It used to be that hitting the level cap in an MMO was something that too months, if not years, to actually accomplish. These days, however, it's more a function of hours. After hitting the top, what is there to do? In today's Player Perspectives, we take a look at what we call "content locusts", those who greedily devour content rather than enjoy it. See what you think!

I like to blame the content locusts for this, at least to a large extent – that small percentage of players whose goal isn’t to experience content but to consume it as fast as possible as they race inexorably through a game. The people who, driven to hit max level as rapidly as they can, then sit there and whine loudly about how they have nothing to do and how they’re still hungry. There’s no satisfying that kind of player.

Read more of Isabelle Parsley's Player Perspectives: Content Locusts killed my MMO.

Kill 10 rats quests are really not mandatory in this game? Oh yes you have 15 of them and after you kill the rats you have to click on a console or something...briliant!

Once again, this is why there is a great importance for social and player-driven end-game features.

Take player cities for example. That alone is a long-term goal to work towards. Meeting other players, agreeing and disagreeing with leadership, taxes, house and city placement, rivals with other nearby cities etc,  just add to the overall entertainment and competitiveness.

Social Features are the backbone of sustain. This gives players something to do while more content is being generated.

Simple,  MMO's in this case SWTOR is a product of design to appeal to the masses (read $$$), this includes the "me" generation that want everything now or with little effort.

I miss those days when leveling was hard and you died on mobs.

Very Well Said!

On a side note, some of my most vivid memories in my MMO history involve getting my first Green Mire Cuirass, The grind to get the motes for my atlan weapons and armor, and the dungeon runs  to get my atlan stones.

My wife and I are playing TOR presently, but we are taking the whole leveling thing very slow as we could tell that it wasn't hard to level and we wanted to enjoy the ride.

I leveled much more quickly in WoW than in SWTOR. What game are you playing?

Yeah WoW really killed themselves only hold 9+ million subs for what atleast 6 years.  There is more to this than just speed of leveling/content issues.  Alt viability and fun, mini games, pvp fun, social aspects, difficult of end game content, amount of end game content...

WoW kept people for these reason even though the game was "easy" to level through.  Other newer games fail at some of these issues.

People (including developers) will soon realize, that goals which are harder to achieve last emotionaly longer.

I do not understand, how people can find, achieving something very quick and jump to the next thing, interesting. It bores me.

Why do the new games make leveling so fast - for raiders and pvpers. Casuals (like me and maybe you) like the journey. We like enjoying the scenery and the story. We like crafting things that are useful during the journey. We like strolling through a world not rushing through a story. Who wants to get to max level as soon as possible - raiders and pvpers. The best gear (both pve and pvp) are at end game - why would anyone not want to go there right away?

All new non-Asian MMOs are going the fast track to max level. Cataclysm started it. The Big Lie is that WOW was changed for the casuals. I went back and leveled from 1-20 after Cata and decided that, if WOW was like this from vanilla I would never have stayed 6 years like I did. Rush, rush, rush. Gone were dozens of quests. The complete emphasis was level up quickly. Who enjoyed Cata (for a while) - my son - the pvp champion.

Swtor can be a fast level. My son got to 50 in 5 days. But my highest toon is 43 with only 2 other level 20 alts. I am trying to enjoy my way up the levels but like you I feel something is missing. I feel I am reading a story with tiny branches, not living in a Star Wars world. Maybe I am a true sandbox player but I did like Rift (still sub). Like you I will probably stay another 3 months. But after that i don't know...

You read my mind.  Devs need to move the emphasis from "endgame" (read: "Raiding") and focus on all the other stuff.  

I really emphasise with you on the topic of striving for awesome gear.  I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what my Rift or Old Republic characters are wearing, but i know my EQ1 Iksar Beastlord is wearing a Phase Spider Carapace, Lodizal Shell Shield, Waning Light Katar, Trak Bracer and JBoots, and I haven't played in years.  Theres no identity any more, its just a treadmill of incrementally better equipment with forgettable names.

Same goes for a quicker death in games and MMOs in general. You have to learn from your mistakes.

Getting carried through a whole game, like in SWToR in which is literally nothing difficult, is no fun. No fun at all.

There is a huge number of people who want to level an extremely long time to get into endgame, but that costs more development time for a game. Which costs again more money to develop. Conclusion? Developers throw out their games, their content rapidly, to soath the "easy or casual gamers" needs.

