I think MMOs needs to offer both solo and group mechanics all they way from start, and also reward harder group content with better rewards. A MMO need to allow you to select the content you like, no matter if it is soloing, group dungeons, raids, PvP or whatever but it should still reward people for socializing with eachother.
Given the elitist nature of most gamers, how often do you think a player below the level cap is going to be invited to join a group once the game matures?
In a mature game, soloing to level cap is often the only available option.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
First of all, I wouldn't call the difference trivial. There is a massive difference between a game where most of the zones feel like ghost towns, and one where basically every zone feels alive. Everyone responds to a feeling that 'there's stuff happening!', and no one wants to play a game that feels like it's dying.
That said, having 80-90% of your playerbase in the same 2-3 zones can be good for those vets that wanna all hang out in the same place every day. However, it limits exploration, and more importantly it puts newer players at a massive dissadvantage. WoW is an excellent example of this. If you were to go back and make a brand new character (take it all the way back to stormwind, or orgrimmar, or w/e), go back and lvl in the barrens. And feel how barren that place is now. It loses a lot of the fun factor. It's fun to do a bunch of quests with others. It's not to be doing chores (quests) alone, and with noone around to talk to. You're assuming that 'everyone hits max level eventually', but ignoring the fact that newer players have to actually get there first (just to experience the same game as most of the other players are doing), and probably won't know the fastest way to do it. Meaning they are far more likely to give up and say 'this is not very fun'.
This is where games like GW2 show contrast in this genre. There's a lot more incentive for players to go back to lower-lvl zones, to actually help out newer players than there are in games like WoW. So instead of newer players feeling abandoned, they feel nurtured by the community. It becomes less of a case of 'get on my lvl nub', and more of a case of 'oh, I've done what you're doing before, here let me help you!'. And it happens a lot. This is both good for those at endgame AND newer players, because it supports new people in the game, which makes it much more likely they are actually going to make it through those levels to be there for your dungeon run.
Keep inmind, WoW has a crapton of players, but it is the except to the rule. It's managed to hold onto it's playerbase for some time, and isn't really attracting many new faces. But it's doing a good job of holding on to the old ones. For other games this is much less viable, and they need to attract newer players to survive.
The situation isn't disadvantageous to a new player at all. In fact, it's advantageous for me to solo level in a zone by myself where there's no competition for quest items.
The Barrens are supposed to be barren. That's why they're called The Barrens! (But seriously it just doesn't matter if there aren't many other players visible while questing. You do it once, it's quick, and you're done and now you can be with the 80-90% of players in those endgame zones and there are players all over the place!)
Leveling players aren't missing out on the game. Which is why I made a point to say gameplay quality matters. You're not somehow magically not playing the game while leveling -- you're playing it and if it's fun it's fun (and if the quality is there, it'll be fun!) So the sense that they're having less fun is unrelated to whether they're seeing other players or not.
WOW attracting fewer new players nowadays is more about their having exhausted user acquisition (UA) channels, having been a live game for so long. That's just the nature of UA -- eventually the channels burn up and you get fewer new users, and the ad money you do spend inevitably becomes less and less efficient. And while there's never a time that you stop caring about your new player experience, certainly the time it's most important is when you have a high throughput of new users coming through (in which case ghost towns aren't a problem because all zones are populated!)
But since the absolute best thing you can do for your long-term new player experience is to allow solo-questing, again...the problem has already been solved.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The simple fact is most MMOs are set up as two games. The one you level at and the one you play at end game. They are so different that a lot of people have no clue how to play their chars. You say it does not matter when it fact it does ALLOT!!!! Its not elitist thinking. Sure a MMO should have solo content but even that content should encourage you with a carrot to team. This way people start playing the end game from the start. They dont get handed two games. The game is just the game. Progression can still be part of it but from start to end you know what the game is about. This would stop a lot of MMO hopping. Fews days play you would know if you like the end game. Leave or stay.
