Originally posted by nomadian

I like the sound of non-level based games or reduced levels game(see Guild Wars) as they can work. But an interesting question is if you got a world the size of WoW or any other mmo how would you utilize it?

They wouldn't, as games like WoW have been built from the ground up with levels in mind.

Besides, most skill progression MMOs I've played have larger worlds, with player cities and economies.

Looking for a game with no levels just skill levels and lots of choices on those skills? Want one where you can be anything you choose to be without restrictions other then time?  Come look at Ryzom on ryzom.com.

Its not new or flashy since its 4 yrs old and has seen its share of rough times but, everything you asked for and want is there.

For now the new owners are letting people check it out fully for free. Not sure just how long this will last but, free is free for now. Alot of us Pre-CUers came here since in some ways Ryzom is alot like pre CU SWG but, based in a more fantasy genre. One thing I love about Ryzom is the interactive life, predators attack herbivores etc. Plus there is no such thing here as an "uber" player, depending on where you go on Atys (the planet we live on in Ryzom) you can get quickly be dead before you know it. At last count the fully opened skill trees number about 52 various skills, each of which you can level up to 250.

Anyway, like i said its free for now so come by and say hi, you will enjoy our more mature, helpful community if nothing else.

Originally posted by Korvenus

I agree with the poster who said that if you remove levels then how will you get charcter progression? I remember me and a group of friends were discussing why Zelda is not considered to be a RPG and we came to think that maybe it was because Link did not gain levels. Even at the End Game it was the same Link that you started with but he onnly had better gear. So if you dont progress in levels the only other thing I can think of if progressing by obtaining better gear. If would be intresting to see a MMO with a system like that.

It wasn't even that he had better gear, but that progressing through the game unlocked new kinds of gear which gave you abilities that you didn't have before. It was much more complex than simply leveling up, which any idiot can design.

Skill-progression games are similar, in that your skill in Fishing has no effect on your performance in combat, and likewise, your performance in combat will neither boost nor limit your progression in Fishing. Players are free to pursue what they want, when they want, as much as they want, with very little or no consideration to skills they have no interest in.

In short, the more seperate axes (as in, on a graph) of progression exist in the game, the deeper the game becomes.

Originally posted by dilligaf

For the most part you are talking about Darkfall online.

100% skill based progression. PVP centric. Player controlled economy. Most all items are craftable. A small group of newbs (3-7), depending on keyboard/mouse skill, can defeat (1-2) veteran players with decent keyboard/mouse skills. Guild/clan controlled cities. A lot more options ingame than current level based MMO's.

Two things that you mentioned that is not in Darkfall is permadeath and aging. To this date no game is perfect.

If you are one of those guys that are inspired to play a game just its graphics are out of this world, Darkfall might not be your game. The good news is that another game with potentially all the options that you want plus awesome graphics is called Mortal online.

I suggest you check out Darkfall online first. It is due to go retail in December.

If you want to play Mortal online it is supposed to come out summer of 09

Good luck and good gaming.

I think MO have classes and in summer 2009 i serieusly doub that it was in pre alpha stage in april this year when they first announce this game.

And Darkfall grafhics are very good.

And MO is half of what Darkfall will be, its more oriented towards avarage players no so hardcore, this can chance offcorse becouse its still in early alpha.

AO was the closest thing I have played to a decent no level mmo, they did have levels but the levels were almost meaningless, most equip required skills and the skills determined your strengths, It was nice. I wish there were more modern mmos like AO.

Originally posted by shane910

Yeah I have my eye on Darkfall. Just hope they do it right. And no graphics are a not a high concern for me, I prefer playability and depth rather than a purely visual experiance. ( bought RomaVictor after all)

   Just hope Darkfall dosent do the same lame crap they did and turn skill based game into a extreme lvl grind x 100....  you would get skills every now and then ( seemed random) and the tasks needed to gain in those skills took forever to complete. Even for basic crap like making  pile of wood...  after you gathered the wood it would take you 30 seconds per peice to stack it LMFAO.  They have been adjusting and all but I am not following it much anymore mabe they fixed it some but probably not.

 

 Game companies just need to realize that people dont want to have to spend hours of their time( get less as you get older) doing crap in game to get your character to a point where you can play them and do the things you want to with them.  especialy since most of us already have jobs(dont need another) and are playing to escape that crap and paying for it ...

