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My New Levelling Technique Is Unstoppable
Brandon Reinhart thinks about death knights too much. (And that’s just part one.)
Brandon hates alts. I’m an alta-holic. Brandon is a hardcore raider. I saw Blackwing Lair once. So. Our perspectives differ somewhat. Brandon comes from that wacky “knows what he’s talking about” school of design. Hah! We altaholics laugh at the thought of actually experiencing things ourselves. Instead we carp from the sidelines. So, from someone who actually hasn’t gotten a character past level 60 yet (except for, um, all the ones my wife levelled so she could farm Outland), my commentary.
I kind of understand where Brandon is coming from; even agree with most of his logic. Mainly, from his perspective, since a player’s primary character is his investment, any time spent with an alt is a wasted investment – it’s not assisting him in moving towards his goals, but simply serves as a distraction. Making an achievement that acts, not in concert with this, but encouraging that distraction, is seen as, well, distracting. Unlocking a Death Knight won’t make your Rogue better. It won’t help your guild, because you’re going to have ramp up time in getting your new toy up to speed. It won’t help in raiding, because lord only knows the rivers will run red with the blood of fallen gnome Death Knights. There’s gonna be a bit of DPS Tank surplus for a while (hey, howabout them belfadins!) If an alt is seen as a waste, than an end game goal of alt unlocking is not only a waste of time, but a waste of achievement as well.
But that all is predicated on one assumption – you don’t enjoy the journey, but merely the reward.
I also play City of Villains. And one common feature of that game is that few players get past level 30. Well, you can, but the level grind past that point is ridiculously prohibitive, and for little gain. There really isn’t an end game with City of Heroes/Villains – you simply reroll. And there’s no reason really, *not* to reroll once you get to where the game gets tough. So most do. The new player areas in City of X are among the most populated and alive areas in any MMO, despite the game’s age, simply because the players of those games that still play, play to reroll.
Now, the players looking for the end game get frustrated and leave – because, as I said, there is none, and the journey to find that out quickly becomes prohibitive. But is that really an issue for those players who actually enjoy the journey – the experience of taking some superpowered entity into caves and beating the snot out of random enemies?
So, then, the Death Knight hero class, which is unlocked at some undetermined high level after some quest of undetermined difficulty, which lets you, presumably, play WoW again. Yet skipping the, as I with no little biterness labelled “level 21 to 57″ in the Stephen Colbert Notice Board, part of the game, which even Blizzard admits, in the Burning Crusade era, is fairly weak.
Does this help one’s main? No. Does this probably hurt the raiding game as everyone runs off to make their little gnome death knights? Probably. Does it depopulate the newbie zones, similar to DAOC’s /level command? Probably.
Is it a good idea? Sure. And why is that? Because it helps people have fun. Which is sort of the point of the exercise, after all. It allows people to skip to the newer content in the game, without skipping ahead to the “endgame” directly so that there is still some assurance that said level 80 Death Knight actually knows what the keys on his hotbar do.
It’s perfect for, well, alt-a-holics like me. Assuming I can ever get a character to level 80. I’m pretty sure I can by the time the Nightmares of the Emerald Dream expansion ships, anyway.
Unless I get tempted to play my Warlock.
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about 3 years ago
Germane Rein’s blog has a really user unfriendly comment system!
about 3 years ago
Instead of skipping all their busted content how about they..oh I dunno…FIX it. I could understand if WoW was a struggling MMO if they ignored some of the low to mid level content but its not by any stretch of the imagination struggling. No reason to not have people going back and tweaking the “core” game. I rolled a shaman with the release of TBC and actually had fun again with an alt..for the first 20ish levels..which coincidentally is how far the quests in the “new newbie area” gets you. Once out of the new area though it was same ol same ol and it was boring again.
Nor does the DK fix this because hell you are going to have ot go and grind all the same content over to level him that you just did to get to level 80 on your “main”.
Funnily enough I wouldn’t mind this near as much if they just didn’t call it a hero class.
