Kuro said:
You just end up with a nebulous system of tiering instead of an easy and obvious one. It happens in these games whenever people hit a level cap, except it"s by gear instead of by abilities procured.
The goal is...
1) It allows developers to create more freebranching, campaign length quests. For example, there"s quest for Horde that starts in Darkshire, takes you out to desolace and back. The reward in WoW? 2k xp, some gold and vendortrash. This is probably the least done quest in WoW.
By contrast, what if the reward was +3% runspeed? Or gave you +5 int? Or perhaps it increased the damage dealt by the warlock spell curse of agony by 10%?
The quest goes from being a waste of time, to something you definitely want to do.
2) It allows you to create dungeon content that"s still relevant. Let"s be honest, around the era I quit EQ, there may be two people in Guk at any given time, and one of them would be a druid powerleveling the other guy. SolA and perma were ghost towns. SFK is one of the greatest dungeons in any game ever yet nobody does it anymore.
Now if you put in a quest where Mages extend the duration of polymorph by 10 seconds by researching Arugal"s spellbooks? Warlock"s learn how to summon a stronger voidwalker. Killing Arugal unlocks another talent point for all classes the first time you kill him. Couple this with the job system and making group dungeons only require 2~3 level appropriate people and SFK will be hit on an almost daily basis for years.
That low level dungeon content that attracted new players no longer becomes pointless and wasted content. It"s probably the least retarded way to encourage grouping without making it a total pain in the ass.
3) Finally, the concept of levels can be reworked to fit the new model. Level is still a relative function of your characters power, but you can include other factors into it like your gear level, content that you"ve beaten, etc...
As it is now level 80 means nothing in WoW. Normally you see people saying "3k dps rogue lfg" or "35k hp tank lfg" since those numbers are far more meaningful. I imagine it"s only a matter of time before WoW allows you to list your general ilvl when being lfg.
Imagine incorporating that into WoW, especially in the pvp scene. What is now a supertwinked level 10 vs. non-twinked level 30"s would face up against eachother as they are both "challenge level 35" or whatever.
Anyways...