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Do You Like Slow Or Fast Leveling ?
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Age Of Wulin has a good system.
http://ageofwushu.wikia.com/wiki/Cultivation
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
This usually match with slower leveling process, horizontal design and/or a more sandbox approach where content/zones isn't segregated by levels.
Even the recent progression servers for Daybreak only provided a partial throwback to that era, and the leveling speeds are roughly double what they were back in the day. Hell, I went level 28 - 45 on my Necro in just a week of Guk groups. That is NOT early EverQuest speeds.
However, of important note is just HOW MANY people jumped on board with those servers because they WANT that old-school experience and leveling curve.
P.S. I voted for slow leveling. I grew up with hell levels and remember it taking me a couple of years to get to 60 on my ranger back in the day as I was learning the game and growing up with my guild. I distinctly remember playing a 19 hour session to get through level 45 in the Dreadlands at one point.
I didn't hit 50 before Kunark came out, despite starting in May of 1999 just a couple of months after the game launched. It was slow, slow, slow going back then, and our guild took our time. I still played every damn day for several hours, but there was a ton of crafting, roleplaying, running around and helping other guildies, and exp was the last thing on our mind. More important was community and having fun within the world and exploring, not racing to the cap.
Also being involved in things like buff stations at the newbie areas just to help players out, having language-learning sessions, working on building faction, and so many other things that never once moved your experience bar forward, but were instead things you did just to be part of a group and help out your fellow players.
The exact opposite of today's entitlement generation where it's all about "me me me" and "faster faster moar moar"
Given that fact, I'll choose the third option; No Leveling. Just give me a character with some attributes that modify a list of hundreds of skills, and a pool of points to spend on skills. Give me a game where "leveling up" is when I've used my long sword long enough to be able to put some more skill points into it.
I can only see a big reason of skipping content of a game to go straight to the competitive side -- pvp and "server first kills."
Throughout my years of MMO's the most fun has been in the leveling. Particularly in the social aspect. Other than when returning to games after long periods of time have I found myself looking for an end game guild... Prior to that, friendships and such were built during the early game, and I would usually tackle high level content with that same crowd that I leveled with.
No wonder people write off so many games so quickly.
Im really hoping more mmos remove the leveling system in favor of a new fresh character progression system, or at least implement level scaling like GW2 but both ways, up and down (based on the zone you are in, not on the player you are partying with)
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
For me, Vanguard:SoH, was what I considered to be "slow leveling" and I found it extremely entertaining to form my own goals while I leveled - things like "Clear this dungeon solo or with a group before it becomes trivial."
Fast leveling is only relevant if the emphasis is on end game content. WoW, for me, lost its appeal to form goals while leveling as it seemed as if the entire game centered around raiding and end-game pvp.
Food for thought.
I say remove the race from the game and keep existing content fun and varied.
Perhaps the problem is that the current crop of developers seem a little too keen to cater to power gamers. It might be good to have some games out there where the vocal power gamers don't set the pace of the games they have invaded, especially when they weren't the original target audience of the game.
Also, a majority games may have different starting areas, different mid-level areas, different factions, different archtype play. Of which may be completely missed by the content skippers.
Why would they waste their time even modifying or creating it if the "majority" skips it? Short answer is the majority doesn't, they just remain silent and enjoy their [new] toy.
The problem really is that a game based on raiding don't need a 3 week tutorial playing solo while a game based on leveling need to take far longer so you get a bad compromize that turn off both types of players.
If you want to make a great game for raiders then levels really are pointless. If you want to make a great game for open world levelers then it must focus on leveling and challenge the players as they do.
Instead we get something that really makes most people bored pretty fast.You add a dash of uninspired instanced PvP, a little of the same crafting every game have and we get a recipe for mediocracy.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Top tier gear acquisition and instanced boss takedowns in an mmo is as unnecessary as finishing a single player game with 100% completion. Only power gamers care about that. And every mmo out there wants to cater to that group of players.