The riddiculousness of this thread is hardly increaseable. This thread is based on the assumption that all MMOs are like WoW where the endgame is all that matters and the rest is just an annoying obstacle for reaching endgame. Now I like raiding, but this is absurd. Raiding should be just one of the many elements a good MMO would provide. Personally I dont even understand why raiding doesnt start much earlier than maxlevel. For example, in Lineage 2, you get first mini-bosses around something like level 20 onward. I consider this the natural solution. I dont understand why games like WoW or VSoH dont offer lower level raid bosses.
SW:TOR provides 8 starter classes, each with a unique, about 200 hour long (on average, powergamers who just want to get another maxlevel char can of course find shortcuts) story to it. Meaning about 8x200 = 1600 hours of solid, high, Bioware quality storytelling. And I am NOT aware that anyone at Bioware claimed that after this 200 hours of class story you would be maxlevel. Its just the length of your class story. Also, they have stated you dont NEED to do it. You can skip it and level, for example, on PvP instead.
So yeah, the basic assumptions of this thread is completely idiotic. Again, I love raiding, but I wouldnt want to play a game that offers nothing but raiding. Raiding should be something special that you do at the weekends, when you have a lot of time. During the week, normal grouping, soloplay, crafting, socializing etc should happen.
I'm trying to figure out if this is serious or a troll thread. OP would have never made it in EQ when it took half a year to almost a year to hit max level in the orginal. and hell levels would have made him tear his hair out. i really kinda hope this is a troll thread.
Reading this, I seriously am sad about not playing EQ back then..
This is the kind of attitude im talking about. This "gap" between our perceptions of reality.
Thinking it's fun and reasonable to spend a HUGE amount of time grinding mobs, doing repetitive quests... I don't "get it"
In all seriousness, what about real life? Work, or study, or relationships? This isn't a troll question it's an issue facing every single human—gamer or otherwise—on the planet
Are you really going to want to put 15 full days into an MMO to hit the cap (Im using the WoW archetype as an example, because we all know it's ridiculously end-game heavy in terms of incentives/content) if you work or study in a field you at least think is ok (and hopefully love or enjoy)?
What about real life? Real life continues. It goes on. You play for an hour here, an hour there. Maybe you play more here and there. What does real life have to do with it?
Instead of playing one game for a month or two, then playing the next game for a month or two, and the next - and the next and the next - so that you've played 10-20 or more games in the past few years... imagine playing one game?
This would be fine if the one game was "good" and kept you entertained throughout the mid-levels.
As it is now, the middle of WoW is absolute garbage and as you say, people just "race" through it because they know the "fun" and content is at the end game. I should probobly edit the original post to clarify this.
not sure what there is to get. why do you have to reach max level in a month, back then it wasnt about reaching the top the fastest we had fun exploring new zones new mobs to kill new items to craft. what about relationships, and work and such, i went to work, i went out with with friends i had dates with my gf the game didnt stop me from doing this. since i feel that games start at level 1 and not at max cap then its fine to take time to have fun group up or solo. the dragon or orge magi or beholder at the bottom of the dungeon isnt going anywhere (even though that would be awesome it they did). each time a new level or back in the day each 4 levels when new pets and spells became available it meant to theories to test out, new ways to play, more interesting dungeons to goto. i know this is going on alittle bit but whats the rush seriously?
edit: btw saying that the fun is only at the end is kinda sad for games nowadays i dont want to put off having "fun" for a month to finally start having fun, i usally want to have fun from day 1
This would be fine if the one game was "good" and kept you entertained throughout the mid-levels.
As it is now, the middle of WoW is absolute garbage and as you say, people just "race" through it because they know the "fun" and content is at the end game. I should probobly edit the original post to clarify this.
Oh, no doubt if the game were like WoW now - it would not be the same as it was back in Vanilla. I played more during Vanilla than I did at any point after BC. I only took a single toon to 60 in Vanilla. I had three to four 70s in BC - even though I played much less than I did in Vanilla. I had five or so 80s, couple of 70s, couple of 60s, and a few 30-40s in LK - even though I played much less than I did in BC. I only took a single toon to 85 in Cata...I quit the first week.
There is no way that I would have played Vanilla as long as I did if it were like Cata.
