For a while now, I have been putting some deep thought into the longevity of mmos and speaking my thoughts among others. What does longevity mean to MMOs? Specially those up and coming. Does it mean content, pacing, or something else? Perhaps it’s a little of everything, but with new mmos coming out, in order to stand the test of time, like our grandfather mmos; everquest, ultima online, even WOW-Classic (I guess). What do they have to do to have such longevity as them? What do they have to do, in order to stand the test of time.
One, if not, the most important factor, to me at least, is the pacing of the game. How fast one does the content, how fast one levels, how fast the average player base burns through your game before the next expansion, the next content drops. Yes, I agree, in today’s “gaming environment” the pacing of leveling how it was in Everquest would be too harsh today. But take a second and think about how long it took you in any mmo now-a-days. How long did it take you to reach that level cap? Not talking about doing raids, or getting gear or anything in that nature. Just talking leveling here. Let’s face it, most of us with mmo gaming experience, leveling is generally fast for us. Hitting that cap within a few weeks to a few months. Now think about how long you played that game. How long before you jumped ship? If the time it took you to level would have been longer, would you have played longer? Instead of taking you, lets say 2 month to reach that cap, would have been 4 or 6 months. Would you have played longer? Would have enjoyed it longer?
The pacing, or leveling time in MMOs, to me, is one of the very utmost important factors when it comes to MMOs. Because it sets the stage for everything there after. Now, I agree, like I said before leveling shouldn’t be has “harsh” as it was in everquest. Like in a recent stream, a streamer playing p99 (everquest), said “everquest is a dick, it’s just the way it was!” Which, I have to say, is about as truthful as it gets. But after listening to a ton of people talking about how much they want Pantheon to be Everquest like, and reading post after post with the same feelings. It confuses me, to hear most, not all, of those same voices wanting a game where the pacing, the leveling experience is so much faster, that it borderlines WoW or any WoW clone. For those that did not play Everquest, but played Wow when it came out. Think about your time there. If it took you an extra month or two, to level, would you have enjoyed it more? Less?
I have played a very long list of mmos, so much that I stopped playing them for many years, because I was tried of clones. I have seen games where I can cap out my level within just a few weeks (2 months tops) to how it was in everquest, taking me 2 years(ish) to reach the level cap. But in all my experience, Vanguard was the only game that was in the middle. Taking me 6 months to reach the level cap. I get it, I hear what you are saying, I have a family now, I have a job or two or three now, I don’t’ have the time to invest in a game like everquest. I want to be able to log in and do things and feel like I achieved something within the scope of what time I have. I get it.… but content does not need to be the same as pacing.
I believe in the 60/40 rule. Where the average player will be spending 60% of the time it take before content drops, leveling, and the other 40% doing other things; raiding, gearing, crafting, etc. For example; Let’s say there is only one expansion per year. So around 6 months, should be the time frame that the average player would take to reach that level cap. The rest of the time is doing content like crafting, gearing, raiding, dungeons, etc etc. I get it, there are those that can level up faster than 6 months, probably in the 4 month time frame. Guess what… there will always be someone faster. If it takes the average player only 2 months to hit the level cap, then there will be a lot of players, more than you realize that will hit that cap WAY quicker. That means that the other 10 months of the year, if your content drop is like the example I gave above, that the player base is getting gear, crafting, raiding, etc. To me that is a huge gap that just invites people to jump ship, which also means a huge possibility for less money being made, that in turn effects everyone.
