Quick question because of some earlier comments: When someone discusses leveling, do you think "grind mobs"?
I ask because I don't. I think of questing, exploring, and running lower level dungons. I guess the older games relied on pure mob grinding to level. I would NOT be in favor of that. For me, I'd need the grind to be hidden better via quests, etc.
Slow level...no endgame for the majority because of it, with new content/expansions/etc coming out before those masses hit the soon to change level cap. Yeah... that would be the preference. One might say there would be endgame all along the way, in a sense...not the GW2 lolsense; but in the actual sense.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
No, you are not alone OP but we are old. Kids these days, with their twitter and all that, want to get things easy. They dont like to put in an effort to achieve things.
Originally posted by Yamota No, you are not alone OP but we are old. Kids these days, with their twitter and all that, want to get things easy. They dont like to put in an effort to achieve things.
It's kind of funny how well that fits - Twitter. Pseudo micro-blogging. MMOs are micro-MMOs. Yep, kind of funny how that fits. Sadly...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Originally posted by Yamota No, you are not alone OP but we are old. Kids these days, with their twitter and all that, want to get things easy. They dont like to put in an effort to achieve things.
And without effort...was anything really "achieved"?
Quick question because of some earlier comments: When someone discusses leveling, do you think "grind mobs"?
I ask because I don't. I think of questing, exploring, and running lower level dungons. I guess the older games relied on pure mob grinding to level. I would NOT be in favor of that. For me, I'd need the grind to be hidden better via quests, etc.
For me that doesnt matter, in fact having both ways would be good. You can have quest lines or you can have group grinding mobs. For this to work tough .. group grinding mobs should give more exp cause if not no one will do it.
This is this kind of design devs should focus. Put more rewards on these tedious tasks, so this way everyone can choose what path they want to do. But again you will have those who will cry because they want the same reward with less effort and time.
i cant wait until there are no levels. If you dont start you dont need to stop.
What does that even mean in tangible game design though?
it means that you dont need that bar at the bottom of the screen.
what i would do is seperate advancement into 4 different paths. Lets say race, class, deity and a player chosen organization.
each path has personal objectives and also server wide objectives. Thus is you were a ranger in the ranger profession guild, you could advance your standing in the organization by doing things the organization considers important, and you can also help advance the organization as a whole, which in turn will allow you to advance further with the organization. There would be many ways to do this. not just one activity.
so rather than just get levels, you build up the rangers hemselves and are a part of that organization. They can have it so it would literally take years to complete an organization and thus you could never get to max in a week. Though as the server progressed, it would be somewhat easier for those that come later which i consider perfectly ok.
we do this for all four paths to advancement and we have successfully hidden our levels behind interesting gameplay mechanisms
so you dont gain more strength or dexterity because you leveled, you contribute to an organization so you can gain access to skills to train and services.
Its a different way at looking at things. I think its more immersive.
i cant wait until there are no levels. If you dont start you dont need to stop.
What does that even mean in tangible game design though?
it means that you dont need that bar at the bottom of the screen.
what i would do is seperate advancement into 4 different paths. Lets say race, class, deity and a player chosen organization.
each path has personal objectives and also server wide objectives. Thus is you were a ranger in the ranger profession guild, you could advance your standing in the organization by doing things the organization considers important, and you can also help advance the organization as a whole, which in turn will allow you to advance further with the organization. There would be many ways to do this. not just one activity.
so rather than just get levels, you build up the rangers hemselves and are a part of that organization. They can have it so it would literally take years to complete an organization and thus you could never get to max in a week. Though as the server progressed, it would be somewhat easier for those that come later which i consider perfectly ok.
we do this for all four paths to advancement and we have successfully hidden our levels behind interesting gameplay mechanisms
so you dont gain more strength or dexterity because you leveled, you contribute to an organization so you can gain access to skills to train and services.
Its a different way at looking at things. I think its more immersive.
While not exactly like this, You probably would have enjoyed games like Anarchy Online and StarWars Galaxies.
But they were an exersize in commitment when it came to leveling.
I'm not sure what grind was worse, Research or Jedi
i cant wait until there are no levels. If you dont start you dont need to stop.
