many times i read
"It's fast to level, i got level 25 in few days" or "the grind is good i got lv 15 in a couple of hours"
like that is a good thing.

I dont really understand why, why do i have to reach the level cap that fast?

I played and loved lotro, but many times it was really hard to find group for some fellow quests because you dont need them to level up, u can solo all the way up, but those quests are really great and fun, people dont know what they are missing?

people are always saying that lineage 2 is too grindy and there are not quests, talking to a guy (never played myself) he told me that people go around and group to explore, kill bosses and get good rewards even tho there are not quests.
if it is like that, it sound fun, doesnt it?

i really got bored once i got the level cap in lotro... all i had to do was to raiding to get the change to roll for better (and all the same for anyone) gear... boring to me
Playing aoc... the same...

anyway do u care more to reach the top level fast or to enjoy the game?

sorry if my english is not perfect

I guess its just the way people are.  Some people are impatient, and just want the max  level cap, so they want a fast lvling game.  Some people just want to go with the flow and enjoy the game, and dont really care about the lvling fast.  Me personnaly, I just like a game where lvling isnt the only thing that matters, I like to have professions, a good quest system, etc.

No its not.

Fast leveling & solo "grinding"(if you feel you're grinding, a.k.a. not having fun, GTFO of the genre) to the "end game"(what a joke.. the journey is whats important. An ongoing adventure that never ends) is what destroyed the genre imo...

It's good to level up quickly if there isn't a lot that is worth doing at each level.  If you have lots of good, solid, varied content for a given level, then there's no need to get to the next one. If stuff happens like, you "run out of quests" for the next 3 levels, then you want to level ASAP and get to the next "break point" for quests.  So realistically, it depends on the amount of content.

C

Originally posted by tyorke

many times i read
"It's fast to level, i got level 25 in few days" or "the grind is good i got lv 15 in a couple of hours"
like that is a good thing.

I dont really understand why, why do i have to reach the level cap that fast?

I played and loved lotro, but many times it was really hard to find group for some fellow quests because you dont need them to level up, u can solo all the way up, but those quests are really great and fun, people dont know what they are missing?

people are always saying that lineage 2 is too grindy and there are not quests, talking to a guy (never played myself) he told me that people go around and group to explore, kill bosses and get good rewards even tho there are not quests.
if it is like that, it sound fun, doesnt it?

i really got bored once i got the level cap in lotro... all i had to do was to raiding to get the change to roll for better (and all the same for anyone) gear... boring to me
Playing aoc... the same...

anyway do u care more to reach the top level fast or to enjoy the game?

sorry if my english is not perfect

People who reach the top lvl fast do enjoy that.

I do agree that I don't see the point doing that in a MMORPG as for me they are games and not some job I need to complete within a certain timeframe, but then again if it's fun it's alright for me.

Problem I see often (which does not mean always but just often as there are plenty of gamers that do lvl fast and keep playing the game on what ever lvl) that those who do lvl fast often seem to get bored and start to blame the game, where those of us into MMORPG for some years know there is more to a MMORPG then doing quest, lvl, and get loot/gear. And getting bored with a game is more due to someone's playstyle then it's the games fault, as I still like to believe that if people don't like something they leave and not continue untill they get bored as again that would not make any sense.

I also said many times grind is a playstyle people put on themselfs. Sorry not one MMORPG I have played felt like I was grinding, here you have a quest kill 1000 something, I see people all the time just going for that, I say it's a MMORPG plenty of time to eventually kill those 1000, perhaps 10 today, tommorow some more, perhaps next week a few more, meanwhile there is so much else to do within a MMORPG, but of course if a MMORPG does not provide enough to do besides killing 1000 somethings, then I already have left the game as thats not the type of MMORPG I like to spend time with.

So personaly I don't feel lvl'ing fast has done any good towards this genre.

I dont think is good for the company to make level that fast...
i paid lotro for 8 months... i played too much at the end game.

i remember people have 6 alt.... i cant i like to have one and have stuff to do forever...

people are too busy talking about which game will fail next...
lol so annoying that...

Originally posted by Reklaw

Originally posted by tyorke

many times i read
"It's fast to level, i got level 25 in few days" or "the grind is good i got lv 15 in a couple of hours"
like that is a good thing.

I dont really understand why, why do i have to reach the level cap that fast?

