experience-curve
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Flameseeker Chronicles: Your Guild Wars 2 mileage will vary
There's been a good deal of talk, here in the early days, about the level and experience curve in Guild Wars 2. A great many people are tackling the game in a great many ways, which leads to a tremendous variety in folks' perception of the leveling curve. There are a few of ways that your experience gain might not match up to your desired or expected level. These ways mostly deal with feeling underleveled for storyline content and zone progression. As I said, everyone's moving through the game differently: Some folks made a point to run around major cities right of the bat to tuck a few safe levels under their belts, while others made a beeline for personal story content, and others still (and I count myself in this category) are stumbling this way and that through content with all the focus and willpower of a drunken goldfish.
Vanguard content update to feature new dungeon, golden path, and more
Holy smokes, it's a Vanguard content update! No, really. Sony Online Entertainment has just delighted fans of its long-neglected fantasy themepark with a post on the official boards that outlines some nifty changes coming in the near future. In addition to a new thirteen-boss dungeon called the City of Brass, the devs are also cranking out overland raid bosses, removing the game's corpse recovery mechanics, and easing the leveling experience. There's also a blurb about increased drop rates and a "golden path" via the game's riftways that will guide players to the ideal adventuring areas for their level. There's no date on all the goodies as of yet, but the post says that SOE is "getting close" to migrating the patch to Vanguard's test server. Head to the official forums to see for yourself.
Dungeon Fighter Online begins the Dawn of Retribution
It's the holidays, and the elder spirits of Dungeon Fighter Online are in a giving mood! The first major update to the game, the Dawn of Retribution, fixes three main areas that have been giving players some trouble with the game. If you felt things were going a bit slow, then worry no longer as the leveling curve has been reduced, speeding up your progress through the advancement tree. Less grinding, more punching monsters into the dirt where they belong! For the newer players entering the game, the lower level dungeons have been made easier and the tutorial has been revamped. So not only are the starting instructions clearer, but the starting dungeons won't beat you as hard as they use to. There's also the usual holiday event added to the mix, where snow will fall on the ground once per day for an hour. If you're there when it's snowing, you'll be enjoying a 20% experience boost during your adventures! There's also loot to steal off of Chrismas goblins and the special notorious monster, Snowblin. So get out there and get dungeoneering!
Aion introduces XP bonus weekends to smooth the curve
Some will say it's unnecessary. Some will say it's coming too late. And others? Others will jump up and down in joy. What could possibly be so divisive? Oh, well, that's Aion's new bonus experience weekends! According to community manager Tamat, Aion is introducing these brand new experience gaining opportunities to help smooth the leveling curve between levels one and 35. As long as you log on during one of these weekends and are between those levels, everything you do will garner you double experience. Crafting? Yep. Gathering? Yep. Killing? Yep, it's all there. Now Tamat does go on to say that this is a temporary measure before they do something more permanent about the leveling curve, but it's a good start to address what is an issue to many people. Especially when, as we've said before, only 2% of the entire population is between the levels of 46-50 and Aion's endgame doesn't function well without people. Hard to PvP with no one there.
Nexon permanently increases the rate of experience gain in MapleStory
One of the downsides of an ever-expanding game is the time it takes a new player to "catch up" to the majority of the player-base. Most people are kicking it in some groovy expansion while others might be stuck on old long-abandoned content. Nexon has identified the need to speed their players through certain areas of MapleStory and has taken one of the more common routes to do so: they have announced that the game's experience curve has been boosted. Players from level 11-30 will get experience 50% faster than before. From 31-200 the bonus is decreased slightly, down to a still-significant 25%.The temporary experience boosts that were granted for recent events were apparently received very well by MapleStory players, and this approval is what led to the permanent increase. Nexon America's VP of Marketing Min Kim helped to make the announcement: "The world of MapleStory is considerably larger than when it was first released. Accelerating the EXP rates empowers old and new users alike to better explore the MapleWorld." The new exp curve is already in effect, so what are you waiting for? Go level a Cygnus Knight!