I’m not a raider, haven’t been in almost a year, but i love my hunter. I’ve got alts..non over level 40 9that’s after 2 yrs playing) Granted nothing forces me to play a DK but I still feel “gipped” since because I don’t want to level a different toon to be my main I will likely never be a Hero Class which eliminates a large portion of the reason to even get the expansion. Combine that with me not raiding, so won’t ever see a portion of the expansion (hell I’ve only ever been to Karazahn once) and it decreases my chances of getting it.
Finish with a question to you Lum.
If you have no toons even over level 60 what reason did they offer in their announcement to make you want the expansion?
about 3 years ago
The middle range of levels in WoW was actually sort of fun… for the first three months or so of the game, when those zones actually, you know, had people in them.
Did they say how Death Knights are going to fit into the game environment, or are they just going to run roughshod over the believability of their world again?
about 3 years ago
They said at one of the discussion panels that the quest you undertake to open a DK is going ot explain how becoming a DK is possible.
It should be pretty self evident by now that they have no clue what to do with their backstory and clear they don’t care.
about 3 years ago
So Basically, Blizzard’s mistake was calling the Death Knight a “Hero Class” instead of “A New Class that will have to be unlocked by a quest line on a per-account basis and won’t start at level 1,” I think.
Really, most of the complaints I’ve heard about the Death-Knight have been lore-based (I gave up on WoW’s Lore making sense somewhere around the time Lothar was retconned to have been killed in an honorable duel by Doomhammer instead of being ambushed, myself, and I’m generally a rabid lore buff), or hung up on the very definition of what a “Hero Class” is (I explained my position on this a few threads), or are from people who generally hate alts to begin with.
Really, Most games have done this. EQ Introduced the Beastmaster and Berserker, DAOC Introduced the Reaver… It’s just a new class. MMORPGs do this stuff all the time. I guess I just don’t see the hate, unless you honestly believe that no MMORPG should ever introduce extra classes after the initial release, or something.
about 3 years ago
It’s more than them just calling it a hero class. If it were just another class you could create nobody would have an issue. It’s the fact that you have to use your main to get it. All that work to get to 80 and do the quest (and if their’s not a rep grind involved somewhere to get a DK I will eat my hat) and then you abandon your main (which some of us have had for 2 yrs or so). If it’s “just another alt” then thats exactly what it should be. No quests, no grinding just let me create the damn thing from day one.
about 3 years ago
bah need an edit button.
Basically it feels like the whole Hero Class idea is being rushed out the door because they’ve been talking about it pretty much since release. They want to be able to point and say “see we gave you Hero Classes”. No you didn’t you gave us alts…not the same thing at all.
about 3 years ago
Well, the other option would’ve been to put out hero classes for every class to turn into – and even Blizzard can’t pull off developing half-dozen classes complete with itemization etc. in a short period of time. Plus it would still be a problem of ‘losing’ something – Hero classes would then have to be clearly superior versions of existing types, and it would be messy.
IMHO the whole mess is not worth it, they should’ve just deep-sixed the whole Hero Class idea after they failed to deliver it at launch.
Too many people think “more uber version of me” on the concept of “hero class”, and Blizzard has no plans to deliver that. So, it looks to me that Blizzard has greatly underestimated how attached players are to their mains – and how people will revolt with the prospect of having to ‘abandon’ the main to play another. I personally have no issues having 2-3 equally important characters on hand, but then again I play too much WoW, but it also seems many will find the whole idea of having to “maintain progress” on two characters a huge issue.
Now excuse me while I fetch a super-saver bag of popcorn and watch the drama over Death Knights unfold over next few months… I’m interested to see if Blizzard blinks and actually re-works something on their design idea due to the mass of whines… I say odds are low, but they are not zero.
about 3 years ago
To me, those early and middle levels feel so good is that the world still feels huge, scary, and filled with possibility. By the high levels, you can pretty much go anywhere and do anything, but by then you don’t want to. Contrary to intuition, having a powerful character does not open doors to more compelling experiences; it reduces your choices to a handful, the one-frightening world becomes commonplace, and the only thing huge and scary is the amount of time you put in on raids to get one percent more melee damage.
