only use for a couple of hours?
This experience comes from a set of different games such as Fallen Earth, SWTOR, WoW, Rift and Aion.
PS. I also despise the fact that when you are a young player or "level 1" you can't kill a pet pig with 200 fist strikes. But when you are max level you one shot a fucking dragon. Why such a cap?
TLDR: I am whining about MMORPGS using too much resources on "content" that is not used to the fullest or even efficiently in most cases.
in every mmo players only go to those areas where best loot and xp is gathered rest world will be deserted this fact that devs seems not to graps but also fault of community who play mmo's.
exactly if your not enjoying the journey thru a game then maybe you shouldnt play mmos i maybe only one of a few that enjoyed my journey thru Swtor but im not so big on so called endgame mainly because i dont have time for raiding etc
Thats just sad on many levels. As mmo deve they HAVE to know thats bs. Lvling is the annoying thing we do before we get to what we play mmos for, making an impact on the game world and making our characters unique.
What's sad is that millions of you consider it annoying, yet you still pay the company monthly to do it.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Thats just sad on many levels. As mmo deve they HAVE to know thats bs. Lvling is the annoying thing we do before we get to what we play mmos for, making an impact on the game world and making our characters unique.
What's sad is that millions of you consider it annoying, yet you still pay the company monthly to do it.
I agree. But many people play MMO like a console game. quiting it after their 100 hours.
Having character levels in a MMO with level based zones is bad game design. nothing less nothing more.
people (me) love the fact that some mmo's leveling ate based on the real world. It makes the game feel more realistic and fun. But at the same time there are those flew individuals who simply get frustrated at mmo's because they are not able to level up as fast as someone else. Which then leads them to quitting.
At the end I think it depends on what type of person are you. Are u someone who can handle leveling at a normal speed or are someone who get frustrated when leveling at a normal speed.
Originally posted by timtrack Probably all of my best MMO-memories comes from levelling up and exploring the world.
But think back, did leveling in itself tie you to the game or did it just offer a means to get rewarded and a goal to work towards?
"Leveling in itself", what does that mean? Watching the number go from 1-2? I don't think this is a technical argument. It's more about the whole process of leveling up, growing in power, daring to venture to more dangerous places, finding new things, unlocking more of the game. The level number is just a guide, a messure point for both you and the system. And to answer your question, yes, it also offers a means to get rewarded and have a goal to work towards. A level is used to determine many different things in a game, it's not "just there to hook you". Being hooked because of levels is just a side-effect, one that can be exploited/used to hook you even more by creating systems around the level that you find attractive.
Originally posted by timtrack Probably all of my best MMO-memories comes from levelling up and exploring the world.
But think back, did leveling in itself tie you to the game or did it just offer a means to get rewarded and a goal to work towards?
"Leveling in itself", what does that mean? Watching the number go from 1-2? I don't think this is a technical argument. It's more about the whole process of leveling up, growing in power, daring to venture to more dangerous places, finding new things, unlocking more of the game. The level number is just a guide, a messure point for both you and the system. And to answer your question, yes, it also offers a means to get rewarded and have a goal to work towards. A level is used to determine many different things in a game, it's not "just there to hook you". Being hooked because of levels is just a side-effect, one that can be exploited/used to hook you even more by creating systems around the level that you find attractive.
I mean did leveling constitute your goal, did you play the game just so you can level or did you play it to experience the game with leveling possibly being a afterthought due to it limiting what you could experience from within the game? That's the thing, leveling should not be the thing tieing you to the world, it should be the world in itself and leveling should be a tertiary concern which comes up when you feel like exploring.
Games which are built so that leveling ties you to them are just boring and stale because progress is not natural, it is forced, you don't progress because you feel the need to, you progress because you have to ( many games have this mechanic and it honestly robs you of a good chunk of the experience... say there is a game where you have no levels, all progression is based on the gear you have and the experience you gain by playing the game, in such a game the world itself would be your oyster to explore, conquer, adventure in and the more mechanics/tools the developers give you within the game the more it becomes a sandbox like say you're in a band of players who stumbles across an abandoned dwarf fort built within a mountain, you could choose to settle in it and make it safe again while delving within the abandoned dwarf mines below it, such things make a RPG in my mind, not a level system, the level system itself is a way to quantify progress in a easy metric but it is not the only means or even remotely close to the best one around in terms of immersion).
