I remember clearly my ultimate goal during my EQ days.. It had nothing to do with max level.. I just wanted my epic weapon...
The multi-part, multi- mechanic, sometimes time based and crafting required quest line that ended with the slaying of an epic boss sometimes more than one...
These epic quest lines really put you through some stuff and took some time to complete and completing them meant alot to you as a player..
As a gamer who plays MMO's my perception is more like...
There used to be games I could log into every day and play. I enjoyed playing those games for years... My level didn't matter. Well ok in UO it really didn't matter.. but my point is.. no matter what my level was in the level based games I had fun. DAoC is an example of a level based game I enjoyed at all levels. EQ I had a couple of partners for duo's depending on who was online and never worried about gaining X levels or reaching end game (eq wasn't even one of my favorite games but I had good friends in it).
Commonly now I don't have as much draw to play MMO's... regardless of level. So oddly enough for me "end game" is not the factor at play here.
So that's how I look at and I could write a wall of text in regards to getting me to log in every day.. but I'll skip that part and just write half a wall instead.
In regards to the specific context of "end game"...
We are no longer at a point where developers should be able to be suprised at the fact people will reach "end game" quickly. We also see games specificly designed so that masses might reach end game rather quickly... These aren't the days of finding a group and doing a camp check.. so you could sit around your grind spot for hours and discuss various things during down time. Or waiting in line to get in a camp group.
As to the "in between" content... whether an idividual thinks someone else isn't fully experiencing it or not.. is a transitional part of the game which is not meant to last an exceedingly long time. As opposed to "end game" which obviously you reach at some point and the developer supposedly wants to keep your subscribing for a long time...
So it should be obvious from developers right on down the line to customers.. that with the current realities of gaming.. end game should have a major design emphasis and games should launch with significant "end game" systems in place.
Quite frankly and this is just my opinion (obviously) they either need to change the way MMO's are developed or they need to change the current development process. I know that sounds like the same thing... but I'm talking about either using different core mechanics... or changing the emphasis to the part of the game that is supposed to hold your customer for the long term.
/shrug
If the content locusts are such a small percentage... then why would developers listen to them regardless? In that reality no blame should be put on the "content locusts" it should be entirely on the developers. Losing some small segment of your player base to retain the overwhelming majority only makes sense... in every single way especially financially.
So unless this small percentage is actually the majority... why was anything ever changed? No matter how you look at it.. it still comes back to the developers doing the wrong thing at some point.
thats why i wait to get the game and what you just said abbout being top lvl in no time and all is left to do is PVP and some dairly...will just make me not geting the game
Content starts from level 1, people seem to forget that fact. They need to make leveling take longer so that people cannot rush to level cap and then bitch and moan. MMO's are not sustainable with short leveling times.
I agree, to an extent. I think the spoeed of levelling meaning that you shouldn't do all the quests in any given area is not clever design, but then I look at the fact that they want people to level alts and I can see where it's coming from...and it makes a bit more sense. My main is 45, I have 4 alts in their teens, and I've skipped bonus series, side quests and all the rest of it with alacrity on my main because I know I'll still get to see them on another character.
I also wonder about those that say story ends at 50...well your story does, but unless you have your 5 companions all at 10k affection and have done all their story quests as well, then the story doesn't end bang on 50. I have one companion at 10k, one at 4k and others in the 2k range. When I hit cap I'll spend a while pushing up all their affection levels, and enjoying their stories.
There's a lot to be said for games where it takes a long time to hit cap, EQ, EQ2 with XP switched to AA etc. but on the flip side of that (for me, at least) there are games like Aion where the grind becomes apparent early on and saps your will to log in. The key is making the journey interesting enough to merit more questing / killing / collecting than today's gamer seems to be willing to countenance. Is story and VO enough to do that? Not according to a lot of posters in here who would merrily tell you SWTOR has too much of both.
I'm starting to think that the idea of the game that has something for everyone and lots to do for everyone, level irrelevant, is the holy grail of gaming (and every bit as mythical). What do all grail quest stories have in common? They're all really about the journey. For some gamers, the journey is everything - for others the destination is all that matters. Your content locusts are my failed grail knights ("We journeyed here over a course of...um...a couple of days...and there's no grail? WTF failzor lololol").
