It's good to to be able to level quickly in older MMORPGs where there aren't as many low level players, but I'm all for a slower climb up the ladder for newly released games.

I would also argue that learning your class has little to do with how quickly you level up but instead, how often you are required to group with other players.  If you are able to solo your way to the max level and still be efficiently geared, you have little reason to learn how to operate your character in a group environment regardless of how long it took you to get there.

Originally posted by SuperXero89

It's good to to be able to level quickly in older MMORPGs where there aren't as many low level players, but I'm all for a slower climb up the ladder for newly released games.

I would also argue that learning your class has little to do with how quickly you level up but instead, how often you are required to group with other players.  If you are able to solo your way to the max level and still be efficiently geared, you have little reason to learn how to operate your character in a group environment regardless of how long it took you to get there.

I think the last paragraph can be seen through games like WoW with fast leveling. I had people from different classes trying to ask me what I should do in regards to talents, builds and some people don't even know when they should roll NEED on an item upgrade (as in they don't roll at all for fear of being scolded for misrolling maybe?). I would hope by max level, everyone would know the in's and out's of their classes (and not the game mechanics, but the advantages/disadvantages and what you can/cannot do?), but there are people out there that don't. You also wonder why people are getting pickier and pickier with selecting members for their raids/groups because people like this tend to cause problems (even if unintentionally). Then again, you might also want to partially blame a game for actually having an end-game because its near impossible to learn your group roles before level 80 when the old instances are near useless and no one runs them in groups any more.

I'm of the opinion that the leveling up process should be based on story quests meant to move along the bigger picture.  So taking wow for example, I'd remove all the kill 10 rats etc quests and focus the remaining quests on tying up the storyline, adding a few more game-story oriented quests to get that perfect leveling curve.  Start with basic solo play, move on to small groups, move up to mid/large (10-15 man) groups, and end with a relatively low difficulty raid.  You could also add pvp levels along the same path for variety and preparation for the different modes of pvp you can participate in. 

In the end, you'll probably end up with about a month to two month leveling path for a new character.  This is good time spent that introduces the player to game mechanics and tells them a neat baseline story in the process.  It's not too long and it's not too short.  The hardcore gamers will be completely "leveled" anywhere from 2-4 weeks, and the slower players will likely level up in 4-6 months max.

Note though that although you reach max "level" quickly, the end game is a series of player advancement tactics that essentially "level" your character through your choice of mechanics.  You'll have a good amount of repeatable and new dungeon running content, some raids for the *elite* with non-gear rewards, hidden and one-time quests that allow stat or skill bonuses, "meta" leveling over the life of the game (e.g. unattainable max meta level that would give small stat bonuses) player events, GM events, scripted events, continual addition of top level new land and dungeons, pvp with consistent new battlegrounds, arenas, open pvp areas, politics, in-depth crafting, resource gathering with mining options, player housing, guild housing, factories, player cities, fortresses, etc etc etc.  

The whole point here is to make the basic story to level in a fun fashion, relatively quickly, and completely focus the development of the game on the "end-game".  The end game should pretty much be all encompassing, whereas the leveling process was only an introductory period.

This is the kind of design my preferred mmo would have.

I've enjoyed WOW/GW's fast leveling.

I've enjoyed COX's slow leveling.

Different games; different content focuses.  Both are enjoyable as long as the content you're doing is fun (which is why I lean a little towards slow leveling, as WOW's fast leveling means they've put less effort into making leveling fun, and it shows...whereas in COX I'm always doing the content I enjoy.)

Plus, slow leveling means your character is still leveling which means you're still getting a trickle of fun new abilities while your WOW character has stagnated at max level.  In other words, it's a little more fun to get new abilities and gear, than to just get gear.

When there is months of content between you and everyone else (which is probably just a level grind), yeah, leveling faster is good. After all, you cannot learn your "end game" role solo the majority of the time so what is the level grind really teaching the player? To me, it doesn't matter the leveling speed too much as long as there are people your character can actually play with. Fast leveling is more of a requirement of the game design than it is one of overall necessity, in my opinion.

Originally posted by midmagic

After all, you cannot learn your "end game" role solo the majority of the time so what is the level grind really teaching the player?

Not true.

You've described a problem specific to WOW's approach to endgame vs. earlygame.

Imagine WOW where quest XP is halved and instancing XP doubled.  In such a game you would basically be forced to group to have any sort of reasonable leveling speed.  In such a game, the level grind would be preparing you for endgame.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by midmagic

After all, you cannot learn your "end game" role solo the majority of the time so what is the level grind really teaching the player?

 

Not true.

You've described a problem specific to WOW's approach to endgame vs. earlygame.

Imagine WOW where quest XP is halved and instancing XP doubled.  In such a game you would basically be forced to group to have any sort of reasonable leveling speed.  In such a game, the level grind would be preparing you for endgame.

