"As someone who came into MMORPGs during the infancy of World of Warcraft"

Well, there's your problem.

As others have stated, older MMO's catered to both styles pretty well.

I'm an Asheron's Call veteran, playing from 1999 to 2004.  The majority of my time was spent either going it alone, or working with one or two close friends.  Large groups were for party-based level grinding or big quest dungeons (many of which could also be done solo if you were high enough level).

The thing is, if I'm forced to group with others to progress, then my enjoyment of the game comes at the whim of others.  I have to find people who want to do the same content I'm doing, and that isn't always as easy as it seems.

I loved the combat in Asheron's Call as a melee character, and my attack choices there were basically limited to "attack high/low/medium" and "attack fast/medium/slow".

The reason it was great was because it was all about positioning and reaction - you position yourself so that your shield was always between you and the enemy, and if you were facing off against casters you watched their animations so you could dodge the spells entirely.

Combat in GW2 so far has been great - just enough options with all your weapon choices so that you have a variety of ways to deal with enemies, but not the overwhelming number of (frequently redundant or useless) skills found in GW1.  Add in the ability to dodge or interrupt at key moments and combat becomes a tactical affair where you can often overcome the odds just by playing the right strategy.

On the topic of multiple copies of a character running around:  I'm not sure how they'll handle it in this game, but in their kid-friendly Super Hero Squad game, each player has to pick a different character when in queue for a mission.  Sure, both players can HAVE Wolverine, but it'll only let the first person to choose him bring him into the instance.

Of course, it considers "Wolverine" and "Street Clothes Wolverine" to be different characters and allows them both.

Originally posted by silvermember

Originally posted by Puremallace

Originally posted by kanezfan

Go play WoW, SWTOR, or Tera. We'll be here having fun with something new and innovative.

Lets look at games that do not have meaningful leveling:

1. Pokemon

2. My little pony adventure island

3. Facebook games

 

This strategy of making end game start at lvl 1 LITERALLY only makes sense if this agme had half the shit Archage does and it is not even remotely close to having those types of sandbox features. The dynamic events are pointless. Sorry there is zero reason to actually do them and that is the major thing in this game.

[Mod Edit]

I will have words with any man who dares insinuate that my Pokemon leveling up isn't meaningful.

I worked HARD to evolve my Pokemon.  Those gym badges don't win themselves.

Originally posted by Hurvart

Originally posted by lugnutusa

Originally posted by Hurvart

Originally posted by lugnutusa

It's based on the standard mantra of modern MMO's:  "Well, the game doesn't really start until you hit the level cap."

 

The idea is to make a game fun to play from level 1 until level whatever.

Personally, I wish we could just drop the idea of levels altogether.  If your game world and the content is interesting and challenging enough, you don't need things like character progression.

I want to play a game where I'm part of a living world.  If gaining levels and loot is the whole point of playing, I might as well just go play Progress Quest.

There must be some sort of character progress. Levels are not the only option. How can you be motivated if there is no way to improve your character? All MMORPG:s, both themepark and sandbox, are based on character progress.

If you dont like that you should probably try a FPS game instead.

In the real world you get older. You learn new things. You get a job and perhaps you will get better and better and advance to better positions and get more money. A living virtual world will need that too. If its done right it will be immersive.

 

"How can you be motivated if there is no way to improve your character?"

This - THIS is the mindset I want to break.  You even cover it with the last part of your post...when done properly, it's not ABOUT character advancement, it's about the way you interact with the world around you.

Let's take WoW as the example, since it's the dominant game of this MMO era.  

Your path through the game is pretty well defined.  For each level range, there is a different area that you're supposed to be in.  Get out of your level-appropriate area into something tougher and you'll be harshly slapped down, because no matter how good you are your character hasn't progressed enough to handle that content.

Player skill accounts for very little, as long as you're breathing and know which buttons to push all you need is to be the right level and have the right equipment.

 

As a comparison, something like Asheron's Call, which I played for about 5 years (99-04).

For most of its early years, AC didn't really have predetermined areas based on a level range.  Things generally got tougher the farther away you got from a town, sure - but it wasn't uncommon to see a mix of levels amongst the creatures across the land.  The fun part is that level wasn't a hard line between "you can do this content" and "don't even think about it".  Unless you went up against something that vastly outpowered you, even a low level player without optimal equipment could still win out if they knew how to play the game well.  Your moment-to-moment tactics played a much bigger role in your success than the makeup of your character.

The result of that difference is that as an AC player, I could explore and experience a huge amount of content just about any time I wanted, and the world and the story became the focus rather than what level I was or when I could get the next new shiny thing.  Yes, progression still relied on gaining experience to increase your skills and gaining more powerful equipment, but the process was much more transparent.  As I said before, I played for about five years.

I played WoW for about four months before quitting from boredom.  After spending so much time in a world where I was primarily limited by my ability, going to a new game where you're basically told "go here now, and don't venture outside the lines" is unacceptable.

