I myself never reached max level in any of MMOs. Never , none of them. I think Gestalt puts it very inteligently , something i never managed to explain myself. I always thought i am quitting at the moment "there is nothing new to see" And this so called "End Game" So aptly called , because the game actually ended, and you are just hanging there because there is actually nothing else left to do with your max level character. It is a bad joke.
{ Mod Edit }
Wow.. charismatic, and with a strong vocabulary... right back at ya bro!
~peace out
</sarcasm> Very constructive post, riddled between the cliche insults, jokes, and opinions there may exist a point. But I dont have the time to dig for it, nobody does... Its Christmas! lighten up >.> Your being just as bad as the people you flame
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
Wow.. charismatic, and with a strong vocabulary... right back at ya bro! ~peace out </sarcasm> Very constructive post, riddled between the cliche insults, jokes, and opinions there may exist a point. But I dont have the time to dig for it, nobody does... Its Christmas! lighten up >.> Your being just as bad as the people you flame
You can't force a man who is convinced he is blind to open his eyes.
Somehow I always stop playing my character about in the last 15-20% of levels. Always. Its something that starts to be non fun from this point on,... too much grind ...
IMO it's because most mmo's cap around level 50-100 and after the first 10-20 levels of character advancment in the games usually just rehash the same powers/abilities over and over.
it looks like everyone has this same problem. me included.
Not everyone
Well......i don't max out my main character in one blow sort of speak, i do take turns when a MMO offers me the ability to make more characters/clones, and i might even outlvl my main with another character, but eventualy one of them will get maxed.
The thing is i'm not worried of getting max and take my time, it's not my foccus to max my characters, my foccus is having fun in this genre, meeting new people, exploring, which do need lvl's if you want a change of scenery. Like i said i take my time when i play this genre, mainly cause i don't have allot of time to play these day's anyway's, but even when i had more time to play them you'll never see me rush towards mx lvl. I can be the same lvl for weeks, if the game has options to keep me entertained at one and the same lvl, other games i hardly notice the lvl'ng as like i said i don't play to lvl i play to have fun, this can be solo/duo/grouped.
I know a few people that indeed after making lvl 10/20/ect.....they start over cause the seem bored to pursuit the higher ranks, i just feel if someone gets bored to me i only see someone actualy burned out on a game but that person doesn't seem to get that.
I just feel that TOO many people rush thru these type of games without real thought and then become bored. The same thing with people who mention things like repetive type of quest, reason for htis is mostly THEY DON'T TAKE THEIR TIME TO READ and get involved, for some it seems just a "job" to do, when it comes to a point that when people consider a game to be a job there is only one thing those people should reconsider and that's STOP PLAYING A GAME LIKE A JOB, playing a game for entertainment value, if you fail that then yes one gets bored or one might see it as a job.
I have a similar problem except what happens to me is I will level 1 character to level cap and then try to start a new one. But only get it to like level 20-30.....maybe 40.......and stop playing that char for like 6 months and when I do play it its only like pvp or somehting thats non xp awwarding.......it sorta sux lol.
--------------------------------------------- WoW -Rhalon 85 B.E. rogue -Rhalon 81 UD Mage -Doneski 85 Orc death knight
"Everyones life has a beginning and an end, No one can change that."-Hiko "If you wish to taste the ground, then feel free to attack."-Kenshin Himura ---------------------------------------------
Well, I know enough ppl having max level chars, some apparently feel the desire for it. But for me, as the old saying goes, the way is the goal. I dont play for that number before my character name, I play for the fun experience, for opening up new areas and new, interesting abilities, for new quests and stories. And in the early half there is a good pace of novelty to see which grows slower and more narrow until I feel it too much like a grind. Maybe its also the quests are too much the same or a bit too generic in the high levels, I dunno, but it looses this sense of novelty for me, of change and exploring really new things at a steady pace.
Funny, I see we are more than I thought, heh. ^^ I think that really reveals something is not entirely good in MMO "endgame", like its a kind of weak spot. I for myself am somewhat at a loss how the sense of stagnation the endgame dominates, could be overcome.
EDIT: I thought a little bit about it, and one thing that came to my mind is the XP income ratio of quests VS grind. At lower levels I get more XP from quests per hour than from pure grind. The higher I level, the less XP quests give in relation to the time I need to complete the quests. This grows until in high levels it takes my hours or days to complete one quest with meager XP output, while it gives me 10 times as much XP if I just enter a grind group and rince-repeat some dungeon over and over again. I think this changing ratio to a point where quests are rather pointless in terms of XP in the high levels is an important factor for me to make me loose interest.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I've been playing Wow ona and off since beta. My highest lvl char is a whopping 58. I have literally dozens of chars in the 20-40 range, but just can't bring myself to cap one.
hehe, you and me both, just recently I've got my first 63 and you know what, it doesn't bother me a bit.
