Level Hopping

[Slyfeind]

If you could make your character any level, say in World of Warcraft, would you do it? I'm tinkering in my mind, what if WoW let you jump to whatever level you wanted, and experience that content. So let's say you're running around Eastern Plaguelands and think, "Wow I sure miss Westfall. I think today I'll be level 11 and do that all over again."

No more advancement. The world stands on its own merits. Content exists only to be experienced, rather than as a gateway to other content.

Thoughts?

[Morat20]

If you could make your character any level, say in World of Warcraft, would you do it? I'm tinkering in my mind, what if WoW let you jump to whatever level you wanted, and experience that content. So let's say you're running around Eastern Plaguelands and think, "Wow I sure miss Westfall. I think today I'll be level 11 and do that all over again."

No more advancement. The world stands on its own merits. Content exists only to be experienced, rather than as a gateway to other content.

Thoughts?

That sounds like side-kicking and exemplaring from CoX.

[Ultralaz3r]

eh, I can't see it working out too well. Mainly you're giving people way too much freedom, it is a nice idea on paper, but what why would people care to play a game they have already won? But what the last person said, it is done in CoH/COV and was fun in its own right.

[Slyfeind]

Yep, you answered your own question there. ;)

[IainC]

If you want a game like that then why have levels at all? If characters can meaningfully experience the entire world then surely it would be easier to have it at a constant power level based on the average gear set/power index of a PC.

If you do this with a regular DIKU like WoW then you not only have to scale back the character's level and abilities but also take into account his gear which will be an order of magnitude beyond the average for a 'real' player of that level.

[Salamok]

If you could make your character any level, say in World of Warcraft, would you do it? I'm tinkering in my mind, what if WoW let you jump to whatever level you wanted, and experience that content. So let's say you're running around Eastern Plaguelands and think, "Wow I sure miss Westfall. I think today I'll be level 11 and do that all over again."

No more advancement. The world stands on its own merits. Content exists only to be experienced, rather than as a gateway to other content.

Thoughts?

Does that come with gear, being 70 with level 11 gear is pointless and being level 11 with level 70 gear is trivial.  How about a nice game of chess.

[Slyfeind]

I was thinking that gear would have level requirements, like WOW. It might be a pain to stock multiple level gear, but with level 70 cash, you could just buy lower level stuff easily. It might even improve the economy!

And yeah Iain, my preferable game world is with a constant power level, so we can go anywhere we want -- within reason of course.

This really stemmed from the last time I made a newbie in WOW. I was thinking how much I love Kharanos, like Westfall, and everything else is just kind of "meh" until Burning Crusade which I really don't like. Near as I could figure, it's because Kharanos and Westfall are easy to get to. Every place else has a grind attached to it, and is an obstacle on the way to max powar.

[Draegan]

They're doing it already in the WOW expansion with their new "heroic" class.  Rumored to start off anywhere from level 50-60 or something.

[Xanthippe]

If you could make your character any level, say in World of Warcraft, would you do it? I'm tinkering in my mind, what if WoW let you jump to whatever level you wanted, and experience that content. So let's say you're running around Eastern Plaguelands and think, "Wow I sure miss Westfall. I think today I'll be level 11 and do that all over again."

No more advancement. The world stands on its own merits. Content exists only to be experienced, rather than as a gateway to other content.

Thoughts?

This is why I make alts.  One reason, anyway.

So to answer your question, no, I wouldn't.  I'd make an alt if I wanted to experience some content again.

[DarkSign]

I always thought that ShadowBane's PvP and RvR would have been much better with everyone starting at the top level. If you simply had all the training points at the outset, the pain of trying different templates would be gone...and PvP much more precise.

Of course people say,"But how would you learn your character?" Uhm, the same way you already did - by using him/her.

And you could find out if an Irekei Sundancer Assassin was better than a Shade Proccing Dagger assassin. Yep, its munchkin min-maxing in a way, but only if you're copying templates and not working them out with your own brain.

[Adam Tiler]

Or you could just go with skill-based advancement and shallow gear progression.

SHASHA!

[eldaec]

If you could make your character any level, say in World of Warcraft, would you do it? I'm tinkering in my mind, what if WoW let you jump to whatever level you wanted, and experience that content. So let's say you're running around Eastern Plaguelands and think, "Wow I sure miss Westfall. I think today I'll be level 11 and do that all over again."

No more advancement. The world stands on its own merits. Content exists only to be experienced, rather than as a gateway to other content.

Thoughts?

That sounds like side-kicking and exemplaring from CoX.

CoX has gone beyond side-kicking and exemplaring now.

There is a whole zone of 'time police' who allow you to go back in time and complete every story arc you didn't do the first time around, but without the need to find a lowbie to team up with.

It works pretty well, but, like most good things in CoX, it has been studiously ignored by every other mmog team.

Content exists only to be experienced, rather than as a gateway to other content.

This is worth repeating, this seems to be a core philosophy of the CoX team, it is the reason you genuinely get CoX content added at all levels in every patch, and everyone playing at all levels all the time is in turn the reason that a newbie can join CoX today and still find a group and join the community from day one.

