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glibdud
post May 16 2007, 08:04 AM
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I gave some thought to the idea of permadeath only enacted in certain situations, like major story battles. But I eventually decided I was against it on the grounds that I don't think we really want to discourage people from joining the epic battles. So I say permadeath should pretty much be all or nothing.

As a potential compromise, how about instead of actual permadeath, once a character "dies" (which we could term as a near-death experience), he's left with a permanent disability (maimed limb, partial hearing loss, etc.). The character will never again be as good as he once was, but he's not rendered permanently unplayable. These disabilities stack the more the player is defeated, and we leave it up to the player to decide when it's time to start over.

On the subject of skill decay, I disagree with a single decay stat that can be universally worked off. For one thing, it allows characters to master every skill, since as long as they're doing *something*, a skill they haven't used in years will still be every bit as strong as it was.

And ideally (in my mind, anyway), you won't actually *see* your skills decay. I'm an advocate of hiding the numbers from the players. If you don't use a skill for a while, you may notice you're not quite as good at it when you go to use it again, but you won't be able to see the skill numbers ticking away.

The idea is to make it so that players don't have to even think about skill advancement or decay. They simply play the game like they want to play it, and over time the character's skills will reach a sort of equilibrium based on that play style.
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echorev
post May 16 2007, 08:21 AM
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i think there should be some regions on the map where whatever power revives the player isn't strong enough to revive them there, so that there are certain perma-death areas on the map


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Alexander
post May 16 2007, 12:23 PM
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QUOTE(glibdud @ May 16 2007, 04:04 PM) *

I gave some thought to the idea of permadeath only enacted in certain situations, like major story battles. But I eventually decided I was against it on the grounds that I don't think we really want to discourage people from joining the epic battles. So I say permadeath should pretty much be all or nothing.

As a potential compromise, how about instead of actual permadeath, once a character "dies" (which we could term as a near-death experience), he's left with a permanent disability (maimed limb, partial hearing loss, etc.). The character will never again be as good as he once was, but he's not rendered permanently unplayable. These disabilities stack the more the player is defeated, and we leave it up to the player to decide when it's time to start over.

On the subject of skill decay, I disagree with a single decay stat that can be universally worked off. For one thing, it allows characters to master every skill, since as long as they're doing *something*, a skill they haven't used in years will still be every bit as strong as it was.

And ideally (in my mind, anyway), you won't actually *see* your skills decay. I'm an advocate of hiding the numbers from the players. If you don't use a skill for a while, you may notice you're not quite as good at it when you go to use it again, but you won't be able to see the skill numbers ticking away.

The idea is to make it so that players don't have to even think about skill advancement or decay. They simply play the game like they want to play it, and over time the character's skills will reach a sort of equilibrium based on that play style.

Beautiful, just beautiful. I feel the same way, perfect. Now just say that Perma-death is a must and your heading the right way.

As for revival magic, sure why not. Have a few different resurrection spells in the game, that will make people who have them really wanted, a real sought after type of magic, if you keep it purely as divine magic then suddenly everybody will have a good reason to belong to as least one faith. But I'm against regional resurrection. This shut be more a matter of time. The more skilled the caster the longer they can wait with the casting of resurrection. If you add gods to the show and give them the ability to bring back anyone no matter how long its bin then people will have reason to start new characters and not give up on old ones that died over a year ago. As long as you remember their name for example you can do a special quest for a god and get the character back. Its kind of perma-death but with the common loop-holes of fantasy.

You can have a resurrection spell that if you cast it within x second of somebody’s death they come back, you can have resurrection spells that allow up to x days between the death and the casting and perhaps even have spells that allow up to x years of death. (Naturally all in-game time which perhaps moves faster then real time so people get to experience both day and night time frequently.)