Content does not need to be the same as pacing/leveling. We can have a rewarding experience with content, but with a much slower pace for leveling. You only got time to delve into a dungeon for a few short hours, but that doesn’t mean that within that time frame you gain a ton of levels because of it. Slowing the leveling process is hugely important, because it gives players more time to get involved in your game. More time to interact with others. More time equals longer longevity. That’s why so many talk about how great Everquest was. Yes it was a good game, yes it had a ton of content that was fun and enjoyable, yes it was harsh, yes it was a dick at times, but it was the pacing of the leveling that is what I hear from people when they talk about how great it was and how they want Pantheon to be like everquest. People logged in every day, joined guild mates, friends, or met random people. There was groups of people leveling in different areas, yes they were there for hours, every day, sometimes a week to get a level. They traveled the world to get to locations and would group up with others that were already there. They would play for hours trying to get that next level, find something they were after, work on some personal goal like an epic, or rare item. It took time and that is the key factor that I think everyone wants from a new mmo. A time sink, one game, that they will be playing next year, the follow year, the year after that, etc etc. The longer it takes the players to level, the longer they will be playing, that’s why I personally believe that Vanguard has been the only game that really hit that compromise that so many have voiced. A balance between it takes forever to level like in everquest, to leveling is too fast, like we see in so many mmos now. This is why, I am in favor, and I am hoping Pantheon will take the Vanguard approach, and have the pacing, the leveling time in their game to be long. Not as long as Everquest, but 100% not as quick as any mmos out now. 6-8 Months is my hope. I personally, want as new content drops, I’ve barely had time to get ready for it. I miss the days where content drops and your having to work towards it instead of sitting around for months to almost a year for it, or even worst jumping ship and bouncing around from game to game. I don’t want to see a mmo where the only time you really see a huge increase in players is when content drops then a month or two later, they are gone. It’s drops and it drops hard.
That’s is also why I am in favor of elements that slow down the leveling process. I am not talking about doing crafting, or anything like that. I am talking about corpse runs, losing levels, experience debts. OMG NO I DO NOT WHAT THAT! I hear you, but the longer it takes, the more time players are playing the game. As harsh as everquest was, it was these elements that help create memories that we remember today. Interacted with others, and blossomed into a love for a game that is still around today. Even if it’s had plastic surgery. Now before you start ranting on me, hear me out.
Corpse runs, they are the worst! Trust me, I know I did it for years! However, as bad as it was, we have the technology today to have corpse runs, but without some of the issues that came with it. How many of you died, and managed to get back to your corpse but found out that your body fell into the void, a space that you couldn’t reach, access, or anything. Yes, some of us from everquest remember having to find someone who could summon our corpse, or using a command line code in the chat box in hopes of being able to pull it towards us. I remember a few bodies that I lost without knowing about what class could summon my corpse, or that there even was a command line code I could use to pull it to me. I can clearly remember to this day those corpses I lost, what I had on them, and how I wished I would have had the knowledge that I do now about getting them back. How many times did you die trying to solo something and had your corpse fall somewhere that was way too close to a mob, or in a place so deep that respawns happen. How many of us had stored extra gear just for getting corpses back. *raises hand*
Does corpses runs need to be as harsh as they were? Yes, I think they do but hear me out. They do not need to be as harsh. I’ve played mmos where you respawned with your gear, and only left behind a corpse and reviving that corpse only gives some of the experience you lost back. Sorry, but I don’t want that. Why? Because for many, taking the time to find someone to rez that corpse is slowing the amount of experience you could gain. So just leave the body and continue leveling. You end up with bodies every where. I can remember zoning into a game and seeing a ton of bodies at zone-ins, camp spots, everywhere. That’s not sometime I want to see personally. So yes, I want corpse runs to mean, that we have to get our gear back. We respawn naked and have to seek others out. Player interaction is important. Classes, with abilities to summon corpses, even rez, become so much more important, specially if the pace of leveling is much slower. That isn’t to say that there shouldn’t be things in place to not make it so harsh.
NPCS, located in towns, that are on a timer, and the cost based on your level is something that should be there. What I mean is that there is an npc that will call your corpse to you for a price. A price that slowly goes up as you level, hell even give them a cheap rez but to avoid abusing this, and to have importance in classes like clerics, and other that can rez. The amount of experience you get back from the npc should be very low and costly. Not so costly as it’s not affordable, but costly in that you don’t want it use this method every time. The timer, only allowing you to use this service, lets say once per hour, or once every 30 minutes. So you can’t abuse it, can’t use it whenever you want. But it’s there, it’s a safer net, in case something happens, either Real life, or a bug… it’s there.