  I am sure dark fall will be a good game but I doubt they will have it so you choose all your stats and skills and all that at creation and then hone it from there.  You will have to completely grind that skill( and probably many more) up to a high lvl to be able to compete I am sure. But will still be better than LvL treadmill I am sure.

 

Shane

Luckely darkfall will not be a game tailor made for guys like you who want easy instant satisfaction for hour play session a day.
 

Dont play darkfall if you wanne have it all in a short amount of time.

Many times they said train your skills to 100 will not be fast or easy.

But game is designed so you can from moment you come ingame go straight into the action.

And you can name anything that takes time grind, you prolly say this so you can whine and say darkfall is also a grind game:(

Give up your work so you can also be ingame 15hours a day and keep up with hardcore:P

Originally posted by Evasia

Originally posted by shane910

Yeah I have my eye on Darkfall. Just hope they do it right. And no graphics are a not a high concern for me, I prefer playability and depth rather than a purely visual experiance. ( bought RomaVictor after all)

   Just hope Darkfall dosent do the same lame crap they did and turn skill based game into a extreme lvl grind x 100....  you would get skills every now and then ( seemed random) and the tasks needed to gain in those skills took forever to complete. Even for basic crap like making  pile of wood...  after you gathered the wood it would take you 30 seconds per peice to stack it LMFAO.  They have been adjusting and all but I am not following it much anymore mabe they fixed it some but probably not.

 

 Game companies just need to realize that people dont want to have to spend hours of their time( get less as you get older) doing crap in game to get your character to a point where you can play them and do the things you want to with them.  especialy since most of us already have jobs(dont need another) and are playing to escape that crap and paying for it ...

  I am sure dark fall will be a good game but I doubt they will have it so you choose all your stats and skills and all that at creation and then hone it from there.  You will have to completely grind that skill( and probably many more) up to a high lvl to be able to compete I am sure. But will still be better than LvL treadmill I am sure.

 

Shane

Luckely darkfall will not be a game tailor made for guys like you who want easy instant satisfaction for hour play session a day.
 

Dont play darkfall if you wanne have it all in a short amount of time.

Many times they said train your skills to 100 will not be fast or easy.

But game is designed so you can from moment you come ingame go straight into the action.

And you can name anything that takes time grind, you prolly say this so you can whine and say darkfall is also a grind game:(

Give up your work so you can also be ingame 15hours a day and keep up with hardcore:P

  Not sure if you were just kidding or not...but you obviously did not comprehend or read what I was saying. Trust me I spend well over an hour (more like 4 if I feel like it, and have a game I enjoy ... none atm) a night in game... I just dont want to waste it doing pointless crap I am not interested in.

 Stupid quests that are a waste of time... run here get that run back ... go back to him ... Lame as hell. 

 Attack over and over and over and over and over(feels the same in game as it does reading it...stupid) to raise the skill in swords or whatever... why not just let me have fun the damn start and do something interesting or challenging rather than wasting my time by ( obviously) draging the experiance allong. 
 

 I am still blown away that companies cannot see how stupid it is to allow such large gaps between players in strength and skill ( or lvls or whatever). It is like saying you can play with these people, and you can play with these people... now you can inter mingle but it will be a waste of your time as you have no chance against them .....

  For any chance of a good community driven game the community needs to be on the same damn playing field.

Shane

Dont play darkfall if you wanne have it all in a short amount of time.

Many times they said train your skills to 100 will not be fast or easy.

I disagree. As far as I remember, they've said that raising skills will not be a long grind, but rather a convenient side-effect of playing and developing your playstyle. Of course it will get more difficult depending on the skill and what level you're raising it to, but overall I wouldn't say that it will be difficult to develop your character skills.

As you stated, it is the intent of the Darkfall developers to allow players to jump in to an action-filled game. Leveling skills can be a side-effect of jumping in to said action.

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Originally posted by Korvenus
I agree with the poster who said that if you remove levels then how will you get charcter progression? I remember me and a group of friends were discussing why Zelda is not considered to be a RPG and we came to think that maybe it was because Link did not gain levels. Even at the End Game it was the same Link that you started with but he onnly had better gear. So if you dont progress in levels the only other thing I can think of if progressing by obtaining better gear. If would be intresting to see a MMO with a system like that.
 
PS
Can we please talk about a game without somebody bringing up Darkfall?

