Player Perspectives: Content Locusts Killed My MMO
It used to be that hitting the level cap in an MMO was something that took 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!
Column By Isabelle Parsley on January 27, 2012
So SWTOR’s first month is out the door and, predictably, the doom and gloom merchants have come out of the woodwork as server populations have dropped across the board. They have a point, of course: in the last few years, many games have launched with a bang only to fizzle go free to play after a few months, and while a drop in numbers is to be expected after the free month runs out, there’s a difference between an expected drop and full-on freefall.
I have my own theories about this, and one of them has to do with general game pacing and what I like to call content locusts. One of the major differences between games in the early MMO generation (EQ, UO, AC, etc.) and those we have today boils down to something fairly simple but with far-reaching effects: leveling speed.
Way back when – you know, in the last millennium – reaching max level was the end of a long, arduous and sometimes grueling journey (though personally I rarely found it excessive), and it certainly wasn’t the thing most players thought about when their character first logged into the world. Sure, even then max level was the ultimate goal – but it was a dim, distant and hazy goal, not something you spoke of as though you’d be there tomorrow, as though everything in between being born and hitting the cap was utterly irrelevant. Because there wasn’t all that much to do when you got there; but that was okay, since getting there (at least by non-exploity means) was going to take a while.
Back then, the journey mattered – hell, the journey was the game. The dungeons you did at 10, 20 or 40 and the gear you were rewarded with after many tribulations and not a few corpse runs were major events, challenges in their own right, and not mere stepping-stones on an ever-shorter road to the fabled end-game. I actually remember getting my Atlan weapon and the Green Mire armor in AC – you don’t have to know the game, you just need to know they were major achievements and, since I’m writing about them now, they created some long-lasting and very fond memories.
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Back then, the Yellow Brick Road wasn’t an express train to the Emerald City – and, to torture that metaphor a little more, we all know what happened when Dorothy and her group actually got there and looked behind the curtain. Right.
When it launched, what distinguished WoW from its predecessors was its structure (the famous Theme Park design) and its orderly progression of quests rather than its leveling speed, because even WoW wasn’t all that fast in terms of leveling in the early days. It was faster than its predecessors, but it wasn’t blink-and-you-miss-it fast the way games are now. Here’s something I’ve noticed: you know the leveling speed in a game is too rapid when you leave a zone after doing only a few quests, or when wanting to actually finish the quest lines for a zone means you’ll be way over level for the next.
This is what’s happening to me in SWTOR, and it’s a real shame because that game has some of the best story arcs and zone questlines I’ve seen in a long time. The standard “Kill 10 rats” quests have mostly been relegated to the status of bonus quests: you can do them if you like, and often they’ll do themselves while you’re pursuing the main quest objective, but you lose nothing if you ignore them. I tend to do them or not depending on my mood and depending on whether I want the rewards they offer (usually commendations that can be spent on gear or improvements) – the thing is, I’m leveling so fast even at my rather meandering and alt-distracted pace that most of the time there’s no point in doing them: by the time I have enough commendations to get the gear, I’ve out-leveled it anyway.
Faster leveling trivializes the content devs work so hard to bring us and leads to a bunch of disappointed max level folk who don’t have enough to do and who feel as though they got bait-and-switched. If it really is all about the end-game, why not just build an end-game game? Why not just do away with all those pesky levels, start people at max, and go from there? (Incidentally, that’s exactly what you can do in Guild Wars if you’re only interested in PvP, so it’s not exactly unheard-of.)
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Why not? Because we enjoy leveling and because the unfolding story, the slow but steady gain in powers and the acquisition of fun new stuff is what made MMOs such addictive fun in the first place. So why are games now throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as one designer once so famously said?
Given that we do enjoy theme park games (even me, and I’m a sandbox player at heart) and given that they’re not about to die out as a design paradigm anytime soon, would it be too much to ask for a little happy medium? Would games today really fail if it took people, say, 6 months to reach max level instead of 6 days as it has in SWTOR? 10 years ago we had glacially slow leveling and very little in terms of directed questing and storylines so yes, the grind did become a little tedious at times. But now that we have things like voice-acting, object interaction and more complex storylines and quests, we move past them so damn fast we never get to actually enjoy them.
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.
Then I blame the devs for actually listening to those people, for whatever reason, and for assuming the content locusts are representative of gamers as a whole. And finally, I blame WoW and other design teams for being so proud of their end-game content (justifiably or not, that’s not the point) that they pushed us into experiencing it as fast as possible – to the ultimate detriment of their own product and their own subscriber base. WoW’s subs numbers over the last couple of years and the increasing discontent of a player base turned into locusts by the nature of the game they play seems to bear me out on this one. At some point, mindless (and repetitive) consumption gets boring for even the most dedicated fan.
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There’s really only a few ways to go from here for theme park games. We can make MMOs that are nothing but end-game, though frankly I see that as a niche option and I’m not sure it would be something I’d be interested in, but there might be players who would be. We can make games that have a slower leveling speed than we have now, where the devs will have to trust that they do have enough content (and SWTOR really does), ignore the content locusts, and see what happens. Or companies can keep going as they are and accept that they’ll be lucky to keep the majority of subscribers interested for two or three months tops. I guess as long as that last option is enough to pay the bills things won’t change, but given launches in the past couple of years, I’m not sure it even does that anymore. Time will tell.
In the meantime, I don’t know if I’ll still be in SWTOR in three months time, and not just because TSW and GW2 are on the horizon. I have a really high tolerance for replaying content, but I have no interest in building a stable of max-level characters who all leveled at the speed of light and whose main play options are dailies, dungeon-grinds and PvP. Replayability is all very well, but what happened to playability?
Devs, read my lips: leveling is FUN. Slow the damn train down a bit and let us enjoy the scenery.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
The real question to me is are themeparks really designed to be long-term homes for gamers, or are they designed to be games that we play until we get our fill? To me the design seems to fit the latter, a game you can play for months and consume as you go. The entire design seems to be about consumption. We can only consume so much before we get full.
IS a game that kept you playing for 3-4 month intervals or longer, really failing to be what it's intended to be?
SWG wasn't a game made for consumption, it was a design all about community building and forging your own way. This design lends itself to being a home for gamers, I don't see this in any form in games like TOR, RIFT, WOW, etc...
Nice strawman. WoW people are there by choice not by force. Chinese people could not change their goverment as easy as people can leave WoW. At any time people could leave. The problem is there was nothing else GOOD to go to. So yes it makes the product good if it can hold people that long and keep people coming back or subbing for the first time when it is an older game. Get a better comparison.
This is where The Secret World stands :
- No Levels : You start at "end-game" !
- 500 Skills tu Unlock : Grinding all of the 500 is going to take a bunch of time !
Still 2 months...
I don't think glacial levelling fans will like GW2 either. It's still a long time to hit max level, don't get me wrong, but levelling doesn't make a massive difference in that game in terms of what you experience. The game is what most MMO's consider 'end game' from the get go. It's all about the journey and enjoying yourself, not forcing yourself to ding 80 to do 'good stuff'.
Oh, and the 2000 man PvP :D
Good article to open up discussion - I mainly feel lack of genuinly new content in quests, they tend to repeat themselves, are there really so few quest archtypes? I think not, take for example Lotro - Shire, damn that was great place to do quests, I simply loved it, a lot of different kind of quests - so many I could choose which to skip if I felt like it. So I do love short levelling if its just going to repeat few archtypes (kill x things, kill thing x and pick up item y, click with item z which is protected by zound of creatures, etc...), hell, it would be great to level so that you actually should pick up from various quests, not just do hub of quests to get level and move on... heck, I would repair things, build houses, save things, educate kids, row boat and do some net-fishing, even everyday things to get a break from common arch-types *shivers*
Problem with slow leveling is diminishing returns to the company. Look at what is said about Eve now. True or not Eve has a reputation that it is pointless to start now because you will not be able to do things in the game. When a game first releases the content is great, but as the average level of players raises as the game ages slow leveling creates a barrier to new people that want to join and partake of the content the average level player is doing. Content that requires groups gets harder to find people to do it. Pretty much the whole reason after a while Blizzard would go back and change group quests to solo quests. Low level mass content becomes a barrier.
"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."
This is an argument I would like to turn on its head. It is the players who play through the content the fastest who discover the actual endgame the developers have created. So in that manner they are able to give you a heads up on what you have in store.
How is it a players fault that the game is made in such a manner that even with regular questing you will reach max level in under 20 days if you have some time on your hand to play (8-10 hours a day, students/youths/hobos/whatever)?
Blaming the players for what the developers have created is not only stupid, its moronic.
Anyone who pays 50 dollars (I paid about 85 dollars btw for the regular store edition here in Norway) has a right to speak up about their experience with the game. When you are expected to pay 15 dollars a month to experience the game over time there better be some reason for you to pay those 15 dollars. I dont just give people money just because I like them. I dont send 15 dollars a month to my favourite sneaker producer just because I like them. When you pay money for a product you should expect something in return.
So if you play through the content in the free month, what reason do you have to pay a montly fee of 15 dollars when the endgame offers next to nothing? Do you pay money for "something good will come to the game in X months"? I dont pay people for promises they make. I pay people for what they deliver.
Yes, there has been some shouting and whining that has been excessive in expressing peoples emotions over the game. But most of what I have seen carries substance to it. People say why they dont like what they see. And thats valid critique in my book. You're not a "hater" or a "GW-fanboy" just because you cant stand many aspects of what SW:TOR delivers or not.
Very well written, I enjoyed the article. I am the type of casual player now that has not time to devote to the end game raid content. Back in the early EQ days I would raid for hours, nah, days on end. Camping a spawn or ..whatever. Real life became too important for me, I realized gaming was ruining real life for me and I was missing out.
These days, the "journey" is the game for me. In every MMO I have played since EQ, I have taken my time and taken in every part of the game , right from level 1. I will play multiple toons, keep crafting ahead of my level, explore every little corner of a zone/world and when the day finally comes I hit max level, the game is done for me. It's almost an "I win" attitude. I have no time for raid schedules and mandatory raiding of the sort. So, for me, the developer had better done a damned good job with every level of the game.
Power-gamers, people that race to the end content, full-time raiders.........I have zero problem with them, and I can kind of see their points. It's just not for me, it doesn't make it wrong for them to want more, or something deeper in their games. I used to be that way, and probably one day, they will see gaming the way I do, if they even game at all. I can see it's near impossible to satisfy everyone, but they are definitely going to cater to the masses, business is business.
Probably a pointless post, but something about the article and the immediate reactions made a long time "lurker" chime in. Currently playing the much discussed SWTOR, enjoying, though I wish the leveling curve was slower and the level by level content was deeper, and the world was a little less static.
Skill-Based instead of Level-Based = Problem Solved.
I played UO near constantly for at least 4-5 years. There was no "end-game" because the game never ended. How can an MMO released 14 years ago get it so right while every MMO released now does it wrong?
i would say because of PvP. Classes with levels are easier to balance than Skill based play. UO was about ganking not competative or and to a lesser extent really meaningful PvP.
nice article.. i totally agree...
As much as I love SWTOR, Ill have to agree with the OP. I remeber in Lineage the blood pledge(lin 1) to hit 50 was a feat in it self. Sure it was grindy but got to say I have some fond memory's about it. If you ask me yes I could tell you the gear I had before I quit, but it is a no go on SWTOR not to say its not a good game but I really dont feel the acomplisment in SWTOR as I did in Lineage, or Aion.
Im taking my lvling in SWTOR pretty slow im only lvl 29 and have been playing it since release on the 20th. I want to enjoy it as long as possible.
People blow through content as fast as possible because life is SHORT and we all have busy lives and a million things to do, so we usually take our entertainment the same way. Sadly.
Personally, I think extending leveling doesn't help, not these days. You could have made SWTOR have leveling take as long as it did in EQ or FFXI and I think it would make it ten times worse.
What we need for longevity is first, the standard game, which we now have but all the extra stuff that keeps people around for long times, like housing, pvp arenas, collections, numerous mini games, vanity pets, mount collecting, achievements, and in my opinion, even more things along this line. Which means Devs need to start innovating in this area. In the area of keeping a game fat and growing at a reasonable pace.
Rift is sort of doing it, but they lacked a nice fat base world to launch from. WoW had the nice fat base world, but they lacked any horizontal gameplay and are just now hinting at it in the next expack.
See, it's not about levels after all, it's about CONTENT that isn't the run of the mill content that everyone knows how to play to the bone.
Don't blame it all on the players.
Only a minority wants to rush through to max level and then stand around bored in a capital city. Alot more players would in fact enjoy a longer journey and meaningful level experience.
It's also that devs became very lazy (see SWTOR) and don't seem to care as much anymore. On top of that, investors rush them them to release half finished games.
Another problem is that today's games aren't made for gamers anymore. Gamers usually already got their favorite game to which they stuck to, esp. when it's about mmorpgs.
Totays games are made to attract folks who aren't necessarily gaming. The non-gamers are the larger target audience and usually more forgiving about the state of a just released game.
Investorts who want their money into games made for kids needing constant rewarding or housewifes who only have like 15minutes at a time are part the problem.
Having a skill-based character development is just part of the equation. You still need a solid gameplay experience that will make the players want to log in the next day and the next day etc.
The way I see it the problem with todays MMO's is that they have too strict rulesets and are too confined. Some people will call that a "theme-park" concept but I think thats an oversimplification. It all boils down to how many choices the players have to express themselves in the gameworld. PvP is part of that. Tradeskilling or just bartering (buying low selling high) is part of that. Monster hunting is part of that. Exploration is part of that. Building. Landscaping. There are a great many aspects you CAN have even in what is normaly classified as "theme-park" games.
Todays MMO's are just too confined to PvP, money farming and dungeon/raiding. Although thats PART of the MMO formula, the opportunities are much larger to create a solid social world for people to express themselves in.
Same here. At least with SWToR there's a reason to finish the content (the story line).
I don't see having too much content in each zone an issue for the leveling pace. If someone just wants to get to the max level or doesn't care about the content of the game, what difference does it make where they are when they hit the max level? In SWToR, players who want to see the end of the story line will. Those who are only concerned about getting to max level will hit 50, drop all their quests and go raiding or something. I would much rather have too much content than not enough. Given that it's impossible to get exactly the right amount of content for everyone, too much is good.
The overall trend isn't caused by 'content locusts' though. There have been a few research studies done on players and how much they play. Most players of games in general don't complete the content. There are many more 'incompleters' than 'content locusts'. It doesn't matter if the game is a single player RPG, FPS or MMORPG. So game developers are creating games with less content and padding it with online play.
You'll notice that the story in SWToR is broken up into distinct 'chapters'. Each chapter is about 10 hours of game play or so. Some longer, some shorter. I think this is to accommodate the amount of time most players actually play games. They get to complete a 'chapter', but they stick around for the rest of the game, like a weekly television show.
Perhaps it's rose-tinted spectacles, but EQ as I remember it felt like a never-ending journey. I haven't played an MMO since that felt anything like that. To me, this is what an MMO should be, in the same way as old pen-and-paper games never reached a natural end as there was always something more to achieve.
This is an interresting article. I am one of those that developers wants to stay ingame longer. I quit vanilla wow at level 55 (5 under cap) as the grind was to boring. The same with every other mmo out there i have played. I get to a few levels under cap and then quit. I guess me and many others have similar patterns and the devs "dumb down" the games to cater for players such as me.
However no matter what they try i end up quitting a game faster and faster. For me its the journey and not "getting there" that counts. When the journey approaches the end I leave.
I think maybe TSW has a good idea where you "start at max" and then grind your skills whil experienceing the content. Might keep me ingame longer.
WOW didn't "keep" all that many people, more people have played and quit WOW than are currently subscribed. (OK, I can't prove that, don't waste thread time debating the issue here)
What they did manage to do is keep changing the game mechanics to appeal to a broader and broader player base while driving off the previous generation in the process (who likely would have left regardless, MMO's have a shelf life for everyone, no matter how fun)
And when it started out, WOW was a much slower leveling process, my first character took me 16 days played, (to level 60) my last avatar after Cata launched got to 90 in roughly 6.5 days played.
Even more, to get to 60 in my first character I literally had to do every quest, every dungeon and even grind a few levels to reach 60, so I missed no quest content. In the last go around much like the OP said, I found myself rapidly leveling past the content, entirely missing some zones in the process.
This did not make WOW a better game IMO..... since the end game is not why I enjoyed it. (Gear grinding is not my thing)
Same issue occurred with Rift, my first and only character, (no beta experience) reached max level in 1.5 months of pretty causal play...and there I was again, with nothing to do but grind for gear, and I stopped playing even though I had bought a 6 month sub. (no more of that I assure you)
Well, i just hit level 50 in TOR and that took me, from Dec. 13 until Jan 25. Now that's almost a month and a half. I did most side quests, some pvp and space and never hit my spacebar.
You read some people that feel, getting off your ship and going through the spaceports should be done away with and it should be an autpmatic button. These type of things are what makes the game flow and feel like a real alive planet.
Bioware is between a rock and a hard place. They have created these huge planets and some people could care less and want the easy route throughout the game, to only bitch and moan once they reach the so called end game.
I've also seen people who bitch about finding and solving the riddle of how to get to a datacron if it's not right in front and easy to get to. I find datacrons fun as shit to be honest. I purposely didn't set out to find any of them. Knowing that once i reached max level that would be something i wanted to do as a seperate deal. On my path i have only found maybe 4 or 5 and now i can go back to each planet and have that to.
All this really dpends on how you play a game. Rush to everything and skip almost all, and you will feel cheated. Take your time, and absorb what's in front of you and you really can see how TOR is a very amazing mmorpg, that while it does have some tech issue's, has a lot of content to chew on for a long time with much more to come.
I would say the article is offbase somewhat. The devs arent listning to the "vocal minority" on this one. They are listening to the majority. You may not like it but thoes of us that enjoyed old school MMO's are the minority now. The only proof I need is to say look at WoW and virtually every MMO since WOW. They make massive amounts of money. Sure they all fall off because people either go back to WoW or simply dont play an MMO but most of them have a big following still. Not big in WoW terms but they still have a player base.
You can talk badly about f2p all you want but the model CLEARLY works or companies wouldnt use it. Look at Turbine. AC was a great, great game and pretty successfull in its time. But now, if they had not gone f2p with D&D and LOTRO they would have gone under as a company. But with there f2p model they have made bucketloads of money.
As for AC memories I'll never forget failing something like 20 compound bows before finally making mine. Was a great, great day. I'll never forget the story arcs either. One of the best and I think most hated ones was the shadow spires and BZ :)
Good article. The first level 50 took just over 3 days! I found it pretty funny as well that people were posting about how 'power players' only had themselves to blame as their main was only 35 .... after 2 weeks.
And in SWTOR just about everyone has leveled fast. And I think this is one of the reasons that people have questioned whether SWTOR is really an mmo. Does it give you the jourmey? Is the end game worth the monthly sub? New content - sure; take a year off and come back for a month next year to run through it all. It feels like a single player RPG with co-op options; a Halo or Assassin's Creed rather than a 'traditional' - slower - mmo.
If, imo, it had been sold as such - a SWKotR 2 single player type game with a CoD style option to pay a yearly fee ($50 say) for the 'mmo' add-on - I think EA would have had less griping, more success and a game that would have continued to sell.
/agree
That's why I still think the 'old' Lineage II was one of the better 'modern' MMORPG titles around. Now with the coming of the Goddess of Destruction expansion, I've licked my wounds, counted my adena and left the game. And also has the same reason I did not buy SWTOR - I liked it in beta (a lot), but I couldn't see myself play it for 2 weeks, hit cap and then didn't know what to do...
In reality its not the leveling that is fun, it sounds like what was fun was exploring the game world.
Sometimes I ponder a future where leveling is phased out of all RPGs.
So let me get this right article writer your theory for the free fall is do leveling speed? Aion took 3 months and people left just as fast. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH LEVELING SPEED in TOR.
It has to do with the fact that they launched the game to early. You can not just leave some of the crap that they left out. Sorry I was proven about 90% right on this one. The year is 2012 not 2005 UI Customization especially from a 200million $ game is MUST.
Some of the stuff they left out and the way they just flat out abused PHASING made the game feel more like KOTOR 3.0 and not WoW 2.0...single player rpg vs mmorpg for those who do not get the reference.
This idea of single server war fronts has proven to be a complete failure, Ilum was a complete failure for the same EXACT reason Blizzard had to end up instancing Wintergrasp, and the way they tested end game content during BETA was just flat out iditotic.
I played AO for years and never once got a max level character. I spent hours just running around doing missions, getting groups for mob grinds (usually turning out to be more of a social experience then anything), and screwing around in one of the social bars. To me that was fun. Theme-parking my way through an MMO to get to raiding or end game PVP is BORING! I don't care how cool looking the game is or how well done the "main story" is, if I have to go from zone to zone to zone with little more to do then complete quest and turn in quest then I'm going to leave. This is the biggest reason why I just said "hell with it" and passed on SWTOR entirely.
I think it's time to step back out of the box game devs. It's obvious MMOers are tired of the theme-park ride MMO, as most MMOs are being driven straight to a cash shop after only a year because of insufficent subs.
Faster leveling is what Blizzard have been talking about as well.
24M customers playing an average of 6 months a year = a headline 12M subscribers.
24M customers playing an average of 5 months a year = a headline 10M subscribers.
The numbers are illustrative but if the same number of customers spend less time in game then this is what happens to the headline sub number. People still playing just spending less time in game - and I suspect that this 'drop in and out approach' will happen in SWTOR, especially as new content is, as James Olsen has said, time consuming to produce.
Green Mire armor, The Sword of Light (was that the name?) and Olthoi dungeons were some of the best MMO moments for me.
When you look at it, it was the challenge that made is so much fun. The carrot that you could reach, but it was just so difficult to do that made me play week after week.
In a sense, Eve Online and to some extent Darkfall Online have this same old-school difficulty mode, but unfortunately the former has given us too many easy choices and the later is rid with cheaters and bitter old divas.
Hopefully one of the newer Korean games brings us something new and enjoyable. Yes, I'm looking at you, Archeage.
That's what you get when a MMO company spends a majority of their investment in one-time content, ie video cut scenes and VOs.
Now everyone knows what to look for so can we please not support these half-a** projects anymore? It's time us gamers put our wallets away and support gaming companies who cater to us, not their bank accounts via box sales.
Really good article. Completely agree. i end up demotivated before i even start playing a lot of the new MMO's for this exact reason. MMO's used to about the journey not the destination.
And ofc its all WOW's fault. They were the 1st MMO's to change to this ultra fast leveling systme and because there so successful most of the other MMO's followed. Even my beloved EQ2 which IMO is one of the best leveling journeys out there, you can now get to max lvl in 2days!!
Makes me a sad little panda
Half the pvpers getting the best pvp gear in sw:tor in just one month
nuff said
Give me 10 original quest ideas will ya, that you would use in your mmo.
But:
no "kill 10 vermin" quests
no "guide the npc from point A to B" quests
no "go talk to" npc quests.
plz give use your 10 quest as they should be?
More are playing WoW and have kept subs to it than any other game in the West.
Better is your opinion. I am going off the fact that it gets and keeps sub numbers while other games drop subs like a rock to something that is more like existing than thriving. You can hate it all you want, but fast leveling is not bad if done right. WoW has more than just level to nothing that games like SWTOR have. Yes WoW leveling was slow at start while SWTOR is light speed all the way. WoW put in legitimate time sinks that a lot (millions) seem to like.
To say that WoW's leveling was detrimental to the game as the Writer says is hardly accurate. I am sure the Blizzard company sit around talking about how they wish that they have changed the game to be successful and not such a flash in the pan like just about every game after has been.
nuf with the pvp already.....its a STORY diven RPG game not an arena game.....djeezes.
If you guys ever hear someone who earned their Battlemaster egar the legitamate way talk about how they feel when exploits where not fixed and roll backs were not done will tell you everything you need to know why atleast the pvp servers got hammered.
You simply can not treat your pvp'rs like that. I mean they were raging over nerfs in Rift or WoW, but nullifying a crap ton of hard work over night will cause more backlash.
I notice these days that the level cap is the mark of citizenship in a themepark game - whether it's openly stated or not, there's a subconscious "anyone not at the cap is a noob" reaction. It quietly puts a lot of pressure on a player to accelerate and I don't think it would be solved by a slower levelling curve - I feel it's more about the evolution of the player culture over the years.
I think it would be interesting to see a game where all levelling was horizonal progression. Each zone would be treated as an entire game onto itself - there would still be leveling, but it would be all zone-specific or mob-specific, allowing you to get that leveling feel and/or overpower a challenge that's got you stuck without getting a global power boost that renders content in other zones obsolete. You already see this with reputation grinds and some achievements, but what if you it was applied to skills and buffs as well? Levelless, but not progressionless.
When it launched, what distinguished WoW from its predecessors was its structure (the famous Theme Park design) and its orderly progression of quests rather than its leveling speed, because even WoW wasn’t all that fast in terms of leveling in the early days.
Correction: In 2004, WoW had the shortest time-to-cap in MMO history up to that point. That's before adjustments to mount speeds, early levels xp boost, etc.
It's one of the things that sold the game.
It's time for those who feel that way to do that yes, problem is you're making it sound as though everyone should feel this way.
Everyone should feel this way that's on this forum. Obviously you're NOT playing SWTOR, or you're waiting for GW2.
That being said, what do you think would have happened had Bioware invested the majority of its investment into a dynamic & seemless world coupled with reactive content, a skill tree based system WITHOUT levels, an open world economy crafting system similar to SWG, item decay, NO pvp-player looting, open faction pvping as soon as you get out of the starter world, and a 3 faction system?
Definitely better than this pile of trash people were told was "amazingly better than their previous competition".
Aye aye sir! We will conform to your standards.
If you're happy with games like this then by all means, keep paying. I have a difficult time believing gamers are happy with shallow games like this but maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps the future of MMOs will continue to be dumbed-down to the point where they're unrecognizable any longer. That's exactly where we're headed if you and others are content.
I'm going to hold out hope that gamers are finally waking up to what's going on, at least for awhile longer.
Get over yourself bud, I like SWTOR too, I prefer sandbox games. These things aren't mutually exclusive. And whats the deal with something being EXACTLY like something with a caveat that its different? There are obviously other differences as well, even if you choose not to acknowledge them.
Writing in orange doesn't make your comments any more valid. I did NOT insult sandbox players. I DO prefer sandbox games.
And I wonder why I'm even bothering to reply. Here, have another grinding wheel, your axe is getting a little blunt.
And I am pwned by English this morning.
Devs dont do a thing without market analysis, projections and meetings galore about the consumer base. They cater to the lvl fast crowd because that is their meat and butter. A large percentage of the player base wants to get to end game to play with their friends in the good instances, they want to get there as fast as possible because they know in a few mths their friends will have moved onto the next game. I totally agree with you on the lvl rate but we are beating our heads against the wall.
Face it, long term MMRPGs have changed, its not their fault .. its the consumers.