Yeah I have no problem with a slight encouragement towards group play. That's what I personally prefer. I also prefer small-scale content to raiding.
But that leaves us at "Okay, so soloing is acceptable to have in the game." And at that point there is no "ghost town problem" to be solved.
MMO hopping happens because of boredom and competition. Boredom is inevitable. Competition is good. So part of game-hopping is unavoidable, and the other part is healthy for the game's market, which means that game-hopping is perfectly fine. It's also not a problem to be solved. It's not like we don't have a big obvious elephant in the room showing us what happens when you create a particularly good MMORPG that players don't want to hop away from -- so we know that game-hopping can be limited, if you create a game of high enough quality.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think MMOs needs to offer both solo and group mechanics all they way from start, and also reward harder group content with better rewards. A MMO need to allow you to select the content you like, no matter if it is soloing, group dungeons, raids, PvP or whatever but it should still reward people for socializing with eachother.
Given the elitist nature of most gamers, how often do you think a player below the level cap is going to be invited to join a group once the game matures?
In a mature game, soloing to level cap is often the only available option.
Happens all the times in GW2 for example. But I think stuff like this really is the reason for OP wanting to remove levels and I agree with him there.
I been playing MMOs since Meridian 59 came out and I honestly never had that much problem getting a PUG. Then again have I always worked so I have good gear at any level.
My opinion is that as many players suck who are the max level as below it since it is very easy to get to max.
Heck, when I recruit players to my guild I always try to get new players and teach them the ropes myself (even if I also recruit people I like from PUGs), new players are easier to learn playing the game so it works well in the guild. And I rather have a nice player that plays badly and have crappy gear, we can fix that easily, then someone who is a plain jerk.
To me gear and level only matters when it seriously impacts the groups chanse of survival, I wouldn't want a group of lvl 70 players with lvl 10 gear for example unless I know they play very good. But if the gear is slightly worse than mine but still good enough for us to beat the dungeon then it doesn't matter.
But of course, letting players inspect your character and see everything about them isn't good at all. It encourage people to be jerks. I do like seeing if someone is wearing a sack as jacket and having a sharpened stick for spear though (AoCs noob gear actually looks like that :)but that should be showned in games anyways.
The simple fact is most MMOs are set up as two games. The one you level at and the one you play at end game. They are so different that a lot of people have no clue how to play their chars. You say it does not matter when it fact it does ALLOT!!!! Its not elitist thinking. Sure a MMO should have solo content but even that content should encourage you with a carrot to team. This way people start playing the end game from the start. They dont get handed two games. The game is just the game. Progression can still be part of it but from start to end you know what the game is about. This would stop a lot of MMO hopping. Fews days play you would know if you like the end game. Leave or stay.
Yeah I have no problem with a slight encouragement towards group play. That's what I personally prefer. I also prefer small-scale content to raiding.
But that leaves us at "Okay, so soloing is acceptable to have in the game." And at that point there is no "ghost town problem" to be solved.
MMO hopping happens because of boredom and competition. Boredom is inevitable. Competition is good. So part of game-hopping is unavoidable, and the other part is healthy for the game's market, which means that game-hopping is perfectly fine. It's also not a problem to be solved. It's not like we don't have a big obvious elephant in the room showing us what happens when you create a particularly good MMORPG that players don't want to hop away from -- so we know that game-hopping can be limited, if you create a game of high enough quality.
If game hopping just were about that most people would still find a game eventually and stick with it but now it seems that the game hoppers is actually the majority of players. And most people skip to next game after they maxed out a character so there clearly is some problem here.
Why do people get bored so fast nowadays? That is the big question here, Until 7 or so years ago people spent far longer in their games so something is different now.
I think Nan have a point, the first half of the MMOs have changed a lot but the endgame is more or less still the same. People jump after being done in the first part.