I played and loved lotro, but many times it was really hard to find group for some fellow quests because you dont need them to level up, u can solo all the way up, but those quests are really great and fun, people dont know what they are missing?

people are always saying that lineage 2 is too grindy and there are not quests, talking to a guy (never played myself) he told me that people go around and group to explore, kill bosses and get good rewards even tho there are not quests.
if it is like that, it sound fun, doesnt it?

i really got bored once i got the level cap in lotro... all i had to do was to raiding to get the change to roll for better (and all the same for anyone) gear... boring to me
Playing aoc... the same...

anyway do u care more to reach the top level fast or to enjoy the game?

sorry if my english is not perfect

 

People who reach the top lvl fast do enjoy that.

I do agree that I don't see the point doing that in a MMORPG as for me they are games and not some job I need to complete within a certain timeframe, but then again if it's fun it's alright for me.

Problem I see often (which does not mean always but just often as there are plenty of gamers that do lvl fast and keep playing the game on what ever lvl) that those who do lvl fast often seem to get bored and start to blame the game, where those of us into MMORPG for some years know there is more to a MMORPG then doing quest, lvl, and get loot/gear. And getting bored with a game is more due to someone's playstyle then it's the games fault, as I still like to believe that if people don't like something they leave and not continue untill they get bored as again that would not make any sense.

I also said many times grind is a playstyle people put on themselfs. Sorry not one MMORPG I have played felt like I was grinding, here you have a quest kill 1000 something, I see people all the time just going for that, I say it's a MMORPG plenty of time to eventually kill those 1000, perhaps 10 today, tommorow some more, perhaps next week a few more, meanwhile there is so much else to do within a MMORPG, but of course if a MMORPG does not provide enough to do besides killing 1000 somethings, then I already have left the game as thats not the type of MMORPG I like to spend time with.

So personaly I don't feel lvl'ing fast has done any good towards this genre.

I second this, I always think that I am running out of thime and I try to reach max lvl fast while I have time to play. This is usually only for my main characters, with my alts I try to follow story and I level slower but it's more fun. For my main character it's all about end-game so for me getting there fast is important step if I am planning to stick around long enough.
 

I hate lvling. Stupid system thats out of control atm. End game should start early and nevver trully be atainable.. thats why I play Eve.

i dont play that much because i work and i have life... wife, son, friends even tho...
ive got level 50 in aoc in a couple of weeks.

i'd like to play a game where i can never reach as u said the end game, where i can always improve,
specially where not everyone wear the same gear got from the same raid :P

Originally posted by Nekrataal

No its not.

Fast leveling & solo "grinding"(if you feel you're grinding, a.k.a. not having fun, GTFO of the genre) to the "end game"(what a joke.. the journey is whats important. An ongoing adventure that never ends) is what destroyed the genre imo...

 

I agree with this. End game killed it and I'm sure developers would of made the game levelless if money wasn't such an important factor, but the leveling prereq forces people to subscribe for even longer before they get to actually experience what is "most of the game". If they interspersed end game within the levels more evenly and stretched out leveling, I think a game would feel more immersive and complete. But no, they think anything new they create is so special that you have to throw it at the max level, leaving everything crammed at the top and everything before it empty. I think MMO's should go back to some of their roots and take what has worked and what was good about them and work it with the more recent innovations.

I will start off being honest and say I am a power leveler. I like to get to the max level quickly because raiding is what I enjoy. But I also feel fast leveling is a bad thing. EQ took a long time to reach max level, when speaking of the beginning before power leveling and the such. Most people took months to reach 50 and one thing resulted from spending so much time leveling. They learned how to play their character. I mean they learned every possible way to play their character. Spending so much time leveling and facing difficult encounters forced you to attempt things you never tried before. Kiting, reverse kiting, crowd control with other classes besides Enchanter, quad kiting, etc. were all things players discovered during their journey of leveling.

Today, most games allow you to level so quickly that you are never required to reach deep and figure out new ways to accomplish things. In each quest, you simply do the same thing you did five levels ago and you succeed, gain a level and move on to rinse and repeat.

Personally, I believe to be successful at raiding, you must know everything about your character. Every possible action your character can take with more to still be learned. To me, that is what made EQ so much fun. Fights like Avatar of War, Venril Sathir, Trakanon in the beginning required thought and experience to win. People had to know their character so they could perform their role in the fight. Nowadays, everything is pretty stale and scripted. Watch the script, adjust what the group does until you do it all right and you win. In EQ, you may know how the fight played out, but if everyone didn't preform their role correctly, you lost. If one person didn't do their job, you would wipe.