What does that even mean in tangible game design though?
it means that you dont need that bar at the bottom of the screen.
what i would do is seperate advancement into 4 different paths. Lets say race, class, deity and a player chosen organization.
each path has personal objectives and also server wide objectives. Thus is you were a ranger in the ranger profession guild, you could advance your standing in the organization by doing things the organization considers important, and you can also help advance the organization as a whole, which in turn will allow you to advance further with the organization. There would be many ways to do this. not just one activity.
so rather than just get levels, you build up the rangers hemselves and are a part of that organization. They can have it so it would literally take years to complete an organization and thus you could never get to max in a week. Though as the server progressed, it would be somewhat easier for those that come later which i consider perfectly ok.
we do this for all four paths to advancement and we have successfully hidden our levels behind interesting gameplay mechanisms
so you dont gain more strength or dexterity because you leveled, you contribute to an organization so you can gain access to skills to train and services.
Its a different way at looking at things. I think its more immersive.
That a good idea, still i would like to have lvl too. You see the one problem with modern mmo, is that most of them force you to rush to max lvl and then the real game begin with raid and such. So you have not much to do exept that.
They put some crafting but in most case this is useless, they put pvp but again most of the time pvp at low lvl is useless since you lvl too fast so again you got max lvl to do pvp. They put some more features but there are most of the time useless and boring.
One of the best mmo i played is FFXI, the lvleling is slow, the crafting is pretty good and it will make your life easier. You can fish, you can gardening, you can explore do mission for cash or quest for rank etc etc, geez you always have something to do.
The only down side of it, it's the group forcing. Of course you can solo but this is simply not worth it and it will take for ever. I like long road but still realistic road
Anyway if devs can try to focus more on these kind of thing, instead of the easy and fast action game, well maibe one days i will be able to play a good mmorpg.
i cant wait until there are no levels. If you dont start you dont need to stop.
What does that even mean in tangible game design though?
it means that you dont need that bar at the bottom of the screen.
what i would do is seperate advancement into 4 different paths. Lets say race, class, deity and a player chosen organization.
each path has personal objectives and also server wide objectives. Thus is you were a ranger in the ranger profession guild, you could advance your standing in the organization by doing things the organization considers important, and you can also help advance the organization as a whole, which in turn will allow you to advance further with the organization. There would be many ways to do this. not just one activity.
so rather than just get levels, you build up the rangers hemselves and are a part of that organization. They can have it so it would literally take years to complete an organization and thus you could never get to max in a week. Though as the server progressed, it would be somewhat easier for those that come later which i consider perfectly ok.
we do this for all four paths to advancement and we have successfully hidden our levels behind interesting gameplay mechanisms
so you dont gain more strength or dexterity because you leveled, you contribute to an organization so you can gain access to skills to train and services.
Its a different way at looking at things. I think its more immersive.
Thank you for elborating. I don't necessarily disagree with you, in fact if you see my post on page three I tend to support the idea of different spheres to game play. I guess though that I see advencement regardless of if it is overtly tied to a level or not as central to a game. It doesn't appear that you disgree you just don't want to see them. I can give or take that. I mean even in real life we see ourselves progress. I lost 80lbs over the past year and while I didn't get a ding over my head I did get to see the progress and know I had something to show for it.
There are games that hid level more so than others the original SWG (I'm not sure if this is the path the emu will take), there are even games that gave you the appearance of progressing in different spheres Vangaurd for instance of even SWTOR to a degree with the separation of types of quests. Heck STO I has diplomacy/maurading as well as a micro-managing game now.
Granted it's be great to see more and more of this, and even games that go above and beyond. I just don't think that the MMO world is as one dementional as this thread (not your post specifically) portrays it. Just because games don't require players to under go grindfests doesn't mean that some games don't offer some of the same kinds of attachments to progression and characters that the old games did.
i cant wait until there are no levels. If you dont start you dont need to stop.