In pretty much every MMO that gets released, with a few weeks/months the people that have capped spend the next 2 years whining about "end-game" content, there's nothing to do. Well, I never get to experience any of these negatives so I continue to enjoy the games.
Come to think of it, in all the mmos I've ever played... which is most... I've only maxed out in Shadowbane. And thats only because you can cap in about 2-3 days tops with a good guild.
Maybe its from playing UO first? I never got higher than 4XGM on any of my characters, and you nkow what I could still enjoy the game. I could pvp, I could farm, I could explore with no trouble.
In most games I don't get past 50% of the leveling before I give in. Every level based mmo is just a re-hash from there on out. Fireball 4!!! or Ice Bolt 7...... whoopdeedoo.
Honestly, I can’t understand why you don’t want to level cap your characters. Probably, you are not enjoying the gameplay of your class/character, so find a character you like to play The only thing that I can tell is that without a max level character (in games where you can actually level up to max level – not like most Korean MMOs) you have missed a huge part of the game; from my point of view, the most important the exciting part of it. I usually rush to hit max level, then relax and play the endgame content.
This line of reasoning is a canard. One you should be very wary of.
I say this because many people are goal oriented and enjoyment of game play is not enough. It should be fairly apparent that the OP is a goal oriented person.
As someone who is also goal oriented I can tell you that people like us always look ahead to some degree, constantly evaluating where we are at and what we will need to do. For some of us it is so deep that it doesn't even take conscious thought and therefore very much become part of what we feel.
What you consider the best part, some people consider a barren wasteland. This is the nature of the beast. This is also an issue that cause much strife due to a lack of understanding.
People who are like you think this is an "experience" to have fun with and look at the gameplay and content and acquisistion of things. And to some degree you are right it is an experience. The BIG caveat is this, that for some people the leveling up process and the goals and the putting your character through its paces. The whole process of mature and building a characters abilties and "story" is a necessary part of that "experience".
So both sides which have fundamentally different demands but are both looking for an experience, a journey to have fun on. So while they have the same goals from a general sense, they differ in the details to some degree and very much differ in their mental image of what things means. But for some people the "end", the goal is always in their mind and is an important and necessary motivator. Will you be evil and conquer the world? Will you marry the princess or kill the king? Maybe I see if I can do both...
This is part of the RP of RPG. The story you want to write for yourself. It is why costume pieces are so popular in CoX. This is something social RP people overlook. There is social RP and there is individual RP. I do not need to talk in middle english to RP. The whole point is to create a kind of cool thing in your head, whatever you personally think is cool. A persona, a look, a powerful build, or some combination.
For some of us it is the nascent conception of something like this that really gets us into the game and it is the promise of creating it that keeps us going. When it seems done we kind of go hmm "ok" and lose some steam. Done may be getting all your badges or it may be proving your build effective or something else like that. The gameplay is fine, its fun, but its not enough. Its not the magic.
In games like WoW if you are playing a fairly generic Fury warrior. You will have a very similar build and almost exactly the same equipment as 1000 other people who have gone before you once you have gone through a number of top tier dungeons. This has no appeal to the other side. For you its fine because you can finally explore the full gameplay and kick the tires. For the other side. Its all been done before and its not unique. You will neither stand out nor is there much to satisfy your curiosity.
There is no "Hey let's try this, I'd like to see what happens" motivation, you know what happens in the general sense. Sure you never get in the car and really drive it around. But that is not really the experience these people are looking for.
For some the thrill is in the USING of something. For others the thrill is in the CREATING of something. Both are fine and both are in a sense an "experience", a journey. But for the latter the goals become very important and things like XP curves can make something that was a cool idea become an cool idea that is no longer worth the effort very quickly. Especially for people like me who have an inborn and natural constantly going evaluation of the way things stand and the possible consequences of actions and the trends that will happen in the future.
At least be proud of making Jedi, even if there was a bug that helped you get there. I had my Bothan halfway to master fencer and master chef (or whatever the food crafter profession was called), when I realized just how boring the grind was and quit.
