World of Warcraft: Current Year

Miele_sl said:

I believe you are arguing semantics.
No levels, just a power gauge hovering on the head of the characters, the more shit you do/kill/loot/explore/burn the higher the power gets, so we can compare values in the city-hub. Where's the difference?

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There's a huge difference because all of you (in a general sense) have been playing the quest treadmill level game for over a decade now. It's now ingrained into your sense of "what I'm supposed to do". It hard for you to grasp anything different. By creating a different product where you're not A) constantly looking at an xp bar B) constantly searching for quests to grab, do, and turn in C) ignore everything around you and just work on efficiency because you're trained to ignore the quest line and work mechanically through everything; by creating something different you are changing player behavior.

By taking away what you typical concentrate on, it allows the (hopefully competent and good) developer to refocus your attention on something different. Story. Gameplay mechanics. Rewards. Puzzles. Exploration. There are examples of all of this gameplay out there already in many games. UO, Darkfall, EVE, TSW, a myriad of survival games, Minecraft etc.

Just because no major successful game has done it, doesn't mean it would work. Because it has worked. Do say it doesn't work well in an MMO is asinine because it already as in a lot of different places.

Ever play GW2? There was definitely a group of people who loved exploration, puzzles and all of that. Imagine a game where you do that without an xp bar hanging over your head? That xp bar is always the driving factor for a lot of player behavior. Even people who aren't racing levels or care about speed have said "Hey I can even level while exploring!" The key phrase there "I can even level". Take that out of the equation.

Anyway, call it semantics if you like, it is in a way I guess. But I think redirecting the expectations, behavior and routines of the player would be a pretty refreshing experience. But yes, these are all different methods of advancement, progression and power measurement.

I'll leave this subject alone with this statement: Go look at the people who now "love" SWTOR because you can level strictly through the story quests. They have effectively taken out the leveling process of an xp bar and replaced it with a narrative. They were told to ignore the xp bar and enjoy just the story. It's a highly enjoyable experience. Why not gauge player power, experience just based on progression in a Story and build your game around that? Just an example.

Yup GW2's levels never had a lot of meaning and they have less and less over time. They always had a level evening mechanic so when doing normal hunting everything was always maintained at about the same difficulty and you would either be buffed up or mentored down to match the area you were in. So you could wander around and hunt whatever wherever and it all gave about the same rewards and xp. Now with their revamped skill system I am not even really sure what point their levels even have any more and could be likely removed without anybody noticing.

Bragon_sl said:

Sure but it won't change the amount of resources you will have to devote to that. Building up a good story with a good narative will take dev time and resources, and once you're at the end of the story (for all intents and purposes in that example 'max level') then what .....?

I mean no matter what you do, XP or not, you will need to keep people busy UNTIL ......untill they have the gear to do end game, or until they have whatever the fuck status/achiev/resource needed to become more and do more. It's still a threadmill and it's still 'leveling' up. It might be more engaging and fun, yes, but ultimately this will still be your leveling experience and it will still suck away 'end game' development resources. And it will still be something you'll have to go through again before touching 'end game' on any new character.

Until you completely break away from that model in any way shape or form, it's still the same threadmill in disguise.

Could a flat MMO structure work? May be. You would have to think hard on what sense of achivement players would have in a world where everything is open to everyone right off the bat. No level no XP also means balancing and tuning mobs now is even more of a challenge.

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I'm assuming you don't have much experience outside WOW or any other DIKUclone that has come out since EQ because you don't seem to understand that A) It's been done before and B) there isn't just one way to make a game. If you just want a game where you get gear to kill monster to get gear to kill monster, and not a different gaming experience, then just ignore this post. Maybe that's all you want?

In any case, why the fuck do you need an "end game"? Why is there a division between leveling and raiding (or whatever)? Why is the end game just killing bigger NPC models with more people than normal? There are so many other games out there with different activities to do. Think outside the level>dungeons>raiding paradigm that you're so dug in to. Now let's discuss your points because they are so tunnel visioned into the DIKU model.

First, it absolutely changes your resources. If you create a game that doesn't rely on linear progression paths, then you can make use of all content perpetually. Just look at EVE. Obviously some content becomes obsolete. Obviously some content isn't used 100% of the games life cycle. But you can create a game where your beautiful newbie zone isn't used up and left behind inside 2 hours. You don't need to create a game with a "strong narrative". That was only an example I used to show a game doesn't need levels to track progression (shit single player games have done this for decades).

Story mode isn't the only thing you can do, so don't grasp that as a reason.

Sure, if you break down a game there is always progression to a certain goal. Just like you can break down all videos are is just pushing buttons. Drilling it down to the base aspects is good practice to find out what works and what doesn't, but the way you progress through a game feels incredibly different based on what your activies and goals are.

How many people do you know that said WOW was so much better than EQ because you weren't just camping/grinding mobs. Did you just tell them they were dumb because you were just grinding mobs anyway? Or did it actually feel more enjoyable and different? Those differences matter. It always comes down to masking how you press those buttons.

So you mention breaking away from the model, that's exactly what I'm saying. Fuck levels. Fuck treadmills. Fuck raiding and your shitty endgame. There are plenty of games out there that do that.

Could a flat MMO structure work? Yes, because it has in a lot of games and you don't have to have everything open to everyone right off the bat. I mean for fuck sake people, use your imagination and stop playing DIKU games.

They already made an mmo without levels years ago:

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kaid_sl said:

Yup GW2's levels never had a lot of meaning and they have less and less over time. They always had a level evening mechanic so when doing normal hunting everything was always maintained at about the same difficulty and you would either be buffed up or mentored down to match the area you were in. So you could wander around and hunt whatever wherever and it all gave about the same rewards and xp. Now with their revamped skill system I am not even really sure what point their levels even have any more and could be likely removed without anybody noticing.

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The long leveling process gated your class build. That's the only thing that compelled me to grind efficiently so I could finally get a full build. If all trait points were out in the world like skill points? Levels would of been useless then (assuming gear wasn't level gated too). It would of been a much better game imo.

Some people enjoy the levelling process, the sense of accomplishment, the stats, the abilities, the cool armor, etc. But I'm a numbers man, so maybe that's why it fascinates me so much

Noodlemod_sl said:

Some people enjoy the levelling process, the sense of accomplishment, the stats, the abilities, the cool armor, etc. But I'm a numbers man, so maybe that's why it fascinates me so much

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When did I say no one enjoys the leveling process? What the fuck.

What I meant was the traditional levelling process

You are really angry about this and quite frankly I'm feeling triggered

Noodlemod_sl said:

What I meant was the traditional levelling process

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I'm confused what you think I thought you were talking about?

Is world pvp still a thing in WoW? Or is it all honorbuddy bots VS honorbuddy bots in arenas these days?

Big Flex_sl said:

Is world pvp still a thing in WoW? Or is it all honorbuddy bots VS honorbuddy bots in arenas these days?

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World pvp is just ganking these days. There is not anything meaningful outside of BGs and arenas.

Slaythe_sl said:

Emerald Dream is a RP PVP server where people don't really RP. There is always world PVP going on. It's honestly the only server I've played on since vanilla that still has some sort of sense of community.

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I might check that out.

Was bored, made a 90 Boost Undead Warrior on Emerald Dream - Drecin is the name

Are there many 10-19 or 20-29 WSGs on emerald dream?
I just started on the kronos server in the hopes of having some fun with low lvl vanilla battlegrounds but there are never really any matches. I am a crazy person who loves the pvp in early world of warcraft but not the pve.