38 Studios Copernicus, Mercury and other stuff

[TwiNCannoN]

Would annoy me pretty bad I think. Borderlands annoyed me enough with the level 1 skags constantly chasing me haha, and I absolutely hate it when greys aggro me in MMOs (esp. when they can daze/dismount). Granted you are talking about stuff leveling up so it wouldn't be grey, but I admit I do enjoy the feeling of being able to go back to an older zone and run right through it and look at all the people leveling there, where you used to be. It's definitely not a bad feeling. Plus I can't see a way to do this without either instancing, or screwing over lowbies ala CoH's ambushes (in CoH missions could be anywhere - so a level 35 could have a mission to go to Atlas Park, the newbie zone - and on his way there, he gets ambushed by level 35 mobs as part of the mission... then he runs away, leaving level 35 mobs to decimate the other players).

Originally Posted by Palum

Levels are nothing but a rough numeric indicator of character stats. Any form of character advancement arrives at the exact point the developers want it to. Saying you don't like leveling but you love skill based games is retarded because they're the same thing in a different wrapper.

I disagree somewhat. I mean they are obviously both just a means to keep the player playing, and this is fine. However, levels are generally much more of a bottleneck than skills. In most level-based games, fights are basically pre-determined. There may be some variables like healing potions or long cooldown skills or such, but in a skill based game there are usually so many variables that the bottleneck either disappears or is hidden too well to notice. I.e. in a level based game, you could be a level 7 trying to kill a level 10 orc, and get very close each time, finally winning only after using a potion or skill. In a skill based game, you could be a player with very meager combat skill, decent magic skill, and some first aid skill. Who knows how it'll pan out? You're left to your own devices and knowledge to try and win the fight. And of course since it's skill based, even if you lose you might still have gained some skill to help you win the fight again later.

Of course this is all relative to the game, as most of it depends on specific game mechanics. Look at Vanguard for example (a poor one admittedly), with it's critical hit system - some fights might be "impossible" but then you land one of those Epic critical hits for like 5x dmg and end up winning. And on the other side of the coin, you might have a skill based game where the skills are completely gated - like you can only go from 0 to 5 combat skill on rabbits, and then only from 5 to 10 on snakes... etc.

[Quince]

Although it isn't a MMO Curt you really need to play Dragon Age Origins. It is built like a single player MMO and for the first time since EQ gave me the "Just one more minute before bed" feeling.

Seriously I can't put this game down and I am never like that with games. There has got to be some stuff in there that you would find useful.

[J the Ruler]

Originally Posted by Valderen

The biggest issue in MMO today is as the player gains in power, content becomes obsolete.

In my opinion it's not so much that the content becomes obsolete when the player gains in power, it's the speed at which that content becomes obsolete. EQ assured lasting content originally through slow leveling speeds, corpse runs, long travel times, etc. Things mostly considered cockblocks now, but I think they can be reworked well enough to keep most people happy.

The thing I don't understand is why most games raise the level cap with each expansion and add zones that either accommodate leveling from old cap to new cap or new end game raids. Personally I would think it makes more sense to release a little bit of content for all level ranges. Especially the mid range levels which have historically suffered from shitty content in MMO's. I understand at some point it becomes almost necessary to raise the level cap, but EQ's best expansion (arguably the best MMO expansion period) was Velious which didn't raise cap or add AA's or anything like that to the game.

Another thing I don't understand is why no one ever made existing raids prerequisites to expansion raids. Part of the reason for increasing level caps is to prevent bottlenecking of content. Wouldn't it make tons of sense for guilds who are top tier in the current content be first to access the bottom tier in the expansion?

[Khane]

Originally Posted by J the Ruler

Wouldn't it make tons of sense for guilds who are top tier in the current content be first to access the bottom tier in the expansion?

Levelling the playing field at the beginning of each expansion is good for everyone involved. It gives newer players and retired characters a chance to "catch up".

It also allows veteran players to switch to other characters a lot less painfully. You don't need to rely on pity runs to gear up your character or hope the guild doesn't need the warrior you are tired as shit of playing to tank so you can bring your fun new hunter.

Just level your hunter instead of your warrior and now it's your new main.

All these things help keep the game world population and enjoyment up.

[Ngruk]

This dude right here? Character artist....

Did I mention he's 6'2", about 230, with about 2% body fat?

We've got some new bios up and Damarcus took the opportunity to throw that pic into the mix. Oh and check out Philippe Kirsanov, I thought I was the best athlete in the studio, pretty sure a professional water polo player could beat the dog snot out of me in anything except throwing a baseball accurately, and hard...

[OneofOne]

His work was featured in the acclaimed movie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Ya'll need to change his bio. That movie was shit and I'm pretty sure there was no acclamation for it

The film was intended to spawn a film franchise based on further titles in the original comic book series, and this first film was indeed financially successful. It was however critically panned, and a lack of enthusiasm for a sequel resulted in the film franchise idea being dropped.

[Northerner]

It is an age old debate but I prefer a level system where the level itself is derived rather than artificial. In short, a level 30 PC/Mob can kick the shit out of a level 20 PC/Mob not because of some artificial level comparison code but because by level 30 you have intrinsically better abilities and stats and gear and so on.

