I only started playing two weeks ago but I'm loving my little house on the beach. :D

Originally posted by VikingGamer

Originally posted by botrytis

Originally posted by Foomerang

You obviously havent played Rift or the expansion because you can in fact scale your level to fit any zone and get appropriate xp and rewards. I usually don't call people out on their opinions but since yours is a lie I felt the need to clarify.

OH - took a GW2 mechanic , eh?  (had to say it -

No, they took the idea from EQII. GW2 is not the center of the universe.

Yeah, it came from EQ2 I'm pretty sure, even if another game had mentoring before that.  Hartsman drove EQ2 during the glory years and a lot of what we see in RIFT comes from EQ2, not WoW, as so many people believe.  The new Dimensions (see what I did there :p) are a direct rip-off of EQ2 instanced housing.  RIFT does do some WoW style mechanics (most notably crafting), but I think much of it is EQ2 done "right".  I think the fusion and improvement of ideas from both those games is what makes RIFT so very nice.

Anyway, botrytis' comment sounded more tongue-in-cheek than serious.

So, in reply to the OP.  No, there are no new leveling areas.  The leveling experience is roughly the same for every all of the same faction.  While you can do IAs, dungeons, warfronts, or quests and the leveling experience isn't quite on rails, it is in the same zones with the same stuff.

You must buy the xpac to get access to the new class roles and content past 60.   Starter dimensions are available and I haven't been able to tell yet how much they're locked behind the xpac like the rest of the game experience now.

Originally posted by strangiato2112

Just for max level

they added Instant Adventures to low level zones which are a way to level faster but boring as hell past the first 5 minutes (ymmv)

Trion treats 1-50 as an inconvenience to suffer through til the real game starts as 50.

This is all I would expect.  They are focused on keeping current players happy and attracting new players who want one character to run end game content.  It was a mistake to have only one leveling path in a small world, but spending their resources adding another path wouldn't really be financially viable for them. 

Originally posted by Khebeln

Originally posted by botrytis

Originally posted by Foomerang

 

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Originally posted by Rydeson
Rift fails again with SL.. in my opinion..   The expansion is basically an end game patch.. It just raises the bar and adds housing (which is a bonus, but not enough to bring me back)..  I agree with the one poster, Rift treats and views leveling as an inconvience.. Their whole goal is to maintain an end game hamster wheel for gear..

 

Sure Rift could add leveling content 1-50, but why bother when people are zerging thru it as fast as they can.. Rift could of added a scaling "level" adjustment like other devs have done so that ALL characters could enjoy the new zones.. but Rift ignored that option and chose to move on..... Best thing Rift could of done was copy cat GW2 when it comes to scaling characters to the zone level they are in..  That was the biggest reason why I quit Rift..  Once I was lvl 50, I basically only had 2 zones to play in..  I REFUSE to play the instance hamster wheel game.. I'm not a mouse.. tyvm Trion.. LOL

 

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You obviously havent played Rift or the expansion because you can in fact scale your level to fit any zone and get appropriate xp and rewards. I usually don't call people out on their opinions but since yours is a lie I felt the need to clarify.

OH - took a GW2 mechanic , eh?  (had to say it -

 

 

They actualy had it way before Gw2, and the first game to use lv scalign was Eq2. Get your facts straight ^^

SWG and CoX had it before EQ2

Originally posted by strangiato2112

Originally posted by Vannor

People who are there for the leveling experience tend to leave once the leveling is done no matter what endgame content a game has. Catering to these people is not a good investment. 

Catering only to current players when you have a small population is a worse investment.

No, it really isnt. Putting in new leveling content might attract another 10% of the current playerbase, but it will only do so for a month or two at best because that type of player isnt the type of player who stays around in an subscription based game.  Those are single player MMO'ers who are there to burn through some content and then go find their new fix.  These are the same people who bought 2 million copies of SWTOR and left the game in 2 months because they had nothing else to do in combination with other issues like bugs, etc

You put a robust leveling experience in, you attract more people.  Plain and simple.  Yeah, you may not understand it, but then i dont understand the people who actually enjoy currency gear grinds and would rather acquire gear that way than via drops.  I dont understand the people that raid 3+ days a week.

