Adding Uberness to MMOs

[Ratman_tf]

The question is: if you take away leveling, what replaces it as a progression / reward structure? Players love ding gratz for a reason.

I don't think leveling is bad. I think the stratification of most level based system is the problem. Look at WoW's 60 and 70 raids, that are now obsolete except for achievements and bragging rights.

[Lantyssa]

Guild Wars seemed to work with being able to unlock new skills and secondary professions.  There are probably other things that could be done, like the achievements which would mean more if you still had to work for them, or creating a loot system like Diablo where it's really random instead of pseudo-random.  There is always unlocking new factions and areas.

It's not that characters cannot progress and get better, just that after ramping up under such a system, it isn't so much about leveling as it is increasing the breadth of your character.  The game would likely need to have a solid, interesting story though.  Something to make the players want to continue on.

[IainC]

You don't have to take away levelling and din gratz moments, you don't need to start everyone at maximum power level, you just need to make sure that everyone from the new guy who just rolled his first character to the vet who's been subbed since launch are all playing the same game. Not a game with the same name but the actual same experience.

[Tale]

The question is: if you take away leveling, what replaces it as a progression / reward structure? Players love ding gratz for a reason.

But in games where you level grind up and then play the max level content for months/years, very little time is actually spent on ding gratz in its levelling form. Fight win gratz and loot gratz are the dominant reward.

[Venkman]

Hehe, I guess it's that time of decade again... 

Every game has some sort of personal display of power. It's just what that power connotes that matters.

In a diku, your entire ability set is strictly based on level. So you want more powers? Go get some more levels. Oh you've run out of levels? Ok here's a new level grind. We'll just call it Keys/Tiers/Progression/Reputation Raid/Grinds. So many people think there's a difference between leveling up and Raids that they miss that Raids are merely more leveling up, they just have the old skool required-multiplayer random-drop grind component we all say we've hated since the early FOSS/Sowboot camp days.

In a non-diku, your abilities are based on how you line up various advancement tracks, or how you spent skill points. Same difference as far as I'm concerned. You're either grinding skills (UO, old SWG) or playing the light strategy game of skill planning that is Eve so the computer can do it for you.

I still think Planetside had one of the better systems. But the damned thing wasn't successful enough to inspire emulation.

So I say forget all that and focus on how players go about advancing.

• You want players to care about the story? Give them choices to make. No game really does this as well as an RPG, and we've devolved below even EQ1's factions. It's certainly possible though. It's just hard.
• You want players to care about skill? Drop autotarget locks for one. Maybe DCUO will work.
• You want them to not gun through to the endgame? Well, that's niave and undeliverable, so just ensure as many people as possible can get to that point and want to stay there. Ala WotLK.  It's only called "endgame" because it's at the beginning of that phase that the game has ended for some, due entirely to design.
  
• Or you can maybe go with player society stuff like old SWG and UO as player-driven endgame. But that's hard.

And AC2? Really?

[Yegolev]

unbeknownced

 

[DLRiley]

The question is: if you take away leveling, what replaces it as a progression / reward structure? Players love ding gratz for a reason.

Nothing. We will enter the brave new world where players play your game because its fun.

[Venkman]

COD4 is fun. One of the best FPS games out there. Levels.

Levels are just an abstraction. You are motivating players to improve and giving them a method to measure themselves. You want people to not be overly concerned by levels, see the second post above yours 

[DLRiley]

COD4 is fun. One of the best FPS games out there. Levels.

Levels are just an abstraction. You are motivating players to improve and giving them a method to measure themselves. You want people to not be overly concerned by levels, see the second post above yours 

I think your confusing non-grindy horizontal growth with grindy vertical increases in strength repackaged and delivered in 7 different flavors each time a new mmo comes out. Levels has about as much to do with COD4 success as frosted flaks have to do with a well balance breakfast.

*edit I was coming off a 2 hour session of l4d when I responded to you...

[Venkman]

What's a frosted fleck? If you meant Frosted Flakes, read the nutritional info sometime. You'd be surprised.

Grinds are a mindset. Levels are merely a measure.

COD4 didn't require levels. But they put them in anyway. Ever wonder why? (besides, it's not about the levels, but rather the achievements, anyway).

[DLRiley]

What's a frosted fleck? If you meant Frosted Flakes, read the nutritional info sometime. You'd be surprised.

