Breakfast Topic: If you could de-level your main, would you?
I've been playing a good bit of Disgaea 2 on my PSP lately, and I'm frequently impressed by the depth of some of the game's mechanics. As a strategy RPG, it features the typical characters, levels, items, and so on. However, it also offers you the option to reincarnate a character at level 1, retaining a portion of his or her stats. A player with enough patience can repeat this multiple times, eventually creating characters that are godlike (and yes, you have to do something like this if you want to complete all the game's content).
This type of mechanic has been kicking around in RPGs for a long time. Kingdom of Loathing allows characters to "ascend" after defeating the final boss, and several classic text-based MUD's allowed characters the option to "remort" or "immort" (return to level 1 and start the game again, or become an immortal and help develop the game) upon reaching maximum level.
Obviously, the stat thing wouldn't work very well in WoW (how long would it take before raids started requiring X number of reincarnations?), but from a purely character-driven perspective, it'd be nice to let my night elf see the old zones again. Sure, I can go there as a level 85, but much of the fun and mystique is lost when you can one-shot enemies and fly to all the quest objectives.
What do you think? If you could de-level your main to level 1 and start again, would you?