I like to blame lazy, cookie cutter developers who think gamers are a herd of cattle.
Lack of player driven content aka "sandbox" features and open world pvp objectives kicks these dime a dozen crap developers right in the nads.
precious covers it quite well below:
precious328 writes:
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.
Gee, what a surprise. The first to start changing their tune. Didn't see that coming. >_>
I'm still enjoying the game. Then again I had to reroll Imperial so I could actually play the game with other players. So haven't hit fifty yet.
My first MMO was Anarchy Online. It certainly had a slower path to leveling. I'd say it also had a complexity that I just have not found in later games. Now a days in the raid based PvE end game you mindlessly keep raiding until you get the drop you want. Then you just put it on. The developers tweek the drop rate to keep the population raiding or eventually release the next big raid with better gear. In AO you would get an item you wanted but you might not be able to use it. There was typically a whole series of gear and buffs needed to actually be able to wear the gear. If you didn't have the needed gear you may have to do actual non-raid content to get it. So as you said it was a major accomplishment when you actually put something new on. Now a days it just feels like you won the lottery. The level of fun in accomplishment is much higher.
Belief has nothing to do with reality. Zippo.
If you want to see what gamers are happy with, look at Indie games and then take a look at mainstream blockbuster games. People don't play Call of Duty for years at a time because they are under parasitic mind control. They play it because they like it. Rift didn't make 100 million dollars last year because they made a game that people hated. They made a 100 million dollars because they made a game that people like.
Because player housing was always bustling with players in SWG.
Well, no... not really, even in its prime prior to the NGE player cities weren't populated at all.
While player driven content is key for continued retention, it isn't proven anywhere that retention is higher than content driven.
What do you mean by I'm obviously not playing TOR? Because actually I am, toward your other post... I am more of a sandbox fan than anything in this genre, you saying I'm not won't change that.
From their lazy, cookie cutter restating of other player's opinions, the devs just may be right.
But in all likelihood, both sorts of hyperbole are equally untrue.
Ooh, awesome idea. Heck we already have games starting to section off parts of the world like this with quest hubs, factions and storylines, I like your idea of going even further with it. Although....isn't GW2 doing something similar in this regard? Having content scale to your level or something? I know they are doing something innovative where there is no level "grind" per se. Hmm....
Wonder why EvE is still the most popular game? Hmm let me see......
Let's hope there will be a skill cap, or this will end up badly
What do you mean by EVE is the most popular game?
That's not true. In pre-cu SWG before the bazaar allowed more items, people roamed player-cities checking vendors. I vividly remember one player-city in particular that had a player selling droids in the street, people running around checking vendors, talking etc.
I never liked how you could pick up items directly from the bazaar though, I always thought you should have to visit the vendor in person. That would have made player cities MUCH more busy.
Been playing since about 3 days after release. I have a lvl 28 sniper ( 200 armormech, 190+ gathering skills, lvl 23 valor ) and a lvl 12 marauder ( 300 slicing ). I enjoy, ENJOYING games instead of the rushing to the end to be "bored" with the other "31337" "n00b hating" "pro-gamerZZz".
It's a simple idea, play for a few hours when you get home from work, spend time with your girl/boyfriend/wife, cook and enjoy dinner, get some house work done, play for a few more hours... theeeeennnnn goto bed!
Or rush to the end of the game and blame BioWare for your failed life choices.
Whichever you prefer.
Uhmm you couldn't pick up items off player vendors in the bazaar, it gave you a WP to the vendor and that's it. That's how it was before the NGE anyway after I have no idea.
I thoroughly enjoyed the game from 1 to 49. Some of the best story based questing I've ever done in an MMO. There were some bugs here and there, but overall I felt the game was pretty well done up to that point.
Level 50 is where everything came crashing down. The raid content was absolutely terrible. So buggy that you almost could never do anything to progress, and when the bugs didn't kick in the fights were a joke. Clearing "hard" mode in one attempt just shows the lack of intelligence that went into designing the fights.
PvP was another debacle that really proved to me BW just isn't ready for the big leagues against other major mmo companies. Not because the fighting is bad, I do love the combat in this game. It was the serious lack of understanding on how to design a pvp zone (ilum) and the terrible quality of their game engine that has me convinced I won't be renewing my sub. They still haven't made attempts to rectify the fact that all fighting takes place at the base of the underpopulated side, with each side pulling one person into their zerg every 5 minutes for a valor kill. Also the lag when there is more than 30 people on the screen at once is awful. I don't see how they are going to optimize it that quickly when they can't even push out patches that don't result in more bugs for other areas of the game.
And let's not get into the whole issue of them not rolling back anyone who exploited to grind the battlemaster rank. I have to agree with the other people who posted in this thread that that kind of kills the game for a good amount of people, the ones who didn't exploit and were already close, and the ones who didn't exploit and didn't benefit from the increased valor that day. Knowing that there are a good amount of people on the pvp servers who earned BM through an exploit would obviously put a damper on their desire to play. I was a BM before this issue, and I personally don't care if other people have it because to me it's just a title and you literally get nothing for grinding the ranks besides access to new epics that have maybe a +5 stat increase on pieces? That's what pisses me off more, that being a BM isn't much of a big deal after grinding out 60 valor ranks...
That being said there are plenty of other issues that the devs just never came through on their promises of, like their thoughts on why other mmos got it wrong with boss encounters yet they pretty much have the exact same shit going on in their title.
I don't understand how they could go from having such a decent quality game from 1 to 49, and then at 50 have this kind of state of the game. Don't blame the players at all. BW made leveling ridiculously fast and easy when they had no content provided to the players who reached max level. Why is that the players fault? Maybe they should have put some of that 200 million into end game content...
That could be, and why I remember player-cities so bustling. I know that they raised the limit on the bazaar later on and I'm pretty certain you could get the item instantly from the bazaar. I think the limit was 25k credits.
At any rate, SWG was on the right track with cities but they kept messing things up. Remember when cantinas and hostpitals were slammed? Man, good times.
Here is another.
There are 2 basic mmo gamers out there. You either sitting on the fence hollering, pointing and laughing at the herd of cows or you are jostling around in the mud looking for some grass that hasn't been trampled and crapped on.
OP missed option four in his where do we go now list: Saying that themeparks were a nice distraction but for a truly sustainable game it's time to go backwards to go forwards, back to the sandbox.
Good article, but there remain a few important things to say.
A) Bioware brought this on themselves but categorically putting away EVERY attempt to slow down the game with sandbox elements with the phrase "this isn't about Uncle Owen". I call this "Uncle Owen's revenge". They could and should have added sandbox elements, we here talked about this for all the years of SWTOR development, but they felt they were above the need of advise.
B) Too many quests are too mindless "kill x" or "use X terminals", despite the pretty story package they are in. Post-Cata WOW had WAY more interesting and diverse quests, like transforming me into an owl and spying on the enemy and whatnot. Here it's too much like in STO "kill all that moves".
C) The game sevely lacks any social aspect that kept us playing slower and longer in MMOs of old. This is solo, solo, solo and a bit figleaf grouping and RIEN social ascpects. Yeah you can unlock Princess Leia bikini with social gaming. Yowza.
D) The idea to give people such abstract things like "coins" to exchange into equally abstract "mods" is the ultimate death of motivation. Where is the fun to have a cool quest gear, fitting to the regional theme? If I make those LONG and tiresome Taris bonus quests, all my Jedi Sage got was a same looking grey skirt! NOTHING special, funny or unique looking, just another same skirt in the same pattern which I can buy 100s of at the Auction House. HOW is that supposed to motivy me to do all those bonus quests? NONE of these have ANY really cool or desirable looking stuff, it's all the generic same stuff you get from normal drops or crafted. And don't even get me started about the horrific looking PVP gear from the so called "endgame".
[mod edit - let's stay constructive]
Good article.
I agree with your thoughts on the matter. I started out in DAoC when it was released. Getting to 50 in vanilla DAoC took many many months of playtime. It actually meant something to hit that goal.
Nowdays speed levelers are considered hardcore players. Rushing through an easy themepark game like ToR does not a hardcore player make.
Most of these so called hardcore players wouldnt last a month in some of the older games where you couldnt hit max level inside of a week.
Oh well. Just another reason why I think I have out grown the MMO genre, or maybe it has out grown me o.O
Our city was always bustling even up to NGE, and somewhat after for the remnants that stayed behind, they actually moved the city off Lok to right outside restuss after the PVP additions there, on free come-backs it was packed all the time (not sure if it was during regular play). I agree player cities in SWG were great.
Where are the people who are finding the games they like by playing games, and chucking the ones they don't like?
But the problem is you have to find a balance where people will stay to make it profitable enough for a AAA development and not a shody B rate development with big ideas, but a crappy box to hold them.
I was thinking the same thing. I play what I have fun playing, drop what i don't
SWTOR screwed up in my opinion by going after WoW current leveling speed, but not having WoW's options for people when they got to the end. Telling people in the months ahead stuff will come is not going to get people at high levels to stay around twiddling their thumbs. If you are going to have speed leveling you better have a really good idea of what they will do at the end of the race.
Well written...
The reasons why gaming has gone down the "git 'er done" path are a reflection of today's gaming community. Cell phone games, flash games and browser games have dragged us into quick, mindless, "play during your lunch break" type of games with zero depth.
Apparently, we asked for these things because we can't be bothered(or don't have the mental fortitude) to play games that offer up long storylines, deep crafting, player economies or anything else that count as "immersion". Gamers ADD is here and flourishing unfortunately.
I believe that for games with all these features to exist, we'll have to rely on small, independent developers to provide workds that thrive on real world mechanics and enable us to enjoy a deep, engaging game keeping us busy for years.
Yup, I'm the gamer who takes ONE toon to max lvl(without sampling the other 8 classes first) and can spend hours at 6am gathering mats for crafting to provide my guild with awesome items. I purposely treat a new game like a glass of fine wine sipping it slow and tasting it instead of guzzling the entire bottle in one sitting...
NO
NO
NO
NO
Leveling is NOT FUN if leveling is all there is to an MMO.
FUN is PLAYING WITH FRIENDS. No matter what a damned counter says about your skill, level, faction status, advancement bar, reputation, whatever. FUN IS NOT A NUMBER but an experience.
It took months to me to ding my first 50 on COH. Was fun, but the funniest part was that on through the long journey I could team up with people no matter what level they were. Something that on the games I played later (AoC, LOTRO, Rift, Champions Online, ...) never happened again. Or, better, never happened with the same enjoyable teaming experience.
I don't mind if I have to grind countless hours until I reach the level cap. I do mind if most of that experience can be done solo or - worse - if the game doesn't give any incentive to do it together.
FINALLY! Someone who voices how I feel. 100% agree, to me leveling IS the Journey and is the reason why I would sub. I got SWTOR day 1 and felt both comments mentioned above. 1) I felt that I was outlevelling content as I did every quest and bonus quest. 2) By the time I hit the mid 20s the linear aspects of the game became glaringly apparent and felt I really had no choice. You really cant explore and are 'pushed' to go to the next objective.
I surprisingly went to an older MMO, Everquest 2 and so far has been everything I would expect from an MMO. Levelling is still 'fast' but at least they give you options for you to level how you like by controlling XP (which is a great feature I dont understand why its not standard fare).
It would allow the 'locusts' (great term :) to blow through content, but allow us 'explorers' to turn it off and enjoy what they developed.
To put it bluntly why don't we pick up this discussion after GW2 launches and see if a locust article is wriiten on it. Mkay
"Then I blame the devs for actually listening to those people, for whatever reason, and for assuming the content locusts are representative of gamers as a whole. And finally, I blame WoW and other design teams for being so proud of their end-game content (justifiably or not, that’s not the point) that they pushed us into experiencing it as fast as possible – to the ultimate detriment of their own product and their own subscriber base."
Absolutely agree, I can understand having heirloom items to make leveling an alt faster then before, but leveling 1-60 for new players shouldn't take five seconds. They revamped the whole starter area in WoW to allow people to get to the end game like crazy fast and there really wasn't much there. There is no sidekick system in WoW never has been. Sad really. This combined with the fail gear treadmill system, they could have made their designs mean a little more to the public. Leveling is also an archaic form, just look at GW2, the only reason they have leveling is to control which zones you are doing at any given time. The rest of the game is sidekicking and downsizing to the zone you are in for balance.
Sure you can stay on the rails trying to make your stat numbers bigger, or you can find things to do on your own.
People that whine about no sandboxes? Why not make your own? There are dozens of hideaways in SWTOR where you could establish a player/guild city. There are Cantinas and social emotes for RP. The GTN isn't the only way to sell goods.
Find your own fun. There is plenty there if you open your mind a bit.
The problem is static, pre-scripted, linear content.
If content dynamically generates on the fly, and alters based on environmental factors that are influenced by the palyers, then there is no end to content.
If I want a pre-scripted story-driven gamepaly experience, I'll play a single player game. I play MMOs to be part of a virtual world, which means I want it to grow and change based on my and other players actions.
I understand what you mean.
But the definition of a " successful " MMO has changed drastically since the WoW subs hit record numbers.
Poeple think anything with less than a million subs is tanking. When 10 years ago that was unheard of. A player base of 100-200k was a huge success.
When you try to make a game appeal to everyone and get mass #s of subs something gets lost. I understand its a business and money is king, but it seems like the holy dollar is the only driving force.
No passion or TLC into the design anymore to me. SWTOR isnt a bad game at all. But its entire design is to cater to the masses. Ending up with a decent game but nothing truly great. When playing SWTOR everything seems designed with the least amount possible to get by. UI, PvP, FP, GTN, Gear Grind, OPs, ect ect. IMO all designed just to get by, no heart and soul into the design.
Sure its somewhat functional in most cases and does what its supposed to do. But thats about all it does.
Tell me the team designing these features actually put more than minimal functional thought into it and I will just have to disagree entirely.
Thats Why content should be soloable until max level. This way brand new people can level on their own or group and then enjoy the same content as someone who has been max for years.
I still say devs need to add options. Give me the ability to turn XP on or off. Give the ability to have a max level person 'downgrade' their level to play with a low level (to show them the ropes, etc).
MMOs today from a social/longevity standpoint are lacking useful tools to support it.
This is great article for us from the 'old school' mmo times, but sadly it will just fall on a majority of deaf ears these days.
Thank you
Slow leveling = Grind.
Grind is boring.
These are generalities, and of course some people like grind.
But can someone explain to me how a game can have slow leveling and not be grindy and boring?
Generally I can only survive the grind by grouping with other people for fun.
I have done crafting in DAOC (mind numbing boredom but you could make sellable items)
I have leveled a character in DAOC back in the day (Mind numbing grind), and that was just to level 50, no real realm rank or trials of atlantis done at all.
I have fled from Lineage 2 back in the day from the uber mind numbing grind.
I also thought the leveling process was a little too fast. My solution has been to stick only to flashpoints and class quests...between a main and a single alt, I have yet to reach level cap, having played since launch. While im not a full time hardcore player, i play more a bit more than the average casual i'd say. The game is a lot of fun despite some of the drawbacks. However there are always drawbacks to mmos when they first come out, thats what player feedback and the patching process is for.
Still having lots of fun with this game. And I promise, solemnly, that if i stop I will simply cancel my sub and not act as If i have been robbed of something. Seriously people...when you sit down to play a video game, you officially begin "wasting time"... there are plenty more games to play. Not to mention reality, which is frequently more important than many gamers would like to admit. :)
I will sadly say i have quit this game to. It`s just not for me, it was fun for a little*like most theme parks* i just don`t like they way it is headed.
No, as SW:tor has done better in its first month then SWG ever did at any time. had Bioware done as you asked they would have made a game that would have died wimpering even as SWG was pre or post NGE.
Some (Vets?) need to get over the fact SW:Tor was never advertised to be SWG 2.0 why after being told over and over certain players still don't seem to understand it was never aiming to be SWG 2.0 insist that it should be
You?
I was not expecting it
But well, after darthpony quit I dont get surprised anymore
Agree.
Building your whole game on disposable content (aka story) and then crying that the players are unwilling to keep paying the sub once they burn through it is... ridiculous? misguided? sad?
The whole leveling+endgame thing is a blight on the mmorpg genre. There should be just the game and that's it.
I personally have never found really long level treadmills to be entertaining. If it takes too long to progress in a game, it simply isn't worth it to me. I don't have an endless amount of free time to spend on video games like I did when I was a teenager. As a result, I welcome the faster level treadmill found in games such as SWTOR or WoW. I will actually invest the time to level up in them because I can play for an hour or two each night and still feel like I'm accomplishing something. The long grinds found in older games was one of the reasons that those MMOs never attained mass-market appeal. There are a lot of people simply unwilling to invest the kind of time necessary to succeed in them.
In my opinion, developers need to focus more on what happens at end-game rather than making it take a lot longer to level. Raids and instanced battlegrounds aren't enough if you ask me. Eng-game seems like it would be the perfect time to implement some sandbox-like elements to keep people playing long term. Things like player cities and PvP objectives that are capturable by player guilds, etc. These things foster communities that last for long periods of time. I don't understand why more games don't try to implement thee things at end-game.
Blaming the players for crappy game design is a sign of desperation.
First, I want to say this is the best and most intelligent article I have read on this site (and I have been here since it started just wasn't using the forums at that time (I was over at ign's)).
I agree that "content locusts" as you call them ruin games to the point that all that matter to A LOT of people are maxing a chracter out. I want to add to it that A LOT of those type people are more then willing to cheat in any fashion to get to that point. Even in Asheron's Call they existed using afk macros of the drains through walls or perching or glitched some place. But back then they were a SMALL percentage of the population and most of us weren't even aware they existed until years of playing the game. Hell it never even occurred to me to cheat in a game like that and once I realized it was going on I it greatly hurt my gaming experience.
These days however, that just isn't the case. I don't know if it is the next generation or gamers of what but a large population just wants to be maxed out to be the first to say they got there no matter what they did to get there. Another group of them want to get there for pvp reasons to have that extra advantage. In swtor I don't think level matters as much in the queable pvp as I was very effective in it starting at level 12.
I don't think the "content locusts" or power gamers understand that NO company can deliver the amount of content they thrive for is they are just running through everything and/or playing 20+ hours of gaming a week. Hell some of these guys are playing these games 50+ hours a week. There is no company that can deliver that kind of new content to keep someone with that demand happy.
MY SOLUTION:
I think one way that might help is to put a lock on how many level one can increase in a month. If a game has GOOD content with nice side games (pvp, questing, etc.) to keep the non-"content locusts" happy then having a limit won't matter. It would only effect the power leveling gamers and might actually drive them away from a game leaving the devloper the ability to add sufficient content to keep the average gamer happy and not have to focus on a larger level range of content specifically the end game that these "content locust" get to way to fast.
"Back then, the journey mattered – hell, the journey was the game."
I only play MMORPG's where the above philosophy is the focus of its design. Hence, I haven't touched SWTOR, yet.
"Devs, read my lips: leveling is FUN. Slow the damn train down a bit and let us enjoy the scenery"
Well I'd rather the scenery changed at a good pace rather than slow.
I think maybe about 4 hours is enough and then change the scenery. So I don't think it has anything to do with leveling.
Same here. Disposable content is not an acceptable end game.
wow I know EA don't give a rat's butt about us gamers, only if they recieve their investment back. But COME ON, to let the IP and a game that has potential die like this ...really makes me not WANT to play MMOs anymore..just get me a Xbox.
Bioware DO SOME QUICK DAMAGE CONTROL once your game completley tanks, like WAR, everyone gets fired, no money and it goes free to play
- Developer: Funcom = FAIL
This
The entire system of seperating your players based on level requirements for content is tired and dated, IMO.
Skill point gateways are no different.
Mentoring and other level adjusting/bolstering etc. systems SHOULD be mandatory in all MMOs by now.
Games need to focus on game play and not gear and levels. This ideal that you have to grind out levels to get to the end game and then grind to get two and three and even four sets of gear is beyond absurd - in fact there is no word currrently in use today that can discribe the stupidity of this design model.
A game should start from day one and never end. There is no "end game" because there is no way to win. Not in an MMORPG.
Wanna know why people keep playing games like WOW? Because now they are invested in their characters. Doesn't matter if game X comes out and is the new shiney. They'll go play it, max level, see the game is no better than WoW(most cases worse than WoW), then go right back to WoW because WoW is the better game and they have invested time into it and they have community there. If the right game came along, they'd ditch WoW and stay with the new game.
Something I have said in my blog is we need games that focus on building communities using game play mechanics to do it. Focus on game play and players will stay. What reason is there for someone to stay in a game like SWTOR or Rift? What can the players latch onto inside the game itself that will help them build a community? There is not even faction pride in SWTOR. Atleast WoW has that. Bioware doesn't even use that as a means to tie the players together.
These genre needs a wake up call.
Games do not need to be grindy, they do not need levels, nor do they need to use gear as carrots on a stick to keep people playing. They just need better game play to keep people playing.
GAME PLAY TRUMPS ALL.
So is blaming developers en masse for a single game that just wasn't designed solely for you.
I don't always agree with you Teala, but I do agree that there should be games LIKE that. I don't think EVERY game should be like that.
To answer your question about SWTOR or RIFT, the only reason for someone to stay is if they enjoy the game, nothing more.
I want a game like you describe Teala, hell I'll take 10 games like you describe, but just as other genres have different types of game styles I don't think the traditional style isn't "fun".... I just think its been overplayed.
Difference is, in EQ2 you can turn your XP OFF and simply not level -- if you are interested in enjoying the content. Again choice is what is needed so those that want lvl50 in 3 days can without interfering with those who want to take a long as possible.
Win !!!
Plenty of games that were not for me, I moved on and didn't trash them, we are lucky to have so many MMO's out .
I didn't bought SWTOR and i'm glad i choose so... but i'm having a great time reading about it ^ ^
And the more i read, the more it seems obvious that Bioware doesn't have a clue about MMORPG. They didn't think for a sec about the diff between MMORPG and others games, about why WoW players are waiting for something else while keeping playing, about themepark, about burnout phase, about what it means to keep thousand of players occupied for months etc. etc.
As pure newcomers, it seems they just decide to pickup this genre, copy EQ/WoW with the Star Wars skin, add their storytelling and some candy (companions, space minigame etc.) and that's it.
I don't know if ArenaNet and Funcom's next games will be succesfull but at least, they INVESTIGATE ! They asked themself: "what are MMORPG big problems (because the genre have big problems) and how can we solve them ?"
It's amazing that for each problem in SWTOR that Bioware never thought about, there's an answer in GW2 or TSW:
_ PvP is not balanced in SWTOR ? GW2 and TSW will have 3 factions.
_ Leveling is too fast/easy in SWTOR ? TSW doesn't have levels and GW2 doesn't have endgame !
_ SWTOR has the same "kill 10 x" quests ? TSW will have puzzles that requiere wikipedia.
_ SWTOR's world is static, lifeless and instanced ? in GW2 hundred of players can join in the world to fight big mobs (don't know about TSW yet).
_ SWTOR's "choices" have no consequence ? GW2 will have dynamic events that change a zone for days, for everyone !
etc etc.
td/dr ; SWTOR is everything MMORPG shouldn't be. GW2/TSW will bring (some) answers to burnout syndrome.
no .. the korean mmo's lack ANY content to go with the leveing .. it's just sit in the same place and kill xbillion rats.
grind for the sake of grind isn't fun either.
Yes, imo, it was much much better when every new piece of gear actually meant something. So why doesnt it matter anymore? Because you outlevel 99% of your gear 20 mins after you get it, and thats how it is all the way to end game. Its not players who are guilty for that, its devs, mind you. If they werent throwing 900 pieces of slightly better gear upon us, 8 times per level, it would still feel like acomplisment, rather than 'yay i just got a 2% better piece of crap which im gonna use for next 4,5 quests' feeling we have now.
Leveling speed does matter too, but not that much compared to gazillion eq pieces we are being "awarded" for killing 10 rats every 5 minutes. It makes all but end game gear obsolete, thus making the rest of the game quite obsolete too, considering how getting new pieces of gear is one of the most motivating points for many people.
it all makes the leveling aspect less fun, which also makes peoeple wanting to rush thru content so they can finally get somethig that they wont outlevel in next 30 mins.
You know, in old games every piece of gear had its place in the world, even when you get something better, there was ALWAYS another person willing to keep on using that item after you are done with it. Now all we have is thousands of vendor crap that doesnt last more than one playing session, and you wonder why people dont actually feel like they accomplished something when they get new piece of (usually) quest gear.
@teala, even if the gear wouldnt mean that much (aka have little impact on your stats and pvp) getting new piece should make you feel like you actually accomplished something and you deserved it, not something you'll throw away in no time. But gear grind (in its all appernaces) does motivate people, and one regular mmo player does need something to look forward, because all mmos are in one way or another, grindy.
To me, if getting to the next level is the main focus, then the game fails. In good games, MMO or single player, leveling is something that happens while experiencing the game and the lore. EQ2 and LOTRO both have the ability to keep me immersed in the world and again, leveling is just something that happens while I play. WOW was that way for me during vanilla and to a lesser extent BC but its not the same game it was. If the journey isnt interesting enough to keep me playing then endgame is meaninless as I will never get to it.
Hmm...I am more in favor of offering tons of different styles, rather than the "go do this raid and get [this] piece of gear." That everyone else and their mother is wearing. I think character customization is another area many of the newer games fail to deliver.
GW2 has a flattened leveling curve. Which means, whereas a 'normal' game has increasing XP gaps as levels increase, GW2 has a relatively flat XP-to-next-level all the way to the cap.
If you're looking to GW2 to bring back "slow" final levels, you may be placing your trust in the wrong place. Or may not, we'll see (there's places other than raw XP to slay the same dragon).
They just need to add things to SWTOR that isnt the norm. Me, I'm not one of the locust, but I play with MANY in my guild. Some of them already have 3 level 50s, and yes, they gripe all the time about nothing to do. Me, I'm 45 now on my main, 21 on my alt, and enjoying the ride all the way up. I ask those with the 3 at cap about some elusive champ mob I found someplace, and they have no idea what I'm talking about. I ask them about some AREA quest chain I find, and again, no idea what I am talking about. There is plenty to do in this game, if you take the time to do it and enjoy it. Although I do agree the xp you get from doing everything in the game needs to be turned down. I can level over entire planets just by doing my main story line quests, which is sad.
Oh and look for Legacy leveling as a viable option to keep people in the game..well that is once we know what the hell it is and what it gives us. I'm leveling it up now though, even without knowing what it will give me. I have a few ideas, hoping I'm right but we will see I guess.
Point is, Bioware needs to toss in more things to do for the end game that isn't the usual daily grind and gear tier progression. Those ideas are old, outdated, and honestly not wanted by a lot of people. We want something new, intriguing, something that will keep us going. Give us new story and quest chains that START at level 50, that takes us back to places we may have missed along the way, quests that make us feel epic because we were there, not because we walked away with a new hat.