I fully admit that my experience and my opinion is my own and is likely not shared by many, but that's okay.  I think there's room for all types in the MMO market.  I just think it's a shame that so many opt to go the "safe" route, sticking with the level-grind treadmill style that keeps people hooked on the idea that fun is just around the corner if they can hold out for one more level.

A sandbox/hybrid will also need character progression. I dont like themeparks on rails. But a game without any way to improve my character would be very boring, IMO. Unless its a FPS game...

In a roleplaying game the character needs to be the main focus. Not your skill as a player. Even if I also think it should make a difference.

I never played AC much. I played EQ instead. But AC also had character progression I think. But it was not a on rails quest hub game. That type of game design started or became popular with WoW. I agree its boring. But character progression can be much more and very different. This was my point.

If you can improve your spells, your weapon skills, your talents, factions, AA-points and so on...its all character progression. A game can have that without being a themepark on rails.

I think you and I are saying the same thing, just in a different way.

My stance is that you don't need character progression to be the primary focus in order to make a game succeed.  You can have it blend into the background to the point where you don't notice it.  It's still there, yes...but it's not WHY you play.

Originally posted by Hurvart

Originally posted by lugnutusa

It's based on the standard mantra of modern MMO's:  "Well, the game doesn't really start until you hit the level cap."

 

The idea is to make a game fun to play from level 1 until level whatever.

Personally, I wish we could just drop the idea of levels altogether.  If your game world and the content is interesting and challenging enough, you don't need things like character progression.

I want to play a game where I'm part of a living world.  If gaining levels and loot is the whole point of playing, I might as well just go play Progress Quest.

There must be some sort of character progress. Levels are not the only option. How can you be motivated if there is no way to improve your character? All MMORPG:s, both themepark and sandbox, are based on character progress.

If you dont like that you should probably try a FPS game instead.

In the real world you get older. You learn new things. You get a job and perhaps you will get better and better and advance to better positions and get more money. A living virtual world will need that too. If its done right it will be immersive.

"How can you be motivated if there is no way to improve your character?"

This - THIS is the mindset I want to break.  You even cover it with the last part of your post...when done properly, it's not ABOUT character advancement, it's about the way you interact with the world around you.

Let's take WoW as the example, since it's the dominant game of this MMO era.  

Your path through the game is pretty well defined.  For each level range, there is a different area that you're supposed to be in.  Get out of your level-appropriate area into something tougher and you'll be harshly slapped down, because no matter how good you are your character hasn't progressed enough to handle that content.

Player skill accounts for very little, as long as you're breathing and know which buttons to push all you need is to be the right level and have the right equipment.

As a comparison, something like Asheron's Call, which I played for about 5 years (99-04).

For most of its early years, AC didn't really have predetermined areas based on a level range.  Things generally got tougher the farther away you got from a town, sure - but it wasn't uncommon to see a mix of levels amongst the creatures across the land.  The fun part is that level wasn't a hard line between "you can do this content" and "don't even think about it".  Unless you went up against something that vastly outpowered you, even a low level player without optimal equipment could still win out if they knew how to play the game well.  Your moment-to-moment tactics played a much bigger role in your success than the makeup of your character.

The result of that difference is that as an AC player, I could explore and experience a huge amount of content just about any time I wanted, and the world and the story became the focus rather than what level I was or when I could get the next new shiny thing.  Yes, progression still relied on gaining experience to increase your skills and gaining more powerful equipment, but the process was much more transparent.  As I said before, I played for about five years.

I played WoW for about four months before quitting from boredom.  After spending so much time in a world where I was primarily limited by my ability, going to a new game where you're basically told "go here now, and don't venture outside the lines" is unacceptable.

I fully admit that my experience and my opinion is my own and is likely not shared by many, but that's okay.  I think there's room for all types in the MMO market.  I just think it's a shame that so many opt to go the "safe" route, sticking with the level-grind treadmill style that keeps people hooked on the idea that fun is just around the corner if they can hold out for one more level.

It's based on the standard mantra of modern MMO's:  "Well, the game doesn't really start until you hit the level cap."

The idea is to make a game fun to play from level 1 until level whatever.

Personally, I wish we could just drop the idea of levels altogether.  If your game world and the content is interesting and challenging enough, you don't need things like character progression.

I want to play a game where I'm part of a living world.  If gaining levels and loot is the whole point of playing, I might as well just go play Progress Quest.

Lack of endgame is only a problem if you actually get to the endgame in the first place.

My time in beta was enough to convince me not to even buy this boring, stiff excuse for a game.  It's sad, because I was really looking forward to it.  Videos that I saw online looked like your average MMO, the sort of gameplay you can get from WoW or any F2P game from the Asian market.

But I figured hey, give 'em a chance, they might be making something special here.

...aaaaand, they didn't.