Just this week, Cameron at Random Battle called for the removal of the first 20 levels for veteran MMO players. What is the reason for his discontent? It’s the problem we’ve been hearing quite a lot of lately: tedium. Almost every blog and rant about MMO’s these days is talking about MMO burnout and the drudgery that results from having to replay old content. He says that veteran players should be given the opportunity to exempt themselves from the beginning levels because those levels are intended to be a tutorial; since veterans know the MMO ropes they should be excused from having to grind out those levels. Cameron also talks about how the game play really isn’t challenging enough during those levels. I don’t disagree with him regarding that point but the call to reduce leveling from MMO’s is short-sighted. Here’s my take on this:
The Equality Argument: Everyone Must Follow the Rules
In MMO’s everyone starts out equal at level one — regardless of skill level or previous experience. That is one of the most basic fundamental tenets of virtual worlds that use a leveling mechanic for character progression. To allow players to bypass leveling content is a violation of this concept. Besides, veteran players already have an overwhelming advantage over newbie players — they already know how to play MMO’s and understand concepts like threat, damage per second and mitigation. Vets also know the ropes about the inner workings of basic MMO mechanics like leveling and strategies like min/maxing.
This is something that should need to be repeated but nobody in an MMO should be exempt from the rules. Different rules for different players would be a disaster. Yet we see that with WoW’s hero classes, that concept is regrettably starting to disintegrate. Blizzard is the darling of the MMO industry and they can get away with it. At least for now…
Leaving Newbies In the Dust
Allowing one group of players to bypass 20 levels has the potential to create animosity between newbies and veterans. Given the chance, newbies would probably elect to skip the levels as well which would ill serve them as they would not learn how to play their class and not figure out how MMO’s work.
Another consideration is that without veterans in low level areas, who will newbies group with? Who will newbies talk to? Who will teach them the finer points about MMO’s? Nobody, that’s who.
Is Leveling Such a Hardship?
Today in WoW leveling has never been easier. The experience needed to level has been reduced by Blizzard in a previous patch. Given all of the tricks and money for twinking that experienced players have at their disposal is leveling really such a hardship?
One of the players who recently posted a comment on my blog thinks so:
Now if you really want to gain that honor and pride of wasting your time by leveling and leveling and leveling and leveling new characters, by all means try a more hardcore MMO, meanwhile I’ll stick to my easy-mode MMO that is actually fun.
This is the new breed of MMO player that Blizzard “WoW MMO Boot Camp” has produced. Apparently leveling is viewed as drudgery that has no value or place in an MMO. Is it just me or are players today just plain lazy?
Addressing the Real Problem
It seems to me that the real problem that is causing the clamor for the removal of leveling is the fact that content in MMO’s is not dynamic. The content just never seem to change in MMO’s. In WoW, we have the same scenarios, conflicts, quests and NPC’s that we did almost 4 years ago when the game shipped. People are bored out of their minds because Blizzard has failed to create a MMO that is a living breathing world. Things never seem to change in an MMO like WoW. Their cleverly crafted quests and stories were wonderful the first few times around; now they are old news and reminders of the shortcomings of a stale and predictable MMO.
My Prediction is Coming True
A few months ago I warned the MMO community that Blizzard’s decision to start their new hero class at level 55 could have dire implications for the one of the most basic mechanics of MMORPG’s: leveling. I stated that the introduction of the Deathknight hero class and Blizzard’s foray into e-sports would have the effect of cheapening the notion of leveling among other things. I also discussed at length how this action would ultimately create a culture of entitlement in the playerbase. To quote myself:
we may be seeing the end of leveling as a MMO mechanic…
When you cheapen the notion of leveling by allowing a player to skip 55 levels of content in your MMO, you create a slippery slope of expectations among the playerbase, bloggers and even game designers. Once players get a taste of a character that doesn’t have to level like other classes, they will be hungry for more — you can bet your life on it. Reducing leveling requirements is becoming a serious marketing tool for WoW as Blizzard has just instituted Recruit a Friend program that rewards players with special leveling speed bonus. Folks, the horse is already out of the barn.
More Predictions
I will make some more predictions: by the release of the next expansion after Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard will allow players who have enough high level characters on their accounts to create new characters that start at level 55 — that may happen even sooner. Also, Blizzard will probably have their 2nd hero class start at level 65. Other MMO companies will most certainly follow Blizzard’s lead by coming up with schemes to reduce leveling requirements
We seem to be headed toward a future of convenience based games that are intent on slowly but surely disabling cardinal MMO features. Shameless video game companies who want only to increase their bottom line will gladly capitulate to the angry mob in the street who’s shouting for more bread. Let them eat cake I say.