My other leveling failures in MMOGs include:
1. Only making it into the 20s in COH; COV sits on my shelf and has never been opened
2. Making it to only 62 in WOW (though I was proud of getting my char to 60 before the expansion)
3. Making it only to level 25 in Hellgate London
4. Currently stuck right before level 20 in Tabula Rasa and trying to decide if I want to continue since the content seems almost exactly the same going forward as it did at level 10
In fact, the only max level characters I've had are my pre-BC WOW mage and several GW characters that I completed all three campaigns with. Just like many of you, I've found that it's much easier to "finish" single player MMOGs like Dungeon Siege, NWN, or the Elder Scroll series because there is a set ending to look forward to. If all I have to look forward to in an MMOG is the chance to go do mind-numbing raid content or be frustrated in a severely unbalanced PVP system, I have a lot harder time pushing myself to reach max level. I'll be curious to see how well WOW does with the Lich King expansion - I know I'm not the only one who became bored with the constant level treadmill.
Somehow I always stop playing my character about in the last 15-20% of levels. Always. Its something that starts to be non fun from this point on,... too much grind ...
IMO it's because most mmo's cap around level 50-100 and after the first 10-20 levels of character advancment in the games usually just rehash the same powers/abilities over and over.
This is true of most EQ-clones and definitely contributes, but CoX does expand your power set with quite decent new and powerful and novel abilities as you level up and still suffers from the same problem
Yup, I tend to have the same problem. The only game I have gotten close to maxing out is probabally LoTRO. Thats because the freshness of the game got me motivated. I just loose the feeling of the MMO expierence, as you said, because the higher you get the more grinding you have to do. It gets annoying. But I live with it. And I hope that WAR will have something that other MMOs don't. WAAAGGGGHHH!!
Yes, as many of you I tend to quit before reaching max level. The only MMO to date that I have had a max level in is DAoC. I'm hoping it is not my last max level character in a game XD.
The only MMO I've managed to do it in, barring Guild Wars but I don't consider it a true MMO, would be WoW, which just goes to show how easy it is do to everything in that game. I've come close a number of times, and technically I got 50 in EQ but that was after the cap had been raised to 60, and I only hit 52. The primary issue being I tend to get bored and switch games before maxing out. Too many new releases.
I am the same way as well, start off strong and slowly lose intrest as the level grind increases. Though I have maxed a few. Had 2 maxed in UO and One maxed in EQ. (many scattered mid levels in nearly every MMO out)
Main thing driving me in those games I maxed in, was originality. Everything was new and it was all interesting. UO especially since it was my first. Big thing is, I never did one quest...just went out with friends exploring and making money to get good gear. We would battle other guilds and fight in all kinds of tournaments that other players set up. It was always fun and their was always something to do and that was at max level. And thats why I was able to max 2 characters in that game cause it was just as fun the second time cause we could progress the way we wanted to, fight who we want where we want in the order that we want ...or in the way you prepared for.
Now, it is all set up and laid out for you and you just chug allong up hill going slower and slower as you move allong... Then when(and if) you get to the top and want to try a different character type, you have pretty much no choice but to jump on the same track. Same quests, same mobs in the same locations and getting the same gear. All the while progressing through the same story but with "Mage" instead of "Warrior" thrown in in the dialogue. The only driving factor that remanins is the new skills for the new class you are playing. But after the first time through you know you have all the skills you are gonna get at level 25 or so all you have to look forward to are improved copies... So that once again kills off a bit more of the incentive to play.
IMO for the current type game build out (WoW, Vanguard, EQ2 ect..) I would suggest lvl cap at 30. That way Instead of having 20 quests per lvl (avg from higher lvls) to lvl 60, you can have about 40 quests per lvl at lvl cap 30. Same ammount of time to make all those quests, now they would just need to be tied together into a quest system that presents different options to the players. So you can choose to help this person or not, if you don't it opens a new branch of quest you can follow. One that you cannot follow if you choose to help him. As you progress through all the quests for each level the choices you made would open or close a new quest chain for your following level. Like good and evil or even quest chains that lead to adventure over a quest chain that follows duity to lord or land.
That should be like a AoC type game begining that you can do solo, or if you wanted, with a group. The areas you go to durring your 30 lvl begining, should be but a fraction of the areas that would be left to be explored. Beyond the quests the game should be a sandbox set up alot like UO as far as the UI and skills go. So you Level up to 30, gain skills like you do in todays games, but after 30 you can continue to increase your skills attributes through use. Spell casters should be all in one class. They should all have base skills that spellcasters have, but beyond that they should be able to buy their spells or learn the ones they want in order do define their magic class(then skill them up). Warriors and like classes would be buying up weapons and armor instead of spells.