 

Previous sentence sets up the scenario, "When there is months of content between you and everyone else (which is probably just a level grind), yeah, leveling faster is good." That means there is no one to group within the capabilities of the player in question to group with so they must solo no matter how rewarding grouping is for similar capability players.

A developer could certainly design a game with meaningful incentives for a higher capability player to help the lower capability player without destroying the gameplay experience for the lower capability player. A developer could also design a game where "level" is not much of a factor so the low capability player can hang with the high capability players. However, the previous statement was in the content of a power treadmill style game. WoW is most definitely not the only one. It is has been a very common design long before WoW and is still a serious problem.

I think leveling speed and reaching end game all boil down to own thing.

It's a final destination. I can't even count how many MMOs I've dropped because

everyone is sitting at max level and the lower content or lack thereof is inaccessible

due to lack of players/groups.

Plus, it's always fun to go back and get revenge on all those pesky creeps you had

to grind through.

Originally posted by midmagic

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by midmagic

After all, you cannot learn your "end game" role solo the majority of the time so what is the level grind really teaching the player?

 

Not true.

You've described a problem specific to WOW's approach to endgame vs. earlygame.

Imagine WOW where quest XP is halved and instancing XP doubled.  In such a game you would basically be forced to group to have any sort of reasonable leveling speed.  In such a game, the level grind would be preparing you for endgame.

 

Previous sentence sets up the scenario, "When there is months of content between you and everyone else (which is probably just a level grind), yeah, leveling faster is good." That means there is no one to group within the capabilities of the player in question to group with so they must solo no matter how rewarding grouping is for similar capability players.

A developer could certainly design a game with meaningful incentives for a higher capability player to help the lower capability player without destroying the gameplay experience for the lower capability player. A developer could also design a game where "level" is not much of a factor so the low capability player can hang with the high capability players. However, the previous statement was in the content of a power treadmill style game. WoW is most definitely not the only one. It is has been a very common design long before WoW and is still a serious problem.

 

I don't think games previous to WoW has stretched out this end-game concept to the extent WoW has. Sure, I'll admit, many games are copying this form and style, but WoW was one of the first to take it to such extremes (possibly the first, but thats another topic for debate). Its just blatant this is all that Blizzard has cared about for the last who knows how many years with WoW and this trend appears to continue as they feel the need to impose another level cap increase to make all the stuff at level 80 useless. And guys lets face it, it doesn't mean if they only raise it by 5 that it doesn't have the same effects as increasing it by 10 levels. Its all a matter in how its treated and they can make those 5 levels stretch as long as any 10 levels. This just gives them room to release 3 more expansions after Cataclysm so they can charge more for regurgitated and simplified BS. If they keep releasing it by 10 levels, people are going to realize how big of a number level 100 or 110 will be is all. Its just more excuses for them to use in the future.

Originally posted by neoterrar

I think leveling speed and reaching end game all boil down to own thing.

It's a final destination. I can't even count how many MMOs I've dropped because

everyone is sitting at max level and the lower content or lack thereof is inaccessible

due to lack of players/groups.

 

Plus, it's always fun to go back and get revenge on all those pesky creeps you had

to grind through.

This is why, in my view, every so often the minimum level should be raised and lower end content should be revamped into newer content. Progressing the story of the world instead of just adding new regions that do not sink up well with the older zones storywise.

That band of super scarey thieves waiting in their dungeon right outside town for the last 5 years that no one uses? Maybe its time to level it up what is left of them and progress their story.

Originally posted by midmagic

Previous sentence sets up the scenario, "When there is months of content between you and everyone else (which is probably just a level grind), yeah, leveling faster is good." That means there is no one to group within the capabilities of the player in question to group with so they must solo no matter how rewarding grouping is for similar capability players.

A developer could certainly design a game with meaningful incentives for a higher capability player to help the lower capability player without destroying the gameplay experience for the lower capability player. A developer could also design a game where "level" is not much of a factor so the low capability player can hang with the high capability players. However, the previous statement was in the content of a power treadmill style game. WoW is most definitely not the only one. It is has been a very common design long before WoW and is still a serious problem.

Well games with Exemplaring don't remove the power treadmill.

(Exemplar being CoX's feature where high level players can play with lowbie friends without crushing the content, and while getting rewards unique to Exemplaring. Basically you lose all your high level abilities and deal the same damage of whatever level you've exemplar'd down to.)

Like you said, with sufficient incentives early dungeons would be run all the time.

Example: What if there were no normal daily quests and instead they were all "exemplar down and run this low instance" quests?  Early dungeons would constantly have players looking for groups for them.

I'd suggest having Heroic Mode variants for the early dungeons (to offset that slight gear advantage...and the fact that early dungeons are in many cases retardedly easy even for a pure-lowbie group.)

If WOW was set up like that, it would make it actually efficient content design for them to go back and update early dungeons to make them more fun/interesting.

(Edited for clarity)