Indeed, will be really interesting to see how it turns out.

Definitely looking forward to it.

lol, you could copy-paste that comment on almost every article at Massively.

Win.

Thank GOD someone big is going no levels!!!

Look the fact is that the one-big-level is bad for MMOs. It separates players and friends, it forces constant re-balancing, it antiquates content super fast, and it makes the newbie experience worse and worse as time goes on.

If we just look at the big elephant MMO, World of Warcraft, you can see the various tools that Blizzard has givin the new player to level through to at least 70 as fast as possible. Even Blizzard would prefer that you zoom through their old content to get to "end game" faster.

Why? Because there is where they put all their work into. Just today they uploaded patch 3.2 with new "end game" content. There are no new level 10 instances, nor any level 50 instances. You have to be 80 to play in their new dungeons. Yet, players who have been level 80 for months are looking forward to the new content because there is still advancement to be had.

And thus, WoW shows many forms of player advancement and reward-based gameplay at the top level. In fact, the end level offers more advancement paths than you get when you are leveling your main level.


I applaud Final Fantasy for making a game where we advance our characters in other ways than a big level number. There will be a difference between a new character and one who has been around for a year, but there is also more of a chance that the new character can group with the year-old toon on adventures right away as opposed to the older guy trying to help "powerlevel" the newer.

I see very good things.

To "Brian!" - that isn't exactly true. Other games that have had no levels and are skill based, such as UO and the first Asheron's Call still divided the player base up just as much. It's not a traditional level system, but you can still find your power and even give yourself a generic "level" if you want, because people with higher skills will be fighting in higher areas that people with low skills can not think of fighting in. Instead of not having the level to fight in areas, you won't have the skill to fight in them, it's the same as having a level even tho it doesn't show up. You are limited by your skill instead of your level, so it's basically the same thing, only often you get to make your own character class by mixing and matching skills.