The Nixxiom video talks about the problems with modern MMORPG game design where leveling is an afterthought / chore that needs to be done to reach a better point in the game. Something that has never been right and probably one of the reasons so many people drop off so quickly when playing the game.
In short the problem is there is no sense of engagement. Nothing specifically to lose, nothing to gain. Everything feels like wallpaper in the world.
Then you find this player made theme for Classic which is basically hardcore Classic. Now all of a sudden there is loss potential. Enormous loss potential which makes the gains more remarkable and engagement is much more important.
I’ve known this for years having played many games hardcore mode. Terraria and Subnautica are two that come to mind. It’s one of the easiest ways to raise engagement. It’s not for everyone of course.
But there are other ways. Reducing item bloat would make what is found more interesting. Reducing enemy bloat would make what is found more engaging. Adding a mythic level world difficulty would make things more engaging as well. Just some random thoughts I’ve provided input on before which got triggered when I saw this.
I like leveling, and I would probably enjoy a torment Diablo three esque version of the world.
But then again, a lot of people do not want to be stuck in the leveling grind. They would rather get to the max level and then do all the dungeons, raids and events.
Best you can get as a mix of both. I do like how other MMO‘s take advantage of the open world being equally a challenge.
If, and only if it makes the zones feel more alive. The problem I have with classic now is that the open world is totally and utterly dead and the mobs are designed for group play.
Then you come to retail and you can solo most of the old world leveling in Chromie time. Which kind of makes the whole challenge gone but at the same time you can go to your own pace, so it’s a weird mix of love and hate.
there is a reason why the games you mentioned are mostly single player sandbox games and not MMo’s or anything like that.
leveling might be fun for you but it was been a major grip with the comunnity, long leveling feels awful generally speaking thats not what the players want.
samething with the items, there are a lot items because players want a lot way to gear up, nobody wants to farm world every day for months to get their bis.
Kill 1 mob drink and eat to recover
kill 1 mob again rinse n repeat
pull 2 mobs and dead. Runback to corpse eat n drink.
Yeah that aint fun.
Hardcore leveling is just a fad the streamers are doing to get hits n clicks.
Its a boring grindy way to level.
Saying classic WOW isnt grindy or boring to level discredits him 100%.
What was fun about classic WOW leveling was getting into a group to level as a team.
The social side of it was fun.
A symptom of a bigger design problem for WoW in general. The original team came from EverQuest 1 and had major gripes over competing for world bosses. So they implemented a self-serving instance design where nobody would compete for those important kills.
The unfortunate side effect to this now is what you state. Everyone disappears into the instanced mode away from the world which makes new players feel like they’re in a ghost town.
I feel you man. I’ve been kinda having a crisis recently because I had that annoying itch to play an MMO again, then I installed WoW, leveled through the extremely unfulfilling and challange free leveling of retail, got to 70 and got hit with that despair of “Oh god… I don’t enjoy the end game anymore! Why did I even bother to level??”.
Safe to say, haven’t been feeling really motivated to do anything further on this character. So I decided to just do the equivalent of a detox and try to make a character and get all Alliance loremaster on him, lock my level at 58(or 59, can’t recall) to stay in Chromie time and do things in chronological order. Don’t know for how long will it last but I’ll try at least, maybe do some RP on the side to keep things fresh.
This is one of my biggest issue with WoW to me, the more end game focused it became the more Blizzard abandoned the RPG elements, minor incoveniences removed so people could rush and get those dopamine hits from the gear treadmill. The trivialization of leveling was it’s most severe sins if you ask me. They didn’t even bother to add a “Journey Mode” for those that want a slower and harder leveling, just made everything so brain dead the majority of players quit because all their friends keep telling them “Don’t worry man, it’s super fun at max level”. To this day I haven’t managed to convince a single friend to try out Retail but convinced even my FPS and MOBA only friend to level up in Classic when it came out.
I don’t expect Blizzard to ever bother, but man, I hope they rethink their philosophy on Leveling one day.
Meh. The whole thing with the hardcore server is that you’re a nervous wreck the entire time due to the massive risk you’re taking whenever you step foot outside a capital city. Far more so on a pvp server or if dare to enter a raid or dungeon.
I get the appeal…for a little while. But I imagine it just gets exhausting after a while due to the heightened tension you’re always under. And that’s without mentioning the death by stupid accident situation like fall damage etc.
Fun for a visit. But I wouldn’t want to live there.
Never camped mobs for epic item pieces in EQ, did you. Waiting 2 months for a chance to kill a mob that might drop a rare item because there is a waiting list controlled by the top 3 guilds on the server was not what I would call “fun”.