I truly sympathize with Cameron and others who are tired of the repetitive nature of MMO’s today. I too share that frustration but I’m not ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Removing leveling is not the answer. Making content at all levels fresh, fun, dynamic and exciting is the answer*. This is precisely what I have been fighting for on this blog for many years. Maybe when enough people are totally fed up things will change.
-Wolfshead
*Psst! Blizzard, maybe you could use a tiny fraction of that $520 million in profits you made in 2007 from WoW to update your 4 year old content?
You’re absolutely right: designing a way to skip the first 20 levels of a game has numerous issues, the least of which is that it shortens the leveling curve. You elaborated on others that I also agree with.
I think a more palatable solution is the one that Aaron brought up in my comments on that post: more complexity at the early levels for those who want it without overwhelming new players.
Make 20 levels of skills available to the player, but only require challenges that expect you to use them gradually. Explain new skills to players as they need them. This has the added benefit of allowing vets to buzz through the lowbie content using advanced skills and techniques.
Of course, that means you need to provide a new incentive for leveling, too (since new skills won’t be available as a reward).
“*Psst! Blizzard, maybe you could use a tiny fraction of that $520 million in profits you made in 2007 from WoW to update your 4 year old content?”
Wolf, I think that money is going to the Next Gen MMO from Blizzard. Its also helping with Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 development costs.
I think next year after Wrath, D3, and SC2 have been released and patched…. There will be a decision… abandon WoW/BC/Wrath and move into a new engine in a new MMO or one more expansion for WoW.
Stacraft 2 RTS develops lore for World of Starcraft.
Warcraft 4 RTS develops ore for World of Warcraft 2.
Getting rid of the level grind treadmill guts the current design model and the subscription monetary model based on addiction to time=progress. What will you replace it with? It’s got to be something interesting for solo and groups, casual and hardcore. It’s got to be something that rewards time and skill. It’s got to be something that people are willing to pay for.
Make it a fantasy flavored Counterstrike (all group/PUG PvP), and there’s no justification for subscription. Make it too hardcore, and the huge casual market (including but not limited to people past the dumb teenager demographic) doesn’t play. Make it solely PvE, and people will whine about the endgame. Make it purely a raid/skill game and people will fuss about lack of content for explorers.
I don’t think that it’s possible to satisfy all of the Bartle types with one game. That’s not a heresy, by the way; the real world itself isn’t really a place that every person is comfortable in, and certainly not within the constraints of existing game design. WoW hits several high points by catering to the casual and the hardcore, and while it does make for a bit of a bland potato salad instead of filet mignon, it’s at least something that brings lots of players to the table.
I’m all for making games to cater to different types and subtypes of players. That’s how a niche market thrives, and how products differentiate themselves. WoW has seen success by being relatively accessible, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s naturally not going to be the end all solution for every player, and frankly, I don’t think it should be, nor is it fair to demand that it be.
Bartle seems to think that we need innovation in the genre. A truly level-less game design wouldn’t appeal to all players, and will not get the numbers that WoW did. Make it on budget, though, and it would be plenty successful.
Still… I can’t help but think that the idea that MMOs be able to recoup costs via subscription over several years is bad business. If they were designed more like single player titles, with clear focus and defined goals, we would get our dynamic worlds. Worlds that change with the players (or because of them) just aren’t fit for the current MMO business model of periodic bloodletting, relying on the sheeple’s complacency to dodge notice.
Less tortoises, more hares, in other words. Our ADHD game industry and player populace doesn’t really want the “Cheers” of gaming where everyone knows your name and nothing changes; they want brave new frontiers.
@Cameron: People roll alts for all kinds of reasons. Many just want to take a break from the regimentation of raiding, others want to try out a new class. Not all them of them want to speed their way to the level cap. However, I do agree for those that do, leveling seems like a chore if they are of the view that the content at the level cap is where the action is — a design philosophy which companies like Blizzard promote as well.
Now to your point regarding Aaron’s suggestion, I’m not sure that those players would really be that happy if levels 1-20 required more skill. What they really want is to arrive at the level cap as fast as possible. I’m not so sure that veteran players would opt for more challenge at lower levels. I believe they’d just rather min/max their way through them. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Level 1-20 content for some is great, for others it’s an inconvenience. I think it would be very problematic for a MMO company to have to implement such a system to placate veterans.