I will stop there just rambling on ideas, good threads get my mind working,but I hope that a game company makes a MMO like that someday soon as my intrest in MMO's is slipping as fast as my intrest to max a toon.( I feel like I am growing up or something...imagine that .)
A couple co-workers and I were talking about this last week.
And Not only have I never capped any Avatar in a MMOG I had never capped an Avatar in games like Diablo and Dungion Seige. Now In WOW, which I started playing off and on since gold, my biggest Avatar is a lvl48 hunter but I do have 42 other lvl 12-40s on 5 other servers.
Actually, one of the reasions I stopped playing EVE is that I had reached a point that I built any T1 ship I wanted as well as several T2s and that I could be podded for a week without it setting me back more than 10 min, which is the equivilent of reaching lvl40 in WOW.
Now I know why I don't cap my Avatars, I do not want to reach end game. For me it the journy that is important. Back when i played D2 I was more intrested in collecting sets and uniques than lvling. I never had an avatar past lvl 50 because as soon as I beat Diablo (before patch) then Metaphisto I would stop playing that Avatar and try a new theme.
I am the same way, but I know the reason. I enjoy the low to mid level game. By the time I have played a char up into the mid levels I get the urge to play the low level zones again and I create a new char.
====================== It's just me, so open the door.
I am the same way, but I know the reason. I enjoy the low to mid level game. By the time I have played a char up into the mid levels I get the urge to play the low level zones again and I create a new char.
Since we are so many, maybe we should create a self-help group, like Anonymous Alcoholics... haha.
But seriously, seeing that much more have the same "problem" I think it should give a message to MMO devs. If only they would hear... which I doubt. Maybe we make a lobby group to alter endgame design. ^^
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
A good MMO doesnt require the players to be max level to participate in the endgame. I played Anarchy Online for over 4 years and my main never level capped. Last I left her, she was 215 and a raid officer for an medium sized endgame guild. I never felt the need to hit max level as I possessed the ability to be still effective around those higher level. That is how you design a good level based MMO.
This is a fairly common malady that effects quite a few game addicts. The official term for it is finalis progessionaphobia, which roughly translates to fear of end game. We see this mostly in players who become so engrossed in a game that they fear that if they ever reach the pinnacle of success in a particular game that the drive to get better will somehow be destroyed. So rather than face the reality that all games come to end at some point, the person afflicted with finalis progesionaphobia will subconsiously setup a scenario in which the game can be made to continue. In your case when you get too close to becoming max level, subconsiously your brain starts to tell you that this particular character is no longer fun to play and that a new character would be better. As you get closer and closer to max level the drive to start a new character gets stronger and stronger until inevitably it forces you to create a new character. This allows the affilicted gamer to keep playing and keep their mania in check.
But don't worry, you're not alone. There are a lot folks out there like you and actually there's some things you can do to help.
First off, try to find someone who shares the disease with you and group up with them. This way you can share your experience with someone who will understand your fear and can help you cope by also creating a new character when you are enivitably forced to.
Something else you can do is try switching games to where leveling up and getting to the pinnacle of the game is not focused on...like maybe a nice Wii game.
And finally there's another option and that's to purchase a character off E-bay that's already at max level. In this way, since the character has already been established and you had no tangible part in getting the character to max level, there's less fear of losing that which got you there in the first place.
So good luck in overcoming this terribly dibilatating disease. You can beat it if you really try.
You are simply addicted to progressing characters. Faster character progression in the lower levels makes the customization of new character builds more interesting to you.
I've had a similar experience on a certain game that would seriously take you at the very least a year to get max level. I leveled an assassin to level 99 in half a year then 'transcended' to assassin cross and went back to level 1 with extra stats, exclusive skills, 30% more HP/Mana, and three times as much exp required to level non-transcended classes. I leveled him for another half a year and was high 70s when I retired. You could slaughter mobs a whole day and get 5-10% exp towards your next level at level 95+ NON-transcended. The grindage was mind numbing. I made all sorts of new characters and would level them to 50 in a couple days then lose interest and get back on my sin. Shooting up 50+ levels in a couple days because I knew what I was doing would let me test all sorts of different builds on different classes.
