Quote:
Originally Posted by dreama1
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In eq2 it's 35 to get to lvl 85 i think 200AA .. so you still have to get to 95 and 140 more aa
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The AA system in EQ2 is laughable. I was playing it and there were people getting 100aa in what seemed like a few hours. So 140 aa is nothing, really. AA's were cheap. Not like EQ1.
You can level to 85 and 150 aa for $0. It's free to do that. Just takes some time.
The levels aren't as cheap. So is gearing up and progressing. Honestly, I'm not majorly worried about all this. It's not like forcing veterans to replay 85 levels makes it better for them. A lot of them have indeed played through it already, so it'd just be a grind. And of course lower level content can be completely irrelevant in the high level game. There're probably a lot of things that can break low level content. On the other hand, if buying the levels becomes commonplace for new players I might start to worry how it will change MMORPGs. The first sign of this will be the price coming down. More and more players will buy it until it's essentially free. As successful MMORPGs start to adopt, many others will adopt it too without really knowing what they're getting into. My fear is the industry will somehow forget something important and it'll be lost to history.
What I'm saying is MMORPGs will add the ability for people to start at high level without considering why this feature was created in the first place. For example, perhaps older MMORPGs tend to break down in the lower levels and so a feature like this becomes important. However, if new MMORPGs start offering this feature, it'll be misplaced because their low level content may not be broken yet and thus it's a missed opportunity. This will probably cause them to change the formula MMORPGs use and who knows what this will mean.
Even if we only consider veterans using this feature, it can still potentially change the situation positively or negatively. There will probably be fewer players in the low level zones after this change because veterans are buying hte levels instead. This could adversely affect new players leveling up because they feel like the game is too empty. You can't remove all these veteran alts from low level zones without some impact. On the other hand, maybe players are so fiercely invested in their questing they don't notice the lack of others? I guess this could work if the MMORPG tries to feel like a single player game in the lower levels.
In some games this might be a good thing, though. A new player might see less plvling, for example. Plvling can be a very ugly thing in its worst forms. In EQ1 it's particularly bad because there's less instancing, so its effects are more visible. Here on p1999 you can see many complaints about plvlers consuming entire zones.