There’s something to be said for eating a doughnut or two, instead of insisting on eating a full dozen.
about 3 years ago
There are two important lessons here. First, don’t talk about something until you’re ready to do it. The problem with Hero Classes is that they talked about them at launch, then never got around to defining or implementing them. So, in the mean time, you have people that have filled in the blanks on their own and are now upset when things aren’t what they expected. Personally, it’s been a while since they talked about Hero Classes, so I don’t remember what in my mind is stuff they actually said, and what is stuff people wanted them to say over the years.
The second lesson here is to know your audience. Scott and Brandon are at opposite ends of the spectrum: Casual vs. Raider. Yet, neither one of them are going to really be happy with the Hero Classes as they’re currently defined. The casuals won’t reach top level and do a hard quest to create a new character type. The raiders don’t want to give up the time and effort invested into their main. Looks like Blizzard has designed something that most people aren’t going to enjoy.
On the bright side, as long as more Chinese players keep playing, they’ll be able to increment the “millions of players playing” counter again.
about 3 years ago
How did you guess the name of the fourth expansion already?
about 3 years ago
Oh, I forgot to post actual content.
Yes, raiders will roll deathknights. At least, 1-2 out of every 30 or so of them will roll one, and gear one out to the max. Why? Because the way the raid game is setup right now, you want pretty much at least 1 of every possible class/spec combination, even the ‘off spec’ ones. 1 feral druid. Some shadow priests. Some guilds even run one ret pally. Serious raiding guilds.
And the other reason people will roll DKs that you forgot. Because they’re just fucking cool, whether you’re a 12 year old brat or a serious roleplayer or anything in between, Death Knights are just cool.
about 3 years ago
I find the concept they introduce now as “Hero Classes” rather lackluster.
One of my beefs with WoW and its mechanics has always been the lack of character diversity. You cant really customize your skills, attributes and abilities and make a unique character.
The way I remember Hero Classes being presented “way back” was that it was in fact an extension of your character. You would choose a path for your existing main character.
So why did they choose this amputated version? My guess is time and resources. They do in fact want to point at this and say “See? We introduced the Hero Classes we promised” and sort of scratch it off the list of things to do. I think Blizzard has already shifted their focus from WoW to new games and is keeping WoW on the backburner and milking it dry to finance other projects. WoW is 2,5 years old and its glory days have come and gone. Yes, it’s strong in Asia, but the money is in the EU/NA market primarily. Since they didnt release the NA/EU subscriber numbers last press-release my guess is that there is a substantial loss of subscribers in these areas (numericaly compensated by new Asian subscribers, but not financialy). Offcourse, WoW is still a huge financial success, but the river of money will dry up.
about 3 years ago
The casual vs. raider comparison is overused and isn’t terribly applicable here. (For instance, I don’t raid in WoW, but I have three 70′s and will probably have six by the time the next expansion rolls around – I have a hard time seeing myself as a “casual” player.) I could see the arguments about character investment having some validity if the Death Knight class takes a raid to activate it, but that seems unlikely.
I think Blizzard’s design team sees Death Knights as appealing to long-time players who already have multiple high level alts. I don’t know what percentage of their player base that is, but if they’re designing content for that market, I suspect it’s fairly large.
about 3 years ago
Nope it’s not a good idea because if it *was* then lots of people would reroll DK and this would lead to a severe imbalance in the classes.
And it’s not because it tears apart the game in the same way DAoC’s /level did, aka: short term good, long term bad. It’s not a solution to a problem, it’s a temporary workaround.
The second lesson here is to know your audience. Scott and Brandon are at opposite ends of the spectrum: Casual vs. Raider. Yet, neither one of them are going to really be happy with the Hero Classes as they’re currently defined. The casuals won’t reach top level and do a hard quest to create a new character type. The raiders don’t want to give up the time and effort invested into their main. Looks like Blizzard has designed something that most people aren’t going to enjoy.