I thoroughly enjoyed Vanilla. I enjoyed BC a little less. I enjoyed LK a little less. I kicked myself for buying Cata.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
SW:TOR provides 8 starter classes, each with a unique, about 200 hour long (on average, powergamers who just want to get another maxlevel char can of course find shortcuts) story to it. Meaning about 8x200 = 1600 hours of solid, high, Bioware quality storytelling. And I am NOT aware that anyone at Bioware claimed that after this 200 hours of class story you would be maxlevel. Its just the length of your class story. Also, they have stated you dont NEED to do it. You can skip it and level, for example, on PvP instead.
Please, lets stop this nonsense,
Of those 200 hours, around 180/190 of them is shared content between each class of the same faction.
Yes each class has unique story quests, but you have to go through the same non-class quests (if you want to lvl up with quests) with every character of the same faction.
SWTOR will tank hard and this is one of the reasons, naive people expecting 1600 hours of unique content.
"Thinking it's fun and reasonable to spend a HUGE amount of time grinding mobs, doing repetitive quests... I don't "get it""
People are different. That's all.
If players who want to get to "endgame" quicker have an option for 5x exp or even go directly to max level then everyone gets what they want.
Variable XP gain is something that I've wondered about for a few years.
This is a fictional example of what I've seen happen in games:
Original Game. It takes a certain amount of time to reach max level.
First Expansion. There is an increased level cap. In order to facilitate players new to the game being able to play with older players, the XP gain is increased. It is faster to level.
Second Expansion. Again, there is an increased level cap. Once more in order to facilitate players new to the game being able to play with older players, the XP gain is increased. It is even faster to level.
Alt-Itis is really taking form. The XP gain is increased again. It is that much faster to level.
Third Expansion. Oh boy, we're cooking now!
But the example does not stop there. Along comes a new game. This new game wants to attract players from that other game. Those players from the other game have been playing with an increased XP gain for years now. What happens in the new game? It's a pretty damn fast XP gain.
How could this have been avoided?
Friends - there could have been codes to allow friends new to the game to level faster so they could play with those that have been playing longer.
Alt-Itis - max level a toon, then you could have the option for faster XP gain on your alts.
Expansions - xpac toons, they start at a higher level.
It could have been possible to satisfy both camps... instead of... well... yeah, anyway.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
todays MMO are nothing but grinding mobs and boring quests. then you max out in month do your raiding and quit to the next game to do it again, yeah that sounds fun. instead of having 1 game where i can really work on a character i would spend on money on 4 to 5 subs plus the box price and possible dlc? that doesnt sounds crazy.
I really loathe todays games where you handing so much stuff the gimme it now kinda attitude doesnt really work for MMO's playwise just business wise. you dont sit at a piano and master it in one day, you dont get your black belt in a month, your not signing a professional contract with a football the day you up the ball, and like this your level 1 shouldnt be master of its class in a month its just silly. i agree that the journey needs to be worked on more to make it more interest but how it is now is not the answer.
If a game wants to boast unique player experience, they should put most of the game in control of the player. People who play EVE love how much of the universe they can lay claim to. Corporations, territory wars, and player-owned colonies, etc. Unscripted gameplay is the key to a unique player experience. When they say that there are huge, lengthy story-driven quests and environments, I puke a little.
Some people say they have fun leveling, but that's not always completely accurate. Obtaining spells, seeing your character grow, and light shooting out of every orifice of their body when they level is fun, probably not the actual grind. I favour the level-less design, and I don't mean the "Your one-handed sword skill is now level 2" model. But even then, there has to be a concept of progression which is why so many people like seeing numbers.
You misunderstand me. Im the kind of person who comes from skill based games like Starcraft 2 and Quake live, CnC 3,
This is where the disconnect happens. The games you listed are very "instant action" and not inline with typical rpg elements like character progression, Story and general character grooming.. (yes im a purist ) "Popluar" games like CoD or Starcraft seem to be drawing people of this playstyle into the gene and slowly changing it.
this is a ridiculous amount of time to spend reaching level cap
Thats your mindset. just enjoy the journey, Take pride in building your character. Then again this isnt rewarded very much anymore.
Likewise, sandboxes don't function this way so it doesnt have to be that way.
"why do I have to spend so long doing boring things like kill 10000 mobs, return to questgiver before I get the fun stuff?"
