Never - should be no levels or infinite levels, either way the focus should not be on levels.

If it is a level based game - long enough to last you til next expansion, and make sure to have a lot of alternate advancement levels in the mean time (see EQ1 for both aa and expansion example)

Slightly Other since I choose all 6+ month options

Over 6 months as long as character progression and development was exciting, challenging and fun

Over 6 months as long as there is a strong community interaction in game

Over 6 months as long as I felt like I was in a great alternate reality

The level process should come naturaly or even by suprise. Meaning everything else should be that much fun that you don't even notice or need to lvl quickly.

Now with most of today's MMO's there isn't much of a journey or truly much to explore, so of course it shouldn't take to long since many developers seem to have this focus on "endgame" even though this so-called "endgame" should be feature's that should be playable during the whole leveling process.

Just give me a game where OP's 6+ months points can be applied too, a game that give you a mix of basic skills that could be anything ranging from crafting/healing/harvesting/combat, after "mastering all basic skills give me the option for something like Elite skills, where you can mix and match up to three professions but only fully master one.

If  a game has levels followed by an "endgame" than the leveling period should be really short. A few days. Let it be a "tutorial" to get to know your class and a bit of the game mechanics, then let the "endgame" encompass the whole game.

I don't know why developers waste so many resources on leveling and throw them all away the moment you hit cap. You craft this huge world, but no one plays in it because everything is limited to the high end stuff. Poopy.

On the other hand, I would prefer no levels at all and more interesting ways to develop your character (not "leveling" skills, which is just another form of leveling).

Depends on the MMO if you restrict yourself to much to set of predefined rules then you end up making clones of other games, variety of MNMO's goes out the window look at the market over the years.

EvE Online - 21 years to learn all skills.

Face Of Mankind - No levels, just a few ranks to determine which role you can take in your faction and very easily attainable.

Original EQ. L2 - 6 months plus to max a toon through combat grinding.

Wurm Online - no levels just skills with soft caps, don't use them they regress, so you cannot max any toon.

SWG pre-cu & UO - limited to max point cap can take anything from a few weeks to months to build a toon.

Variety is good, doing things in a set way = clones = bad.

Originally posted by Rusque

If  a game has levels followed by an "endgame" than the leveling period should be really short. A few days. Let it be a "tutorial" to get to know your class and a bit of the game mechanics, then let the "endgame" encompass the whole game.

I don't know why developers waste so many resources on leveling and throw them all away the moment you hit cap. You craft this huge world, but no one plays in it because everything is limited to the high end stuff. Poopy.

On the other hand, I would prefer no levels at all and more interesting ways to develop your character (not "leveling" skills, which is just another form of leveling).

 More or less what I wanted to say.

Never understood and never will understand the obession some people have about wanting to grind rather than play the game.

Either less than a month, or no traditional levels.

Games with long leveling times end up with population issues. Also its a pain to have alts for multiple roles. The less barriers to actually playing with other people the better. Its bad enough when I cant play properly with friends when they outlevel me by a few levels, and then you have to play catch up before you can do anything meaningful together.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Rhinotones

Thanks all for the feedback so far. Great to see so many different thoughts on the matter. Keep them coming.

Rhino

Have you considered posting this question on other forums, as well? For example, GameDev.net would be another great place for this question.

Will do.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Originally posted by waynejr2
over 1 year.

over 1 decade.

But that is very seriously OldSkool. Doubt we'll ever see anything like it again. ("Endgame" referred to a very few players, that the devs paid no attention to--far smaller than the fabled "2-percenters", even).

I'd settle for 6 mos. That's going to be plenty hard enough to talk the developers (or the Player Horde) into.

I hate the concept of a "maxlevel".

There is no limit to what you can do in reallife, either, and a MMO is a game you can potentially play from youth to old age.

So I think levels should just get harder and harder to archieve, and mean less and less, over time.

Voted other because I'd say the perfect time for me to get to cap would be over 3 to 6 months (the poll has options for less than 3 months or more than 6). Granted, I like to take my time, so usually 3 months for me can be one or two weeks for someone else.

Originally posted by Adamantine

I hate the concept of a "maxlevel".

There is no limit to what you can do in reallife, either, and a MMO is a game you can potentially play from youth to old age.

If the players would slow down to a rate where the developers could stay ahead, the cap could go.

Ha. Sorry, still laughiing.

I say 3 months. Anything longer then that and the game and it's inhabitants start to feal clingy. I do not want to support another person ever...if I don't want to.

Over time bonds form and I really honestly don't want that to happen. I role play in games to melt other people's faces...legally. :-)

I prefer to think of MMOs as a "dog eat dog" world.

Leveling needs to stop being the goal of games. It leads to lazy development and repitition that strongly resembles a skinner box.

It should take days and no more than a week; two if the player plays casually.

Originally posted by Vorch

Leveling needs to stop being the goal of games. It leads to lazy development and repitition that strongly resembles a skinner box.

It should take days and no more than a week; two if the player plays casually.

 

It would take far too long to develop content...or maybe they could just instance everything after that 2 days of content...LOL.

Originally posted by LoverNoFighter

More or less what I wanted to say.

Never understood and never will understand the obession some people have about wanting to grind rather than play the game.

If the grind is long enough, the urgency is removed.

It really is just that simple. The Race to be First isn't very pressing, when the First is years away from the Wall.

In other words, you can stop hunting, do other stuff, and not feel like you're falling Behind.

It's a strange and foreign concept, to an awful lot of people that have never experienced a game where Mobs and Competition weren't the primary focus.

What's the longest period of time you've ever spent without earning XP or Stuff? The only comparable situation is a long-capped toon; his focus shifts to non-hunting (or at least not full time compulsive hunting) activities.

The sandbox boys understand the appeal of freedom to do other stuff, as do the roleplaying folks.

Six months of hard core play. It needs to be long enough so folks aren't obsessed with leveling and, instead, can enjoy time exploring and getting to know their fellow adventurer while earning xp. Some might call that a grind. But none of the 8,000 hours I spent in EQ felt grindy.

Games need a way of either limiting level advancement per day, or adding diminishing xp returns. After 8 hours of 'grinding' the xp a characters gets per mob quickly lowers to 10% of its actual value. Or, instead of hours, analyze total xp gain to determine when diminishing returns kick in.

take snapshot of character xp at 12:00am

let's say 5,000,000

5mil to 6mil: no penalties.
from 6 mil to 7 mil they incur 50% penalty
from 7 mil to 8 mil they incur 75% penalty
for 8mil + they incur 90% penalty

At 12:00am the next day, the xp penalty resets to zero.