I always take my sweet time in levelling, am usually way behind the curve. I do find it shocking that I'm in my mid-40s in SWTOR so quickly, and at a loss to explain how that happened (apart form the two instances so far where I refused to leave my computer until I'd closed out an act on my character). Is it too fast? Possibly, but I know I'm glad of that speed on my alts. For players who are only interested in playing one class per side, or one class full stop, it is too fast. I guess BW didn't count on there being so many of the latter types buying the game.
Content starts from level 1, people seem to forget that fact. They need to make leveling take longer so that people cannot rush to level cap and then bitch and moan. MMO's are not sustainable with short leveling times.
I think the rush to max level is for players that just want to PvP and glory hounds that want to get right to the endgame.
There is just as much excitement running a level 10 instance with a level 10 toon as a level 80 instance with a level 80 toon (unless you've twinked yourself out).
If you think of a game as having a "grind" then the story tellers designing the content have not met your needs. You shouldn't want to rush through a given level just so you can rush through the next one. The whole journey should be fun. You should be disappointed when you hit max level and realize there's nothing left to do.
Yes - there is satisfaction in making the bars go up. But if the bars go up too easily - where is the satisfaction in that?
Couldn't agree more. Thank you for the article, Isabelle!
After the Rift experience, I just won't pick up any more speedy leveling mmo's. Although it likely means I'll be playing the old mmo's for a long while to come.
I think many MMOs in the past survived because players stuck around far longer than the content and enjoyment they get out of the game actually should allow. Players do this because they have made friends, because they feel as if they have a duty towards their friends and because these friends have managed to take a spot in their lives that they would rather not be without.
When MMOs grow shorter due to leveling speeds or lack of content, when they grow easier and allow more content to be soloed or dealt with with a Pick Up Group without previous coordination, fewer players are likely to build these friendships. They don't suffer defeats together, they don't work out plans and struggle to achieve victories; so there is no reason to feel anything at all for the faceless people in your guild.
Without any real emotional ties to your friends and the game that you met them in, you'll leave when you get bored. For a game to succeed on the long term there needs to be a thorough foundation that supports the building of friendships and loyalty. Once you've got those parts, it doesn't matter if the rest of the game is absolute shite, because people will stay.
Content locust? Lol....I mainly only play SWTOR on the weekend now, and I did less 'power gaming' in SWTOR than I have in any other game ever... When you main leveling barometer is quests and it has to somewhat equal your quests, you get a very fast leveling curve....Or you got to make a ton more quests...
Yeah people bitch and complain about stuff, but thats why some quests make you kill 100 mobs in some games...I have never been a big fan of quest leveling....Tell me what xp I need, make a big world, unique mobs/places, roaming big bosses, rare mob spawns that roam, loot tables with common/rare/ur drops for each area, and I will go make it happen and have a lot more fun than quest leveling, where it is hard to sync up with other and their quests...
But since we are talking quest leveling...and swtor is the latest....They didn't have 200 hours of content in the class, as they said they would....The wife and I watch every VO scene, didn't hit space bar, didn't power game, we work different shifts, so we mainly play on the weekend or like an hour at most during the weekday, and the content didn't last as long as it should of.
Since this seems to be a problem, how about fixing it and coming up with a solution...The problem has been everything for the last 5-6 years has all been the same junk for the most part...I hope the devs are finally getting it....They aren't making the next WoW...They are making the next p2p that is going to go f2p...
This, Isabella, is the best article you have written so far...
I completely agree with you, the journey is the fun part and is 90% of the content and yet we at best spend 3 weeks in that and the expect us to spend 2 years until the next expansion in the last grindy 10% of the game.
That certain games (I am looking on you, Lineage 1 & 2) were too slow is true but when the devs were speeding up leveling a bit they went too far. And while that isn´t the only reason most players just spends 2 months in a new MMO it is a big part of it.
Once again, this is why there is a great importance for social and player-driven end-game features.