What about the way we revive others. Normally, someone has to go to where your corpse is, click on the body, cast the spell and boom, you are teleported back to that location and with some of your experience back. But why can’t we have it that way, but also other way? A cleric clicks on you, and casts revive, you gained some of your experience back, then it pulls the corpse to you so you can loot it. What if the spell checked your corpse and if there was nothing there, would just have that corpse disappear. Sometimes, because of real life, some of us just don’t have the time to run back to our corpse, or to find someone to summon or revive us. This is why having npcs, and rethinking how rezzing works is important. With that being said, think back at your corpse runs. With those two improvements, examples, would have made your corpse runs better? Would it have been as harsh?
Does dieing need to be so harsh as to lose your level? While that did spring a few funny moments in my gaming history, this is something that I am not in favor of, however, I am in favor of something else that will slow down the leveling. I think whenever you reach that milestone of a level, that you’ve earned that. That’s something that shouldn’t be taken away. In most mmos, you have it where it says 0/100 for next level for example. When you get that level, then it changes to 0/200 for the next. What if that changed. What if, when you leveled instead it said 100/300. Now you’ve leveled, you cant’ lost your level, but you can lose that 100 that you have “banked”. So if you died enough times, you would end up 0/300. Meaning you have to gain a more experience to gain that next level. I think, something to this nature, is a better solution. Slows down the leveling, but doesn’t penalty you in the way that losing a level does. You lose a level, you can’t use a new skill because you are no longer that level. Same for items, if they have level requirements.
Yes, these things should be in the game, but they do not need to be has harsh and punishing as we have come to know them. We can change things up, so that dieing still sucks, but does it need to be as harsh, as punishing, or even removed? No, I don’t’ think so. We can try new things, we can still have such mechanics that invoke a sense of learning, getting better with our characters, knowing our limits, without having it be a “dick” about it. We can have ways to slow us down, without it being has harsh and as punishing as it’s been in the past.
Does this mean, that I want Pantheon to be Everquest 2.0…. 3.0…. the next modern day version of everquest, with updated graphics but with the same old school mechanics. NO! But where so many other mmos, have tosses away elements that made mmos great, we can bring them back, and improve on them. This is what I am hoping to see from Pantheon. Not just another, MMO that follows the same patterns that everyone else has done, but has thrown away elements or dumbed them down. No, my hope, is that Pantheon brings back these elements from our grandfather MMOS, and improves upon them. I do not want another MMO clone, that just copy and pasted the same mechanics, the same ideas. I want a mmo, that stands the test of time. A game that I can log in and play with friends daily. A game that is my time sink. A game that I am invested into every month, because I am still working towards that next content, wither it be that next level, that next dungeon, that next raid, that next expansion. I want to never have a moment where I am jumping ship because I have ran out of things to do. Longevity in MMOs are vastly important, and is why I consider the pacing and time it takes to level, and the things in place to slow that down is SO important for an mmo.
Depends on the game i think.
I played Starwars Galaxies from near launch until they pulled the plug. In the beginning te game had almost no content except for some "themeparks" which were a series of fetch quests. But i stick with it for so long because i enjoyed the sandbox game it was. Even when they started adding quest series i mostly did sandbox stuff.
Vanguard had content enough and i also played from day one until they pulled the plug. It was a good mix of being a sandbox game and themepark mmo. I never did all content and there were even regions i never went because i was scared to go there (like the vulcano on Qalia in the lower left corner). But i enjoyed adventuring solo or in a group and i was always in to explore a dungeon or raid. But besides that, decorating my house and crafting and selling boats was great too.
I hope Pantheon goes the same road. Exploring, big worlds, dangerous places, enough sandbox tools (housing, fishing, boating, drinkin' ale in the inn) and i am hooked. Yes, content needs to be added as i don't want my guildies and friends to leave if they run out of content :)
And yes, i want to be afraid of dying. It has to be harsch. I have played to many mmo's already where people go suicide travel because death didn't mean anything (ESO).
From what i have seen, this game will have me hooked for years. And i am anxious to play.
Unfortunately, where time is the only currency, those with more of it will advance so much faster than those without, you can't achieve a balance there.
What that means is, there's no open-ended path that permits someone to play 18 hours a day, while at the same time, allow someone to play 1 hour a day, and it be in any way balanced, fair, or similar.