Originally posted by timtrack Probably all of my best MMO-memories comes from levelling up and exploring the world.
But think back, did leveling in itself tie you to the game or did it just offer a means to get rewarded and a goal to work towards?
"Leveling in itself", what does that mean? Watching the number go from 1-2? I don't think this is a technical argument. It's more about the whole process of leveling up, growing in power, daring to venture to more dangerous places, finding new things, unlocking more of the game. The level number is just a guide, a messure point for both you and the system. And to answer your question, yes, it also offers a means to get rewarded and have a goal to work towards. A level is used to determine many different things in a game, it's not "just there to hook you". Being hooked because of levels is just a side-effect, one that can be exploited/used to hook you even more by creating systems around the level that you find attractive.
I mean did leveling constitute your goal, did you play the game just so you can level or did you play it to experience the game with leveling possibly being a afterthought due to it limiting what you could experience from within the game? That's the thing, leveling should not be the thing tieing you to the world, it should be the world in itself and leveling should be a tertiary concern which comes up when you feel like exploring.
Games which are built so that leveling ties you to them are just boring and stale because progress is not natural, it is forced, you don't progress because you feel the need to, you progress because you have to ( many games have this mechanic and it honestly robs you of a good chunk of the experience... say there is a game where you have no levels, all progression is based on the gear you have and the experience you gain by playing the game, in such a game the world itself would be your oyster to explore, conquer, adventure in and the more mechanics/tools the developers give you within the game the more it becomes a sandbox like say you're in a band of players who stumbles across an abandoned dwarf fort built within a mountain, you could choose to settle in it and make it safe again while delving within the abandoned dwarf mines below it, such things make a RPG in my mind, not a level system, the level system itself is a way to quantify progress in a easy metric but it is not the only means or even remotely close to the best one around in terms of immersion).
I don't see the difference? All you're saying is "hide the level number". You would still have the same limitations based on experience=level=level of gear.
I don't progress because i feel i need to, or because i have to. I progress because i enjoy the game i'm playing.
Originally posted by timtrack Probably all of my best MMO-memories comes from levelling up and exploring the world.
But think back, did leveling in itself tie you to the game or did it just offer a means to get rewarded and a goal to work towards?
"Leveling in itself", what does that mean? Watching the number go from 1-2? I don't think this is a technical argument. It's more about the whole process of leveling up, growing in power, daring to venture to more dangerous places, finding new things, unlocking more of the game. The level number is just a guide, a messure point for both you and the system. And to answer your question, yes, it also offers a means to get rewarded and have a goal to work towards. A level is used to determine many different things in a game, it's not "just there to hook you". Being hooked because of levels is just a side-effect, one that can be exploited/used to hook you even more by creating systems around the level that you find attractive.
I mean did leveling constitute your goal, did you play the game just so you can level or did you play it to experience the game with leveling possibly being a afterthought due to it limiting what you could experience from within the game? That's the thing, leveling should not be the thing tieing you to the world, it should be the world in itself and leveling should be a tertiary concern which comes up when you feel like exploring.
Games which are built so that leveling ties you to them are just boring and stale because progress is not natural, it is forced, you don't progress because you feel the need to, you progress because you have to ( many games have this mechanic and it honestly robs you of a good chunk of the experience... say there is a game where you have no levels, all progression is based on the gear you have and the experience you gain by playing the game, in such a game the world itself would be your oyster to explore, conquer, adventure in and the more mechanics/tools the developers give you within the game the more it becomes a sandbox like say you're in a band of players who stumbles across an abandoned dwarf fort built within a mountain, you could choose to settle in it and make it safe again while delving within the abandoned dwarf mines below it, such things make a RPG in my mind, not a level system, the level system itself is a way to quantify progress in a easy metric but it is not the only means or even remotely close to the best one around in terms of immersion).
I don't see the difference? All you're saying is "hide the level number". You would still have the same limitations based on experience=level=level of gear.
I don't progress because i feel i need to, or because i have to. I progress because i enjoy the game i'm playing.
Not really because the level number would be abolished so for example you couldn't go buff nakid in a noob zone and one shot everyone in there with pvp duels (something very much possible in WoW and most other level centric games).