Grinds are a mindset. Levels are merely a measure.

COD4 didn't require levels. But they put them in anyway. Ever wonder why? (besides, it's not about the levels, but rather the achievements, anyway).

For the lol's? Does it matter? It's a fps, as long as head shots register 90% of the people who play that game are happy. But if you want to talk about mmo's again what developer of any post WoW game hasn't basically design their game around the "grind is only in your head, levels are just to nice tokens of your accomplishment" logic. I mean TR, WAR, AOC got that down to the letter. (wonder why their still grindy pieces of shit though  )

[UnSub]

The question is: if you take away leveling, what replaces it as a progression / reward structure? Players love ding gratz for a reason.

Nothing. We will enter the brave new world where players play your game because its fun.

I play MMOs that I find fun. But would I pay $15 a month to keep playing CoD4?

Levels act as content gating mechanisms and also as a sense of where your character fits in the world. Getting to that next lvl is often a point of celebration or motivation to keep playing a bit longer. Just getting another skill point or skilling up isn't usually cause for excitement, plus it can be a lot harder to design a MMO environment that actually caters to the wider variety of character types that can exist in non-level advancement mechanisms.

I'm all for the lvling mechanic to not be the be all and end all of character progression / major reward points, but we need to be well aware what we are losing in the exchange.

[Ratman_tf]

I'm all for the lvling mechanic to not be the be all and end all of character progression / major reward points, but we need to be well aware what we are losing in the exchange.

Abso-toutley. I love sandbox games, and yet wound up playing WoW a lot. 

[Venkman]

And even our sandbox games have had leveling mechanics (SL and worlds like it aren't really "games" in the tradiitonal sense).

And yes DLRiley. Activision and Infinity Ward added levels to COD4 just for the hell of it. 

[DLRiley]

The question is: if you take away leveling, what replaces it as a progression / reward structure? Players love ding gratz for a reason.

Nothing. We will enter the brave new world where players play your game because its fun.

I play MMOs that I find fun. But would I pay $15 a month to keep playing CoD4?

Levels act as content gating mechanisms and also as a sense of where your character fits in the world. Getting to that next lvl is often a point of celebration or motivation to keep playing a bit longer. Just getting another skill point or skilling up isn't usually cause for excitement, plus it can be a lot harder to design a MMO environment that actually caters to the wider variety of character types that can exist in non-level advancement mechanisms.

I'm all for the lvling mechanic to not be the be all and end all of character progression / major reward points, but we need to be well aware what we are losing in the exchange.

Would anyone want to $15 a month for a fps. Besides the fact that if your paying $15 dollars a month for the current mmo's on the market you have problems. Lets get this clear, if the bolded is true, which it is apparently then mmo industry is not just behind single player/co-op games, it's plain dead. There is no reason to honestly jump from the game your playing now, which is most likely a grindy piece of shit, to a new game, which is most defiantly a grindy piece of shit. If levels and the ding factor is the only way to trick players into thinking your game is worth $15 a month than making a mmo is about as a losing proposition as it was 10 years ago when all we had was EQ and UO because no one really thought that industry had any feesible future before we start using virtual reality as serious graphics engines.

Think of levels, reward, ding as stepping on dog shit. Normally when you step on dog shit you usually say something along the lines of "I stepped on shit ton of dog shit!". To the untrained ear it sounds like your complaining about the amount of dogshit you stepped on, which is true, but totally misses the probability of your response being any different if you stepped on not a ton of dog shit. For instance if you stepped on a small pile of dog shit you would probably complain anyway and in the same fashion "I stepped on a shit ton of dog shit!" even though it's not a shit ton. What your complaining about is not really the amount but the fact you stepped on dog shit. The only way you can get someone to step on dog shit and not complain about it is if the amount of dog shit is so minuscule that you barely notice it. But the problem is you will eventually notice it and you will complain about just as much as you would if you stepped on a large pile.

