"I like to blame the content locusts for this, at least to a large extent – that small percentage of players whose goal isn’t to experience content but to consume it as fast as possible as they race inexorably through a game. The people who, driven to hit max level as rapidly as they can, then sit there and whine loudly about how they have nothing to do and how they’re still hungry. There’s no satisfying that kind of player."
This is an argument I would like to turn on its head. It is the players who play through the content the fastest who discover the actual endgame the developers have created. So in that manner they are able to give you a heads up on what you have in store.
How is it a players fault that the game is made in such a manner that even with regular questing you will reach max level in under 20 days if you have some time on your hand to play (8-10 hours a day, students/youths/hobos/whatever)?
Blaming the players for what the developers have created is not only stupid, its moronic.
Anyone who pays 50 dollars (I paid about 85 dollars btw for the regular store edition here in Norway) has a right to speak up about their experience with the game. When you are expected to pay 15 dollars a month to experience the game over time there better be some reason for you to pay those 15 dollars. I dont just give people money just because I like them. I dont send 15 dollars a month to my favourite sneaker producer just because I like them. When you pay money for a product you should expect something in return.
So if you play through the content in the free month, what reason do you have to pay a montly fee of 15 dollars when the endgame offers next to nothing? Do you pay money for "something good will come to the game in X months"? I dont pay people for promises they make. I pay people for what they deliver.
Yes, there has been some shouting and whining that has been excessive in expressing peoples emotions over the game. But most of what I have seen carries substance to it. People say why they dont like what they see. And thats valid critique in my book. You're not a "hater" or a "GW-fanboy" just because you cant stand many aspects of what SW:TOR delivers or not.
Very well written, I enjoyed the article. I am the type of casual player now that has not time to devote to the end game raid content. Back in the early EQ days I would raid for hours, nah, days on end. Camping a spawn or ..whatever. Real life became too important for me, I realized gaming was ruining real life for me and I was missing out.
These days, the "journey" is the game for me. In every MMO I have played since EQ, I have taken my time and taken in every part of the game , right from level 1. I will play multiple toons, keep crafting ahead of my level, explore every little corner of a zone/world and when the day finally comes I hit max level, the game is done for me. It's almost an "I win" attitude. I have no time for raid schedules and mandatory raiding of the sort. So, for me, the developer had better done a damned good job with every level of the game.
Power-gamers, people that race to the end content, full-time raiders.........I have zero problem with them, and I can kind of see their points. It's just not for me, it doesn't make it wrong for them to want more, or something deeper in their games. I used to be that way, and probably one day, they will see gaming the way I do, if they even game at all. I can see it's near impossible to satisfy everyone, but they are definitely going to cater to the masses, business is business.
Probably a pointless post, but something about the article and the immediate reactions made a long time "lurker" chime in. Currently playing the much discussed SWTOR, enjoying, though I wish the leveling curve was slower and the level by level content was deeper, and the world was a little less static.
Skill-Based instead of Level-Based = Problem Solved.
I played UO near constantly for at least 4-5 years. There was no "end-game" because the game never ended. How can an MMO released 14 years ago get it so right while every MMO released now does it wrong?
Skill-Based instead of Level-Based = Problem Solved.
I played UO near constantly for at least 4-5 years. There was no "end-game" because the game never ended. How can an MMO released 14 years ago get it so right while every MMO released now does it wrong?
i would say because of PvP. Classes with levels are easier to balance than Skill based play. UO was about ganking not competative or and to a lesser extent really meaningful PvP.
As much as I love SWTOR, Ill have to agree with the OP. I remeber in Lineage the blood pledge(lin 1) to hit 50 was a feat in it self. Sure it was grindy but got to say I have some fond memory's about it. If you ask me yes I could tell you the gear I had before I quit, but it is a no go on SWTOR not to say its not a good game but I really dont feel the acomplisment in SWTOR as I did in Lineage, or Aion.
Im taking my lvling in SWTOR pretty slow im only lvl 29 and have been playing it since release on the 20th. I want to enjoy it as long as possible.
