The Daily Grind: Leveling, the playing field

I love leveling in Scenarios on warhammer because it's, you know, actually fun and interesting combat, unlike beating up braindead mobs.
LOTRO and Guild Wars are good about this as well.
Dungeon Fighter Online has been too, ever since the great XP requirement reduction in december. Level 32 so far after playing only 2-3 hours each weekend with 2 friends for about a month, only level that really sucked were 18-19(Switched to subclass, so you lack diverse skills until you get new ones at 20) and 26(Just a hard level. Sky tower can be a bitch.) Otherwise it's been fantastic fun.

Asheron's call 1. Most the time i just forgot I was leveling.

Since no one's said it . . . WOW

I always liked exploring the new area, and running down the groups of quests you found. It wasn't till endgame that I really began to hate the game . . . the constant rep grinding, the fact that you needed to group with "uber-brats" to do anything

Ultima Online, at least for the first dozen characters. Being low skilled meant being creative and making money any way you could, or fighting things like mongbats instead of Lich Lords.

Warhammer Online never felt like a grind to levelcap. At level 5 I was playing the same way I played at 40, PvP and scenarios. Fun either way.

Ultima Online. Although there are skill levels, many of the fighting ones were quick and easy to raise. The actual game held interest far beyond reaching Grandmaster in the skills of your choice.

EvE forced advancement based on how old your character is represents another game that isn't a skill grind. Sure you are waiting for more skills to fly that next big ship or arm those guns, but that isn't what you play for. It is a big difference from normal MMOs where you go out to quest and grind for experience points. EvE you go out and grind for cash, adventure, and exploration. Leveling up can just be done while you sleep.

Guild Wars. I think I hit 20 so fast it felt like the same day. It must have taken a few days, but then I went and played the game for a couple more years.


I personally think that the whole level thing in MMOs is archaic and useless. There are far better award systems to keep players hooked. Levels end up separating players and reducing perfectly good content to pointless. Take FPS games - you unlock skills but it does not mean that players can't access maps or maps become too "low level"

Imagine if a huge game like WoW was designed with a different advancement model than a leveling system leading to a world that size where every area is a valid place to explore/battle/socialize in. That was sort of the way Ultima was. Everywhere in the world was exciting. Some areas needed a team of players since the monsters there were hard, but one could be in danger just as much a few steps out of town vs. deep in a jungle island.

EVE as the plateau keeps moving, i had a plateau of flying an ishtar, then after that i just had to mave my self a ishkur then i just had to have a marauder, and now i really just HAVE TO HAVE A F*CKING CARRIER!

Oh and then i wanted a hurricane, arrgggggg i want everything!

Gota say I enjoyed GuildWars Prophecies the most. Never felt like I was grinding just part of the journey.

Age of Conan leveling was a blast up to uhh... I think it was out of 80, to I guess up to level 65 it was good times, after that it kind of hit a dead end, you know, with developers forgetting that whole put content in the game.

Leveling my Belf Ret when Wrath hit was a blast as well. By that time the hunter class was just so disjointed compared to how it felt for me in TBC, plus I was sick of my hunter.

Both times though while I was enjoying the act of leveling, I was also greatly enjoying each new level bringing me a step closer to end game. For me, end game has always been the game, leveling is not it. I've got to stop mentioning WoW, I haven't played in 6 months, but the leveling changes for Cata are one of those things that look really good. Leveling 1-80 right now isn't a big deal, it's fun, it's a little time consuming, whatever you don't do it That often, especially with character xfers available now. 80-85 though, just 5 levels that are supposed to be packed with great content? Those 5 levels sound really fun.

Like I was saying though, leveling for the most part is just a chore. The first level in each new area of the game world is usually for the sake of fun, and typically the first 1/6th of each new character is fun for the sake of it, but after that it's just oh god why am I not capped yet.

I'd like to add real quick. I think that when players are new to MMO's, and they've never experienced end game content before, the whole act of leveling is a much much larger issue.

I had a nelf rogue when WoW first launched that I only took to level 30 with 30 days played on it (I'm still not sure how exactly I managed to waste that much time), but I had ridiculous amounts of fun with him, the most probably ever in an MMO. Once I finally got my hunter to 60 and started up some MC runs (a good while later since I got burned out of leveling in the 50's), leveling was never as interesting again.

I don't think I ever have. It's possible that one of the reasons I'm so anti-leveling is not so much because I hate gating content by stats (although I do, in fact, hate gating content by stats) as it is that I hate every game I've ever played's leveling curve. In order to drag out subscription dollars, every MMO I've ever played starts steadily, then drastically, increasing the length of time between rewards, between level-ups, between new powers, whatever. And every single one of them has eventually gotten to the point where I spent so long at level "n" that it stopped feeling like it was worth it to put in the sheer number of hours it was going to take to eventually become level "n+1".

(Especially since a new environment, with new enemies, wasn't likely to come until level "n+5" or, worse, "n+10". I'm supposed to be dissatisfied enough with my current level range to want to transcend it, but I'm also supposed to enjoy being stuck in that level range for weeks, or even months?)

quote]
"no, even though most players see it as an impediment to getting to the good part, the leveling game is what first hooks you on the game as a whole."
endquote]

Making sure that statement could not be taken out of context. This is the type of mainstream media thinking that keeps gamers getting the garbage that is currently out. You may think this way. I do not.

Fallen Earth. Love (love) the story, and the crafting emphasis keeps you plugging along the different areas.

Plus, the community, either in the help channel or storming Junk Fortress with you made it all tons of fun.