While I appreciate most people are talking about 'vertical' progression through the levels, this is sligtly missing the point. I imagine that most people actually want:
To see/feel that they are progressing during play...
I think this does not need to be all 'vertical', but can be horizontal. This may be: Crafting, Socialising, questing, working on factions, exploring .... But, in all these things .... only something hard won is highly valued.
Levels thrown at you like so much confetti (I am looking at you WoW) or shiny loot dropping faster than you can pick it up or even showers of platinum just for logging in .... ... these things devalue the experience.
Progress can, and should, be slow, challenging and hard won. This gives it value!
Furthermore, people who played EQ and Vanguard will end up being
by far the minority, and will be outnumbered more and more by people who
also find they have similar tastes, and did not know.
I dont know about "far". In Vanguard, once the population had reduced itself, it felt like 80%+ of players had played EQ before. Not me though.
I'm not at all surprised there would be more EQ players in the case of Vanguard. All but the hardcore fans left. Had the game been finished and in proper working order, that would not have been the case.
While I appreciate most people are talking about 'vertical' progression through the levels, this is sligtly missing the point. I imagine that most people actually want:
To see/feel that they are progressing during play...
I think this does not need to be all 'vertical', but can be horizontal. This may be: Crafting, Socialising, questing, working on factions, exploring .... But, in all these things .... only something hard won is highly valued.
Levels thrown at you like so much confetti (I am looking at you WoW) or shiny loot dropping faster than you can pick it up or even showers of platinum just for logging in .... ... these things devalue the experience.
Progress can, and should, be slow, challenging and hard won. This gives it value!
Agreed, but I think the point is that you can devalue the experience equally by making things slow. Slow was a mechanic implemented in early MMOs as a means of keeping players around, paying subscriptions. These days, progression (levels) just feel like a necessary evil of an MMO, which it shouldn't. Honestly, it doesn't matter how fast or slow the leveling is, it's got to be relevant. If you have me running in circles, grinding mobs for 30 hours to gain a level, how is that worthwhile? At that point I'd be saying "Please!!!! Isn't there some old lady somewhere who has a rat problem in her cellar?"
The question really shouldn't be about whether you want leveling to take longer, it should be about how they can make your journey equally enjoyable through the entire game. There are PLENTY of Guinness records that someone has, obviously, taken the time to accomplish (Fastest to eat an onion, peel 50lbs of onions), but the vast majority of people probably don't give a shit about doing it. Same goes here. If you want to satisfy a few dozen (maybe couple hundred) people with intentionally inflated, empty leveling, then shoot for the moon. It will ultimately attract some users, but it will drive away more than it attracts.
I'm not sure if the devs have spoken on this topic yet but I really hope that the level cap takes a while like it did with both the original EQ/EQ2 when it first launched. I'm so tired of playing games that allow me to achieve reach level 30 in one or two days and max level in less than a week. I want to be able to feel like the levels are an achievement even if the game feels a bit more grindey (I think grinding can be fun in groups). When I hit level cap I want to look back and remember zones and the mobs in the them like I did with EQ/EQ2. The benefit of a longer leveling curve is the ability to spend more time in zones and therefore more time soaking in the lore and building a connection with the world and the people in it. Call me crazy but I would even welcome hell levels over EZmode MMORPGs that are a dime a dozen nowadays.
I think level cap should take roughly 3 months when playing 4 to 5 hours a day.
I'm curious what others think, post below!
Always a difficult balance to achieve.... slow leveling, yet, not grindy. But I agree.... I like a slower pace of leveling.
Which has been more successful than EQ1, DAoC, AC, AO and all gen1 games put together.
How do you propose success be measured?
Total box/download sales?
Total revenue from subscriptions/cash shop sales?
Total number of players?
Player satisfaction?
Market share of then existing market?
Percentage of player retention over time?
Return on investment to investors?
Player, press and industry feedback as to quality?
Advancement of the genre through innovation?
Years in operation?
You really can't fairly compare the success of two games without choosing your criteria.
money made. That is the metric I use for success as that is what metric all business use.
The criteria in video game business is always money.
Seen many a game have huge box sales and crash a burn after. Im sure they made money but I would not call that success. Now an MMO like EQ1 thats been going for 18 years, does not cost much to keep running. Uses tools that make a community keep playing. Now thats something I would call a success both for the company and the gamers.
Agreed - and when players become invested in the game they are more likely to stay.
The reason the 2-6 week numbers are being thrown around for current MMOs is because they are ridiculously shallow and they continually miss the most importnt piece that makes people want to stay - community/social bonds. Instead they substitute convenience and accessibility and try for the quick burst win, basically similar to the game as a whole - a DPS race with no strategy.
I don't think this is so much how long leveling takes, obviously we want it to take a long time, but there are plenty of methods of progression outside of leveling that are important. As long as there is years worth of MEANINGFUL progression to be had, and the progression never stops, I'll play forever.