People blow through content as fast as possible because life is SHORT and we all have busy lives and a million things to do, so we usually take our entertainment the same way. Sadly.
Personally, I think extending leveling doesn't help, not these days. You could have made SWTOR have leveling take as long as it did in EQ or FFXI and I think it would make it ten times worse.
What we need for longevity is first, the standard game, which we now have but all the extra stuff that keeps people around for long times, like housing, pvp arenas, collections, numerous mini games, vanity pets, mount collecting, achievements, and in my opinion, even more things along this line. Which means Devs need to start innovating in this area. In the area of keeping a game fat and growing at a reasonable pace.
Rift is sort of doing it, but they lacked a nice fat base world to launch from. WoW had the nice fat base world, but they lacked any horizontal gameplay and are just now hinting at it in the next expack.
See, it's not about levels after all, it's about CONTENT that isn't the run of the mill content that everyone knows how to play to the bone.
Only a minority wants to rush through to max level and then stand around bored in a capital city. Alot more players would in fact enjoy a longer journey and meaningful level experience.
It's also that devs became very lazy (see SWTOR) and don't seem to care as much anymore. On top of that, investors rush them them to release half finished games.
Another problem is that today's games aren't made for gamers anymore. Gamers usually already got their favorite game to which they stuck to, esp. when it's about mmorpgs.
Totays games are made to attract folks who aren't necessarily gaming. The non-gamers are the larger target audience and usually more forgiving about the state of a just released game.
Investorts who want their money into games made for kids needing constant rewarding or housewifes who only have like 15minutes at a time are part the problem.
Skill-Based instead of Level-Based = Problem Solved.
I played UO near constantly for at least 4-5 years. There was no "end-game" because the game never ended. How can an MMO released 14 years ago get it so right while every MMO released now does it wrong?
Having a skill-based character development is just part of the equation. You still need a solid gameplay experience that will make the players want to log in the next day and the next day etc.
The way I see it the problem with todays MMO's is that they have too strict rulesets and are too confined. Some people will call that a "theme-park" concept but I think thats an oversimplification. It all boils down to how many choices the players have to express themselves in the gameworld. PvP is part of that. Tradeskilling or just bartering (buying low selling high) is part of that. Monster hunting is part of that. Exploration is part of that. Building. Landscaping. There are a great many aspects you CAN have even in what is normaly classified as "theme-park" games.
Todays MMO's are just too confined to PvP, money farming and dungeon/raiding. Although thats PART of the MMO formula, the opportunities are much larger to create a solid social world for people to express themselves in.
Originally posted by Arkinia I leveled much more quickly in WoW than in SWTOR. What game are you playing?
Same here. At least with SWToR there's a reason to finish the content (the story line).
I don't see having too much content in each zone an issue for the leveling pace. If someone just wants to get to the max level or doesn't care about the content of the game, what difference does it make where they are when they hit the max level? In SWToR, players who want to see the end of the story line will. Those who are only concerned about getting to max level will hit 50, drop all their quests and go raiding or something. I would much rather have too much content than not enough. Given that it's impossible to get exactly the right amount of content for everyone, too much is good.
The overall trend isn't caused by 'content locusts' though. There have been a few research studies done on players and how much they play. Most players of games in general don't complete the content. There are many more 'incompleters' than 'content locusts'. It doesn't matter if the game is a single player RPG, FPS or MMORPG. So game developers are creating games with less content and padding it with online play.
You'll notice that the story in SWToR is broken up into distinct 'chapters'. Each chapter is about 10 hours of game play or so. Some longer, some shorter. I think this is to accommodate the amount of time most players actually play games. They get to complete a 'chapter', but they stick around for the rest of the game, like a weekly television show.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Perhaps it's rose-tinted spectacles, but EQ as I remember it felt like a never-ending journey. I haven't played an MMO since that felt anything like that. To me, this is what an MMO should be, in the same way as old pen-and-paper games never reached a natural end as there was always something more to achieve.
