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When I load up a single player game, often they present me the option, "Would you like to see the tutorial?" To which I promptly hit "NO". I've played my fair share of games, shooters, RPGs, RTSs, etc. I can figure the stuff out just fine. Give me the meat of the game. MMOs on the other hand force a 2-10 hour tutorial on everyone. Are you starting your eighth character because you want a different class, or hate your old server? Here, enjoy the tutorial again. Many players even consider the 1-(max-1) grind to be an extended tutorial, with the real game starting at max level. Which, to some extent, given how getting to max level is more of an effort in patience than any meaningful amount of skill, seems to be true. In which case the tutorial becomes a 300+ hour tutorial. Seriously, let me experience the features on the box from the start. Advancement can stay, but keep it in small baby steps, not huge leaps and bounds. Take a fresh max level person and a fully geared max level person and stretch the entire game out between those bounds. You'll save a lot of development time cutting out the rest of the crap no one really cares about anyway. Diclaimer: I understand there will always be a "level 1", but the main point is having to graduate from killing farm animals up to killing dragons is a boring process that has been done in every freaking MMO and the idea of even picking up another MMO sickens me because how long it'll take to get to the advertised features because I have to slay farm animals first. 
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7/10/09 11:04:58 PM#2
The main thing that makes max level such a remarkable thing is the grind to get there. Start people at the max level, and all you have is content without much progression at all. Oh, wow, another instance! Why? Why have another instance? Oh, sure, you would get gear, but if you take current MMORPGs, what is so great about end game? The fact that it's 10x better than all the shit before it.
Make no levels (basically what you're asking), and the starter "end game" content would just become the tutorial, and people would hate playing it after a while. It's a paradox. |
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Not necessarily. Guild Wars almost starts from the get go with group vs group and objective combat, which is significantly different from your typical mess of mobs waiting to be harvested like a ripe crop. Also, allow people to jump to some of the intermediary instances from the get-go if the starter areas feel too boring. Let people jump around instead of herding them and forcing them into areas. Ideally, even veteran players could dip into the "newbie areas" and adventure and earn benefits for themselves so helping out newbies isn't an entirely self-less task (in other words, something no one does).
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7/10/09 11:12:57 PM#4
Originally posted by Mylon This is what's wrong with MMO's. It shouldn't be like this, but most of the time everything is dumbed down for the sake of grind and becomes like this. What needs to be done is to make the 1-(cap-1) levels matter.
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7/10/09 11:15:26 PM#5
It doesn't surprise me that your most played game is Guild Wars. Not that there is anything wrong with that, mind you, but still... MMOs are all about the journey for me. I've played quite a few, and, typically, I reroll or start another game after hitting the max level. PVP and raids and the typical "end game content" does not interest me. I've always been much more fond of the journey. The friends you meet along the way. That one time you took on a mob or dungeon that was too high for you--but you made it anyway. Those times when you were up all night long playing in an amazing group where you got 4-5 level ups in a single sitting. The max level is wonderful. I love to go around and help out those players still reaching for the top. It's wonderful though because I feel the accomplishment. I am my character, and I have matured through my journey, my skills have developed, I've made an impact both on the game world and with the community. Don't take that away from me! Edit: Meant to touch on another thing: the problem is not really with "the grind from 1-(cap-1)." Instead, the problem is that so much focus is placed on the endgame. I'd like to see developers for ANY MMO actually release an expansion that is intended for low to mid level range players. Instead, the latest expansion is almost always a slew of new end game content and a raised level cap. Make the journey there more exciting, and more players will stop worrying about their level and just start having fun. A great example is Final Fantasy XI, which has a wealth of things to do from the very first level. I always felt like I had hundreds of things I could do at each level, and the game only seemed to open up more exciting options as the game carried on. |
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7/10/09 11:18:05 PM#6
To the OP, you start at the same lvl as everyone else in a first-person shooter, something like HALO, or Planetside, or the such much lessen your frustration lvl. Just a thought, life is too short to get frustrated over things that aren't gonna change. |
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7/10/09 11:20:13 PM#7
Originally posted by Mylon well not everyone is as badass at video games as you are.( are you so to the point when in bed with your girl too, bet she loves skipping the forplay) anyways most people need that time to learn, and of course what is a mmmo with out friends.. and in most mmo's you'll need friends to kill those dragons.. 1-70 gives you time to meet others.... wells theres always darkfail online you can play, no levels. and nothing really to do... and i've been in many dungeosn with someone that tried to skip the lower lvl instances and they suck bad.. they could have used that time to learn, not u of course but everyone else int he group could be retards. and that would just blow no? |
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7/10/09 11:20:28 PM#8
Originally posted by Mylon
So I'm guessing you don't play singleplayer rpgs at all? Because it's the same mechanics, only one has more people. |
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7/10/09 11:22:20 PM#9
Originally posted by DubaVampe
nah, if a game has good character progression and meaningful content, levels wouldn't mean shit... builds and whatnot would |
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7/10/09 11:23:39 PM#10
Originally posted by WOWthatsucks
Good point. Take a look at a player who has bought a high level account for a game that he has only played about halfway through. Typically, they're awful because they don't have the experience from the journey to the top. |
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Actually I haven't used Xfire in ages, else it might report WAR or Civilization 4. WAR was fun just because of the PvP from level 1. Unfortunately, their idea of end game PvP was instanced PvE. And their idea of development is, "Here's this cool thing we're gonna give you. In 4 months. Until then, chew on your bootstraps because that's all you're getting." Going 1 to max isn't really a journey. It's just doing your time. And paying your sub. The games do what they can to actively hinder people trying to help those grind their way up. Group with a high level? Get no exp. High level people can't give you nice items, they're too high level to equip (they can give you rare items items one might not encounter on their own journey, but a marginal benefit against the mobs that happily await their slaughter anyway). Get a high level to heal you while you tackle something big and nasty? End up whiffing 90% of the time or otherwise taking forever to kill it, offsetting the high one-time XP gain.