If you bring those gods in the picture you can even get people questing to bring back old legendary characters of actual players so they can come back to fight in another war or do whatever is needed of them this time again. Characters might even be given out other players with the original players left the game, 'stealing' them in a sense. In that way you can even have evil players trying to revive old powerful characters to steal their power (their complete spell lists and stuff would still be part of the old character so...), this would mean that the tombs of old hero's need guarding against necromancers or evil priest and dark clerics and such. All adds the great possibilities if you where to allow it.
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Maxwell
post May 16 2007, 12:45 PM
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Glibdud you nailed it, at least for me. All of those are fantastic ideas. Alex, I can understand the storyline behind the permadeath. The poor soul if he can't fight will have to hang up his sword eventually, maybe a healer comes along and offers him a second chance, but he must give him his soul (PERMADEATH) DUN DUN DUN. You could also have old men with limps who teach now instead of going into battle. Personally I don't think permadeath should be a must, an option definably. I do like your Idea of bring people back to steal their power and what not. As always I believe there needs to be a story behind it, not just thrown in there.

I don't believe that characters should see their skill by numbers they could just see it happen, As in Gothic. You start off by swinging a sword like crap, and then as you get better you notice it. Although some people need numbers so why not put a counter somewhere in there for them,make it an option or if make it on your character sheet, defiantly not in the normal HUD.

If you want to talk about permadeath go to Honis's thread Death, Dying and Exp

This post has been edited by Maxwell: May 16 2007, 12:48 PM


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glibdud
post May 16 2007, 03:47 PM
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To address the concerns about players wanting to see concrete feedback on their progression:

The way skills are internally represented in an MMO is with absolute numbers. But that's generally not how we see things. You don't look at your performance and say "Yeah, I'm probably about a 55 in Basketball." Instead, you see things relatively: "I'm a lot better than I was a year ago" or "This guy's gonna mop the court with me." This is really how it should be represented in-game. The former; judging your progress over a period of time; could be done by a trainer. The latter; comparing yourself to someone else; could be implemented with a variety of challenges. Want to know if you're stronger than another character? Arm wrestle him. Want to know who's better with a sword? Spar with him. These don't even need to be interactive activities... they can just be pieces of the interface that let characters see how they stack up with each other.

On a larger scale, periodic festivals could be accompanied by a number of contests of both combatant skill and craft skill. Prizes and honors can be given out to the winners, and you can see how you rank against a good portion of the population.

There are all sorts of ways to go with this that are much more interesting than watching numbers increment.
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echorev
post May 16 2007, 04:12 PM
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!!!! i agree with everything glibdud said, there can be so many ways for testing speed, strength, etc. besides levels. certain things like medals could be given out for achievements, etc.


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Maxwell
post May 16 2007, 09:11 PM
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Wow that diffinatly cemented that for me. Thanks Glibdud, very good Idea. Keep up the good work!!


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Alexander
post May 17 2007, 03:17 AM
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QUOTE(Maxwell @ May 16 2007, 08:45 PM) *

Glibdud you nailed it, at least for me. All of those are fantastic ideas. Alex, I can understand the storyline behind the permadeath. The poor soul if he can't fight will have to hang up his sword eventually, maybe a healer comes along and offers him a second chance, but he must give him his soul (PERMADEATH) DUN DUN DUN. You could also have old men with limps who teach now instead of going into battle. Personally I don't think permadeath should be a must, an option definably. I do like your Idea of bring people back to steal their power and what not. As always I believe there needs to be a story behind it, not just thrown in there.


No I don't think you got what I said. It's more along the lines of game mechanics that have loop holes in them for the players. Example: You lost a good character you liked, that character died and is now gone forever, perma-death, its dead, no life counters, no nothing. But! Since this is a fantasy game the characters have souls and there are gods and there is magic. Gods offer mortals the ability to chance the laws of nature by use of magic. And there exists magic that can bring back souls and restore their bodies. Different spells can exist to deal with different types of deaths. The character who got cut down with a swords is easier to restore then some idiot who fell into a lava pool if you know what I mean. Because of this some spells can restore characters of whose they only know their name, since this is the only thing that’s left of them in the world. But if only a name is enough what stops another player from resurrecting your character and claiming it as his own? You could make it so that if a character you once created gets resurrected you get a message about it and get the option to take control of the newly resurrected character and if you decline the resurrection fails. (See it as free will, you can't bring back a dead guy who wants to stay dead.) But! What if that player has long since stopped playing? He won't answer any messages or his account might not even exist anymore. That doesn't mean the end to the characters he ones had and are still stored as dead souls. Perhaps now you can allow anyone who resurrects them to take control of them? All that is still just normal resurrection, I haven't even started on the options you could have with necromancy magic.

