The OP is asking for something simple.

Instead of starting out with one or two lame ass skills, and fighting lame ass critters, start with 10 very cool skills and start out fighting very cool critters.

It wouldn't be that hard to do.

It's a good idea.

So in WoW, just have everyone start at level 20, for instance. WAR level 10.

A lot of you don't fully grasp what the OP is trying to say. I will compare this to Wow since it is the most known MMO on these forums. If I start a new char on wow I have maybe 2-3 skills. Some might not be active. I have to run around at the speed of smell trying to melt faces with 1 spell and a single buff killing the same little monsters over and over....which really doesn't fully end until around lvl 50-60. Now if you were to start with a decent amount of skills (that are not op)that allow for more of a change in how you kill each mob (also you would be doing dmg in the 100s not 10s).

Now this is mainly the reason I don't want to level another character. It's mind numbingly boring for me now, because I know the game so well and am use to a plethera of abilities.

Originally posted by bobbler

A lot of you don't fully grasp what the OP is trying to say. I will compare this to Wow since it is the most known MMO on these forums. If I start a new char on wow I have maybe 2-3 skills. Some might not be active. I have to run around at the speed of smell trying to melt faces with 1 spell and a single buff killing the same little monsters over and over....which really doesn't fully end until around lvl 50-60. Now if you were to start with a decent amount of skills (that are not op)that allow for more of a change in how you kill each mob (also you would be doing dmg in the 100s not 10s).

Now this is mainly the reason I don't want to level another character. It's mind numbingly boring for me now, because I know the game so well and am use to a plethera of abilities.

You've put it into words better than I have.  I think the kill rats/wolves/snakes/gnolls/orcs till lvl 20 is leftover from EQ since that had the same problem and pretty much all modern MMOs are based off of the EQ model. 

I'm not talking about starting with the same number of spells that you get at these higehr levels, that'd be too confusing obviously, but atleast give us something to work with.  For a caster, a few buffs, some damage spells, etc. not just a wimpy damage spell and a useless buff.  Then we can expand from there.  And let us fight more interesting creatures, not rats and boars.  GW kind of got this right, in that the mobs you start off with are very different but then they start to repeat a lot. 

Like others have said, you'd be given a bunch of abilities and/or spells you'd have no idea how to use effectively. It'd be like buying a pre-leveled 80 toon with Tier 7 epic gear. Sure, you'd have the makings of a badass, but you'd have no clue how to play it.

Skill based games you don't start off weak but just start off with less choice and thats the way to go.

For your first MMO and your first character it's all well and good, but after playing so many MMOs I just groan and uninstall after trying in vain to get interested in the low levels of these games where they have me killing insignificant fodder with a handful of boring abilities.

Swtor has been saying that at no time will you be killing mindless simple animals, and that every quest is suposed to be a real fight against Soldiers or very powerful beasts. I believe they even said "at no pont will you be clearing out a farm of level 1 rats"

Originally posted by fischsemmel

Personally, I feel like the real issues here is the whole end-game mindset that the OP seems to have. He wants a big selection of powers right from the beginning. He wants to be slaying dragons and evil wizards, isntead of scuffling with goblins and sewer rats. Etc.

That's just a problem with what content is available. WOW:TBC had a great low level area 10-20. Clear the island and you've put a major dent in the BE operations, killed a dragon. Write good content and you can still slay evil wizards and dragons at any level.

IMO only time rats are acceptable enemy is during command tutorials.

EQ1 just opened a server where you start out at L51.

its really not that hard to do, simply replace gnolls and rats with...dragons and demons (big ones).  Unfortunately the novelty wears off pretty quickly and you don't really get a guage of how strong you really are (none of that, wow...i just beat that big demon all by myself).  To be honest i would rather see more realistic combat (1 or 2 decent hits take down a creature like a human or small beast and most of the time you dodge/miss/parry attacks).

SW-TOR Will have all there clases to be powerfull at start, somthing link Diablo were u at lvl 1 are able to take out a high number of enemys at ones. And the classe will have at x numbers of powerfull skills at that point.
 

DAoC had this problem at start of its days. You started off archtype class and had one or two abilities like every other mmo. It always so borring for experince gamers and complete turn off right away. Then ended up with /level 20s for already max players. later they also remove the first five levels starting you off as the class with few more abilities right up front.  IT made it a lot more fun starting new classes.

Anyway, I always hated starting new mmos because of the first 20 levels are a grind for me to just get to the group content or such.
 

Edit: I think a lot of people missing op point because they played a lot of the newer mmos.(warhammer, aoc). Although there still mmos coming out that started off so borring. Vanguard was the last borring game starting off what i never got through.

This should be the primrary focus is making it fun from the start. Warhammer did great with this. You can jump right into pvp or go do group stuff right from the get go. It was really fun sadly fast solo leveling with its buggy and  horrible end game destroyed it for me.

