Originally posted by colddog04
I prefer the progression, but honestly, I wouldn't care if they removed levels and just let everyone go to any zone they wanted. Perhaps they could spread around different cosmetic stuff to keep people hunting in the world. This would help solve that little issue Creslin brought up about certain zones thinning out because people outlevel them.

How long do you think it would take before players work out or when guides are freely available to tell you where to get specific items, players will still end up clumping together to get X items.  Its not so much the drops that are really an issue, its Karma farming, players are already working the same chain events over and over because they are the most productive.  I think a lot of issue is recognition of what players achieve, you can have the most expensive skins in the game and nobody gives a sh*t.  Probably stems from that most players with commando titles bought their gold from the goldseller sites or used the exploit with the karma vendor to get ahead.

Originally posted by ShakyMo
You can have a themepark without levels - planetside.

And The Secret World.

It is true that GW2 could do with half the number of levels they used or even less, but I guess they wanted to give a comparative progression gauge to the other casual giant, WoW. In fact, I think they could have forego levels altogether and let segregation depend on content difficulty, but again, it would have been too much a deviation from what is considered standard for themeparks today.

I suppose they could have followed a system similar to TSW, but the end result showed that the levelling system is more pallatable to the mmorpg population that migrates from one mmorpg to the next.

Generally speaking, they took as few risks as possible, which is understandable.

As for Planetside, I'm not sure how much of an mmorpg (emphasis on the rpg part), since I've never played the original. It is certainly a mmofps from the looks of it, and so is the follow up game.

Originally posted by biggarfoot

Originally posted by colddog04
I prefer the progression, but honestly, I wouldn't care if they removed levels and just let everyone go to any zone they wanted. Perhaps they could spread around different cosmetic stuff to keep people hunting in the world. This would help solve that little issue Creslin brought up about certain zones thinning out because people outlevel them.

How long do you think it would take before players work out or when guides are freely available to tell you where to get specific items, players will still end up clumping together to get X items.  Its not so much the drops that are really an issue, its Karma farming, players are already working the same chain events over and over because they are the most productive.  I think a lot of issue is recognition of what players achieve, you can have the most expensive skins in the game and nobody gives a sh*t.  Probably stems from that most players with commando titles bought their gold from the goldseller sites or used the exploit with the karma vendor to get ahead.

A week?

I don't know. Who gives a shit? It was just an idea for a totally fictional situation. There ARE levels in GW2. Perhaps if it had no levels, they could add ways to get stuff in the various zones. It's not that crazy an idea.

Getting rid of levels but then requiring skill levels or ability levels or item levels is the same.

I like how I can go go face higher level mobs to make it a harder experience.

I would rather zones were split into difficulty levels though, because no matter how good or bad I'm that guy 10 levels over me will kick my ass.

I really liked the Mad King Labyrinth and I hope DEs to evolve more into it - it was noticeable people actively looking for others and keeping together because one could easily be overwhelmed.

Originally posted by ShakyMo
I'm not sure on the secret world has no levels, they certainly stuck to the no classes bit, but.. they have pseudo levels with the weapon & talisman skills, and unfortunately they stuck with a wow style heavily gear based progression system which imo is worse than gw2 having levels but not having gear barriers.

Yeah, that's the false beliefs of the TSW fans that TSW has no level and therefore gives more "freedom".

Even UO, a sandbox, has skill progression - if you take a freshly rolled character with noob gear to a dragon, the dragon will have a feast of roasted noob meat that day, without you even standing a chance.

Originally posted by Vorch

can someone please clear up the definition of sandbox for me?

 

I thought it simply meant the option of player created content.

 

Also, if ANet follows their pattern, future expansions/content will focus on max level characters rather than low level content.

 

But I do understand where you are coming from.

Sandbox = Sandbox in which you use a base material like ehhhh, sand? to build things, adventures, fantasies. A sandpit can become ANYTHING, see Calvin & Hobbes.

Themepark = Somebody else build the adventure, you go from pre-builld attraction to pre-build attraction and sometimes there is a parade.

GW2 = themepark just somepeople got confused because the guest givers at hubs got a heart instead of a exclemation mark.

The freedom is not on the levels (or lack of), but on the role you play.

Imagine your favorite GW2 only without any classes and all the skills pooled into one big tank where you could mix and match anything you felt made sense.

Doesn't that offer more freedom than what you currently have?

As for the friend above, yes, GW2 is a themepark, but only in the PvE aspect. The WvW is a sandbox. The unfortunate bit is that they have separated them, so it's like you're playing four distingtivly different games (third being the dungeon system and fourth the sPvP) that can't cooexist in the same space as a whole.

Originally posted by ice-vortex

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Originally posted by UsulDaNeriak

Originally posted by Vorch

can someone please clear up the definition of sandbox for me?

 

I thought it simply meant the option of player created content.

 

If payer created content means something like player created quests as in Neverwinter for you, you are wrong. Sandbox means "player driven" in all aspects of the game: player driven progression, player driven economy, player driven politics, player driven environment, player driven combat & tactics,  ....

Levels are unusual in a sandbox, but could be feasible. Levels = thempark is an old urban myth like sandbox = Open PvP.

GW2 is a themepark and getting rid of levels would not make a sandbox out of it. However my first idea was too, that this game needs no levels, as it need no heartsquests. This was done to give more orientation to players, but ttis also leaded to a certain grade of linearity: the plague of all themeparks. Dont get me wrong, GW2 is refreshingly unlinear. But just inside of a zone. The world design is linear, due to level-oriented zones. Looking to PVE, you have to follow a path from Level 1 to 80, even if you ignore the personal story fully. The advantage compared to other themeparks is, that there are dozens of pathes you may follow and the pathes are very broad. 

