One of the problems with WoW-likes is that leveling is seen as a means to an end. That is, after a time, you reach max level, and the only way to get people to come back and level some more is by raising the level cap, at which time you have to make them grind for replacement gear and all that good stuff. This is particularly tiresome for raiders, who really just want to get started raiding again; for raiders, the time spent leveling is wasted time that could be spent learning new raids.
As the game ages, new players have ever more ground to cover to catch up, which really discourages people from trying some older games. The only choice the game developers have is to speed up the low level leveling process.
What if… you had a different level depending on the region you were in? Let’s say there’s four countries, Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. Alpha is on the ocean, and its inhabitants are very adept with water and piercing weapons. The monsters in Alpha are built around the abilties learned in Alpha. As you gain levels in the country of Alpha, more of its dungeons and adventures open to you, and the more techniques you learn. The level cap is fairly low, level 20 or so.
The country of Beta is built in a swamp, and the monsters there wield and are weakened by disease powers. You gain levels there, same as Alpha. In Gamma, its pure magic and wooden weapons. In Delta, it’s fire and blades. Levels in Alpha mean nothing in Delta, though the abilities you learned in Alpha may be effective against Delta monsters.
Between the countries lies the wilderness. You cannot gain levels in the wilderness, everyone is level 1, the only difference being the skills learned and the gear acquired. All the monsters in the wilderness range from level 1 for the smallest to perhaps level 10 for the strongest.
New expansions could open new countries with new effects or combinations of others.
Any new player would be the equal – in level if not in skill or gear – to any other in the wilderness. If a guild was raiding the stuff in Alpha, the new player could focus on that country and be ready to raid in a week or two – even if the game was quite old, because you never raise the level cap, you just open up newer places to level. The path from new character to mastery in any one country does not take an unusual amount of time. To gain mastery in EVERY country will take awhile, but all old content is equally viable – forever.
Wilderness monsters could be weak to Beta and Gamma techniques but strong against Alpha, or entirely immune to Delta, or requiring a combination of all four countries’ techniques to bring down. Then country Epsilon is discovered; they do all their battles with misdirection. Everyone who is interested starts leveling in Epsilon techniques. A new player just starting the game starts in Epsilon too, shoulder to shoulder with old vets.
It’s a game that grows horizontally, but via levels. I wish I could remember who was writing about an analogy with Magic: the Gathering yesterday, and horizontal vs vertical games. This game would be a diagonal game. Time spent in the game gives you mastery of many more techniques, but any given technique is open to anyone to learn, given some time.
I’ve been thinking this over for awhile. It does give a progression to work through. There are as many new character progressions as there are countries, and every expansion brings a new one. No content is ever outgrown. New characters can adventure with old ones from the start without having to do any mentoring or sidekicking. Gear is still important – Alpha gear may not be very useful in Beta lands, but perhaps a crafter could take Alpha and Beta armor and make some Alphabeta (heh) gear from it. So there’s your crafting, which would run in parallel to adventuring, but also bring the countries together with crafting learned in the inter-country wilderness areas.
Poke holes in this for me, please.