It's not about penalties and giving up your soul, its about giving options to the players to make the game even more interesting, going beyond perma-death, allowing loopholes such a resurrections and even lichdom and other such transformations to cheat death. It adds precisely that kind of depth that I think people would want to see in a game, it allows for so much options.

The only 'story' you need to have for it is that of divine magic comes from the gods and thusly allows to easier power over life and death. The gods and the beings where most souls go to when they die so its natural that the servants of those gods can barter with them to get them back. No real story there, just the way its always bin in mythology and fantasy alike, everybody knows how it works so why go thro all the trouble to explain it all again?

I believe in a different method. First implement it and let the players make a story about it. Who cares about the story a developer makes to get a skill into the game, to the players its just another thing available for them. Instead you can just give it to them for what it is and the players will use it and the story emerges on its own. The rules on how skills work and when they become available is part of the story already, by not telling the story the players need to find it out for themselves and that also leaves them more free to fantasise about it instead of being spoon-fed stories that most either don't care about or won't even agree with.
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Honis
post May 17 2007, 08:48 AM
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subject of Skill Degradation:

We could make it hard to skill up past a certain point. Once you reach the "Decent skill" level, probably 20-30% of the max level for that skill, your skills become much harder to get.

This may encourage some people to dabble in other skills, but not master all of them. Sure eventually someone may master then all, good for them for not having a life outside of a game.


If skill degradation is implemented, I'd only want it to be an effect due to idle time in game. This will keep shop owners weak and form a need to hire skilled adventurers.

I haven't said it in this thread, but have said it in other places that this subject pops up. I'm a weekend player. Why am I getting penalized because I have a life outside of the game? I couldn't even play my current mmo on the weekends this last semester because of my personal life and responsibilities.


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glibdud
post May 17 2007, 09:29 AM
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QUOTE(Honis @ May 17 2007, 10:48 AM) *

subject of Skill Degradation:

We could make it hard to skill up past a certain point. Once you reach the "Decent skill" level, probably 20-30% of the max level for that skill, your skills become much harder to get.

This may encourage some people to dabble in other skills, but not master all of them. Sure eventually someone may master then all, good for them for not having a life outside of a game.
If skill degradation is implemented, I'd only want it to be an effect due to idle time in game. This will keep shop owners weak and form a need to hire skilled adventurers.

I haven't said it in this thread, but have said it in other places that this subject pops up. I'm a weekend player. Why am I getting penalized because I have a life outside of the game? I couldn't even play my current mmo on the weekends this last semester because of my personal life and responsibilities.


Yes, there should be diminishing returns in skills. I think there should be a floor (say, skill of 25 out of 100) below which decay will not take place. Certain basic skills stick with you no matter how long you go without using them (the riding-a-bike principle). That should encourage dabbling. Above that, skills should be increasingly difficult to advance, and possibly also decay faster (maybe not... that'll require testing) as the skill gets higher. Perhaps we could also keep track of the highest score achieved in a particular skill, and enable increased advancement rate up to that point. In other words, after not using a skill for a long time and being out of practice, the character will be able to work himself back up into form in less time than it took him the first time around.

And absolutely skill decay should only be in effect while the player is actually in game. And I would also advocate shutting off decay under certain circumstances such as hanging out in a tavern or milling about at a festival. Otherwise, skill decay would discourage people from "wasting" time socializing. (In these cases, skill advancement will probably also need to be shut off to prevent exploiting... so call it a total skill freeze.)
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Alexander
post May 18 2007, 03:03 AM
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Skill decay only in on-time? Bad idea.

If the game has a good working time schedule of days and weeks and such then it really doesn't make sense if you logged off for a month, came back and saw that your character was completely unchanged. I'm actually against logging of entirely.

Why not let them character continue on its own with a little AI? Would make more sense then having to hold off a siege because the players of the city are on vacation and the characters aren’t home right? If you have a little AI in the character you can even make them worry about their profession in your off-time, keeps those pesky skill from degrading too if your character has a daily routine it could follow. Hell, you could even have them improve without you lifting a finger if you wanted.