Why does link always have to save zelda? why does mario have to save the princess? the "quests" are what give the story depth and direction. Granted story and quests in mmorpgs are generally medicore.
But ill take reference from WoW now, The black temple attunment questline was pretty enjoyable, provides story which makes you understand why your doing what your doing, and you come away with a sense of accomplishment.. That was removed in favor of faster progression. is that not the kind of quests everyone wants?
Thinking it's fun and reasonable to spend a HUGE amount of time grinding mobs, doing repetitive quests... I don't "get it"
But its perfectly acceptable to grind gear till eternity or farm players in instanced "slaughter houses" for kills?
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
first point, Skyrim. promises over 300hrs of gameplay plus no monthley fee.
Immaterial. One number refers to the time it takes to get to the fun (hours of fun not included in that figure) and theother refers to amount of total fun in the game.
second point, give that a year of the cry babies saying its to hard and it will go down to around 12hrs to cap.
Example?
3rd point...back in the day (i'm not that old) I played an MMO to live in a world, and that should offer more then a month of off and on gameplay.
That is part of the OP's point.
4th point....uhmm.....yeah!
:HI5:
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I can't honestly understand why some people find it so much fun doing the same 2-3 raids months on end to get those epic pixels which will be obeselete anyway when the next ex-pack hits the shelves.
This whole arguement over how long it should take to reach the end game is really just another take on the long running debate over forced grouping mechanics. The debate is really over what percentage of game should be solo'ed and what should grouped.
Looking back 7 years ago to pre-WoW mmo days the big arguement was how much forced grouping should a MMO have. In old school MMOs you could not get very far if you did not group or join up with social guilds. Maybe solo content ended at level 20 or level 30 and then you had group / raid your way to a level 50 or 60 cap. In the post WoW era it became no longer acceptable to force players to group to reach the level cap. End game became the ONLY place where forced grouping mechanics became acceptable. The thing is WoW fooled the players because it is actually one of the most grindy games ever made. Instead of grinding out levels they are grinding out gear score. Players don't even ask whay level you are anymore because they assume you are capped and only care about gear score. Things are coming full circle now though.
Problem with the new MMORPG are that they don't have the freedom to explore or live in the world, be your class or whatever the charecter is. There is nothing that makes you care about your character. It's just someone you use to kill monsters after monster with for xp and gold.
Now we just pay every month for a new level like if it was some single player game. Expansion after expansion, just a new level cap and some new boss to kill over and over again.
We have factions, but nothing happens when we fight. The world is still the same. So after some time it's pointless to even care about world pvp or attacking a base.... you can't take it anyway... npc will respawn after 2 min...
We can craft in most games, but we can't have our own store. We just craft and go to AH and sell it.
I remember in SWG there was people being engineers almost 24/7, you could visit his/her shop and they where there talking back to you. Not just pages of text like the AH is. It was more real.
We had people that was hunters (hunting animals for skin) and worked for someone that had a store. It was more like irl in a way.
Even Jedi was more real... today you can be one from start. Just pick a name and boom you are now a Jedi. Everything that makes them special is gone. Now they are just like any other class.
We could have our own house.
The old MMORPG are gone. And people working on the new ones don't seem to care or even know how to make a MMORPG. They all look at WoW and think they can have same future... and players suggestions in Beta testing being ignored.
I mean how many times have the players been asking for housing? 100000 billion times. How many times have they been asking for OPEN WORLDS? 1000000000 billion times. And so on.
Devs have it all infront of them but they just ignore...
This whole arguement over how long it should take to reach the end game is really just another take on the long running debate over forced grouping mechanics. The debate is really over what percentage of game should be solo'ed and what should grouped.
Looking back 7 years ago to pre-WoW mmo days the big arguement was how much forced grouping should a MMO have. In old school MMOs you could not get very far if you did not group or join up with social guilds. Maybe solo content ended at level 20 or level 30 and then you had group / raid your way to a level 50 or 60 cap.
If we are only talking about EQ/WOW-style MMOs then you are correct. If we are talking about MMOs in general then it's worth noting that many of the successful MMOs pre-WOW had extensive solo play for the progression aspect because the social and interaction part was the 'grouping' gameplay. Also, many of them did not have levels. .
