Comments on: Leveling – Not just for players

By: Julian

Julian — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 07:14:41 +0000

Yeah, when I dropped the comment about WoW it was half in jest. I certainly don’t consider WoW to be ‘the model’ of how many things should be.

And yet, I can’t help but to point at it. WoW has a hojillion players. Either that hojillion players don’t care about level gaps, or that hojillion players can put up with it. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have a hojillion players. This is not an appeal to authority, but just an observation. Which is valid, I think. You can replace ‘WoW’ with any other successful MMO that creates progress gaps, really.

I think that, at least conceptually, I can agree with you when you say that MMOs shouldn’t always be about that type of linear, granular advancement. However, all of them seem to be (save rare exceptions liks UO as you pointed out). If 90%, or some other godawful amount, of all MMOs ever created do have this clearly defined, strict and almost dogmatic type of granular advancement, it is the standard whether we like it or not. And by the way, I don’t mean that standard = good. Just saying it is. It is because it’s clear, easily understandable and addresses the problem of constantly increasing challenge to the player quite nicely.

On the downside, yeah, it creates this type of common progress gaps. Are progress gaps a problem? Maybe. But if they are, it isn’t as huge as some people can make it to be. I really don’t mean to sound like a grade-A smacktard when I say this, but if some people cancel because they can’t play with their friends (a very valid reason), that’s more of a people’s problem than a game’s problem. It’s not that the game is forbidding you, completely, to play with your friends at the speed of the fastest leveler. It gives you a way. If you can’t, or won’t take it, I don’t think that’s the game’s problem, really.

It’s a personal choice, to cancel in those terms, and should be absolutely respected. But to blame the game for not being designed to wrap around our busy RL schedules with utmost precision, well I think that might be a bit disingenuous.

By: tholal

tholal — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 22:31:12 +0000

Based on what you had to say here in this post, it seems that everyone sort of missed the real problem. Put simply, it’s the Level Gap Syndrome. This disease seems to have afflicted most of the larger MMOs ever since EQ reared it’s ugly head. Too much weight is given to the ‘levels’, awarding significant power upgrades at each arbitrarily defined marker and forcing players to segregate themselves based on their progress through these markers.

MMOs shouldn’t always be about exponential player progress/power increases. UO is an excellent example. If you’ve never played UO, I’m not sure I could adequately explain it.

IMO, Monty-Haul type level-based games really shred the fabric of online community. WoW is popular for a number of reasons, but using its popularity as a springboard to claim that level-oriented games are what everyone obviously wants is a bit disengenuous.

By: Collin

Collin — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 03:05:03 +0000

I’d say EVE’s system is far better than rest XP – the only thing that stays “equal” over a week of a person playing or not is their skill training (assuming you set a long skill or can login at least a minute here and there to change skills).

As for the rest of the game, it all requires effort – want to afford the next ship? You have to earn that money somehow Skills may continue, but to progress in any other area requires actual time investment.

One of the problems with rest XP is that it runs out far too soon. You spend a week or more filling up the bar, and then it’s gone in mere hours, and you’re still lagging far behind your friends.