Originally posted by fischsemmel

Originally posted by BwanaKuu

I was pondering what my least favorite part of the traditional level-based MMo is and one thing that came up was the boredom of lower levels.  You're grinding on rats and gnolls and your abilities are limited.  I was wondering if there could be a game where you start out being already powerful.  Not end-game powerful, but very powerful.  Have lots of abilities already but have much better ones in the future so you want to advance.  Already have decent gear, but get even better stuff later.  Basically, start near mid-game in most MMOs and go way beyond end-game with every increasing difficulty.  Just cut out the boring stuff in the beginning.

 

Obviously, I'm not suggesting this will be a huge game-changing feature, but just one thing that could change to make things slightly better.  Just an idea. 

 

 

Well, to answer the subject question - of course there COULD be an MMO where you start off power. But the important question, of course, is would this be a good idea? In general, players in an MMO learn the ropes at lower levels, and also figure out what kind of direction they want to take their character down the road. If you remove the simple beginning and slow increase in choices and strategies and just throw players into a game where they start off with dozens of different abilities, which they have absolutely no idea how to use effectively, you're going to end up with a lot of frustrated players who quit within hours. The GOOD players will master things quickly, refuse to group with those who don't, etc. Not pretty.

Sounds like eve

I had an idea (which I'm sure is not new) for an MMORPG w/o levels, only a set of core skills and every player would start out with the same amount of skill points which would never increase through "leveling"  (might considering having gear add some skill points to the baseline).

Advancement of chaaracter would be in terms of learning additional new skills past the core,which wouldn't really make your character all powerful, but would offer you more options to solving quests and combat.

With such a system, a couple of new players could easily take down any vet, yet vets would still have something to strive for. 

Of course, its a totally different way to think about character advancement, but I still thing it would be a pretty fun idea.

And...there might be a game out there already doing this, if so I'd love to give it a try.

I think the main ideal here would be to introduce this to Pre existing high lvl Characters. Possbily If you wanted to make an Alt. Since you already know the game and how things work. When you make an Alt you should be able to Begin That character at around 20-30 range. The only problem is the lack of Gear. They would have to give you a goodie bag. everquest Test server anyone?

Originally posted by Kyleran

I had an idea (which I'm sure is not new) for an MMORPG w/o levels, only a set of core skills and every player would start out with the same amount of skill points which would never increase through "leveling"  (might considering having gear add some skill points to the baseline).

Advancement of chaaracter would be in terms of learning additional new skills past the core,which wouldn't really make your character all powerful, but would offer you more options to solving quests and combat.

With such a system, a couple of new players could easily take down any vet, yet vets would still have something to strive for. 

Of course, its a totally different way to think about character advancement, but I still thing it would be a pretty fun idea.

And...there might be a game out there already doing this, if so I'd love to give it a try.

 

Well said! I think the OP issue is (as I see it very often on this forum) that he doesn’t like to grind. He wants to get past the character advancement right from the start.
In my opinion the only way to reduce grinding is reducing character advancement.

When I reach the level cap it is some sort of liberation to me because I have gotten past the main part of the character advancement. There will still be some advancement but it will be much less high and much less rapid.
Then I am free to do things I like to do other then things that give me the biggest reward.

Its paradox, but rewarding players to do something most the time is ruining the fun they have doing it because they only think of the reward and not of the things they to do to get it.
If there are complicated quests with a epic story on low levels player will often only complain that this is stopping them from getting a higher level fast. It’s not important if the journey is fun as long as it is fast.

So, the character advancement need to be limited in a way that a new character can compete with a maxed out one already. This doesn’t mean that there should ne no specialisation.
Today’s games by contrast have a very steep character advancement. In wow your characters performance doubles at least every five levels. To make advancement slower wouldn’t help, because there are a lot of guys that desperate need to max out everything no matter how much they have to agonize themselves to make it.

By the way, this is also more realistic. If the world’s best boxer would have to face two average opponents at a time he wouldn’t have much of a chance.

But what will players motivate to play the game if not the rewards they get? Well the gameplay itself should. In most games like, Pacman, Counterstrike, Super Mario, whatever there are no permanent rewards. You play them because they are fun. That’s the difference between a Videogame and a Slotmachine.

 

A few years ago, (correct me if i'm wrong) Microsoft was working on a game called Mythic. The characters were gods or demi-gods (i'm not sure) and started really powerful. It looked nice but it got cancelled. (don't remember why).

There's probably still a few screenshots on the web.

Maybe one day, other companies will think about making this kind of game where you start powerful hehe

Originally posted by Kyleran

I had an idea (which I'm sure is not new) for an MMORPG w/o levels, only a set of core skills and every player would start out with the same amount of skill points which would never increase through "leveling"  (might considering having gear add some skill points to the baseline).

Advancement of chaaracter would be in terms of learning additional new skills past the core,which wouldn't really make your character all powerful, but would offer you more options to solving quests and combat.

With such a system, a couple of new players could easily take down any vet, yet vets would still have something to strive for. 

Of course, its a totally different way to think about character advancement, but I still thing it would be a pretty fun idea.

And...there might be a game out there already doing this, if so I'd love to give it a try.

 

I think Earthrise is going for something like this, you don't get that more powerful as you level, you just get more options.