I'm also against a max level in any skill, just let it improve into infinity at ever higher experience cost and ever lower benefit. And just as glibdud pointed out with riding his bike, something’s are never forgotten or picked up rapidly. Allow skill decay to stop once it has reached 1/3rd of the highest that skill has ever bin and allow to regain those levels much faster as normal, 3 times the normal rate or even faster then that. Hey it could be different for each skill you have. Some races might have a racial keen eye for alchemy or wizardry or what not and the skill can be made to act accordingly.
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Honis
post May 18 2007, 08:24 AM
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QUOTE(Alexander)
I'm also against a max level in any skill, just let it improve into infinity at ever higher experience cost and ever lower benefit. And just as glibdud pointed out with riding his bike, something’s are never forgotten or picked up rapidly. Allow skill decay to stop once it has reached 1/3rd of the highest that skill has ever bin and allow to regain those levels much faster as normal, 3 times the normal rate or even faster then that. Hey it could be different for each skill you have. Some races might have a racial keen eye for alchemy or wizardry or what not and the skill can be made to act accordingly.


I like some of the ideas in here. The increased skill return rate would be good if skill decays. This will also reflect real life. It's easier to pick something back up and catch up to where you left off.

I'm not very keen on letting skills increase to infinity. This may encourage characters to pump up and become 'god like.' I don't like hte idea that one character can become powerful enough to conjour any quest that is thrown at them alone or in a small group of truelly elite players. (because mobs need to be preprogramed with there skills)

QUOTE(Alexander)
Why not let them character continue on its own with a little AI? Would make more sense then having to hold off a siege because the players of the city are on vacation and the characters aren’t home right? If you have a little AI in the character you can even make them worry about their profession in your off-time, keeps those pesky skill from degrading too if your character has a daily routine it could follow. Hell, you could even have them improve without you lifting a finger if you wanted.


This idea is being discussed in here: Leaving the world and scripts

QUOTE
Skill decay only in on-time? Bad idea.

Some of us can't play for months sometimes. Do you think someone would come back to a game after a month or two if they knew there charater was going to be at some noob skill level? Even if we get a bonus getting the skill back, that just that much more work we'd need to put into the character. Work we had already put into the character. I agree it doesn't make the game anywhere nearly as realisc as it could be, but if it was realalistic, most of the player characters would be beggers and pesants not adventurers.


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glibdud
post May 18 2007, 11:08 AM
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QUOTE(Honis @ May 18 2007, 10:24 AM) *

I'm not very keen on letting skills increase to infinity. This may encourage characters to pump up and become 'god like.' I don't like hte idea that one character can become powerful enough to conjour any quest that is thrown at them alone or in a small group of truelly elite players. (because mobs need to be preprogramed with there skills)

The way I envision it, while there would be a theoretical cap to the possible skill range, it would by design be impossible to achieve, so that no one ever reaches the point where there's nothing more to be done. This would be accomplished by a combination of decay and an exponential increase in the difficulty of advancing the skill. Eventually, the player reaches a point where he can only just barely keep up with the decay, and this is his equilibrium point for that skill

As an aside, so that people don't feel like they've "hit the ceiling" once they reach their equilibrium point, I would also like to see some sort of bonus given based on holding a skill at a certain level for a period of time. That way there are rewards for those who stick with a profession long-term.

QUOTE(Honis @ May 18 2007, 10:24 AM) *

Some of us can't play for months sometimes. Do you think someone would come back to a game after a month or two if they knew there charater was going to be at some noob skill level? Even if we get a bonus getting the skill back, that just that much more work we'd need to put into the character. Work we had already put into the character. I agree it doesn't make the game anywhere nearly as realisc as it could be, but if it was realalistic, most of the player characters would be beggers and pesants not adventurers.

Agreed. Players should be rewarded for the time spent in the game, and not punished for the time spent out of it. (And for that matter, not rewarded for the time spent out of it either.)
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Alexander
post May 18 2007, 12:38 PM
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Oh please no, please, please, please don't go that way glibdud. That's the way WoW was made (I got nothing against WoW but I would love to see a different type game), by rewarding players for what they do. It's a game, you shut play it because you like the game whether its for the challenge, the scenery, the friends, or whatever but not because you get rewards for your time playing it. The game is its own reward, you spent time on it for your own reasons not because you are rewarded for it.