I think thats the point. MMOs are (or were) for a particular audience. I came from the console side of gaming to MMOs because of the (promise) of slower-pacing, long levels, great adventure. MMOs today are looking more and more like a XBOX Live title, which is sounding more of what you are looking for. I'd recommend trying Skyrim
I'd also argue you can still get quick achievements from 'longer' levelling games. I have a full time job and kids = .001% of a day to myself ;-) I play ~2hrs a night. Do I need to level up every night? No. Some nights I just harvest. Others I just craft. Achievement shouldnt be tied to levelling alone. What makes it FUN is while I am casually harvest you never know when you will run into another quest that might take you down another path you never thought was there.
I'm not sure why it's okay for articles like this that are essentially targeted at complaining about certain types of MMO players. Content locusts? Really?
Honestly, wouldn't us "content locusts" be more satisified with longer grind, since it keeps us occupied on the task of hitting max level and completing all content for a longer period of time. We fit in the achiever category (which is the primary category of about 60% of gamers) and I can tell you achieving something that takes longer is much more satisifying.
I would love for more compelling content leveling up. Rift took me all of 3 days to hit max level. That's horrible. Comparatively EQ took me almost a year to hit max. It's not our fault the developer put all focus into end game. News flash, we want the game to be interesting at all levels for whatever our skill level might be just like casuals!
Honestly, I could make that agruement that you so called casuals are the reason we have such a quick leveling pace. God forbid someone doesn't get to experience end game content and have the best gear available to them on their 4 hours a month of gametime. Were we used to have to work for the "end game" (and only us content locusts made it their as a result) enjoying the journey along the along, now we basically have to rush through linear quest hubs to get to the good content in a short meaningless grind. Now pretty much anyone can get the best gear available to them for minimal effort and as a result we content locust (ie, hardcore gamer/achievers) are forced to move onto the next game as there is little reward for achieving something that everyone can achieve without much time and effort spent.
Though I agree with you on the fact that leveling in SWTOR is rather fast (it took me a couple of years to reach 30 in COH playing at a casual pace) I think you missed a major reason that games rush you to the end game. Development cost and release date deadlines. Games now a days need to be released fast and on time, which means that the dev team isn't given much time to get the game working right and add enough content to keep us happy for months and years to come. Nowhere is this more apperent than in the consol market where it's rush the game out and give them the DLC later, they'll be happy to pay to improve their game, and this mentality is bleeding into our MMOs. Get the game out in 2-3 years with as few bugs as possible and then do patches and expansions to give them content.
I hate to say it but we are all responsible for this problem. We bitched and whined when game companies pushed back release dates and cost them money by potentially not buying the game just because it was several months later than we wanted it to be.
Because of all this there is a fine line in the leveling of a game that must be kept. Make us level to slowly and the game feels like we are grinding just to be able to survive the next phase of the game. Or allow us to level in pace of the game and then realize that we are completeing it to quickly. I understand that that balance is hard to maintain and no game company will be able to make everyone happy, but I do hope in the future they strive to reach that balance, but that will only happen when we as players stop supporting unfinished or rushed content. Let them know that we expect more from them and they will have to give it to us or stop doing what they love doing (bringing us fun and exciting games).
That's my oppinion anyway. Who knows maybe I'm way off base.
Bingo. The solution is customizable gear. Every piece of gear in a game requires computing resources. If gear is throw away you're wasting resources for things that aren't even used. If we can customize our gear, and characters, those resources are used for things that matter to us. Forcing people to wear clown suits because they have the best stats or the set is spread across several level requirements is outmoded. Let people look like they want to. SWTOR does this in a minimal way but they should have gone a lot farther. A lot farther. I can quest, farm or craft a RD768 custom hilt module just as easily as a lightsaber of evil pwnage. And of course add dyes. Does every Jedi have to wear the same boring robes? Really? Let me play the content not chase the magic carrot.
Did someone really just say that Eve was the most popular game?
Its a matter of perspective and how well the developers can 'mask' the grind mechanic. I can grind forever as long as its towards something worth while (aspects include story, music, atmospehere, etc). Its like a movie. A longer runtime doesnt make a movie better, its the content (or the draw).
If the game cant draw your attention, capture your imagination, then it will always be seen as a grind because there is nothing else to make you think otherwise.
Really I mean don't blame TOR's failures on people who can consume content faster than others. Perhaps TOR should have released more challenging content. It isn't always about the casuals! Perhaps they should of made a mmo worth playing in the first place. Blaming players is stupidity at best.
Well, it's kind of revisionist history, again.
The time-to-cap was already shortening in most games before WoW arrived, because players were seeking (said the devs): More soloable content (lashback to "forced grouping"), and faster leveling (lashback against "long grinds").
We've got another case where the original-games state was just as bad (and just as often complained about) as the current state, but in the opposite direction.
Every player thinks they have a handle on it (what "all gamers really want"), but as we've noted most efforts to modify the games result in an overcorrection, of one sort or another, to an equal but opposite problem.
I would agree with your standpoint more if the 'content locust' the OP is talking about actually cared about the leveling up content at all. 99.95% of them only care about the content they accomplish ONCE they reach the cap. Most of them skip over so much content on thier mad rush to the finish line it really is mindboggling.
If you are one, you should at least be honest with everyone here. It doesn't matter if the xp progression to level was fast or slow, the locust will take whatever path has the least resistance and the most xp gain per hour that can be accomplished. And if that path means killing the exact same 5 mobs over and over for months, they will take that path every time. Content, true leveling up content, is irrelivant to an end game power player.
Linear to them means the path from point A to point Z is a straight line achieved by going to this place from X level to X level and then to this place from X level to X level. Again, the actually content in these areas is relivant only by thier ability to give the most xp in the shortest amout of time, with the least resistance/difficulty. Difficulty (work) and content are only important once they have reached the cap.
This is what your post here missed, you move on to the next title because you get to cap so fast, and missed so much of the games REAL content. You only see what is there from the top looking down. If it isn't content geared to the top, to the very top, to the select few to say they got it and nobody else can, then it isnt really content to you guys. You thirst for the ability to stand in the middle of the crowd and say you achieved something nobody else can. And what you achieved is missing out on the GAME you paid to play, something everyone else can say they did which you never will be able to do with your playstyle.
(disclaimer - the use of the word YOU in the above statement is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied)
Isabelle: Thank you for saying, in an article, what so many of us have been saying for so damn long.
I played one of the last beta weekends for TOR and I thought the pace of levelling was okay, maybe fater than I'd hoped, but okay. Then I got into the final game and it appeared as though they'd upped that pace. By level 20 I was miles ahead of the curve and I recall there was a huge spate of people asking why the levelling was so damn fast.
I'm just reaching level 50 in SWTOR right now (this weekend, I expect) but it's obvious I'm so damn far behind everyone else. I've been seeing people calling for HM groups for weeks, and I've been hiding from level 50s in PvP for weeks.
I also feel hampered for not being level 50. It's almost as if when I do get there I'll be left out in the cold because I haven't been level 50 till now. It already appears to be harder to get groups in game, though I don't think the population drop is seriously drastic. Noticeable maybe, but not huge.
There is one thing that makes me really think, and it relates to Isabelle's stories of the old games, where levelling was an achievement. I recall my first days in Everquest, a young noob attempting to crush bats in Gfay, my trusty club in hand. I turn my head to find my elusive prey and what do I see? A level 50 clothed in shiny garb and arms full of presents for the noobs. He gave me a full set of patchwork, armour I cherished till my late teens. I was so grateful and so impressed. This guy was 50; a serious achievement. I worshipped the ground he walked on.
Now on to SWTOR and I recently made a trip back to Korriban as part of my story quest. I wasn't level 50 like the hero above, but I was close. I wanted people to bow at my feet and recognise me as someone who had made that journey and suceeded. They were never going to though. Being 47 was no achievement. Being 50 was no achievement. The best I had to offer them was a buff. I could have given them some low level gear, or maybe some mods, but they'd be obsolete a few hours on and they'd not cherish them like my noob cherished his patchwork.
I felt like a king without a flock. Then I realised those youngsters making their way to level 10 in the noob zones probably had level 50s a week before I even made 40. I was a pretender. Years of fast levelling had made my effort meaningless.
Let this article be the start of something new. Let us who realise the problem be a voice to the devs, and a louder one than Isabelle's locusts. I want that feeling of awe directed on me like I directed it on the very welcome giver of patchwork. I want to be proud that I reached 50.
Exactly...the one thing Bioware did partially right was make gear moddable(but only certain ones), but they didn't go far enough in my opinion. WoW and transmor(whatever it is called) is only partially right as well. I am glad we have the option in WoW now, because my level 85 priest can now wear those awesome robes she got in a level 12 dungeon. :)
At least in games like DAoC you had dyes. AC eventually added tinkering. I am the kind of player that looks for a certain style for my character and then sticks with it as much as I can. That is one of my greatest pet peeves in these games. We're forced to put some ugly armor or clothing on our character just because it has the best stats. Let my choose the clothes or gear I wish my character to have. If that means transfering stats from one pieve to another - give me that ability.
Well said! It is soul and heart which people keeps in games, not endgame mechanics.
Totally agree with Isabelle's article. Part of the reason I often can't give a hoot anymore about reaching end game is that it's so damn quick, easy and expected that it becomes meaningless. I don't want to go back to endless 10 year levelling, but I think it should take longer. As said in this article, my first run on shiny new Vanilla wow took quite a lot longer than any game I played after and it's probably one of the best experiences in "modern" MMOs i've had.
Let's go back to levelling meaning something and taking longer. End-game raiding by the end of your first week is just so uninspiring and self-defeating (unless you live and love for the gear, clearly) and I miss when being top level was, in itself, an achievement of sorts.
I do laugh at the irony of people who say "yeah wtf I got to max level in like a week!"
So how many hours did you play in that week?
"Umm I dunno like a hundred."
And that's the developer's fault?
That is not the point. Developers need to stop making easy casual mmos. We're not 5 years old anymore and yes we do have more intelligence than a rock. They just want the easy work for the easy money. I'm glad TOR will fail miserably because it shows gamers are tired of easy casual mmos. We need a new direction in a positive way.
Yes, yes it is. Unless of course you think 100 hours of gameplay for maxxed out characters and gear with nothing much left to do is a good end game for a MMO.
UO has the solution right back in 97.
No levels. No quests.
The next MMORPG that can carry a storyline like SWTOR without using levels or a questing mechanic wins.
Wow didn't always have the easy leveling design. When it first came out, it was based on other games and a bit slower.
I miss slow leveling. I miss enjoying the game. It's why its hard for me to adjust WOW players to a traditional tabletop dnd game. I had one guy, every session "did i level yet? when do i level? how do we level?."
I'm like dude, the group just discovered the library that holds the key to the keep. The game is about the adventure, not the power of your character.
With 80 levels, I hope guild wars 2 is a slow levelling experience. It should be, after all, the main problme with slow leveling is the worry that you can't find players to play with at your level. This is a problem in every game, but most games now days answer it by making endgame so easy to get to, that you endure not finding parties at lul times because you know you'll be able to play with everyone at endgame.
Thus , everyone rushes to endgame so they can play with everyone else. I know thats been my families mindset. But wouldn't a game be cool, if you could play it with everyone at any level. Thats what GW2 is saying.
You gotta take into account whether a player is new/old to the MMO genre, or if they're new/old to the specific game. I can't bring myself to play beyond that first free month of SWTOR. The lack of content is amazing. The emphasis on voice and story-driven questlines was larger than I expected and other content paid for it. I laughed at one of the latest content videos with "we're giving you guild banks, ui customization, pvp titles and more to come."
I think there's a great deal of miscommunication and misunderstanding between the sandbox player and the "theme park" one.
I have never, ever reached the level cap in a "grindy" mmo even though I enjoy them the most, and just because, like the author of the article says, I enjoy progressing through the levels rather than actually "being" at the level cap.
When I'm not being micro-managed through every step of the way, I feel my motivation to play the game is an intrinsic one. I play the game because I want to play it, and not because the game is asking me to finish one task after another.
Some of my fondest mmo experiences have been in games where I've had no chance to ever reach the level cap or obtain the best items. There's a subtle difference between using the level cap as a motivation and a goal.
I loved Wow at release. The options you had while you level were great. I could start in so many different areas then choose different areas as I level then my last character I played. The challenge was perfect and pace was great.
Then one day they decided to make it easier to level with the speed and the challenge. As time went by they kept making it easier and faster. This killed the game for me. I don't like to raid and pvp grind for gear. I like to level and enjoy the ride.
When they released Cata I was excited that they revamped the 1 to 60 content. Then I found out they made it even faster and easier then before. What a waste of resources IMHO. I guess I'm a dinosaur in gaming these days and like to take my time when I level. :(
I both agree and disagree. While I dislike those gamers that race to end-game and then complain there's nothing to do, I sympathize with people that don't want to grind incessently to hit level cap.
How many console games have we played in the past that had few, if any levels, short of levels as in actual "stages" of the game. I don't remember a level cap stopping me from playing the hell out of Castlevania (the earlier ones)and hitting the cap in games like Ultima and Wizardry back in the Nintendo days didn't stop me from exploring the rest of the world and trying to collect everything. For a more recent example, I enjoyed the content of Guild Wars far, FAR after I hit level cap.
I think caps in levels should be reached fairly quickly, but for me that's because I want to experience the content of the game without leveling up getting in the way. In other words, the game should be worth playing regardless of level cap, not because of it. There's no excuse for 'content locust'-type people, but I certainly don't miss the EQ1 days of leveling, either.
Rift's numbers are up a bit too. I don't think its as much about the community as it is, that TOR failed to offer anything interesting or new, and had too many barriers to enjoy the game. The leveling was one thing, but the lack of seeing the "mass" part of the game was frustrating. The only time i saw people, who were suppose to be my teammates, i ended up hating them because we are fighting for resources. The only way to get away from the scavanger gameplay that plagues most MMOs was to do the instance, but then, i'm playing by myself and why not play Skyrim then where i can get stronger stories and deeper gameplay.
Poeple don't play those games because they are boring and shitty, that's all, i'm sorry, it have little relation with the leveling speed.
Grind is the stupidiest stuff ever done in mmo, but since its the easiest to code and give the best addicitive factor, dev teams abused it to no end, until they discovered they can apply it to RMT.
And grind don't come from repetition, but from stupid repetition, thats quiet a difference here.
Those mmo are just very poorly designed, thats all that is there. There is not a single reason why those games fail, they are plenty of them, there is nothing to hold them in the background, no backbone, no though, nothing, if there is a single reason thats the one. Its like grind xp games, dev team discovered that the simpliest code could be used to make repeatitive task on some Pavlov reflex, and they over abused it in mmo history. But people are not dogs as Pavlov used for his tests.
You want to come back to this kind of crap? jez. If you want interesting mmo, ask to have interesting mmo, ask to have good repetitive task, the kind of task that don't make you loose but rather gain interest as you play, not the contrary. People play chess, checkers, go... for centuries, there is nothing more repetitive, those games have like a couple of moves for you to grasp, the same moves you'll do over and over again each time, you can't even do simplier than go of checker game. Are they grindy? not even close. Those games are about playing, not about paying monthly sub, thats maybe why those mmo fail?
I played in beta and got to level 8, first night. Played a Necromancer in EQ and it took me two months to get off the newbie log.
As an oldschool gamer myself, I'd have to agree wholeheartedly with the current leveling speed.
Indeed, the JOURNEY to END LEVEL was the game, not the end game itself. Being challenged while leveling should be what MMO's are about, not going through trivial content and facing the challenge with no further advancement possible.
I sincerely dislike this newer generation of gamers who only want to play for the sake of proving their superiority to other players, rather than immerse themselves in a ROLE-PLAYING GAME (wow, how that word ROLE has died out) and play FOR THE SAKE OF CHALLENGE.
Wow dude, don't confuse complex gaming with bad playing. EQ was longer, but not even close to being that hard.
When playing WOW, I knew of many people (at least 3) that lvl to max, delete their toon, and did it again.
great article. i more or less agree with you. It took me 2 expansions before i finally hit max level in wow. i'm THAT casual. and even then i didn't bother with end game content until max lvl in cata which i thought was just pathetic. I did EVERY quest in the under water zone and as a result had completely out leveled 2 of the other new content zones. I ended up doing only a few quests in desert zone, twilight zone and because i spent a lot of the time queued up for dungeon pugs i wound up hitting 85 without completeing a single other zone's content. Then i tried to do what the majority of wow players do and grind rep for gear and junk to eventually prepare me for raiding but i grew bored of that after about a month and just stopped. it was just what i always expected my reaction to end game content to be. I felt i was just wasting time getting gear that would instantly become trivialized after doing the first handful of quests from the next expansion.
eq2 i found to be a much more enjoyable pace to leveling than wow, but i never have been in a big hurry to hit higher levels. typically if i enjoy a zone i will do all the quests and not really care that i'm out leveling the content or gear. hense why i did the entirety of the underwater wow zone even when i was already lvl 84. but i do recall the older games with much more extreme speeds of slow leveling. E&B had a max level of 150 would have taken me decades because it combined exploration combat and trade as all sperate ways to gain levels. And i was, in fact, around back when people getting level 60 in wow was considered an achievement (and i don't me a stupid little box that pops up giving you e-peen points) and hell just having a mount was a big deal. now you can get one at lvl 20 or some such for like 20 silver. AND they weren't even the faster speed if i recall...
So great article, valid points, and good discussion from these comments. everyone seems to have something to say and from what i've read it is painfully obvious that everyone has something different they prefer while playing any MMO. You just cant make an MMO that will suit everyone's needs or wants, but that isn't to say you can't make an MMO that is not infallible to the right player group.
What is this End-Game you speak of? Is it the repeated running of the same lvl 50 dungeon? Killing a specific mob over and over again? Constant PvP queues? Themepark MMO's with End-Game is an oxymoron. By design, they cant exist. Its amazing to me these companies havent caught on yet. It seems the only way to make end-game plausible is to make it dynamic, otherwise you just have a high-level-grind-machine. Maybe GW2 will do it right. These devs should stop looking at these games like products and start treating them as an art form. Maybe thats just wishful thinking.
Levelling is NOT fun. All it does is separate players. That's why I rush to endgame in these games. To play with friends. When we're all levelling up we never get to experience the game together. Give me an end game only game now! I'm fed up with this pointless levelling. The game starts at endgame, the journey starts at endgame. Levelling is just a painfully prolonged tutorial these days.
I remember the days when i was playing Anarchy Online. It took me a full year to level up my fixer, and alien level 30 was just a dream, almost unreachable goal, but that did not bother me one bit. I had a lot of lowbie alts, just for fun, and i remember just sitting and chatting with my clan m8's for hours. There was almost no solo content back then, and we did everything together, but you were never ordered to stay in a raid for hours, you came and went as you pleased. Clan invited you to a raid even if your lvl was to low, and sometimes raid was doomed from the start, but we just didn't care. People are making you believe MMO's are a serious business, a second life, a second job. I don't need that. I already have a life and a job. I just come to have fun, and there is not much fun in new MMO's anymore.
Yeah, lets completely ignore the horrible amount of bugs thats makes doing anything at max level an eye gouging chore.
I quit not because I leveled too fast but because of the bugs. Every single corner, every single aspect of SW:TOR is riddled with bugs.
So, yeah, go ahead and blame TORs current downfall on leveling too fast and not on the real culprit: a game being pushed out before it was ready.
I don't think the death penalty being harsh is a benefit and I know the arguments about it so don't try to re-sell those points.
The idea behind the XP-curve being harder sounds like a move in the right direction. Would it be better to force players to earn more xp via grinding the same mob over and over OR to give large XP bonuses for first time a character experiences certain things. For example, the first time you arrive at a location, the first time you kill a mob of a specific named type, clearing a dungeon for the first time. This gets people moving around the world AND exploration bonuses.
I also think there should be side-levels/skill for characters that you have to improve. PVP experience should advance your pvp-only skills. Raiding should improve your raid-only skills. Other grouping should advance general grouping skills and perhaps base skill. Solo play should improve basic skills.
I agree that the "content locusts" who blast through the game skipping half of the content and then whining are terrible, but I don't think slowing the leveling process way down is going to help. If you double the level grind, it will take those people ten days instead of five and they will STILL be whining and complaining before you know it. It will really make no difference. The rest of us, however, that have more things to do than just sit and play games all day, every day, will really be left out. I suspect that a large percentage of players have jobs and responsibilities and just don't have the time to make playing an MMO their second job.
I say stop worrying about the people that race to the finish line so that they can complain about lack of content. You would have to ruin the fun for a large majority of players to ever hope to satisfy them and then they would just find something else to complain about. Make the best game you can, with the most content you can, and if it is good we will hang around.
I played AC since 2000, I honestly have not found a game to fill that space it has in my heart. I remember having multiple characters from level 11 to 68, it wasn't about leveling it was about enjoying the game with people. Knowing I could be 10 levels under my friend but still do quests with them and do well (with level 6 buffs Lugian Cit FTW).
If AC ever did a reboot and kept its skill system, levelin system, armor system and brought back the original magic discovery system I would play it until it died off again.
I despise the end-game.
You play through scores of levels and are provided with content and fun... Then you approach the max level of the game and things change....
Content slows (we are talking a good 8 levels before max level even)
World drops become worthless (often this happens about 15 levels before max level -- At level 40 you can get a solo lucky drop that is very close to the best currently available -- at level 70 you can't get a drop better than a trash drop on a raid.)
You acquire all the skills your character will have (again this often happens before max level)
You have been everywhere geographically (I have usually explored the entire world significantly before max level)
Quests dry up
Playstyles narrow (Lets say you soloed monsters 6 levels above your level in a slow manner... You were set up to be able to do it in whatever game... Well when the highest level monster is equal to your level then you are stuck killing those. Sometimes there are no solo monsters in games even 2 levels BELOW the level of the characters... This hurts the solo tank or solo healer more than it does a solo dps who is built to be able to carve through legions of lower monsters)
---------------
Even if there is a level cap, I think they should always have a few areas where monsters are well above the level of the characters -- even DEADLY so... If the level cap is say 60 -- there should be zones where the monsters are upwards of level 70 in all flavors. They shouldnt stop at level 58 for a level 60 cap.
-----
At any rate I typically find that I get to the endgame and it ends up the end of the game for me.
This process is happening right now in vindictus... Fun game but at the end it ends up a big farming session. Pretty much all the themeparks end up as a big farming session at the endgame.
About the only themepark I was able to stick with for raids in a fairly big way was the original everquest -- at least they set the game up so the MAJORITY of the content was at max level. AAs to gain and lots of zones to progress through... In fact that was a constant complaint by some that so much of the content was only seeable by a small few who were able to get that far. At least EQ had some avenues of advancement at max level and more than a smattering of dungeons to run over and over and over and over.
Warhammer was the only one I really stayed for PVP(RVR) for a longish period. Only thing that really booted me from that game was a "bad" server merge where I ended up being vastly outnumbered all the time for no fun.
Oh well -- The most recent casualty looks to be Vindictus... I had a fun romp up to level 69.4 but essentially I have been everywhere and the quests are done and I dont want to spend large amounts of time and money getting mega endgame equipment (already have 12k/7k -- getting the extra k to be able to go on boats to run the same zones over and over isnt really my cup of tea).
I am convinced the people shouting and stomping their feet about having nothing to do once they had hit level 50 in lotro during the shadow of angmar days heavily influenced the way that the legendary item and radiance systems were implemented with the mines of moria expansion.
It seemed to me that the devs added grind and gates to try and remedy the whines of folks that were expecting a fledgling mmo to have the same level of end game content as games that had existed for years. That decision was a mistake and it was mostly downhill from there in my opinion.
Ignore these gamers, they are like a thirst that can never be quenched and definitely don't compromise gameplay to try and eek out a few more months worth of sub from them as it is the casual bread and butter sub players that get punished for it.
I find this attitude rather annoying. Why do some people think they have become enlightened in some way? We're talking about computer games and past times, not religion or government conspiracy.
Actually, in SW:TOR if the leveling system were a bit slower it would work well, at least at the later levels as it slows significantly in the middle section than appears to just pick right back up in the 40s.
Great game, lot's of content, unfortunate bugs at the end-game. Over all best MMO to come out since WoW, and the leveling experience in SW:TOR trumps the one in WoW. Dialogue/voice overs, etc = long over-due in this genre.
Are the developers of a game that you so enjoy not allowed to be as greedy as the government that lies to you? Honest question.
3 words people.
Player Driven World.
You know Isabel many player will disagree with you.
Unfortunately the developers tend to listen to those kind of players, that's why we don't have a good MMORPG since WoW came out.
Developers though should read carefully your post because that' s the secret of the longevity all the latest MMOs cannot achieve.
To be completely honesst I find ridicolous that developers expect players to stick around for a long period of time when they can max a character in a month or less.
To me that's commercial suicide, you want people to stay subscribed for a year when you allow them to burn all the content in a month.
They have to be quite optimistic or really stupid................
Four words: Design one that works.
Most of the examples we have are terribad.
They can be as greedy as they like. I am perfectly capable of self will, I choose to buy and play an MMO. If I dont like it big fricken deal. Some of you guys talk as if people are getting brainwashed into handing over their houses and pension plans. get real, get a perspective on life. If paying £50 for a game, getting 30-40 hours game play out of it and moving on is such an ordeal ----- don't play.
"Ohhh I've seen the light! Don't buy these games, the companies are evil wrong doers who only want your money!" No shit, like every other retail related business on the planet.
^This
I'd take it a step further though -
Player Driven World that isn't about Grinding.
Know what I hate about EvE and hated about SWG and EQ?
Grinding... tiers of gear based on grinding... they call(ed) themselves sandboxes while putting in the grind of a themepark game.
True sandbox = no grind.
No end game, no beginning game, no grind, just... game....
I think developer created content is fine and is neccessary, but not as the sole form of content in a game. I'd be really happy with a game that had you do awesome, phased/instanced, personal, voiced-over quests with awesome story and a highly cinematic flair... every like 5-10 levels.
And leave the time/space in between up to you and your imagination/play style.
Earth and Beyond actually did this, I thought it was a wonderful idea.
I remember clearly my ultimate goal during my EQ days.. It had nothing to do with max level.. I just wanted my epic weapon...
The multi-part, multi- mechanic, sometimes time based and crafting required quest line that ended with the slaying of an epic boss sometimes more than one...
These epic quest lines really put you through some stuff and took some time to complete and completing them meant alot to you as a player..
I like the term content locusts so +1 for that.
As a gamer who plays MMO's my perception is more like...
There used to be games I could log into every day and play. I enjoyed playing those games for years... My level didn't matter. Well ok in UO it really didn't matter.. but my point is.. no matter what my level was in the level based games I had fun. DAoC is an example of a level based game I enjoyed at all levels. EQ I had a couple of partners for duo's depending on who was online and never worried about gaining X levels or reaching end game (eq wasn't even one of my favorite games but I had good friends in it).
Commonly now I don't have as much draw to play MMO's... regardless of level. So oddly enough for me "end game" is not the factor at play here.