How the above relates to the game industry is quite simple. The cute new thing in the mmo industry is to pretend your game isn't a grindy piece of shit and hope you hide the hoops and ladders well enough that the players are jumping and climbing them without noticing. And it works just fine because it follows the logic that all the hoops and ladders are actually necessary and all you really need to do is to ensure their not as fun sucking, tedious, boring, as the mmo that got released before yours (basically making the dog shit as small as possible). Besides players will eat it up if you explain it to them and most players will ask for that new mmo to set up that way. The problem is that players DO notice get bored go back to the mmo they played before. Even more sad, a player leaving your game because its a grindy piece of shit never  articulates the reason why they quit your game as " I left your game because its a grindy piece of shit" simply because people are so convince that banging out the ding and loot is the only way to keep them playing. Which ultimately doesn't and if it does, your basically married to that mmo and you won't try anything beyond that without the "am I really going to divorce my old mmo for this" coming up constantly every time you caught yourself waiting for the next ding/reward (which is quite often...).

Darniaq if levels met that head shots don't register 100% of the time like it would in an mmo, no one would be playing Cod4 multiplayer. Honestly all levels do in CoD4 is make sure when you own a newbie he knows how leet you are in case he didn't stick around to see you teebagging his corpses with a high powered no noobs allowed to use rifle in hand. In a genre known for its 13 year old with a 30 year old sized epeen, levels are just icing to a cake that is already frosted and has fudge filling.

[gryeyes]

Removing the process of "becoming powerful" sort of negates the prime motivation to continue to play. Power is relative to environment and other characters. If you begin "powerful" what metric are you using to judge your characters advancement? Whether its levels,gear or skills its still a progression tread mill that is the prime reason most people will sink 100's of hours into a game.

Its also a convenient tool to judge where/what you should be doing in the context of the virtual world. Power is the reward for investing months of time and hundreds of dollars into a game. Comparing a FPS which mostly based on the physical skill of the player to an MMO is a bit specious. Having complex skill systems (which is just a more complex version of level grinding) makes a given game less accessible to players. It also makes it far more difficult to develop content for players. Most players seem to prefer having a guided tour experience as opposed to just being set loose in a world and making my own place.

I would imagine its infinitely more difficult to create a world that negates a characters personal progression while having enough content to keep players invested in the game.

[Quinton]

OF COURSE people quit if there's nothing to do after a quick levelling grind. But if WoW or EQ1 had ultra-fast levelling and then offered people the same long, complex endgames we know them for, what difference would it make? I think 90% of the time people have spent on those games came AFTER max level.

I was under the impression that what most WoW players enjoyed was the quests and the leveling.  At least most of the people I know who still play it get excited about the expansions adding more quests to do and more levels and more gear and stuff.

Is the endgame raid content seriously experienced by more than a tiny fraction of the WoW playerbase?  (This is a serious question -- I honestly have no idea here)

[Ratman_tf]

Comparing a FPS which mostly based on the physical skill of the player to an MMO is a bit specious.

You mean an MMORPG. Planetside was an MMOG.

In any case, getting more powerful is fine and dandy, as long as you realize the weaknesses of a level stratified system. It usually comes out in PvP (Where great hoops have to be jumped through in order to balance out combat effectiveness, like segregated battlegrounds) and has negative concequences on socalization, where friends cannot play the game together in a satisfying manner.

[Ratman_tf]

OF COURSE people quit if there's nothing to do after a quick levelling grind. But if WoW or EQ1 had ultra-fast levelling and then offered people the same long, complex endgames we know them for, what difference would it make? I think 90% of the time people have spent on those games came AFTER max level.

I was under the impression that what most WoW players enjoyed was the quests and the leveling.  At least most of the people I know who still play it get excited about the expansions adding more quests to do and more levels and more gear and stuff.

Is the endgame raid content seriously experienced by more than a tiny fraction of the WoW playerbase?  (This is a serious question -- I honestly have no idea here)

I bet the number of players participating in raiding is much larger now. I'm done with questing and leveling in WoW, and couldn't wait to get through Wrath's pre-raid stuff and start raiding again. It felt like a big cockblock, and I wouldn't have minded if they just threw all the non-raid stuff in Wrath out. I have collected spleens and broken open cocoons and delivered care packages for 70 levels. I didn't need to do it all over again.

[Sheepherder]

Removing the process of "becoming powerful" sort of negates the prime motivation to continue to play. Power is relative to environment and other characters.

The environment and other players also increase in level as you progress.  Zero sum is zero sum.  Borrowing from WUA here: fuck that noise.