I don’t think so. I believe Scott hasn’t any char past 60 simply because he didn’t play the game much lately. As a casual player having content ahead is a good thing, as long there aren’t impassable barriers.
But it’s actually true that the new class isn’t a very good idea. Just the result of Blizzard running out of ideas to fit in an expansion pack.
about 3 years ago
I’m happy with death knights because I finally get to reroll one of my characters as the shadowknight-analogue she should have been all along. Hmm…I wonder if the DK.org domain has been claimed yet?
(And, yes – Blizzard is calling the DK a Hero Class at least partially to shut up the “Where’s the hero classes, Blizz” crowd. See also: Siege engines).
about 3 years ago
It isn’t as complicated as many are making it out to be… WoW’s next expansion is going to have twice the grind from 70 to 80 and at least this time the grind will be an alt of value rather than something that give you a slightly increased chance at better gear.
Personally, I’d rather walk on broken glass than grind in any MMRPG again.
I do not have the time to waste “paying my dues’ in a game that costs more per month than my VOIP phone ($9.95) does.
Many of us have been playing these games for 10-15 years now and while nearly all the games we’ve played have claimed that “you can’t win” we all know that while you may not be able to “win” you certainly can reach a point were you “lose” the ability to have fun if you can’t progress with other people in an hours played time.
Do we really want to grind for “materials” for an hour?
Do we really want to grind “reputation” for an hour?
Do we really want to spend hours “alone” in a MMRPG?
Because really, that is what it all comes down to, being alone and paying your dues by grinding.
I’m sick of it. The next expansion of WoW is just more of the same with a twist that isn’t as “new” as Blizzard would like us to think it is.
about 3 years ago
I still play my one level 50 in CoH. I just can’t bring myself to create a second character there and level it (made it to about 6 on any of them before I go back to the blaster). Games that rely on alts/multiple characters just don’t do it for me. That said I just reupped to CoH. The IO sets will keep me occupied for some time just like raiding for epic gear. I suppose I’ll fill all the slots with sets eventually just through attrition but I still won’t be able to play an alt and not just want to turn off the computer and go watch anime.
That said one point that came up was the do you really want to spend hours ‘alone’ in a MMRPG.. Well yes I do actually. I don’t play to deal with people, I play to be part of a changing world. Its the regular content patches that get me into MMOs, not people. I can go for a week without ever sending/recieving a tell in just about any game out there and not feel like I’m missing a thing. I really wish people would just all die and leave me to my games. After leaving an AI of course that will create content patches now and again.
about 3 years ago
I’m looking forward to the DK for much the same reasons Scott is. Although, I do have lvl 70′s…4 to be exact and will be pushing them all to 80 along with the other 3 alts I have close behind.
If you don’t like the idea, then don’t do the quest. You act as if you are compelled to do it just because it was released. The complaints I see seem more like:
“I’m going to play your game Blizzard, but I know I’m going to hate it! Damn you Blizzard!”
about 3 years ago
My altitis isn’t as bad as my husband’s, but I do have it. 6 years of EQ – level 62 cleric, level 55 warrior, level 52 cleric, level 50 ranger, level 45 necro. All that time, all those characters, and I never once reached the level cap. EQ2 I’m at 46, LotR I’m at 15 and 26.
In WoW I have a 52 hunter and a 46 shaman. The shammy might actually make it to 70, since she’s in a once-a-week group that mostly does quests and instances. If she does, and I’m still playing two years from now when it comes out, I might buy the expansion. If she doesn’t, I won’t. There’s nothing in it for anyone who doesn’t have at least one level 70 already. At least TBC had new races – when I came back to reroll with friends I bought it specifically so I could level a Dranei Shaman for the group, despite knowing it would be months before I would be in level range of the new zones.