@Aimedshot: I agree completely. Blizzard is going to milk the success by expending the least amount of effort for the greatest amount of gain. I’ve heard them say in previous interviews that they really don’t like going back to update old content.
My view is that it’s a very shortsighted policy as it will hurt the longevity of WoW in the long run. It has the effect of herding players into the brand new content by virtue neglecting to maintain the old content. It reminds me of how Microsoft decides to stop supporting older versions of Windows which forces people to upgrade into the new versions.
I wrote an article a while back where I speculated that Blizzard is probably working on WoW2 as we speak. That may be the MMO that will have all of the advanced features that many of us have been waiting for. Of course I’m not holding my breath there. 🙂
Blizzard just recently upped the amount of experience that it takes to level in the WotLK beta. As predicted the pressure to reduce leveling is coming hard and fast from the beta testers. Now just imagine how much the regular testers will be complaining once it goes live?
Here’s a listing of all of the threads so far:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8991469352&sid=2000
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9023723160&sid=2000
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9023603203&sid=2000
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9023673179&sid=2000
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9023783162&sid=2000
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9023663122&sid=2000
Adding more threads on this issue:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9023606989&sid=2000
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9023676268&sid=2000
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9023696828&sid=2000
As much as I like easy rewards, here’s hoping that Blizzard doesn’t cave on this. They are in the best position to understand the pacing of the expansion. I’m all for making people wander around a bit more. Maybe that’s petty, but if players are only in it for the race to the new endgame, why should Blizzard bother with making new terrain, lore and beasties?
I’ve actually seen a few places where bloggers are expressing desires to avoid the mad leveling rush; to take time so smell the pixels, as it were. The Big Bear Butt blogger seems to have that mentality as does a guildmate of his, Eustacheus. (I may have slaughtered the spelling on that…)
As I’ve noted elsewhere, WoW is so much more than a fantasy flavored Counterstrike server. It’s time people appreciate the worldcrafting that goes into it. (And yes, Blizzard could appreciate what they have a bit more, and do more to help others do so, too… the impetus for appreciation isn’t just on the players.)
I’d like to see the mid levels skipped not the intro levels. 1 to 20 teaches me the basics of this class, and is often accompanied by different starting zones per race. The upper tier content is generally what people are trying to achieve. It’s that mid tier content that is identical across all races and classes, and is a repeat and a grind. Even if it was fun the first time, it isn’t the 4th time. Besides which, there are so many other grinds that must be completed to prepare an alt. People often want alts to play another class not because they are dying to repeat content. And even with Blizzard accelerating the leveling curve, 3 to 4 weeks to level an alt thru content you’ve done multiple times, is 4 weeks too long for me.
Make content less static so that it’s less of a complete do-over and people wont want to skip it. Consider this… I decide to roll an alt because I’m bored with my main, so to ease the monotony, I should create an alt and go thru all the content I’ve already seen multiple times? That doesn’t seem like a reasonable approach to my problem which is, being bored and needing a change of pace.
Make the content more compelling and repeatable and I won’t want to skip it and the problem solved. 🙂 As much as I loved AC2 repeating content is one of the reasons I never made an alt. Gaining XP was predicated on doing repeatable quests for XP – repetition built in, assumed and required. So now I should repeat the repeat of the repeating quests on some other character to try another class?? I think not. The addition of dailies in WOW to earn gold – repeating the repeatables is absurd insane and something I refused to participate in. Now that it is a major foundation of gathering gold, I’d NEVER EVER roll an alt in that game.
Wow. After reading some of the comments by beta testers from your link above, I am seriously ready to /quit wow now. They are part of the reason I no longer find WoW fun. Crying about the heavy leveling curve. Good grief. One guy wanted the changes to experience to be reversed and for him to get the levels that he WOULD have had. Seriously? What a joke this game has become. When did people stop having fun leveling their toons, rather than just trying to get to end game so fast?
These are dark times for mmo’s.
@Saylah: The next big MMO will be the one that figures out how to do two things:
1) gives each player a personalized experience that lets the player make their own story — not the one quest/storyline fits all model of WoW
2) allows the player to meaningfully impact and change a dynamic world
The reason why content is so boring and tedious for players that want to roll alts is because they must do all of the same quests that their main did — with very few exceptions. If WoW had no quests then the gaming experience would be much more open ended for the player. Instead of being told where to go and what to kill by a NPC questgiver, the player would start acting with autonomny and independence. The player assumes ownership over her the destiny of her avatar instead of blindly doing the bidding of scripted questgivers.