So that's how I look at and I could write a wall of text in regards to getting me to log in every day.. but I'll skip that part and just write half a wall instead.
In regards to the specific context of "end game"...
We are no longer at a point where developers should be able to be suprised at the fact people will reach "end game" quickly. We also see games specificly designed so that masses might reach end game rather quickly... These aren't the days of finding a group and doing a camp check.. so you could sit around your grind spot for hours and discuss various things during down time. Or waiting in line to get in a camp group.
As to the "in between" content... whether an idividual thinks someone else isn't fully experiencing it or not.. is a transitional part of the game which is not meant to last an exceedingly long time. As opposed to "end game" which obviously you reach at some point and the developer supposedly wants to keep your subscribing for a long time...
So it should be obvious from developers right on down the line to customers.. that with the current realities of gaming.. end game should have a major design emphasis and games should launch with significant "end game" systems in place.
Quite frankly and this is just my opinion (obviously) they either need to change the way MMO's are developed or they need to change the current development process. I know that sounds like the same thing... but I'm talking about either using different core mechanics... or changing the emphasis to the part of the game that is supposed to hold your customer for the long term.
/shrug
If the content locusts are such a small percentage... then why would developers listen to them regardless? In that reality no blame should be put on the "content locusts" it should be entirely on the developers. Losing some small segment of your player base to retain the overwhelming majority only makes sense... in every single way especially financially.
So unless this small percentage is actually the majority... why was anything ever changed? No matter how you look at it.. it still comes back to the developers doing the wrong thing at some point.
thats why i wait to get the game and what you just said abbout being top lvl in no time and all is left to do is PVP and some dairly...will just make me not geting the game
Content starts from level 1, people seem to forget that fact. They need to make leveling take longer so that people cannot rush to level cap and then bitch and moan. MMO's are not sustainable with short leveling times.
I agree, to an extent. I think the spoeed of levelling meaning that you shouldn't do all the quests in any given area is not clever design, but then I look at the fact that they want people to level alts and I can see where it's coming from...and it makes a bit more sense. My main is 45, I have 4 alts in their teens, and I've skipped bonus series, side quests and all the rest of it with alacrity on my main because I know I'll still get to see them on another character.
I also wonder about those that say story ends at 50...well your story does, but unless you have your 5 companions all at 10k affection and have done all their story quests as well, then the story doesn't end bang on 50. I have one companion at 10k, one at 4k and others in the 2k range. When I hit cap I'll spend a while pushing up all their affection levels, and enjoying their stories.
There's a lot to be said for games where it takes a long time to hit cap, EQ, EQ2 with XP switched to AA etc. but on the flip side of that (for me, at least) there are games like Aion where the grind becomes apparent early on and saps your will to log in. The key is making the journey interesting enough to merit more questing / killing / collecting than today's gamer seems to be willing to countenance. Is story and VO enough to do that? Not according to a lot of posters in here who would merrily tell you SWTOR has too much of both.
I'm starting to think that the idea of the game that has something for everyone and lots to do for everyone, level irrelevant, is the holy grail of gaming (and every bit as mythical). What do all grail quest stories have in common? They're all really about the journey. For some gamers, the journey is everything - for others the destination is all that matters. Your content locusts are my failed grail knights ("We journeyed here over a course of...um...a couple of days...and there's no grail? WTF failzor lololol").
I always take my sweet time in levelling, am usually way behind the curve. I do find it shocking that I'm in my mid-40s in SWTOR so quickly, and at a loss to explain how that happened (apart form the two instances so far where I refused to leave my computer until I'd closed out an act on my character). Is it too fast? Possibly, but I know I'm glad of that speed on my alts. For players who are only interested in playing one class per side, or one class full stop, it is too fast. I guess BW didn't count on there being so many of the latter types buying the game.
Too slow and people "bitch and moan."
What is the sweet spot?
I think the rush to max level is for players that just want to PvP and glory hounds that want to get right to the endgame.
There is just as much excitement running a level 10 instance with a level 10 toon as a level 80 instance with a level 80 toon (unless you've twinked yourself out).
If you think of a game as having a "grind" then the story tellers designing the content have not met your needs. You shouldn't want to rush through a given level just so you can rush through the next one. The whole journey should be fun. You should be disappointed when you hit max level and realize there's nothing left to do.
Yes - there is satisfaction in making the bars go up. But if the bars go up too easily - where is the satisfaction in that?
Couldn't agree more. Thank you for the article, Isabelle!
After the Rift experience, I just won't pick up any more speedy leveling mmo's. Although it likely means I'll be playing the old mmo's for a long while to come.
I think many MMOs in the past survived because players stuck around far longer than the content and enjoyment they get out of the game actually should allow. Players do this because they have made friends, because they feel as if they have a duty towards their friends and because these friends have managed to take a spot in their lives that they would rather not be without.
When MMOs grow shorter due to leveling speeds or lack of content, when they grow easier and allow more content to be soloed or dealt with with a Pick Up Group without previous coordination, fewer players are likely to build these friendships. They don't suffer defeats together, they don't work out plans and struggle to achieve victories; so there is no reason to feel anything at all for the faceless people in your guild.
Without any real emotional ties to your friends and the game that you met them in, you'll leave when you get bored. For a game to succeed on the long term there needs to be a thorough foundation that supports the building of friendships and loyalty. Once you've got those parts, it doesn't matter if the rest of the game is absolute shite, because people will stay.
Content locust? Lol....I mainly only play SWTOR on the weekend now, and I did less 'power gaming' in SWTOR than I have in any other game ever... When you main leveling barometer is quests and it has to somewhat equal your quests, you get a very fast leveling curve....Or you got to make a ton more quests...
Yeah people bitch and complain about stuff, but thats why some quests make you kill 100 mobs in some games...I have never been a big fan of quest leveling....Tell me what xp I need, make a big world, unique mobs/places, roaming big bosses, rare mob spawns that roam, loot tables with common/rare/ur drops for each area, and I will go make it happen and have a lot more fun than quest leveling, where it is hard to sync up with other and their quests...
But since we are talking quest leveling...and swtor is the latest....They didn't have 200 hours of content in the class, as they said they would....The wife and I watch every VO scene, didn't hit space bar, didn't power game, we work different shifts, so we mainly play on the weekend or like an hour at most during the weekday, and the content didn't last as long as it should of.
Since this seems to be a problem, how about fixing it and coming up with a solution...The problem has been everything for the last 5-6 years has all been the same junk for the most part...I hope the devs are finally getting it....They aren't making the next WoW...They are making the next p2p that is going to go f2p...
This, Isabella, is the best article you have written so far... :)
I completely agree with you, the journey is the fun part and is 90% of the content and yet we at best spend 3 weeks in that and the expect us to spend 2 years until the next expansion in the last grindy 10% of the game.
That certain games (I am looking on you, Lineage 1 & 2) were too slow is true but when the devs were speeding up leveling a bit they went too far. And while that isn´t the only reason most players just spends 2 months in a new MMO it is a big part of it.
"Devs, read my lips: leveling is FUN. Slow the damn train down a bit and let us enjoy the scenery."
1. go see [NPC]
2. [NPC] sends you to kill 10x's [enter mob name here]
3. return to [NPC] for stupid reward
...that IS NOT "fun". and until developers figure that out... im still going to blast through it as fast as possible.
Source for SWTOR subscriptions being in freefall, or is the OP just another doom and gloom merchant.....?
The problem with SWTOR is it's horrible design decisions that are laden onto every facet of the game.
Quick leveling and gearing
Super buggy in so many ways
RNG pvp gear
Can't select pvp maps
No pvp scoreboard
Endgame hard modes super buggy and you need a quest just to enter
Tons of load screens
more load screens
Worlds feel dead, npc's don't move at all
Super buggy ability lag. some times abilities just won't fire no matter how much you button mash.
etc..........
i agree. playing swg i loved having my own house, collecting and decorating it. whenever i got burned out of aspects of the game i would always go back and work on my house. i loved being able to put my house in a city with my friends as well. one of the reasons i kept playing swg for so long.
Different for every..single..player.
Well, you might be right there but dailiy quests and gear grinding ain´t fun either. It is more or less the same as grinding mobs and they expect you to do it for years.
But sure, when the time to level goes up they also needs to make leveling more fun. I guess that is why they decided that they wouldn´t bother and treat leveling as a 2 week tutorial.
I don't buy the "I have a life so I can't play a sandbox" argument. It implies that just like the "locusts" you need to get to a ceratain point as fast as possible or on a scheduele.
As long as the mechanics allow you to (in most cases) log out within a couple of minutes without loosing progress it is casual friendly, period. Grinding is not a factor. The opposite is a game that "forces" you to ride all the way to the end once some event in the game is initiated in order to not have wasted that time.
I'll take SWG as an example. I am crafting, a RL friend visits. I can leve the PC on or I can just finish experimenting and log. I am decorating the guildhall with friends, they can go on without me and what I have already done is there the next time I log in.
In a raid I "have to" finish it if I am halfway through unless I want the first hour of a two hour raid to be wasted, not to mention that I'll leave my guildies hanging.
I am kinda getting to the point of never buying america designed games again.
NA developers have gone totally and completely about the $, and have lost all sight of the creativity.
Sadly it is not just mmo's have you noticed console games lately? Getting very sick of paying $60-90 for a new console game for a lousy 10 hours of game play.
They did a " biased " study that says most gamers do not even finish a game so they decided why give them a 40 hour game if they are only going to play 10 hours of it?
So instead lets sell them a 10 hour game for double the price we use to sell them a 40 hour game for, and if any of them actually want more of the game we will sell them the rest of the game as DLC's in 5 hour increments!!
Honestly Im sick of it, and sick of the crack dealers they have become praying on us the addicts we have become.
The whole industry was designed to be very addictive there are studies done on the right sounds, colors, partical effects to stimulate the exact same responses in us as if we were using drugs.
So they addict two generations of us and now they, cut the product and jack the prices..
exactly like crack dealers.
I couldn't agree with OP more. I do hope some of the upcoming games make questing more fun and slow down the leveling process. SWTOR has added some meaning to the questing during the leveling process. However, dailies are dreadfully boring. I like gear/ability "grinding" as long as I'm leveling, but when I hit the level cap it becomes wildly boring. Likely due to no new locations to explore and no further content.
I just can't believe that SWTOR made a game for so much money that takes 2-4 weeks to hit max level for the casual player. I would almost bet that GW2 has the same leveling time and it is designed for people that hate building characters over any period of time.
err they 80's was 30 years ago mate. Most games are now beyond the reach of a couple of brothers making computer games in their bedrooms.
Business is about money.
Well, maybe you should not damn logic. ;)
We are speaking about inherent flaws of themeparks here, and alas Bioware didn't add ANY sandbox elements. It's the revenge of Uncle Owen.
Oh the irony...
OR...focus on real end game content. make things to do not just dungeons and raids.
As much as I am sure this has been brought up, GW2 has its story, DE, mini games, Dungeons, PvP, WvWvW and crafting. ALL at max level.
In fact all of this is through the game. there is not a quest "rat race" to run. In fact Anet has had problem when they bring in testsers because the testers didnt know what to do because there wasnt an NPC guiding them.
Remember when you started a new MMO and you had to ask people where to go/what to do. The good old days will never be back. unless companies like Anet try and break the model. its sad when the MMORPG loses both the MMO and the RPG aspect.
You got me, I'm still grasping for the days when UO, EQ, and AC were brand new and all about porting paper and pencil ideas into virtual worlds.
You really hit the nail direcftly on the head this time Isabelle. The funny thing is why haven't developers figured out that this is one way to keep customers as .......SUBSCRIBERS.
Instead of reaching end game in 4 weeks or 8 weeks and getting burned out, a journery so long and filled with adventure that end game isn'ty even a part of the equation in the beginning.
Yeah AC's level cap was so rediculiously off in the distance it never entered into my reason for playing and I played for the better part of 4 years.
Your articles are most often thought provoking keep it up please!
Kani
The one thing missing from all styles of games that I have played is great questing locations.
The quests themselves are to linear goal oriented with a specific location marked out on a map.
If the games has more action styles quests that required jump, climbing, use of special spells/abilities/equipement to get to higher places, swimming to different areas, triggers to open doors, keys found in different dungeons or random drops, etc.
It is like developers think if they just make the story interesting they can forget about making the ADVENTURE of traveling the land and going the dungeons interesting. The land and the dungeons are the setting that help tell the story
Asheron's Call made some amazing quests and dungeons that I haven't seen equaled in any game since. There where dungeons where you had to jump up and up and up the entire time to get to the goal at the top while fighting flying mobs all the way. There was a dungeon that spiraled all the way down to the goal at the end. There were entire islands that where large quests where you had to do a lot of things in many dungeons to get to the end.
Quests these days are just go to this marked place, kill something, and watch a cutscene or read some type.
Items are also not as rare as they were back then. Back then when you finished a quest or got a rare random item from a mob or a chest you were extremely exited. These days there is just many items or to few rare ones that you can set a goal and go out and get.
That's kinda why I see brilliance in Eve. Levelling speed is no longer the driving motivator for what you choose to do. Since there's no way to "grind" your skills, you're stuck with doing... whatever you WANT to do.
But then, I've been lucky in that I don't feel that huge rush to get to max level like many do. The only time I felt that way is when that's ALL there is to do, as was the case in STO at launch.
SWTOR and LotRO both are pretty good at making me not feel urged to rush to max level, though LotRO does it better. There are places in LotRO that just feel like a HOME(not just your house) and you just wanna relax and craft for a while, or even fish, of all things.
TOR does lack that feeling, that homey place to put your feet up and relax. What's more, the main stories have you feeling the urgency to keep moving forward. But at least, I still like to take a detour and wander the maps to see what's going on.
Talking like this, a person might think that I dug the UO/EQ first gen world building approach.
Not really. People complain about how empty TOR is... EQ and UO felt FAR more empty to me. Just a bunch of monsters standing around waiting for you to kill them, in dull, random seeming scenery. I'm not wowed by 1 mile of this; having 1000 miles of it won't change a thing.
I'm hoping for something in a happy medium. A game that can find a way to talk players into getting off the XP trail to relax for a bit.
Not that i dont want player built cities and such, but WoW kind of single handedly disproves your little theory. Vanilla WoW was no different than SWToR in regards to social features.
SWToR, at max level, has story, raids, minigames (space), Dungeons, Warfronts, Illum and crafting. Just as many things as GW2.
Quality of them is another matter. Having things to do doesnt help much if they arent implemented right.
Leveling speed is the least of SWTOR problems.
This is just a typical reminiscing rant seeing things through rose colored glasses. "I had to walk to school in the snow, up hill both ways, barefoot. And we drank turpentine for lunch and we liked it! Oh how great we felt." There's a reason MMOs were niche games back then.
It's the same reasoning over and over again with any mmo that comes out since WoW launched.
It's the leveling is to fast, gear is forgettable, game over in a few weeks, I have 293 max level toons.
The difference between the late 90's mmo's and the current crop of crap is the people developing them. It's no longer passionate people who just finished playing a game of D&D with their friends and are now taking our fantasy dreams into a 3d virutal world.
It is money hungry corporations that have dollar signs in their eyes after smelling blood in the water of the mmo genre.
"Hey Bob, you know WoW makes a trillion billion dollars a month from their subs?"
"No shit? Well we have a billion dollars to throw around, lets buy up some gaming company and force them to make a clone of WoW so we can make money off these geeks too!"
That was a part of the conversation EA execs had before they bought and raped Mythic and spit out WAR.
The MMORPG genre is DEAD, these games coming out are not anything but stagnant copies of each other and the greedy pigs behind them are profitting off our stupidty, yes our because I fall for this shit cycle too.
We all knew what SWTOR was going to be like even if we didn't have beta access, some of us just choose not to believe what was known for our own sake of hoping it would change this dead pool.
I mean, come on, why do you think every mmo that is being launched over the last few years moves closer and closer to being a single player game with co-op mini games (pvp).
The best age for mmo's was its beginning and what I refer to as the golden age. EQ1, DAOC, AC, UO, Nexustk, games like those were when mmo's were truly mmo's to the core.
Dwarf Paladin in full bronze armor I looted off goblins getting trained constantly in Unrest by groups running for their lives from a named in the basement narrowly escaping death by the savior of a zone line.
That is what made me happy and kept my blood racing, I honestly can't even remember anything about any of the other characters in any other mmo I've played since, and I've played them all.
Why? Because they all blend together into a blur of mindless garbage with pretty pictures that just fly by since it is a never ending race of "go here, kill that, now go here and kill that, GO GO GO GO GO!!!!!" congrats you are now level 50, time played 3 days.
I spent a week in The Overthere at a ledge group with a friend and some swedish people we met camping mobs to get into my 30's level range, we talked, we laughed, we cried when we got wiped by a dragoons. It was adventure.
Christ, I could go on about how mmo's have betrayed themselves for hours but I'll stop here since nobody reads anything unless it's trolling someone.
I call BS on this one, ok CLASS quests ONLY maybe, but not content total leveling up. If you do Taris, Tatooine, Balmorra, and Hoth you have more than 200 hours of content. If you do it all, on those 4 planets, class quests, misc quests, bonus quests, area quests, and all the heroics you will be there FOREVER. And that doesn't include datacrons, named champions, and world bosses, or actually exploring the entire map of each of these planets. If you say the whole game has less than 200 hours of content...you skipped some. And that is just 4 planets.
AMEN !!!!
That's it! Masking the grind is how to make the game fun. Works for me.
Well, when I played SWG that had almost no 'content' there was always stuff to do. I played for a year and a half and they didn't have any voice acting that I recall. In fact, there was so much to do and experience in SWG that had no 'content' that I had two accounts.
Some of the things I did:
started a guild
scouted for and built my house
decorated my house
shopping on different planets, always looking for the best deal or best stats
touch bases with crafters, have to keep on their radar :)
gathering materials for crafters or people in our guild
built a city
created a governement
defended an imp base I built
waged war repeatedly on two neighboring rebel cities and rebels where ever I found them in the world.
fishing (I don't know why. I guess to catch a bigger fish than my buddy? lol)
more house decorating
collecting trophies to place in my house
collecting guns and melee weapons for displays in my house
collecting paintings for my house because I have to...I just have to
experimenting with the best way to make fireplace and aquarium for my house
collecting pets
collecting outfits, cause my baby has to look good, i need an outfit for every occasion, lol
romance
guild drama
faction drama....certain reb keeps killing me....I keep upgrading my gear, practicing, can't kill him, none of my friends can kill him, make him my boyfriend, problem solved
dating someone of the oposite faction drama
jedi/bh drama
jump to light speed
starting a second toon for image design and crafting
makeovers for the guild!!!!!
give everyone pink afros then pretend you are bugged and cant change it back
becoming dedicated crafter
building my business
built a workshop, decorated it, have to level to get good npcs...i don't want any hobos selling my wears
fend off all the panting guys trying to date my character...should I tell them I'm a guy? Naaaa, I'm a roleplayer, lol, that would ruin it
more guild drama
city starts to fall apart
relocating to another city, starting over in a new guild
new character...rping a guy this time...hey this is fun...nice to be one of the guys
experimeting with my character, stacking defences, upgrades to clothing/armor, need spice food/drink/more shopping
ingame girlfriend (my wife is so understanding. Helped that I had an ingame bf before this though...its RP)
long drives in my two seater with my virtual sweetie
decorating my space cruiser....don't forget the bed!
long space trips with my little cutie pie.
Waging more war. Exacting revenge for past injustices.
Flirting with cute rebel girls while attacking their city.
NGE....
You are not supposed to be Uncle Owen! XD
Or somewhat... lulz.
Who are you to say that someone cant prefer sandbox games but still like SWTOR. Shes not insulting anyone, she is simply stating some opinions.
[Mod Edit]
Swtor deserves the 8.7 rating MMORPG.com gave it. lol.
Devs do listen to their players, thats' exactly the reason why MMOs are what they are today.
We oldschoolers just have to face the fact that we have become the exception to the rule. Our worlds of old exist no more, our voices matter not, at least not anymore. While we flood forums with our complaints about the pace, we get flooded ourselves by a plethora of fanboys claiming the exact opposite, labelling us old and about to become extinct.
We just have to either put up or shut up and move on.
I haven't touched SW:tOR and probably won't. I have given up on MMOs that look like typical MMOs. I loved DAoC and enjoyed that game. I still hold as my best MMO experience overall as EQ. I never got past 33 on that game as I played on friends PCs as I didn't have one but I could watch them and the fact that they would camp spawns for a piece of gear and it last them a week+ made it awesome. I seem to play more FPS now than RPG because the massive multi-player experience is more satisfying to me in a FPS over RPG because I feel no accomplishment in most RPGs. Of the MMORPGs I have bought in last 5 years, FFXIV is only one that catches my attention and I have fun with. And I know how much hate that game has gotten but I actually feel like I was having to try in that game.
What do you mean by 'put up or shut up and move on' though...are you expecting me at 42 years of age to quit my profitable career at a time when it's hard to find a good job, go back to college and spend 30 to 60 grand, and then take an internship making minimum wage to get my foot in the door.
I play games to be entertained, just like I watch movies and listen to music. The fact that I am not crazy about the current crop of movies doesn't mean I have any interest in becoming a movie/music director and producer.
So I'll still ask for the things I like. I'll still vote with my dollars. SWTOR is an ok game. It's not horrible. I'm tentatively giving it two months and will reassess. The blinking/flickering/stuttering has improved or completely abated, and the ability delay is much less.
Interesting but wrong, I cut my teeth on swg, pre nge will always be my fav game probably ever but I still like swtor. I gave swtor an 8 and am still playing it but I far prefer sandboxes. So before you take that attitude consider the fact that some of us sandboxers do enjoy games outside of the sandbox genre and you clearly don't speak for us all.
When the masses are moving on along with us, maybe we aren't the minority that the "content locusts" (read: hardcore Themepark lovers) claim we are.
I would agree with you, that the themepark design generally isn't created to last. That being said, there certainly are themepark games which have been able to persist, such as WoW, but they are few and far between. Most often than not, we play these themepark MMO's for a couple months, discover the glaring issues that they almost always carry, and realize how ultimately shallow the experience is. I don't really want to get into a discussion regarding themepark vs. sandbox, but I do believe that this reason, that the design of themeparks is relatively short lived in comparison to sandbox games, is why you see such a vocal community calling these games CRPG's, or CORPG's. They don't even feel massive anymore, or otherworldly. What they do feel like is the same linear style gameplay I get on my consoles, which games contain exactly the opposite in regards to design as I would desire in an MMO.
MMO's of late certainly feel more "gamey", but I don't think that's a good thing. In fact, I think it's the antithesis to the entire concept of the genre. To say MMO's can't exist for all preferences is ridiculous, but there's certainly a philosophical question that developers need to begin confronting: should they be designing MMO's for short term consumption or longevity, and what about their specific design structure keeps their advertised-as-MMO product within the genre.
"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."
Thats the majority since WoW. We call them casuals for a reason as most never played the older mmorpgs!
It took me 6 months to reach level cap in Aion (first time around), just as you suggest in your article.
What happened at launch: "Oh no this game is a massive grind", "It takes too long to level". etc, you have all read the posts, the endless posts!
I personally agree I want to need 3-4 months to level minimum!! However, most gamers seem to be infected by modern (not vanilla) WoW and want to reach max in <1 month. Stupidity if you ask me.
I think SWTOR will be the last US MMO I buy (I am english for those wondering) they are simply too american. Bland and easy, its as though they take a great idea and turn it into fast food and the end game is "do you want cheese with that?"
Please note that was not intended to be anti america just the best example I could think of.
Alot of people want a mmo with a lot to do at max level not just grinding for more gear. Cities are a good start good housing with full decoration and item placment. Good usefull crafting not loot based gear. Reasons to be social that arn't a pain or dreadful reasons that are fun and needed and lots to do at end game for content and rewards to fill both sense of completing it and somthing you would want. Tor has a good story and if you rush your wasting it it think Tor as a game is ok long term it will probley fall off to the wayside like so many mmo's that could have been great. I like Tor but think it will shrink alot in time.
I m currently playing eq2 and swtor. I love both games and see great things still to come, especially in SWTOR. I can t wait for gw2, D3, and PS 2. That said I miss the slow leveling bigtime. I remember when DAOC first came out, it took me 1.5 years to hit max. In that time I looked forward to logging in everyday, because everything felt like an accomplishment. The community was amazing because of this. We needed each other. I also LOVED FFXI, for that reason. Everything and I mean everything had a purpose. Now you don t really need anyone and things feel almost lifeless.
Heres hoping FFXIV 2.0 can be alot more like FFXI, then WOW and i ll be happy again.
Like player driven forums of mmorpg.com? That would be a horrible result.
6 days (not game time) to reach max in TOR? With that statement alone, it's easy to conclude that the author of this article HAS NOT reached max on TOR. TOR has a leveling curve much closer to vanilla WoW than it does current WoW. Unless you're a no-lifer who spends 5+ hours every single day playing a game. In which case, you will never find a game that pleases you. All the major timesinks are old games, like AC and DaoC. The majority playerbase today are not a bunch of no-lifers that have all day to play a game. This is why games are more casual today, the majority of players have a life. For those out there that can't enjoy games like TOR and WoW, it's because you have nothing to do, so you need a game with more to do so you can continue to not have a life.
I can't imagine why. There's nothing even slightly casual about burning through hundreds of hours in content in a week. It takes very concentrated effort. People who play casually, a few hours a week, never finish fast.
It most certainly was NOT leveling speed - it was DPS CHECK RAIDS and PvP systems that took ages to get to the top!
Games nowadays - EVEN WoW - have absolutely no DPS check fights (Ragnaros, Vael, etc etc) that took guilds ages and ages to do because they needed to continually farm for gear in order to bypass the DPS check fights!
I stopped reading after 'corpse runs'. If this author's idea of good game design includes corpse runs, she has zero credibility. ZERO.
Nice column, Isabelle.
I, too, am nostalgic for the old Everquest days, where getting to 50 in and of itself was the end of a long, arduous journey. The leveling speed in Everquest was never important, really, to anyone who played it. I know when I played my druid, the goal for me was never to level. You'd drive yourself crazy! I focused on exploration. Ferrying people from place to place with my ports, making platnium. Occasionally, I'd make an awesome discovery off the beaten trail... and drag a reluctant Monk/Shadow Knight/Rogue with me, away from his usual grind spots, to fear kite animals no one else knew about.
And the community was just awesome for this game, because it had to be. Bad apples didn't make it above level 20 for the most part... as only a handful of classes could actually progress outside of a full group.
But here's the problem: Everquest and the whole MMO Genre was a niche back then. In its current format, it didn't appeal to many but the most hardcore players. Didn't EQ have only like a couple of hundred of thousands of players at its peak? A far cry from the 10 Million WoW has .
It took a game like WoW, which made everything so much easier to do, in order to bring it into the main stream and be enjoyable to the rest of the gaming community.