 

levels are a themepark element. doesnt mean a more sandbox game cant have them. which is why I stated that no levels would make GW2 more sandbox like. Didnt mean it would make the game into a sandbox.

 

Levels are an RPG element, have been since the first pen and paper RPG.

But wait!!!!!  I thought GW2 wasn't an RPG!  Or an MMO!

I think it's funny that now, after all the threads/comments about how easy GW2 is to level, we have one that talks about having no levels.  I guess you should be able to go fight (and defeat) Zhaitan at level 1, huh?  Or, since we're talking about no levels here, after playing the game for 5 minutes we should be able to go fight Zhaitan.  I can see the "game is over too fast" threads on that one.

Yes, levels don't mean much in the game, that's true.  However, leveling is a way they used to track your progression through the world and your personal story.  I imagine the game was intended to be done kind of the way I've been playing it - I've been playing it this way because I think it's the way it was intended:  Use the personal story as your guide through the world, playing each instance of your story as you get to the appropriate level (or somewhere close to it).  In the meantime, when there are level gaps in your story, you explore the world and help out the NPCs until you are the correct level to do the personal storyline again.  Then, once you finish your personal story, you are level 80 and you still have the rest of the world/game as your endgame:  You can go anywhere you want and still get XP, skill points, etc. and have a little bit of a challenge, plus you have WvWvW and sPvP as well as crafting, etc. to fill your time.

So I guess they could get rid of levels, but then people would scream even more about "progression"

Originally posted by evolver1972

Originally posted by ice-vortex

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Originally posted by UsulDaNeriak

Originally posted by Vorch

can someone please clear up the definition of sandbox for me?

 

I thought it simply meant the option of player created content.

 

If payer created content means something like player created quests as in Neverwinter for you, you are wrong. Sandbox means "player driven" in all aspects of the game: player driven progression, player driven economy, player driven politics, player driven environment, player driven combat & tactics,  ....

Levels are unusual in a sandbox, but could be feasible. Levels = thempark is an old urban myth like sandbox = Open PvP.

GW2 is a themepark and getting rid of levels would not make a sandbox out of it. However my first idea was too, that this game needs no levels, as it need no heartsquests. This was done to give more orientation to players, but ttis also leaded to a certain grade of linearity: the plague of all themeparks. Dont get me wrong, GW2 is refreshingly unlinear. But just inside of a zone. The world design is linear, due to level-oriented zones. Looking to PVE, you have to follow a path from Level 1 to 80, even if you ignore the personal story fully. The advantage compared to other themeparks is, that there are dozens of pathes you may follow and the pathes are very broad. 

 

levels are a themepark element. doesnt mean a more sandbox game cant have them. which is why I stated that no levels would make GW2 more sandbox like. Didnt mean it would make the game into a sandbox.

 

Levels are an RPG element, have been since the first pen and paper RPG.

But wait!!!!!  I thought GW2 wasn't an RPG!  Or an MMO!

 

I think it's funny that now, after all the threads/comments about how easy GW2 is to level, we have one that talks about having no levels.  I guess you should be able to go fight (and defeat) Zhaitan at level 1, huh?  Or, since we're talking about no levels here, after playing the game for 5 minutes we should be able to go fight Zhaitan.  I can see the "game is over too fast" threads on that one.

 

Yes, levels don't mean much in the game, that's true.  However, leveling is a way they used to track your progression through the world and your personal story.  I imagine the game was intended to be done kind of the way I've been playing it - I've been playing it this way because I think it's the way it was intended:  Use the personal story as your guide through the world, playing each instance of your story as you get to the appropriate level (or somewhere close to it).  In the meantime, when there are level gaps in your story, you explore the world and help out the NPCs until you are the correct level to do the personal storyline again.  Then, once you finish your personal story, you are level 80 and you still have the rest of the world/game as your endgame:  You can go anywhere you want and still get XP, skill points, etc. and have a little bit of a challenge, plus you have WvWvW and sPvP as well as crafting, etc. to fill your time.

 

So I guess they could get rid of levels, but then people would scream even more about "progression"

They can scream all they want, but GW2 was never intended to be a game about progression, it was on the contrary tailored to be all about fun without any "mandatory progression" to get to the fun. 

Of course, not even Arenanet gets everything right and unfortunely to appeal to the WoW masses, they included some barebones mandatory progression. 

Calling the casual crowd WoW mass is bad taste.

Both games are targetting the same crowd, that much is obvious. It's also obvious that WoW has done something right to maintain those people for so long. Yet, if you present people with the exact same game, why would they change from what they currently playing?

Originally posted by Xasapis

The freedom is not on the levels (or lack of), but on the role you play.

 

Imagine your favorite GW2 only without any classes and all the skills pooled into one big tank where you could mix and match anything you felt made sense.

Doesn't that offer more freedom than what you currently have?

 

As for the friend above, yes, GW2 is a themepark, but only in the PvE aspect. The WvW is a sandbox. The unfortunate bit is that they have separated them, so it's like you're playing four distingtivly different games (third being the dungeon system and fourth the sPvP) that can't cooexist in the same space as a whole.

On the other hand a tank spec in TSW tanks, a healing spec heals and a DPS spec DPS. An hybrid spec is soloing.

A defensive Warrior spec in GW2 "tanks", DPS and support. An offensive Warrior spec in GW2 "tanks", DPS and support. A support Warrior spec in GW2 "tanks", DPS and support.

A Thief willd do the same, but on a "thieving flavour", a mesmer in a mesmerish way, etc.

Originally posted by The_Korrigan

Originally posted by ShakyMo
You can have a themepark without levels - planetside.

And The Secret World.

TSW does have levels, in a way. You unlock more of the skills in the Skill Wheel. That is levling in a way.

1) there really isn't much of an endgame

2) leveling is the only fun I had in GW2