Take player cities for example. That alone is a long-term goal to work towards. Meeting other players, agreeing and disagreeing with leadership, taxes, house and city placement, rivals with other nearby cities etc, just add to the overall entertainment and competitiveness.
Social Features are the backbone of sustain. This gives players something to do while more content is being generated.
i agree. playing swg i loved having my own house, collecting and decorating it. whenever i got burned out of aspects of the game i would always go back and work on my house. i loved being able to put my house in a city with my friends as well. one of the reasons i kept playing swg for so long.
Content starts from level 1, people seem to forget that fact. They need to make leveling take longer so that people cannot rush to level cap and then bitch and moan. MMO's are not sustainable with short leveling times.
Too slow and people "bitch and moan."
What is the sweet spot?
Different for every..single..player.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
"Devs, read my lips: leveling is FUN. Slow the damn train down a bit and let us enjoy the scenery."
1. go see [NPC]
2. [NPC] sends you to kill 10x's [enter mob name here]
3. return to [NPC] for stupid reward
...that IS NOT "fun". and until developers figure that out... im still going to blast through it as fast as possible.
Well, you might be right there but dailiy quests and gear grinding ain´t fun either. It is more or less the same as grinding mobs and they expect you to do it for years.
But sure, when the time to level goes up they also needs to make leveling more fun. I guess that is why they decided that they wouldn´t bother and treat leveling as a 2 week tutorial.
I don't buy the "I have a life so I can't play a sandbox" argument. It implies that just like the "locusts" you need to get to a ceratain point as fast as possible or on a scheduele.
As long as the mechanics allow you to (in most cases) log out within a couple of minutes without loosing progress it is casual friendly, period. Grinding is not a factor. The opposite is a game that "forces" you to ride all the way to the end once some event in the game is initiated in order to not have wasted that time.
I'll take SWG as an example. I am crafting, a RL friend visits. I can leve the PC on or I can just finish experimenting and log. I am decorating the guildhall with friends, they can go on without me and what I have already done is there the next time I log in.
In a raid I "have to" finish it if I am halfway through unless I want the first hour of a two hour raid to be wasted, not to mention that I'll leave my guildies hanging.
I am kinda getting to the point of never buying america designed games again.
NA developers have gone totally and completely about the $, and have lost all sight of the creativity.
Sadly it is not just mmo's have you noticed console games lately? Getting very sick of paying $60-90 for a new console game for a lousy 10 hours of game play.
They did a " biased " study that says most gamers do not even finish a game so they decided why give them a 40 hour game if they are only going to play 10 hours of it?
So instead lets sell them a 10 hour game for double the price we use to sell them a 40 hour game for, and if any of them actually want more of the game we will sell them the rest of the game as DLC's in 5 hour increments!!
Honestly Im sick of it, and sick of the crack dealers they have become praying on us the addicts we have become.
The whole industry was designed to be very addictive there are studies done on the right sounds, colors, partical effects to stimulate the exact same responses in us as if we were using drugs.
So they addict two generations of us and now they, cut the product and jack the prices..
"Devs, read my lips: leveling is FUN. Slow the damn train down a bit and let us enjoy the scenery."
1. go see [NPC]
2. [NPC] sends you to kill 10x's [enter mob name here]
3. return to [NPC] for stupid reward
...that IS NOT "fun". and until developers figure that out... im still going to blast through it as fast as possible.
Well, you might be right there but dailiy quests and gear grinding ain´t fun either. It is more or less the same as grinding mobs and they expect you to do it for years.
But sure, when the time to level goes up they also needs to make leveling more fun. I guess that is why they decided that they wouldn´t bother and treat leveling as a 2 week tutorial.
I couldn't agree with OP more. I do hope some of the upcoming games make questing more fun and slow down the leveling process. SWTOR has added some meaning to the questing during the leveling process. However, dailies are dreadfully boring. I like gear/ability "grinding" as long as I'm leveling, but when I hit the level cap it becomes wildly boring. Likely due to no new locations to explore and no further content.
I just can't believe that SWTOR made a game for so much money that takes 2-4 weeks to hit max level for the casual player. I would almost bet that GW2 has the same leveling time and it is designed for people that hate building characters over any period of time.