You could make the entire game like the first part, you could make the entire game like the endgame or you could try something new. Those are your choices if you want people to stop getting bored after 3 weeks. My bet is to try something new and having the entire game be more similar.
To make things worst, the majority of the content gets useless and grey after those 3 weeks and that is serious, expecting you to spend years in 25% or even 10% of the games content is a huge waste of resources.
Something have to change, exactly what is up for discussion.
If game hopping just were about that most people would still find a game eventually and stick with it but now it seems that the game hoppers is actually the majority of players. And most people skip to next game after they maxed out a character so there clearly is some problem here.
Why do people get bored so fast nowadays? That is the big question here, Until 7 or so years ago people spent far longer in their games so something is different now.
I think Nan have a point, the first half of the MMOs have changed a lot but the endgame is more or less still the same. People jump after being done in the first part.
You could make the entire game like the first part, you could make the entire game like the endgame or you could try something new. Those are your choices if you want people to stop getting bored after 3 weeks. My bet is to try something new and having the entire game be more similar.
To make things worst, the majority of the content gets useless and grey after those 3 weeks and that is serious, expecting you to spend years in 25% or even 10% of the games content is a huge waste of resources.
Something have to change, exactly what is up for discussion.
It's not a new thing. So the question of why they're getting bored faster nowadays isn't really appropriate. They're getting bored as fast as they ever did. They're becoming bored of old entertainment and seeking new entertainment as fast as they ever have.
You may have only recently become aware this is a pattern, but it's always been there even from early games. It's not completely unchanged and things like the prevalence of free games have changed the overall trend. But if you just look at people playing paid games and switching between those? Yeah, same amount as it always was.
Mourning PVE's content issues seems odd, given that the nature of PVE content is that it gets burned up. Which leaves you with whatever portion you haven't played yet. Same as it always was -- surely you don't think that games making you grind the same mobs 100x longer actually had a better content setup than modern MMORPGs.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
This little game called Everquest did this 16 years ago. It put in very high level mobs in starter type zones even. Zones had HUGE level ranges. Some dungeons you could only complete in sections because of levels. By having some of the huge level ranges it encouraged high level players to help lowbies (SPECS TO DOCK! SAND GIANTS to docks, watch out!!). It also fostered community.
If game hopping just were about that most people would still find a game eventually and stick with it but now it seems that the game hoppers is actually the majority of players. And most people skip to next game after they maxed out a character so there clearly is some problem here.
Why do people get bored so fast nowadays? That is the big question here, Until 7 or so years ago people spent far longer in their games so something is different now.
I think Nan have a point, the first half of the MMOs have changed a lot but the endgame is more or less still the same. People jump after being done in the first part.
You could make the entire game like the first part, you could make the entire game like the endgame or you could try something new. Those are your choices if you want people to stop getting bored after 3 weeks. My bet is to try something new and having the entire game be more similar.
To make things worst, the majority of the content gets useless and grey after those 3 weeks and that is serious, expecting you to spend years in 25% or even 10% of the games content is a huge waste of resources.
Something have to change, exactly what is up for discussion.
It's not a new thing. So the question of why they're getting bored faster nowadays isn't really appropriate. They're getting bored as fast as they ever did. They're becoming bored of old entertainment and seeking new entertainment as fast as they ever have.
You may have only recently become aware this is a pattern, but it's always been there even from early games. It's not completely unchanged and things like the prevalence of free games have changed the overall trend. But if you just look at people playing paid games and switching between those? Yeah, same amount as it always was.
Mourning PVE's content issues seems odd, given that the nature of PVE content is that it gets burned up. Which leaves you with whatever portion you haven't played yet. Same as it always was -- surely you don't think that games making you grind the same mobs 100x longer actually had a better content setup than modern MMORPGs.
