General Discussion

"I've spent years wandering between MMO's with pretty much the same problems. In WoW I never got past the first 20 levels because by the time that I got to that point the story line had so completely dropped off that there was very little guidence for me to follow or interest to keep me leveling.I played Anarchy Online, but I had the same problem. The player community was far too high leveled and the lower level characters were either non-english speaking or were higher level players on an alternate playing around with a test build and 9/10 times would never log back on to that character in the time I kept them on my friends list.

I think the process of wiping should be brought back or implimented in some of the older games or those in developement. Or maybe just specific servers for new games. Such as the ladders in Diablo 2. There should be a subsequencial wipe of characters every so often to keep games that have been out for a long time at a fresh pace with ever evolving communities and players. Or a fresh wipe to include / change the story line to make the "ump-teenth" time through more interesting with a new line of quests to complete toward end game. When new content is added to a game, some should be added to the middle every now and then to reshape the story or give a different way to get to end game and of course not be available to end game characters (level caps on the quests or items) as to get more players to start new characters to experience the middle game rewards or quests. This would keep from the lower end of the game from becoming barren after a few months/years. This would also reduce the number of "newbie" players that go without guidance until the player gives up on the game due to no guidance toward end game/higher levels as well as add new developement or changes to the end game rather than keep pushing for new things only at the high levels which if I guess correctly, nearly 30% of all players in MMO's never see.

Think of how successful a game would be if the middle end is what grew instead of just the end game. People leveling slow would have more content to deal with as well as new goals without needing to grind to the end to experience something new. Whether it be a new cooler looking set of gear with nearly the same stats as the gear they have, or whether it be a new mount  that is better looking vs a mount that is faster. Something to change up their current status in the middle game to help excite them to keep leveling.

This is just an idea. I'd like to know what you guys think as developers, if this is even possible or just a dumb idea. Again, I'm just another gamer in the midst of all of this. =^)

-Timberwolf"