This is an interresting article. I am one of those that developers wants to stay ingame longer. I quit vanilla wow at level 55 (5 under cap) as the grind was to boring. The same with every other mmo out there i have played. I get to a few levels under cap and then quit. I guess me and many others have similar patterns and the devs "dumb down" the games to cater for players such as me.
However no matter what they try i end up quitting a game faster and faster. For me its the journey and not "getting there" that counts. When the journey approaches the end I leave.
I think maybe TSW has a good idea where you "start at max" and then grind your skills whil experienceing the content. Might keep me ingame longer.
Originally posted by BishopB:
Are a lot of the trolls just angry kids with old gaming hardware?
Yeah WoW really killed themselves only hold 9+ million subs for what atleast 6 years. There is more to this than just speed of leveling/content issues. Alt viability and fun, mini games, pvp fun, social aspects, difficult of end game content, amount of end game content...
WoW kept people for these reason even though the game was "easy" to level through. Other newer games fail at some of these issues.
WOW didn't "keep" all that many people, more people have played and quit WOW than are currently subscribed. (OK, I can't prove that, don't waste thread time debating the issue here)
What they did manage to do is keep changing the game mechanics to appeal to a broader and broader player base while driving off the previous generation in the process (who likely would have left regardless, MMO's have a shelf life for everyone, no matter how fun)
And when it started out, WOW was a much slower leveling process, my first character took me 16 days played, (to level 60) my last avatar after Cata launched got to 90 in roughly 6.5 days played.
Even more, to get to 60 in my first character I literally had to do every quest, every dungeon and even grind a few levels to reach 60, so I missed no quest content. In the last go around much like the OP said, I found myself rapidly leveling past the content, entirely missing some zones in the process.
This did not make WOW a better game IMO..... since the end game is not why I enjoyed it. (Gear grinding is not my thing)
Same issue occurred with Rift, my first and only character, (no beta experience) reached max level in 1.5 months of pretty causal play...and there I was again, with nothing to do but grind for gear, and I stopped playing even though I had bought a 6 month sub. (no more of that I assure you)
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Well, i just hit level 50 in TOR and that took me, from Dec. 13 until Jan 25. Now that's almost a month and a half. I did most side quests, some pvp and space and never hit my spacebar.
You read some people that feel, getting off your ship and going through the spaceports should be done away with and it should be an autpmatic button. These type of things are what makes the game flow and feel like a real alive planet.
Bioware is between a rock and a hard place. They have created these huge planets and some people could care less and want the easy route throughout the game, to only bitch and moan once they reach the so called end game.
I've also seen people who bitch about finding and solving the riddle of how to get to a datacron if it's not right in front and easy to get to. I find datacrons fun as shit to be honest. I purposely didn't set out to find any of them. Knowing that once i reached max level that would be something i wanted to do as a seperate deal. On my path i have only found maybe 4 or 5 and now i can go back to each planet and have that to.
All this really dpends on how you play a game. Rush to everything and skip almost all, and you will feel cheated. Take your time, and absorb what's in front of you and you really can see how TOR is a very amazing mmorpg, that while it does have some tech issue's, has a lot of content to chew on for a long time with much more to come.
I would say the article is offbase somewhat. The devs arent listning to the "vocal minority" on this one. They are listening to the majority. You may not like it but thoes of us that enjoyed old school MMO's are the minority now. The only proof I need is to say look at WoW and virtually every MMO since WOW. They make massive amounts of money. Sure they all fall off because people either go back to WoW or simply dont play an MMO but most of them have a big following still. Not big in WoW terms but they still have a player base.
You can talk badly about f2p all you want but the model CLEARLY works or companies wouldnt use it. Look at Turbine. AC was a great, great game and pretty successfull in its time. But now, if they had not gone f2p with D&D and LOTRO they would have gone under as a company. But with there f2p model they have made bucketloads of money.
As for AC memories I'll never forget failing something like 20 compound bows before finally making mine. Was a great, great day. I'll never forget the story arcs either. One of the best and I think most hated ones was the shadow spires and BZ
Good article. The first level 50 took just over 3 days! I found it pretty funny as well that people were posting about how 'power players' only had themselves to blame as their main was only 35 .... after 2 weeks.