I am one of the people who do think it was a better way to do things. I realize most people seem to like to be led around, told where to go, and given instructions how to do it, all while have no resistance or encouragement to group. While the old methods may seem primitive without quests the setup actually worked really well. It encouraged meeting up with other people and exploring since you didn't have to worry about being on the same quest. Everything was segregated into different forms of games like here you do PvE solo, here you do PvE group, here you do PvE raid, here you do PvP esports. It was just one big world and you found things to do. Most involved random encounters with other people while exploring. The world actually felt more alive because you saw people running around doing things in large groups weather it was trading by word of mouth, going to kill monsters and sell the loot, forming up for dungeons, or crafting. I remember each town in EQ felt alive because there were always real people running around the town. It was a much more enjoyable experience to me then having a bunch of NPCs with ! that I can follow around for the whole game.
This little game called Everquest did this 16 years ago. It put in very high level mobs in starter type zones even. Zones had HUGE level ranges. Some dungeons you could only complete in sections because of levels. By having some of the huge level ranges it encouraged high level players to help lowbies (SPECS TO DOCK! SAND GIANTS to docks, watch out!!). It also fostered community.
Ya I already mentioned that as well as the problems removing levels has on a progression that provide players with the incentive to play, but they are off on all kinds of rabbit trails arguing details.
Originally posted by Dullahan
Remove levels and you end up losing much of the progression that make the mmorpg appealing. Whether you have a character level, or just a skill level, content in a game must be progressive to provide short term and long term goals/rewards for playing the game.
EQ did it right when they mixed high and low level mobs in zones. They also had more content, rare spawns, slower progression and quests spread throughout the world that took even high levels back through low level zones. Also, no instant travel so even high level players often ended up passing through newbie and mid level areas.
I am one of the people who do think it was a better way to do things. I realize most people seem to like to be led around, told where to go, and given instructions how to do it, all while have no resistance or encouragement to group. While the old methods may seem primitive without quests the setup actually worked really well. It encouraged meeting up with other people and exploring since you didn't have to worry about being on the same quest. Everything was segregated into different forms of games like here you do PvE solo, here you do PvE group, here you do PvE raid, here you do PvP esports. It was just one big world and you found things to do. Most involved random encounters with other people while exploring. The world actually felt more alive because you saw people running around doing things in large groups weather it was trading by word of mouth, going to kill monsters and sell the loot, forming up for dungeons, or crafting. I remember each town in EQ felt alive because there were always real people running around the town. It was a much more enjoyable experience to me then having a bunch of NPCs with ! that I can follow around for the whole game.
Well certainly there's no disagreeing with you if you say your personal tastes prefer the endless repetitive grind of killing 500 of the same mob over and over, compared with the gameplay variety that exists in modern quest-based games. One might point out how, objectively, the majority of players are subjectively voting with their wallets that they prefer the more varied style of leveling, but we can't dispute with any individual's subjective opinion.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Why do people get bored so fast nowadays? That is the big question here, Until 7 or so years ago people spent far longer in their games so something is different now.
Because there are more games, more competition today. You don't have to stick to a single game if you don't have to. There are few MMOs 10 years ago .. not anymore.
Plus, a lot of them are free for the first part ... so why not hop around and try something new often?
You do not need to take away levels and progression at all. If you want to keep from having game zones turn into ghost towns, all the game developers have to do is add higher level content in low level areas. In my opinion, it makes way more sense to add content in current zones, as opposed to creating brand new zones every time a new content patch is added.
Obviously, I am not suggesting that MMO developers should not add new land/areas into their games. Here are some ideas I have that would increase traffic in low level areas.
1. Adding high level dungeons in every low level area, with no instant portals to reach them. Set up group meet up areas in that particular zone. That way, to join a group, you must head to that main zone city.
2. High level, open world bosses could be added to low level areas. These areas could be used as open world raid bosses. I remember Dark Age of Camelot having high level dragons that required a bunch of players to take down. WOW also has this, as GW2. But instead of being in the high level zones, put them in low level areas.