We'll always remember games like EQ fondly, but we have to accept we're the minority on that. This day and age, people expect to reach level cap in 6 days and have end game content that will last them until the next expansion. It makes companies try to rush and you get absolute CRAP updates like SWTOR 1.1 that drive people away in droves and that put the whole team back another week just trying to fix the stuff they broke, trying to appease the locusts, as you call them.
That's the market nowadays. Either MMO companies have to understand that and do it well, or we're all "going back to WoW." The sad refrain that, even more sadly, holds too much weight.
-Matt
No. Those are decidedly NOT casuals. A casual player has real life commitments outside of the game and can only play maybe 5 hours of the game a week. These players don't race anywhere, lol. But yes, the modern MMO caters to these people, as well they should because it's a huge market. It's the players with no life who then 'abuse' the casual system, and race to max level. Those are NOT casual players.
Learn the difference.
The problem with SWTOR is not how fast you level through the content its the quality of the content you level through. Apart from the fancy cutscenes in SWTOR everything else about the game is lackluster and feels rushed. The same kill X amount of rats type quests from EQ1 is handled no differently than the kill X amount of sandpeople missions in SWTOR and whats worse the dev team added nothing new to the mix like olders MMO's have done with vechile combat, public quests or true epic level quests.
Isabelle , I have been poking around this site since 2004 and this is perhaps the best column I have ever read here. Thank You.
ADHD killed MMO's it your not max level in a week then its to hard, only thing that kills me is the players that just PVP 24/7 then complain its boring, hell anything you do over and over and over is boring.
Soooooooo many people agreeing with the OP...
Yet soooooooooooo many different views of the perfect MMO...
Hands down the best written most true article on this website. Ever. MMORPG's DID used to be about the Journey and now games aren't. SWTOR made all those planets and once you hit max level there is zero reason to visit them ever again.
The problem with games and gamers today is that games that take a long time to do anything are considered grindy but I think its actually because of the horrible job mmo developers do in creating fun content. it wouldnt be grindy if it was fun and challenging.
I think they need to bring back mobs that drop gear they are wearing and to get rid of BoE. In EQ you can get sick gear that is rare droped from named mobs that you will remember for the rest of you MMO life FBSS anyone?. The best part was after you found an upgrade you could still sell or trade that rare item. Every item in game counted for something, but not just dev dumping massive amounts of VT gear that has no use but to trash after you find a fast upgrade. Bring back RAID feel gear that drops off Named mobs and you will fill that void of wanting the best gear in game and the whole raid gear thing gets curved.
P.S. what happened to normal mobs that gave good exp and felt like a challenge?
I think of mmo's as world simulators, so if people run out of things to do in a month or two and are bored, its the game's fault for failing to live up to the expectations of the genre.
If finishing all the quests 'finishes' the mmo, then it wasn't much of an mmo.
The community and world should provide the bulk of the content. If the game doesn't support that then the game is a failure, imo.
I actually like your comment. Although, this won't apply to everyone. But I understand it perfectly. Level progression is not something I would wanna do for 2 months to get to the end game, so I agree with what you said.
I for one haven't played SWTOR yet, mainly because BioWare decided to block IP addresses of my country (Iran), and lock up Iranian gamers who love MMORPG out of SWTOR. I don't want to bore you with my whining about the issue and say that the people who want to play SWTOR are actually those who pay for a legal copy of it and subscribe to the game using gamecards and stuff, so I skip this part and go to my personal experience with my early days of WoW which happened to be during the TBC era.
When I joined WoW, all my friends were already at the end game content and mastered their class, while I was experimenting with what I really want to be for a few days. After I decided that I want to be a Hunter (cool story we had mana those days), I felt this rush that I need to level my character fast because I'm too far behind everyone else. I really tried hard for a month and my progression was really slow mainly because I had to work 8 to 10 hours a day and when I got home I was too tired and I couldn't play more than a couple of hours, and back then we didn't have Dungeon Finder feature, if you wanted to do a dungeon you had to get there on foot after you could manage to find yourself a party. That meant no questing, you had to take a break from questing and find a group of people around your level and get in an instance. I was fortunate enough to have my friends boost me every now and then in the dungeons were close to major cities. All in all due to the time consuming process I felt less and less interested in WoW and eventually bid the game farewell until Wrath of the Lich King, which I badly wanted because of the Death Knight class. You see it was all I ever wanted to be, a death knight.
I think I talk too much, but you get the idea now that why the rush of getting to end game content is important for many people and they have a legitimate claim if they feel unsatisfied with the end-game content of a game they're spending time and money to play.
But playing style and the time people can spare to play a game can vary. You and I work and we have less time to put in our game. Some people might have less issue with the amount of free time they have and they'd rather spend it on their game. It's not fair to say they made poor life choices because they're not enjoying their game as much as you do.
LOL at all the 'walked to school barefoot in the snow up hill both ways' crowd here. Yeah, your generation was SO much better..... :rolleyes:
/getoffmylawn
This guy obviously had no clue about themeparks, he even said hes a sandbox player. The reason people rush to endgame now in WoW is because leveling isnt fun after your first max level, its boring and stupid. I found SWTOR's leveling to be very fun and just hit cap like an hour ago but im hoping that replay value stays with all characters [ which is should because unique storylines and new decisions. Bottom line is- Unless You make leveling stupid fun and add much more content to it then the current gen of themeparks have, there will always be content locusts.
@ dredphyre
Yes, our generation was so much better. Thank you for acknowledging it!
Probably went to the beach because no one was playing Bingo anymore...
I think this is the problem with most current MMOs - they make no pretense to being a virtual world.
Seriously, isn't the persistent world, with a persistent community in that world, the most defining feature of an MMO, in contrast to other RPGs?
Game designers spend millions of dollars to design worlds where hundreds or thousands of players all coexist, and the only thing they can come up with to take advantage of that burgeoning e-society is gear grinds in instances? When boiled down, that's all that most themepark MMOs provide.
Regarding the article, I agree that leveling speed, and pacing in general (including the pacing on instance rewards) is too fast. Still, I think back to the release of Aion, where one of the biggest complaints was that it leveled too slowly. Go figure.
The article sums up my feelings pretty well.
This game was another perfect example of how creating a scenerio in which my characters feel totally disposable by offering insanely fast levelling speed, very little content and zero challenge leads to me quickly feeling it's also a disposable game.
I'm not tied to my level 50 battlemaster. He's of very little worth to me and I didn't get to spend much time with him before running out of things worth doing. I hardly even got to play this character before he'd seen all the operations & flashpoints on hard mode (where available) and was dripping in the best gear available.
Now what? I bit the bullet and tried making an alt, and toughed it out to 36 before I was convinced the game had nothing more to offer me. I was just playing through most of these quests just a week or two ago, that's a bit too soon to swallow them all over again.
Perhaps if there was the option of a less forced path of progression open world dynamics would suffice as content and encourage me to carry on. But there isn't. The world clearly only exists as a place for them to drop their click 10 jug stories in, not for me to adventure in. Plus you'd be shooting yourself in the foot in terms of crafting and companions if you dared to stray from the story they're forcing on you.
It's amazing the lengths themeparks go to creating content only for it to pale in comparison to games that had less linear paths and far less content yet managed to keep me coming back for years due to simple open world dynamics, interactions and the fact they were worlds I could have *MY* adventures in. The dynamics inherent in an open world mmo (pre-instanced/no forced path) would be a great thing to see revisited with modern technology.
This game absolutely proved to me without a doubt that MMOs in which I can have my own experiences that lead to great stories in and of themselves are far better than ones that strictly force you to play through someone elses story; even when that story is provided by the so called kings of rpg story.
Story as the fourth pillar is clearly not a sustainable form of content for anyone intending to play the game as a long term hobby and also failed to make me feel he was *my* character, to be honest it felt like I was renting him.
It's a shame. I wasn't as over the moon about SWG as some of its true and dedicated fans were, and yet I got NINE months out of that one.
Can we go back to having good MMOs now?
For me the problem with Aion was, yes levelling took a long time, but I was only aware of it because I was spending the entire time walking down a predetermined hallway path of repetative tasks.
I can say with certainty that if the game world was open and allowed for me to progress outside of their predefined path, by exploring, adventuring, hunting and delving into dungeons, levelling speed wouldn't have been on my mind.
To be honest I didn't even mind that it was slow, I minded that it was a slow walk down a long tedious hallway.
You don't know the half of it. We didn't tell you about the wolves because your school psychologist didn't think it was a good idea.
You know you don't have to come to this article with an agenda. Skill based systems are not better or worse; its just a different style.
There isn't an agenda there. It's not an agenda simply because you disagree with it or make an inference there.
The truth is that there wasn't an end game to Ultima Online. I defy you to find one. Not to mention you weren't pigeon holed into sticking with a single character you made years ago.
Because EQ had the best item system in place. You could make use of all the gear you collected on all your characters. Except for the no-drop stuff; which I wished were tradeable at that time. (but for reasons on how PVP worked on some of the servers (Rallos Zek anyone?) it made sense to have some no drop gear so players wouldn't lose all their gear when getting killed by other players.)
items like what you mentioned plus the infamous "Fungi Tunic" were not overpowered, but very useful for leveling up a new character and actually had worth and value because those items were rare and provided beneficial value to the player (health regen, combat procs, beneficial buffs on click, etc), due to the god awful 4hr spawn time with a chance of the named mob spawning or a regular npc spawning in his place made those items that valuable and sought after.
Not everyone could sit there forever camping the mob for hours on end, people back then respected other players who were camping a mob and waited in line to camp it next when that player left. Sometimes people would attempt to kill steal, but it wasn't worth it if you didn't know when it spawned exactly because you would of had to know when it was last killed exactly. Sometimes because of peoples schedules especially early in the morning the spawn was free for grabs. A lot of the time people logged out around the spawn just to check if the spawn was free.
Another aspect, trains to zone, when mobs aggro'd you regardless of your level even if it's con level to you was gray actually chased you across the zone until you zoned out. The mobs would then stay there for awhile, confused where you went and would either walk back to their spawn points or attack other nearby players. Those mobs who walked back were still available to get attacked, we had no (Evade, Evade, Evade, Evade) and weird super speed back to their spawn points like we do now.
Then the player controlled economy was pretty fun before they implemented bazaar's (auction house). People gathered in the commons tunnel posting what they were selling in chat. Was a very social and special environment, players dueling, showing off their characters, little visual trinkets, etc. Really made the experience even for how boring it could have been. Because you had no prices to match up with what others were selling the same item at, it became more of a bargain type of situation, where you could negotiate prices even trade coin + other valuable gear for the item you were wanting. Sometimes because there was no bazaar, people could really work the market by buying low and selling high at different times of the day.
These are some of the memories I remember from my beginning experiences of MMO'ing mainly with EQ, even though there were some annoying parts and hard grind issues with leveling the overall atmosphere of the game and the life it had socially was very effective in accomplishing that goal.
Would you rather take a long ass train ride through the desert, where you might see 1 or 2 amazing sights?
Or would you rather take a ride half that distance, but through a place where you see something that floors you at least twice as much?
The content they make in today's game is quality, not just bullshit filler like in the old days. If you really prefer the original EQ questing to a game like SWTOR you're batshit insane, I'm sorry.
And I also guaranfuckingtee you will not be writing an article about this when GW2 comes out even if you level at the exact same rate as today's game. Why? Because it's f2p.
I know it's probably asking a lot, but I would just love to see the new generation of MMO Gamer experience some of the things that I did in the dark ages of MMO's. The things that keep me searching for that fix. That feeling of actual fear for my character as I'm exploring a new area. The feeling of accomplishment when I finished my Soulfire quest. Or that feeling of placing my fire gem in my peerless atlan claw for the first time on Darktide. Or discovering my level 3 stamina to mana after countless fizzles and bags of spell components. There is no sense of real accomplishment any more and it makes me sad that I may never experience that again in any MMO.
But enough of nostalgia. I haven't seen one person mention ArcheAge in this thread yet. If you haven't looked at it yet, I advise you to do so. This game may be the light at the end of a very long tunnel that I've been looking for.
Here's the problem, you think you're the majority... but you're not... you're actually the minority. The majority of people have jobs, have school, have lives, and have committments. I don't say this to be slanderous towards you but I am merely saying that these people have a lot of other things to do. The vast majority of SWTOR's gamer base isn't even Level 50 yet. There might be 10% of the population that are Level 50 (maybe).
People who play MMOs generally feel that their subscription fee entitltes them to new content, as if their subscribing is payment for more content, it's not. Your subscription is a fee for using their server's bandwidth.
While leveling speed is part of the issue ... I guess I'm a hardcore player if I hit the Rift level cap in 2 weeks? The issue is really the challenge.
MMOs have become mind numbing, clicking fests where time invested = accomplishment. That's what's boring. You don't need to think about leveling up or gear or anything. Leveling naked in a number of MMOs is a totally valid path and that's not right.
Im just disapointed in the beta testers wtf did they do i would like to know ,pvp sucks unbalanced abd totally usless graphic bugs , skill lags etz i mean wtf .. this game could be rly good perhaps it will in future but by then noone will play it .
Same story as with most of other new mmos that came out latley
What a horrid, horrid article.
It postulates that these locusts somehow ruin the game by going too fast, while at the same time acknowledging that these locusts are tiny in number. If the rest of the population is going at a normal pace, what's the problem?
Oh really, the devs are listening to these locusts at the exclusion of everyone else? Then why is it that every new game that comes out takes less and less time to level to max? If they were listening to these locusts, people would be complaining about the how long it takes to level, and not the other way around.
What a sham.
TERA already got critized for that in Korea...
I agree entirely with this article. I am one of those players that loves the journey and not interested in the end content at all. However I am a sandbox lover at heart but I don't min theme park when done well.
I have this problem with almost all MMO's. I hate seeing my missions (some which I want to do) turn grey and then I just have to cancel because I can't seem to level slow.
I don't want an XP decrease so you have to kill 20 rats instead of 10 but more content that takes time to complete but its ok if its half decent. Alternatively, games like vanguard have a nice system of crafting having its only levelling process. I enjoyed that.
Unfortunately, 99% of 'beta testers' don't test / report anything. They're in it to get a head start when the game releases or to just play the game for free for a while.
Once again, this was expected, you may try to rationalise it as you wish but I had forseen this and expressed this in my posts months ago, even years ago about this game.
Yes maybe the force is strong with me afterall. ;)
This best explains the reason I don't play mmo's anymore. I go to this website in the faint hope a new, better, yet unforgiving everquest comes out. I don't want Everquest exactly, mind you. I just don't want little to no content, speed thru levels, and quite frankly i hate raiding. I always have.. when EQ starting becoming more and more about raiding, I lost interest. Perhaps I am a product of a bygone MMO age, but I want to earn those levels, that equipment. I want to feel I accomplished something. Not that I consumed the content in a zone and moved onto the next one.
One of my co-workers started playing SWTOR at release and when he told me hit level cap a week or two ago I told him "That's not good". Mind you this guys only other MMO was WOW. I explained that if you cap that quickly, you're going to end up with nothing to do but some PVP zones and raids most likely. The game will quickly loose subscribers. He explained the PVP was good and the raid he did was fun. He told me just today that he was quitting at the end of his monthly subscription. When I asked why he said he had "Done everything and all there was left was PVP which we was getting bored of". Bad news.
1st of all I am shocked. This article implies that a writer for mmorpg.com hit lvl cap in a MMO. That has to be a 1st. I thought you people here only wrote about games not played them. But then again playing 1-50 in ToR is really not playing a MMO now is it?
Blaming players who actually play the game for the lack of content is assinie. The ones hitting the level cap in 2 days are not the problem. The problem are the people they want easy dumbed down leveling. Without these people we would have much slower paced and longer journey which would give companies time to develop endgame. teh seocnd problem is ToR devoted all their money and time to voice overs and did not test their endgame. Now people wonder why the endgame is so buggy and terrible. Look at Rift who be tested their endgame content for 6 months prior to release and one can see that tis possible to releae agmae with good finished endgame content.
This is a bunch of crap, people complaining becaue they always complain, they dont have anything better to do other than complain, if the game is like this.. They complain...
If the game is slow pace, then they complain because is slow and boring and grindy....
Screw this, we live in the Complaining Age!!!!!
I agree with this article on most of its points. It is one reason I am looking forward to The Secret World. You start the game at "cap", so to speak, and cash in xp for 500+ skills. The entire game world is viable from start to finish.
As for SWTOR, I've been playing the same character since Dec 13th and I'm currently level 39 and having a great time. Its more than just slowing down. Players and developers both need to approach themepark mmos differently. People log in and if they are not level capped, then their entire goal is to hit level cap. I'm constantly going back and visiting old areas, helping out lower level players, exploring for datacrons, crafting, running 'grey' space missions and quests. I rarely power through an area.
It is one thing I really like about SWTOR, Ive skipped a planet's story arc and just focused on my class story on that planet. Then I'll go back later and breeze through the planet's story arc and just take in the story and scenery. Yeah I didnt get any xp, and the rewards were all vendored. But it was a nice break from some other planet I was on and more than a few times, Ive come in and saved the day for some lower level players on 4+ heroics.
At some point in my mmo gaming career, I stopped worrying about if I'm supposed to be somewhere after a certain time, or should I be bored yet. I stopped playing games for what I wanted them to be and just took them for what they were. If that wasnt fun, I moved on. But its not hard to find things you enjoy when you take the time to actually do things that you like.
So true.
Excellent thread OP.
The things many of us old school MMO players enjoyed about the MMO's of old(AC, UO, EQ) would be considered too tedious by todays ADD gamers. They can't be bothered with things like corpse runs, burden, or in the case of UO and AC, figuring out what skills work best together to have an effective character. Cookie cutter class archetypes, the trinity, and arcade gameplay rule the day now.
In AC I enjoyed things like fletching to make different types of missles for my archers to use. I liked the old system of trial and error to learn higher level spells. I liked having a big open world without NPC's with "!" above their head so I had to interact with and explore the world to find out what adventures there were to get in to.
I have actually gone back to AC1 after my 30 days of SWTOR really drove home the point that the genre is in a serious rut. Yeah the graphics suck, but the gameplay is unparalleled(save UO) in today's games, or any games since 2004. As much I don't want to wish failure for Bioware, it would do the genre good IMO for that game to fail massively so that maybe developers and investors will realize that themeparks are played out.
As someone earlier in the thread so eloquently put it, it's time to go backwards to move the genre forward.
Actually just saw these two posts and had to reply.
I beta tested SWTOR. Please don't be disappointed in us.
We reported bugs, numerous suggestions were made to improve gameplay and it was all ignored by Bioware/EA.
Once they announced the Dec 20 launch date, their only focus was to get the game in a functional enough condition to launch.
We did our job as testers, Bioware/EA failed you.
I think the point you may be missing is that for many people there was no long train ride through a desert, everything you did was part of an ongoing experience; good, bad, frustrating, satisfying, fun, funny or fantastic. There was actually a wide range of experiences to be had, a broad spectrum rather than the one dimensional, shallow experience of easy win, fast to level, zero risk linear themeparks.
Travelling through Nektulos forest at night for example, wasn't just runnning with zero risk to the next bland and generic quest hub, it could go any number of ways and that's why you'd find people at zone in waiting to make the run with others for safety. It was actually a lot of fun. And that's not even including any of the GM run events, which actually used to be a real thing.
I know it's hard to imagine in the safety net linear path MMO emulator world of today (WoW and it's plethora of clones) but these zones were large, very dark, very dangerous and you had something at risk.
That right there alone has more of the makings of an adventure than sending me out to safely click something giant and glowing 20 feet from the menial task distrubtor in quest hub #32, and in those cases, something that actually caused the community to interact in a positive way (you know, in a way other than coming up with 'clever' remarks involving Chuck Norris, insults or jumping on the chest someone else is clearly fighting towards).
You mention EQ questing, the irony is EQ was very, very light on guided content. However the quests they *did* have generally involved some reliance on brain power, effort, usually friends, and in the cases of epic weapons over the years, working with many other members of the community to solve quests over a period of months - *that* was something worth doing, that was an accomplishment to be proud of.
That's another irony, those were more true to the term 'quest' than these ridiculous five minute chores involving clicking 10 cows justified by some low brow pop culture reference that some call content.
The level of commitment & communal interaction required to see anything worth doing through to completion was something I certainly appreciated. There was actually room to set yourself apart as well - not everyone was wearing the exact same bland gear from the exact same raid token merchants (yawn). The worlds were large and varied, as were the rewards.
And for the record, nothing in any WoW clone themepark has ever 'floored' me, it all felt like they'd taken previous games, had a pre-school teacher child proof everything and remove all the sharp edges leaving no basis for comparison. Everything was just fast and easy and after a time, tedious as there were no peaks and troughs, no variance in experiences to establish reference.
It's unfortunate that it sounds preachy to you, but you'll just have to accept the fact that clearly not everyone's in as much of a rush as you are to get on with it and be done with it.
As for Guild Wars 2, it doesn't sound like they're relying on the WoW/Swtor quest hub grind as the primary means of content delivery, so I'm sure (or at least hope) they'll have a rate of advancement suitable for their world and its events. Even if it does end up being another shallow and bland fast paced sprint to max level, at least they're trying something different. I'm pleased about that, whether the game ends up appealing to me or not, it's very satisfying to see people in the industry finally saying 'You know what? This whole linear quest hub grind thing is really getting old, let's try something different'.
And it's about time.
I think it is wrong to blame the player for this, while some managed to max level in swtor by week 1 those was quite few in the grand scheme of things.
Most people will use a while, think i had 2 weeks to get to 40 and those was some pretty hardcore game houres. But i did play solo for the most part and if group content award alot more exp, this will scew my view some.
The problem is the devs, they follow the wow formula that is now. They forget that wow had a long exp curve in the start then reduced the exp when they had content to back it up, rift and swtor failed to see this when they released.
They thought leveling was nr1 priority and content 2nd while wow noticed this from the start.
I could not agree more with this article. I havnt played SWTOR for this very reason. ALot of my buddies are playin it and they are all complaining about this very issue. Getting to max level should BE the endgame of a just launched MMO. Their should be entry level dungeons to get you ready for what will be coming up. And if your saying getting to 60 is original WoW didnt take you long or wasnt somewhat challenging your full of shit. Especially on a PvP server you could lose days of leveling because you were constantly fighting eachother. Which was fucking awesome.
This is the bullshit bratty new MMO crowd that wants their purples now and doesnt wanna do anything to earn it. And of course the devs will cater to them because they represent the vast majority of the player base and their sub fees. What a shame.
I came to this article late, but I have been saying this for years...
Those who are blown away wondering why people like me want more social, sandbox/hybrid games might start understanding now. These themepark games with their carrot and stick speed-leveling style appeal to the same part of your brain that gambling does. Things are moving fast and it feels like you are having fun, but the feeling is very short-lived and superficial. If you never played Star Wars Galaxies and you wonder why so many of us loved that broken game, it's because despite what was missing or not working right, we still had a community and we had a freaking blast in something much more like a virtual world. I'm not saying SWG was the best game ever made, but I am saying it was the kind of game that you lived-in, made long time friends in, adventured, made your own content, and many people played it for *years* not 1-3 months.
It was at least a year ago when I looked at TOR and said multiple times that this game was going to be the ultimate expression of linear themepark design, and I meant that statement as a bad thing. It is, and it's a nightmare. To take a lore like Star Wars and waste it on a game that only lasts for a month or two is just sad. Bioware can add as much new content as they want, but it won't fix this game. They need to start thinking sandbox-hybrid and social.
If, as the author suggested, they are happy with 3 months of player retention and then a F2P model, then let us all *PRAY* it dies quickly so someone with more vision can get the license and try again.
I'm not just looking at TOR here. I'm looking at games I want to play in the future too, such as Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World. I hope devs are paying attention here. The gamers that came to this genre with WoW are now sick of WoW, and they are ready for something new. I've been ready for something new for years because I know what the other side looks and plays like, and it is so much better; so much more.
IMO, among the many, many problems with this "MMORPG" is the fact it is level based. Everything is overaly "cut-an-paste", and it feels like they took the worst elements from every mmo, rather than the best -- having spent too much time on the voice acting element, imo.
How about this: Most ppl that play mmos don't care about story, they care about gameplay.
Those "locusts" only want to kill monsters and other people with a light saber. Can you blame them? They don't care about what the artificial intelligence is communicating with the silly objective of trying to make them feel like a hero when they know everybody else in the game is the same and play the same story.
Let's look at what's really going on. In the case of 2004 to present, the reason why end game comes soon is because the real grind starts then. There's no immersive pvp, so there's nothing to fight over or get your blood boiling over. Missed an instanced BG with a buddy or your 7 year old son? No problem just push the button ----> twice.
The real grind is gearing up until a particular expansion negates your hard work. Read - WoW corporate model.
problem is mmo was build on attachment nowadays the games are detached and quitting is so easy .back then the mere thought of leaving your online comrades was unthinkable.
What is generally forgotten is that leveling fast or slow must have appropriate number of quest to accomplish that goal. SWTOR has very few quests, I had to do all, the quests I could find in many areas, just to make level, few quests, or lack of content means faster leveling. Also remember SWTOR has special quest for each class of character, this is great for that character but ultimately it’s a lot of resources wasted on one class. This debate is more about content, or that lack of it.
I would like to see Developers built 'challenge' into the fun factor of the process -- so that you can be defeated a number of times, but still have fun.
I enjoyed EQ, partically because of the enjoyment of overcomming the difficulties that it had -- trains, aggressive mobs, mix level roaming mobs, even the dreaded 'corpse runs' offered some element of challenge and enteratinment for me.
Now I obviously can see that not everyone enjoyed that much difficulty, but I am now seeing similarly not everyone enjoys the lack of some difficulty, imo.
SWTOR is a horrible example of a game that "doesn't deserve to fail"
SWTOR is failing because it is literally lacking the most basic mmo functionality.
No combat log
no chat bubbles
tons of load screens
No lfg in a game that is heavily instanced.............that is super fail.
No pvp score board, heck you can't even choose which pvp maps you want to play.
Don't blame the players for not wanting to resub to a bad game. I wanted to like it and leveled a shadow to 50 but the fact is the game is in beta still and im not paying for that.
SWTOR is terrible {mod edit}
It's well deserved - too.
With such a budget it's a shame to see what the game brings to the table. It's WoW in space with 2005 graphics with some added flirty flirty and voiceovers.
Makes me sad because I love Star Wars and Bioware managed to ruin a shot at having a good SW mmo for a while
I think your analysis of WoW is a little over simplified. By your own admission, vanilla WoW's leveling was no where near as fast as it is today. Where Bioware screwed up, is they assumed the same thing you did - that the current rate of leveling in WoW is a by-product of miss-information from the "locusts".
The truth is that WoW's leveling rate evolved with the content. Blizzard, love em or hate em, are NOT dummies. 7 years in, they realise that their veteran player base does not want to spend a year leveling their alts. WoW has the end-game content to support it's max-level player base. SWTOR does not. So, it was stupid for Bioware to release a game that has the current 7 years in WoW leveling speed, because WoW is in a whole other universe content wise.