I say meaningful because most of the games recently have resorted to the carrot on a stick rare drop that could get you .000001% of a power upgrade, and you gotta farm for 100s of hours to try and get it, this is not meaningful, when it gets to that point I consider there to be no meaningful forms of progression left and quit.
I do believe however that slow leveling helps maintain progression on a sub-based game, so I'd like to see at least 1000 hours required to hit "max" level whatever that may be.
If they make levelling slow, they're going to have to make that level range fun enough that people can bear with being stuck in that same level range for so long.
Possible, but easier said than done. For many games, you gain new skills as you level and thus new fun. It's going to be a hard act to make a game stay fun for a particularly long and slow time BEFORE those new skills are acquired. Not impossible, but still difficult. Sooooo... good luck to them with that if they go that route, I suppose.
Of course, another possible (or perhaps, something that also needs to be done at the same time as well) way is to make more content per level range too. But that too is not cheap or easy, and kinda defeats the point of making levelling slow if you have to spend extra development time per level on content for that range, anyways.
If they make levelling slow, they're going to have to make that level range fun enough that people can bear with being stuck in that same level range for so long.
Possible, but easier said than done. For many games, you gain new skills as you level and thus new fun. It's going to be a hard act to make a game stay fun for a particularly long and slow time BEFORE those new skills are acquired. Not impossible, but still difficult. Sooooo... good luck to them with that if they go that route, I suppose.
Of course, another possible (or perhaps, something that also needs to be done at the same time as well) way is to make more content per level range too. But that too is not cheap or easy, and kinda defeats the point of making levelling slow if you have to spend extra development time per level on content for that range, anyways.
You certainly need enough content at any level to have a lot of things to do or the whole thing becomes pointless but slow leveling do mean you actually can bother getting good gear for that level. Few people bother that in fast leveling game since you outlevel that gear in a few hours.
If leveling and gaining new skills is the most fun part of a MMO you seriously don't want players to hit max too fast, that just leads to most players quitting once the hit max.
Besides, modern games actually put about the same percentage of their content as a slow leveling game for some idiotic reason, even the fastest leveling games have a rather small percentage of their content for max level characters and you usually miss the majority of the content since it becomes obsolete so fast.
People solve that by creating many alts and level up all of them to see all the content under max level and to get the level up fix so the big question is if staying at 1 character is more fun then having 8 of them.
If leveling and gaining new skills is the most fun part of a MMO you seriously don't want players to hit max too fast, that just leads to most players quitting once the hit max.
Besides, modern games actually put about the same percentage of their content as a slow leveling game for some idiotic reason, even the fastest leveling games have a rather small percentage of their content for max level characters and you usually miss the majority of the content since it becomes obsolete so fast.
People solve that by creating many alts and level up all of them to see all the content under max level and to get the level up fix so the big question is if staying at 1 character is more fun then having 8 of them.
I actually meant the fun was in using lots of skills, not in the gaining of new skills. ....though the latter is a strong rat pellet, too, of course.
Most modern games I've played have just about the right amount of content for their levelling speed when they first come out in my experience, actually. The major issues start to develop as the game gets updated with new content, and eventually the dev team speeds up the levelling process so that newer players can catch up to the older players, at which point they do end up with a lot of their older content getting levelled and sped through faster than it can be played. I've always found that to be a horrible design decision for future updates, although whether or not Pantheon will avoid that as it gets updated with new content doesn't really have much to do with whether or not levelling starts out slow. It more has to do with whether or not the developers keep it slow AND whether or not Pantheon even lasts long enough for that to be a factor AND, if they do keep it slow, whether or not they somehow can come up with an alternate way of dealing with how older players will outlevel younger players (Mentor/sidekick systems can only achieve so much as the game gets older)
Bringing up alts also reminds me that "modern" games also speed up the levelling process over time to encourage people to raise up alts, but that's probably more for F2P profitability reasons which doesn't really apply to Pantheon. I myself prefer to stick to one character, yet lots of people I met in most MMOs love creating tons of alts instead, so I suspect there's more of the latter than the former which does make slow-levelling even more of a niche thing, but it's not something I gathered up and recorded lots of data on so I can't be sure. *shrug*
I was asking why would you have raid content since level 50 and not earlier.
Well 50 wasnt chosen by any exact criteria, its just an approximation. Besides, if you follow my descriptions, you'll get to 50 fairly quickly.
My idea is that for example you also dont start with douzens of abilities - you typically start with maybe half a douzen. And then you slowly get more and more over time in order to get you to learn how to use your ability effectively.
The same would happen with boss fights and grouping. Quite soon after you start playing, you will see mobs that are harder than usual, or groups of mobs that coordinate their combat and that require some strategy. Then you'll see literal bosses - mobs that last quite a bit longer than usual.
And soon you'll find that playing with another player will increase your odds. And after some while longer, a third player really gets really beneficial. Etc, until you have a full group, whatever the group size of Pantheon will be.
And the battles with boss mobs will get longer and longer until you get to raid level, when it might take ten minutes to an hour of carefully coordinated combat and specifically chosen strategy to beat a boss.
Comments
I think this does not need to be all 'vertical', but can be horizontal.
