http://www.arena.net/blog/progression-and-leveling-in-guild-wars-2#more-2828

Overall, we expect our content to be the driving force behind how long it takes to do things in-game.

Anyone can increase the length of an experience bar and call it content, but our world is filled with an almost endless stream of things to do.

We expect content—not long, grindy progression—to be the deciding factor that keeps people playing our game.

We want everyone to stick with Guild Wars 2 because our content is fun and enjoyable, not out of some dogged determination to slowly, slowly advance. 

SWEET!!!!

Gotta say GW2 is turning into more and more Win!!! feelings the more I hear.

Was already looking forward to it just based on my GW1 experience.

Meh... I really liked the low level cap and extremely fast leveling in the original Guild Wars. The fun was playing the game, not grinding up levels. I'm not thrilled with this new direction.

The flat leveling curve sounds great, will have to see how it actually plays out because usually it takes no time at all for the first few levels as those are, more or less, a tutorial for the game.  Think it would suck to play for 2 hours only to get from level 1 to level 2 lol.

Now, how are they gonna measure this?  For some people leveling takes longer while other people are able to scream through the levels.  Of course this is dependent on a number of factors: gear, grouped/solo, foreknowledge of areas, and of course different classes.  Like I said, I will have to see how this all works for myself but, at least on paper, it sounds like a great idea and I hope it works well for them.

Originally posted by Abrahmm

Meh... I really liked the low level cap and extremely fast leveling in the original Guild Wars. The fun was playing the game, not grinding up levels. I'm not thrilled with this new direction.

I believe they are trying to make it faster. If you check out the level progession compared to the other's it seems they are trying to speed it up.

I assume levelling from 1 to 2 will take longer in GW2 than other MMO's.

Originally posted by Abrahmm

Meh... I really liked the low level cap and extremely fast leveling in the original Guild Wars. The fun was playing the game, not grinding up levels. I'm not thrilled with this new direction.

agreed. What I loved about the PvE in Guild Wars was its philosophy on the content rather than end-game. They said it was the journey and not the end, and they certainly fell through with that. It was a double-edged sword really... what made their PvE some of the best PvE in any MMO also gave it a very low replay value, at least for me. I know there are some GW players who can enjoy themselves just making alts and playing through the same exact story, but I didn't get that much enjoyment. If Guild Wars 2 could get the best of both worlds, being a PvE experience that actually is fun to go through and not considered a chore to end-game, while also making end-game existant and fun on its own, this could very well be much more successful than the original GWs (not that it wasn't highly successful to begin with, which adds even more to my statement).

waiting for this game is getting harder with every new info.

They're telling us no grind. Yeah right. How the fuck are they going to fill up our time with 80 levels of content?

Most games today is difficult to fill in 30 hours of unique fun gameplay.

Now WTF is the point of having 80 levels? Does every class get 80 or more unique spells?

Also Once i hit level 2 that took me 3-4 hours(they said few =/ ). Im going to say. I got to go through 78 more of these!? Why do games have such high number of levels. I expect a unique spell every level.

Originally posted by Devalon

They're telling us no grind. Yeah right. How the fuck are they going to fill up our time with 80 levels of content?

Most games today is difficult to fill in 30 hours of unique fun gameplay.

Now WTF is the point of having 80 levels? Does every class get 80 or more unique spells?

Also Once i hit level 2 that took me 3-4 hours(they said few =/ ). Im going to say. I got to go through 78 more of these!? Why do games have such high number of levels. I expect a unique spell every level.

I think the bigger question is, if you are playing for content, and all of your skills are bought from skill trainers or purchased through a microtransaction,  whats the point of having levels at all?

It sounds more like they are trying to feign the appearance of progression by adding extra levels to "ding" to.

Originally posted by Devalon

They're telling us no grind. Yeah right. How the fuck are they going to fill up our time with 80 levels of content?

Most games today is difficult to fill in 30 hours of unique fun gameplay.

Now WTF is the point of having 80 levels? Does every class get 80 or more unique spells?