That Bioware would release a game that shepherds you through the content that quickly and offers nothing at the finish line is completely bafflig to me. I played EQ1 for 4 years, and yes that was a mighty grind. I also remember working really hard on WoW and how excited I was the first time we beat Rag and Onyxia - probably 8 or 9 months in. Blizzard wasn't stupid - they paced the content based on their own development schedule. They still do, that's why they own the market right now.
Bioware is ensuring that everyone who hit's 50 right now will only remember the boredom it instilled at max level.
Yeah, this got a 9/10 on mmorpg somehow. =\
Love the way the the article blames those paying fans for consuming the game to fast. How dare they expect more... gasp!
If someone wants to sell me an MMO that takes 10x longer to reach level cap. I ask that it have 10x the number of unique quests and zones. Otherwise you can get that experience with asian grinders.
I played for the first month. I liked it... but to many bugs wernt being fixed, and i feel like im playing a single player rpg on my xbox rather than playing an actuall mmo. The games good, but not worth $15 a month. The only super hero/comic/movie mmo ill ever play is city of heroes. Now that is a real game, they have one of the best grouping system.
"Faster leveling trivializes the content devs work so hard to bring us and leads to a bunch of disappointed max level folk who don’t have enough to do and who feel as though they got bait-and-switched"
No truer words...
As to how it happened, well first the holy trinity was ground underfoot in the forums (Fighter, healing, Crowd Control) and a lot of posters wanted a change. Then hybreds were invented, they did nothing great, but enough good to break up the trinity.
Then, pick up groups got ground underfoot, crucified, hit by a bus and ravaged by a pack of wolves in forums everywhere, so no one wanted to PUG, then everyone wanted soloable content and the ability to solo the game.
Soloing the game led to speeding up the game, because no one wanted to play the game alone and wanted that end game experience.
Faster leveling killed crafting and guilds, further reducung the community feel and the want to work together alltogether.
Mounts or the ability to teleport anywhere... In early MMO's, you had to travel in groups to survive or if you were lucky enough you knew a druid (gasp) who could get you anywhere from 1/2 to 2/3rds to your destination.
The last killer of games (the big one) was the internet itself, that ability to google, looking up maps, quest completion, hot items and short cuts, the DAY, the freakin DAY the game is released. That or slap down $19 and buy the book (cheaper if you buy it on release day with the game), all your in game problems solved.
To me, the day the music died was when I watched a Bard(hybred) solo an area that my group was trying to get items from for a quest. The Bard could heal, CC, tank, insta travel and had the added bonus of the ability to keep your beer cold. It was then that I knew that gaming would not ever be the same as there was no longer the need for a group.
Wanted: An MMO with crafting, exploration, individual abilities, housing, guilds, no cookie cutter avatars, guild towns and at least one knock down drag out guild disagreement over a window sconce in the guild buildings foyer.
I don't think it's wrong to ask for more content if you pay a sub. The box value earns you the content that ships with the game. If I've achieved everything there is in a mmo, the only reason I have left to play is for social purposes. There are plenty of F2P games that can accomplish this, even if they lack polish.
I find it amusing how so many mmos will offer me some free time to come back to the game and that time is often sufficient enough for me to complete the majority of the content that was developed in the past 3-4 months I've been gone.
The leveling speed isn't the problem here. Sure, if EA/Bioware had prolonged the leveling experience a month or two they probably could have squeezed some more dollars out of the initial player base, but that wouldn't solve the issues that currently exist. It would have only bought them more time to fix things.
I feel player driven content/activies will really be the success of future mmos.
Valkaern,
I may be contradicting myself entirely by agreeing with you on a lot of your points...but you're totally right. They do hold your hand. They do show you exactly where to go, exactly what to be, exactly what you're "supposed" to do. And it's bullshit, and somehow...we're ok with that.
I'm not saying it's needs to be a themepark, by any means. But there does need to be a sense of freedom every player gets to enjoy, which I haven't found in the past 5 years aside from EVE(which is its own beast entirely). To me exploration and figuring out obstacles on my own, or with the help of others, is extremely important, and can seriously build a community. It is THE most important thing to me in an RPG, and only means that much more in an mmo.
I won't sit here and lie about how I used to play mmos back in the day, because I didn't. My first online game, and yes I mean online game period, was Guild Wars. It was mostly because of our financial situation blah blah blah, either way, that game was my foray into the online world. That said, I don't ignore what past gamers, like yourself, have said about the golden age of mmos. I find it extremely important in the design of future games, not just mmos, and it shouldn't be ignored like it has been. While I wasn't a huge fan of what I've read and watched about the older questing system, I hate the current one even more. I love the content, but I cannot stand the way it is delivered.
Which is why I'm hoping GW2 will change it. After watching videos, though, I honestly think it's going to be just another hand holder in the way it delivers content. I love ArenaNet, their philosophies, everything about them. I just don't think they're going to give a ton of room for that exploration aspect I yearn for.
I don't know if I really have a point in all this babbling, or if I'm making sense. I just don't want you to think of me as a current ignorant mmoer(we both know what I'm talking about), and that I really do respect what this entire genre was built on. I love gaming, and I like this genre, but something needs to seriously be done to save it. Unfortunately the majority is filled with ignorant impatient kiddies who jump from one mmo to another like a plague of locusts.
I totally Agree
Unfortunately, 99% of 'beta testers' don't test / report anything. They're in it to get a head start when the game releases or to just play the game for free for a while.
Could not agree more, I would add though that the direction games have taken was to attract the largest base possible, all the while attracting console and first person shooter types of gamers, who traditionally do not like MMOs. So, therefore we have a large contingent of non-MMO gamers driving development of MMOs.
The opposite of this is the sandbox virtual world, and I think more people are oppening up to its possibility. Especially so with the popularity of titles such as Skyrim, and other open-world sandboxy SPRPGs. Light speed progression, and empty endgame mechanics are getting stale.
my apologies for the double post. went afk to watch a movie and it posted again for some reason.
With 288 posts in this thread I will probably be repeating a lot of stuff allready said but here goes anyways. The reason you can "outlevel" content IE quests by a large margin in games like SWToR is because the devs have to make sure even the most inept people can reach max level by just running quests and doing nothing else. When the main leveling mechanism in a game is turning in a quest - there has to be enough quests to reach max level or the game becomes excruciating. Champions Online was the best example of what happens when you dont have enough quests to reach max level that I can think of.
The difference between games like EQ back in 2000 and current games - most especially post WoW games is that the main leveling mechanism in EQ was killing things. If you got xps for quests it was usually trivial with the exception of a few hand in quests such as several of the bone chip quests. For those they werent trivial because you could buy the hand in item off of vendors at a level where xps were still good.
The only thing EQ then needed were zones that were interesting enough to hold your attention for X number of days.When you got high enough level you simply moved to the next zone - you didnt have to worry about unfinished quests. The thing you might have worried about was whether or not you got a special drop. In fact the game began to pace itself off of moving from one special drop area to the next and the levels and xps came as a sidenote to to that.
I personally prefer that model over the quest leveling model so long as the content itself is still interesting enough to hold my attention in its own right. For those who argue the EQ model was just grinding mobs etc and very boring - I say the quests have done nothing to change the grind - it is simply packaged differently - doing a thousand kill quests is just as boring as simply killing a thousand individual mobs.
If the game is fun in and of itself, however, the leveling mechanic doesnt really matter. The length of time to reach max level and "end" game content are simply measures of how many hours the game can potentially hold a player that enjoys the overall experience before they get bored and move on. Today's games usually hold between 100 and 150 hours of gameplay for me before I get bored and move on. EQ held me for over a year of played time - I did get bored from time to time, however there was enough to keep me engaged and keep playing.
I will refute one statement in the original article stating WoW's leveling curve wasnt that fast etc. I distinctly remember reports of max level characters within the first week maybe two weeks of WoW's release. Yes they were powergamers who played beta and knew the game - yet that isnt so much different than current games and WoW was the first AAA title I am aware of with a leveling curve that shallow. That leveling curve was the #1 reason I never purchased WoW and never played WoW. WoW is what set the mold for easy mode advancement to max level in MMO's.
The rate of leveling needs to fit the amount of content. If you're having to skip 3/4 of the content in order to avoid stuff that you're overleveled for, then the leveling is too fast (or else the content is too slow; sometimes the solution is to replace kill 50 rats by kill 10 rats). If you're doing all of the content and then having to spend 2/3 of your time grinding in order to get to the next batch of content, then the leveling is too slow.
One problem with six months to max level is, what about people who like to play alts? Now, that's fine if your game is set up so that one character does everything. But most MMORPGs (including essentially all class-based MMORPGs) aren't that way.
It may sound silly but one subtle change from everquest to recent games is that you could hand the guards torches and they would use them.
You could essentially change the theme of a city through gifts.
---
Another one is merchants not being able to resell goods. I remember buying hidden items off merchants in everquest in popular areas that were behind trash items... Stacks of spider silk etc. And sometimes expensive crafting items or some really decent weapon or armor that for some reason someone sold.
I remember buying back lots of useful things in asherons call that people sold to merchants. This was especially true in the old old days when you had to ID items and people just sold stuff they couldnt ID to shop and then it could be OMG wow -- Sword 6 Sols...
WoW (older MMO) has to balance three goals:
1. Provide character development.
2. Provide content for veteran players.
3. Allow new players to play with veteran players (hence: fast-leveling).
New MMOs have to balance one goal since there are no veteran players:
1. Provide character development.
Why new MMOs start with the false premise that games must be born with extensive end-game content and a fast way to get there is beyond me unless they just follow WoW's current model hoping for WoW's success.
WoW devs don't like excellerated leveling - it's a lesser of two evils for an aging game. The reason this "works" as a fix for WoW is that a buddy can start brand-new to the game and within days/weeks, instead of months, join a group with my characters. Again, not an issue with new games where everyone starts at the beginning.
This strawman of "Content Locusts" and how WoW is developed to cater to them is simple bologna. The incentive to reach a certain point of progression in a game fast is so your character can fight side-by-side with friends that have progressed faster for whatever reason. The only content that gets the streamline-express treatment is years old content. The current WoW model is less than ideal but strikes a very fine balance for brand new players as well as release-day players. I remember the days from EQ & even WoW when the journey wasn't trivial. The problem is not that developers are catering to "Content Locusts" or hardcore players, but that developers are developing the new games with the self-fufilling prophecy that the journey has to be short so the journey can end. Game over.
Thumbs up on this article.
I watched every cutscene and did every side quest i could do without hitting the spacebar and for some reason the content still did not last over 23 days, so maybe the reason why the "Locust" killed the game so fast was because the "Farmers" only had enough "Crop" for the weekend>?. With 200 million dollars against Archages not even half the amount and 5x the content they should look at how a gaming company is supposed to do work.
However this was still my favorite Fable 3 version game with 2 more people allowed onto my co-op experience, but the endgame ruined all so called immersion when i relised the lack of responsability after i was exploited at illum over and over.
Who know thou this might have been the smoothest mmo launch supposedly for those that never played other mmo's besides wow. I have played games like Aion where I only encountered 1 crash the whole 4 months I played the reason why i stoped playing thou was that I thought the territory worked like WoE's on RO, however once I found out it was just over glorified capture the bases I felt like it was not the game for me.
I would like it however if you stopped blaming the people that care about the games when they turn out to be duds after you fire your staff that wanted to warn us about said issues. I hit hide my headgear i was wearing a robe the hood never came down\???? this sint a bug says the forums we were just to lazy to make jedi robes 2 pieces.
How can the PvP be unbalanced when the two factions have exactly the same abilities to bring to the table? The numbers are perfectly copied. Do you mean the populations are unbalanced?
People who view the endgame as the only game worth playing want it to take longer to get there? What are you talking about?
Not all of us rushed to the end and got bored. A very large chunk of us working people, people with families and social lives - we who didnt rush to the end, are still very happily plodding through.
I started on Early Access Day One. And I am now level 34. I have played most days.
Most of my guild is the same, with a few of the unemployed guys having hit 50 last week. The rest are all mid-30's.
The game is not designed for unemployed grinders. Sorry folks, but thats the way it is.
I totally agree with the OP. I hate that these new games are just about end game grind and PvP. Where is the chance to experience the world the devs have made.
It took me one month with my slow going to get to 50, now I'm bored and don't know if I have will to flash another char to the boring 50. As the OP said, in older days (like EQ, which I played since Kunark came out) it took you days to get a single level. And that level actually meant something, you had worked to get that level. Nowdays you get 3-5 levels a day and getting a new level don't mean a thing except it's time to get new and better gear.
About us Beta testers of SW:tOR having done nothing during Beta. Get a life and stop whining about something you have no idea. Yes, I beta tested the game for several months before release and no I didn't do a single PvP match in that time. Why? Because PvP isn't my thing and games aren't only about PvP.
It's sad that majority of gamers nowdays seem to think that MMO's are only about endgame PvP. I really have no idea when that has happened in the MMO gamers, but it's sad as game companies will then grind out games for them and they generally keep playing few months and then quit. Bringing the game and the company down with them.
Heh, add to that this new 'PAtch all Friday Night' debaucle, and you have recipe for dissatisfied customers...
To show my Dissatisfaction, I un-subscribed from TOR - seriously, a patch on a friday night? won't be up again till Saturday morning? WTF man!
so, now I'm unsubscribed, and we'll see if I re-up. that was really lame TOR, I'm Chalk Full of Caffine, and had a group of friends, all online and in Vent readdy to play for the night, and you go and shud down your servers?
Who does that in this day and age!!!! not even the worst games, that's who.
Sigh - any way, my sub is gone. Can you earn it back?
zWolf -out.
welcome to casual mmo's which make allllll the money if you want a difficult hard lvling game that takes forever that will make just enuff money maby to keep running and people say things about WoW which the lvling for that game is far easier to reach max lvl then swtor is by alot i go tto max 50 lvl in about a week of alot of game time and in WoW get to max lvl ins 3 days tops no problem with no help.and WoW is a cash cow now look at all the hardcore games hard to lvl they don't have the pop like the casual ones do so if you want a good game like wow with hard lvling and whatever else it will be hard to see happen due to the companies want to make the $$$$ and not make you hardcores happy but the casual players so they keep coming back.
GW2 will be the same wonder why it's free to play? well they don't expect much to do with the game and since it's freetoplay people will not care and be happy about the game even if it will be easy to play like WoW and others.
You can't satisy everyone so get over your selves and don't bother playing the game you complain about and shut up and go play some MW3 where all the noobs go lol.
Welcome to a new mmo where in the first months you will get downtimes that are not sche'ed like the ones on tuesday are so have fun QQ'ing but you will be back the QQ'ers usally do. Probly your first MMO ever that you started from start and if you say no and this never happen in those you are a LIAR since no game is perfect at launch EVER.
Also get a job and maby your lvling will slow down lol.
Last time i checked internet comps and the game all costed money so? Maybe you should not hav the 1-DioT probelm and stop spamming lol? What you think if you post 50 times to somones 1 time that make you right. Thats what makes you a TROLL. I have a job I do not like this game it has more problems then it should I work for the state WE DO NOT WORK WEEKENDS I should be ablt to do WHATEVER I WANT on MY free TIME(ESPECIALLY WHEN I PAY FOR IT). Maybe you need to get a better jobs with weekends off not working random shift at Mikky Dee's and comming here taking out your agresion on people.
I think you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
1. 3 factions can be just as imba as 2 factions. Just because I add in a third faction doesn't make it easier to balance, it probably makes it harder. It's nice having these random FFA sessions but what happens when you still have the same class imbalance that EVERY GAME (not just MMOs) has? Starcraft 2 was betaed almost 2 years ago and is STILL being rebalanced. What makes you think ArenaNet will be able to get a 3-faction game right?
2. Leveling is not supposed to be hard in an MMO it is supposed to be fun. I found SWTOR's leveling fun and could not pull myself from the story. When the servers went down tonight i was really upset because I was really close to finishing my smuggler story.
3. Every MMO has killing stuff quests. There are also escort quests. There are looting things quests. There are destroying things quests. There are space mini-game quests. There are delivery quests. There are companion/pet quests. Just because you kept hitting the space bar every time someone talked doesn't mean the game was just about killing stuff.
4. It was designed this way on purpose. Basically in any MMO after the first launch which inevitably loses subscription basis after a mere two weeks the starter zones and the leveling path from 1-49 is pretty empty. So to combat that they designed the game based around a single player experience for the 1-50 leveling. In my travels during its launch I have had nothing short of groups and have conquered a tonne of world bosses. I actually liked this better than the standard world launch where everyone is stealing every single mob and you don't get a chance to enjoy the game.
5. Choices may not have a consequence to you, but they do to everyone else. Choices mean whether companion affection goes up or down. Choices mean whether you get light side or dark side points. Choices change the story in a dynamic way. The only instance I did in this game was "The Esseles" and throughout the game everyone refers to me as "The Hero of The Esseles" which I assume would change.
You're looking for a game that does not exist. If you are so upset with every MMO that comes out, try playing an RPG. See how 'lmiting' these games feel and how little you get out of them. I got about 100 hours of of Skyrim, I've gotten 120 hours just from leveling in SWTOR.
It's like...they want a AAA old school game, but don't want the crowd that comes with the AAA label.
I do agree very much with most of what the author said so far! Leveling IS fun! And the social aspects of an MMO is as if not more important than anything else in the game. SWTOR is just missing out many of the social interfaces, Without social aspects of the game, the game is NEVER immersive at all. It'll be no different from a single player game.
The problem with SWTOR and other current MMO games is they are quest driven. A while back, some person posted they hated "grinding" on mobs to get to level cap. I wanted to choke him for the comment. Modern games are now quest driven, and in order to make the game take longer, the fact is "you will have to add more and more quests!!!"
This means a HUGE amount of "kills 10 rats" quests and holly hail, please not that!!
Everquest and AC both were amazing games because you leveled from adventure and killing world mobs. It was "the hunt" and the danger that gave us those fond memories. It was the social cooperation of guilds working together for economy, raid mobs, and other content.
The phrase " Ding " and "Grats" came from EQ1 and it was because when you leveled in this game, it really was praise worthy. You truely accomplished somthing and the community recognized this.
When you would quest, it was for somthing very very very improtant like zone access, extremely rare item or weapon, or other very difficult things.
Please stop the quest grinding. Lets get back to world adventure and actually killing of mobs.
Your "content locusts" are just a scapegoat.
People who chew through content are not why this game is being "killed".
The pillar of story was brought to the MMO space by Bioware EA. It's the only leg this game stands on and is worth the play through for the story. Then it falls flat on it's WoW copied face. The horrid UI, everyone being the hero, the auction house, the 3 battlegrounds, ability delay, poor preformance, epic purples for tokens, the joke of PVP that ilum is, the dead and lifeless world, no combat log (many have voiced the issues with this game much better than me). Will they fix some of it, some yes, some no. The game is fundafentaly flawed because of the focus on story. There is no way they could generate the content with story to keep a subscription. Dailies, raids, and pvp are all done better elsewhere.
For a lot of people once the story ended so did the subscription.
People just play the game. They pace these games more and more for casual players, but sometimes even casual players have a long weekend gaming binge, and that's all it takes to burn through 50 levels of content. Devs shoot themselves in the foot, trying to be competitive. Blaming players for that is just absurd.
Back in the early days of MMOs, it took a lot longer to level. That was the only real difference, and it'd be difficult to get that same pacing to fly nowadays, without also moving the genre forward, making it more compelling and worthwhile.
If developers will do the leveling process longer it will mean we'll have to do more irrelevant "go kill 20 of those" quests and other rather anonismic activities as it is simply impossible to make the long leveling process entertaining and supported by the content and story. The truth is - WE DON'T WANT LONG BORING LEVELING just to get ot the endgame, which might be the disaster like in most MMOs. Why to invest our time into the game if we aren't even sure it will ofer us the reward in the end? I can tell this for sure since I played UO and WoW and I am not happy with both of them. SWTOR leveling is fine (as it takes only around 3 weeks if you experience the content ) still it was much like in WoW - lots of boring go kill 20 of those quests.
The ONLY!!! solution is to make endgame MMOs + making leveling short but very entertaining - with voiceover, not limited to the conventional character combat. Short leveling will alow players to experience many classes before choosing which one to roll over with through the endgame content.
Endgame content must be made random (like randomly generated dungeons) - doing the same daily quests isn't fun ... random content will also throw some challenge at players. Currently the only challenge is to get the team of people who know how to beat this dungeon (youtube will help you to know how to beat any boss).
Also I would suggest adding social elements to the endgame content: housing, character appearence customisation, social activities not related to combat, lots of cimmunication options like extensive set of emotions and animations, clubing, dancing ect. MMOs can really learn some things from social games like Second Life ect.
We must understand that most of people here on forums are not gamers. They just like to chat and write anything. SWTOR you can play for years and you will never be bored if you are roleplayer, but most of the players today are not. Every single class have amazing story, every planet is beautiful on his own way. We must understand that never ever we will have so huge success in any mmo like it was with wow. That magic time is gonne. I can say only one--better to have 500k good players then 2 mil whiners whining all the time on general chat. SWTOR will stay for long time best sc fi mmo and it wil be more and more popular after people get bored from rest of no games without any story. I enjoy my time and from time of wow i never expirienced so much fun in gaming. But if you are not role player and you don't want to expirience every single class it is your fault
A lot of players are very goal focussed. For them it is not the journey but the conclusion.
What is the point of getting x gear when it is going to be replaced in a few levels which is a few hours away when the item you are currently wearing is OK.
Why bother striving to be the best now when you are there so fleetingly. All that wasted effort crafting when all you really want to craft is max level gear if relevant otherwise drop that profession and pick up something else.
SWTOR is a step in the right direction IMO with regards to making levelling more interesting but the journey has to be epic.
In pen and paper RPG we level once every 3-4 play sessions. Not 3-4 times in one play session. We filled the time giving our characters character.
Perhaps MMORPG are inherently fail due to lack of focus on character customization and pushing us all into the digital treadmill where we can all look the same and be the same with the same abilities. At least that retains the subs and stops the QQ
I totally agree on what has happened but so sure its 'content locusts' which is a gameplay style which certain players adopt. Those players tend to come from a console background, be younger and a growing number of them come from a smartphone background.
And it is these players who are now the majority. Being a content locust is just something this demographic does.
With all the bonus quests already there it is not like SWtOR could not slow down, we could get less xp for mobs and quests and still level up nicely. No xp from PVP either and the problem is sorted, pvp equipment is reward enough.
This is a very borad way to label people, and try to save face at the same time by avoiding any criticism.
Lets first give credit where credit is due.
Awesome game. Great personal story. Great combat. Great AI mechanics. Lots of spells to learn and master a class keeps things interesting as well. Beautitful worlds in a Sci-fi setting. Nice crafting system.
However, with all the nice things, some are going to not like certain aspects, or notice some actual missing aspects.
So lets ignore the subjective opinions, and try to make things more standard.
What are the standards for mmos? Did swtor achieve above and beyong those standards. Imo, yes.
However, the standard they fell short on, is world pvp. This would not be a huge issue, but by having pvp servers and a world dedicated to world pvp, you have a spot light on something that is missing.
However, end game does exist, and there are raids. The raids are fun, but not easy and do require proper gear to do them at a reasonable difficulty.
Also imo, the combat is fun, and therefore the war zones, instanced pvp, are fun. I also do consider that end game as well, that is very well done.
So, having said that, lets not ignore the issue of world pvp being a missing aspect of the game atm. But also lets not forget its a new game.
Nonetheless, its a business and they need to deliver on what they say they have. So then it becomes an issue of what the customer expects based on what BW promises to deliver as well, and not just beating the other mmo standards.
Gawd I am happy I am not you.
EQ and the others you mention sounds TERRIBLY boring.
Good for me that I have SWTOR that's a 11 of 10 game to comfort me with.
Perfect leveling speed, perfect story length, fantastic graphics, awesome quests, wonderful instances and great end game.
BEST. GAME. EVER.
It takes about 3 to 4 years to build a AAA MMO. At least 2 years of that time are spent on the content that fills the so-called "jouney" to level-cap (starter cities, class quests, story arcs, etc.).
But if the levelling speed in the game allows players to blow through ALL that content in a month, there is absolutely no way on earth that the developers can churn out enough content to keep players engaged after that first month. So inevitably, the endgame "content" has to radically slow down levelling speed AND rely on mostly repetitive content (i.e. dailies, raids, etc.).
So the players simply end up "paying the piper" at level-cap. A great many will not enjoy the huge and sudden shift in both levelling speed and content, so they simply leave the game at the first opportunity. Once you've become used to flying from one city to another, even an express train will feel unbearably slow.
Rolling a new alt and taking it to level-cap is never as satisfying as the first run through the game. Even if there are so many quests that you only have to repeat about 50% of them, you'll still be repeating the other 50%, and you'll already know all the zones and the game world pretty thoroughly.
Unless some developer can come up with some truly "innovative" endgame play, the only alternative is to slow down the levelling speed on the way to level-cap. Otherwise, MMO's will become games you play for a month or two.
And besides, the content while leveling up is experienced to the full with character six and seven.
Your whole article is dated, your game style is dated, your arguments are dated.
You need to readjust your whole attitude.
We live in the 21 century now. Not the stone age.
I would say that I terribly disagree with everything you write.
Very good article. I agree 100%. Dont listen too much to the locusts. Let us digest the games slowly!!
You have as much right to seek any kind of game you like.
The OP and those that are like mind ALSO have as much right to play any kind of game they wish too, even if it is according to you "dated".
It would be wise for you to remember that.
As for myself, my thoughts about the OP's topic are...
I encourage Developers to create MMOs that are as much a Journey as they are a Destination...
I encourage Developers to create MMOs that are either mainly PvE *OR mainly PvP, but not both... as both camps can not live together and that has been proven many many times... pick one or the other....
I encourage Developers to create MMOs that offer Long term Value for the price, for a MMO is best for a Publisher and the customers when it's a long term product to begin with...
I encourage Developers to create MMOs *FOR* MMO Players, not for Console Gamers or FPS Players... Don't mix Genres or disappointment will arise as it does in the PvE vs. PvP debate....
If Developers would attempt to meet these four goals much of the disappointment that many People have voiced in this thread and others would be answered and solved, and many happy and paying MMO Customers would be the result.
Those MMO Players that would disagree are welcome to. That is part of what makes the MMO Genre great. However "Change" just for the sake of "Change" itself or out of bordom is not progress, it's costly and unsatisfying distraction and waste. No one wins when new approaches are tried out in MMO gaming that are obviously completely off base with the People that make up the base and core of the Genre itself.... the Players... all of them the young and the old and everyone inbetween.
Thank you.