There's more to MMOs than level-based class-restricted fantasy games.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Oh this tickles my funny bone... TLDR: Capped progression is pointless progression.
Of course ANY amount of time is too long when the leveling is capped. Its a pointless timesink and it amazes me that so many game developers think that capped leveling is such a good idea...
Leveling and gear farming is basicly progression right?
So everyone starts out on equal footing and then as they level up they progress at a pace relative to how much time they spend on the game and how good they manage, time and effort, so far so good... then eventually everyone hits max at which point everyone is suddenly on equal footing again, wait what? Leveling is supposed to be progression, so why do we all end up right back where we started? Because then another kind of progression sets in! Gear progression! and it...erhm eventually also caps out until new content is added... Instead of making progression about what its supposed to be about namely as i mentioned time and effort.
Capped progression is pointless progression and the devs of any ol' crap title can keep watering it up to satisfy the whining and moaning of the masses so eventually we end up at a point where the games have less progression than your average shooter and the RPG part of MMORPG is finally flogged to death and murdered by a thousand whiney little pricks who dont know good game design if you hit them over the head hit with it. RANT OVER.
Guild wars 2's philosophy appeals to me—ill definately buy that game. Guild wars 1 looks great, but the whole "click to move" system doesn't appeal to me so I never bought it.
I voted I wanted it to take longer....I played EQ and UO for like 6-8 years each total time (1-2 breaks for each game). I find most newer mmos to be shallow and boring, last one I did was Rift and it was too railed, harvesting/crafting were subpar, and the world was way too small imo....
Last 'newer' mmo I really liked was Vanguard.
I get tired of questing, if grinding was on par for exp, I would probably just go explore and grind, but games seem to be all about questing and instances now...I miss the mmo in my mmorpgs.
Guild wars 2's philosophy appeals to me—ill definately buy that game. Guild wars 1 looks great, but the whole "click to move" system doesn't appeal to me so I never bought it.
There is solid WSAD movement in GW. Try it out!
I am not sure I would call it solid (Mostly because you can't jump) but it is good enough and works. First time I played it was after a Diablo round so I clicked to move, then I took a break to play EQ2 and after (and during it) I use WASD.
1st this is a discussing about leveling speed dont bring the group/solo arguement in here its not wanted.
2nd alternative advancement and crafting kinda made the capped level progression fun again. its true that everyone would eventually cap and be even again but with aa's or being a master crafter you could distinguish yourself and be ahead of the newly capped.
I am not so sure that MMOs needs levelcaps or even levels at all. I think MMOs need to take a long look on how they handle experience and character development, it is one of the genres weakest points.
But 10 days of character development followed by 2 years of grinding gear makes no sense whatsoever.
I am not sure if they made it like this because the games today focus so much more on gear or why, but the end level dungeons and raids are maximum 10% of the game and spending 98% of the time in 10% of the content is just insane.
6 months leveling and 18 grinding gear would be better, but I myself would prefer longer time leveling up than gearing up.
2nd alternative advancement and crafting kinda made the capped level progression fun again. its true that everyone would eventually cap and be even again but with aa's or being a master crafter you could distinguish yourself and be ahead of the newly capped.
Yeah, it do work but I wonder if it wouldn't work better to have no levels whatsoever and instead put a lot of more work into AAs.
AAs are in many ways more interesting than levels, here you select how you get better by yourself nstead of a pre generated level up and you can have say 250 AA and thousands of things from attack power and HP to cool skills and abilities.
With a good enough AA system you don't even need classes, you choose that while you specc.
For me,once you hit level cap, the game is over. Unless you have extra stuff to do, like crafting or AA, then your still advancing your character somehow. I don't care about epic gear, so don't really work for end-game gear in most mmorpgs. I usually am not rushing thru the game, to level it as fast as possible.
========================== The game is dead not, this game is good we make it and Romania Tv give it 5 goat heads, this is good rating for game.
Thing is, what I want is *NOT* a wow-like game where the (less than) 15 played days is 150 played days.
If all you are doing is padding out the levels with grind then the amount of content is the same only slower -- I dont think many of us want that.
When I played the original WoW at release I was having fun while levelling then I ran out of content // could see the end -- no more landmasses etc when I was around level 57. At that point I knew the game was over. What I thought was WoW needed about 8 more landmasses the size of the first two -- AT LAUNCH.