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Compared to what? Letting the person suck for a while until they get their bearings? At least they'll learn at their own pace and won't be gimped by however long the game thinks they should spend before they move onto the next step. As for the earlier posted, I do play FPS games. I quite enjoy, say, CoD4 where even if you have to level up to get the p90, a level 1's bullets still kill just fine. And noobs improve at the game as they learn better, not after they've they've learned better and invested their X hours. No MMO at the moment, else I might not be posting here.
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7/10/09 11:32:34 PM#13
WAR is a good example of this. WAR gives you the ability to experience most of the features the game has from level 1 and beyond. The majority of people still find it incredibly boring... though yes, it's also because most of the features just aren't any fun. |
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7/10/09 11:36:20 PM#14
EVE Ultima Online Darkfall Online Wurm Online Upcoming games: Mortal Online, Face of Mankind, Link Realms, Fallen Earth, Global Agenda, Afterworld, Earthrise, The Agency
Pick a game!! None of them have or are going to have leveling, maybe The Agency and Global Agenda, but I do not believe the rest are.. |
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No no... War was pretty good. For a fresh-ly launched MMO. However, rather than actually continue to develop it as an MMO they've more or less handed development off to maybe 10 people and told them to drink beer every other month between actual working. That is, I'd be very surprised if there was actually more than 10 people developing the game (not including GMs, billing staff, server maintainers). I mean, 1 dungeon in 4 months? Come on.
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7/10/09 11:38:31 PM#16
Originally posted by Mylon
And so I was right. You don't play singleplayer rpgs. And mmos use the same mechanics as singleplayer rpgs including levels, skills, experience, etc. Have you considered that maybe you're trying to fit yourself into a genre not made for you? |
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7/10/09 11:41:27 PM#17
Originally posted by Eyrothath You're so wrong I don't even know where to begin. Leveling is leveling, whether you are leveling levels or leveling skills, you are still starting out as crap and earning ( leveling ) yourself to something better. |
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tcosaddict
Advanced Member
Joined: 9/06/07
"The quickest way to a woman's bed is through her parents... have sex with them and you're in!" |
7/10/09 11:42:25 PM#18
Let's not forget that what we're talking about here is mmoRPGs. The RPG is a major part of it for a lot of people. You're building a character from scratch and creating a powerful person throughout the game. If you were already max level at the start of it, where would the RPG element come in? Then it would basically be a hack-and-slash fps game with magic (assuming we're talking about the fantasy genre). For me, I enjoy the RPG elements of the games I play. I like to build my character up from scratch and develop him as I go with meaningful decisions. If I started the game and basically just worked toward getting better gear, that would be pretty lame as far as I'm concerned. Also, games like WoW for example and most other mmorpgs start you off on the smaller stuff and gradually work you into the more powerful mobs as a means of training you to use the systems the devs have in place. I know this isn't as true anymore with all the WoW-clones out there, but once upon a time games were very diverse with very few being exactly alike. It takes time for people to adjust to the mechanics in a new game and someone coming in on equal footing with everyone else except having no experience with how the game works would make a pretty poor party member. Also, people need time to learn the vast library of skills available to them. People are only as good as they are at end game in most games because they've had time to familiarize themselves with their skills and know when to use them most effectively. If you had all of your skills from the get-go you would take a pretty long time to get used to using them when necessary. I think the training is necessary in order to ensure a challenge at the end of the game. If anyone could start a new character and jump right into the end game, they'd need to make it considerably easier so people with no experience didn't just fail miserably and get angry. Thanks to the 60 levels of tutorial leading up to end game, people can handle difficult fights by applying the experience they've gained. This also makes for a much more fulfilling experience that gives a sense of accomplishment when completed, since it actually requires skill and applied knowledge instead of just basic know-how. |
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[quote][i]Originally posted by Eyrothath[/i] [b]EVE Hurry up and wait for your skills. Have to PvE to PvP (or get someone to PvE for you). Build > all. Ultima Online Something 21st century, please. Graphics do matter to some extent. Darkfall Online Is it out yet? Wurm Online Ug. Get together buddies so you can have a dedicated lumberjack, a dedicated carpenter, a dedicated smith, and a dedicated miner. Now, chop trees / make planks / make tools / mine ore for the rest of your life. Upcoming games: Mortal Online, Face of Mankind, Link Realms, Fallen Earth, Global Agenda, Afterworld, Earthrise, The Agency Pick a game!! None of them have or are going to have leveling, maybe The Agency and Global Agenda, but I do not believe the rest are..[/b][/quote]
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I do rather enjoy Oblivion and Two Worlds. And despite my lamentation against grinding, I found Disgaea and related games to be quite enjoyable (something about having a character level, having items levels, having reincarnated levels, having skill levels, learning skills, being able to collect item-enhancers, and doing this all for multiple characters all simultaneously). I used to enjoy JRPGs some time ago, but they all felt like a big bore between boss fights, especially since most of them don't even try to make the common monsters wear you down through atrophy anymore.
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