I consider myself hard core casual – I play a lot of hours, but I’m playing 3 games (and I do have other hobbies :p) and I have very little interest in raiding or pvp so I never feel a need to ‘race to the top’ as for me there is no end-game. All that said — if I happen to get to 80 with someone I’ll unlock the hero classes, because that’s what I DO. I do quests, and I play alts. It still gets a resounding Meh from me though — I’d actually prefer a /level command that took me from 20 to 45 or so — I loathe the STV levels…..
about 3 years ago
Blizzard had a very good basis for thinking that a vast majority of their player base would be happy with DK’s being introduced as an ALT. Leveling is so rapid in WoW the vast majority of players have multiple level 70 characters so it would seem, from their perspectice, that the vast majority of players love to make new characters.
The point behind requiring they be unlocked is to encourage those players who never reach the “end game” (such as the throngs of players who seem to be unable to ever leave the Barrens) to get out and play the rest of the game.
It’s unlikely the DK will make the newb zones vacant for very long. They claim thye are happy with the time it takes to go from 60-70 so we can expect 70-80 to take a similar amount of time. So people will make one or two DK’s, get them to 80 with all their other characters then go make more alts.
Frankly WoW shouldn’t be adding just high level content jsut mid level content. They need to add a full range of content. Each expansion should add at least one new 1 – content line for players to explore in addition to several lines of content for players to go from – .
Sure – it will probably take longer to make an expansion. But in the end your players will be happier (except the ones who are never happy about anything)
about 3 years ago
I think they are still living in the fantasy world that EU and US players can be trained to think like Asian players.
As much as they fight it a lot of people roll alts. In my opinion you should be able to level to 50 or so and never leave your races area. That would effectivly give players the ability, if desired, to reroll and alt of every race and play close enough to end game that it wouldn’t seem so far away if they really liked the character. I think it would eve keep the mid level zones a bit more populated.
Of course if they had delivered on the ever changing non static world they’d promised and there were regular world and zone events and the quests were updated and new ones added regularly that would go a long way. If thier was always the chance of a new quest anywhere you went then people would roam and look for them when they got bored.
I think they’ll stick to the safe road and slowly hemorage western players while playing up the growing subscriber base never admitting it’s the less profitiable china keeping thier numbers high. Till the Evil bean couters attack them and force them to shake things up. And that never seems to work out well.
about 3 years ago
Pssst, Sam?
TBC hasn’t been released in China yet. The subs increase to nine million was fuelled by new western players
about 3 years ago
So Scott, do you think the days of bonding with a single character are over? Or does a game that encourages you to pick a character and stick with it still have a chance?
about 3 years ago
** So Scott, do you think the days of bonding with a single character are over? Or does a game that encourages you to pick a character and stick with it still have a chance? **
I don’t know about anyone else, but I haven’t “picked a character and stuck with it” yet in multiplayer games, only single-player. MMOs encourage alts as a side-effect of the social aspects: in my very first MMO (EQ) I had my ‘main’ a warrior, whom I loved mightily and played as often as possible. I also had the cleric I rolled to group every Sunday with friends; and the *other* cleric I rolled to group every Wednesday with friends on another server. Then there’s the rogue created for a group that never got past 20, and the bard to group with friends who had outleveled me with their mains, and the necro to solo with, and the ranger who I roledplayed with…… and that’s one game, six years!
Admittedly, the alt-itis hasn’t been AS bad in other games, simply because my time has been more compressed. Yet, I now have all those names and personalities I’m attached to, who at least get *created* in every game…. I refused to play SWG because it had only one character slot, and I still complain mightily about those games that restrict the number of characters per server…. And when I think about it, everyone I played with in those first years in EQ who still play games, also have multiple alts with names carried on from world to world.
about 3 years ago
Says you.
In beta I had nubs of every class, excluding rogue, only because my friend picked rogue initially and we wanted to make a non-crappy duo. So launch paladin it was. I hit 60 just after my free month ended. I waited around for 2 more months until enough people were 55 to start raiding and didn’t stop with that toon until before TBC.