Given the bulk of paying customers pay less than 3 hours a day, it requires the game pace be designed for them. Those can can play 2-6 times as much? Well, they will advance 2-6 times faster, and unless you temporally limit advancement, artificially, that's simply the way it will be.
The penalties will be avoided by most, and more if they're harsher, to the pont where everyone would simply grind greens endlessly, as it would be the least risk for the most gain.
Personally, I would choose horizontal progression methods, of which things like AA's are an example, to keep people interested. Give the customers meaningful choices and they will make them. Give them the path of least resistance and they will take it. Give them goals that take "forever"? They will achieve them. Complete gear & skill/spell customization? I'd play that game forever. Same goes for persistent zone & world plot mechanics that require ongoing maintenance.
But yeah, whatever the number of hours to reach max level is the design goal, in Pantheon? That number will always be trivial to the hardcore, even if exactly right for the casual/average. The alternative, temporally limiting advancement, is a poor way to distinguish your product, imo.
As vjek says some will hit level cap far faster than others simply because of the time they have available. Artificial limitations (no more than 1/10 of a level per real world day after level 20) would be a nightmare.
The real "solution" needs to be twofold. Give characters at level cap something to do without making it so alluring that people will race through content to get there to be able to do it. Not an easy balance. Mentoring down may help if they can keep mentored down characters from being too powerful. Character customization starting at maximum level, or continuing past there if it started earlier, can help a bit but eventually that too gets maxed out.
Part two - make sure that bored level-caps don't wreck the game for lower level players. For example, no loot from enemies that are too low for them, so they have no incentive to go to low level areas and monopolize kills at the expense of people that belong there. This does *not* mean they can't go back and do lower level content for rewards - let them mentor down if they want any rewards, however.
I get what a lot that has been said, but I do not want another fast pace quick to level game. We've had that for years now, and I do not see where it has been benefital, it's only been damaging to mmos. I'm not saying it needs to go back to how it was in Everquest. I can agree to that, that's why I said I think Vanguard hit a nice spot in the middle. I don't want to another wow experience, where by the time an expansion comes around to add more content, or something to do at level cap like a AA system, i'm sitting on X toons at level cap. Taking a little longer to level just means more time to enjoy the game, more time to interact with others, more time devs have to put out good content.
I get that no matter what those that have more time to play and will be able to do things faster, hell i'm considered one of those types even thou I do not. I currently play Path of Exile, and there are ppl that hit end game content without the first 24 hrs or less. I normally hit it on day 2 or 3 and have seen new players get there within a week. But I have also seen the same thing, time after time in MMOs. I do not want to see a game that has spikes when content drops, then flat lines till the next content because their base already did everything. That's why I said that I believe leveling and setting the pace is very important, extending the game out a little bit longer.
Yes, content is the other factor. Something I didn't really want to hit on in this topic as I wanted to focus more on leveling, pacing, and things that can be done/updated to help slow down the player creating longevity to a game.
What I find in MMOs is that if they have a strong start, then by expansion 4 the game starts to go down hill. Usually due to the devs changing the culture of the game. Once a culture is in place and it changes, then a lot of people get turned off by the game. Once Luclin came out, EQ started to decline because of the combat system changing, and the idea of a hub, like the Nexus, where you can bind and have ease of access to most zones in Luclin. Then once POP came out it killed the game in a major way and a ton of people left, with the rigiours flag system and Plane of Knowlege zone. With WoW, once Cataclysm came out, it dumbed the game down to an extreme and a ton of people left. Both of these, Luclin and Cataclysm, are both the 4th expansion in their respective game. Naturally when a game gets bigger, and more levels are added, then the game will die because new people will have too much to do and no one around them, the population will be thinned out, and the devs are forced to put in catch up mechanics, which then trivializes a lot of the game and have to design the game where most of the population will congregate to a certain part of the world, which is usually the new expansion.
Anyways, this is a pretty big flaw in MMOs and if the MMO genre is going to combat this fatal flaw then they have to go about the MMO genre in another manner, or inevitably kill their game to the point of having those few fanatics left, while 95% of the players have moved on to the newest thing.