With gaming as with all aspects of life (real,lived life) people more and more want NOW and instant gratification. If its easy (generally not necessarily hand me the golden ring) they feel good. If it become a ''grind" as it used to be in the olden days it becomes less likely people will continue to play. NOW. NOW. NOW. Part of this is the new lifestyle, fast, high-speed, on the go busy world. Back in the day only 'geeks' played. Now the average household has a gamer squirreled away somewhere. Even old grannies are doing it...immediate rewards = continuing subscribers, which is the lifeblood of games.
Sometimes though, things can be over done and I think SWToR may be guilty of this. I don't regret my paying sub. I am however disappointed that I paid for multiple months. (I tend to throw $$ at games and get disappointed so another $50 or so wont matter much in the long run but still I wish I hadn't)
I suppose I had hoped SWToR would be the return of that 'cherry high' that I have found lacking in many MMOs over the last few years. I like it but I don't know if it will be the game to hold me (on a daily basis say) for the next year+. Each day I think this is less and less likely.
I'm almost valor rank 55 and I have no idea what will I do when I'll get all Battlemaster gear. I'm not really that much into raiding and PvE part of the "end game" and currenly PvP has many bugs, imbalances and is "poor" in content. The game as a whole is missing at least a year worth of development time.
Cheers.
I completely agree with the author! As I was blowing through SWTOR content, I often felt the levelling was too fast; in fact if I could have had my character suffere a permanent xp penalty, I would have. One planet I had to skip completely, aside from the class quest, because by the time I arrived I had already pretty much levelled past it.
Bioware's decision to add so much end content [in the way of flashpoints, ops and repeatable quests] was interesting, but I would rather have had a slower xp curve, and done these things prior to level 50, rather than hanging around like a 21 year old who still parties with high school kids.
When you've reached max level, it should mean the game has ended, and it's time to start an alt.
great read!!
I really wish that somebody from BW/EA read this article and learn something.... By letting us reach level cap in a week or less they are indeed screwing all the lvl 1-49 content they worked so hard to provide us and spent so many millions of dollars on it. It is a total waste of content.
I think if they give us a slower level progression we all benefit from it. We get to enjoy the whole storyline / all quests / content at a parallel level as the areas we are in while the devs have even more time to work on new content for future updates. End game rushers are less than the rest of the playerbase so i have no idea why the devs (in general) cater more to those guys instead of the ones that provide theme more profit.... since thats what they are all after.
You just highlighted what I personally think is the number one problem in the MMO Genre right now...
As originally conceived (generally speaking) MMOs were not about NOW, NOW, NOW instat gratification, they were about a "journey and an adventure" and Time itself was an important component of the design equation.
I think of how MMOs were as akin to Odysseus and His Odyssey.... and grand adventure, a thrilling adventure... ALSO quite a few parts of that adventure royally sucked... but that was part of what made the final ending so great. You can't get that kind of an experience in a NOW,NOW instant gratification novel.
We have millions of People trying to take the MMOs and turn them from "Homer's Odyssey" into Pulp Fiction paperbacks. That is the biggest issue that needs fixing of all.
I have been playing SWTOR and what has become very obvious to me is this:
SWTOR was designed to be fast leveling ON PURPOSE. Leveling was made fast to get Players to the content that Bioware believes is MOST important... lvl 50 PvP (#1) and Raiding (#2).
The voice acting and the grand storyline missions are just to help make the trip to level 50 much more entertaining as far as I can tell.
It also seems to me that Bioware thinks that the PvE world exists only for the sake of the story and the missions. I honestly don't think they ever considered that some of us would actually want to spend most of our time in the PvE world itself (e.g. areas of exhaustion in the middle of world maps where there is no geographic roadblocks).
The problem with that example is that the Odyssey isn't that exciting. Of the 10 years he was gone, he spend 7 being stuck on a single island with as only company a nymph badly in love with him, but who he wasn't interested in. Another year was spend with Circe. The parties there of course were a fun experience, but I'm sure they became a grind after a few months. It also has lots of backtracking. The Odyssey is an epic story, but only because 8 years pass with just a few words. Actually playing through it would be a lot closer to the mmorpgs of old.
Indeed, and in my personal opinion thats their mistake. If they believe lvl 50 pvp and raiding is the most important aspect of Swtor then they should have spent more millions in that aspect instead of the journey from lvl 1-cap. I love their story and im trying to go as slow as i can (even rolling every class as alts) to get to know all storylines and their way towards lvl cap because im not fond of lvl 50 pvp and raiding every day rinse and repeat after i reach lvl cap.
Bah, blaming players for not being sophisticated enough to "take the time" to appreciate your game is as as dull and unimpressive as a film director defending his latest flop at the box office by blaming "the uncouth public."
Face it, devs. The players will play the game as it is made by YOU. There is only YOU to blame. The players are a simple bunch: they will play the game as it is. If it has glaring holes in balance they will "exploit it" because YOU made it possible and they are just playing the game to the best of their ability. Actually there is no such thing as "exploits" - there is only sloppy game design that makes possible effects not foreseen by the devs.
This whole "ah, the players of my time were a sophisitcated evian-sipping intellectuals unlike this barely human ADD rabble we have nowadays" is just stupid, lame and ultimately insulting to the folks who actually paid good money to play your crummy game.
Everyone has different likes and dislikes so when you tell other ppl that they are stupid for liking something it makes you look very dumb...but seriously what's an "ass train"?
You may disagree with what she writes, but so far history has shown us she is right. How? Retention.
Rift's retention has been abysmal. Less then a year out, the game is down to less than 1/3 of its launch NA servers. SWToR retention doesnt seem to be faring any better.
This, among other this are way off in the article, almost as if she is talking conjecture vs actual experience. Either that or we've been living in different parallel universes. Heck, with all the charts and graphs the 'haters' are misrepresenting around, even they aren't bold enough to call it a 'free fall'. lol wut?
Either way, I do agree with the 'content locust' term she mentions, as people who speed through content only to rush to endgame are shorting themselves and stifling the genre. And hey, we agree on one thing(whether she realizes it or not) that WoW ruined the genre.
I don't understand how everyone thinks its a minority that rushes through the content. The title of the article is right. I'ts a swarm of locusts, most people rush through content. I mean sounds to me like if you play ~2 hours a day of SWTOR you'd have a 50 in the first month of sub. Is that supposed to be a lot of content? I know the grinders could get itdone in about a week, but still I would think Bioware would want their main storyline to last longer than a month when played pretty casually.
Actuallu I don't even know anymore. If FPS didn't have multiplayer then they would be crucified for the singleplayer they put out. Those stories are like 6 hours or less of gameplay.
Ok, the article is pretty good except for one thing... you can't be bothered to actually complete an entire planet before you leave it, whether you've outlevelled it or not.. why exactly? Because you want to get to the next planet. Its really as simply as that,and its YOUR OWN FAULT.
My highest toon is level 38, and I had early access and have been skipping stuff. Here's an idea.... play everything. Don't ignore it just because you've decided you outleveled it.
Most people really are not the get to the end in 2 hours kind of people. If that were true, Skyrim wouldn't have so many people playing it for a hundred hours or more. Ditto for SWToR. If most people just ran to the finish line as fast as they could, more than half the people in the game would be at max level (which isn't the case).
From CNN:
Why most people don't finish video games
Most people don't even finish games. They haven't allowed as much time as the games take to finish, so they don't finish them. Or players skip to the multi player portion of the game because they can hop in, play for a bit, and then go get pizza or feed the kids or something. Developers know this.
That's why leveling is fast. Not because of the minority of players who zip through content, but because developers have to grab the people who just aren't going to stick it out. If they lose those people, they lose a lot of money, because those people are literally the bread and butter of gaming...even mmorpg-ing.
I don't think we're going to get a AAA game where the leveling portion of the game is the end game. We might get a AAA game where the end game includes more than the usual progression systems...for instance an end game story system in SWToR (which would keep me subbed). From the AA or A developers we might see that kind of game, but only because there just aren't enough people to support a AAA game where the leveling doesn't end.
I'm going to say I agree with Isabelle. I'm also going to say it has been said and argued more than a million times over on these very boards. Last I'm going to say, corporations see what makes money and they produce it. End.
Maybe the real question isn't about slowing down leveling but giving more options 'outside' of leveling. I look back at all the MMO's I have played and why I subbed to some for 4 weeks and others for 6months - 6 years.
All the MMO's I stuck with gave me other options besides leveling. Vanguard kept me going for 6 months due to crafting and house building. EvE kept me going for 6 years and mostly around trading and manufacturing. Fallen Earth kept me going for 12 months because of crafting etc.
I judge an MMO on what I can do outside of leveling and I think that is the key here, not slowing leveling down.
Yeah, honestly, its been a long time since any games have given options outside leveling. Frankly, most people consider stuff outside leveling to be "fluff". It degrades those offerings and makes the companies think they don't have to offer anything else.
I may be very angry with the slimy things SOE has done with SWG and EQ2 but EQ2 is STILL my favorite game, even beyond SWTOR (did I just say that? I must be losing it). Why? Because it offers so much more than just leveling.
I remember the leveling experience in DAoC like it was just yesterday. It took an extremely long time to reach level 50. It took just as long to get from 40-50 as it did to get from 1-40. You grouped almost 100 % of the time, because group xp was the best way to level up. Because of this, getting groups was easy, people were skilled at team play, and because of the downtime and constant grouping, people socialized a lot. DAoC had a very strong community and had pride in their realms, which made RvR so great.
With that said, would a long leveling up experience work in todays casual market? Even people like me who loved the MMORPG's the way they were pre-WoW have gotten older. I'm 31 years old now, I have a full-time job, and my real life is more interesting than any virtual life could provide. MMORPG's are no longer new, so exploring a new world is no longer magical the way it once was. Because the mechanics are the same, we already know how to play every new game that comes out, so would we really be tollerant towards such outdated mechanics, such as a long level grind?
I think it's the developers who have trained past and current gamers alike to rush through the leveling experience and get to the endgame. That's because the journey is dull and tedious, and endgame activities offer the most challenge and group play. So it's in the developers best interest to retrain gamers to focus their enjoyment on the journey, instead of endgame. To do this, they need to prolong the leveling experience by several months. To do this, they need to make the journey fun and not tedious. They need to encourage group play, but not force it. Grouping 100% of the time, should be just as viable as soloing 100%. There needs to be a large variety of activities to do along the journey as well, because no matter how good the content is, doing the same activity for too long becomes grindy.
If the journey to max levels is fun, then people won't care if it takes them several months to reach max level. Max level should be a continuation of the large variety of activities you experienced during the journey. I would suggest including, but not limiting it to player ran cities, extensive guild tools and features, a seperate persistent and in-depth battleground system like DAoC had, an extensive player ran economy reliant heavily on crafted/gathered items, a unique leveling experience through the use of class quests for each class (instead of a bunch of side quests with a smattering of class quests), and larger raids and organized PvP (at max lvl) to expand upon the already existing PvP and group features already present during the journey. In addition to this, I'd introduce an alternate leveling experience for max level characters, such as PvP ranks and more in-depth class specializations.
I'd also like to point out that I think Bioware was moving the genre in the right direction with class quests. They aren't the first developer to add them, but they made them more immersive.
This just in: Company who has only ever made single-player games develops MMO paced like a single-player game. MMO players 'bored' before the first free month is up. More at eleven.
Too. Many. People. Blaming. Players. For. Not. Liking. Game.
I agree with the sentiments in this article. My Favorite MMOS are EVE online and FFXI and both games are marked by a very very long journey. The Journey tho is what I always enjoy the most. I played wow back when it was a much slower leveling proess. I enjoyed the ride. Once I hit end game I got bored very very quickly. Looking back on wow I realize the best time I had in that game was leveling and the "endgame" was incredibly dull.
I like this article on a multiple of levels. Both on the author (as I've always felt MMO's these days were on a faster curve) and all the posters. Some very insightful responses to this.
I got burned out on WoW during burning crusade when I hit the area after nagrand. I was getting antsy because most of my guild was already at the level cap and I was trying like hell to enjoy each and every quest for what they were. Unfortunately it can be a burden to be reading every single quest. Not to mention my friend who I would group with often would just grab all the quests without actually reading about it. And I was sorta playing catch up.
This is sorta the affect I see coming from fast levelers who quickly grind it out. Others who aren't that level feel left out to a degree because they are lower level and skim over stuff to get xp faster and get to the same content the end gamers are already at. I know I did, or at least tried to while attempting to retain the integrity of my enjoyment of the content. Not only that but I found much content ruined by players who had already done the content and just gave out the answers to people who just had to have it immediately without thought of effort to obtain it themselves.
While slowing leveling down will help slow up people getting to the end content I don't necessarily think it will stop those folks from trying to ramp it up as fast as they can.
I am a believer in enjoying the content i'm playing. Taking my time, enjoying the world that has been created, feeling like i'm living in the world that has been created, and enjoying little details that the so called locusts skim over.
Maybe if an MMO would reward players who take the slow down and enjoy things method there would be more that do. Of course the rewards would have to be quite substantial than just a piece of gear. There is too much reward of simple, money, and items these days in MMO's.
Like how about rewards of the kind that unlock areas you couldn't get to otherwise. Whole towns, entire questlines. These have been done before but largely go by the wayside and i think need a HUGE comeback.
Also there needs to be something said for the value of the content you are playing. Wow always was good about producing content but like in SWTOR the have increased the enjoyment of the content by engaging us as players in the quest we're working on. Both with voice acting and selective responses. Why stop there? What about important boss battles where the music becomes as meaningful to the fight as the fight itself? FFXI dragon fights anyone? Set the mood with the environment / graphics / sound. Pace the leveling and length of time in a zone. Quests should build like the plot of a good movie spiraling upwards to the climax. But make the climax worth it! Make it stand out! Rock our socks off! It's not JUST about level pacing or voice acting. Voice acting done well just hightens the experience a degree. But if you add in the voice acting, music, sound, pacing, gameplay they all add to the experience. And something I hope more games try to incorporate all these things together. It's not an easy feat.
lot of of players skip the fp in swtor and grind HM again and again just to reach max level...what is the point if you ask me.....
There is no way mmos are going back to the oldschool grind.
Look at the most popular online pvp games like starcraft, counterstrike, league of legends - they have minimal content compared to an mmo, but they have interestng gameplay. Fighting people involes a lot more then pressing tab-1-2-3-4 on the keyboard.
This is why newer mmos fail. Once someone has gone through all the zones all they are left with is identical repetition usually in the form of gear grind. They can't do anything dynamic like come up with new strategies or change the world around them.
I think many of you are missing the point. A game does not have to be a grind, yet can be a entertaining sandbox. When you get away from the dumb class/level system and go to a more realistic skill system you can extend play for much longer periods of time. Take for example Eve, there are more skills than anyone could ever learn, you have to specialize which can easily be done in a month or two, yet if you want to diversify it can take quite some time to collect all the skills you need.
In Eve everything is made in game, only the most basic commodities are available from NPCs. So resources are important. The economy is based on the players, not who got which drop. Crafting is a huge business in Eve.
Eve has many avenues to get those resources. Eve's biggest disappointment for me is the extremely boring mining design. Someday CCP will realize that needs to change because most people just give up and bot. Eve would be better off incorporating SWTOR's design of underlings who mine for you. Resource collection should never be tedious.
This could easily be translated into a fantasy setting. Asheron's Call, while it had levels was really a skill based system. You had to choose what to specialize in. There was no resource collection in that game per se, yet the real crafting was based around enhancing drops which were in essence it's form of resource collection.
One of these days these theme park designers are going to realize the great benefit of a skill driven system. With enough skills you can keep people hooked for years, not months. The trick with a skill based system is to allow the low skiil point players to be competitive in pvp in a short period of time. I think CCP has done a very good job in this area.
Housing is another area, that if done right, can keep players in a game. Two games that really excelled with housing was UO and SWG because housing was not instanced based, but in the actual player worlds. Player built cities in SWG was an amazing accomplishment.
A successful game that keeps players playing in any genre could be done using the following: A deep skill system that keeps players interested in the game that has set skill training times that increases the higher you go and are not limited to playtime. The economy must be player based and be very varied. Resource collection must be fun and not tedious. Pvp balance is important, nothing must be allowed to be overpowering. Factions are important in a pvp respect and must be more than 2. Housing based in the actual player world is important, instanced based housing is just not near as interesting.
I think a game designed around the principles above can retain players for a long period of time and keep them entertained. There is no rush to end game in a game like this, you cannot speed up skills by playing more. This attracts the casual player as well as the hardcore ones.
This is the core of the problem. And it's due to the game design.
Adding to lowering the level speed, difficulty should also be upped.
Because... the outcome is only worth what you invested. If you invested alot in time, skill, practise, and more, the feeling ofcomplishment is just much higher. I played alot of WoW but I never really cared about anything, because I was rarely really challanged and anything I earned seemed like it was handed to me and anyone doing the same.
I assume many have tried the scenario where a friend invites you to play a game, and gives you items to get you started.. that is the worst way of starting a new game, emmediatly it will mean nothing to you because you never earned anything.
This doesn't mean the difficulty should be so harsh it will scare away normal (saner) players, there should just be many difficulties integrated in the game so everyone on their level of commitment/skill/gear will have challanges that they can beat or fail ... yes FAIL I know it is a foreign word on the mmorpg scene... developers come on, failing is what makes you try harder, and eventually gives you more "pride" when you do actually succeed a previously failed attempt.
I'm an old school leveler. I love pvp, but I hate rush leveling. Never been a big raid guy. I love long, drawn out content.
Me, I'm playing casually right now. Sometimes group, sometimes solo. After a week (of an hour or two a night) I'm level 17. While the storylines are interesting, the leveling is too easy. There really isn't much tactics being required on these quests. Only time I died is when I wasn't paying attention, and accidently engaged a champion mob solo when it was the same level I was. Even then, the fight was close.
The game isn't very intuitive. The "heroic" feel you get is just you smushing mobs, and provided you aren't a total dunce, you will only fight 2 or 3 enemies at a time. Now I can't speak about later levels, but this isn't fun for someone who wants an engaging time leveling.
In SWG, it took me 2 months to get a full template. In POTBS, it took me 3 months to hit level 50. I do it the old fashioned slow way. I hate power leveling.
Another thing is, providing a fast track leveling system doesn't make better players. The PVP system in this game is sorta fail, but if it was in-depth and smart, you'd have a bunch of people who don't know what they are doing, because there was all the incentive in the world to enjoy your character. Right now, there is no "enjoying" of your character.
These things might change once I hit later levels, but that's what I've found so far. If this were a single player game (with limited multiplayer) it would be an awesome game. As an MMO, its got some great ideas and concepts, but it really falls flat in many areas.
This is a perfect read and exactly how I feel about MMOs right now.
The solution, a slower leveling trinket. An item you can equip, or a debuff you can get to make you level slower. That way people that want to rush can, and those of us that want to experience all of the content at the appropriate level can. It doesn't take a genius to figure out a solution, but I guess geniuses don't make games.
World of Warcraft is on a bit of the right track with their increased experience items and their frozen experience option you can pay for, but where are the less experience items? I still want to advance, but just much slower. It's a simple solution that should not be overlooked. Unfortunately, I'm just one voice.
It's about the journey not the goal, It sounds like SWTOR gives out ten times too much experence for thier storyline quests.
I really hope that Guild Wars 2 is not like that. I want to spend six months doing every quest I can find to get to the level cap. I don't want to be too high a level for the next thread of quests, that just makes no sense.
I agree on the EvE thing totally.
The one thing that really got me about that game is that you know if you play long enough you can learn absolutely everything. But that is around 6 years of subbing and that is why that model works well.
When I got bored with EVE I decided to try exploration. 6 months later I was back into the game with exploration skills etc etc.
I have no idea why the bigger companies don't look at CCP for insipiration. People are dedicated to that game for years not months.
The levelling speed has merely been adjusted so that casual players have the chance to reach max level, too.
I don't know how many people reach max level in a few days. But I can't even imagine how that is possible. I'm a rather casual player. I've been playing SWTOR for nearly a month now and my highest character (of 2) is level 12. I've played MMOs since 2000 and not in a single one of them have I ever reached max level.
Not even in Neocron where you could level fairly fast, apparently, and which I have played about 2 years. I got pretty close, though. Same with CoH.
Anyway, it would be interesting to know for how large a percentage of the player base the allegedly too fast levelling is actually a problem. You sure do hear a lot of complaining, but that doesn't have to mean anything. If levelling was any slower in SWTOR I would doubt me reaching max level at all. But if the gameplay in between is fun it doesn't matter. Of course SWOTOR's gameplay is not fun. It's the same old tread-of-the-mill 1-2-3-tab;1-2-3-tab combat. But at least the stories are entertaining enough. It being a single player game with an online co-op would make more sense, though, since hardly anyone wants to group up (for anything else than heroics/flashpoints) anyway.
Not only is SWTOR too fast leveling (I casually reached level 50 cap in less then 3 weeks, and many reached it in less time even), but there's not even anything to do at 50. Except daily quests to get some better gear.
What else?
- legacy leveling? I suspect it will only get me cosmetic gear, as it's cross character.
- datacron hunting? I got all I wanted, anyway it's a joke, something for solo games, not mmo.
- pvp or raids? I'm not at all into it. Anyway, it's again to get gear, which I already have.
I can remember my fist MMO, Endless Ages. Skill cap was only 18, but reaching it was an ... endless goal. But motivating to reach it.
I haven't had the pleasure of playing SWTOR yet, but it doesn't surprise me that this is turning out to be just another "rush to engdame" mmo. Sadly, that's what almost all of them are nowadays. My first true mmo was EQ2 (played it from launch - 2010. I remember that it took me almost 6 months for me to max lvl my 1st toon, but yet, I didn't really notice because the journey to get there was so much damn fun. Unfortunately, in EQ2 and most all the other big mmo's on the market today, everything from beginning to endgame has been so trivialized that it's nothing to max a toon in a month or less time. The entire journey to endgame is a joke.
I truly miss the days when it took months to max a toon and finishing any instance, even the lowly level 20 ones was a major accomplishment. Unfortunately, we are all at fault for allowing this to happen...those that wanted the instant gratification and cried out for it, and those of us that were quite content to savor the journey but didn't speak up enough when the "i want it nows" were yammering in the forums to the devs. The only way this will ever change nowadays is for us to be very vocal with the game devolpers and then deny them our money when they refuse to listen.
I totally agree with this post, and the one thing that TOR has that most other ones including RIFT do not (still subbed- will probably lapse once 6 month sub is up) is replayability. TOR is quite easy to level in, but by paralleling my toons, I've sort of extended the life as each one has totally different story. I do think that the focus needs not to be totally level based, to satisfy those that want to level as fast as possible, and those that want to take the time to experience the content, but also to get rewarded for it. The things you gain at level are the intangibles (stats and %s), the enablements (in terms of able to use gear/access content), and the tangibles (abilities). If one of these could be untied from level and tied to other achievements related to content (sort of like AAs in EQ2), then those that take the time to experience and conquer the content could be rewarded for it, without slowing down those that only want to get access to the endgame. Still not a perfect system, but something does need to be done to address the fact that there is a disparity, and that hard-core levelers are not the only people that exist in the game.
I agree! Gone are the days that made MMO's even simi difficult. I believe the great MMO's (EQ,DAOC,VG) died because people got lazy, and the grind got too much. The killer of all games is of course the player base. Why play something that can be a slight pain, or dare to puch a challenge, when you can follow the masses to the prize at the end of the maze.. Where did working for something and then feeling that ultimate joy of getting it done go? I like leveling fast, but then you run into the redundancy and end up doing the same mission/quest over again not matter what race/class you choose it really doesn't change much. The guesswork in my opinion is really being taken out of games for people. In the end i understand why there are games out there where you can get alot done in a short amount of time. People do have lives out side of the MMO world,but in the same instance i do wish they would make things harder and people would stop looking for the easy way out so that they would feel like people would stay if they did so. Easy Games get boring fast and if having a roster full of over powered max level derps is how you win the peeing contest then you need to pull your pants back up and realize if that's the case then it wasn't that hard in the first place.
Very interesting article and discussion.
As a noob (both in MMORPG and this forum terms) I have only played two games seriously, which I imagine would be at different ends of the spectrum - Runescape and Vindictus. To reach the ultimate level caps in RS would take, I imagine many years (I mean maxing every skill etc.), certainly I came nowhere near maxing any skill in 9 months (course this was partly cos I didn't play in a very structured way, although I did spend a lot of hours!). In Vindictus it is pretty easy to reach the level cap (as someone has observed) and there are quite a few content locusts around who reach a new level cap in a few days (of very intensive play I guess) and then disappear or moan about lack of content. But in fact there is a ton of content beyond the level cap - now admittedly this is of the farm/grind type so I suppose it depends on what you feel about the latter (and opinion seems sharply divided here). The rewards for this can also be of a type which might only appeal to a small number of players (titles in particular - for those who don't know Vindicitus you can earn titles which give no game advantages whatever, but - great redeeming feature for me - can be very funny; I love being able to call myself Pot Head, but then I have a weird sense of humour!) - this content is for completists. Is a completist locust the same thing as a content locust?
Anyway having played both types of game I would say that I am just happy that both options exist. I like being able to level quickly sometimes but I also like grinding sometimes.
Great site and great forum btw.
At the moment, I wish SWTOR's leveling was faster, because it's so fast (and meaningless).
Level 41 Guardian is my highest level and I've been playing since Day 2 of the "Extra Early Access".
The leveling experience leaves you feeling more like your just standing on the assembly line putting tires on the car for 8hrs straight; aka BOOOOOOOOOOOOORING.
I personally think MMOs are a dying breed. Everyone jumped on the MMO Bandwagon and pushed out so many MMOs that most players will get the "been there; done that" feeling in any MMO that comes out.
In every single MMO I've played past WoW: TBC (you can literally break WoW into 2 MMOs; Hard(er)core and Casualcore) I find myself getting bored with them in about a month.
Why?
...been 'here'; done 'this'
I laugh everytime they say "innovation". There are no "innovations". It's all just a rehash with some extra features (ie Voice Overs).
Then I laugh at the players who scream that a game's "to different".
//Final Thoughts
I hope more MMOs come out as Free2Play, I'm tired of spending $15/mo for the same crap.
I wonder if leveling based on number of days played may bring back the desire to play more content for people. Image if either every day represented a level or every 3 days or even some sort of max number of levels that can be achieved in a day or 3 days etc.
Then casual players could keep up leveling, "Locust" could level then logout and content players could emmerse themsselves in the content of the game. quests, raid etc.
All playing style could be accomodated, and then make the content enjoyable enough that players will want to plat. mini games, pvp challanges, etc,
I know there will be people who "Want to level now" but i believe in time they would emmerse themselves in the content.
I wholeheartedly agree with your article.
I sadly quit star wars recently, because everyone levelled so damn fast and it was boring. It was very reminiscant of Vanguard, although for different reasons.
In vanguard i was sad because the journey was so small in such a big world (level 1-30 had so many zones that nobody went into and so many hidden quests/places to visit) but everyone only focused on a core quest line that got you to max level quickly.
In star wars, no matter how slow im trying to enjoy the game i level so damn fast. To put this into perspective: My trooper hit 28. Im on taris, im nearly 10 levels above the planet now. This isn't fun, its just dull!