A month prior to TBC I looked at the 2 years of paladin and realized that it would NEVER be what it was in beta or what it was promised to be lo those many months ago. My friend’s rogue is no longer a concern so I started my own. I hit 58 about 2 in the afternoon the day TBC launched. She was in outlands questing around 3AM. She is
about 3 years ago
… damnable content eating monster
continued
She is
about 3 years ago
Comment Posting: Critical fail. I surrender.
My rogue is good.
I like my rogue.
I have no desire to play anything other than that character and to fill that niche.
The Hero Class mechanic will not change for the next one. They might massage the quest or move the start levels up/down, but the mechanic will be permanent.
Eventually they’ll release a rogue analog that will be to my rogue what the DK is to Retribution Paladins – ie that which makes them obsolete. My rogue, my cherished personae, will never be that Hero. Ever.
She’ll either become a mule and leathercraft bitch, or be that gimpy “regular” rogue lagging behind the hero-class in output for no better reason than they’re being DESIGNED to be somewhat O-P.
There’s no good here. Ignoring the ramifications because one doesn’t mind re-re-re-re-running the treadmill today seems like a bad choice.
about 3 years ago
First: Regarding CoH/CoV, I completely agree.
Next: I don’t think the Death Knight, for example, is going to be overpowered. Simply different, probably more complicated…
I thought the gameplay mechanics as they explained them sounded like fun. I’m pretty alty myself, but I do have a level 70 character. I completely agree with the levels that were put on notice…but they did make a statement at BlizzCon that they would be addressing that. I’ll wait and see. Except for the fact that my main is an engineer, I’m pretty happy.
Others who are already unhappy probably wouldn’t look at all this the same way.
about 3 years ago
DDO has long pushed altoholism. Your reward for earning 400 favor (i.e. total reputation) is to unlock the Drow race, which is statistically superior to any of the beginner races, and offers other benefits. If you manage to reach 1750 favor (i.e. finishing roughly 80% of all quests on elite) you get a tome for 2 to any stat and you also unlock an extra 4 build points for any new non-Drow characters. Except that those new 32 point build characters can also reach 1750 favor and get their own stat tomes…making them inherently superior.
So, other than the tome, your only real benefit for this achievement (which requires you playing through almost the entire game) is the ability to roll a character that will eventually become better than your main.
I’m in the minority, because I get nostaligic over redoing the lowbie stuff…but I don’t think most people really enjoy the idea that the reward for the journey is that you get to start over.
Bring the noise.
Cheers………….
about 3 years ago
“Hero Classes” are not being designed to be OP. They’re being designed to fit into existing class balance. This was told to us at Blizzcon. Your Rogue will still be completely viable, just like Rangers were (In theory at least) still viable after Berserkers were implemented in EQ.
about 3 years ago
*insert dead ranger joke here*
But yeah, there’s quite a few people (here & elsewhere) that seem to think that the DK is going to be some sort of (original SWG) Jedi-retread alpha class, which even SOE acknowledge was a stupidly bad idea nowadays. The likelyhood of Blizzard intentionally doing something that stupid is fairly slim.
Now, them doing it unintentionally due to some bizarre quirk of game mechanics? That’s far more likely – an EQ example would be the SK originally being the off-tank/snap aggro master purely due to the fact that Verant/SOE gave disease-based spells huge aggro as a nerf to shaman slows, and incidentally gave the SK fast-casting disease-based dots (which lead to further hilarity three years down the line when SOE significantly reducded disease-based spell aggro, then wondered why L60 SKs were bitching about their L9 dot being nerfed).
about 3 years ago
It’s silly to say that mmogs are made up of only two playstyles.
There are raiders.
There are casuals.
Then there are others – nonraiders who play as much as hardcore raiders yet do not raid. These people are likely to have alts; they are likely to enjoy a great deal of the game content. So, what is the name for these people?
about 3 years ago
“Then there are others – nonraiders who play as much as hardcore raiders yet do not raid. These people are likely to have alts; they are likely to enjoy a great deal of the game content. So, what is the name for these people?”