And in SWTOR just about everyone has leveled fast. And I think this is one of the reasons that people have questioned whether SWTOR is really an mmo. Does it give you the jourmey? Is the end game worth the monthly sub? New content - sure; take a year off and come back for a month next year to run through it all. It feels like a single player RPG with co-op options; a Halo or Assassin's Creed rather than a 'traditional' - slower - mmo.
If, imo, it had been sold as such - a SWKotR 2 single player type game with a CoD style option to pay a yearly fee ($50 say) for the 'mmo' add-on - I think EA would have had less griping, more success and a game that would have continued to sell.
Simple, MMO's in this case SWTOR is a product of design to appeal to the masses (read $$$), this includes the "me" generation that want everything now or with little effort.
I miss those days when leveling was hard and you died on mobs.
/agree
That's why I still think the 'old' Lineage II was one of the better 'modern' MMORPG titles around. Now with the coming of the Goddess of Destruction expansion, I've licked my wounds, counted my adena and left the game. And also has the same reason I did not buy SWTOR - I liked it in beta (a lot), but I couldn't see myself play it for 2 weeks, hit cap and then didn't know what to do...
So let me get this right article writer your theory for the free fall is do leveling speed? Aion took 3 months and people left just as fast. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH LEVELING SPEED in TOR.
It has to do with the fact that they launched the game to early. You can not just leave some of the crap that they left out. Sorry I was proven about 90% right on this one. The year is 2012 not 2005 UI Customization especially from a 200million $ game is MUST.
Some of the stuff they left out and the way they just flat out abused PHASING made the game feel more like KOTOR 3.0 and not WoW 2.0...single player rpg vs mmorpg for those who do not get the reference.
This idea of single server war fronts has proven to be a complete failure, Ilum was a complete failure for the same EXACT reason Blizzard had to end up instancing Wintergrasp, and the way they tested end game content during BETA was just flat out iditotic.
I played AO for years and never once got a max level character. I spent hours just running around doing missions, getting groups for mob grinds (usually turning out to be more of a social experience then anything), and screwing around in one of the social bars. To me that was fun. Theme-parking my way through an MMO to get to raiding or end game PVP is BORING! I don't care how cool looking the game is or how well done the "main story" is, if I have to go from zone to zone to zone with little more to do then complete quest and turn in quest then I'm going to leave. This is the biggest reason why I just said "hell with it" and passed on SWTOR entirely.
I think it's time to step back out of the box game devs. It's obvious MMOers are tired of the theme-park ride MMO, as most MMOs are being driven straight to a cash shop after only a year because of insufficent subs.
Faster leveling is what Blizzard have been talking about as well.
24M customers playing an average of 6 months a year = a headline 12M subscribers.
24M customers playing an average of 5 months a year = a headline 10M subscribers.
The numbers are illustrative but if the same number of customers spend less time in game then this is what happens to the headline sub number. People still playing just spending less time in game - and I suspect that this 'drop in and out approach' will happen in SWTOR, especially as new content is, as James Olsen has said, time consuming to produce.
Green Mire armor, The Sword of Light (was that the name?) and Olthoi dungeons were some of the best MMO moments for me.
When you look at it, it was the challenge that made is so much fun. The carrot that you could reach, but it was just so difficult to do that made me play week after week.
In a sense, Eve Online and to some extent Darkfall Online have this same old-school difficulty mode, but unfortunately the former has given us too many easy choices and the later is rid with cheaters and bitter old divas.
Hopefully one of the newer Korean games brings us something new and enjoyable. Yes, I'm looking at you, Archeage.
That's what you get when a MMO company spends a majority of their investment in one-time content, ie video cut scenes and VOs.
Now everyone knows what to look for so can we please not support these half-a** projects anymore? It's time us gamers put our wallets away and support gaming companies who cater to us, not their bank accounts via box sales.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Really good article. Completely agree. i end up demotivated before i even start playing a lot of the new MMO's for this exact reason. MMO's used to about the journey not the destination.