I suspect that this rush to level to the cap is one of the reasons that WoW is only going to increase to level 85 instead of 90 or higher. When there are only a few levels between you and the top there isn't as much urgency to ignore everything else just to get the leveling done. Another reason of course for WoW to do this is that everytime they did it the effectively trashed all of their old content. And then of course if you want to attract new players who wants to start out at level 1 with the up hill climb to 80, 90, 100, etc to look forward to.

To a certain extent the content in the middle of most current MMOs is wasted and needless. They should just have a tutorial starter section and once done you are at max level and then all the content is set up for that. Imagine Molten Core still being a viable raiding instance or that you could still run around any of the other zones and find mobs and quests to work on? And for PvP it pretty much solves the major problem of ganking low levels though a newbie is going to die to an experienced player most of the time no matter what.

With Vanguard one of the goals was to have a huge world with a lot to do and that the trip was a big part of the adventure though unfortunately it didn't work out that way and they had lots of other problems which didn't help.

I have semi-retired my WoW characters but I suspect I will go back and get all my level 80 toons moved up but I am not going to race or worry about it and most likely once I hit 85 and have looked around again I will probably retire them again as I just don't find the grind in WoW enjoyable any more.

I agree that it shouldnt be a race to cap. The best grind is the game where leveling isnt a 'grind' but is fun. Fun games are those were you dont realize you are leveling

Leveling should be as fast or slow as it needs to be to keep the game feeling fresh.   If the leveling is going to be really fast, there better be an endgame worth playing.  Personally I enjoy leveling up the most because it involves the most exploration, the most learning and character development, which are the best parts of an RPG.  Endgame basically means repetition anyway.

Normally when I read, "I reached max level in X number of days, its normally followed by, "...but the endgame sucks or ...I'm bored". Thats when I realise that person is an idiot because they were rushing=)  Then where they bitch about how fast it took or how boring it was.../facepalm.

Originally posted by Josher

Leveling should be as fast or slow as it needs to be to keep the game feeling fresh.   If the leveling is going to be really fast, there better be an endgame worth playing.  Personally I enjoy leveling up the most because it involves the most exploration, the most learning and character development, which are the best parts of an RPG.  Endgame basically means repetition anyway.

Normally when I read, "I reached max level in X number of days, its normally followed by, "...but the endgame sucks or ...I'm bored". Thats when I realise that person is an idiot because they were rushing=)  Then where they bitch about how fast it took or how boring it was.../facepalm.

that's what i was saying, lot of people rush that much that most of the times is really hard to find group to explore everything
as u know many times u need group to go in some hidden places.

It's sad that many times i had to skip some (problaby) fun quests and visit some place because i couldnt find any group even if i was looking for hours, just because everyone was so busy to grind.... 

.... that's so sad.

Originally posted by tyorke

many times i read
"It's fast to level, i got level 25 in few days" or "the grind is good i got lv 15 in a couple of hours"
like that is a good thing.

I dont really understand why, why do i have to reach the level cap that fast?

I played and loved lotro, but many times it was really hard to find group for some fellow quests because you dont need them to level up, u can solo all the way up, but those quests are really great and fun, people dont know what they are missing?

people are always saying that lineage 2 is too grindy and there are not quests, talking to a guy (never played myself) he told me that people go around and group to explore, kill bosses and get good rewards even tho there are not quests.
if it is like that, it sound fun, doesnt it?

i really got bored once i got the level cap in lotro... all i had to do was to raiding to get the change to roll for better (and all the same for anyone) gear... boring to me
Playing aoc... the same...

anyway do u care more to reach the top level fast or to enjoy the game?

sorry if my english is not perfect

The levels aren't the real problem, the games are.  As it is right now, MMOs are designed to make you want to get better and stronger.  I don't completely agree with that.  Levels should be like birthdays.  You don't work hard to reach your birthday.  You just do whatever it is you do, then it happens, and it's time for celebration.  It should just be something that occurs, but you're not worried about it, because you're having too much fun.

I have a hard time having fun during the leveling process, because until you reach the end, it's extremely monotonous (and I'm not saying end game isn't).  How many times can I go kill X amount of mobs, deliver something, or escort someone without getting bored of it?  The problem is, the AI is not good enough.   If MMO AI was better we would have much more variety. 

