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"If you don't like leveling, play an FPS"
Tolmos
Member UncommonPosts: 141
There are 3 threads on this front page alone that have replies similar to the title of this thread.
Whenever someone says this, I can't help but think that they don't actually understand what an MMO is, or what it entails. To them, an MMO is leveling. That's it; they think that if you take away the levels, all you are left with is a First Person Shoot. I find that immensely strange.
MMOs involve persistent worlds. They involve world player caps that extend into the thousands (as opposed to FPS' several hundred player caps) and player economies that have varying degrees of complexity (from WoW's simplistic AH system to EVE's "need an accounting degree to figure out wtf I'm doing" market scheme). They involve player interaction beyond just shooting them in the face, and these days involve world events that hundreds of players from around the game world can take place in. They have cities, towns, hamlets and little camps all around to explore and see.
And yet, these people don't see that. All they see are levels. Take those away, and as far as they are concerned, it would just another FPS.
How much of the MMO genre gets lost on your average player, so consumed with 1 single aspect of (leveling, questing, PvP, Raiding, etc) that they miss EVERYTHING else?
This is just odd to me.
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skills had levels in UO so...Not all of them. Marvel Heroes has no persistent world. Worlds of Tank has no persistent world, and no player economies.
Persistent world is not that central an idea in MMOs anyway. Even WOW, while it has a persistent world, there are tons of non-persistent gameplay modes (like cross realm instanced dungeons).
Yes and no. It does have different modes, but if you removed the persistent world that was the core of the game and left only those modes, you'd get Guild Wars 1 and/or Diablo 2/3. Those games involve thousands of players, D3 and GW1 had economies and they all had the different modes similar to instanced dungeons... but none of them are considered MMORPGs, primarily because of the lack of persistent world. The "towns" simply become game hubs.
Thats not the same as having one global level up, which is what the OP is talking about.
Don't most FPS games now have a level up system of their own? You have to grind to unlock certain weapons + perks...not exactly the same but's pretty much similar to the overall leveling.
The leveling system is played out and its a artificial goal to keep the hamster wheel rolling. I am personal fan of the SWG skill tree.
Not all MMOs are MMORPGs but those that claim to be need to have some sort of character advancement and development.
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in my book there is no big difference, you need to level either way so...
Because progression is fun for many, and people don't want to depend on others to have fun?
Give me a FPS with Medieval theme, swords, armor, loots, progression, guild, always online mega server, tab tageting, with classes, PVE, items, auction house, living world, without deathmatch and I'll play your FPS...
But please, don't compare an mmorpg endgame to Battlefield or Call of Duty.
Or maybe they just have a different idea of what an MMO is and believe that your idea is the wrong one.
It always seems odd to me that believe that their viewpoint is the only one that is right.
But it is still leveling up.
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While you are correct that to say "go play FPS" is a ridiculous assertion if you don't like leveling. You are forgetting the most important aspect of role playing games. That aspect is character progression. Historically this has been done through 2 methods, levels, and gear. And to anyone who is going to play the "skill based systems don't have levels!" card, stop being stupid. Whether i need 100 two hand slashing skill to kill this mob, or level 20, is meaningless.
Now, do "MMO's" need levels. NO, do MMORPGs need levels (or some variation like skill based), Yes.
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I think the heavy level focus may just be a case of "the pan was too small" There was likely a good reason to include levels at some point and now mmos keep doing it because the genre is afraid of change. Though I'll also add it's even hard for me to think of a mmo without a progression system of some type.
to me a skill up and a level up are two different things. A level up raises multiple parameters if not everything of your character. A skill up raises only the skill your using the most and maybe the stat that skill corresponds with. One has much more depth to character progression.
Without leveling up, there is no purpose of an MMO. All forms of progression are functionally the same, whether you get levels or you just get skill points, after all, many games just give you skill points when you ding anyhow, that's their means of allowing you to change your character over time.
Player interaction just isn't necessary if the players don't want to do it.
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Leveling and gear progression in MMOs...
Having the game change over time is a really good argument to include leveling. Though there are other ways to have this change. CoD has a leveling system, but the inserting thing about it is it's more of a loop then a straight line. You level up to max level, but then you can reset all your levels and unlocks to get a little marker next to your name. It's kind of a neat way to do it. Also some mobas have a system where you have a rotating set of heroes, so every month is different then the last. (Unless you pay money o ruin it :P)
And so what? Add a persistent world to a FPS game.. add world progression(not character progression), and you got a MMO.
You don't need character progression, leveling or that kind of stuff to make a MMO.. and hell, maybe it is even "for some" the worst part of current MMOs. There is nothing wrong with it. If it would be a RPG is another question.
I agree. And leveling is basically one way to easy simulate that your character becomes better, there are plenty of other better ways as seen in many pen and paper RPGs (Shadowrun and Basic roleplaying (CoC, Runequest and a bunch more games)) already have proven.
You should get better or at least gain plenty of more customization options as you play a RPG game but that doesn't mean you must simulate that by leveling, and certain MMO have leveling as a 3 week tutorial before you start really playing, that seems like a waste of time to me.
The problem with many MMO players is that they tend to be very focused on popular games mechanics instead of considering that there are plenty of other possibilities to make good mechanics.
I play pen and paper games, and besides Pathfinder do none of the other games I play really even have levels and yet do characters improve (and with plenty of customization).
The real difference between FPS games and RPGs is not really mechanics wise but about interaction. In RPGs you spend a lot of time talking and interacting with other players or npcs.
Advancing your character is a good carrot and can be very fun but you could honesty do a FPS game with that as well. But FPS games are all about combat, you could play them for years and never talk or interact with a human or npc besides killing or possibly use a medical/healing skill on them.
yea, they will never understand that, dont bother.
they will keep going with their stupid "had no levels!" statements till underverse comes.
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