Once again, the people you attract aren't long time customers.  As for "not understanding it", its simply. Token/currency drops remove the random number generator.  As someone who has been raiding in MMO's since EQ1,  i see both sides of the coin.  Currencies make it seem more grindy, but they remove that "man, this stupid item has dropped 6 times in the last 10 raids for guild Y, but Guild Z hasn't seen it once.".

Provide a good leveling experience, and if people start to get bored of their main (happens in ALL MMORPGS) they will roll an alt to keep them occupied and a change of pace for a bit til they go back to their main.  A game like Rift people will just unsub, and their retention shows that.

And a HUGE mistake to make for your first expansion is when someone asks the question:  whats in it for new people and the answer is 'nothing'.  EQ2 was on a downward trend after its launch, it was a dissapointing launch in the shadow of WoW.  Their first two expansions were endgame focused.  Kingdom of Sky was a pretty good expansion, but it wasnt until they released EoF with a new race and new 1-70 content that the game rebounded and hit a growth period.

EQ2 was plagued by a HORRIBLY bad graphics engine at release.  The game ran poorly even on top end systems and was all but unplayabable on systems even only 1-2 years old (I know this because i spent 1200 at the time building a reasonably high end system just for the release of EQ2).  There were myriad other issues with the game that made a lot of people leave as well.  Like not being able to explore/go to certain zones unless you reached a specific level.  Poor use of instancing with overworld areas.  ETC.

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by Khebeln

They actualy had it way before Gw2, and the first game to use lv scalign was Eq2. Get your facts straight ^^

SWG and CoX had it before EQ2

This article on WarCry from 2005 doesn't support your claim. http://www.warcry.com/news/view/43160-Everquest-2-Mentoring

According to wikipedia City of Heroes didn't get time travel until 2007.

The earliest reference I could find to mentoring in SWG was late 2004 when they mention a new jedi to mentor young jedis.  Do you have a reference for when SWG added mentoring?

So far EQ2 still holds that title.

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Originally posted by Jonnas13

Originally posted by nate1980

SWG and CoX had it before EQ2

[mod edit]

[mod edit]

That made me about die laughing today thank you for that!

While i do agree with most people in this thread pretty regularly I do not care for the expansion at all , but its for different reasons. I think dimesions did a good job but find the overall redesign of all the souls stupid and pointless and ever since 1.11 every week poor warriors get nerfed more and more each hotfix. I guess if you run a justicar you are loving life right now or a mage though. But with the temp removal of conquest and just one more warfront to grind I had to cancel both my sub and preorder as they destroyed my warrior to the ground and I just do not care to tank on a cleric sorry its not for me.

Originally posted by Hrimnir

Originally posted by strangiato2112

Originally posted by Vannor

People who are there for the leveling experience tend to leave once the leveling is done no matter what endgame content a game has. Catering to these people is not a good investment. 

Catering only to current players when you have a small population is a worse investment.

No, it really isnt. Putting in new leveling content might attract another 10% of the current playerbase,

so you are saying 0% is better than 10%?

but it will only do so for a month or two at best because that type of player isnt the type of player who stays around in an subscription based game. 

WoW and EQ2 beg to differ.  If those games werent extremely alt friendly their sub numbers would be DRASTICLY lower.  Its not just people that intend to play alts, its people that get bored at cap (and every does at some point or another).  Most people enjoy alts at some point or another.

Those are single player MMO'ers who are there to burn through some content and then go find their new fix. 

No, the type of people that dont care about the content and just want to be max level are those type.  the eople that enjoy a variety of leveling content will...stick around and level a variety of alts

These are the same people who bought 2 million copies of SWTOR and left the game in 2 months because they had nothing else to do in combination with other issues like bugs, etc

SWTOR is even less alt-friendly than Rift.  The class story quests are great but its a tedious bore inbetween them.

You put a robust leveling experience in, you attract more people.  Plain and simple.  Yeah, you may not understand it, but then i dont understand the people who actually enjoy currency gear grinds and would rather acquire gear that way than via drops.  I dont understand the people that raid 3+ days a week.

Once again, the people you attract aren't long time customers. 

Again, tell that to SoE or Blizzard

As for "not understanding it", its simply. Token/currency drops remove the random number generator.  As someone who has been raiding in MMO's since EQ1,  i see both sides of the coin.  Currencies make it seem more grindy, but they remove that "man, this stupid item has dropped 6 times in the last 10 raids for guild Y, but Guild Z hasn't seen it once.".