Most mobs are reskinned versions of other mobs, with maybe 1-2 different skills.  Everybody knows the process in 99.9% of MMOs; click mob, attack, mob usually runs up to you and does basic attacks with a skill or 2, use your most effective skills, loot, and repeat till the last level.  There is absolutely no variety, and all the mobs are dumb as hell.

It would also help if there were more things to do in MMOs.  I like crafting, only because I can make things for myself, or friends.  I don't like the actual process of crafting, though.  Players could level crafting through mini games, fun ones.  I'm sure there are many casual games devs can get inspiration from.  Either that, or be able to design their own armor, weapons, etc through in game tools.  Maybe, a combination of both.

--------------------

Simple version

Leveling is very monotonous, and I would rather get to the end and PvP at max level.  Mob AI is too dumb and I repeat the same thing every time.  MMOs these days need to have better AI and more FUN things to do at any level. 

No its not a good thing. These games cost tens of millions of dollars to develop. To recoup the costs the devs need to sell boxes and get subscriptions. If people get to end game quickly, they get bored and quit. The don't keep paying their monthly fee and the company can't recoup their money. That makes it harder to create new content and fix existing issues as they have to strip their staff.

A lot of games have released and they have had no problems selling boxes but they can't keep their subs. While the majority of this reason is because the game sucks part of the reason is also that people are maxing out their characters in 90 days or less.

They get bored of doing the same endgame content and devs can't create content fast enough to keep them happy.

Players are also getting bored becasue the game is too damned easy and its no challenge. Of course so many people bitch and whine that they want an easy game b/c they have a "life" and they don't want to devote their life to a game and they should get the lame loot as everyone else b/c they pay their fee liek everyone else.

But I think this is just another example of people not knowing what they want. Yea it may be easier but its also more boring - so they quit.

So in conclusion:

Make the games harder and make it harder to level!!!

More people will play!!!

Stop catering to the casual whiners as this isn't where your market is really at. These casuals aren't leaving WoW no matter what you make. These people are gonna jump on whatever bandwagon everyone else is on. So many game released in the last few years has been easier than WoW and they flop - stop repeating the same stupid mistakes.

Originally posted by Havok2all

I will start off being honest and say I am a power leveler. I like to get to the max level quickly because raiding is what I enjoy. But I also feel fast leveling is a bad thing. EQ took a long time to reach max level, when speaking of the beginning before power leveling and the such. Most people took months to reach 50 and one thing resulted from spending so much time leveling. They learned how to play their character. I mean they learned every possible way to play their character. Spending so much time leveling and facing difficult encounters forced you to attempt things you never tried before. Kiting, reverse kiting, crowd control with other classes besides Enchanter, quad kiting, etc. were all things players discovered during their journey of leveling.

 

Today, most games allow you to level so quickly that you are never required to reach deep and figure out new ways to accomplish things. In each quest, you simply do the same thing you did five levels ago and you succeed, gain a level and move on to rinse and repeat.

 

Personally, I believe to be successful at raiding, you must know everything about your character. Every possible action your character can take with more to still be learned. To me, that is what made EQ so much fun. Fights like Avatar of War, Venril Sathir, Trakanon in the beginning required thought and experience to win. People had to know their character so they could perform their role in the fight. Nowadays, everything is pretty stale and scripted. Watch the script, adjust what the group does until you do it all right and you win. In EQ, you may know how the fight played out, but if everyone didn't preform their role correctly, you lost. If one person didn't do their job, you would wipe.

this this this this this this thissss!

Omg, going to any game after being a vet of EQ just seems like nothing.

Leveling took time, it took skill, and it sure as hell took communication if you ever wanted to level faster.

Even powerleveling when people did it took forever, and you could only what, get to level 25 with it? then youd be done. 

And another thing about leveling slowly that i enjoy is people become accustomed and attuned to that one character; they dont have about 10 other characters that they can just switch onto.

It requires more skill; more thought process, and a hell of a lot more patience.

which is what made leveling in EQ so fun; 

And is why EQ will reign supreme in PvE standards to me atleast. 

 mm i use to want to be lvl 60 fast in wow ,now i play  eq2 and believe me i m in no hurry ,even if i  wanted i couldnt lol,just try to do i tin hammer in eq2 you ll see what i mean you would have done probably 15 or 25 in wow by the time you made 1 in eq2 lol

 probably same as eq2 love this man ,great change compared to wow .but wow was good for me i was a beginner in mmo so wow is perfect starter 

but eq2 is way better in my view once your a bit experienced