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The other thing games start to do is transition into the manditory group gear grind BEFORE you reach the final level. As you start running out of level, the item drops start to stink. While you could find very good and useful gear at half of the level cap solo... You reach the level cap - 5 and find the drops all are horrid outside of group dungeons.
To maximize the gear grind they have to give you as low an entry point as they can manage when you first cap....
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Then there is ARTIFICIAL grinding ... which is even worse...
The first example of this really was Warhammer Wards. You NEEDED greater wards or you were of no use. It did not matter if the equipment was *WORSE* than your old equipment or took your character in different directions than you wanted (IE the ward gear had 40 endurance and no strength while your old gear had 10 endurance and 30 strength -- well you have no choice -- you MUST have the wards).
This pinacled in Rift where you could have all the block in the world and be very happy with your valor gear in every slot to maximize such -- but then you need toughness. It doesnt matter if the toughness gear had no block at all.... You were REQUIRED to have toughness or you were worthless.
This allows games to further restrict how you play your character down to a complete cookie-cutter. They know if you are doing tier 5 content you are using tier 3 or 4 armor which might only come in a single flavor. They do not have to worry that you stacked some stat or another that might be alien to their conception of your class -- you are forced to be what they want you to be.
That is the worst -- as you start to move through the endgame content you have less and less control over your character. You will take this skillset only and wear these armors only or you will not get a group or even if you do you will be utterly ineffective. There is no choice -- and everything is balanced that you will be exactly what they want you to be.
first point, Skyrim. promises over 300hrs of gameplay plus no monthley fee.
Immaterial. One number refers to the time it takes to get to the fun (hours of fun not included in that figure) and theother refers to amount of total fun in the game.
Thats a matter of opinion, if you like endless grinding in a few dungions untill the next exp. pack comes out, you are correct. Also, (taken from my Oblivion experience) I probably got 1000hrs out of Oblivion. But my point still sits the same, 200 hrs is nothing in a real MMO.
second point, give that a year of the cry babies saying its to hard and it will go down to around 12hrs to cap.
Example?
Talke to any of the vetrans of these MMO's, and they will tell you its gotten easier over time.
WoW.
FFXI
EQ
just to start with.
3rd point...back in the day (i'm not that old) I played an MMO to live in a world, and that should offer more then a month of off and on gameplay.
That is part of the OP's point.
Maybe I missunderstood, I had understood him to say that 200hrs to cap was alot....and I was saying it was a drop in the bucket.
Comments
The riddiculousness of this thread is hardly increaseable. This thread is based on the assumption that all MMOs are like WoW where the endgame is all that matters and the rest is just an annoying obstacle for reaching endgame. Now I like raiding, but this is absurd. Raiding should be just one of the many elements a good MMO would provide. Personally I dont even understand why raiding doesnt start much earlier than maxlevel. For example, in Lineage 2, you get first mini-bosses around something like level 20 onward. I consider this the natural solution. I dont understand why games like WoW or VSoH dont offer lower level raid bosses.
SW:TOR provides 8 starter classes, each with a unique, about 200 hour long (on average, powergamers who just want to get another maxlevel char can of course find shortcuts) story to it. Meaning about 8x200 = 1600 hours of solid, high, Bioware quality storytelling. And I am NOT aware that anyone at Bioware claimed that after this 200 hours of class story you would be maxlevel. Its just the length of your class story. Also, they have stated you dont NEED to do it. You can skip it and level, for example, on PvP instead.
So yeah, the basic assumptions of this thread is completely idiotic. Again, I love raiding, but I wouldnt want to play a game that offers nothing but raiding. Raiding should be something special that you do at the weekends, when you have a lot of time. During the week, normal grouping, soloplay, crafting, socializing etc should happen.
This would be fine if the one game was "good" and kept you entertained throughout the mid-levels.