And ofc its all WOW's fault. They were the 1st MMO's to change to this ultra fast leveling systme and because there so successful most of the other MMO's followed. Even my beloved EQ2 which IMO is one of the best leveling journeys out there, you can now get to max lvl in 2days!!
Makes me a sad little panda
If someone is talking in general chat in a language you dont understand, chances are they're not talking to you. So chill out and stop bitching about it!
Comments
"I like to blame the content locusts for this, at least to a large extent – that small percentage of players whose goal isn’t to experience content but to consume it as fast as possible as they race inexorably through a game. The people who, driven to hit max level as rapidly as they can, then sit there and whine loudly about how they have nothing to do and how they’re still hungry. There’s no satisfying that kind of player."
This is an argument I would like to turn on its head. It is the players who play through the content the fastest who discover the actual endgame the developers have created. So in that manner they are able to give you a heads up on what you have in store.
How is it a players fault that the game is made in such a manner that even with regular questing you will reach max level in under 20 days if you have some time on your hand to play (8-10 hours a day, students/youths/hobos/whatever)?
Blaming the players for what the developers have created is not only stupid, its moronic.
Anyone who pays 50 dollars (I paid about 85 dollars btw for the regular store edition here in Norway) has a right to speak up about their experience with the game. When you are expected to pay 15 dollars a month to experience the game over time there better be some reason for you to pay those 15 dollars. I dont just give people money just because I like them. I dont send 15 dollars a month to my favourite sneaker producer just because I like them. When you pay money for a product you should expect something in return.
So if you play through the content in the free month, what reason do you have to pay a montly fee of 15 dollars when the endgame offers next to nothing? Do you pay money for "something good will come to the game in X months"? I dont pay people for promises they make. I pay people for what they deliver.
Yes, there has been some shouting and whining that has been excessive in expressing peoples emotions over the game. But most of what I have seen carries substance to it. People say why they dont like what they see. And thats valid critique in my book. You're not a "hater" or a "GW-fanboy" just because you cant stand many aspects of what SW:TOR delivers or not.
Very well written, I enjoyed the article. I am the type of casual player now that has not time to devote to the end game raid content. Back in the early EQ days I would raid for hours, nah, days on end. Camping a spawn or ..whatever. Real life became too important for me, I realized gaming was ruining real life for me and I was missing out.
These days, the "journey" is the game for me. In every MMO I have played since EQ, I have taken my time and taken in every part of the game , right from level 1. I will play multiple toons, keep crafting ahead of my level, explore every little corner of a zone/world and when the day finally comes I hit max level, the game is done for me. It's almost an "I win" attitude. I have no time for raid schedules and mandatory raiding of the sort. So, for me, the developer had better done a damned good job with every level of the game.
Power-gamers, people that race to the end content, full-time raiders.........I have zero problem with them, and I can kind of see their points. It's just not for me, it doesn't make it wrong for them to want more, or something deeper in their games. I used to be that way, and probably one day, they will see gaming the way I do, if they even game at all. I can see it's near impossible to satisfy everyone, but they are definitely going to cater to the masses, business is business.
Probably a pointless post, but something about the article and the immediate reactions made a long time "lurker" chime in. Currently playing the much discussed SWTOR, enjoying, though I wish the leveling curve was slower and the level by level content was deeper, and the world was a little less static.
Skill-Based instead of Level-Based = Problem Solved.
I played UO near constantly for at least 4-5 years. There was no "end-game" because the game never ended. How can an MMO released 14 years ago get it so right while every MMO released now does it wrong?
i would say because of PvP. Classes with levels are easier to balance than Skill based play. UO was about ganking not competative or and to a lesser extent really meaningful PvP.
nice article.. i totally agree...
As much as I love SWTOR, Ill have to agree with the OP. I remeber in Lineage the blood pledge(lin 1) to hit 50 was a feat in it self. Sure it was grindy but got to say I have some fond memory's about it. If you ask me yes I could tell you the gear I had before I quit, but it is a no go on SWTOR not to say its not a good game but I really dont feel the acomplisment in SWTOR as I did in Lineage, or Aion.