I am kinda getting to the point of never buying america designed games again.
NA developers have gone totally and completely about the $, and have lost all sight of the creativity.
Sadly it is not just mmo's have you noticed console games lately? Getting very sick of paying $60-90 for a new console game for a lousy 10 hours of game play.
They did a " biased " study that says most gamers do not even finish a game so they decided why give them a 40 hour game if they are only going to play 10 hours of it?
So instead lets sell them a 10 hour game for double the price we use to sell them a 40 hour game for, and if any of them actually want more of the game we will sell them the rest of the game as DLC's in 5 hour increments!!
Honestly Im sick of it, and sick of the crack dealers they have become praying on us the addicts we have become.
The whole industry was designed to be very addictive there are studies done on the right sounds, colors, partical effects to stimulate the exact same responses in us as if we were using drugs.
So they addict two generations of us and now they, cut the product and jack the prices..
exactly like crack dealers.
err they 80's was 30 years ago mate. Most games are now beyond the reach of a couple of brothers making computer games in their bedrooms.
OR...focus on real end game content. make things to do not just dungeons and raids.
As much as I am sure this has been brought up, GW2 has its story, DE, mini games, Dungeons, PvP, WvWvW and crafting. ALL at max level.
In fact all of this is through the game. there is not a quest "rat race" to run. In fact Anet has had problem when they bring in testsers because the testers didnt know what to do because there wasnt an NPC guiding them.
Remember when you started a new MMO and you had to ask people where to go/what to do. The good old days will never be back. unless companies like Anet try and break the model. its sad when the MMORPG loses both the MMO and the RPG aspect.
I am kinda getting to the point of never buying america designed games again.
NA developers have gone totally and completely about the $, and have lost all sight of the creativity.
Sadly it is not just mmo's have you noticed console games lately? Getting very sick of paying $60-90 for a new console game for a lousy 10 hours of game play.
They did a " biased " study that says most gamers do not even finish a game so they decided why give them a 40 hour game if they are only going to play 10 hours of it?
So instead lets sell them a 10 hour game for double the price we use to sell them a 40 hour game for, and if any of them actually want more of the game we will sell them the rest of the game as DLC's in 5 hour increments!!
Honestly Im sick of it, and sick of the crack dealers they have become praying on us the addicts we have become.
The whole industry was designed to be very addictive there are studies done on the right sounds, colors, partical effects to stimulate the exact same responses in us as if we were using drugs.
So they addict two generations of us and now they, cut the product and jack the prices..
exactly like crack dealers.
err they 80's was 30 years ago mate. Most games are now beyond the reach of a couple of brothers making computer games in their bedrooms.
Business is about money.
You got me, I'm still grasping for the days when UO, EQ, and AC were brand new and all about porting paper and pencil ideas into virtual worlds.
You really hit the nail direcftly on the head this time Isabelle. The funny thing is why haven't developers figured out that this is one way to keep customers as .......SUBSCRIBERS.
Instead of reaching end game in 4 weeks or 8 weeks and getting burned out, a journery so long and filled with adventure that end game isn'ty even a part of the equation in the beginning.
Yeah AC's level cap was so rediculiously off in the distance it never entered into my reason for playing and I played for the better part of 4 years.
Your articles are most often thought provoking keep it up please!
Comments
I remember clearly my ultimate goal during my EQ days.. It had nothing to do with max level.. I just wanted my epic weapon...
The multi-part, multi- mechanic, sometimes time based and crafting required quest line that ended with the slaying of an epic boss sometimes more than one...
These epic quest lines really put you through some stuff and took some time to complete and completing them meant alot to you as a player..
I like the term content locusts so +1 for that.
As a gamer who plays MMO's my perception is more like...
There used to be games I could log into every day and play. I enjoyed playing those games for years... My level didn't matter. Well ok in UO it really didn't matter.. but my point is.. no matter what my level was in the level based games I had fun. DAoC is an example of a level based game I enjoyed at all levels. EQ I had a couple of partners for duo's depending on who was online and never worried about gaining X levels or reaching end game (eq wasn't even one of my favorite games but I had good friends in it).