Faster character progression is part of the reason for me. The lower levels are usually much more casual with much less of the hardcore stink that pervades most end games. I've yet to get any character in any game past the last 10 levels thanks to puking raiding, ridiculous downtimes or time sinks, faction grinds and all of the other atrocious content that the developers are sadistically throwing at us. I'm awaiting a day when a game comes out that is WoW casual from beginning to the very end. No raids, no faction grinds, no elite loot solely for the no-lifers.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
I would say the only game where I have a chance of maxing would be FFXI.. at this rate, I'll be max in oh.. 2020 or so. I have also never maxed a character, most games become a bore long before then. I enjoy most them for 20-30 levels, and then quit out.
Ditto. All of my mains in each of the MMOs that I'm playing are level 28 or lower. Once I begin to feel "the grind" and cannot find good groups to continue playing in, I either start a new character (different class) or quit the game.
I find that most devlopers do a poor job of creating mid-level content. Starting content is fun to me because it's so new, and raiding sounds like fun, but I doubt I'll ever get there.
MMO games played or tested: EQ, DAoC, Archlord, Auto Assault, CoH, CoV, EQ2, EVE, Guild Wars, Hellgate: London, Linneage II, LOTRO, MxO, Planetside, SWG, Sword of the New World, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard, WWIIOL, WOW, Age of Conan
Comments
{ Mod Edit }Wow.. charismatic, and with a strong vocabulary... right back at ya bro!
~peace out
</sarcasm> Very constructive post, riddled between the cliche insults, jokes, and opinions there may exist a point. But I dont have the time to dig for it, nobody does... Its Christmas! lighten up >.> Your being just as bad as the people you flame
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
You can't force a man who is convinced he is blind to open his eyes.
IMO it's because most mmo's cap around level 50-100 and after the first 10-20 levels of character advancment in the games usually just rehash the same powers/abilities over and over.
Well......i don't max out my main character in one blow sort of speak, i do take turns when a MMO offers me the ability to make more characters/clones, and i might even outlvl my main with another character, but eventualy one of them will get maxed.
The thing is i'm not worried of getting max and take my time, it's not my foccus to max my characters, my foccus is having fun in this genre, meeting new people, exploring, which do need lvl's if you want a change of scenery. Like i said i take my time when i play this genre, mainly cause i don't have allot of time to play these day's anyway's, but even when i had more time to play them you'll never see me rush towards mx lvl. I can be the same lvl for weeks, if the game has options to keep me entertained at one and the same lvl, other games i hardly notice the lvl'ng as like i said i don't play to lvl i play to have fun, this can be solo/duo/grouped.
I know a few people that indeed after making lvl 10/20/ect.....they start over cause the seem bored to pursuit the higher ranks, i just feel if someone gets bored to me i only see someone actualy burned out on a game but that person doesn't seem to get that.
I just feel that TOO many people rush thru these type of games without real thought and then become bored. The same thing with people who mention things like repetive type of quest, reason for htis is mostly THEY DON'T TAKE THEIR TIME TO READ and get involved, for some it seems just a "job" to do, when it comes to a point that when people consider a game to be a job there is only one thing those people should reconsider and that's STOP PLAYING A GAME LIKE A JOB, playing a game for entertainment value, if you fail that then yes one gets bored or one might see it as a job.
I have a similar problem except what happens to me is I will level 1 character to level cap and then try to start a new one. But only get it to like level 20-30.....maybe 40.......and stop playing that char for like 6 months and when I do play it its only like pvp or somehting thats non xp awwarding.......it sorta sux lol.
---------------------------------------------
WoW
-Rhalon 85 B.E. rogue
-Rhalon 81 UD Mage
-Doneski 85 Orc death knight
"Everyones life has a beginning and an end, No one can change that."-Hiko
"If you wish to taste the ground, then feel free to attack."-Kenshin Himura
---------------------------------------------
Well, I know enough ppl having max level chars, some apparently feel the desire for it. But for me, as the old saying goes, the way is the goal. I dont play for that number before my character name, I play for the fun experience, for opening up new areas and new, interesting abilities, for new quests and stories. And in the early half there is a good pace of novelty to see which grows slower and more narrow until I feel it too much like a grind. Maybe its also the quests are too much the same or a bit too generic in the high levels, I dunno, but it looses this sense of novelty for me, of change and exploring really new things at a steady pace.
Funny, I see we are more than I thought, heh. ^^ I think that really reveals something is not entirely good in MMO "endgame", like its a kind of weak spot. I for myself am somewhat at a loss how the sense of stagnation the endgame dominates, could be overcome.