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Zelda lasts a fair amount of time even without levels if I recall. And another progression could be unlocking dungeons or something. As you say I think it would be interesting.

Originally posted by nomadian

another progression could be unlocking dungeons or something.

I agree, I think developers could stretch the amount of content they make by using "unlock" mechanisms rather than levels. It's important that the dungeons be on separate unlocks, though, or at least a widely branching unlock tree. We don't want to see devs falling into the "tiered" mindset again like in WoW.

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Originally posted by Neosai
I don't quite agree with the poster's view on level less MMO.  It is interesting to go in a new direction, but if a game is out that you can achieve your max potential on day one as far as character development goes, I probably won't play for more than a week. 
Character development is essential for MMO, even if you take the levels away, you will still need some form of character development, other wise most people might be bored pretty fast after creating all sort of character in a few days, the game would be left with a small amount of enthusiasts.  The developer need to make enough money to justify making a game, other wise it is just a crushing loss, and also means some people lose their jobs.
Here is an example of a level less mmo conversation (assuming the archetype of current mmo is still in effect) : 
Player A: Wow, that boss was hard.
Player B: Seriously, I can't believe I was one shotted.
Player A: Yeah, I think we need to find more people for this.
Player C: How hard was the boss?
Player A: Very hard.
Player C: About how hard?
Player B: Hmmm, I don't quite know how to put it.
Player C: What do you mean? There as to be a way to describe it.
Player B: I'd say it is stronger than us.
Player C: Ummm, I kinda guessed that.
Player A: I am starting to miss the level system.
GM:  I am sorry, this game does not have the notion of leveling.  This level talk is considered inappropriate, you three shall be jailed for 12 hours starting now.
 

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Compared to fighting level 80 monsters while being level 70? In most games you reach a point where you can't grind out more levels and levelling becomes pointless. And for a lot of people this is where the game really "starts". Why not simply skip ahead to this stage and not waste all of that time and effort getting to max level, or even desiging content for those lower levels?

So you guys are sick and tired of grinding levels or grinding skills, all together sick of the mmo "progression" found in all mmorpgs.

I have a suggestion and it fixes all of your woes...

Go play a FPS, it has everything you want, solid pvp with no progression to get to the good stuff.

Sometimes i think people are so confused with what type of game they are playing and what type of game they want to play.  If you dont like the slow progression then dont play the genere of games that follows this model. I really think that a majority of this "sandbox" crowd are really just looking for a FPS with mmorpg classes and characters.  So yeah, remove levels and character progression and all you get is a FPS with mmorpg classes.

God I have been wanting a game as per the op's description for years now. I know exactly how he is feeling about the state of MMO's. Nothing has really come close to what he is getting at.

So why is there this dependency on lvls? The idea of lvls in games is an outdated game mechanic. They spawned from developers wanting a cheap and easy way out to show character progression. And in MMO's I think the reason lvl's are still such a big part is two fold. One is because they want to easily appeal to the addictive/obsessive parts of all of us so we continue to pay them money so we can "get that higher lvl, so I can get that awesome item, so I can be the best". The other is simply laziness in that "everyone else is doing it so why should we change?”

The main point I want to make, is that I believe games design should have evolved to the point where this kind of thing is no longer needed.

The other point that I want to bring up is that of immersion. If we are immersed in a game, we want to keep playing it. I believe things like visible game mechanics (like lvl's and stats) possibly take you away from being immersed in a game.

The idea of role-playing games is to stick the player into a world where they can feel like they are apart of it. The old school pen-and-paper games achieved this not because of lvls, but because the players made it that way. Why can't we do the same thing with MMO's? Why cant the reason we want to keep paying the devs money each month is because we are having fun being so immersed in a game.

Anyway, that is my 2 cents worth. I'm sure people will disagree, but remember they are just my opinions.

I don't agree that levels are used because they are easy.  Levels are used because they are a good way to give everyone a role to play in a group.  In a skill system it's more difficult to make group content that is challenging for the player because you don't have any guide for which to balance things around.

Originally posted by Flyte27

I don't agree that levels are used because they are easy.  Levels are used because they are a good way to give everyone a role to play in a group.  In a skill system it's more difficult to make group content that is challenging for the player because you don't have any guide for which to balance things around.

lvls dont have much to do with roles, classes maybe. I just think that devs are taking the easy way out. If they made the effort, i believe they could develope content for a lvl-less system.