3. Multi-step quests that span across all zones would be a nice challenge, and keep players interested. This could populate all zones in the game. Racial quests and Class quests are a great storyline for these types of quests. Not to mention, game story quests, like GW2 has.
4. Another idea is to have rare, high level reagents, nodes, and other crafting ingredients in lower level areas. But to harvest these nodes, either the player must be high level or the extraction tools can have levels. For that matter, these crafting nodes could just have separate "crafting level" restrictions, for those who just want to be crafters.
5. Add collection achievements in every zone, including low level areas. If done correctly, players would not be able to complete these collection/kill achievements within the time they are leveling through the zone. So, it could be a great way to bring back high level players into the low zones. Examples are killing rare spawns, finding rare pets, finding rare plants/flowers/tree spawns.
6. Add jumping puzzles in every zone. But add a "jump" skill, where you have to build it up just like other skills. There can be lower level jump puzzles in the zones. But to finish the higher level ones, you need your "jump" skill at top level.
7. Zone events, such as holiday events, season events, monthly events could be added to low level zones. WOW does a good amount of player events that most of the players take part in. When I played WOW, I enjoyed taking part in all the challenges, quests and social aspects of their events.
That is my list. I am sure others could think of some good ideas to add flavor in lower level areas.
There are so many different and interesting ways to keep low level areas populated. I am so surprised that top MMO games do not implement them. It seems like such an easy way of adding good progression into dead areas of the game worlds.
You do not need to take away levels and progression at all. If you want to keep from having game zones turn into ghost towns, all the game developers have to do is add higher level content in low level areas. In my opinion, it makes way more sense to add content in current zones, as opposed to creating brand new zones every time a new content patch is added.
They don't even have to do that.
Just make the zone an instance, and put a difficulty slider on it ... it can be played at all level. Problem solved.
GW2 don't seem to have these problems, and they scale your character's levels up/down according to the zone you enter. This applies to both PvE & PvP/WvW. They reward people for exploring the whole zone, getting all points of interests, skill points, jumping puzzles, etc.. Their design is sound, they reward people properly for doing everything, and naturally people would want to do everything.
Is there a path to least resistance? Of course, somebody somewhere out there may have found ways to powerlevel. But in a game where you don't need to worry about your level as much, I'd say most people don't care about min/maxing the fastest route.
Unfortunately LOOT does not scale at all. But yes, you can experience at least quests in that area. And still you can not at all go to level higher than yours because you are fast dead meat in this case. And last one I have played had this problem "solved" was Oblivion where every rat you encountered at any level leaded to epic fight. :-)
Comments
Given the elitist nature of most gamers, how often do you think a player below the level cap is going to be invited to join a group once the game matures?
In a mature game, soloing to level cap is often the only available option.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
The situation isn't disadvantageous to a new player at all. In fact, it's advantageous for me to solo level in a zone by myself where there's no competition for quest items.
The Barrens are supposed to be barren. That's why they're called The Barrens! (But seriously it just doesn't matter if there aren't many other players visible while questing. You do it once, it's quick, and you're done and now you can be with the 80-90% of players in those endgame zones and there are players all over the place!)
Leveling players aren't missing out on the game. Which is why I made a point to say gameplay quality matters. You're not somehow magically not playing the game while leveling -- you're playing it and if it's fun it's fun (and if the quality is there, it'll be fun!) So the sense that they're having less fun is unrelated to whether they're seeing other players or not.
WOW attracting fewer new players nowadays is more about their having exhausted user acquisition (UA) channels, having been a live game for so long. That's just the nature of UA -- eventually the channels burn up and you get fewer new users, and the ad money you do spend inevitably becomes less and less efficient. And while there's never a time that you stop caring about your new player experience, certainly the time it's most important is when you have a high throughput of new users coming through (in which case ghost towns aren't a problem because all zones are populated!)