Depends on if you’re a raider or a casual – if you’re a raider, the above are referred to as “casuals”, if you’re a casual, they’re referred to as “raiders.” Perhaps the best term for them is “people who actually enjoy playing games.”
Oh, and of course they’re referred to as “carebears” by hardcore PvPers and “gankers” by those who dislike PvP.
about 3 years ago
Wait, we don’t cap out in CoH/V? Cripes, I’m weak in my SG because I only have 6 level-capped characters. Hami raids used to get more than 200 level-capped players showing up. The late game has some of the most fun gameplay, since you have all of your toys. If you have not played past 32, you have never seen Fulcrum Shift, fully functional Mastermind pets, nuking Blasters, nigh-invulnerable meleers… We all love the low levels, but there are a heck of a lot of post-40 people, slower though the leveling may be.
about 3 years ago
“Then there are others – nonraiders who play as much as hardcore raiders yet do not raid. These people are likely to have alts; they are likely to enjoy a great deal of the game content. So, what is the name for these people?”
We’re hardcore-casuals :p — Play too many hours, and spend too much time on blogs/forums to be truly casual, yet not hardcore enough to get into pvp or raids. Yet, often times, truly hardcore min/maxing about *something* – usually crafting in my experience.
about 3 years ago
I’ve only ever capped in one Game, DAoC I finally managed a lvl 50 after 2 years. Then ToA cam out and basicly nullified all the effort I’d made up to that point.
I’ve been playing CoH on and off for three years now, and have several toons in the 40s but no 50 yet. I think Scott hit it halfway on the head, the lower level content, and lower level characters are actually fun to play. There are a large number of combinations of primary/secondary powersets that are appealing either in concept, or for the powerful synergy they have that make people want to play that sort of character. Altitis is easy in that game because anything you end up playing will probably be fun ( though I don’t like most defenders or blasters as much ) and because there are so many options to choose from. As for the steep leveling curve after 30, I think it really only gets to be a grind after 35ish … but different people have different tolerances I guess. If you manage to find a team that meshes well, you can actually make fast fun exp at any level – which is how I managed to get my Ice/Storm controller to 47 a while back.
One thing I do see though is a lot of people with a lot of lvl 50 characters, who are playing low level alts. I think there is a third segment of the population who play intensively but don’t limit themselves to one “main” character. I think most of these guys have engaged in some sort of powerleveling to manage their high level toons, which doesn’t appeal to me at all – but I have a friend with 5 lvl 50s who just ground them all out. He’ll get it into his head that that character is going to go to 50, then he’ll put in the hours to do it. Then he takes a 3 month break to play EQ2 before coming back again
about 3 years ago
Just throwing in my 2 cents:
I would very easily be classified as a casual player – I’ve solo’d or played with my wife almost exclusively for the year plus that I’ve been playing WoW (I solo’d before but got frustrated and quit it for a while), and we’re both almost 70. AND we’re altaholics.
Just because you’re casual and an altaholic doesn’t mean you can’t get to 70.
about 3 years ago
The big issue I have here which you touched upon is the ‘no endgame’.
WoW is an EQ clone and as such continues to funnel people towards raiding as the only endgame. Ultimately this just pushes people away as the price of a raiding endgame is making all other styles of play vastly subordinate to raiding.
Hero classes will be another wasted opportunity to actually innovate with a non-raid elder game. Much like heroic dungeons non-raiders were hoping for a lot more. Alts are not an answer for the most part. Mainly because one of the hooks to these games is developing a character that you don’t want to leave. CoX may be fun to play at low levels but I for one didn’t have an problems walking away from my characters and this is particularly because I didn’t have the invenstment and sense of accomplishment with any one of them. CoH offers a new class unlocked at max level but again I didn’t have it as the opportunity to reroll isn’t what I am after.
Hopefully by the time death knights roll around blizzard will be feeling the pressure caused by other good options from you folks
about 3 years ago
Yeah, what Mist said… was that just a random stab at what the third expansion will be called? Wait a second… Mist, you said fourth? What’s #3?? :O