Chapter One: OF COURSE it's the Endgame!

No, he is correct. Levelling is a throw-back to D&D.

The interesting fact is, a majority of the table-top RPG industry has done away with "level/XP advancement" in that sense, outside of . . . well . . . D&D (which WoTC/Hasbro has owned since 2000), Pathfinder (by Paizo), and a few AD&D retro-clones.

Generally, even us RPG designers try to steer away from designing a table-top system that uses Levels/XP as it is considered outdated. Unless, of course, you are the publisher of D&D.

There are many other types of advancement systems out there, from what D6 used to what Savage Worlds currently uses, that could be modified slightly to work in any MMO, and provide a better, more fluid experience.

If an MMO wants to call itself an MMORPG, get away from the Creature-Kill XP combat, first. That is most definitely a D&D hallmark, and considering that even WoTC markets D&D with a focus on needing miniatures and a battlemap for combat at the table, it tells you something. The concept has gone more wargaming than role-playing game over the past 12-15 years. It's like MMO design is trapped in the early 1980's of RPG design.

Not at all! We're just going to put those hours at 50, where you spend most of your time.

Your character doesn't stop progressing at level 50. Leveling is just replaced with gear progression. You could keep playing a max level character... if it didn't bore you to death.

I was a hardcore raider in WoW for years. And honestly nothing about leveling taught me what I needed to know about my class. I learned it through trial and error at max level. Along with some basic "OMG WHY DID I DO THAT EEEEK" moments.

There are people that play for story and only story. They don't give a rats furry little backside about the mechanics of the class, they just care that this button makes that thing EXPLODE!

But you also need to remember that there are, and always will be 2 types of MMO players: those that want to learn class mechanics, and those that just want to kill **** with lightening or missiles.

Indeed, the issue is that leveling by playing new content is replaced by doing the same 3 warzones and 2 operations over and over again until the next major patch.

This isn't good because within a few months, most of a player's time will be spent at max level.

And actually, we already have one. It's gear progression.

We all know that knowing I'm level 50 tells you next to nothing. But if I averaged up all the Ratings on my gear and gave you that number (my Character Rating?), that might tell you something more accurate than my level. Not everything, but certainly a lot more detail than "he's 50."

Since this is where the game inexorably ends up, why does everything go into the parts I'm going to abandon?

I don't get it. If you're going to keep progressing at 50 anyway, why not extend the leveling process to that part of the game, so that you can keep dinging too and have that extra satisfaction?

It seems kind of dull to take away the dinging and pretend that progressing is still as much fun.

Well, considering that I don't think the class story continues at 50 (I may be wrong about that since I haven't reached that yet) I think it would bore me to death. What's the point of playing if the story isn't continuing?

Once you play your class quest to 50, the story is done.

What you get then is the mind-numbing level 50 daily quest/PvP grind, or reroll an Alt. I'm usually an Alt-aholic, but I have zero desire to play through all the planetary quests again. Unfortunately, they would be the bulk of leveling an Alt, not the new class quest.

First MMO I have played in a long time where I am completely uninspired to create an Alt. Not unless I am prepared to break my "no spacebar" rule for every quest that isn't the new-class quests.

Now I don't get it. Infinite levels? How would that work? things scale to infinity? It's not workable. Leveling, as it's handled right now, has to end eventually, or at least be suspended for long periods of time (in between expansions).

We're going to have to make repetitive content. The question is where should it go? Should we pack it in the level 30 - 40 part? You're just going to level past it and have it become obsolete. Think of the waste of art and code.

I think you should try progressing at 50. It sounds to me like you haven't done it much. The satisfaction of upgrading a gear slot over from Prototype to Artifact is as satisfying as a new level, at least for me.

You can finish your class chain as early as 48, and perhaps earlier.

Who said the story has to end?

The instances at 50 all have story elements, as do the daily quests and PvP stuff. It just needs, oh, about 1200% more of it. Currently, it all went into the parts we abandon.

In a certain sense, I agree with you. 1 - 50 is more fun. But that's also the problem.

Overall I think we all need to keep in mind that this game is very much in it's infancy as far as actual release goes.

3 months is less than a blip on a gamers radar.

Give it time before you heave-ho and see if end-game improves as more people hit it and forces the devs to give 50's more options.

Not necessarily infinite, but whatever finite amount corresponds to the desired level of this "gear progression" thingee. I mean, I'm not an expert in gear progression but I'd *assume* it can't progress infinitely either. You don't end up with a sword +1000000 after a zillion hours of playtime but it caps out at some point I'd assume. So just match up levelling to that so that the two end in sync.

That comes off like a red warning light right off the bat to me. There's no way repetitive content can be of the same quality as hand-crafted content. I can't imagine any sort of repetitive content would keep my interest the same way as interacting with Darth Baras, Vette and such. As dull as re-doing all the planets all over might be, it's *got* to be better than just hamster wheeling in place with no story progression.