But since the absolute best thing you can do for your long-term new player experience is to allow solo-questing, again...the problem has already been solved.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yeah I have no problem with a slight encouragement towards group play. That's what I personally prefer. I also prefer small-scale content to raiding.
But that leaves us at "Okay, so soloing is acceptable to have in the game." And at that point there is no "ghost town problem" to be solved.
MMO hopping happens because of boredom and competition. Boredom is inevitable. Competition is good. So part of game-hopping is unavoidable, and the other part is healthy for the game's market, which means that game-hopping is perfectly fine. It's also not a problem to be solved. It's not like we don't have a big obvious elephant in the room showing us what happens when you create a particularly good MMORPG that players don't want to hop away from -- so we know that game-hopping can be limited, if you create a game of high enough quality.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Happens all the times in GW2 for example. But I think stuff like this really is the reason for OP wanting to remove levels and I agree with him there.
I been playing MMOs since Meridian 59 came out and I honestly never had that much problem getting a PUG. Then again have I always worked so I have good gear at any level.
My opinion is that as many players suck who are the max level as below it since it is very easy to get to max.
Heck, when I recruit players to my guild I always try to get new players and teach them the ropes myself (even if I also recruit people I like from PUGs), new players are easier to learn playing the game so it works well in the guild. And I rather have a nice player that plays badly and have crappy gear, we can fix that easily, then someone who is a plain jerk.
To me gear and level only matters when it seriously impacts the groups chanse of survival, I wouldn't want a group of lvl 70 players with lvl 10 gear for example unless I know they play very good. But if the gear is slightly worse than mine but still good enough for us to beat the dungeon then it doesn't matter.
But of course, letting players inspect your character and see everything about them isn't good at all. It encourage people to be jerks. I do like seeing if someone is wearing a sack as jacket and having a sharpened stick for spear though (AoCs noob gear actually looks like that :)but that should be showned in games anyways.
If game hopping just were about that most people would still find a game eventually and stick with it but now it seems that the game hoppers is actually the majority of players. And most people skip to next game after they maxed out a character so there clearly is some problem here.
Why do people get bored so fast nowadays? That is the big question here, Until 7 or so years ago people spent far longer in their games so something is different now.
I think Nan have a point, the first half of the MMOs have changed a lot but the endgame is more or less still the same. People jump after being done in the first part.
You could make the entire game like the first part, you could make the entire game like the endgame or you could try something new. Those are your choices if you want people to stop getting bored after 3 weeks. My bet is to try something new and having the entire game be more similar.
To make things worst, the majority of the content gets useless and grey after those 3 weeks and that is serious, expecting you to spend years in 25% or even 10% of the games content is a huge waste of resources.
Something have to change, exactly what is up for discussion.
It's not a new thing. So the question of why they're getting bored faster nowadays isn't really appropriate. They're getting bored as fast as they ever did. They're becoming bored of old entertainment and seeking new entertainment as fast as they ever have.
You may have only recently become aware this is a pattern, but it's always been there even from early games. It's not completely unchanged and things like the prevalence of free games have changed the overall trend. But if you just look at people playing paid games and switching between those? Yeah, same amount as it always was.
Mourning PVE's content issues seems odd, given that the nature of PVE content is that it gets burned up. Which leaves you with whatever portion you haven't played yet. Same as it always was -- surely you don't think that games making you grind the same mobs 100x longer actually had a better content setup than modern MMORPGs.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
OP:
This little game called Everquest did this 16 years ago. It put in very high level mobs in starter type zones even. Zones had HUGE level ranges. Some dungeons you could only complete in sections because of levels. By having some of the huge level ranges it encouraged high level players to help lowbies (SPECS TO DOCK! SAND GIANTS to docks, watch out!!). It also fostered community.
