[MUD-Dev] Blog about GDC implies changes to MMORPG population

[Vincent Archer]

According to Sean Kelly:

> It helps that a quest will give experience until you're 7-9 levels
> beyond it (I forget the exact number offhand).  I've spent various
> chunks of my play time 3-5 levels behind the people I play with
> and quest levels have never been a problem for us for this reason.

If you are 3-5 levels behind people, that's not much of a problem.

I would even say that you're not in the case Amanda was looking for,
which is really disparate levels. Say, 10 levels.

>> Also, if a mob is 3 or 4 levels higher than you, you'll miss like
>> crazy and FORGET about landing a spell. Thus, the lower level
>> person is almost useless.

> The lower level person can still act in a support role in most
> cases.  And not all classes are equal in this regard.  The
> warlocks

If you are one of the very few classes that can do some form of
support. For most classes, all of the support they can give involves
taking on the mob, which is completely impossible below the 4-5
levels barrier

  (as an aside, the resist cap is higher when grouped than when
  solo.  I've been able to hit mobs 5 levels above me moderately
  often, something that's completely impossible solo)

> etc.  It's also worth noting that the mobs in instances are a
> substantially lower level than the quests given for that instance.

They're not. I've done almost all instances from level 20 to 45, and
in all cases, the quests given are about the level of the boss or
mobs you need to kill in the instance (with the appropriate plugin,
you can see the exact quest level).

What's happening is that most instance quests are available 10
levels below the indicated level.

> I do agree with this (see above).  It's really amazing what a
> difference just a level or two makes in WoW.  Not with stats or
> abilities so much as the ability to avoid aggro and to damage a
> mob.  It makes every level feel significant, even though they are
> fairly easy to attain.

Yes. And that's exactly what makes disparate levels in groups a
problem. If you have more than a 4 level range, either someone is
not really challenged, or someone is completely useless - with the
exception of healing characters, because their heals are never
resisted by the other players :)

> Again, I don't think Amanda's point was that varied level grouping
> was encouraged by the game so much as that the ease of level gain
> reduced the chance that this would be a necessity.  I started
> playing WoW a week or so after my friends did, and I was able to
> catch up to them in the course of a single day off.  Granted, they
> hadn't been obsessively powerleveling, but most people don't.

The ease of levelling plays for and against the level spread. I play
about 25 hours a week. One of my friend plays 15. We've been able to
play together for about 2 weeks (and that's because he started
earlier than me). I am now 45, he's 31. I can solo any quest setting
he would be able to contribute with ease.

Now, we can (and have) grouped together. But that's not that much
fun. At that point, we derive fun from the social aspect, but not
from the game itself.

--
	Vincent Archer			Email:	archer at frmug.org

All men are mortal.  Socrates was mortal.  Therefore, all men are Socrates.
							(Woody Allen)
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