How did i get that high? Seriously, i was only doing the quests the game gave me to do, yet i outlevelled taris before i got there. Im now 8 levels above Nar Shadda and i havent even started it...this just made me sigh and put the game away like the rest of my friends.
It was a fantastic experiance, but when your higher level then the content the challenge is gone and its no fun anymore.
The so called content locusts..i remember those! I love the term. I think im going to keep using it from now on, thank you. The people that rush to endgame then scream about how theres no content in the game, they upset me. Its people like that who ruin mmos...
Im looking forwards to guild wars 2, because i absolutely adored their system of 'no levels, just content' Yes theyve upped the cap from level 20 this time around, but theres no level cap on quests etc the game just levels you down.
Endgame on guildwars looks to be nothing more than going back to the start and doing it all again with more people. Sounds brilliant to me.
Bioware made mention that the leveling speed of SWTOR is geared towards more casual players. People who have jobs, kids, lives, hobbies, etc. The hardcore MMO players will blow through the content fairly fast, but they claim that is not really the target audience. And in the case of SWTOR, considering each of the eight classes as its own story, even if you hit max level, there is still plenty more content to experience. Although I do still think they could have slowed things down just a wee bit.
And so it comes to ultimate truth. Original SWG was a KING of all MMO-s EVER.
Could hardly have said it better myself (than the OP).
WoW devs just don't get it. WoW was a great game in many ways, but there have always been things I didn't like about it, and now those things are so bad I'm having a hard time being interested any more. What will keep me playing is things that I want to do despite the changes, but more and more I think I have to leave the game to just to get my message across.
To tell the truth, I feel guilty now for having played WoW so long, and in doing so given tacit approval to those things I didn't like. I really believe that the WoW devs think that if the players coninue to play, they must like the changes despite the fact that they complain about them.
I'll tell the truth - I'm really angered by the lack of MMORPG standards that have moved out of WoW into other MMO"RPG"s. It makes me want to puke to see names like "roflcopter" in them, and one of my reasons for playing Everquest II, to get away from that kind of thing, is simply gone. EQII is gone to me, and it's a sad time; it would have been the game I went to if I quit WoW. It is the main game I played when I took breaks from WoW over the years. Now, EQII mixes F2P players with subscription players, and that was the last straw. I don't even want to try Vanguard because I'm so mad at SOE.
"Roflcopter" is a good name for FPS co-op, where there is no "RPG" involved. I found that kind of name barely acceptable in WoW, because I always thought of it as an "RPG lite" game, it wasn't really at all about RPG. The basic problem with MMORPGs today is the fact that WoW pulled in so many players that have no clue what "MMORPG" really means, and that the developers and publishers would rather have these players and increase their cash flow than make good MMORPGs.
I've come to the point where I've mostly stopped using "MMORPG" except when I want to make a point. I use "MMOG" now, mostly, there is absolutely no RP to them any more. There used to be some minimum standards; there used to be a community of players that understood what it was and why it was there. You didn't have to do full RP, not by a long shot, and I never have, but you did have to maintain a certain level of respect for that part of the game, even if you weren't into it. It's gone now. It was hardly there in WoW from the start, but now the standard has totally disappeared. It's gone from EQ II, it's gone in Age of Conan (It was diluted from the start in AoC, which is one major reason I stopped playing after the first couple of months. I was playing on what was supposed to be the RP server, and they allowed names that were in clear violation of RP standards, and did nothing about it. Thanks, Funcom, thanks for crapping all over players like me), it's gone even in Asheron's Call. The last is what makes me most feel like throwing up.
I strongly suspect if I went back and checked out Darkfall again, I'd find the RP element gone from that game, too. (I didn't continue to play it because I'm not a PvP type player, and it's definitely a PvP game. That's not a bad thing, at all, but it's just not my thing.) MMORPGs aren't for people that want to play a character in a fantasy world anymore, they are for people that want to run an avatar that represents them in the same way it does in an arcade game, or a(n) FPS. Worse, they have no clue why you complain about their name.
That's the standard we have for players, and the devs don't even care. Hey, maybe I wouldn't either, if caring meant I couldn't afford a Ferrari. (Any dev that sold his soul for less than Ferrarri-owning money is - a cheap whore.)
If I were to win millions in a lottery (l love how gambling is okay for governments and churches in the U.S. but we have to "save" everyone else from themselves because they'll all turn into gambling addicts and starve to death if we allow them to gamble legally. I'll never win a lottery becuase I don't buy tickets to support that kind of hypocracy.) I'd get some other investors together to develop the kind of MMORPG I want. Maybe it would never have WoW's popularity, but at least it would be an actual MMORPG, one that solo players and group players both could enjoy. One in which the whole point of leveling up wasn't lost, that solo quests weren't insipid busy-work. One in which if you didn't get it, you couldn't play no matter how much you were willing to pay.
Go with a sandbox style game where there isn't a clear beginning and clear end where the game turns into a shallow grind and you won't have this problem. Themeparks are always doomed to suffer from this. Honestly no Themepark MMO has held me strongly for more than a couple months because in my eyes I beat the game and what I am doing at end game is a shallow and lame shell of what the journey was in the first place.
SWTOR is not about leveling. Some people got used to grind MMOs so much that they can't see anything else. SWTOR is a cinematic experience. Levels, raids, loot are for people who still think in WoW terms. SWTOR has EVERYTHING to get off that loot train and just enjoy yourself like you did in KOTOR. If you can't - thats not SWTOR fault.
Its people's fault who can't relax and enjoy the ride. SWTOR has different type of content, none of that content FORCES you to do either. SWTOR is RPG and MMO, raiding and grouping, soloing and story. If you like fedex quests - do them, if you like PvP - suit yourself, if you like grouping - grind flashpoints.
SWTOR is based on story, everything else in the game may be similar to other MMOs, but thats not Bioware's fault. They just implement familiar MMO mechanics so that players didnt' get scared. If you are bored because things are EASY? WHO in the world asks you to outlevel yourself? Do quests while they are white/yellow then move to a different planet. Keep your challenge up if you are bored.
Problem is that so many people were playing dumb games and got used to dumb mechanics. They can't recognize any more whats important in a ROLE PLAYING GAME. Roles are long forgotten, all there is left in peoples brains - loot loot loot. If SWTOR has it, it doesn't mean that the game is dumb. Its you - player who can't see anything else in the game but loot, even though there is SO MUCH MORE to see.
Really, Themeparks make for a poor game. They take you on a ride instead of letting you drive yourself. Nothing's interesting because it's all layed out for you, in story and action. It's like watching a movie about some other character instead of making your own story for your character. And no, options to be taken some other way along a chaperoned tour is not making your own story.
Another excellent article, Isabella. Generated lots of discussion, too. Your approach to gaming is so similar to mine that I can sit back and let you write the articles to say the things I can't be bothered to say any more ^^
I'm currently playing WoW again after 2 yrs away (I've been in and out that game since vanilla), and one of the things which really gets me down is the speed at which pug's want to complete dungeons. It's always "go, go, go" and when I say I prefer to take it more slowly, enjoy the scenery, etc, and even that it might be my first time there, the replies are not printable here.
Don't really understand what that's all about. Never did. Way back in vanilla WoW I can remember my sig on forums being "game = fun, relax and enjoy", so even then I did notice a trend among some people to rush to the end, and that trend has definitely increased. Personally, I long for an immersive experience, multi-faceted, that I can journey through at my own leisurely pace and enjoy to the full.
I like SWTOR, but like the article above I am leveling way to fast for the quests and content I am on. I have to physicaly and mentaly try not to level up to much in a zone or world while I quest.
I liked UO, EQ1, DAoC and Eve Online because they are MMO's where it took time to get anything and especialy with the sandbox type most of the content is player driven which makes it all the more complelling to play even once you attained the max level in skills etc.
SWTOR for me is only a filler while TSW and WoD is being devoloped. Pitty as I love Star Wars I just wish they made it more sandboxy rather than listening to the WoW crowd.
This article makes no sense, whatsoever.
You say the problem is the leveling being too fast, which you stated is the result of Bioware trying to appeal to casual players.
And yet, somehow, you find a way to blame it all on "content locusts"? Sense, you're not making any my friend.
If anything you should blame casual players for wanting a dumbed down game, not content locusts. Content locusts are precisely the type of players that don't mind hardcore leveling, cause guess what they will rush through anything anyways, silly.
Sigh, fail logic is sadly fail.
Excellent article, and sadly, illustrates the current trend in MMOs of "Gimme my shiny loot and endgame NOW NOW NOW!!! I don't wanna grind!!!"
If too fast leveling were the only problem of Swtor... The lack of soul of the game world, the poor character customization, the 13 years old history archs, the boring and repetitive quests, the total lack of socialization... This game is a 300m mess with lightsabers. When you play a game and only can think in how the hell they closed SWG for this ...you know they are screwed.
Agreed on the slow down--enjoy it make it feel like you worked for something as oppossed to feeling like you deserve it--people always feel like they are entitled. Well not always but they put in 3 days work and say hey were is my stuff I did all this---you are missing the point if that is how you feel. Also agree on the social aspect with common shared goals--always good as they are what make stories to tell fellow gamers in a nastalgic way "remember when Pwnutter pulled that entire room while we were on that quest for......" things like that give games substance.
Most of us are cattle. Take Modern Warfare 3 for instance, my friend clearly prefers BF3 and did nothing but complain how shitty MW2 was, yet he still owns a copy of MW3. Why? His friends bought it. If that's not the definition of being a sheep, I don't know what is.
I would love to see a MMORPG that is all about the journy towards the end. Where the end game isn't the most important thing. Where i don't see people with the highest lvl and best gear in the first week. But i fear those days are over. The gamer has changed. And they changed for the worst. And seeing how devs only want to please the next generation gamer who wants everything easy and it may not take to long cause o god we might have to work for something brrr, i doubt there will be any MMORPG that focuses on the social aspect, the journy towards the end.
Also why would they take the risks of investing millions of dollars/euro's in their product when the easy money is in making a very safe and standart MMORPG that will sell enough anyway. I wish they would dare to take risks again, i would love to see the entire game industry about being creative and orriginal again. But the facts are that the game industry is run by people like Boby Koytic (Activision-BLizzard) who where CEO's of other companies and smelled the big money the game industry produces and see it as their greedy deed to milk it dry. And with those guys at the top you won't ever see any game anymore that aims the older gamers who would like a bit of a challenge or simply are no raiders and rather want to have a enjoyful ride to the end instead. We an only hope a dev. will be brave enough to break the "we must please the mass only (aka as lame fake gamers, you can't be a real gamer if you want your game to be short, easy and expensive, cause games become more and more expensive funny enough you get less and less content for it...CoD im looking at you with your 4 hours singleplayer and expensive map packs for the MP)". Anyway Blizzard said their new MMO will be focusing more on the social aspect, so maybe, just maybe we get to see something from the old days back. But i really doubt it.
While the author does look at the symptoms he/she fails to correctly identify the problem. This is not something the devs have caused but more to the point their target audiences demand. What are they demanding? The same thing that a newer generation on player and even society as a whole have grown accustom to. Instant gratification.
In the age of the Internet, cell phones, and instant messaging people have begun to view having to wait for something as not only arcaic but unacceptable. Look at other things like Netflix and even the fast food industry. The focus of the modern business is all about how fast can something be delivered to the customer and quality has taken a back seat to speed.
If your looking for who to blame for this "I gotta have/get-it-done right now" mentality look in the mirror because it's us and us alone who are to blame.
i just max my sith sorc and enjoyed the story-line. act 3 was very interesting us(or me) coz we need to get rid of the "evil" inside our head. then, we can kill the darth lord.
when i completed my class story and max level. i was like " what now" ? what am i suppose to do now?
answer: farm gears....
I couldn't have said it better, speaking of the OP's viewpoint.
SWTOR is another MMO that I place in a very large cardboard box in my garage in hopes that one day my great, great grandkids will discover my collection and simply throw it out as garbage.
Disillusion is the one word that players created through the mechanics of developers. They don't want people people spending months or perhaps years leveling a character. When people don't play with their 'addon' toys, they create a funnel that drives everyone to the core. This is evident in the almighty 'End Game~'.
I played AC too, Isabelle. When my Guild Leader decided to 'go Red' on a white server, I was beside myself. I mean, there were plenty of FPS games to play with PVP. Heck, AC even had it's own exclusive PVP world (which has not even come close to being matched by any game up to this very moment.) But, in only a week, the people who spent 4,5,6 months building a leader, taking care that 'our leader' would fair with the other leaders on the server... they quit playing the game.
Maybe the whole monarch thing was destined to fail, but vanilla WoW was a superpower being born, and there was no stopping it. Right out of the box, awesome graphics (for it's beginning). Familiar mechanics, keyboard movement, and the best thing I liked... EVERYTHING WORKED!!! No...I don't mean 'everything' but heck... Mail was good, NPCs were good, quests were good... I could go on. The basic parts of the game worked!
SWOTR... fix your basic mechanics issues.
I don't want the spotlight, I'm just not happy with the rush to 'endwhere' -that place between 'Is that it' and 'omg! not another pvp, daily grind'. Developers should slow the damn monkey down. I expected SWTOR to begin a new era of play. Instead, it's just a small version of a WoW Space Fantasy. Gee Whiz!
BTW, I have all the respect in the world for Blizzard's WoW. What and awesome playfield for both the casusal and Elitist. I just want something different at this point in my life.
Ataaka
-I built the world in a day, and you can surely tell.
Honestly, someone has got to play the part of the sentinel. We sped into this whole mmo thing to make money. It is what drives the development of games...
I disagree that the OP missed anything. The truth hurts and people will defend thier beliefs even when it's not what the majority feels. Their is a watchdog in all this madness but they failed to censure, because they simply didn't have the power to censure.
When you take an RP community and toss in the Mario Bros community, mixed with a very large STEAM community, you end up with what you see today. People who want to RP but can't because the pressure inside gaming is dog-eat-dog. Gaming was supposed to give a place to ego outside the real world. But, that wasn't the path to making money...First Person Killing is the lawmaker.
PvP, the way it's been dished out by the top developers is nothing more than organized killing. That's really something we want to embed in the mind of that upcoming generation. At some point, dexterity (that old useful attribute) was replaced by macro's and gear. Gear is the goal and content to make gear hard to get is where the money lies. Macroing is the easy way to get there.
So what you really have in most of these 'End Game' End Games is a rat race. People will sell their souls for the loot that comes with both PvP (which used to be predominately FPS) and Uber End Game Content (which used to be random by means of questing, traversing, character growth, and real gameplay.
Developers made this mess not gamers. Nobody listens to them anyhow. As I said, gamers were funneled into the madness of killing for fun (pvp) within an RPG setting. They have almost striped away the RPG and replaced it with the almighty gear (not to be confused with loot).
Im done. Have a nice whateveritisyoudothatmakesyoufeelmoresuperiorthanwhatyoureallyareintherealworld.
Ataaka
-Survivor of the pending apoc.
If a level cap - let alone best gear - is hard to attain it also seperates players by level and gear. Personally I don't care about level cap, I'd rather had that games have an exciting and challenging end-game.
All the good looking gear you can throw away, all the immersive places that you'll never revisit - a long levelling curve has its severe downsides. Look at WoW or any other high level cap game - and all the areas that are redundant now. And look at the few places that are still viable to be. Being a free kill in any world PvP area. I was happier with GW where 80% of the content is for max level characters. It also makes most content at least a bit challenging; for instance helping new players through level 20 areas still isn't always that easy.
The sense of progression is good - but it doesn't/shouldn't necessarily have to be by means of level caps and consequent stats.
Those bonus quest are not additional quest lines. They are reveals of the true quest. Every thing that came before it was smoke and mirrors. You would call them Voice Over and Story, that hide the fact that what comes next, in a text flash on screen, is the real meat and potatoes of the quest system. I agree, leveling to Max in an MMO should take at least 1 year, and that should be the design goal.
This is a great article and mirrors my sentiments exactly! When I played EQ1 there was NEVER a time that I felt like "omg I better level faster to get to the end". The "end game" was a plateau that didn't carry the allure of todays games and thus we were able to focus on what was around us at that time. I can remember almost every major zone I leveled in during my time in EQ. DAoC? A good majority. WoW? A few, only becuase I have 6 80-85's and had the zones burned into my memory by force (read as not fun). WAR? Nope. SWTOR? I am only 49 as of the writing of this post and I can barely remember what Taris looks like. How sad.
I do like SWTOR. It's a fun game with a promising future. There is till still hope. Like Luke Skywalker coming out of hiding to face the Empire the BW devs can decide to make an expansion that will raise the cap, slow the level curve for that new gap and return us to a classic MMO style. They have the team and writers to do this, we dont need story every second we are online (in fact you could argue it hinders socialization as is).
Do right by the genre BW, give us a leveling journey that makes us proud to hit top level.
When wow first was released you could level 1 - 60 in about 4 days of total playtime if you were a powerleveler.
In swotor you can level 1 - 50 in less than 1 day total playtime, in the pre-release.
So you are wrong on this.
Other than that nice article and I have for long believed that the death of mmos are the impatient players who the devs scissor the games for. Its not all about endgame, its about the journey. If they had ac2 still up and running I would probably have played that now.
People forget to just enyoj the game, enyoj the journey. Nowadays is all about hiting max level as humanly possible and what gear you have ( Uuuuu,,, look at me, Iam so shiny, like me,adore me....). Industry smelled new cash flow in mmos and we let them to make it in what is nowadays. We gamers are much to be blamed for todays situation as are developers.
Gaming in general has become too competitive. That also reflects in MMOs, people don't want to play the MMOs(games) any more, they only want to beat them. When they can't beat them as fast as possible, first obstacle being getting to levelcap, then the forums fill with tears, that "OMG the grind" etc etc.
Personally I have given up on western P2P MMOs because of that.
This exactly- until the majority stops purchasing games just because they are the new big title nothing will change. The average player is just guillable and easily swayed by hype and bought reviews/reviewers.
Refreshing to read someone else who put it this way.
I've been a member at mmorpg for 'quite a while', but the only time I visit here is when I keep hoping that there might be some indie-game that are developing oldschool style mmo's. The ones where you either did not have a max level (lose xp on death, and your xp from kills would drop significant at higher levels, making it a real achivement to be high level on the server). The games where you'd have a max level that took a long time to reach. Or the games where you'd have a max level that was an achivement in itself, and you'd be rewarded with unlocking a hero class (usually a combined/multi-class that would perform multiple roles, and thus be generally 'stronger' than other classes).
Either case, I keep telling my friends how I miss those old games, because of the sense of achivement, the feeling of reward.
After having leveled up X characters to max level in the new types of mmo's, I just don't know what to do anymore. Endgame content is nothing for me, the leveling is where it's at. I find myself playing EVE Online and doing my grind in World of Tanks, League of Legends or similar games again.
I'd kill for a true oldschool grind mmo..
Thing is, I'm tired of the 'it's a new game' excuse. I played LOTRO, it was made by Turbine who, because of the failure of DDO, was in a certain amount of financial trouble when they finished LOTRO.
They had more content. They had bigger areas. Their world was not nearly so static. They used MODERN graphics (DX10) when they released. And upgraded to DX11 a while ago. SWTOR is DX9. Are you kidding me? DX9? That was 2002!!!!
And the quests, while not fully voice acted, are better written than SWTORs. I enjoyed them. I felt immeresed in Middle-Earth. And most of them were not 'go kill 10 rats' quests like SWTOR. Sure, there were some there... But not the vast majority of them (at least 75% to 80% depending on your deifintion of 'go kill fedex quest) of them like SWTOR... (Yes, I counted. I'm an accountant. I tend to count and analzye when I'm bored and I got so bored that I counted my 'go kill' FEDEx quests for amusement. It was the vast majority of them.)
Look at SWTOR and what it could have been for the money. Right now it's tons of voice-acted side-quests. First time, I listened. Fully voiced didn't make "kill 15 rhakghouls, imperials, sand people, or whatever" quests any more enjoyable. Second, third, fourth... I just hit the space bar. Now think of how much money they put into all those full-voiced and routinely skipped side-quests? It was a lot. Probably hafl their budget, if not more because of the VA and animation costs.
That could have been used on better worlds, developing a GOOD engine instead of using a BAD engine. They could have added a good two-dozen scaleable-to-level raids. They could have given us some righteous character customization, like Star Treck Online. They could have given us customizable interiors and exteriors for our spaceships (like STO again).
Here's some other things they could have done: Quests that resolve besides the same "kill a bunch of static mobs, a few mini-bosses followed by listening to the boss rant at you before the boss fight..." I mean, really, I can count on one hand the number of quests where there was any intelligent thought put into the quest so that a character could solve it in any way but killing everyone involved...
I don't expect Deus Ex, but this game was so stuck in the trash, fed-ex, arcade way to solve things I got to the point where I couldn't take it.
And crafting. You know, there are a lot of games with good, meaningful, enjoyable crafting out there... They could have learned those lessons. Instead they made a system that is so faulty and scattered that it's useless except BioChem, some Cybertech and slicing.
And guilds. Nothing more than glorified friends lists.
The UI. Worst UI in any MMO I've ever played. There's not even a close second to that piece of garbage.
So, when you say "you're being impatient...." Why should I be patient? They threw away tens of millions, if not a hundred million or more, in developer budget for a gimmick when they could have used the money to make the best MMO ever. And what I got was an MMO that wasn't as good as Vanilla WoW or Vanilla LOTRO or even some other early-release MMOs that I've played.
And that's pathetic. With $250 I could make the greatest MMO ever. Sandbox + quest. Huge universe. Open WORLDS. Large areas.
So let's stop pretending. BioWare spent more money developing this game than Turbine has on developing LOTRO and possilby more money than any developer of any MMO including WoW. And current LOTRO, with less money spent on it, is ten-times the game of this. I got TWO YEARS of fun out of LOTRO. I got three weeks of fun out of this dog...
No it's not. People look for novelty. SWTOR didn't have novelty once you got past the gimmick of the fully voiced side-quests. What it had was stale, tired MMO gaming done to death.
It didn't even have good writing for the stories. There were some good moments. But most of them were bad moments. Just stupid stories... Rammed down my throat, with no solution but the ONE solution BioWare would allow.
I don't expect Deus Ex. But this is 2012 and with $250 million, you could afford to hire some a-list writers AND deal with branching plot lines. You might need to draw them up a bit toward the end, but it can be done... These are modern times and surely BioWare could do as well as a 1980's Dungeons and Dragons "choose your adventure" flip book...
Well, obviously they coudn't...
I must agree with this.
The only thing that balances it out a bit for me is that me and my RL friend duo everything ( flashpoints, heroics, etc, using our companion ), this way, we still get some challenge.
SWTOR and WoW too for that matter, are just too easy.
You outlevel an area before you have completed all the quests. And if you do more than one flashpoint ( or instance in WoW ) each level it gets even worse, don't even start talking about PvP.
Furthermore, various systems make it even easier :
Quicktravel, good idea for single player geme, but not for an MMORPG., you get everywhere too fast, instead of fighting your way back, you insta pop where you want, and the world gets more empty because everyone zaps from here to there instead of running or even using a speeder.
Death penalty, what death penalty? Even less than in WoW.
So far, I am still having a good time, but for me, comming from mmorpg's that were 10 times harder to get to max level or endgame, SWTOR leveling speed can be halved at least. Same goes for WoW. And if you finish all the quests, and don't feel strong enough, you can still do some instances or PvP to advance a bit more, or go camping like the good old days ( I made more online friends that way ).
For me it would be more enjoyable, and it would make more sense businesswise too I recon.
Not only does the argument suffer from the strawman fallacy, the terminology is inaccurate. Communism is an economic ideology, not a political ideology (and therefore not a "type" of government). Like G.I. Joe said, knowing is half the battle.
What an outstanding article. I was just talking to a few buddies with whom I used to play EQ. Much of our conversation touched on every aspect of what Isabelle wrote about. Like so many others have already mentioned, I remember tons of details about my time playing EQ (and it's been 10 years since I've played it). The zones, the quests, the quest items that really mattered (and that you kept equipped for as many as 20 levels). I fondly remember having to be accompanied by my friends from Qeynos to Freeport because that's where they played. There was no other way to get there other than SoW, about 45 minutes, and a little luck. Falling asleep waiting for the boat, falling asleep on the boat, falling off the boat, falling into "The Hole" accidently (and the 3-hour corpse run that followed, but only after begging for help for an hour)...the list goes on and on.
Two aspects of those early MMORPG's like EQ that I didn't see discussed (though in fairness I only read the first 40 posts or so) is having distinct classes and the idea that soloing was something you did only if you couldn't get into a group. Soloing was damn hard (save for pet classes) and not very efficient. The ("/sit" was a terrible way to med. and heal, but without a group it was really the only option. However, it meant that you had to interact with other people who played other classes. My main was an enchanter and there was no way I could solo past level 10 or so (of course I could, but it was terribly boring and inefficient). I needed a group and they needed me. There was a thrill to holding off 3 or 4 adds and keeping everyone buffed at the same time (and ultimately alive). Everyone had a job that no other class could do as well (mostly). Some classes could sort of cover for others in a pinch, but that was not an ideal situation. There was a skill to working in a group and it had to be learned. You needed to learn your job and you needed to do it well or your group was going to wipe and spend a fair amount of time doing corpse runs and resetting. AND IT WAS FUN!
Newer MMO's seem suited to the solo player. Certainly there is the option to play as a group, but by no means is it necessary to enjoy most of the content. Reducing the interclass dependency helped people who didn't like group play, but it moves away from the very essence of what made MMORPG's so great to begin with. Your identity had value -- unique value -- as part of a group.
hehe poor burned out gamers.....my main is lvl 38 now (got 4 other +20 chars too) and i am still enjoying SWTOR.......it will prolly take me 1 to 2 months to lvl to 50.
I realy wonder how long it will take these guys to grind their way trough GW2.....lets see if the UBER game is going to stop these "locusts" from hitting cap in a fiew days.....mind my words, it won't take then a week.
I got more worth for my money...hehe.
Keep searching for you perfect game....lolz.
Why I do belive you hit the nail right on the head. May I also state a prime example of developer's catering to content locusts would have to be Champion's online. I don't even have to explain this one, just go make a free account and see for yourself, I find it to be total madness. By the time I quit I had more max level characters than the number of MMOs I've ever played (granted i haven't played very many), But it's still a heck of a lot.
LOL i see i'm not the only one :)
i like storys and such. i like to play solo in a MMO, i like to team up as well. I don't like to rush through. and then... your on your own. you didn'd fit this or that to maximize you dmg output. you should level faster. pffff. i enjoy the view and like to look and awe at things. When the enemy respawns and i am still looking around to see what they (dev's) made to look at for me i get annoyed.
currently i am not playing any mmo. They just don't feel appealing enough for me to stay in. i'll be watching secret world, perhaps that will give me joy. But for now, for me... its back to pen and paper games.