Im taking my lvling in SWTOR pretty slow im only lvl 29 and have been playing it since release on the 20th. I want to enjoy it as long as possible.
People blow through content as fast as possible because life is SHORT and we all have busy lives and a million things to do, so we usually take our entertainment the same way. Sadly.
Personally, I think extending leveling doesn't help, not these days. You could have made SWTOR have leveling take as long as it did in EQ or FFXI and I think it would make it ten times worse.
What we need for longevity is first, the standard game, which we now have but all the extra stuff that keeps people around for long times, like housing, pvp arenas, collections, numerous mini games, vanity pets, mount collecting, achievements, and in my opinion, even more things along this line. Which means Devs need to start innovating in this area. In the area of keeping a game fat and growing at a reasonable pace.
Rift is sort of doing it, but they lacked a nice fat base world to launch from. WoW had the nice fat base world, but they lacked any horizontal gameplay and are just now hinting at it in the next expack.
See, it's not about levels after all, it's about CONTENT that isn't the run of the mill content that everyone knows how to play to the bone.
Don't blame it all on the players.
Only a minority wants to rush through to max level and then stand around bored in a capital city. Alot more players would in fact enjoy a longer journey and meaningful level experience.
It's also that devs became very lazy (see SWTOR) and don't seem to care as much anymore. On top of that, investors rush them them to release half finished games.
Another problem is that today's games aren't made for gamers anymore. Gamers usually already got their favorite game to which they stuck to, esp. when it's about mmorpgs.
Totays games are made to attract folks who aren't necessarily gaming. The non-gamers are the larger target audience and usually more forgiving about the state of a just released game.
Investorts who want their money into games made for kids needing constant rewarding or housewifes who only have like 15minutes at a time are part the problem.
Having a skill-based character development is just part of the equation. You still need a solid gameplay experience that will make the players want to log in the next day and the next day etc.
The way I see it the problem with todays MMO's is that they have too strict rulesets and are too confined. Some people will call that a "theme-park" concept but I think thats an oversimplification. It all boils down to how many choices the players have to express themselves in the gameworld. PvP is part of that. Tradeskilling or just bartering (buying low selling high) is part of that. Monster hunting is part of that. Exploration is part of that. Building. Landscaping. There are a great many aspects you CAN have even in what is normaly classified as "theme-park" games.
Todays MMO's are just too confined to PvP, money farming and dungeon/raiding. Although thats PART of the MMO formula, the opportunities are much larger to create a solid social world for people to express themselves in.
Same here. At least with SWToR there's a reason to finish the content (the story line).
I don't see having too much content in each zone an issue for the leveling pace. If someone just wants to get to the max level or doesn't care about the content of the game, what difference does it make where they are when they hit the max level? In SWToR, players who want to see the end of the story line will. Those who are only concerned about getting to max level will hit 50, drop all their quests and go raiding or something. I would much rather have too much content than not enough. Given that it's impossible to get exactly the right amount of content for everyone, too much is good.
The overall trend isn't caused by 'content locusts' though. There have been a few research studies done on players and how much they play. Most players of games in general don't complete the content. There are many more 'incompleters' than 'content locusts'. It doesn't matter if the game is a single player RPG, FPS or MMORPG. So game developers are creating games with less content and padding it with online play.
You'll notice that the story in SWToR is broken up into distinct 'chapters'. Each chapter is about 10 hours of game play or so. Some longer, some shorter. I think this is to accommodate the amount of time most players actually play games. They get to complete a 'chapter', but they stick around for the rest of the game, like a weekly television show.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Perhaps it's rose-tinted spectacles, but EQ as I remember it felt like a never-ending journey. I haven't played an MMO since that felt anything like that. To me, this is what an MMO should be, in the same way as old pen-and-paper games never reached a natural end as there was always something more to achieve.
This is an interresting article. I am one of those that developers wants to stay ingame longer. I quit vanilla wow at level 55 (5 under cap) as the grind was to boring. The same with every other mmo out there i have played. I get to a few levels under cap and then quit. I guess me and many others have similar patterns and the devs "dumb down" the games to cater for players such as me.