What does that even mean in tangible game design though?
it means that you dont need that bar at the bottom of the screen.
what i would do is seperate advancement into 4 different paths. Lets say race, class, deity and a player chosen organization.
each path has personal objectives and also server wide objectives. Thus is you were a ranger in the ranger profession guild, you could advance your standing in the organization by doing things the organization considers important, and you can also help advance the organization as a whole, which in turn will allow you to advance further with the organization. There would be many ways to do this. not just one activity.
so rather than just get levels, you build up the rangers hemselves and are a part of that organization. They can have it so it would literally take years to complete an organization and thus you could never get to max in a week. Though as the server progressed, it would be somewhat easier for those that come later which i consider perfectly ok.
we do this for all four paths to advancement and we have successfully hidden our levels behind interesting gameplay mechanisms
so you dont gain more strength or dexterity because you leveled, you contribute to an organization so you can gain access to skills to train and services.
Its a different way at looking at things. I think its more immersive.
So it's not removing levels...it's removing the delay in levels. There are a few games that do this already. The levels are still there, but it's not a case of waiting to hit the level to see the improvement. You see the improvement along the way. It's a more organic way of looking at it, no doubt - something that's always struck me as odd in many games - even old PnP RPGs.
Your character's gaining experience, gaining experience, gaining experience, but he/she has nothing to show for it until they've accumulated a certain amount of experience - then BAM - results.
The games where they actually reward your efforts along the way as you level on the other hand - well, you've done something - you're better at it - and it shows. Rather than the silly notion that some day down the road, you'll magically be better at it.
Standard leveling methodologies tend to ignore the obvious incremental improvements that one would see. It doesn't mean removing levels in the least, as they would still exist as a form of benchmarking - simple stratification. The issue that has arisen in the past 40 some years is the way in which it tends to be handled.
It's more like pay grades than performance...meh.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
i was trying to add some context to the game for gameplay purposes and add some community based achievement in basic communities that your character can identify with.
Yes I do miss level progression over time. My first MMO was The Realm Online when the level cap was 100. I remember when I hit about 75 I started to only get 4 EXP from groups of 4 Ogres so only 16EXP for each fight.
Never even made it to 100 I think I only got to 82 before they raised the level cap to 1000.
And EQ had the best of both worlds with its AAs, you never stopped improving your character (well 99.5% of people anyway). Rift tried an AA system but the implementation of it was putrid, as it was just minor stat increases for the most part as opposed to EQs much more meaningful AAs.
I think the super fast leveling curves are retention killers and is possibly the #1 reason for Rift's poor retention, players just dont get hooked in that short of a time. GW2 will have issues with this as well.
DOnt feel like you're alone, there are others of us that enjoy leveling....It just seems like too many want to skip immediately to end game, but for me I really like to level...One of the reasons why I really liked Anarchy Online was that there were so many levels, and it took a long time to hit max unless you were powerleved (which many were)......One thing I look at when considering a new game is how long is the leveling process and does the game have replayability (ie alts)......
I guess you could call me old school, or a grumpy old man, but I truly miss the old days when it took at least 6 months to level to max level.
Just my two cents from an old dinosaur lol.
I do agree.
What is the point of creating this big huge continent if no one spends any time in it. Just start everyone at lvl 80, if you are going to that, and create a game that is solely dungeons and raids.
I do agree with you OP. I miss them days. When you reached max lvl after 6 month it had meaning. You put effort in it and you played 8hrs a day to reach that lvl in such a "short" time.
PPL where cheering when you dinged max, not only guild mates but also random ppl. And the first char was for sure a gimp, couse you totaly misspeced it ^^
These where the good old days.
Now you get your fix instantly. No effort for max everything. Just come to our cash shop and you can be a hero in no time!
I do agree with you OP. I miss them days. When you reached max lvl after 6 month it had meaning. You put effort in it and you played 8hrs a day to reach that lvl in such a "short" time.
PPL where cheering when you dinged max, not only guild mates but also random ppl. And the first char was for sure a gimp, couse you totaly misspeced it ^^
These where the good old days.
Now you get your fix instantly. No effort for max everything. Just come to our cash shop and you can be a hero in no time!
Grrrr!
I miss those days, That final DING was a big deal.
To those who don't understand why we enjoyed the long levels and the time, who say if you want to level more, just roll an alt... I say this.
In DAoC I was Wardop Bunnyslayer, the mighty purple paladin.
My guild knew it. My alliance knew it. My server knew it. The people on the other realms I fought against knew it.