This may be:
Crafting, Socialising, questing, working on factions, exploring ....
But, in all these things .... only something hard won is highly valued.
Levels thrown at you like so much confetti (I am looking at you WoW) or shiny loot dropping faster than you can pick it up or even showers of platinum just for logging in ....
... these things devalue the experience.
Progress can, and should, be slow, challenging and hard won. This gives it value!
Agreed, but I think the point is that you can devalue the experience equally by making things slow. Slow was a mechanic implemented in early MMOs as a means of keeping players around, paying subscriptions. These days, progression (levels) just feel like a necessary evil of an MMO, which it shouldn't. Honestly, it doesn't matter how fast or slow the leveling is, it's got to be relevant. If you have me running in circles, grinding mobs for 30 hours to gain a level, how is that worthwhile? At that point I'd be saying "Please!!!! Isn't there some old lady somewhere who has a rat problem in her cellar?"
The question really shouldn't be about whether you want leveling to take longer, it should be about how they can make your journey equally enjoyable through the entire game. There are PLENTY of Guinness records that someone has, obviously, taken the time to accomplish (Fastest to eat an onion, peel 50lbs of onions), but the vast majority of people probably don't give a shit about doing it. Same goes here. If you want to satisfy a few dozen (maybe couple hundred) people with intentionally inflated, empty leveling, then shoot for the moon. It will ultimately attract some users, but it will drive away more than it attracts.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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The reason the 2-6 week numbers are being thrown around for current MMOs is because they are ridiculously shallow and they continually miss the most importnt piece that makes people want to stay - community/social bonds. Instead they substitute convenience and accessibility and try for the quick burst win, basically similar to the game as a whole - a DPS race with no strategy.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
I say meaningful because most of the games recently have resorted to the carrot on a stick rare drop that could get you .000001% of a power upgrade, and you gotta farm for 100s of hours to try and get it, this is not meaningful, when it gets to that point I consider there to be no meaningful forms of progression left and quit.
I do believe however that slow leveling helps maintain progression on a sub-based game, so I'd like to see at least 1000 hours required to hit "max" level whatever that may be.
Possible, but easier said than done. For many games, you gain new skills as you level and thus new fun. It's going to be a hard act to make a game stay fun for a particularly long and slow time BEFORE those new skills are acquired. Not impossible, but still difficult. Sooooo... good luck to them with that if they go that route, I suppose.
Of course, another possible (or perhaps, something that also needs to be done at the same time as well) way is to make more content per level range too. But that too is not cheap or easy, and kinda defeats the point of making levelling slow if you have to spend extra development time per level on content for that range, anyways.
If leveling and gaining new skills is the most fun part of a MMO you seriously don't want players to hit max too fast, that just leads to most players quitting once the hit max.
Besides, modern games actually put about the same percentage of their content as a slow leveling game for some idiotic reason, even the fastest leveling games have a rather small percentage of their content for max level characters and you usually miss the majority of the content since it becomes obsolete so fast.
People solve that by creating many alts and level up all of them to see all the content under max level and to get the level up fix so the big question is if staying at 1 character is more fun then having 8 of them.
Most modern games I've played have just about the right amount of content for their levelling speed when they first come out in my experience, actually. The major issues start to develop as the game gets updated with new content, and eventually the dev team speeds up the levelling process so that newer players can catch up to the older players, at which point they do end up with a lot of their older content getting levelled and sped through faster than it can be played. I've always found that to be a horrible design decision for future updates, although whether or not Pantheon will avoid that as it gets updated with new content doesn't really have much to do with whether or not levelling starts out slow. It more has to do with whether or not the developers keep it slow AND whether or not Pantheon even lasts long enough for that to be a factor AND, if they do keep it slow, whether or not they somehow can come up with an alternate way of dealing with how older players will outlevel younger players (Mentor/sidekick systems can only achieve so much as the game gets older)
Bringing up alts also reminds me that "modern" games also speed up the levelling process over time to encourage people to raise up alts, but that's probably more for F2P profitability reasons which doesn't really apply to Pantheon. I myself prefer to stick to one character, yet lots of people I met in most MMOs love creating tons of alts instead, so I suspect there's more of the latter than the former which does make slow-levelling even more of a niche thing, but it's not something I gathered up and recorded lots of data on so I can't be sure. *shrug*
My idea is that for example you also dont start with douzens of abilities - you typically start with maybe half a douzen. And then you slowly get more and more over time in order to get you to learn how to use your ability effectively.
The same would happen with boss fights and grouping. Quite soon after you start playing, you will see mobs that are harder than usual, or groups of mobs that coordinate their combat and that require some strategy. Then you'll see literal bosses - mobs that last quite a bit longer than usual.
And soon you'll find that playing with another player will increase your odds. And after some while longer, a third player really gets really beneficial. Etc, until you have a full group, whatever the group size of Pantheon will be.
And the battles with boss mobs will get longer and longer until you get to raid level, when it might take ten minutes to an hour of carefully coordinated combat and specifically chosen strategy to beat a boss.