A game is supposed to be a game, a challenge, and although MMO's are so much more then this (they are certainly entertaining, fun, beautiful, etc), you can't forget that basic concept. Offering rewards and stepping stones isn't a challenge for the player, smiting the player with hardships is.

I've read an article on WoW's design and how its mob's where specifically designed to work as stepping stones so people didn't need to invest vast amounts of time in the game to get somewhere. They also tested them to be just the right difficulty so that people felt like having overcome a great obstacle but where actually hardly using their brains for it. Now... I like the huge amount of work it must have taken to get it just right and it is because of this that I actually like WoW, its not a bad game, in fact its a great and beautiful piece of work but just not what I look for in a MMO. It's a game for children because it doesn't require much thought to play.

I want to see the opposite ring true for a new game, one that truly goes beyond all the common elements of those kiddy games. I want a game that challenges the player to think.

A game like that doesn't necessarily require long hours of play. Like I said, if you use a little AI for your character you can return after a month and see that you character has actually only increased in skill. (Or your town got attacked and you got killed, heh-heh-heh.) But this I don't see as a reward, I see it as a calculated risk you take with your character. You can leave him unattended like that and reap benefits without lifting a figure but you can just as easily get discovered to be away and murdered or a victim of theft.

That's why I want a realistic fantasy styled game.
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glibdud
post May 18 2007, 01:12 PM
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QUOTE(Alexander @ May 18 2007, 02:38 PM) *

I've read an article on WoW's design and how its mob's where specifically designed to work as stepping stones so people didn't need to invest vast amounts of time in the game to get somewhere. They also tested them to be just the right difficulty so that people felt like having overcome a great obstacle but where actually hardly using their brains for it. Now... I like the huge amount of work it must have taken to get it just right and it is because of this that I actually like WoW, its not a bad game, in fact its a great and beautiful piece of work but just not what I look for in a MMO. It's a game for children because it doesn't require much thought to play.

We're in complete agreement there.

QUOTE(Alexander @ May 18 2007, 02:38 PM) *

I want to see the opposite ring true for a new game, one that truly goes beyond all the common elements of those kiddy games. I want a game that challenges the player to think.

A game like that doesn't necessarily require long hours of play. Like I said, if you use a little AI for your character you can return after a month and see that you character has actually only increased in skill. (Or your town got attacked and you got killed, heh-heh-heh.) But this I don't see as a reward, I see it as a calculated risk you take with your character. You can leave him unattended like that and reap benefits without lifting a figure but you can just as easily get discovered to be away and murdered or a victim of theft.

That's why I want a realistic fantasy styled game.

I like the idea of characters hanging around and doing other things in-game while the player is out, but as Honis pointed out, this isn't the place for a general discussion about that. Unless PW decides to implement such a thing to the extent you're implying, which would require a pretty big shift in design, skill decay while off-line would be a mistake.
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Alexander
post May 18 2007, 04:20 PM
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*sigh* As sad as I think it is I believe your right. And I don't have any faith, at all, in the developers and their ability to make something worth while. Luckily I'm a very patient guy and I'm willing to wait to be proven wrong.
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Battousai
post Mar 25 2008, 01:18 PM
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I am not sure if this is the right area to post this(and i am sorry if it is not), but i was wondering if there would be any skill like a "beast mastery" skill where you could learn different abilities by fighting different monster types. (ie: while fighting against a rock golem you learn "rock skin" as a passive ability, an attack like "fire breath" when fighting a dragon) of course you'd have to limit the amount of abilities you can have at one time.
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Jerky
post Mar 26 2008, 12:57 PM
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QUOTE(Battousai @ Mar 25 2008, 01:18 PM) *

I am not sure if this is the right area to post this(and i am sorry if it is not), but i was wondering if there would be any skill like a "beast mastery" skill where you could learn different abilities by fighting different monster types. (ie: while fighting against a rock golem you learn "rock skin" as a passive ability, an attack like "fire breath" when fighting a dragon) of course you'd have to limit the amount of abilities you can have at one time.

No, its not the wrong place. It's good to see an old face come back.