And they, to me, make it significantly less rewarding to get an item.  Oh boy, I have 88% of my next pair of pants!  That is not fun to me, and I dont get why anyone would prefer it personally.  But I do at least understand that many people do like the mechanic.

Provide a good leveling experience, and if people start to get bored of their main (happens in ALL MMORPGS) they will roll an alt to keep them occupied and a change of pace for a bit til they go back to their main.  A game like Rift people will just unsub, and their retention shows that.

And a HUGE mistake to make for your first expansion is when someone asks the question:  whats in it for new people and the answer is 'nothing'.  EQ2 was on a downward trend after its launch, it was a dissapointing launch in the shadow of WoW.  Their first two expansions were endgame focused.  Kingdom of Sky was a pretty good expansion, but it wasnt until they released EoF with a new race and new 1-70 content that the game rebounded and hit a growth period.

EQ2 was plagued by a HORRIBLY bad graphics engine at release.  The game ran poorly even on top end systems and was all but unplayabable on systems even only 1-2 years old (I know this because i spent 1200 at the time building a reasonably high end system just for the release of EQ2).  There were myriad other issues with the game that made a lot of people leave as well.  Like not being able to explore/go to certain zones unless you reached a specific level.  Poor use of instancing with overworld areas.  ETC.

Oh I know eq2 was plagued with a ton of launch issues.  Not to mention it was so drastically different from EQ that it put people off.  But by the time KoS rolled around it was a very good game.  But people didnt really come back until EoF.

At this point I would be willing to bet that more people have played Rift than have played EQ2.  Its not just new players a more robust world would attract, its all those old players that left because of the linear leveling experience and tiny world.  People dont like needing to be high level to experience everything.  for someone under 50 the world is still tiny.

 Since they have the mentoring system, it just didnt make sense to not make at least 1 alternate leveling path.  Who knows, maybe Planetouched Wild is being devloped for that task still.  But low level content can be current content for high level players, but the reverse isnt true.  If, say, Cape Jule was a level 20 zone I guarantee it would be crowded still.  

Personally, my only 50 was a cleric.  Both tactician and Harbinger are far more interesting to me than anything in the cleric tree (in fact I only made a cleric because I was upset at launch there was no melee mage, cleric offered the closest thing).  But I dont want to slog through old content to level them up, no matter how fast it may be.

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Originally posted by Torvaldr

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Originally posted by nate1980

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Originally posted by Khebeln They actualy had it way before Gw2, and the first game to use lv scalign was Eq2. Get your facts straight ^^

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SWG and CoX had it before EQ2

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This article on WarCry from 2005 doesn't support your claim. http://www.warcry.com/news/view/43160-Everquest-2-Mentoring

According to wikipedia City of Heroes didn't get time travel until 2007.

The earliest reference I could find to mentoring in SWG was late 2004 when they mention a new jedi to mentor young jedis.  Do you have a reference for when SWG added mentoring?

So far EQ2 still holds that title.

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When the combat upgrade came out in SWG (april '05), you could group with higher level players and your level would match theirs. But there wasn't a way to take your level down. It was sidekick up only. Thats the opposite of GW2 and doesn't have the flexibility of Rift.

Originally posted by Foomerang

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Originally posted by Torvaldr

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Originally posted by nate1980

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Originally posted by Khebeln They actualy had it way before Gw2, and the first game to use lv scalign was Eq2. Get your facts straight ^^

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SWG and CoX had it before EQ2

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This article on WarCry from 2005 doesn't support your claim. http://www.warcry.com/news/view/43160-Everquest-2-Mentoring

According to wikipedia City of Heroes didn't get time travel until 2007.

The earliest reference I could find to mentoring in SWG was late 2004 when they mention a new jedi to mentor young jedis.  Do you have a reference for when SWG added mentoring?

So far EQ2 still holds that title.

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When the combat upgrade came out in SWG (april '05), you could group with higher level players and your level would match theirs. But there wasn't a way to take your level down. It was sidekick up only. Thats the opposite of GW2 and doesn't have the flexibility of Rift.

Ooh, thanks!  My search-fu was weak.

My hope for RIFT mentoring is that auto-leveling becomes an optional setting.  I love mentoring and chronoing in EQ2 ad I love auto-mentoring in GW2.  It just feels better.  Mentoring added  to RIFT was one of my favorite upgrades to date.