Also Once i hit level 2 that took me 3-4 hours(they said few =/ ). Im going to say. I got to go through 78 more of these!? Why do games have such high number of levels. I expect a unique spell every level.

i expect something similar to gw1. In gw1 you didnt get any "spell" because you leveled up. They were sold at different parts of the world and elite skills were taken from some unique monsters. When you leveled up you got more points to use on your various class schools which in effect powered up your skills. If you've played gw1 what i say is easy to understand but if you havent seen it what i've said might seem like gibberish. lol

Originally posted by Falfeir

Originally posted by Devalon

They're telling us no grind. Yeah right. How the fuck are they going to fill up our time with 80 levels of content?

Most games today is difficult to fill in 30 hours of unique fun gameplay.

Now WTF is the point of having 80 levels? Does every class get 80 or more unique spells?

Also Once i hit level 2 that took me 3-4 hours(they said few =/ ). Im going to say. I got to go through 78 more of these!? Why do games have such high number of levels. I expect a unique spell every level.

i expect something similar to gw1. In gw1 you didnt get any "spell" because you leveled up. They were sold at different parts of the world and elite skills were taken from some unique monsters. When you leveled up you got more points to use on your various class schools which in effect powered up your skills. If you've played gw1 what i say is easy to understand but if you havent seen it what i've said might seem like gibberish. lol

Your reply about the same as one above. So,  you don't gain any new skills just become stronger. It seems the grind is going to feel even stronger like that. There no way they got 80 level of content without a huge amount of grind.

Edit: I played a little bit of Gw1. They had like 6-8 unique spells you use and like D&DO. You have your main city then start an instance of an event or dungeon.

Also, I love the idea of flat leveling curve. It should of been the standard of most mmos. This way you never out level armor fast enough at lower level. Making "dungeon"crawling  or boss bashing a better way to spend your time.

Originally posted by Devalon

Now WTF is the point of having 80 levels?
 

Probably to appeal to the masses that live for the Ding.  GW1 got a lot of complaints from that crowd that a level cap of 20 was too low... they couldn't comprehend playing just to enjoy the content.

Originally posted by Devalon

Your reply about the same as one above. So,  you don't gain any new skills just become stronger. It seems the grind is going to feel even stronger like that. There no way they got 80 level of content without a huge amount of grind.

Edit: I played a little bit of Gw1. They had like 6-8 unique spells you use and like D&DO. You have your main city then start an instance of an event or dungeon.

Also, I love the idea of flat leveling curve. It should of been the standard of most mmos. This way you never out level armor fast enough at lower level. Making "dungeon"crawling  or boss bashing a better way to spend your time.

well it doesnt have to be, all depends on how they define those 80 levels. In gw1 you would get your character to lvl 20(max lvl) at about halfway through the main storyline. In cantha(first expansion) it was even earlier. Level by itself doesnt mean much. Aoc has 80 levels which is very little grind and 0 level AA progression which is pure grind. Make 800 levels, cut xp required to level up by 100 you get alot less level grind.

it's almost the same as what they did with GW1... after the virtual level 23 (level cap in GW1 is 20 but you still earn XP after that), you only need 15K XP to fill up your experience bar till like eternity

and you dont get any stronger after level 20

i think that there's unfounded speculations on this thread abt the blog, based on experiences with other MMOs and not related to GW1

Izzy blogged abt the level cap and the the way to get there.

Many recent MMOs at release have leveling voids , where lvl1 to 20 is a rich ecperince, but content for lvl 20-40 is lacking, making it a no choice for players but to grind away to get to lvl40 content

ANET is addressing this by designing their world to have plenty of content for all levels so that players dont have to grind

we will see at launch if they deliver

If they just remove the XP bar, you will not even notice you are leveling....   Thats what he is trying to tell us.  

And you still have that feeling of progression and geting stronger.  I think its an awesome idea.

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

If they just remove the XP bar, you will not even notice you are leveling....   Thats what he is trying to tell us.  

And you still have that feeling of progression and geting stronger.  I think its an awesome idea.

Indeed.

"it’s just one of the many awesome ways this game will challenge conventional MMO thinking."

These guys are seriously pressing the right buttons! Got to take a step back and not get hyped and take deep breathes:

"If you’re a causal gamer who plays for a few hours here and there, and there, why should you feel like it’s going to take you a decade to finish your character? If you’re a hardcore player, why shouldn’t you be able to blast through the game with skill and speed, trying to experience every last bit of content?"

How?