As it is now, the middle of WoW is absolute garbage and as you say, people just "race" through it because they know the "fun" and content is at the end game. I should probobly edit the original post to clarify this.
not sure what there is to get. why do you have to reach max level in a month, back then it wasnt about reaching the top the fastest we had fun exploring new zones new mobs to kill new items to craft. what about relationships, and work and such, i went to work, i went out with with friends i had dates with my gf the game didnt stop me from doing this. since i feel that games start at level 1 and not at max cap then its fine to take time to have fun group up or solo. the dragon or orge magi or beholder at the bottom of the dungeon isnt going anywhere (even though that would be awesome it they did). each time a new level or back in the day each 4 levels when new pets and spells became available it meant to theories to test out, new ways to play, more interesting dungeons to goto. i know this is going on alittle bit but whats the rush seriously?
edit: btw saying that the fun is only at the end is kinda sad for games nowadays i dont want to put off having "fun" for a month to finally start having fun, i usally want to have fun from day 1
Oh, no doubt if the game were like WoW now - it would not be the same as it was back in Vanilla. I played more during Vanilla than I did at any point after BC. I only took a single toon to 60 in Vanilla. I had three to four 70s in BC - even though I played much less than I did in Vanilla. I had five or so 80s, couple of 70s, couple of 60s, and a few 30-40s in LK - even though I played much less than I did in BC. I only took a single toon to 85 in Cata...I quit the first week.
There is no way that I would have played Vanilla as long as I did if it were like Cata.
I thoroughly enjoyed Vanilla. I enjoyed BC a little less. I enjoyed LK a little less. I kicked myself for buying Cata.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
"Thinking it's fun and reasonable to spend a HUGE amount of time grinding mobs, doing repetitive quests... I don't "get it""
People are different. That's all.
If players who want to get to "endgame" quicker have an option for 5x exp or even go directly to max level then everyone gets what they want.
Please, lets stop this nonsense,
Of those 200 hours, around 180/190 of them is shared content between each class of the same faction.
Yes each class has unique story quests, but you have to go through the same non-class quests (if you want to lvl up with quests) with every character of the same faction.
SWTOR will tank hard and this is one of the reasons, naive people expecting 1600 hours of unique content.
Really, 1600 hours of unique story content?
Really?
Variable XP gain is something that I've wondered about for a few years.
This is a fictional example of what I've seen happen in games:
Original Game. It takes a certain amount of time to reach max level.
First Expansion. There is an increased level cap. In order to facilitate players new to the game being able to play with older players, the XP gain is increased. It is faster to level.
Second Expansion. Again, there is an increased level cap. Once more in order to facilitate players new to the game being able to play with older players, the XP gain is increased. It is even faster to level.
Alt-Itis is really taking form. The XP gain is increased again. It is that much faster to level.
Third Expansion. Oh boy, we're cooking now!
But the example does not stop there. Along comes a new game. This new game wants to attract players from that other game. Those players from the other game have been playing with an increased XP gain for years now. What happens in the new game? It's a pretty damn fast XP gain.
How could this have been avoided?
Friends - there could have been codes to allow friends new to the game to level faster so they could play with those that have been playing longer.
Alt-Itis - max level a toon, then you could have the option for faster XP gain on your alts.
Expansions - xpac toons, they start at a higher level.
It could have been possible to satisfy both camps... instead of... well... yeah, anyway.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
todays MMO are nothing but grinding mobs and boring quests. then you max out in month do your raiding and quit to the next game to do it again, yeah that sounds fun. instead of having 1 game where i can really work on a character i would spend on money on 4 to 5 subs plus the box price and possible dlc? that doesnt sounds crazy.
I really loathe todays games where you handing so much stuff the gimme it now kinda attitude doesnt really work for MMO's playwise just business wise. you dont sit at a piano and master it in one day, you dont get your black belt in a month, your not signing a professional contract with a football the day you up the ball, and like this your level 1 shouldnt be master of its class in a month its just silly. i agree that the journey needs to be worked on more to make it more interest but how it is now is not the answer.
If a game wants to boast unique player experience, they should put most of the game in control of the player. People who play EVE love how much of the universe they can lay claim to. Corporations, territory wars, and player-owned colonies, etc. Unscripted gameplay is the key to a unique player experience. When they say that there are huge, lengthy story-driven quests and environments, I puke a little.
Some people say they have fun leveling, but that's not always completely accurate. Obtaining spells, seeing your character grow, and light shooting out of every orifice of their body when they level is fun, probably not the actual grind. I favour the level-less design, and I don't mean the "Your one-handed sword skill is now level 2" model. But even then, there has to be a concept of progression which is why so many people like seeing numbers.
Thats your mindset. just enjoy the journey, Take pride in building your character. Then again this isnt rewarded very much anymore.
