This distinctly reminds me of the hipsters endlessly touting Fury at PAX last year – over and over again, they claimed their virtues of not having a treadmill (they said it more like, “No levels to grind” or “Everyone starts out at max level” or “None of that xp grinding bulls**t”). And interestingly enough, while the game looked pretty it had no appeal to me – at least what was demo’d was all pvp, and instantly reminded me of how badly I got squashed in quake III whenever I went up against serious competition. I literally thought to myself “Great, so I get to run around and get pwned over and over and over by twitch gamers who play this all the time. Sounds like fun.”

I also have to say, I rather like games to start things out simple and expand your bag of tricks as the game progresses. In MMOs, this is easy to explain – imagine trying to figure out how to be an effective healer or tank or whatever if you were thrown in at max level with all your skills. Which heal spell is the most mana efficient? Can I really use this attack effectively when 2 mobs are hitting me? What can I do to protect myself while moving? I think these things are all better learned over time; or at least, more people are likely to become successful at them if you have to spend some time practicing them in simplified circumstances. Then you add a new skill, and try to figure out how it fits into your existing game plan. By the time you get to the end, you’ve got a big bag of tricks, but you had time to find a place for each one as you went along.

This same trick is used in tons of platform/adventure games. Think of classic examples, like zelda – you start out with a sword and shield, and then every dungeon you get something new to add to your repetoire. Its a pretty classic challenge setup too – when you introduce a new item/skill/power/whatever, introduce a new challenge that is easily (or only) solved with that new shiny toy.

That said, I still like games to provide challenges for players of skill – whether that is pvp, or some extra content that may not be necessary to win the game, but lets me see how good I’ve really gotten. I’m thinking specifically here of those 2 crazy world encounters in FF VII (the 2 extra “Weapons” – Ruby and Emerald?) – pointless for the completion of the game, but a new challenge for players looking for that extra proof of their own |33t 5k1||z.

This distinctly reminds me of the hipsters endlessly touting Fury at PAX last year – over and over again, they claimed their virtues of not having a treadmill (they said it more like, “No levels to grind” or “Everyone starts out at max level” or “None of that xp grinding bulls**t”). And interestingly enough, while the game looked pretty it had no appeal to me – at least what was demo’d was all pvp, and instantly reminded me of how badly I got squashed in quake III whenever I went up against serious competition. I literally thought to myself “Great, so I get to run around and get pwned over and over and over by twitch gamers who play this all the time. Sounds like fun.”

I also have to say, I rather like games to start things out simple and expand your bag of tricks as the game progresses. In MMOs, this is easy to explain – imagine trying to figure out how to be an effective healer or tank or whatever if you were thrown in at max level with all your skills. Which heal spell is the most mana efficient? Can I really use this attack effectively when 2 mobs are hitting me? What can I do to protect myself while moving? I think these things are all better learned over time; or at least, more people are likely to become successful at them if you have to spend some time practicing them in simplified circumstances. Then you add a new skill, and try to figure out how it fits into your existing game plan. By the time you get to the end, you’ve got a big bag of tricks, but you had time to find a place for each one as you went along.

This same trick is used in tons of platform/adventure games. Think of classic examples, like zelda – you start out with a sword and shield, and then every dungeon you get something new to add to your repetoire. Its a pretty classic challenge setup too – when you introduce a new item/skill/power/whatever, introduce a new challenge that is easily (or only) solved with that new shiny toy.

That said, I still like games to provide challenges for players of skill – whether that is pvp, or some extra content that may not be necessary to win the game, but lets me see how good I’ve really gotten. I’m thinking specifically here of those 2 crazy world encounters in FF VII (the 2 extra “Weapons” – Ruby and Emerald?) – pointless for the completion of the game, but a new challenge for players looking for that extra proof of their own |33t 5k1||z.

So, I think the complaint with MMOs is that the standard skill-up process is drawn out from a single-player-like 15 hours to 200 hours, with only a bit more complexity to justify it. Your brain no longer gets its properly doled out hit of cool new stuff to learn.

Certainly Everquest was a massive offender. WoW does a much better job of packing those 200 hours with content, and if not for the 40-50 range, I don’t think I would have minded any of the “grind”.

Basically, with an MMO you need to come up with 200 hours of content, and sometimes the dev just gives up and calls 10 levels of grind “content”. It’s not– it’s a progress bar.

If I come back to my character in WoW after taking a break, I almost feel overwhelmed, and that’s a character I’ve played for quite some time. It would be a bad experience to throw all of that at the player right up front.

There’s another potential benefit to the level requirement: it should, in theory, guarantee that you’re not grouping with a total incompetent. That doesn’t appear to be working.

So, I think the complaint with MMOs is that the standard skill-up process is drawn out from a single-player-like 15 hours to 200 hours, with only a bit more complexity to justify it. Your brain no longer gets its properly doled out hit of cool new stuff to learn.

Certainly Everquest was a massive offender. WoW does a much better job of packing those 200 hours with content, and if not for the 40-50 range, I don’t think I would have minded any of the “grind”.

Basically, with an MMO you need to come up with 200 hours of content, and sometimes the dev just gives up and calls 10 levels of grind “content”. It’s not– it’s a progress bar.

If I come back to my character in WoW after taking a break, I almost feel overwhelmed, and that’s a character I’ve played for quite some time. It would be a bad experience to throw all of that at the player right up front.

There’s another potential benefit to the level requirement: it should, in theory, guarantee that you’re not grouping with a total incompetent. That doesn’t appear to be working.