Levels a necessary evil or can some no levels allowed MMOG work?
The great blogging circle-jerk continues anew as I dish out my first Massively link to Tobold. Love him or hate him, Tobold has one again come up with a worthy topic for discussion. This time around Tobold asks and postulates on whether or not a MMORPG could work without levels.
Duh, you bet it can and some already take those levels puree them into tasty skill based systems. Tobold goes on to provide a good example of how he would like to see it work. As for using the Second Life card to auto-win the pot, I'm not cheating so wont count any virtual sand boxes. Although, one might argue that you level up in the sordid side of Second Life when your very first flying phallus darts in your direction. Ah c'mon, those jokes never get old. A reader in the comments thread pointed out that Guild Wars has been capped at level 20 since its initial launch and has seen many content additions that don't raise the leveling curve. I think that's a pretty good example showing how levels in the traditional sense can be bypassed.
While skill systems are more or less levels in disguise, in fact, any point, time investment in a character career I consider to be some type of level, they aren't levels in the traditional sense. I'm actually starting to prefer skill based systems to traditional based level systems. I would rather raise my level in certain areas than just be a level X shaman, warrior, warlock, barbershop orc hair cutter. In 25 years, are WoW players going to be running around on level 600 characters? Hopefully, everyone will be on some fancy pants Level 60 hero class instead. One less 0 to type. Rambling continues after the jump.
No matter what, levels will exist in some fashion, even if a MMOG doesn't flaunt it with numbers or grandiose titles, (shaman > death knight > maniacal rake shredder assassin.) How long have you played a MMOG? Are you a greenhorn newbie, been around the world you know a few things pundit, or are you a Sherlock Holmes expert that doesn't even need to use Wowhead because the bits and pieces already stream through your veins and into your synapses? Those are your levels right there. It's all about how long you played, although sometimes you run into someone who says they've been playing before the MMOG developers started the alpha version and somehow this self-professed expert plays worse than a retarded monkey with no fingers.
What do you guys think, are levels a necessary evil? It sure makes it hell of a lot easier to balance the curve and time it takes to reach that last number. You know what stings more than "hell levels?" Reputation grinding. I'll take the leveling bar over those reputation bars any day of the week -- unless the reward is really good. Mhmm, grindy.