[gryeyes]

Removing the process of "becoming powerful" sort of negates the prime motivation to continue to play. Power is relative to environment and other characters.

The environment and other players also increase in level as you progress.  Zero sum is zero sum.  Borrowing from WUA here: fuck that noise.

The environment progresses because that is the mechanism used to progress the character... Other players are not progressing in relation to my gains. They are progressing due to the investment of time and money in the game.

There is still a large distinction between a powerful character and some casual who plays on the weekends. It remains a zero sum game only if one is investing a comparable amount of time as their peers. Stop playing and you become weak in comparison hence further motivation to play continually. If there was no distinction in power and accomplishment between a noob and a poop socking no lifer the motivation to sell ones soul to a game lessens significantly.

A metric of accomplishment for /played is essential to keep them pumping in time/money.

[Velorath]

Players love ding gratz for a reason.

Yeah, they love it because it means there's one less level they have to grind through now until they get to the endgame.

Hey, I used to love ding, gratz as much as the next guy.  P&P games programmed me to like it.  The difference between leveling in a P&P game and an MMO quickly became apparent to me though.  Leveling in an MMO typically just means you get either an upgrade of an ability you already have or you get a new ability to throw onto a hotkey and add to your regular rotation of abilities.  I wouldn't have a problem with dikus, or leveling, or lack of uberness, or raid content, or whatever other issues people tend to have with MMO's, if the basic gameplay didn't remind me of a game of Simon where the buttons always light up in the exact same order each time.

[DLRiley]

Removing the process of "becoming powerful" sort of negates the prime motivation to continue to play. Power is relative to environment and other characters. If you begin "powerful" what metric are you using to judge your characters advancement? Whether its levels,gear or skills its still a progression tread mill that is the prime reason most people will sink 100's of hours into a game.

Its also a convenient tool to judge where/what you should be doing in the context of the virtual world. Power is the reward for investing months of time and hundreds of dollars into a game. Comparing a FPS which mostly based on the physical skill of the player to an MMO is a bit specious. Having complex skill systems (which is just a more complex version of level grinding) makes a given game less accessible to players. It also makes it far more difficult to develop content for players. Most players seem to prefer having a guided tour experience as opposed to just being set loose in a world and making my own place.

I would imagine its infinitely more difficult to create a world that negates a characters personal progression while having enough content to keep players invested in the game.

This is one of those times when someone ask why an mmo can't be design like an actual game and everyone response tells that person that if mmo's were designed like actual games they would implode under the weight of their own fail. You see in most non mmo, wait more accurately, all of them your "progression" in game is actually determined by how good you are at the game. Hence real games get harder the longer you play while mmo's insist that the game gets so easier. In a real game you go from "hey I was a noob" to "hey i'm getting a hang of this" to finally " hey I'm pretty damn good" and maybe the egoistical " I'm there best their is". The only thing that was increased there was the players understanding of the game, their reward is increases success. Of course if this model was implemented in a mmo, they would all implode under the weight of their own fail, so lets ignore gaming design 101, and use psedo game design rules. It's as if mmo gamers are the mutated sub-species of normal gamers, where all the things that piss normal gamers off in real games are the bread of butter of mmo's.

As far as skill systems vs level grind, if your skill system is series of hurdles over "skill points needed", "skill level increases", " advancing your skill tree", "class levels", than sure a complex skill system is simple another attempt to hide the dog shit you stepped on. However if your complex skill system is really a very simple set of choices that allow the player to find their preferred play style by letting them pick and swap skills and is pretty much a very practical extension of character creation of the non-cosmetic-frivolous type than skill systems than your not talking about another vertical increase in power. Of course when mmo's implement "complex skill systems" it's all ways the former and never the latter.

Quinton as far as WoW players enjoying the grind that's simply due to them being married to the game. How many of those WoW players who love the cockblocks would actually play another grind/loot/reward/ding game that is not free is the real question. The answer is of course few to none, their playing WoW obviously till it becomes an unpopulated desolate world where only the people who really enjoy the end game are going to be left. The I love grind kids will move on to find an another mmo to get married to. Just like the UO kids are still looking for UO2 which means the retention rate for new mmo's might become even worse if WoW suddenly collapses.

[Venkman]

Darniaq if levels met that head shots don't register 100% of the time like it would in an mmo, no one would be playing Cod4 multiplayer.