"...achievements, trait collection, crafting, dungeons, skill collection, items, and much more"

Ok, so producing a Higher Total Level Max. 80 and keeping each xp/Level the same and dividing the XP earnt between different categories per level should ensure people play each bit of content if they really don't like grinding one portion for xp that usually happens through unintended game design to be the easiest xp farming method?

As someone pointed out, it does suggest a lot of content and variety of content required to work.

"And because our world is ever-changing and dynamic, you can play our content again and again! Two characters journeying through the game will have two different experience..."

So will making ALTS be an enjoyable way to replay GW2? If the Classes and Combat are very good, maybe.

"I hope you’re as excited about progression in Guild Wars 2 as I am..."

You betcha. Especially for a casual player, should make the game last longer (imo) as for how quickly harcore players can "blast" through... hmm:

80 Lvls. For Level+1 time is: 2Hrs/Lvl

Min = 2x80 = 160Hrs. How does that stack up with players?

In GW1 the game wasn't over after lvl 20. The main things to do was to finish the story, grind skillpoints and capture elites.  (Besides learning PvP offcause). But for me the weekend it took to max a characters lvl did feel to short way to short.

I am happy that they adress that.

I am also an altoholic, meaning that i end up playing alot of secondary charaters and play them alot. And while getting to max lvl was easy, playing them further in GW1 did feel like grind, or at least very repetitive. 

This means that i am positiv about the longer playing time to get to max lvl, even though 160+ hours for each might be stretching it for my altmania. I am very happy about the flat leveling rate, because i hope i will get this feeling of achivement that make me stick with a character longer, and avoid the dreeded feeling of grind.

so thumbs up so far.

But the sense of achivement and fullfillment and the right progress rate is hard to get right. And grind is not there because developers are stupid. Grind is in games because it works, and avoids the one thing that is worse for a (subscribtion) game, namely that it gets to easy, and players therefore loose interest. GW2 is not a subscribtion based game, but i still hope it pay heeds to not getting to easy.

Originally posted by illyana

http://www.arena.net/blog/progression-and-leveling-in-guild-wars-2#more-2828

 

Overall, we expect our content to be the driving force behind how long it takes to do things in-game.

Anyone can increase the length of an experience bar and call it content, but our world is filled with an almost endless stream of things to do.

We expect content—not long, grindy progression—to be the deciding factor that keeps people playing our game.

We want everyone to stick with Guild Wars 2 because our content is fun and enjoyable, not out of some dogged determination to slowly, slowly advance. 

I think this is the sort of thing that is very easy to say, and very hard to do. When a designer is filling up a world, there is only so much in his arsenal: mobs, quests, scripted events, achievements, and hooks into whatever the other core game features are. And there are a couple of conflicting trends when building out a game world:

1. Players expect infinite content - this makes content trend towards repeatable and "filler" because no matter how well you dress it up, that's the only way content is going to be infinite unless its player created (and then there is a quality issue which is a whole different ball of wax).
2. Players expect unique and "oh wow moments" in their content - this is a problem because in a MMO, if you do an activity or scripted scenario once it ceases to have it's "oh wow" factor. How many times can you save the Elven Princess from the Dread Dragon Lord? A few maybe, but then it just becomes another grind. Furthermore, you can't crank out "unique" like you can "filler" so you can pad out your game world with a lot less content. Most MMOs use a peaks-and-valleys method, where there are high points (unique content) in between which there's a lot of padding (filler content).
3. The more levels you have, the more stretched-out your content becomes, and the more filler you need to fill the gaps. Filler means grind, it is what it is. And this is true for every game - how many Koopas do you need to stomp on before you get to Bowser? Good designers understand pacing... kill some Koopas, hit some blocks, jump over a pit, go underground a bit... and hey Koopas are fresh again. But that's about disguising grind. As long as you have levels, and goals which are set by the game... you will have a grind to get there, because making a game is about dealing with finites - finite server process, finite client rendering, finite features, finite manpower, finite resources and finite time. The only thing that's infinite is the amount of time players are willing to invest in your world, which may or may not be used wisely by developers.
4. "Fun" is a three letter word, that completely disguises the complexity. Game designers don't make fun. They make systems through which players have fun. This isn't so bad in a single player game, where everything is controlled by the game except for the player character. But in an MMO, so much depends on interaction with other players. So MMO designers have to make systems that encourage player A to engage in behavior which creates fun for player B. This is much more difficult.