However no matter what they try i end up quitting a game faster and faster. For me its the journey and not "getting there" that counts. When the journey approaches the end I leave.
I think maybe TSW has a good idea where you "start at max" and then grind your skills whil experienceing the content. Might keep me ingame longer.
Originally posted by BishopB:
Are a lot of the trolls just angry kids with old gaming hardware?
WOW didn't "keep" all that many people, more people have played and quit WOW than are currently subscribed. (OK, I can't prove that, don't waste thread time debating the issue here)
What they did manage to do is keep changing the game mechanics to appeal to a broader and broader player base while driving off the previous generation in the process (who likely would have left regardless, MMO's have a shelf life for everyone, no matter how fun)
And when it started out, WOW was a much slower leveling process, my first character took me 16 days played, (to level 60) my last avatar after Cata launched got to 90 in roughly 6.5 days played.
Even more, to get to 60 in my first character I literally had to do every quest, every dungeon and even grind a few levels to reach 60, so I missed no quest content. In the last go around much like the OP said, I found myself rapidly leveling past the content, entirely missing some zones in the process.
This did not make WOW a better game IMO..... since the end game is not why I enjoyed it. (Gear grinding is not my thing)
Same issue occurred with Rift, my first and only character, (no beta experience) reached max level in 1.5 months of pretty causal play...and there I was again, with nothing to do but grind for gear, and I stopped playing even though I had bought a 6 month sub. (no more of that I assure you)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Well, i just hit level 50 in TOR and that took me, from Dec. 13 until Jan 25. Now that's almost a month and a half. I did most side quests, some pvp and space and never hit my spacebar.
You read some people that feel, getting off your ship and going through the spaceports should be done away with and it should be an autpmatic button. These type of things are what makes the game flow and feel like a real alive planet.
Bioware is between a rock and a hard place. They have created these huge planets and some people could care less and want the easy route throughout the game, to only bitch and moan once they reach the so called end game.
I've also seen people who bitch about finding and solving the riddle of how to get to a datacron if it's not right in front and easy to get to. I find datacrons fun as shit to be honest. I purposely didn't set out to find any of them. Knowing that once i reached max level that would be something i wanted to do as a seperate deal. On my path i have only found maybe 4 or 5 and now i can go back to each planet and have that to.
All this really dpends on how you play a game. Rush to everything and skip almost all, and you will feel cheated. Take your time, and absorb what's in front of you and you really can see how TOR is a very amazing mmorpg, that while it does have some tech issue's, has a lot of content to chew on for a long time with much more to come.
I would say the article is offbase somewhat. The devs arent listning to the "vocal minority" on this one. They are listening to the majority. You may not like it but thoes of us that enjoyed old school MMO's are the minority now. The only proof I need is to say look at WoW and virtually every MMO since WOW. They make massive amounts of money. Sure they all fall off because people either go back to WoW or simply dont play an MMO but most of them have a big following still. Not big in WoW terms but they still have a player base.
You can talk badly about f2p all you want but the model CLEARLY works or companies wouldnt use it. Look at Turbine. AC was a great, great game and pretty successfull in its time. But now, if they had not gone f2p with D&D and LOTRO they would have gone under as a company. But with there f2p model they have made bucketloads of money.
As for AC memories I'll never forget failing something like 20 compound bows before finally making mine. Was a great, great day. I'll never forget the story arcs either. One of the best and I think most hated ones was the shadow spires and BZ
Good article. The first level 50 took just over 3 days! I found it pretty funny as well that people were posting about how 'power players' only had themselves to blame as their main was only 35 .... after 2 weeks.
And in SWTOR just about everyone has leveled fast. And I think this is one of the reasons that people have questioned whether SWTOR is really an mmo. Does it give you the jourmey? Is the end game worth the monthly sub? New content - sure; take a year off and come back for a month next year to run through it all. It feels like a single player RPG with co-op options; a Halo or Assassin's Creed rather than a 'traditional' - slower - mmo.