The skill system has not been finalized yet (I've been busy on other portions of the design, and for that matter nothing is finalized). I like the idea of passive skills such as the ones you suggest here. Consider it added to the list of features that need some discussion. Feel free to start a new thread on it.


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Marly
post Jan 28 2009, 10:25 AM
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The idea's I have are uncountable, but there are some select idea's which instantly came to my mind when reading the other people their idea's. The idea's may not be of instant use, but it are some discussion points.

The MMORPG that is leading the business at the moment is, as you probably all know, is World of Warcraft. But, having played this game several times, I came to the conclusion that this game isn't perfect at all (I know 'perfect' is the wrong word, because nothing is perfect, but people seem to think WoW is 'the unbeatable MMORPG'). The mistakes that Blizzard is making with World of Warcraft shouldn't be made with this game.

World of Warcraft is based completely on leveling. I have certain complaints (comments) on this.
World of Warcraft does good by having no end-game content, but Blizzard is pushing you towards that point (the highest level) too much. It is good that there is end-game content, which wasn't available in the earlier MMORPG's, but end-game content is not what it is all about. The trick is to not let the user know that he is playing end-game content. That way there will be no rushing towards a certain level. All people should have the same experience, the same rights, etc. For example; Some things (like certain battlegrounds and mounts) are only available at the highest level. Raids can only be done when having reached the level cap aswell. I think you should either have no level at all or be having a level that's so high that it is almost impossible to reach. This way you prevent people from rushing to a certain level for having certain content which you don't have at a lower level.

Now I hear you think. "No level? Isn't that kind of boring?". Well, why would you want to base a game completely on level. I mean, why can't you base a game on other aspects. You could i.e. have skill levels. Your skill level will go up when having used it xxxx times (which increases per level) or having done xxxx damage with the certain skill. These are just examples, but I'm trying to say with this that the level is just an easy way of leading the way structured, but it doesn't stop at levels! There are numerous other possibilities, which will not have the players rush to a certain level.

I also think a player should have the possibility to be a mage with plate armour. It won't affect his playing, it would only slow him down enormously compared to cloth. Having said that, plate armour and magic is a bad combination, but it should be possible. Therefore, my idea on this is that a player should start blank. No choosing of races, he should start like any other player (except from his looks of course). He could choose to start leveling his melee class (which will be divided into the two-handed class, one-handed class and main-handed class (sword ans shield), which will in their turn be devided the sword class, mace class, dagger class ... U get the idea). When he has reached level 128 (not because this is the max, it's just an example) in one handed - maces, he could choose to start training his fire (magic) skills. Which can, on their turn, be leveled to a high level. This should be balanced.

The maximum level (either for your character and/or his specializations) should be unknown. I don't think should be made public, because this will keep certain players from having fun. They will instead rush to that level.

When gaining levels you access new kinds of attacks, but not specifically stronger attacks. I think it should be fun to make it a matter of luck. When you reach level 10 in one-handed maces i.e., you get the knockback skill (which does no damage, but knocks your character back), while you get that on level 50 aswell. Knockback could be used to drive your enemies into impossible positions. - This all are idea's of which I am not certain if they would be of good use to the game, but it are some idea's which could be worth considering in the future.

The main reason for posting this is to say that all content should be available at any level. A new user should have the same possibilities as an experienced user. I am not saying that by playing you shouldn't get rewards, I am saying that the system should be balanced towards having fun more then towards leveling. Games are games because you have fun with them in the end, and not for playing to reach a certain level and then have it stop. No, the level shouldn't decide where the fun ends, the user should decide, and it should be our main goal to provide a world in which the user will never get this feeling. A world in which players have the possibility of endlessly doing things, without being called a 'noob' just because you are a lower level or worrying about 'twinks' (players camping at a certain level to be the best at that level). All players should have the same gaming experience, regardless what their level or experience is.

My main reason for bringing this forward is because I believe this is the weakness of WoW. I know this is not the only weakness, and that WoW can not be improved on other points, but I'd like to start somewhere with this discussion.

Marly


EDIT: It seems that this is the wrong place for this post. Could someone direct it to the right place? Thanks.

This post has been edited by Marly: Jan 28 2009, 10:39 AM
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