Leveling is an important part of most MMOs, but why? This is a question a lot of blogs and players are asking lately. The problem lays in the formula, it's assume there is going to be a level progression. Think about Rap, Hip-Hop artist don't rap about shooting people, stealing money, selling drugs. It's all about having money and getting drunk in what ever club is popular, they don't have to rap about the shooting and stealing because it's assume in the genre that's how they got they money they are talking about. Now I have my own problems with today's Hip-Hop compared to that of the 1990's but that's a different story for a different blog. This article is about World of Warcraft.
The current level cap is 80 and with Cataclysm the cap will be bumped up to 85. I've recently come back to WoW from a long break to prepare and get back in the flow before Cataclysm. I loved classic WoW and all Azeroth and for Cataclysm to give life back to the old world and to bring new life into the much needed World PvP was a good grab to pull me back. But how much longer and higher could Blizzard push it. There is going to get to a point where the level cap is just nonsense.
Many game expand their game horizontally and never touch the cap. Fans of DAoC will know this and so would Lord of the Rings fans, sure LOTRO does raise the cap but it's not as high as FFXI or WoW and they did introduce weapons that'll level as well. I have 2 good suggestions for Blizzard.
- Vanity pets could become tamable. If your not a hunter the critters/beast you tame just become for pure looks?
- Instead of 10 and 25 man raids, why not try 5-man dungeon that drop Tier Sets?
- Housing, including a profession like cooking/first-aid called woodshop and you can make small tables and chairs for your house, or a dummy to hang and show off your gear.
Let me explain the two now. Vanity pets could be a trainable skill from the skill master. After you pay the price you can than run around the many lands of WoW and "tame" critters like squirrels, rats, beetles. They don't do anything but hell I'd love to be able to get my a Gorilla for a pet.
Instead of 10 and 25 man raids, A series of dungeons that drop Tier gear. I've jumped back into WoW completely confused on how gear even works anymore you can get a welfare set from vendors but now raids on my server are so out of wack and I can't heal heroic Pits with T9 welfare. You don't have to do away with the system but why not make the end-game gear come off 5-man dungeons.
Guilds won't be affected, hell the could send multiple 5-man into these dungeons and have one of the most geared guilds on your server. Those who are casual can get raid gear and maintain a sort leveled balance between them and other players. These 5-mans would be top of the line of difficulty and the right gear/group/buffs should play a huge role since you dumbing the number of people needed. they can have 4-5 boss and 3 of those boss drop tokens for classes to get their Tier gear. You can have a lock out date for a week and see how that goes. This would allow Blizzard to fine tune quicker, allow more people to see the end game, the part of the game that 1-80 is training you for. their could be 2 dungeons for each set. Non-heroic versions give T11 for example and heroics of those same two give T12. The tokens could read legs,chest,hands meaning this token can only get you either legs, chests, or hands of your Tier. This would prolong how fast people get their gear and if it's difficult to get Blizzard can focus on fixing bugs in those instance and more time developing content to expanded horizontally.
This is my personal opinion but there will come a time were I am 100 percent done with WoW, it maybe when the cap goes to 90. It maybe within the first month of Cataclysm, all I know is I want the carrot, ever time I get the carrot, it get's pulled out of my hands and get's put on a higher self than where I found it. Sooner or Later, I am not going to give a shit for the carrot.