This part is correct. Planetside without a monthly fee might have been more popular, but I wouldn't say by a whole heck of a lot.

Honestly all levels do in CoD4 is make sure when you own a newbie he knows how leet you are in case he didn't stick around to see you teebagging his corpses with a high powered no noobs allowed to use rifle in hand. In a genre known for its 13 year old with a 30 year old sized epeen, levels are just icing to a cake that is already frosted and has fudge filling.

This part is not

You can pick up any weapon you find in COD4. You just can't create a default template with that weapon until you've unlocked a number of achievements, themselves granted to you by XP and levels. Wanting to have those weapons yourself is a prime motivator to have levels. But it's not a linear power scale. An M16 with a laser site, stopping power and deep impact can be as effective as a P40 with an AGOC and the same permabuffs. Yes, you can't pick up the better grenades nor that AGOC scope from the ground, because those are locked behind unlocks. But you can pick up a weapon that someone modded to test drive it.

The important point is that your player skill can trump your opponent(s)' level. THAT is the key difference between an FPS with MMO components and an MMO with an action-y feel (ie, TR). You can be level 1 and still be effective, because level only limits your default options, it doesn't arbitrarily prevent you from picking up "higher level" weapons, because weapons themselves do not have level requirements. You can still be crushed, but that's more because of player skill that would find you being crushed in any FPS.

That's why I've long wanted an actual MMOFPS. But COD4 is close enough (and presumably COD5, though I prefer modern warfare for mp) for me right now because it includes the kind of things I'm used to from MMOs, without being arbitrary and punitive about it.

[chargerrich]

The question is: if you take away leveling, what replaces it as a progression / reward structure? Players love ding gratz for a reason.

That is actually the million dollar question. MJ said very little I have ever agreed with but when he mentioned that his game might have been better received if he added 120 levels to max (with the same time) people would have reacted differently to the grind.

He is right.


Well that and remove some of the suck...

[DLRiley]

Darniaq if levels met that head shots don't register 100% of the time like it would in an mmo, no one would be playing Cod4 multiplayer.

This part is correct. Planetside without a monthly fee might have been more popular, but I wouldn't say by a whole heck of a lot.

Honestly all levels do in CoD4 is make sure when you own a newbie he knows how leet you are in case he didn't stick around to see you teebagging his corpses with a high powered no noobs allowed to use rifle in hand. In a genre known for its 13 year old with a 30 year old sized epeen, levels are just icing to a cake that is already frosted and has fudge filling.

This part is not

You can pick up any weapon you find in COD4. You just can't create a default template with that weapon until you've unlocked a number of achievements, themselves granted to you by XP and levels. Wanting to have those weapons yourself is a prime motivator to have levels. But it's not a linear power scale. An M16 with a laser site, stopping power and deep impact can be as effective as a P40 with an AGOC and the same permabuffs. Yes, you can't pick up the better grenades nor that AGOC scope from the ground, because those are locked behind unlocks. But you can pick up a weapon that someone modded to test drive it.

The important point is that your player skill can trump your opponent(s)' level. THAT is the key difference between an FPS with MMO components and an MMO with an action-y feel (ie, TR). You can be level 1 and still be effective, because level only limits your default options, it doesn't arbitrarily prevent you from picking up "higher level" weapons, because weapons themselves do not have level requirements. You can still be crushed, but that's more because of player skill that would find you being crushed in any FPS.

That's why I've long wanted an actual MMOFPS. But COD4 is close enough (and presumably COD5, though I prefer modern warfare for mp) for me right now because it includes the kind of things I'm used to from MMOs, without being arbitrary and punitive about it.

Come now, I forget to mention the weapon pick and hence I'm wrong? Please the no newbs allowed statement was simply a reference to the fact that no new player actually gets those guns in the beginning. And while I agree with your post entirely actually, it still missing a vital point. Say 3 newbies enter COD4 multiplayer;

Newb 1 enjoys the game thinks its a blast totally oblivious to the fact that his m16 sucks and may occasional utilize the advancement system as he gets more comfortable with the meta-game.

Newb 2 plays the game but is feels that only having a m16 vs much better guns is a more than a tad unfair and simply stops playing (even when someone tries to explain to him that the difference isn't really that bad) .