Realizing that players have the abiltity to do play a massive amount of different ways, they can develope systems around that. Increase the impact of other systems like mob A.I. for example. I'm just saying that its technically possible for these types of things now, and that devs shouldn't have to rely upon lvl's.

Originally posted by Korvenus

I agree with the poster who said that if you remove levels then how will you get charcter progression? I remember me and a group of friends were discussing why Zelda is not considered to be a RPG and we came to think that maybe it was because Link did not gain levels. Even at the End Game it was the same Link that you started with but he onnly had better gear. So if you dont progress in levels the only other thing I can think of if progressing by obtaining better gear. If would be intresting to see a MMO with a system like that.

 

Yep that would be cool to see

Levels kind of go hand-in-hand with the subscription payment structure is the problem. Developers think customers will grow discontent if they have nothing to show for their dedication. So they award the dedicated with loot and Levels

Problem is the Achievers are driving MMOs and the Developers feel compelled to cater to them. So everyone else ends up suffering because the Achievers keep raising the bar higher and higher. Causing the discrepancy between a Casual and a no-lifer to soar

Note- the only MMO or pseudo-MMO, Guild Wars, escaped the Level based grinds because they use a different payment structure. This allowed them to innovate in interesting ways. PvPers are granted max level and so forth.

Second Life also made interesting innovations and escaped the Level grinds due to their unusual payment structure

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by dilligaf

For the most part you are talking about Darkfall online.

 

He's not talking about Darkfall online. No one knows waht that game will be like. He's talking about game design. Darkfall online my be like RF online for all you know, since no one has ever played a beta.

 

Anyway, I agree. There's really not much difference between levels, and skill levels. I am level 50. I have skill level 50 in blaster pistol, or sword swinging. What's the difference? Not much.

Really, you aren't talking about skills vs levels, since you're talking about a game with no real progression. Levels aren't an issue, since there is no progression. It doen't matter how you make your character if there is no progression.

For example, you can pick from a bunch of skills. Ok. But what if therfe are 100 classes to choose from? Same thing. So it's not skills vs classes, it's progression vs no progression.

But what are you going to do? Half of an MMORPG is advancing your character, either in levels, or skill levels. You've now removed that.

Why fight mobs? No reason really, unless you're leaving in a grind for gear? Or it's just PvP all the time? Or a crafting game?

The difference is, one is pretty much cookie cutter and the other you can mix and match the skills so you end up with a character exactly how you want to play it. Even traits in these level base games really don't come close to adding the variety a skill based system MMO does.

In a skill based game you gain in a skill by doing an activity related to that skill. Example, you'll gain in swords by hitting a monster or player when you have a sword equipped... Unlike level based MMO's, you don't gain xp until after you kill whatever it is you're fighting that then adds XP to your level, same with crafting. In Skill system you gain doing it, in level you gain xp only after completing a sub component or final product.

In level based game you have to grind to certain level to start using certain armours and weapons, only for an expansion to come out to make your stuff useless gain. In a skill based game you can equip a good mighty magic sword as a newbie, but your ability to use it effectively will be greatly reduced, so your swings will miss a lot.

In skill based system mobs have a range of toughness not levels, nothing is stopping a huge group of newbies equipping decent armour given by a guild, then heading out and taking on a really tough mob so the fighting skill they're using will improve better than beating on a lessor mob. In a level game, you all have to make sure you're at least within a certain level range of the mob or its a lot wipes with little xp gained. Skill based you're gained just hitting the mob. Much better

The world is a lot more open to a newbie in what they can do in a skill based game. The feel of building up skills so your character will be what you what it to be is far more satisfying than grinding levels and traits which do a poor job to diversify a population of the same class.
 

i totally disagree with first part. mmo was more grindy before. now its getting better in this area. and even in the old times, you had games like guildwars and shadowbane, where there was no grind at all. both had also good pvp. not mentioning they are f2p

darkfall, darkfall, darkfall...... people need religion and tend to worship things that do not exist

Originally posted by galliard1981

i totally disagree with first part. mmo was more grindy before. now its getting better in this area. and even in the old times, you had games like guildwars and shadowbane, where there was no grind at all. both had also good pvp. not mentioning they are f2p

darkfall, darkfall, darkfall...... people need religion and tend to worship things that do not exist

o really tell that to greece and everyone on the forums of df online pshh tired of snid remarks like this