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Massively Speaking Podcast
Massively Speaking Episode 185: Bree-to-play
Latest episode: Tuesday, February 7th, 2012



Reader Comments (1)
Posted: Aug 4th 2009 7:58PM Anatidae said
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.