I am one of the people who do think it was a better way to do things. I realize most people seem to like to be led around, told where to go, and given instructions how to do it, all while have no resistance or encouragement to group. While the old methods may seem primitive without quests the setup actually worked really well. It encouraged meeting up with other people and exploring since you didn't have to worry about being on the same quest. Everything was segregated into different forms of games like here you do PvE solo, here you do PvE group, here you do PvE raid, here you do PvP esports. It was just one big world and you found things to do. Most involved random encounters with other people while exploring. The world actually felt more alive because you saw people running around doing things in large groups weather it was trading by word of mouth, going to kill monsters and sell the loot, forming up for dungeons, or crafting. I remember each town in EQ felt alive because there were always real people running around the town. It was a much more enjoyable experience to me then having a bunch of NPCs with ! that I can follow around for the whole game.
Ya I already mentioned that as well as the problems removing levels has on a progression that provide players with the incentive to play, but they are off on all kinds of rabbit trails arguing details.
Well certainly there's no disagreeing with you if you say your personal tastes prefer the endless repetitive grind of killing 500 of the same mob over and over, compared with the gameplay variety that exists in modern quest-based games. One might point out how, objectively, the majority of players are subjectively voting with their wallets that they prefer the more varied style of leveling, but we can't dispute with any individual's subjective opinion.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Because there are more games, more competition today. You don't have to stick to a single game if you don't have to. There are few MMOs 10 years ago .. not anymore.
Plus, a lot of them are free for the first part ... so why not hop around and try something new often?
You do not need to take away levels and progression at all. If you want to keep from having game zones turn into ghost towns, all the game developers have to do is add higher level content in low level areas. In my opinion, it makes way more sense to add content in current zones, as opposed to creating brand new zones every time a new content patch is added.
Obviously, I am not suggesting that MMO developers should not add new land/areas into their games. Here are some ideas I have that would increase traffic in low level areas.
1. Adding high level dungeons in every low level area, with no instant portals to reach them. Set up group meet up areas in that particular zone. That way, to join a group, you must head to that main zone city.
2. High level, open world bosses could be added to low level areas. These areas could be used as open world raid bosses. I remember Dark Age of Camelot having high level dragons that required a bunch of players to take down. WOW also has this, as GW2. But instead of being in the high level zones, put them in low level areas.
3. Multi-step quests that span across all zones would be a nice challenge, and keep players interested. This could populate all zones in the game. Racial quests and Class quests are a great storyline for these types of quests. Not to mention, game story quests, like GW2 has.
4. Another idea is to have rare, high level reagents, nodes, and other crafting ingredients in lower level areas. But to harvest these nodes, either the player must be high level or the extraction tools can have levels. For that matter, these crafting nodes could just have separate "crafting level" restrictions, for those who just want to be crafters.
5. Add collection achievements in every zone, including low level areas. If done correctly, players would not be able to complete these collection/kill achievements within the time they are leveling through the zone. So, it could be a great way to bring back high level players into the low zones. Examples are killing rare spawns, finding rare pets, finding rare plants/flowers/tree spawns.
6. Add jumping puzzles in every zone. But add a "jump" skill, where you have to build it up just like other skills. There can be lower level jump puzzles in the zones. But to finish the higher level ones, you need your "jump" skill at top level.
7. Zone events, such as holiday events, season events, monthly events could be added to low level zones. WOW does a good amount of player events that most of the players take part in. When I played WOW, I enjoyed taking part in all the challenges, quests and social aspects of their events.
That is my list. I am sure others could think of some good ideas to add flavor in lower level areas.
There are so many different and interesting ways to keep low level areas populated. I am so surprised that top MMO games do not implement them. It seems like such an easy way of adding good progression into dead areas of the game worlds.
They don't even have to do that.
Just make the zone an instance, and put a difficulty slider on it ... it can be played at all level. Problem solved.
Unfortunately LOOT does not scale at all. But yes, you can experience at least quests in that area. And still you can not at all go to level higher than yours because you are fast dead meat in this case. And last one I have played had this problem "solved" was Oblivion where every rat you encountered at any level leaded to epic fight. :-)