On dailies, I certainly agree with you there. They were created as a band-aid solution to thwarting gold farming (Kaplan’s words at last year’s Blizzcon). For me, the cure is much worse then the disease as it literally forces people to complete them each day just so they don’t fall behind economically.
@RomaGoth: I too am appalled at the attitude of many of the people complaining about the increase in experience required in WotLK. Let’s not forget, these are supposed to be “testers”; people who are there to *gasp* test. They should be a bit hardier and more resilient then the average player. It’s sad to see how lazy players have become as they really seem to feel they are entitled to easy leveling.
Another interesting development is that many testers now are using the “but I’ve got a wife and kids to feed” argument. Translation: they have a stable of alts that they are expecting to level to 80. How can they be expected to have all of their alts reach the level cap if the experience required is so much greater then before? Sure this sounds ridiculous but here we have a clear indication of how spoiled players have become. Their alts have “rights” now it seems! And an easy pathway to the level cap is one of them.
I am really having a hard time right now deciding if I want to play the expansion or not. I started playing LOTRO again after a year away from it (I was in the BETA) and I am finding it enjoyable. At the same time, I have two 70’s and a 60 in WoW that I have invested the last 1 1/2 into, it is difficult to walk away from them even if they are not all purpled out.
Everytime I see comments such as the ones from the BETA testers, I die a little on the inside, knowing that Blizzard is doing their best to just make money, thus dumbing down this mmo even further. It is frustrating as someone who likes the characters, does not want to level up more alts, but wants a fairly mature player base to share the gaming experience with. Is it me, or has the WoW community in general gotten younger (and subsequently, sorry to say, dumber)?
Roma
Roma,
Regarding the community, I played on a new account last month, and found some fairly helpful people in the Night Elf newbie zones. I’m not sure if they were just alts of experienced players or truly new people, but I never ran into antagonistic players. They might also have been too busy grinding in some cases, but I did run into some people who seemed genuinely new, and who seemed to be enjoying themselves. A few even wanted to group or just play cooperatively, apparently just for the fun of it.
The endgame raiders seem to be the most… vocal, with the greatest sense of entitlement, largely due to the sense that they have “invested” in their characters, both in time and in money. (Which is part of my rant against the subscription model, incidentally… a rant that I still need to write in full.)
The Big Bear Butt Blogger has noted his intention to take the 70-80 journey at a relatively leisurely pace, as have other bloggers I’ve read lately. In line with that, I still think that Blizzard should horizontally expand the “old world” and encourage “sniffing the roses”, but that may well mean more work than they want to get involved with, especially with the next-gen MMO, Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 in the works. Of course, I think they should focus on the “old world” of WoW, but I suspect that they are content to let the endgame raiders monetize the game at this point, counting on inertia and the sense of investment to maintain revenue.
Really, MMOs can only stay “live” for so long. The romantic image of a persistent online world, always on, always living, just doesn’t fit into the business world, Moore’s Law, or the ever-shifting tastes of gamers.
LOL about alts having rights! Good one. However, I think in WOW’s case so many players having so many alts is a symptom of other things like having an end-game that is a complete grind and it has the nerve to reset itself on top it. People have been playing WOW a long time and some of them have gone that long because of alts. It’s not surprising that they’d be concerned about leveling them.
If Blizzard has increase the amount of effort/XP required to level by providing adequate content then all is well and good. If the % of times you need to do the same quest or instance to gain your levels hasn’t changed, then they have nothing to complain about. However, if this extra effort and XP comes by doing repeating instances or repeatable quests more times, then they have every right to be concerned. That would be a bold cop-out on Blizzards’s part to stretch the content without increasing its depth. But there’s no way for players to actually do the math to know if that’s what is now expected.
What I’m saying is if they developed the same amount of content they did to move players 10 levels in WoTLK as they did for the 10 levels in TBC, but increased the XP required to gain those 10 levels, it means that people will be forced to re-do the same content (instances) more times and there’s nothing exciting about that prospect the first time, let alone doing it for alts.
I too would prefer to skip mid-levels.
I’ve recently created a Paladin character on WoW, and I have enjoyed the first 20 levels a lot. Yes, I have done all these quests beofre numerous times, but they are still fun.
My character is now in the mid-30s, and I am not liking the choices of where I have to go next. WTB Boost to lv 50.
@Vlad
I feel your pain. In your mid-30’s the choices are slim and more than likely you are stuck in Stranglethorn Vale for what seems an eternity. Of course, there is the RAF program that Blizzard has now implemented to further bloat their subscription base. You can go that route and get some free levels in addition to another mount…..