A vast majority of the time I was online I was Wardop Bunnyslayer, a paladin. Because, if I ever wanted to have a max level or all the cool stuff that goes with it, if I wanted to keep pace with my friends, I needed to be Wardop most of the time.
And, most importantly to me, what Wardop did and said mattered, because I was Wardop Bunnyslayer, a paladin.
In WoW... Today I might be Wardop, tomorrow I might be someone completely different. Because it doesn't matter, I can level 10 alts in the time it took to get Wardop Bunnyslayer half way to max level.
Originally posted by Wardop To those who don't understand why we enjoyed the long levels and the time, who say if you want to level more, just roll an alt... I say this. In DAoC I was Wardop Bunnyslayer, the mighty purple paladin.My guild knew it. My alliance knew it. My server knew it. The people on the other realms I fought against knew it.A vast majority of the time I was online I was Wardop Bunnyslayer, a paladin. Because, if I ever wanted to have a max level or all the cool stuff that goes with it, if I wanted to keep pace with my friends, I needed to be Wardop most of the time.And, most importantly to me, what Wardop did and said mattered, because I was Wardop Bunnyslayer, a paladin. In WoW... Today I might be Wardop, tomorrow I might be someone completely different. Because it doesn't matter, I can level 10 alts in the time it took to get Wardop Bunnyslayer half way to max level.
Comments
Quick question because of some earlier comments: When someone discusses leveling, do you think "grind mobs"?
I ask because I don't. I think of questing, exploring, and running lower level dungons. I guess the older games relied on pure mob grinding to level. I would NOT be in favor of that. For me, I'd need the grind to be hidden better via quests, etc.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
My gaming blog
It's kind of funny how well that fits - Twitter. Pseudo micro-blogging. MMOs are micro-MMOs. Yep, kind of funny how that fits. Sadly...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
And without effort...was anything really "achieved"?
i cant wait until there are no levels. If you dont start you dont need to stop.
What does that even mean in tangible game design though?
For me that doesnt matter, in fact having both ways would be good. You can have quest lines or you can have group grinding mobs. For this to work tough .. group grinding mobs should give more exp cause if not no one will do it.
This is this kind of design devs should focus. Put more rewards on these tedious tasks, so this way everyone can choose what path they want to do. But again you will have those who will cry because they want the same reward with less effort and time.
it means that you dont need that bar at the bottom of the screen.
what i would do is seperate advancement into 4 different paths. Lets say race, class, deity and a player chosen organization.
each path has personal objectives and also server wide objectives. Thus is you were a ranger in the ranger profession guild, you could advance your standing in the organization by doing things the organization considers important, and you can also help advance the organization as a whole, which in turn will allow you to advance further with the organization. There would be many ways to do this. not just one activity.
so rather than just get levels, you build up the rangers hemselves and are a part of that organization. They can have it so it would literally take years to complete an organization and thus you could never get to max in a week. Though as the server progressed, it would be somewhat easier for those that come later which i consider perfectly ok.
we do this for all four paths to advancement and we have successfully hidden our levels behind interesting gameplay mechanisms
so you dont gain more strength or dexterity because you leveled, you contribute to an organization so you can gain access to skills to train and services.
Its a different way at looking at things. I think its more immersive.
for me a rpg game with no lvl is meaningless, if i dont want lvl i will play fps or action game.
While not exactly like this, You probably would have enjoyed games like Anarchy Online and StarWars Galaxies.
But they were an exersize in commitment when it came to leveling.
I'm not sure what grind was worse, Research or Jedi
That a good idea, still i would like to have lvl too. You see the one problem with modern mmo, is that most of them force you to rush to max lvl and then the real game begin with raid and such. So you have not much to do exept that.
They put some crafting but in most case this is useless, they put pvp but again most of the time pvp at low lvl is useless since you lvl too fast so again you got max lvl to do pvp. They put some more features but there are most of the time useless and boring.
One of the best mmo i played is FFXI, the lvleling is slow, the crafting is pretty good and it will make your life easier. You can fish, you can gardening, you can explore do mission for cash or quest for rank etc etc, geez you always have something to do.
The only down side of it, it's the group forcing. Of course you can solo but this is simply not worth it and it will take for ever. I like long road but still realistic road
Anyway if devs can try to focus more on these kind of thing, instead of the easy and fast action game, well maibe one days i will be able to play a good mmorpg.