When I said experience I meant your experience in playing the game so for example you know not to pick on a dire wolf with a dull knife (for a rather absurd example) and when I said gear I meant something to aspire to without neccesarily offering a massive boon (for example you could have 3 tiers of power, iron level, steel level and lets say mithril level, between them lets say there's a 5-10 % gap in raw power, steel = 10% better than iron, mithril = 20% better than iron, and then you'd have multiple types of armour which fall into these tiers which are more or less rare to give you something to aspire to without giving you an edge, like say you have metal chainmail and metal band augmented leather armour, both these would offer the same level of protection but be visibly different or on the mithril side you could have mithril plate or dragon leather armour , same level of protection, vastly different look and while you're at it you could divide each of these tiers into 3 subsets, say light, medium, heavy armour, which follow logic: light = more agile but less proection, medium = middle of the road, heavy armour = less agile but more robust, so in the end you could have a player in metal tier armour beating the crap out of mithril level players if the player knows how to play to his strengths).
Levels come to an end. Hence the orgin of "Endgame". Most players realized this later on in their MMO gaming. That endgame players have more freedom than low levels. In wow for example. Would you rather be level 10 or level 30? Nether is endgame, yet one is still better at having fun than the other due to the freedom a level 30 has over a level 10.
As the gap goes up this becomes more obvious .
in Everquest, levels came to an end but you still had nongear progression because of AA experience and skills
it took me a full year of heavy playing to max out my AA in EQ -- and SOE soon added more AA without raising levels
AA was not horizontal - it was vertical, it did increase your power
the first time I ever heard "the game begins at at 60" - was WOW
I never heard the phrase "endgame" in EQ or DAOC preWOW -- although some players may have used that terminology
My point is, why do I feel like I have to suffer a punishment (leveling, grinding, whatever you want to call it) before I can play the game I want? And usually then it disappoints the living shit out of me.
Welcome to the treadmill. Please run your butt off trying to get to the cake. Then later you find out, the cake is a lie.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
Originally posted by Psychow It's a game. What do you want? Just log in, beat some dungeons and uninstall?
Agreed. I think a lot of people are also missing the point that MMORPG like TESO is also not JUST an mmo, it is also an rpg. In rpg you need progression to be considered rpg. Otherwise it is just an arcade game.
+1
For me personally levelling in a MMORPG should be the core of the game, while endgame is a temporary tool to give devs more time to add more levelling content (kinda like WoW but way way faster updates so people dont cry about losing their shinies). I personally think that endgame gear grind mentality is what makes alot of games fail these days. Why grind gear doing silly repeatables when you can just go and try another game and come back for the expansion?
The reason I sank so much time into MUDs in my day was the combination of small, tight communities and the unlimited skill and level progression systems which meant that there was alway a few people who were more hardcore than others and managed to achieve mind boggling levelling accomplishments (level 1000+ in a game where after a few years of steady play 400 would have been respectable). Those players and characters became true legendary heroes in the game world which was a status position to be emulated and sought.
People who whine about the long boring grinds in my humble opinion are also the type of people who enjoy all those lovely lobby games we are seeing sprout around us.
Levels come to an end. Hence the orgin of "Endgame". Most players realized this later on in their MMO gaming. That endgame players have more freedom than low levels. In wow for example. Would you rather be level 10 or level 30? Nether is endgame, yet one is still better at having fun than the other due to the freedom a level 30 has over a level 10.
As the gap goes up this becomes more obvious .
in Everquest, levels came to an end but you still had nongear progression because of AA experience and skills
it took me a full year of heavy playing to max out my AA in EQ -- and SOE soon added more AA without raising levels
AA was not horizontal - it was vertical, it did increase your power
the first time I ever heard "the game begins at at 60" - was WOW
I never heard the phrase "endgame" in EQ or DAOC preWOW -- although some players may have used that terminology
AAs just seems like more leveling...
And while I dont remember hearing people saying "endgame" back then either EQ certainly had a dungeon running circuit once you hit the level cap.. I never got there though. I did enjoy playing the game at lower levels though.
And DAoC also had an "endgame": RvR. But you could jump right into that from level 1. But DAoC had more than just RvR to do... you could farm dungeons and you could craft or trade. Dont know much about how that all worked in EQ but im sure there were some trading and crafting there too. Well I know there was a lot of trading.