EDIT: I thought a little bit about it, and one thing that came to my mind is the XP income ratio of quests VS grind. At lower levels I get more XP from quests per hour than from pure grind. The higher I level, the less XP quests give in relation to the time I need to complete the quests. This grows until in high levels it takes my hours or days to complete one quest with meager XP output, while it gives me 10 times as much XP if I just enter a grind group and rince-repeat some dungeon over and over again. I think this changing ratio to a point where quests are rather pointless in terms of XP in the high levels is an important factor for me to make me loose interest.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
In pretty much every MMO that gets released, with a few weeks/months the people that have capped spend the next 2 years whining about "end-game" content, there's nothing to do. Well, I never get to experience any of these negatives so I continue to enjoy the games.
Come to think of it, in all the mmos I've ever played... which is most... I've only maxed out in Shadowbane. And thats only because you can cap in about 2-3 days tops with a good guild.
Maybe its from playing UO first? I never got higher than 4XGM on any of my characters, and you nkow what I could still enjoy the game. I could pvp, I could farm, I could explore with no trouble.
In most games I don't get past 50% of the leveling before I give in. Every level based mmo is just a re-hash from there on out. Fireball 4!!! or Ice Bolt 7...... whoopdeedoo.
LMAO, nice one, you should use that as your signature quote!!
I say this because many people are goal oriented and enjoyment of game play is not enough. It should be fairly apparent that the OP is a goal oriented person.
As someone who is also goal oriented I can tell you that people like us always look ahead to some degree, constantly evaluating where we are at and what we will need to do. For some of us it is so deep that it doesn't even take conscious thought and therefore very much become part of what we feel.
What you consider the best part, some people consider a barren wasteland. This is the nature of the beast. This is also an issue that cause much strife due to a lack of understanding.
People who are like you think this is an "experience" to have fun with and look at the gameplay and content and acquisistion of things. And to some degree you are right it is an experience. The BIG caveat is this, that for some people the leveling up process and the goals and the putting your character through its paces. The whole process of mature and building a characters abilties and "story" is a necessary part of that "experience".
So both sides which have fundamentally different demands but are both looking for an experience, a journey to have fun on. So while they have the same goals from a general sense, they differ in the details to some degree and very much differ in their mental image of what things means. But for some people the "end", the goal is always in their mind and is an important and necessary motivator. Will you be evil and conquer the world? Will you marry the princess or kill the king? Maybe I see if I can do both...
This is part of the RP of RPG. The story you want to write for yourself. It is why costume pieces are so popular in CoX. This is something social RP people overlook. There is social RP and there is individual RP. I do not need to talk in middle english to RP. The whole point is to create a kind of cool thing in your head, whatever you personally think is cool. A persona, a look, a powerful build, or some combination.
For some of us it is the nascent conception of something like this that really gets us into the game and it is the promise of creating it that keeps us going. When it seems done we kind of go hmm "ok" and lose some steam. Done may be getting all your badges or it may be proving your build effective or something else like that. The gameplay is fine, its fun, but its not enough. Its not the magic.
In games like WoW if you are playing a fairly generic Fury warrior. You will have a very similar build and almost exactly the same equipment as 1000 other people who have gone before you once you have gone through a number of top tier dungeons. This has no appeal to the other side. For you its fine because you can finally explore the full gameplay and kick the tires. For the other side. Its all been done before and its not unique. You will neither stand out nor is there much to satisfy your curiosity.
There is no "Hey let's try this, I'd like to see what happens" motivation, you know what happens in the general sense. Sure you never get in the car and really drive it around. But that is not really the experience these people are looking for.
For some the thrill is in the USING of something. For others the thrill is in the CREATING of something. Both are fine and both are in a sense an "experience", a journey. But for the latter the goals become very important and things like XP curves can make something that was a cool idea become an cool idea that is no longer worth the effort very quickly. Especially for people like me who have an inborn and natural constantly going evaluation of the way things stand and the possible consequences of actions and the trends that will happen in the future.
To the OP:
At least be proud of making Jedi, even if there was a bug that helped you get there. I had my Bothan halfway to master fencer and master chef (or whatever the food crafter profession was called), when I realized just how boring the grind was and quit.
My other leveling failures in MMOGs include:
1. Only making it into the 20s in COH; COV sits on my shelf and has never been opened
2. Making it to only 62 in WOW (though I was proud of getting my char to 60 before the expansion)
3. Making it only to level 25 in Hellgate London
4. Currently stuck right before level 20 in Tabula Rasa and trying to decide if I want to continue since the content seems almost exactly the same going forward as it did at level 10
In fact, the only max level characters I've had are my pre-BC WOW mage and several GW characters that I completed all three campaigns with. Just like many of you, I've found that it's much easier to "finish" single player MMOGs like Dungeon Siege, NWN, or the Elder Scroll series because there is a set ending to look forward to. If all I have to look forward to in an MMOG is the chance to go do mind-numbing raid content or be frustrated in a severely unbalanced PVP system, I have a lot harder time pushing myself to reach max level. I'll be curious to see how well WOW does with the Lich King expansion - I know I'm not the only one who became bored with the constant level treadmill.