Commonly now I don't have as much draw to play MMO's... regardless of level. So oddly enough for me "end game" is not the factor at play here.
So that's how I look at and I could write a wall of text in regards to getting me to log in every day.. but I'll skip that part and just write half a wall instead.
In regards to the specific context of "end game"...
We are no longer at a point where developers should be able to be suprised at the fact people will reach "end game" quickly. We also see games specificly designed so that masses might reach end game rather quickly... These aren't the days of finding a group and doing a camp check.. so you could sit around your grind spot for hours and discuss various things during down time. Or waiting in line to get in a camp group.
As to the "in between" content... whether an idividual thinks someone else isn't fully experiencing it or not.. is a transitional part of the game which is not meant to last an exceedingly long time. As opposed to "end game" which obviously you reach at some point and the developer supposedly wants to keep your subscribing for a long time...
So it should be obvious from developers right on down the line to customers.. that with the current realities of gaming.. end game should have a major design emphasis and games should launch with significant "end game" systems in place.
Quite frankly and this is just my opinion (obviously) they either need to change the way MMO's are developed or they need to change the current development process. I know that sounds like the same thing... but I'm talking about either using different core mechanics... or changing the emphasis to the part of the game that is supposed to hold your customer for the long term.
/shrug
If the content locusts are such a small percentage... then why would developers listen to them regardless? In that reality no blame should be put on the "content locusts" it should be entirely on the developers. Losing some small segment of your player base to retain the overwhelming majority only makes sense... in every single way especially financially.
So unless this small percentage is actually the majority... why was anything ever changed? No matter how you look at it.. it still comes back to the developers doing the wrong thing at some point.
thats why i wait to get the game and what you just said abbout being top lvl in no time and all is left to do is PVP and some dairly...will just make me not geting the game
Content starts from level 1, people seem to forget that fact. They need to make leveling take longer so that people cannot rush to level cap and then bitch and moan. MMO's are not sustainable with short leveling times.
I agree, to an extent. I think the spoeed of levelling meaning that you shouldn't do all the quests in any given area is not clever design, but then I look at the fact that they want people to level alts and I can see where it's coming from...and it makes a bit more sense. My main is 45, I have 4 alts in their teens, and I've skipped bonus series, side quests and all the rest of it with alacrity on my main because I know I'll still get to see them on another character.
I also wonder about those that say story ends at 50...well your story does, but unless you have your 5 companions all at 10k affection and have done all their story quests as well, then the story doesn't end bang on 50. I have one companion at 10k, one at 4k and others in the 2k range. When I hit cap I'll spend a while pushing up all their affection levels, and enjoying their stories.
There's a lot to be said for games where it takes a long time to hit cap, EQ, EQ2 with XP switched to AA etc. but on the flip side of that (for me, at least) there are games like Aion where the grind becomes apparent early on and saps your will to log in. The key is making the journey interesting enough to merit more questing / killing / collecting than today's gamer seems to be willing to countenance. Is story and VO enough to do that? Not according to a lot of posters in here who would merrily tell you SWTOR has too much of both.
I'm starting to think that the idea of the game that has something for everyone and lots to do for everyone, level irrelevant, is the holy grail of gaming (and every bit as mythical). What do all grail quest stories have in common? They're all really about the journey. For some gamers, the journey is everything - for others the destination is all that matters. Your content locusts are my failed grail knights ("We journeyed here over a course of...um...a couple of days...and there's no grail? WTF failzor lololol").
I always take my sweet time in levelling, am usually way behind the curve. I do find it shocking that I'm in my mid-40s in SWTOR so quickly, and at a loss to explain how that happened (apart form the two instances so far where I refused to leave my computer until I'd closed out an act on my character). Is it too fast? Possibly, but I know I'm glad of that speed on my alts. For players who are only interested in playing one class per side, or one class full stop, it is too fast. I guess BW didn't count on there being so many of the latter types buying the game.
Too slow and people "bitch and moan."
What is the sweet spot?
I think the rush to max level is for players that just want to PvP and glory hounds that want to get right to the endgame.