If, imo, it had been sold as such - a SWKotR 2 single player type game with a CoD style option to pay a yearly fee ($50 say) for the 'mmo' add-on - I think EA would have had less griping, more success and a game that would have continued to sell.
/agree
That's why I still think the 'old' Lineage II was one of the better 'modern' MMORPG titles around. Now with the coming of the Goddess of Destruction expansion, I've licked my wounds, counted my adena and left the game. And also has the same reason I did not buy SWTOR - I liked it in beta (a lot), but I couldn't see myself play it for 2 weeks, hit cap and then didn't know what to do...
In reality its not the leveling that is fun, it sounds like what was fun was exploring the game world.
Sometimes I ponder a future where leveling is phased out of all RPGs.
So let me get this right article writer your theory for the free fall is do leveling speed? Aion took 3 months and people left just as fast. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH LEVELING SPEED in TOR.
It has to do with the fact that they launched the game to early. You can not just leave some of the crap that they left out. Sorry I was proven about 90% right on this one. The year is 2012 not 2005 UI Customization especially from a 200million $ game is MUST.
Some of the stuff they left out and the way they just flat out abused PHASING made the game feel more like KOTOR 3.0 and not WoW 2.0...single player rpg vs mmorpg for those who do not get the reference.
This idea of single server war fronts has proven to be a complete failure, Ilum was a complete failure for the same EXACT reason Blizzard had to end up instancing Wintergrasp, and the way they tested end game content during BETA was just flat out iditotic.
I played AO for years and never once got a max level character. I spent hours just running around doing missions, getting groups for mob grinds (usually turning out to be more of a social experience then anything), and screwing around in one of the social bars. To me that was fun. Theme-parking my way through an MMO to get to raiding or end game PVP is BORING! I don't care how cool looking the game is or how well done the "main story" is, if I have to go from zone to zone to zone with little more to do then complete quest and turn in quest then I'm going to leave. This is the biggest reason why I just said "hell with it" and passed on SWTOR entirely.
I think it's time to step back out of the box game devs. It's obvious MMOers are tired of the theme-park ride MMO, as most MMOs are being driven straight to a cash shop after only a year because of insufficent subs.
S.C.I.F.I
<Sights, Clouded, In, False, Illusions>
Faster leveling is what Blizzard have been talking about as well.
24M customers playing an average of 6 months a year = a headline 12M subscribers.
24M customers playing an average of 5 months a year = a headline 10M subscribers.
The numbers are illustrative but if the same number of customers spend less time in game then this is what happens to the headline sub number. People still playing just spending less time in game - and I suspect that this 'drop in and out approach' will happen in SWTOR, especially as new content is, as James Olsen has said, time consuming to produce.
Green Mire armor, The Sword of Light (was that the name?) and Olthoi dungeons were some of the best MMO moments for me.
When you look at it, it was the challenge that made is so much fun. The carrot that you could reach, but it was just so difficult to do that made me play week after week.
In a sense, Eve Online and to some extent Darkfall Online have this same old-school difficulty mode, but unfortunately the former has given us too many easy choices and the later is rid with cheaters and bitter old divas.
Hopefully one of the newer Korean games brings us something new and enjoyable. Yes, I'm looking at you, Archeage.
I review lots of indie games and MMORPGs
That's what you get when a MMO company spends a majority of their investment in one-time content, ie video cut scenes and VOs.
Now everyone knows what to look for so can we please not support these half-a** projects anymore? It's time us gamers put our wallets away and support gaming companies who cater to us, not their bank accounts via box sales.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Really good article. Completely agree. i end up demotivated before i even start playing a lot of the new MMO's for this exact reason. MMO's used to about the journey not the destination.
And ofc its all WOW's fault. They were the 1st MMO's to change to this ultra fast leveling systme and because there so successful most of the other MMO's followed. Even my beloved EQ2 which IMO is one of the best leveling journeys out there, you can now get to max lvl in 2days!!
Makes me a sad little panda
If someone is talking in general chat in a language you dont understand, chances are they're not talking to you. So chill out and stop bitching about it!
Half the pvpers getting the best pvp gear in sw:tor in just one month
nuff said
"It has potential"
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