Likewise, sandboxes don't function this way so it doesnt have to be that way.
Why does link always have to save zelda? why does mario have to save the princess? the "quests" are what give the story depth and direction. Granted story and quests in mmorpgs are generally medicore.But ill take reference from WoW now, The black temple attunment questline was pretty enjoyable, provides story which makes you understand why your doing what your doing, and you come away with a sense of accomplishment.. That was removed in favor of faster progression. is that not the kind of quests everyone wants?
But its perfectly acceptable to grind gear till eternity or farm players in instanced "slaughter houses" for kills?
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I can't honestly understand why some people find it so much fun doing the same 2-3 raids months on end to get those epic pixels which will be obeselete anyway when the next ex-pack hits the shelves.
So yeah OP must be a troll.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
This whole arguement over how long it should take to reach the end game is really just another take on the long running debate over forced grouping mechanics. The debate is really over what percentage of game should be solo'ed and what should grouped.
Looking back 7 years ago to pre-WoW mmo days the big arguement was how much forced grouping should a MMO have. In old school MMOs you could not get very far if you did not group or join up with social guilds. Maybe solo content ended at level 20 or level 30 and then you had group / raid your way to a level 50 or 60 cap. In the post WoW era it became no longer acceptable to force players to group to reach the level cap. End game became the ONLY place where forced grouping mechanics became acceptable. The thing is WoW fooled the players because it is actually one of the most grindy games ever made. Instead of grinding out levels they are grinding out gear score. Players don't even ask whay level you are anymore because they assume you are capped and only care about gear score. Things are coming full circle now though.
Problem with the new MMORPG are that they don't have the freedom to explore or live in the world, be your class or whatever the charecter is. There is nothing that makes you care about your character. It's just someone you use to kill monsters after monster with for xp and gold.
Now we just pay every month for a new level like if it was some single player game. Expansion after expansion, just a new level cap and some new boss to kill over and over again.
We have factions, but nothing happens when we fight. The world is still the same. So after some time it's pointless to even care about world pvp or attacking a base.... you can't take it anyway... npc will respawn after 2 min...
We can craft in most games, but we can't have our own store. We just craft and go to AH and sell it.
I remember in SWG there was people being engineers almost 24/7, you could visit his/her shop and they where there talking back to you. Not just pages of text like the AH is. It was more real.
We had people that was hunters (hunting animals for skin) and worked for someone that had a store. It was more like irl in a way.
Even Jedi was more real... today you can be one from start. Just pick a name and boom you are now a Jedi. Everything that makes them special is gone. Now they are just like any other class.
We could have our own house.
The old MMORPG are gone. And people working on the new ones don't seem to care or even know how to make a MMORPG. They all look at WoW and think they can have same future... and players suggestions in Beta testing being ignored.
I mean how many times have the players been asking for housing? 100000 billion times. How many times have they been asking for OPEN WORLDS? 1000000000 billion times. And so on.
Devs have it all infront of them but they just ignore...
If we are only talking about EQ/WOW-style MMOs then you are correct. If we are talking about MMOs in general then it's worth noting that many of the successful MMOs pre-WOW had extensive solo play for the progression aspect because the social and interaction part was the 'grouping' gameplay. Also, many of them did not have levels. .
There's more to MMOs than level-based class-restricted fantasy games.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Oh this tickles my funny bone... TLDR: Capped progression is pointless progression.
Of course ANY amount of time is too long when the leveling is capped. Its a pointless timesink and it amazes me that so many game developers think that capped leveling is such a good idea...
Leveling and gear farming is basicly progression right?
So everyone starts out on equal footing and then as they level up they progress at a pace relative to how much time they spend on the game and how good they manage, time and effort, so far so good... then eventually everyone hits max at which point everyone is suddenly on equal footing again, wait what? Leveling is supposed to be progression, so why do we all end up right back where we started? Because then another kind of progression sets in! Gear progression! and it...erhm eventually also caps out until new content is added... Instead of making progression about what its supposed to be about namely as i mentioned time and effort.
Capped progression is pointless progression and the devs of any ol' crap title can keep watering it up to satisfy the whining and moaning of the masses so eventually we end up at a point where the games have less progression than your average shooter and the RPG part of MMORPG is finally flogged to death and murdered by a thousand whiney little pricks who dont know good game design if you hit them over the head hit with it. RANT OVER.