But I certainly aggree that there was plenty to enjoy on the way to the "endgame"
But I think I would like games more if they let you get in on some of that "endgame" sooner. Or where the game was about more than just grinding until you could grind more things for epic lewts. I think that is why I like DAoC more than EQ and why I didnt like WoW at all, since it had removed the things I enjoyed in EQ.
Like the need and the time to communicate with other players.
It's ultimately the content that keeps players playing. Even when you're playing for "other players", you're actually playing for the content they're creating or maybe "the content they are".
The thing is, on average, players don't make good content. Sure, when you get to pick and choose (like foundry quests and player-made realms on multiplayer games that let you get creative), you can find really amazing stuff, but let's face it, on average players are just bad at making content and being content.
And keep in mind: Content also includes art, sound and music.
EVE Online. I love it. Had they done a bad job at building that universe, or had they even done a bad job with their art, it'd have below 100K players (yeah, this is my speculation and pulling numbers out of the posterior day). No matter how good the systems are and how complicated player relations are.
Originally posted by Loktofeit Originally posted by XobdnasThats just sad on many levels. As mmo deve they HAVE to know thats bs. Lvling is the annoying thing we do before we get to what we play mmos for, making an impact on the game world and making our characters unique.
What's sad is that millions of you consider it annoying, yet you still pay the company monthly to do it.
Leveling the first time isnt the problem. The problem is that the leveling section of the game is most of the game. When you have leveled your first character, then what? Is this a console game or an MMO? As always .. i wouldn't give a rats ass about any of this, if it wasn't for the fact that every MMO has become like this and departed greatly from what was a more sustained, group oriented form of enjoyment. To make matters worse they have made it so brain dead easy and fast that they really do play more like Legend of Zelda than EQ, UO, etc. Don't get me wrong, I loved Legend of Zelda, Ultima, etc .. right up until the time that I started playing games where I needed to interact with other people. That other dimension is what brought me into the genre, the lack of it is what is pushing me away.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Comments
Your thread title is misleading. He does not say leveling ties us to the world more than anything. He says character development does.
This
False. go make a noob in skyrim and head to Riften, or whichever that city is off far to the east. The bears will whip your ass. Become level 20 and return to the starting area. The wolves will beat on you until the sun goes down and do nothing.
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
Sounds like a quote from a textbook to me. An old textbook. I bet the next line of the book reads. "Fantasy rpg games must have elves".
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
I've got to agree with this one. Leveling is just not the number that you can see below your character in the UI.
Levelling has to do with progression. For example, at level 1, you only have these outfits that make you look like a homeless traveller who doesn't have any money or anything.. once you reach level 20, you get to dress up your character a bit more to look more prestigious. you know.. something a little bit like this:
anyway, as you level, you also get access to different dungeons, maps, and special quests. you can join clans, turn on PK, go on PvP, get unique gears and items and other features in the game, which players are actually looking forward to.
We're talking about general progression here and not just the process on how you level up i.e., quests and grinding.
Beautiful, another "Your vision of what I wanted the game to be differs from mine so now I'll moan like a child."
They are 100% correct, leveling, progressing, whatever term you want to use, ties you to the world and your character. Leveling up teaches you when/where/how to use your abilities. I'm sure you're amazing without this, however not all of us are obviously as gifted as you.
The best part is, if you don't like it; You don't have to play.
Just because every car has similar features doesn't mean that Ferraris are copies of Model Ts. Progress requires failure and refining.
Nope, I do not because it is dumb to consider the two interchangeable because you can build a character in some games to be as effective as it'll ever be without ever hitting "the level cap", EVE Online is based around this (sure there is a level cap in EVE too but it would take if I am not mistaken 50 to 60 years to reach it under ideal circumstances) and Albion Online looks to be doing away with leveling completely (progression will be primarily community based with items coming in as a 2nd means of progression by what I've seen). In those games progression, what ties you to the world, is your relationship to the community, the roots you put down and, if applicable, the patch of space you claimed as your own, not the level of your character.
The next time any developer says leveling is what ties you to their games I want you to imagine what that actually means to the game itself (it is ok for a player within a game to say "right, my aim is to be max level, that is my goal" but that same player could take being max level as a tertiary concern to their actual goals, ex: being the best weaponsmith on the server or exploring the entire in-game world on foot, etc) because to me it just sounds like a game with very few choices in terms of gameplay all focused on leveling your character which for those who want to leave it as a tertiary concern means they're gimping their experience within the game (the more focus given to leveling the more they have to incentivize it which in turn means the less things you can do before level cap, if their focus would fall on say the community then they'd focus on offering many possible activities to let you progress in one way or another within the game without forcing you onto a leveling rail).
