You shouldn't have to a sub fee to grind through X levels so you can magically start playing the real game.  Games like EvE have shown us it's possible to create a system where everyone can play together from day 1 and I'm just not going to do the level treadmill anymore, I'm tired of it - this is the main reason I decided not to stick with LOTRO which is otherwise a great game.

There was a post a little ways up about how successful games keep adding new content for their players to do.  That's great and I fully supprot that trend continuing, but why make that content inaccessible for new players?  At the very least, if the game isn't going to start until 'end game' the leveling process should be optional and done offline - you should be able to start with a max level character if that's what the whole game will be based around anyway.

I think you're looking for an answer that is related to game design i.e. what are the benefits to design the game such that adding only end game contents is better than making level 1 accessible contents.

But the answer is more political and economical than anything related to anything done in the game itself.  I know a few people in the game industry so I can speak with some certainty.

The simple reason is that when you have an idea about a new MMO (action, RPG, FPS, etc), you will be spending on average for a large game like WoW, FFXI the next 3 or 4 years before a game can be commercially launched.  I chose WoW and FFXI because they are both made by well-established companies in the gaming industry (and it is important to focus on the big players).  The bigger the company, the more complicated the politics.  So if you are going to be occupying a full team of game development resources for the next 3 or 4 years, you HAVE to convince the people high up that this will a huge success.

 Forget about the 50 million dollars spend on the development, launch and advertising costs, but think more in terms of cost of opportunities.  If you are a well established company, your resources have the experiences and knowledge base to create games that will generate lots of revenue.  So if you occupy a team, your NEW idea (however innovative / outlandish it may be) must be more profitable (on paper at least) than what they can produce otherwise. 

So now Square-Enix have Final Fantasy X and each of the FF series are selling great for consoles.  Now you can have a team to continue making FFXI as another good ol' FF game, or you can try to make it a MMORPG.  That MMORPG better show greater potential for making money than making FFXI just another FF or you will not get the go ahead.  A game will cost 50 million (let's say) to develop, and will make let's say selling for 10 million copies worldwide, your game is worth (at $50 a copy) 550 million dollars.  

Now you convinced your boss to make a MMO.  You will spend 10 or 20% of the times laying out the ground work like game engines, rendering, graphics, world, motion, etc.  Then you can actually START developing the game.  Then you might spend another 30 - 40% making the characters, play balancing them, animating them.  Then you can start with making the mobs, play balance those into the games.  So by the time a player can create and play a level 1 character, the company have already spent more than 50% of their time and resources.  So if you have access to everything at level 1, then a player CAN fly through everything and make a snap judgement.  You just gave the player the power to waste 50% of your effort, then with all the games out there, would you want a player to make such a snap judgement on your contents without actually using them to their full potential?

FFXI and WoW and pretty much many of the games out there have features that players never fully understand at first (let's say PvP in WoW).  But after you are "forced" to play it many times, you'll get the hang of it and then can start exploring the full potential.  I personally like the experience loss in FFXI, because when I was new to the game and we aggro two mobs instead of one, everyone in the party runs like hell and it's literally feeling like you are running for your life.  I feel my heart pounding when I see the second mob coming.  In WoW, I could care less about dying.  But experience loss sounds so bad on paper and the first few times when you play that it would easily be a factor in deter ring players from playing this game.   I don't think I can find another game that can scare me like FFXI  :)

 mm for now yes end game is important but i bet a lot of people work to get rid of end game focus 

the problem is this if they add mega random factor in game 

it makes the game way longer and harder to design

but in the futur random will be the biggest fun factor in mmo

 I am with you guys. End game shouldn't be where all the focus is. These are games we pay monthly for and should get to spend a long time in. I would enjoy them focus on every level for fun all the way. Each level could be considered epic fun. : ) There could be raiding/grouping/soloing all the way up. 

If they want to keep focusing on end game and make the rest of the game trivial to the point it flies by with nothing to do but solo .. just remove it. It is pointless anyway.

Originally posted by Povey151

Now I'm not trying to say that leveling is always going to be the most fun part of a game or that it should be, but I feel like a game that adds fun things to do at every level and takes the importance away from "end game" and spreads it more evenly throughout the game will have a good chance at being wildly successful.

First of all, all parts of the game should be fun.

I never liked WoW because I'm an altoholic.  I created many chars and never got to 40 in the year or so that I played.  To me the game was boring as hell.  It was ok when there was still world pvp (pre tbc).

But I like a game where people can find a group or solo at any level (CoH/CoV).  To me the WoW system of solo until you hit max level, then do nothing but raid is just stupid. 

Endgame is BORING, take it out of MMO altogether. It's fun to do it once and then it SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't play another MMO until the leveling and grinding is out out out .. shoo shoo shoo..BEGONE!

*breaths*

The OP should really not be so focused on endgame and actually try to enjoy the leveling process.  Leveling a new character in WoW is a hoot and I never can understand how people just want to speed level to 80.  From time to time leveling will get boring so then you switch to somethign else or take a break from the game. 

My main problem with 'end game' is not that it exists but rather how narrow it becomes.   I love how Blizzard is finally realising after all these years that raiding is nothing special and there are plenty of other viable endgame options to explore.  However, they are still in the 'baby steps' stage. 

If you make the focus of the leveling process you get a boring leveling process.  If you make the focus of the endgame too narrow, you get a boring endgame.  The trick is to spread out what the game is about and give peopel options.  The devs need to focus on content and not on gear or flashy raids.