Newb 3 plays the game notices that his gun sucks (probably doesn't help that he sucks too) but instead of raging thinks to himself "well geez all I gotta do is play for x amount of minutes and maybe an hour and I'll defiantly get the new shit I need to win" (probably in his case attempting to compensate for the fact that he isn't that good) and continues to play the game in order to get the new parts/guns.

COD4 doesn't really need even 250k players playing it in order for it to function. But lets say you were to boil it down, on average you can expect a 2:3 retention rate (simply by the generalization made above). Not bad, but Newb 2 would have probably stuck around to play a bit if he wasn't given a series of unlocks to work through in order to get the gun he feels he needs to compete. Say Newb 2 doesn't leave but simply plays less, not devastating but it could be improved.

[UnSub]

The question is: if you take away leveling, what replaces it as a progression / reward structure? Players love ding gratz for a reason.

That is actually the million dollar question. MJ said very little I have ever agreed with but when he mentioned that his game might have been better received if he added 120 levels to max (with the same time) people would have reacted differently to the grind.

He is right.

The levels would have to be meaningful in some way - he couldn't stick advancement points every 10 levels and believe that people would find leveling fun under such a system.

[Xanthippe]

The question is: if you take away leveling, what replaces it as a progression / reward structure? Players love ding gratz for a reason.

That is actually the million dollar question. MJ said very little I have ever agreed with but when he mentioned that his game might have been better received if he added 120 levels to max (with the same time) people would have reacted differently to the grind.

He is right.


Well that and remove some of the suck...

The suck is why people don't play - not the number of levels.

[IainC]

Come now, I forget to mention the weapon pick and hence I'm wrong? Please the no newbs allowed statement was simply a reference to the fact that no new player actually gets those guns in the beginning. And while I agree with your post entirely actually, it still missing a vital point. Say 3 newbies enter COD4 multiplayer;

Newb 1 enjoys the game thinks its a blast totally oblivious to the fact that his m16 sucks and may occasional utilize the advancement system as he gets more comfortable with the meta-game.

Newb 2 plays the game but is feels that only having a m16 vs much better guns is a more than a tad unfair and simply stops playing (even when someone tries to explain to him that the difference isn't really that bad) .

Newb 3 plays the game notices that his gun sucks (probably doesn't help that he sucks too) but instead of raging thinks to himself "well geez all I gotta do is play for x amount of minutes and maybe an hour and I'll defiantly get the new shit I need to win" (probably in his case attempting to compensate for the fact that he isn't that good) and continues to play the game in order to get the new parts/guns.

COD4 doesn't really need even 250k players playing it in order for it to function. But lets say you were to boil it down, on average you can expect a 2:3 retention rate (simply by the generalization made above). Not bad, but Newb 2 would have probably stuck around to play a bit if he wasn't given a series of unlocks to work through in order to get the gun he feels he needs to compete. Say Newb 2 doesn't leave but simply plays less, not devastating but it could be improved.

Pulling numbers out of your ass does not prove your point. You're wrong on a lot of different issues, picking up on only a single point is only unfair in that it's unrepresentative of how much your arguments suck.

[gryeyes]

lots of stuff

Im having a hard time reading your posts so i might not be responding correctly. Not being a dick i also have horrible grammar/sentence structure.

I think you have to understand that "leveling" and other similar ways of character progression are not restricted to MMO's.
Pretty much in any RPG i have ever played you will be progressing in the exact same way. Either through skill usage (TES/UO) through acquiring items/gear or outright level dinging. Its not a new concept and isnt limited to MMO's. And to say there isnt a skill curve in even a game like WoW is a bit false. You start off a piddly little wizard with limited skillset. You progress in class knowledge and skill availability. And then by the time you are max level you begin to learn how to play your class in a raid/pvp setting.

This system allows for even craptastic players (of which comprises a majority of people) to compete and acquire prestige via gear.

Making a game based solely on physical player skill puts a impenetrable cockblock for a large swath of your potential customers. Shit, even in WoW people constantly bitched about being unable to attain epeen rewards. How can you get a large customer base to pay a monthly fee for getting their shit pushed in?  