There is solid WSAD movement in GW. Try it out!
I voted I wanted it to take longer....I played EQ and UO for like 6-8 years each total time (1-2 breaks for each game). I find most newer mmos to be shallow and boring, last one I did was Rift and it was too railed, harvesting/crafting were subpar, and the world was way too small imo....
Last 'newer' mmo I really liked was Vanguard.
I get tired of questing, if grinding was on par for exp, I would probably just go explore and grind, but games seem to be all about questing and instances now...I miss the mmo in my mmorpgs.
I am not sure I would call it solid (Mostly because you can't jump) but it is good enough and works. First time I played it was after a Diablo round so I clicked to move, then I took a break to play EQ2 and after (and during it) I use WASD.
2 things
1st this is a discussing about leveling speed dont bring the group/solo arguement in here its not wanted.
2nd alternative advancement and crafting kinda made the capped level progression fun again. its true that everyone would eventually cap and be even again but with aa's or being a master crafter you could distinguish yourself and be ahead of the newly capped.
I am not so sure that MMOs needs levelcaps or even levels at all. I think MMOs need to take a long look on how they handle experience and character development, it is one of the genres weakest points.
But 10 days of character development followed by 2 years of grinding gear makes no sense whatsoever.
I am not sure if they made it like this because the games today focus so much more on gear or why, but the end level dungeons and raids are maximum 10% of the game and spending 98% of the time in 10% of the content is just insane.
6 months leveling and 18 grinding gear would be better, but I myself would prefer longer time leveling up than gearing up.
Yeah, it do work but I wonder if it wouldn't work better to have no levels whatsoever and instead put a lot of more work into AAs.
AAs are in many ways more interesting than levels, here you select how you get better by yourself nstead of a pre generated level up and you can have say 250 AA and thousands of things from attack power and HP to cool skills and abilities.
With a good enough AA system you don't even need classes, you choose that while you specc.
For me,once you hit level cap, the game is over. Unless you have extra stuff to do, like crafting or AA, then your still advancing your character somehow. I don't care about epic gear, so don't really work for end-game gear in most mmorpgs. I usually am not rushing thru the game, to level it as fast as possible.
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The game is dead not, this game is good we make it and Romania Tv give it 5 goat heads, this is good rating for game.
Thing is, what I want is *NOT* a wow-like game where the (less than) 15 played days is 150 played days.
If all you are doing is padding out the levels with grind then the amount of content is the same only slower -- I dont think many of us want that.
When I played the original WoW at release I was having fun while levelling then I ran out of content // could see the end -- no more landmasses etc when I was around level 57. At that point I knew the game was over. What I thought was WoW needed about 8 more landmasses the size of the first two -- AT LAUNCH.
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The other thing games start to do is transition into the manditory group gear grind BEFORE you reach the final level. As you start running out of level, the item drops start to stink. While you could find very good and useful gear at half of the level cap solo... You reach the level cap - 5 and find the drops all are horrid outside of group dungeons.
To maximize the gear grind they have to give you as low an entry point as they can manage when you first cap....
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Then there is ARTIFICIAL grinding ... which is even worse...
The first example of this really was Warhammer Wards. You NEEDED greater wards or you were of no use. It did not matter if the equipment was *WORSE* than your old equipment or took your character in different directions than you wanted (IE the ward gear had 40 endurance and no strength while your old gear had 10 endurance and 30 strength -- well you have no choice -- you MUST have the wards).
This pinacled in Rift where you could have all the block in the world and be very happy with your valor gear in every slot to maximize such -- but then you need toughness. It doesnt matter if the toughness gear had no block at all.... You were REQUIRED to have toughness or you were worthless.
This allows games to further restrict how you play your character down to a complete cookie-cutter. They know if you are doing tier 5 content you are using tier 3 or 4 armor which might only come in a single flavor. They do not have to worry that you stacked some stat or another that might be alien to their conception of your class -- you are forced to be what they want you to be.
That is the worst -- as you start to move through the endgame content you have less and less control over your character. You will take this skillset only and wear these armors only or you will not get a group or even if you do you will be utterly ineffective. There is no choice -- and everything is balanced that you will be exactly what they want you to be.
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