Thank you for elborating. I don't necessarily disagree with you, in fact if you see my post on page three I tend to support the idea of different spheres to game play. I guess though that I see advencement regardless of if it is overtly tied to a level or not as central to a game. It doesn't appear that you disgree you just don't want to see them. I can give or take that. I mean even in real life we see ourselves progress. I lost 80lbs over the past year and while I didn't get a ding over my head I did get to see the progress and know I had something to show for it.
There are games that hid level more so than others the original SWG (I'm not sure if this is the path the emu will take), there are even games that gave you the appearance of progressing in different spheres Vangaurd for instance of even SWTOR to a degree with the separation of types of quests. Heck STO I has diplomacy/maurading as well as a micro-managing game now.
Granted it's be great to see more and more of this, and even games that go above and beyond. I just don't think that the MMO world is as one dementional as this thread (not your post specifically) portrays it. Just because games don't require players to under go grindfests doesn't mean that some games don't offer some of the same kinds of attachments to progression and characters that the old games did.
So it's not removing levels...it's removing the delay in levels. There are a few games that do this already. The levels are still there, but it's not a case of waiting to hit the level to see the improvement. You see the improvement along the way. It's a more organic way of looking at it, no doubt - something that's always struck me as odd in many games - even old PnP RPGs.
Your character's gaining experience, gaining experience, gaining experience, but he/she has nothing to show for it until they've accumulated a certain amount of experience - then BAM - results.
The games where they actually reward your efforts along the way as you level on the other hand - well, you've done something - you're better at it - and it shows. Rather than the silly notion that some day down the road, you'll magically be better at it.
Standard leveling methodologies tend to ignore the obvious incremental improvements that one would see. It doesn't mean removing levels in the least, as they would still exist as a form of benchmarking - simple stratification. The issue that has arisen in the past 40 some years is the way in which it tends to be handled.
It's more like pay grades than performance...meh.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
i was trying to add some context to the game for gameplay purposes and add some community based achievement in basic communities that your character can identify with.
Yes I do miss level progression over time. My first MMO was The Realm Online when the level cap was 100. I remember when I hit about 75 I started to only get 4 EXP from groups of 4 Ogres so only 16EXP for each fight.
Never even made it to 100 I think I only got to 82 before they raised the level cap to 1000.
I miss it
And EQ had the best of both worlds with its AAs, you never stopped improving your character (well 99.5% of people anyway). Rift tried an AA system but the implementation of it was putrid, as it was just minor stat increases for the most part as opposed to EQs much more meaningful AAs.
I think the super fast leveling curves are retention killers and is possibly the #1 reason for Rift's poor retention, players just dont get hooked in that short of a time. GW2 will have issues with this as well.
I do agree.
What is the point of creating this big huge continent if no one spends any time in it. Just start everyone at lvl 80, if you are going to that, and create a game that is solely dungeons and raids.
I do agree with you OP. I miss them days. When you reached max lvl after 6 month it had meaning. You put effort in it and you played 8hrs a day to reach that lvl in such a "short" time.
PPL where cheering when you dinged max, not only guild mates but also random ppl. And the first char was for sure a gimp, couse you totaly misspeced it ^^
These where the good old days.
Now you get your fix instantly. No effort for max everything. Just come to our cash shop and you can be a hero in no time!
Grrrr!
I miss those days, That final DING was a big deal.
To those who don't understand why we enjoyed the long levels and the time, who say if you want to level more, just roll an alt... I say this.
In DAoC I was Wardop Bunnyslayer, the mighty purple paladin.
My guild knew it. My alliance knew it. My server knew it. The people on the other realms I fought against knew it.
A vast majority of the time I was online I was Wardop Bunnyslayer, a paladin. Because, if I ever wanted to have a max level or all the cool stuff that goes with it, if I wanted to keep pace with my friends, I needed to be Wardop most of the time.
And, most importantly to me, what Wardop did and said mattered, because I was Wardop Bunnyslayer, a paladin.
In WoW... Today I might be Wardop, tomorrow I might be someone completely different. Because it doesn't matter, I can level 10 alts in the time it took to get Wardop Bunnyslayer half way to max level.
So true...