mmog-leveling
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Would emotional value improve the leveling experience in MMOGs?
Grats on your ding, wait, why are you crying? Not again. That last level really hurt your feelings didn't it. Well, some game developers like Indigo Prophecy creator, David Cage believe there is a missing component in the MMOG leveling experience. Cage's own feeling on the matter is that the interconnection is lacking when it comes to invoking a broader reaction from the player. "What's the real narrative or emotional value? Sometimes it's really interesting when you're in the guild in a massively multiplayer game and you attack the fortress or whatever. Some great things can be told, but it's not guaranteed. The value is not always there."Wow, that's deep but in all seriousness there is a certain truth to his sentiment. Leveling can be a painfully dull experience and usually MMOG use the same formula and mimic the same rags-to-riches journey. While there is nothing wrong with that, it can become tiresome and insipid if you no longer care for the redundant leveling experience. So maybe developers do need to instill a sense of danger, a sense of importance and meaning to the leveling experience. Fun is most important, and MMOGs should be enjoyed and not an emotional rollercoaster into dystopia.
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.