Its nothing special that tons of threads pop up in forums like this one, where people including those casual gamers argue about what they get fed in MMOs these days. It's nothing bad or negative guys, it's just a part in your waking-up - when you finally realize how developers actually fool you.

Be more critical and you will get your indepth content and harder difficulties and takes-more-time-to-achieve-something in games.

Just step away from this "quick buying" mentality.

I agree 100%, leveling needs to be severly slowed down. And for PvPs sake they need to remove level bonuses/penalties so that a low level character can be of some use against a higher level one.

Basically what should happen is that they need to bring back the exp curve, and death penalties, of games like Everquest and Asheron's Call and gamers need to realise that they need to find enjoyment in the journey and not the end.

Originally posted by Arkinia

I leveled much more quickly in WoW than in SWTOR. What game are you playing?

Wow used to be slow leveling, they had to increase the leveling rate to please the "I want it now" generation.  You can also level at any rate in any game depending on how new it is to you.  If you are experienced in a game you most certainly can level faster in it.  All in all, Wow is slower leveling than SWTOR.   

Same post as above user so deleted it

Thats why korean mmo are still the best.

dump any and all leveling. give characters everything they need at startup, then let players play the game however they want.

Originally posted by Ausare

Yeah WoW really killed themselves only hold 9+ million subs for what atleast 6 years.  There is more to this than just speed of leveling/content issues.  Alt viability and fun, mini games, pvp fun, social aspects, difficult of end game content, amount of end game content...

The arguement that wow has 9 million subscribers so it must be good really really annoys me.  By this logic, can we assume that Communism is good because more than 1 Billion people exist under that form of government?  The only fact we can take away from wow is that for the majority of the MMO community it was the first MMO accessible enough for the masses to see it as something to do in their spare time as opposed to being the realm of geeks and losers.

In my opinion we would have been served better by EQ or UO or a game along similar veins to have been wow instead of wow.  Perhaps now we would have immersive virtual worlds that people would feel attached to and have some motivation to remain and invest themselves in beyond shinies and epeen.

I feel this piece is very timely because I noticed a very similar experience. SWTOR has a TON of content.  Planets are huge and takes time even on a speeder to "discover" (read: unlock the fog of the map). Yet these forums are mostly posts of pvp veterans griping about the game.  Something the designers never claimed it would be anyway. Everyone races to the top and then they unsub? really? 

Human nature I guess. People feel the best experiences in a game is only at the end. Bioware does feed into this because the rewards are gear based. So a lvl 25 item , even its a prototype rare item,  wears out its usefulness fast. 

I thought the mod/ enhance system might mitigate this problem, because you can add enhancements and replace as needed, but it falls short. Item upgrades should involve adding more slots or an option to upgrade the item you already have through rare schematics. What if you could actually be able to effectively run the entire game from start to "finish" with  your starter weapon? Maybe through item upgrades, modifications, missions designed to upgrade/ evolve your item? 

This may make the journey more worthwhile, instead of steamrolling through your personal storyline and grinding warzones / flashpoint instances.  

Note I do understand the need for these instances. MMOs should cater to a wide audience. Not someone who lives by the computer. However, these things should just reward more valor and level advancement . Another idea is make PvP true PvP servers. Competitive quests. If you are supposed to fix the relay stations throughout the area for the republic, the game fires off a mission objective for the Imperials to thwart the effort. If the relay stations get fixed, republic mobs spawn anf now the Imps have to bust up the stations. 

"Community Locusts killed your SWTOR" you say?

Thats quite interesting, as for myself;

Ability Lag, Uneven Mirrors, non functional stats on gear, one of the groggiest game engines ive ever seen as well as being outnumbered 30 to 1 killed my SWTOR.

Dissapointment of the decade.

It's not about how long it takes but how much content there is. I remember it took me 8 months to hit max level in FFXI back in '04. That was considered rather fast back then.

The thing is, it didn't take me that long because i stopped and smelled the roses. I rushed as much as i could because you couldn't do anything solo, so you found a good group and stuck with it. There were no instances or dungeons, only 6-man party grinds. 

I guess what i'm trying to say is, i'd prefer a longer leveling experience without the monotonous grind. I don't care if it takes a year to hit max level as long as there's enough content to prevent grind. Mask it any way you like.