[tazelbain]

Characters choose a class and a fully decked out charactor for that class.  As they journey, they start unlocking all the other abilities and lots of ways to customize.  That way every character as a starting point on par with everyone else, but still have goals with badges/acheivement/collector systems.  People could the content in any order.  I am sure some form of mudflation will creep in, but i doubt it will be a harsh as current leveling system.

[wuzzman]

It will work, just not for WoW or any other MMORPG in the market right now. See for you to be able to skip to max level and be happy with the game, there must actually be end game content waiting for you. Small end game content is a lot like having a small penis, you do as much foreplay as humanly possible before you take the pants off. Cause face it, she will laugh and then break up with you and  then tell all her friends about your small john.

[Warskull]

You can't shoe-horn something like this into an existing game.  You are basically dropping the philosophy of level grind and replacing it with giving the player a large amount of freedom.

So what you ultimately want to be doing is creating a mostly level free game where all the content is essentially end game.  The question is why will your player go do various activities if level gain is not involved?

[wuzzman]

You can't shoe-horn something like this into an existing game.  You are basically dropping the philosophy of level grind and replacing it with giving the player a large amount of freedom.

So what you ultimately want to be doing is creating a mostly level free game where all the content is essentially end game.  The question is why will your player go do various activities if level gain is not involved?

You know in ANY other game  genre that would be an extremely stupid question.

[Slyfeind]

You can't shoe-horn something like this into an existing game.  You are basically dropping the philosophy of level grind and replacing it with giving the player a large amount of freedom.

So what you ultimately want to be doing is creating a mostly level free game where all the content is essentially end game.  The question is why will your player go do various activities if level gain is not involved?

Because it's fun?

[TheCastle]

You can't shoe-horn something like this into an existing game.  You are basically dropping the philosophy of level grind and replacing it with giving the player a large amount of freedom.

So what you ultimately want to be doing is creating a mostly level free game where all the content is essentially end game.  The question is why will your player go do various activities if level gain is not involved?

Because it's fun?

What if the fun was earning the right to gain the next level?

You see you lose one fundamental part of game design flow when you simply remove a leveling system and do not replace it with something else. You simply omit your main form of retention, your bag of potato chips that the player has to always have just one more of.

If you look at a game like Fallout3 or Oblivion you see the leveling system is almost secondary to the experience. your retention technique through a leveling system, the feeling of building a model airplane that can fly higher this time, is replaced with immersion and unique experiences that draw you in.

In essence a game that keeps you playing is very much like your favorite bag of chips. you simply keep coming back for one more until the bag is empty or until its 3 in the morning and you pass out.

So make no mistake, the one flaw with your question is that you are asking what would happen if I take a house of cards and remove its foundation. Would it still stand?

Obviously, only if you have a foundation can you build something that can stand the test of time.

[Slyfeind]

Because it's fun?

What if the fun was earning the right to gain the next level?

You see you lose one fundamental part of game design flow when you simply remove a leveling system and do not replace it with something else.[/quote]

Um...that was entirely my point. The whole point of this is to deconstruct what's fun and what's not, independant of levelling.

So make no mistake, the one flaw with your question is that you are asking what would happen if I take a house of cards and remove its foundation. Would it still stand?

Not a flaw, but precisely why I asked this in the first place. You just paraphrased my whole point, yay you!

[TheCastle]

Not a flaw, but precisely why I asked this in the first place. You just paraphrased my whole point, yay you!

LOL sorry
As far as the question goes however there is not much more I can think of to say about this. Remove one part with out replacing the missing piece it falters. Removing advancement altogether is somewhat impossible.

No more advancement. The world stands on its own merits. Content exists only to be experienced, rather than as a gateway to other content.

Well
You cannot experience everything at the same time right?
Thus in most forms of entertainment, books, movies, music, story telling advancement has a roll. Leveling is just an arbitrary form of advancement so I see what you are saying.

It would be like playing Zelda with 100k dungeons and the Triforce is splintered into several thousands of pieces.
Now you are just grinding chapters in a story, grinding dungeons.

Be more specific
How do you propose to remove advancement entirely when even just listening to a album requires you to advance through songs?

Leveling is a system akin to one of the reasons I believe that most modern martial arts schools allow you to advance by gaining the next color in your belt if you pass a test. A long time ago everyone merely had a white belt and that was it. If the belt appeared to be black it was because he had the damn thing for so long and never cleaned it.

[TheCastle]

 
oh damn it ..
I was thinking about this more and I realized something.
My last post was way off on many points..

Im walking home from the store and I realized that

Thus in most forms of entertainment, books, movies, music, story telling advancement has a roll

How do you propose to remove advancement entirely when even just listening to a album requires you to advance through songs?

With books you can skip at will to what ever chapter you want
with music you can play what ever track you want
with movies you have scene select on the dvd

You are never really actually locked into advancement in any other form of entertainment aside from video games...

In order for a game to have a system that you are talking about one only needs to look at music.
Each track has its own feeling and its own message. Alone it is strong enough to stand, with other tracks it can be played in random order.

[Slyfeind]

That's a damn good analogy. :)