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IMO it's because most mmo's cap around level 50-100 and after the first 10-20 levels of character advancment in the games usually just rehash the same powers/abilities over and over.
This is true of most EQ-clones and definitely contributes, but CoX does expand your power set with quite decent new and powerful and novel abilities as you level up and still suffers from the same problem
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Yup, I tend to have the same problem. The only game I have gotten close to maxing out is probabally LoTRO. Thats because the freshness of the game got me motivated. I just loose the feeling of the MMO expierence, as you said, because the higher you get the more grinding you have to do. It gets annoying. But I live with it. And I hope that WAR will have something that other MMOs don't. WAAAGGGGHHH!!
Other than that, I feel ya man.
Yes, as many of you I tend to quit before reaching max level. The only MMO to date that I have had a max level in is DAoC. I'm hoping it is not my last max level character in a game XD.
The only MMO I've managed to do it in, barring Guild Wars but I don't consider it a true MMO, would be WoW, which just goes to show how easy it is do to everything in that game. I've come close a number of times, and technically I got 50 in EQ but that was after the cap had been raised to 60, and I only hit 52. The primary issue being I tend to get bored and switch games before maxing out. Too many new releases.
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I am the same way as well, start off strong and slowly lose intrest as the level grind increases. Though I have maxed a few. Had 2 maxed in UO and One maxed in EQ. (many scattered mid levels in nearly every MMO out)
Main thing driving me in those games I maxed in, was originality. Everything was new and it was all interesting. UO especially since it was my first. Big thing is, I never did one quest...just went out with friends exploring and making money to get good gear. We would battle other guilds and fight in all kinds of tournaments that other players set up. It was always fun and their was always something to do and that was at max level. And thats why I was able to max 2 characters in that game cause it was just as fun the second time cause we could progress the way we wanted to, fight who we want where we want in the order that we want ...or in the way you prepared for.
Now, it is all set up and laid out for you and you just chug allong up hill going slower and slower as you move allong... Then when(and if) you get to the top and want to try a different character type, you have pretty much no choice but to jump on the same track. Same quests, same mobs in the same locations and getting the same gear. All the while progressing through the same story but with "Mage" instead of "Warrior" thrown in in the dialogue. The only driving factor that remanins is the new skills for the new class you are playing. But after the first time through you know you have all the skills you are gonna get at level 25 or so all you have to look forward to are improved copies... So that once again kills off a bit more of the incentive to play.
IMO for the current type game build out (WoW, Vanguard, EQ2 ect..) I would suggest lvl cap at 30. That way Instead of having 20 quests per lvl (avg from higher lvls) to lvl 60, you can have about 40 quests per lvl at lvl cap 30. Same ammount of time to make all those quests, now they would just need to be tied together into a quest system that presents different options to the players. So you can choose to help this person or not, if you don't it opens a new branch of quest you can follow. One that you cannot follow if you choose to help him. As you progress through all the quests for each level the choices you made would open or close a new quest chain for your following level. Like good and evil or even quest chains that lead to adventure over a quest chain that follows duity to lord or land.
That should be like a AoC type game begining that you can do solo, or if you wanted, with a group. The areas you go to durring your 30 lvl begining, should be but a fraction of the areas that would be left to be explored. Beyond the quests the game should be a sandbox set up alot like UO as far as the UI and skills go. So you Level up to 30, gain skills like you do in todays games, but after 30 you can continue to increase your skills attributes through use. Spell casters should be all in one class. They should all have base skills that spellcasters have, but beyond that they should be able to buy their spells or learn the ones they want in order do define their magic class(then skill them up). Warriors and like classes would be buying up weapons and armor instead of spells.
I will stop there just rambling on ideas, good threads get my mind working,but I hope that a game company makes a MMO like that someday soon as my intrest in MMO's is slipping as fast as my intrest to max a toon.( I feel like I am growing up or something...imagine that
.)
A couple co-workers and I were talking about this last week.