Make "level" a meta stat and not a core stat and I think you are headed in the right direction.

EDIT: Of course this only really works in a system where levels are relatively slow in coming and dependent on other gains. That's the tricky bit.

[Azrayne]

I agree that the idea of a higher level character having intrinsinc advantages over a lower level sucks. See for example WoW and how impossible it is to get a spell off against a higher level player.

A higher level character already has an advantage with higher stats, more skills, better gear, etc. They shouldn't just arbitrarily be immune to everything a lower level does to them on top of that.

[J the Ruler]

Originally Posted by Khane

Levelling the playing field at the beginning of each expansion is good for everyone involved. It gives newer players and retired characters a chance to "catch up".

It also allows veteran players to switch to other characters a lot less painfully. You don't need to rely on pity runs to gear up your character or hope the guild doesn't need the warrior you are tired as shit of playing to tank so you can bring your fun new hunter.

Just level your hunter instead of your warrior and now it's your new main.

All these things help keep the game world population and enjoyment up.

But by doing this you're effectively saying forget about all the other content that's out there just focus on this new expansion because level 61 greens > level 60 epics. I think most of us would prefer that our achievements still mean something expansion to expansion rather than just having the reset button hit.

[TwiNCannoN]

Personally I absolutely hate how the pvp/pve gear in WoW has hard expiration dates. Makes me not care about working towards anything when I know an expansion/new season is on the horizon, and thus leads to me losing interest.

[Palum]

Originally Posted by TwiNCannoN

I disagree somewhat. I mean they are obviously both just a means to keep the player playing, and this is fine. However, levels are generally much more of a bottleneck than skills. In most level-based games, fights are basically pre-determined.

That's only because the current paradigm is that levels simply give you +better. If you break down what a level in WoW gives you it's +5 defense, +5 weapon skill, passive stats and hp/mp and skills, etc. Your only choices are talents. If you look at Asheron's Call, that's an example of a level based game that allowed true customization; you may note that it plays very much like a skill based game because levels award you nothing except more skills to diversify. Levels at their base are simply a numeric display of exp earned. It's the developer that causes them to be the end-all of conflict in their game.

[Jenison]

Originally Posted by Palum

That's only because the current paradigm is that levels simply give you +better. If you break down what a level in WoW gives you it's +5 defense, +5 weapon skill, passive stats and hp/mp and skills, etc. Your only choices are talents. If you look at Asheron's Call, that's an example of a level based game that allowed true customization; you may note that it plays very much like a skill based game because levels award you nothing except more skills to diversify. Levels at their base are simply a numeric display of exp earned. It's the developer that causes them to be the end-all of conflict in their game.

IIRC Blizzard took out stat customizing during leveling sometime just before (WoW) open beta. Their reasoning was that they didnt want a person to gimp themselves.

[Tolanin]

Originally Posted by Khane

Levelling the playing field at the beginning of each expansion is good for everyone involved. It gives newer players and retired characters a chance to "catch up".

It also allows veteran players to switch to other characters a lot less painfully. You don't need to rely on pity runs to gear up your character or hope the guild doesn't need the warrior you are tired as shit of playing to tank so you can bring your fun new hunter.

Just level your hunter instead of your warrior and now it's your new main.

All these things help keep the game world population and enjoyment up.

ya but those are also the things that make the games now shallow.. characters are hardly an investment at all, a high end character used to be years in the making, now odds are gear turnover is like two months.. even in wow classic it was 6 months - a year.

There have got to be better ways to let someone who doesnt like their character to switch than just hitting the reset button every season.

[Rayne]

Originally Posted by Jenison

IIRC Blizzard took out stat customizing during leveling sometime just before (WoW) open beta. Their reasoning was that they didnt want a person to gimp themselves.

God forbid anyone actually have to put any real thought into their toon.

That was the one thing I loved about Anarchy Online, Y stats, Z skills, but only X skillpoints to spread around. So it required you to think about what you wanted from your toon. Spend it all on stats, weapons or armor skills? Or go with a bit of everything for a lesser but gradual overall increase? The cool part being, it was the players choice. In a lot of ways, Fallen Earth reminds me of AO when it comes to leveling a toon. Thats probably why I can't stop playing it

Building a toon in WoW is more paint by numbers:

get to 80
get X gear
raid/pvp for 2 months for a full set of Y gear
play XBox while waiting for the next content update or expansion

Its not any different for any toon you roll in that respect.

[Ukerric]

Originally Posted by Jenison

IIRC Blizzard took out stat customizing during leveling sometime just before (WoW) open beta. Their reasoning was that they didnt want a person to gimp themselves.

One of my favorite designs was for an AD&D MMO. Each time you got stat/feat/class levels to spend, you would get an anti-stat, anti-feat, etc... spending that anti-stat would drop the stat increase, and let you spend it again.

A nice way to reward playing at the end-game, instead of AA, since additional "levels" would give you flexibility (retool your template). Found out that feat was useless? Ok, get a new level, and get back your feat point.

(it wasn't that good: it penalized the people it was primarily aimed at, i.e. the compulsive optimisers. If something happened and a template became much worse, the casuals would swap instantly since they never spent their "respecs" while the optimisers would be starved for respec points. Not a good solution then, compared to "respec stones")