Even with progeny...if it tips the scale in terms of having a better character than the person that just started...then they will see it as a necessity. If progeny is trivial and you can max all your stats without it, then maybe some will do it just because...or maybe for a certain race/class combo.
I talked about this before, but they shouldn't be afraid to wipe out certain areas. So some loot will become non-farmable, and quests will be destroyed in the process...but I think it is a necessary evil in order to maintain a certain amount of content. For instance if one expansion as a second world that you can dimension too,,,and then on the next expansion an asteroid destroyed that world...then the content decreases and maintains a certain amount of content...while keeping it new. This will make progression servers that much more fun imo.
dorotea said:As vjek says some will hit level cap far faster than others simply because of the time they have available. Artificial limitations (no more than 1/10 of a level per real world day after level 20) would be a nightmare.
The real "solution" needs to be twofold. Give characters at level cap something to do without making it so alluring that people will race through content to get there to be able to do it. Not an easy balance. Mentoring down may help if they can keep mentored down characters from being too powerful. Character customization starting at maximum level, or continuing past there if it started earlier, can help a bit but eventually that too gets maxed out.
Part two - make sure that bored level-caps don't wreck the game for lower level players. For example, no loot from enemies that are too low for them, so they have no incentive to go to low level areas and monopolize kills at the expense of people that belong there. This does *not* mean they can't go back and do lower level content for rewards - let them mentor down if they want any rewards, however.
No, terrible idea with loot not dropping for high level players. Do not do something like this in Pantheon.
One game to play forever.
I like the longevity of leveling aspect and like to see it combined with horizontal leveling. The toughest part of this will be VR re-training modern players away from the learned reinforcement of the leveling "ding". The only way I see this being done is to make the journey, or perhaps the questing the fun part of it. This would mean there would need to be more quests with quests being the heart of the game maybe10 fold more quests than EQ. Some have said to keep the game simple by "killing stuff", how boring. By quests I mean integrated story lines requiring multiple contact points like most of the quests in early EQ. I get the impression from some that they understand "quest" to mean kill 10 rats. Kill 10 rats is not a quest and never was. For it is the journey on the quest and the puzzle/mystery/catharsis/drama solving that is fun, with leveling being the happy coincidence.
With that in mind, "leveling" per se should take , oh maybe a year and a half or two playing an average working persons hours, with an average working persons times off- IF "leveling" is a thing. If minds are to be re-trained then a player would never level, just get better and the newbie yard can still kill you but you get better at killing anything in the newbie yard. A non-working person might level/skill up faster but would be restricted in that they would have to find groups with other non-working players. Yes, this assumes a majority of the players would be those that are actively working in RL. So the non-working person might excel in solo activities like crafting more than others, but would be limited in necessary group activities until more players logged on or played with other players in other times zones.
Absolutely corpse runs were a pain in the butt. but look how the newbie dungeons changed to incorporate that going from broad and cavernous to cramped and narrow. Vanguard had a good mechanic for corpse runs but I think they should still sting and teach perspective: Tthe emperor has no clothes!, that Bitcoin you lost on your corpse, - I mean robe- is just pixels! You might as well buy art for investment and banksie would agree with me, we are hanging out and being cool, and we are not hanging out with those who buy art for investment, thats why he shredded the last one, to teach exactly that.(hint, you buy art, because you like it and you keep it forever) But if you want to go and quest that robe again? just say when and I'll be there. I dont care how many times I die, and if we do it with three it will be so cool and we can boast to those that don't get that robe with three.
Most MMOs for the last several years were built almost exclusively for raiding -- end-game content. The leveling process was meant to be a trainer for leveling, not the "real game". Thus the leveling process was quick so players could get to the real game. Pantheon is not one of these games.
I'd be perfectly content with a leveling process that takes so long new content is added before I can experience all of the previous released content. If it takes 2 years to get to cap, great, bring it on. Corpse runs? Hell yes. "Medding" to recover health and mana? Experience loss, even de-leveling? Big green check mark.
I'd be even happier with a game that had no levels, only learned and improved skills, acquired and upgraded gear. The players themselves are "leveling up" their knowledge of the game so why not let that be the "progression"? There would be no silly level restrictions on gear, zones or encounters. Only the player's growing investment in their character.