Also as a aside: The person who said even Ultima Online had levels never played before Trammel and should feel bad for spouting what he/she did (leveling in that game came as a secondary concern to increase your overall effectiveness in-game but what you chose to do was completely up to you and level cap within Ultima Online could be hit within 4-5 days of grinding).
If leveling is ever considered more than a goal in a game then that game has a serious handicap from the very start
Lineage II did it right. It took you months and years to hit level cap, it was that slow. But that's what was actually good about it. People forgot about grinding to level cap asap because it wasn't really possible to do it all that quickly. So that's how the "journey" became more of a focus itself. The way to the top is the actual fun part. After all, isn't PvP for a leveling spot much better than PvP at "endgame" (I hate this word too).
People were grinding four hours and days in one area and it was actually damn fun and awesome! Getting the best leveling spot encouraged PvP, you had to fight for it, you met new people that had to grind just like you, it was fairly awesome and being an actual 'high level' still meant something back then.
Oh good old times... screw all those MMO's where you can rush through content to cap in just one or a few months, it sucks and it doesn't do the devs and game designers any justice imo.
Web & Graphic Design - www.xdrac.com
in every mmo players only go to those areas where best loot and xp is gathered rest world will be deserted this fact that devs seems not to graps but also fault of community who play mmo's.
What's sad is that millions of you consider it annoying, yet you still pay the company monthly to do it.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I agree. But many people play MMO like a console game. quiting it after their 100 hours.
Having character levels in a MMO with level based zones is bad game design. nothing less nothing more.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
But think back, did leveling in itself tie you to the game or did it just offer a means to get rewarded and a goal to work towards?
At the end I think it depends on what type of person are you. Are u someone who can handle leveling at a normal speed or are someone who get frustrated when leveling at a normal speed.
"Leveling in itself", what does that mean? Watching the number go from 1-2? I don't think this is a technical argument. It's more about the whole process of leveling up, growing in power, daring to venture to more dangerous places, finding new things, unlocking more of the game. The level number is just a guide, a messure point for both you and the system. And to answer your question, yes, it also offers a means to get rewarded and have a goal to work towards. A level is used to determine many different things in a game, it's not "just there to hook you". Being hooked because of levels is just a side-effect, one that can be exploited/used to hook you even more by creating systems around the level that you find attractive.
I mean did leveling constitute your goal, did you play the game just so you can level or did you play it to experience the game with leveling possibly being a afterthought due to it limiting what you could experience from within the game? That's the thing, leveling should not be the thing tieing you to the world, it should be the world in itself and leveling should be a tertiary concern which comes up when you feel like exploring.
Games which are built so that leveling ties you to them are just boring and stale because progress is not natural, it is forced, you don't progress because you feel the need to, you progress because you have to ( many games have this mechanic and it honestly robs you of a good chunk of the experience... say there is a game where you have no levels, all progression is based on the gear you have and the experience you gain by playing the game, in such a game the world itself would be your oyster to explore, conquer, adventure in and the more mechanics/tools the developers give you within the game the more it becomes a sandbox like say you're in a band of players who stumbles across an abandoned dwarf fort built within a mountain, you could choose to settle in it and make it safe again while delving within the abandoned dwarf mines below it, such things make a RPG in my mind, not a level system, the level system itself is a way to quantify progress in a easy metric but it is not the only means or even remotely close to the best one around in terms of immersion).
I don't see the difference? All you're saying is "hide the level number". You would still have the same limitations based on experience=level=level of gear.
I don't progress because i feel i need to, or because i have to. I progress because i enjoy the game i'm playing.
Not really because the level number would be abolished so for example you couldn't go buff nakid in a noob zone and one shot everyone in there with pvp duels (something very much possible in WoW and most other level centric games).