Originally posted by Torik

The OP should really not be so focused on endgame and actually try to enjoy the leveling process.  Leveling a new character in WoW is a hoot and I never can understand how people just want to speed level to 80.  From time to time leveling will get boring so then you switch to somethign else or take a break from the game. 

My main problem with 'end game' is not that it exists but rather how narrow it becomes.   I love how Blizzard is finally realising after all these years that raiding is nothing special and there are plenty of other viable endgame options to explore.  However, they are still in the 'baby steps' stage. 

If you make the focus of the leveling process you get a boring leveling process.  If you make the focus of the endgame too narrow, you get a boring endgame.  The trick is to spread out what the game is about and give peopel options.  The devs need to focus on content and not on gear or flashy raids.

i can tell you right now the feature that stop your leveling

will be huge

imagine say you get deadmine quest at lowest lvl

hell they re often all red now those dungeon can literally become epic

witch in a lot of people mind was the biggest issue

it sound trivial but  alot of people like to have chanllenge and the way they made it easy to reach 60

made a lot of great place obsolete

and a lot of title can only be gotten trough specific ways

hell i found a group doing brs just because they were farming the title leroy lol

yep being able to lock level when you get a quest and its still red will be  way more enjoyable

then powerleveling trough wow ever been in the past year and a half

I have to say that from what i've seen of MMORPG's these days it is ALL about "end game", take expansions for example, they are aimed at the end game players majority of the time purely to try and keep people who have done everything playing the the game.  It's depressing really as after thinking for a while about it thats just how things are in online games, you can't stay mid or low level forever so you'll eventually reach end game content. I'm not a fan of raiding or PvP'ing unless i'm in the mood for it but unfortunately thats all there is left to do at the end of the day, i spend a very long time levelling characters in games cause i try to experience ALL the content in the entire game. A lot of the time once i reach end game content and play it for a while i'l either concentrate of crafting with that character or create a new character thats a pure crafter (depending on the game as i'm an long time player of SWG), i usually keep the high level character for helping others out through things or PvP'ing if i'm in the mood but once i've leveled my first character he's hardly used cause i spend my time doing other things on a different character.

i don't think the "end game" trend can be changed though as what could any game possibly add in order to keep people interested once that point is reached? so far there's raiding and PvP'ing in almost all games, not everyone enjoys doing that kind of thing all the time and they'll either leave the game for another or do as i have said above. In the end it's a trend thats been set in almost every possible MMO and until someone designs content other than Raiding or PvP'ing there will always be people that try to pass the time doing other things or leaving the game.

As a note to those that enjoy Raiding and PvP'ing thats fair enough and you have what you enjoy, but there are many people out there that would like a break from the norm.

Come on game devs, use that creative side and design something for everyone to enjoy.

For me leveling IS the game. Endgame is just that - end of the game. 

My only problem is that I enjoy leveling so much I usually come to end of my games too soon /shrug

MMORPG just a tag, like someone said its just multiplayer games, MMORPG is IMO much more.. player controlled areas with solid game system is going far. WoW is nice till you realise its just same stuff expansion to expansion no "endgame" there.

Originally posted by GreenChaos

 

First of all, all parts of the game should be fun.

I never liked WoW because I'm an altoholic.  I created many chars and never got to 40 in the year or so that I played.  To me the game was boring as hell.  It was ok when there was still world pvp (pre tbc).

But I like a game where people can find a group or solo at any level (CoH/CoV).  To me the WoW system of solo until you hit max level, then do nothing but raid is just stupid. 

 

Actually its only stupid thinking you could only solo.  Really, REALLY stupid;)  Its also stupid playing a game for a year then claiming its "boring as hell".  Seriously, a YEAR paying a fee to be bored? 

IMHO Guild Wars is the only game in which you can have fun from the beginning.

The best part is that reaching level cap hardly takes anytime and most of the game is played at level cap. Reaching level cap is so easy that  the first time I played it I didn't even realize I had reached level cap(I started with Factions).

Only if Guild Wars not a completely instanced game I would have continued playing, I still do PVP occasionaly.

I hope the developers follow the same formula in Guild Wars 2.

I am one of those who really despise the end game content. When character progession stops - the game stops. Its that simple. (and no, getting new gear is not character progession in my book)

I wish a game company would borrow the AC2 quest system. It had a soft level cap around level 80 with an unreachable end level of 150. The where a large amout of big, meaningful and repeatable group quests, ranging from level 42 - 75 (call them raids if you have to label them, but without gear rewards), spread around the game world. Here is the genius part; the xp reward was based on % what you needed to level, so a lvl 60, 70 or 80 could join a lvl 45 quest and still be rewarded. And if the group was full, you could just start a new group and tag along. This created a awsome community with groups containing all kinds of levels, which quested because it was fun and for xp, not because we needed a piece of gear; which too often creates egotism. And, with always a level to look forward to, or using your xp to advance skills, or even buying perks and hero skills with hero points, the character progession never stopped. 

I would like to see this version of a quest system someday in a new mmo.

This is why I have really high hopes for TOR.

With a well thought out, Bioware-quality story to follow as you level, it could be the end of this "force you to level if you want to enjoy this game that all your friends are playing so you have to pay longer for a subscription with little to no effort on our part" crap that Blizzard put into the market.

Now, I'm not dawging on WoW, I spent a lot of good years of my life enjoying the game with my friends.... after the unbearable months of leveling.

I'm not calling TOR the WoW killer, because in all honesty, the only thing that will kill WoW is Blizzard with something like a World of Warcraft 2 or time itself.

However, I'm just gonna throw down a wait-and-see approach towards TOR, could be a dream MMO if they pull it off.

Until then, Eve Online and various f2p mmos will keep me occupied!