There is just as much excitement running a level 10 instance with a level 10 toon as a level 80 instance with a level 80 toon (unless you've twinked yourself out).
If you think of a game as having a "grind" then the story tellers designing the content have not met your needs. You shouldn't want to rush through a given level just so you can rush through the next one. The whole journey should be fun. You should be disappointed when you hit max level and realize there's nothing left to do.
Yes - there is satisfaction in making the bars go up. But if the bars go up too easily - where is the satisfaction in that?
Couldn't agree more. Thank you for the article, Isabelle!
After the Rift experience, I just won't pick up any more speedy leveling mmo's. Although it likely means I'll be playing the old mmo's for a long while to come.
I think many MMOs in the past survived because players stuck around far longer than the content and enjoyment they get out of the game actually should allow. Players do this because they have made friends, because they feel as if they have a duty towards their friends and because these friends have managed to take a spot in their lives that they would rather not be without.
When MMOs grow shorter due to leveling speeds or lack of content, when they grow easier and allow more content to be soloed or dealt with with a Pick Up Group without previous coordination, fewer players are likely to build these friendships. They don't suffer defeats together, they don't work out plans and struggle to achieve victories; so there is no reason to feel anything at all for the faceless people in your guild.
Without any real emotional ties to your friends and the game that you met them in, you'll leave when you get bored. For a game to succeed on the long term there needs to be a thorough foundation that supports the building of friendships and loyalty. Once you've got those parts, it doesn't matter if the rest of the game is absolute shite, because people will stay.
Content locust? Lol....I mainly only play SWTOR on the weekend now, and I did less 'power gaming' in SWTOR than I have in any other game ever... When you main leveling barometer is quests and it has to somewhat equal your quests, you get a very fast leveling curve....Or you got to make a ton more quests...
Yeah people bitch and complain about stuff, but thats why some quests make you kill 100 mobs in some games...I have never been a big fan of quest leveling....Tell me what xp I need, make a big world, unique mobs/places, roaming big bosses, rare mob spawns that roam, loot tables with common/rare/ur drops for each area, and I will go make it happen and have a lot more fun than quest leveling, where it is hard to sync up with other and their quests...
But since we are talking quest leveling...and swtor is the latest....They didn't have 200 hours of content in the class, as they said they would....The wife and I watch every VO scene, didn't hit space bar, didn't power game, we work different shifts, so we mainly play on the weekend or like an hour at most during the weekday, and the content didn't last as long as it should of.
Since this seems to be a problem, how about fixing it and coming up with a solution...The problem has been everything for the last 5-6 years has all been the same junk for the most part...I hope the devs are finally getting it....They aren't making the next WoW...They are making the next p2p that is going to go f2p...
This, Isabella, is the best article you have written so far...
I completely agree with you, the journey is the fun part and is 90% of the content and yet we at best spend 3 weeks in that and the expect us to spend 2 years until the next expansion in the last grindy 10% of the game.
That certain games (I am looking on you, Lineage 1 & 2) were too slow is true but when the devs were speeding up leveling a bit they went too far. And while that isn´t the only reason most players just spends 2 months in a new MMO it is a big part of it.
"Devs, read my lips: leveling is FUN. Slow the damn train down a bit and let us enjoy the scenery."
1. go see [NPC]
2. [NPC] sends you to kill 10x's [enter mob name here]
3. return to [NPC] for stupid reward
...that IS NOT "fun". and until developers figure that out... im still going to blast through it as fast as possible.
Source for SWTOR subscriptions being in freefall, or is the OP just another doom and gloom merchant.....?
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
The problem with SWTOR is it's horrible design decisions that are laden onto every facet of the game.
Quick leveling and gearing
Super buggy in so many ways
RNG pvp gear
Can't select pvp maps
No pvp scoreboard
Endgame hard modes super buggy and you need a quest just to enter
Tons of load screens
more load screens
Worlds feel dead, npc's don't move at all
Super buggy ability lag. some times abilities just won't fire no matter how much you button mash.
etc..........
i agree. playing swg i loved having my own house, collecting and decorating it. whenever i got burned out of aspects of the game i would always go back and work on my house. i loved being able to put my house in a city with my friends as well. one of the reasons i kept playing swg for so long.