And Not only have I never capped any Avatar in a MMOG I had never capped an Avatar in games like Diablo and Dungion Seige. Now In WOW, which I started playing off and on since gold, my biggest Avatar is a lvl48 hunter but I do have 42 other lvl 12-40s on 5 other servers.
Actually, one of the reasions I stopped playing EVE is that I had reached a point that I built any T1 ship I wanted as well as several T2s and that I could be podded for a week without it setting me back more than 10 min, which is the equivilent of reaching lvl40 in WOW.
Now I know why I don't cap my Avatars, I do not want to reach end game. For me it the journy that is important. Back when i played D2 I was more intrested in collecting sets and uniques than lvling. I never had an avatar past lvl 50 because as soon as I beat Diablo (before patch) then Metaphisto I would stop playing that Avatar and try a new theme.
An so it begins
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I too, in fact, I dont want to reach max level, the more I like it, the less I want to reach the end game.
I am the same way, but I know the reason. I enjoy the low to mid level game. By the time I have played a char up into the mid levels I get the urge to play the low level zones again and I create a new char.
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It's just me, so open the door.
But seriously, seeing that much more have the same "problem" I think it should give a message to MMO devs. If only they would hear... which I doubt. Maybe we make a lobby group to alter endgame design. ^^
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
A good MMO doesnt require the players to be max level to participate in the endgame. I played Anarchy Online for over 4 years and my main never level capped. Last I left her, she was 215 and a raid officer for an medium sized endgame guild. I never felt the need to hit max level as I possessed the ability to be still effective around those higher level. That is how you design a good level based MMO.
This is a fairly common malady that effects quite a few game addicts. The official term for it is finalis progessionaphobia, which roughly translates to fear of end game. We see this mostly in players who become so engrossed in a game that they fear that if they ever reach the pinnacle of success in a particular game that the drive to get better will somehow be destroyed. So rather than face the reality that all games come to end at some point, the person afflicted with finalis progesionaphobia will subconsiously setup a scenario in which the game can be made to continue. In your case when you get too close to becoming max level, subconsiously your brain starts to tell you that this particular character is no longer fun to play and that a new character would be better. As you get closer and closer to max level the drive to start a new character gets stronger and stronger until inevitably it forces you to create a new character. This allows the affilicted gamer to keep playing and keep their mania in check.
But don't worry, you're not alone. There are a lot folks out there like you and actually there's some things you can do to help.
First off, try to find someone who shares the disease with you and group up with them. This way you can share your experience with someone who will understand your fear and can help you cope by also creating a new character when you are enivitably forced to.
Something else you can do is try switching games to where leveling up and getting to the pinnacle of the game is not focused on...like maybe a nice Wii game.
And finally there's another option and that's to purchase a character off E-bay that's already at max level. In this way, since the character has already been established and you had no tangible part in getting the character to max level, there's less fear of losing that which got you there in the first place.
So good luck in overcoming this terribly dibilatating disease. You can beat it if you really try.
You are simply addicted to progressing characters. Faster character progression in the lower levels makes the customization of new character builds more interesting to you.
I've had a similar experience on a certain game that would seriously take you at the very least a year to get max level. I leveled an assassin to level 99 in half a year then 'transcended' to assassin cross and went back to level 1 with extra stats, exclusive skills, 30% more HP/Mana, and three times as much exp required to level non-transcended classes. I leveled him for another half a year and was high 70s when I retired. You could slaughter mobs a whole day and get 5-10% exp towards your next level at level 95+ NON-transcended. The grindage was mind numbing. I made all sorts of new characters and would level them to 50 in a couple days then lose interest and get back on my sin. Shooting up 50+ levels in a couple days because I knew what I was doing would let me test all sorts of different builds on different classes.
Faster character progression is part of the reason for me. The lower levels are usually much more casual with much less of the hardcore stink that pervades most end games. I've yet to get any character in any game past the last 10 levels thanks to puking raiding, ridiculous downtimes or time sinks, faction grinds and all of the other atrocious content that the developers are sadistically throwing at us. I'm awaiting a day when a game comes out that is WoW casual from beginning to the very end. No raids, no faction grinds, no elite loot solely for the no-lifers.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
I find that most devlopers do a poor job of creating mid-level content. Starting content is fun to me because it's so new, and raiding sounds like fun, but I doubt I'll ever get there.
MMO games played or tested: EQ, DAoC, Archlord, Auto Assault, CoH, CoV, EQ2, EVE, Guild Wars, Hellgate: London, Linneage II, LOTRO, MxO, Planetside, SWG, Sword of the New World, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard, WWIIOL, WOW, Age of Conan