This post is about fantasy MMOs.

One of the most addicting factors in MMO's are wanting to get better gear.  Let me explain why fantasy MMO's are messing up big time with gear distribution.

When one maxes a certain level, the only difference between players is what gear they have on. Infact, gear could be much harder and take much longer to obtain then getting to max level--in the long run.

Just like you can't skip levels...you shouldn't be able to skip levels in gear.

The Item Building Method: You cannot earn gear B without earning gear A.      A<B<C<D...ect.

No one should be able to skip gear and go straight into the best peices.

The Item Building Method should only be taken into account at MAX level.

Conclusion:

MMOs take an extremely large amount of time to play. They are an investment where one spends an average of 2-6 hours every day while paying a monthly cost. This isn't like watching tv passively. You are engaged in the game and involved more so then any other entertainment medium. People SHOULD take gear distribution seriously if they play the game seriously.

This would make no sense.

Since when is a warriors merit or a mages merit or..or..or (You get the point) based on their gear?

"Oh snap lord Elvric has that lvl 20 chain mail FLEE", no.

No.

No.

The problems with mmo's is they are too gear dependant and detract from fantasy all together.

Never in any history books or decent fantasy books have I seen any hero's go through a tier of gear.

Aragorn didn't find some leet plate mail +5 in the depths of moria  and then later on "upgrade" due to finding a phat  "plate mail +6" on a orc.

Then only later to discard said "plate mail +6" for "Full plate of the goddess +2" .

Anyhow onto the point.

You shouldn't have to worry about that stuff at all, you should be able to "skip" (whatever that means as far as gear) as much as you want, do you REALLY enjoy treadmilling?

Because thats what you are saying. 

Now you stated the final cause and allows me to understand exactly what kind of game player you are.

Gear shouldn't matter. Gear is gear. In reality armor and weapons were handed down through the generations, it makes 0 sense to me why that orc warrior is carrying my next upgrade (somewhere).

It would make 0 sense to make the players grind for me stuff , now instead of skills,levels, points to distribute, we must now tier gear in there.

Games are not meant to be played seriously, in this respect. I do not make money off them. They are for FUN. The day I get this hardcore into a mmo or if mmo's force me to do such a thing is a day I just say screw the genre.

IMHO, the one ring is overpowered.   Remove it from the game, trown it to the mount of doom.

The silmarillions.. overpowered. NERF!.

A simple response from me...

Things get outdated within a game. There is no way past this, as various players seem to find what area is best and abuse it.

Other than raid tiers, nothing has been similarly implemented to create tiers for higher level characters. Raid tiers aren't that great either as certain zones become outdated. See EverQuest, and see how many people need Planes of Power compared to Anguish. PoP would be the tier before Anguish, but had gotten outdated.

Another idea would be if you had to get ring 1, to get ring 2, to get ring 3, a lot of people wouldn't do it nearly as much, because eventually it would get outdated. Now if you kept updating that line, till say ring 17 people would see it as too much hassle to get.

It's just too hard to balance... that is of course if you find a game that actually updates content.

I really wish MMOs would move away from this terrible gear grind, gear progression mechanic.

Games like UO, SWG, Eve, Ryzom and others have shown me how good a mmo can be without a gear grind.

99% of all gear crafted with only materials dropping in pve encounters makes for a much better game imo.

Anyway back on topic, Yeah if a game has to be gear based players should need set 1 to get set 2 and so on.

I always hated when a new player in a big guild could easily get a high rank set of gear with minimal effort in the lower tier content.