Im willing to make the baseless assumption that you cant maintain millions of subscriptions where individual player skill is the sole metric of player progression. Very few people can accept being outright dominated by those who have skills that they never will. A majority of people will not pay to play a game in which their own physical limitations (reflexes,aim etc) are the limitations of the cyber escapist persona

[Venkman]

Come now, I forget to mention the weapon pick and hence I'm wrong?

Not at all. I didn't think you missed that I do think that we are prioritizing those aspects differently though.

Your three Newb examples are apt. But only for the first week or so of the game, because they're coming with some sort of preconceived notion.

• Newb 1- Probably an FPS background. Comfortable playing with whatever he can get, motivated to try and get better in skill. Sees an advancement system so has a clearer individual path to better weapons than the old school "learn the map/spawn points" thing.
• Newb 2- This may occur, but I wouldn't think so unless the person comes from a strict RPG/MMO background and immediatley assumes Levels = Powers. But that person wasn't going to stick around anyway because they probably suck at FPSes for the short time they're looking for targetlock and healthbars
• Newb 3- Here again, unless they've grokked the diku paradigm, I don't know that someone who plays COD4 is thinking Time = Advancement. Because the biggest gate isn't the time invested causing mob genocide. It's all about the kills you get or CTF/bomb objectives you achieve.

There also is a fourth: the experienced FPS player looking for a new game. They land and find there's also an achievements system. Not their prime motivation of course.

But all of that only works in phase 1 (launch/adoption). Looking a year out, I think COD4 has more concurrent matches going than the sequel. And that's one reason I've been focused on this:

Imagine COD4 with achievements vs COD4 without achievements. Which one retains more players for longer? I actually don't know. But somebody thought they did, so they added traditional MMO trappings as a way to give it a shot. And with FPS games that have followed, we see this tactic used even more.

And this is why I love it. The only way "MMO" evolves beyond the same stuff we've been playing for 10 years is if someone with a completely different point of view comes in and gives it a shot. Even Blizzard didn't do that. What they actually did was to show the world what it takes to do the old way right.

I continue wanting to look outside to see someone do it different. And so far, one of the better examples of doing it different is by not starting with the "RPG" suffix.

[gryeyes]

I find the concept of unlockables in general and specifically to multiplayer FPS's to be one of the most retarded ideas i have ever come across. Yes it will get players to play longer. Just like any cockblocking grind in any other genre. Does it add anything to the gameplay besides the ability for a company to nickle-dime to avoid such a cockass feature? nope. Does it ensure that some people wont even touch the game? Yes.

So beyond the artificial extension of content via cockblockery what exactly does this add to a game? I must confess i have not touched CoD4 multiplayer nor followed the game. And i am pretty much a PC centric gamer with little console exposure.

[Mrbloodworth]

"Power" in most RPG's are a sliding scale, your not REALLY more powerful than you were, because everything else is too. Well, except for that level one rat. Poor guy will never advance.

When i play level based games, or enter a new zone (as they are level based too), i know i'm on the bottom rung of that...uh, measurement.

[Sheepherder]

The environment progresses because that is the mechanism used to progress the character... Other players are not progressing in relation to my gains. They are progressing due to the investment of time and money in the game.

You only become weak in comparison if people come back to your lowbie zones to rape your ass.  Similarly, you only become strong if you go back to rape other's asses.  The game is zero-sum unless you acknowledge that a significant portion of people are willing to break from the mold and go back to a lowbie zone to get their rape on, at which point you must concede that the carrot and stick has limited effect over their behavior, otherwise they would be grinding to endgame.  Either way the argument has little merit, because counter-examples abound.  Obviously then the reason people play isn't to become "more powerful".

EDIT: MrBloodworth's is like a TL;DR of my post.

[gryeyes]

You only become weak in comparison if people come back to your lowbie zones to rape your ass.  Similarly, you only become strong if you go back to rape other's asses.  The game is zero-sum unless you acknowledge that a significant portion of people are willing to break from the mold and go back to a lowbie zone to get their rape on, at which point you must concede that the carrot and stick has limited effect over their behavior, otherwise they would be grinding to endgame.  Either way the argument has little merit, because counter-examples abound.  Obviously then the reason people play isn't to become "more powerful".

EDIT: MrBloodworth's is like a TL;DR of my post.

Wait you are claiming that all characters have equal "power" based purely on level? Im not sure you are aware of the distinction between a noob gear character and one maxed out. Lets just say they are far from equal.