When I said experience I meant your experience in playing the game so for example you know not to pick on a dire wolf with a dull knife (for a rather absurd example) and when I said gear I meant something to aspire to without neccesarily offering a massive boon (for example you could have 3 tiers of power, iron level, steel level and lets say mithril level, between them lets say there's a 5-10 % gap in raw power, steel = 10% better than iron, mithril = 20% better than iron, and then you'd have multiple types of armour which fall into these tiers which are more or less rare to give you something to aspire to without giving you an edge, like say you have metal chainmail and metal band augmented leather armour, both these would offer the same level of protection but be visibly different or on the mithril side you could have mithril plate or dragon leather armour , same level of protection, vastly different look and while you're at it you could divide each of these tiers into 3 subsets, say light, medium, heavy armour, which follow logic: light = more agile but less proection, medium = middle of the road, heavy armour = less agile but more robust, so in the end you could have a player in metal tier armour beating the crap out of mithril level players if the player knows how to play to his strengths).
in Everquest, levels came to an end but you still had nongear progression because of AA experience and skills
it took me a full year of heavy playing to max out my AA in EQ -- and SOE soon added more AA without raising levels
AA was not horizontal - it was vertical, it did increase your power
the first time I ever heard "the game begins at at 60" - was WOW
I never heard the phrase "endgame" in EQ or DAOC preWOW -- although some players may have used that terminology
EQ2 fan sites
Welcome to the treadmill. Please run your butt off trying to get to the cake. Then later you find out, the cake is a lie.
+1
For me personally levelling in a MMORPG should be the core of the game, while endgame is a temporary tool to give devs more time to add more levelling content (kinda like WoW but way way faster updates so people dont cry about losing their shinies). I personally think that endgame gear grind mentality is what makes alot of games fail these days. Why grind gear doing silly repeatables when you can just go and try another game and come back for the expansion?
The reason I sank so much time into MUDs in my day was the combination of small, tight communities and the unlimited skill and level progression systems which meant that there was alway a few people who were more hardcore than others and managed to achieve mind boggling levelling accomplishments (level 1000+ in a game where after a few years of steady play 400 would have been respectable). Those players and characters became true legendary heroes in the game world which was a status position to be emulated and sought.
People who whine about the long boring grinds in my humble opinion are also the type of people who enjoy all those lovely lobby games we are seeing sprout around us.
My 2 c
Nay sir. I want to play the game for years like I did with Ultima Online. Those were the days when you could actually call dungeons "dungeons".
Those times are gone. nowadays MMOs are just quick cash milking cows.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
AAs just seems like more leveling...
And while I dont remember hearing people saying "endgame" back then either EQ certainly had a dungeon running circuit once you hit the level cap.. I never got there though. I did enjoy playing the game at lower levels though.
And DAoC also had an "endgame": RvR. But you could jump right into that from level 1. But DAoC had more than just RvR to do... you could farm dungeons and you could craft or trade. Dont know much about how that all worked in EQ but im sure there were some trading and crafting there too. Well I know there was a lot of trading.
But I certainly aggree that there was plenty to enjoy on the way to the "endgame"
But I think I would like games more if they let you get in on some of that "endgame" sooner. Or where the game was about more than just grinding until you could grind more things for epic lewts. I think that is why I like DAoC more than EQ and why I didnt like WoW at all, since it had removed the things I enjoyed in EQ.
Like the need and the time to communicate with other players.
It's ultimately the content that keeps players playing. Even when you're playing for "other players", you're actually playing for the content they're creating or maybe "the content they are".
The thing is, on average, players don't make good content. Sure, when you get to pick and choose (like foundry quests and player-made realms on multiplayer games that let you get creative), you can find really amazing stuff, but let's face it, on average players are just bad at making content and being content.
And keep in mind: Content also includes art, sound and music.
EVE Online. I love it. Had they done a bad job at building that universe, or had they even done a bad job with their art, it'd have below 100K players (yeah, this is my speculation and pulling numbers out of the posterior day). No matter how good the systems are and how complicated player relations are.
Leveling the first time isnt the problem. The problem is that the leveling section of the game is most of the game. When you have leveled your first character, then what? Is this a console game or an MMO? As always .. i wouldn't give a rats ass about any of this, if it wasn't for the fact that every MMO has become like this and departed greatly from what was a more sustained, group oriented form of enjoyment. To make matters worse they have made it so brain dead easy and fast that they really do play more like Legend of Zelda than EQ, UO, etc. Don't get me wrong, I loved Legend of Zelda, Ultima, etc .. right up until the time that I started playing games where I needed to interact with other people. That other dimension is what brought me into the genre, the lack of it is what is pushing me away.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already