Relevant: Design Your Ideal MMO Part I

Design Your Ideal MMO Part II

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Design your ideal MMO Part III
Part of Keen's adventure in Random things

It's time for part III in my series of blog posts asking you, my readers, to choose how your ideal mmorpg would be designed. Earlier this week we covered Gameplay vs. Graphics and the different forms of PvP. To quickly recap it appears that so far the majority still prefer strong gameplay over graphics and without a doubt almost everyone wants PvP. Part III poses the toughest question thus far: How would your ideal mmorpg handle character progression?  There are going to be a lot of possible answers this time and I can't possibly list them all so I'm going to give a few broad choices and if your ideal mmo falls into a different category feel free to explain.  Character progression in my ideal mmo would be:

1. Quest to level. The best exp comes from questing from 1-cap.  Killing mobs is a waste of time because quests are so much better.

2. Grind to level.  There are no "quests" as we know them today.  EQ1 style baby!

3. PvP to level.  The only form of advancement is from killing other players.  Counter-Strike online!

4. Grinding and Questing.  A mix of both grinding and questing because mobs still give good exp.

5. PvP, Grinding, and Questing.  The holy trinity of character progression.  All of them provide equal opportunities for advancement.

6. Other (please explain!)

My ideal MMO would allow for many choices. Sometimes I feel like PvPing, sometimes I feel like questing, and sometimes I feel like getting lost in some cave and just killing all day. To me it seems silly that I should be punished for doing something I enjoy. If I enjoy sitting in a cave killing mobs all day then I should be capable of progressing at a comparable rate to those who PvP or quest all day. If I want to spend the day in a scenario/Bg capturing flags then there should be some form of balance to allow my character to progress there without feeling that nagging guilt in the back of my head that I "should be questing right now".

This has always been one of my biggest gripes with mmorpgs: A lack of choices.  I lose interest in a game when my choices run out. If I run out of ways to progress or things to do then I lose that drive to log in and run on the hamster wheel. This is why I enjoy several forms of progression. Not only do I want a basic leveling process, but I want there to be a form of progression in pvp as well such as realm ranks. Ideally my character would always be progressing with something to look forward to. However, it would most definitely not be in the form of a raid-for-gear-treadmill.

How about you? I'm interested in the ideas some of you come up with. Maybe you're going to break the mold and tell me your ideal mmorpg would not have levels at all.

Design Your Ideal MMO Part I

Design Your Ideal MMO Part II