No more theme park MMOs, please.
A lot of folks have made really good points, but I wanted to add something that I think is critical.
A big key to longevity is to provide a broad scope. You might be asking, a broad scope of what? The answer is actually everything. There needs to be a broad scope of character progression, of content, of storylines, of activities, and so on.
We like to complain about the pace of leveling in these games, but I think what actually hurts us more, is that we run out of things to do. Being rushed through content certainly doesn't help that, but even if we were to slow the pace down in many games, we as players would still run out of things to do in pretty short order. The reason for this is often that the games really only give us one path to take. Even in games where you start off in different cities or whatever, you're often funneled into the same path as everyone else. You do the same dungeons, the same quests, kill the same enemies, go after the same raids - and regardless of how challenging those things are, eventually you beat the challenges. Slowing people down might make things take longer, but in the end, if there's only one thing for them to work on, it won't be enough.
When I think back to the games that have truly kept people subscribed for years (and not because of continuous expansion releases), what I see in those games is a variety of goals that players can work on in whatever order suits them. Finish one quest line? There's still those other three you haven't even started. Done with that dungeon? Great, which of the next three do you want to head to now? Beaten that raid boss? Awesome, there's still the five of them on the other continent that you haven't even set eyes on yet.
So, I think the biggest thing that Pantheon can do for longevity is insure that there is a broad scope in the game. There should always be more to do, more to see, more to explore, more things to try and work on. That will take more content than many games ship with, and it will mean spreading stuff out between all that content in a way where players can choose their own path through it. But if VR is successful at doing that, then we'll see more of that longevity that we all hope for.
Said it before and I will say it again...I want it to be literally impossible for someone to hit max level in anything less than AT LEAST 6 months. And I mean playing 24/7 for 6 months kind of possible. I want a normal serious player to take about a year to hit max level. Took me 3 years to get to 50 in EQ (I do not want to take 3 years though) and I had a blast because there were things to do, places to see, etc. Hell, there were entire zones I BARELY ever set foot in and there might have been a couple I never actually stepped in at all. Exploration sometimes was the whole goal of a session to find the place like the Chessboard or just check out the atmosphere of a zone and hunt for rare spawns or camp an item or work on a long nagging quest that needed a little progress or relocate to another continent and get sidetracked swimming around the islands off the Freeport boat, etc. When people can max out quickly, they leave. The reality is that easier levelling does not add longevity, it reduces it. All the games where people are 50 in 3 weeks all die off after that because people get bored and the entire game is about grinding the same end game raid etc over and over and over. NO. THANKS. Give me an EQ style world and design and add in a VG style economy and crafting system with the same depth, demand, crafting levels, recipes, full crafting gear sets, etc and I am there.
I'd just like to be able to make steady progress. My biggest fear right now (since this is a group-centric game) is that I will group with everyone at the start of the game, then after a few months of playing, all of the friends that I was grouping with will have outleveled me due to my inability to play 24/7 (or even 6hrs/7 days a week). Then I would have to make a new set of friends for a new level range, and those friends would likely out-level me... then another group, and then another, until I eventually just start to play solo or quit because finding groups (that are full and balanced) becomes more and more difficult as the disparity of levels increases. Its been my experience that if you don't have a group of people to group with then LFG becomes much more cumbersome/time consuming.
add: I'm not advocating for a "dungeon finder" system, but spending over an hour LFG is a quick way to lose subscriptions :(
Here's the thing. It will not take the same amount of time for everyone, and seems very unlikely that the minimum 6 months thing will stick. Thinking of Everquest yes it was slow going at the beginning, but imagine that player that pays for power leveling, which will be a thing here too (buffs, heals, damage shield from higher level toons) it literally took 10% or less of the time to get to max. It just seems to me that unless there is some temporary cap on leveling or some newly invented system... People will get there fast, unless of course it's so incredibly slow that casuals and not too hardcore players will just quit because they'll never make it. I just hate to think that longevity is based off of how long it takes to hit max level.