Different for every..single..player.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Well, you might be right there but dailiy quests and gear grinding ain´t fun either. It is more or less the same as grinding mobs and they expect you to do it for years.
But sure, when the time to level goes up they also needs to make leveling more fun. I guess that is why they decided that they wouldn´t bother and treat leveling as a 2 week tutorial.
I don't buy the "I have a life so I can't play a sandbox" argument. It implies that just like the "locusts" you need to get to a ceratain point as fast as possible or on a scheduele.
As long as the mechanics allow you to (in most cases) log out within a couple of minutes without loosing progress it is casual friendly, period. Grinding is not a factor. The opposite is a game that "forces" you to ride all the way to the end once some event in the game is initiated in order to not have wasted that time.
I'll take SWG as an example. I am crafting, a RL friend visits. I can leve the PC on or I can just finish experimenting and log. I am decorating the guildhall with friends, they can go on without me and what I have already done is there the next time I log in.
In a raid I "have to" finish it if I am halfway through unless I want the first hour of a two hour raid to be wasted, not to mention that I'll leave my guildies hanging.
I am kinda getting to the point of never buying america designed games again.
NA developers have gone totally and completely about the $, and have lost all sight of the creativity.
Sadly it is not just mmo's have you noticed console games lately? Getting very sick of paying $60-90 for a new console game for a lousy 10 hours of game play.
They did a " biased " study that says most gamers do not even finish a game so they decided why give them a 40 hour game if they are only going to play 10 hours of it?
So instead lets sell them a 10 hour game for double the price we use to sell them a 40 hour game for, and if any of them actually want more of the game we will sell them the rest of the game as DLC's in 5 hour increments!!
Honestly Im sick of it, and sick of the crack dealers they have become praying on us the addicts we have become.
The whole industry was designed to be very addictive there are studies done on the right sounds, colors, partical effects to stimulate the exact same responses in us as if we were using drugs.
So they addict two generations of us and now they, cut the product and jack the prices..
exactly like crack dealers.
I couldn't agree with OP more. I do hope some of the upcoming games make questing more fun and slow down the leveling process. SWTOR has added some meaning to the questing during the leveling process. However, dailies are dreadfully boring. I like gear/ability "grinding" as long as I'm leveling, but when I hit the level cap it becomes wildly boring. Likely due to no new locations to explore and no further content.
I just can't believe that SWTOR made a game for so much money that takes 2-4 weeks to hit max level for the casual player. I would almost bet that GW2 has the same leveling time and it is designed for people that hate building characters over any period of time.
err they 80's was 30 years ago mate. Most games are now beyond the reach of a couple of brothers making computer games in their bedrooms.
Business is about money.
Well, maybe you should not damn logic.
We are speaking about inherent flaws of themeparks here, and alas Bioware didn't add ANY sandbox elements. It's the revenge of Uncle Owen.
Oh the irony...
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
OR...focus on real end game content. make things to do not just dungeons and raids.
As much as I am sure this has been brought up, GW2 has its story, DE, mini games, Dungeons, PvP, WvWvW and crafting. ALL at max level.
In fact all of this is through the game. there is not a quest "rat race" to run. In fact Anet has had problem when they bring in testsers because the testers didnt know what to do because there wasnt an NPC guiding them.
Remember when you started a new MMO and you had to ask people where to go/what to do. The good old days will never be back. unless companies like Anet try and break the model. its sad when the MMORPG loses both the MMO and the RPG aspect.
You got me, I'm still grasping for the days when UO, EQ, and AC were brand new and all about porting paper and pencil ideas into virtual worlds.
You really hit the nail direcftly on the head this time Isabelle. The funny thing is why haven't developers figured out that this is one way to keep customers as .......SUBSCRIBERS.
Instead of reaching end game in 4 weeks or 8 weeks and getting burned out, a journery so long and filled with adventure that end game isn'ty even a part of the equation in the beginning.
Yeah AC's level cap was so rediculiously off in the distance it never entered into my reason for playing and I played for the better part of 4 years.
Your articles are most often thought provoking keep it up please!
Kani