Content is the other side of the equation. There has to be enough for it to keep us busy and has to be enjoyable. I can agree with any statement regarding content; dungeons, exploration, crafting, raiding, Advance character system, etc etc. But what's the point of that side of the equation if the other side is so fast that you can/are skipping most, if not majority of it. That's what I am tring to get to the point of. That's why I said in Vanguard, the leveling/pacing was at a good spot. Wasn't so fast that I got bored and done everything, or too slow that I felt punished or insert any other reason here. 6 months in, there was still a good 70%+ that I had not explored. In WoW, on the otherhand, by the time my main hit the cap, the only thing to do was raiding. Only reason I leveled alts was because guild members were complaining that it was horrible. Even had the main raid tank, who had just about as much MMO/gaming history as myself, said you could not level a raid speced warrior, from level 1 to cap in less time than it took him. It was just too horrible. Two weeks later, he was dumping his gold coins into my hand because I showed him it was possible. Yes, leveling in WoW is much different, quest hubs and all, but as one starts to understand how to level, it doesn't take long for those levels to come. That's why I see a link between longevity of a game, and the leveling/pacing of the game. Again, I am not talking about "Content" that is the other side of the equation and we can go into a whole another thread about just a topic.
I had recently talked in a few places about adding in, in the options window, a "Experience Slider". Something that could only be changed while in town, not while you were anywhere else. It reduces the amount of expereince you earned from sources, so that players can adjust how they want to play. It would effect nothing else other than that, experience. So I could turn that slider down so I lose 25% of any experience I earned, and would slow down the pacing of the game for myself, while still allowing others to play the game the way they want to play. So if I want a slower pace game, I can adjust for that. So if I play with friends that only have a few hours a day, and myself who might have more time than them. I can slow myself down while setting enjoying content with them. Yes, a mentor system in place would be nice. I agree with that, but also having a system like I am talking about would allow myself to play normally with friends and adjust the game to a pacing that I would prefer. Why can't we have both systems.
I'd like to add my 2 cents about the whole "6 months to max level in Everquest" comment. 20 years ago, most people didn't know how to level in an MMO and would spend hours/days/weeks and even months aimlessly wandering/exploring or farming non-exp areas and simply not knowing basic things like staying in the same area when enemies turn gray and green to you is not always the most efficient; or that trying to farm for a certain item is a lot easier once you are over leveled instead of farming for that item with a whole group (sharing exp) killing the same 3 frogloks every 34 mins because if you moved anywhere you would lose your "camp" (opposed to utilizing the time with a group to adventure and kill harder encounters that yield more exp/loot and be higher level to come back for the item later... which once figured out started stealing exp and items from players that were @ level making it even more difficult for players new to MMOs... 18-19 years ago).
vjek said:Unfortunately, where time is the only currency, those with more of it will advance so much faster than those without, you can't achieve a balance there.
What that means is, there's no open-ended path that permits someone to play 18 hours a day, while at the same time, allow someone to play 1 hour a day, and it be in any way balanced, fair, or similar.
Given the bulk of paying customers pay less than 3 hours a day, it requires the game pace be designed for them. Those can can play 2-6 times as much? Well, they will advance 2-6 times faster, and unless you temporally limit advancement, artificially, that's simply the way it will be.
The penalties will be avoided by most, and more if they're harsher, to the pont where everyone would simply grind greens endlessly, as it would be the least risk for the most gain.
I am hoping to feel like I am living in Terminus and not just passing through. In games where I have leveled quickly, I move from place to place so quickly it feels like I am on a train just watching the scenery pass by, never getting a chance to really know the landscape. In EQ, because the leveling pace was so much slower, I learned the nooks and crannies of places, they started to feel like home, and I loved the game for that. I hope Pantheon is like that, where the pace is slower and you can sink in and feel a part of the world, not just glide through.
While I value the idea behind a slow leveling pace (and want that), I disagree that the longevity of a game is only tied to how many ways the game can throw frustrations at you to artificially slow you down. When I think of longevity, I think of sticking with a game for years to come - not how many weights I can tie to my ankles. The things that make me stick with a game for the long-term are how engaging is the combat, how interesting is the story, how well designed are the world zones, does it let me (or even encourage me to) create tons of alts, how many challenging encounters are there for me and my friends to tackle and surmount, how much time can I dedicate to fashion... Etc, etc.