Oh look:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/02/world-of-warcrafts-60-level-boosts-reflect-important-economic-reality/

You can pay to instantly level up your character to level 90. Why would you do this if the game was fun? If it's the journey and not the destination, wouldn't this ruin the point? Doesn't this kind of indicate that actually playing the beginning part of the game sucks? Or else why would you do this? If that's the case, why not have new characters start at level 90, or make level 1 and the things you can do at level 1 equal to level 90?

Keep, in mind, this is a game Bungie is looking to for inspiration. (The position is still open by the way).

The beta can't get here fast enough so I can hopefully allay all my fears.

I often launch Oni at Counter Attack (TCTF HQ) or A Friend In Need (Air Processing Plant) because I like having access to the Devil Spin Kick and neck wrenching running attack. Does that mean I think all the previous levels and story points are useless? Of course not! I just like skipping to a point where I have the moves I want.

Similarly, does a WoW player necessarily think earlier gameplay is worthless? Could there be other reasons they'd want to skip forward? I can think of some. Can you Cody?

Oh look:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/02/world-of-warcrafts-60-level-boosts-reflect-important-economic-reality/

You can pay to instantly level up your character to level 90. Why would you do this if the game was fun? If it's the journey and not the destination, wouldn't this ruin the point? Doesn't this kind of indicate that actually playing the beginning part of the game sucks? Or else why would you do this? If that's the case, why not have new characters start at level 90, or make level 1 and the things you can do at level 1 equal to level 90?

Why do you insist that there's only one kind of player for a game, that everyone has the same goals and likes and dislikes? Why do you have to paint pictures in such black-and-white terms, and draw such dramatic (and wrong) conclusions from developer offerings?

I often launch Oni at Counter Attack (TCTF HQ) or A Friend In Need (Air Processing Plant) because I like having access to the Devil Spin Kick and neck wrenching running attack. Does that mean I think all the previous levels and story points are useless? Of course not! I just like skipping to a point where I have the moves I want.

Ahh, but would you PAY for that privilege? Seems Oni lets you do it the right way, for free :-)

I think a good choice would be to allow the starting level of a character you create to be equal to or lower than the highest level character on your account.

I think a good choice would be to allow the starting level of a character you create to be equal to or lower than the highest level character on your account.

But then you are still forcing the player to play through the levels he'd happily pay to skip, because it is not to THAT PLAYER's particular interest. However, many other players are happy to play those.

A more in-line solution would be to allow everyone to start at any level between 0 and 90, but we all know where that would lead, in the developers' minds.

Oh look:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/02/world-of-warcrafts-60-level-boosts-reflect-important-economic-reality/

You can pay to instantly level up your character to level 90. Why would you do this if the game was fun?

I'm not at all going to try to justify why anyone should pay to boost a character but, to be fair, WoW and other MMORPGs are a little different in that there seem to be two different games contained in one. The main game (leveling, grinding, questing, etc.) and the end game (raids, whatever else happens I don't know because I never got that far). It's always seemed weird to me that you can't really participate in raids without a very high level character (seemingly billions <--exaggeration of hours of work). As a fan and player of WoW I never had the level of commitment required to get a character up to a high enough level to participate in raids, and that sucked for me and for Blizzard because my interest in the game faded. But that doesn't mean I don't want to be a part of the end game stuff, I just wasn't able to.

And no I wouldn't have paid to boost my level, but I can understand if some people wanted to.

It seems like the right thing to do is something like the solution you offered, give people a menu option to play what they want. From a main menu, or otherwise, the player selects what they want to play from a selection of "the main quests", "raids" or, say, "competitive multiplayer" (and none of those options should require payment)?

And isn't that kindof sounding like Destiny?

It's always seemed weird to me that you can't really participate in raids without a very high level character (seemingly billions <--exaggeration of hours of work).

Yeah, I've never really understood that either. I can definitely understand a small required level as sort of a tutorial on how to play the game, but even that can get frustrating when you want to have multiple characters.

If the only possible reason to want to be level 90 were to skip the previous parts of the game, I'd agree. I'm going along with the assumption here that by doing so, you are skipping actual content (maps, enemies, etc.), rather than a Borderlands scenario where even at max level you could still play the campaign start to finish. Having never played WoW, I don't know whether that's actually the case.

One legit reason I can think of to allow this is if someone is new to the game, but has friends who are not. If it's anything like Borderlands in the way it scales between player levels, being in a group of characters who are maxed out (and presumably, enemies who also are) when you're not isn't fun. The gulf between your numbers (hit points, damage output, and so on) and theirs is so massive that you have almost no ability to affect the outcome. In that scenario, I think it would be preferable to be able to just jump to your friends' level. I do agree that skipping all the content in between (again, assuming that's how it works) could be a bummer, unless that content sucks. Still, I can understand not wanting to have to grind 90 levels just to finally be able to play with your friends, all the while knowing they're having experiences you can't join in on. BTW, I used the word "grind" not to imply that that's ALL the level 1-89 content is good for, but rather to convey the irritation and boredom that can result from playing ONLY with the goal of leveling up - I think playing that way can feel like a grind, even with quality content. Just having that mindset that you're not really doing well until you hit the goal level can ruin the experience all on its own.

I can't recall exactly which interview it was, but I remember reading something that indicated to me that Destiny wouldn't have the massive gaps in hitpoints and damage output between player levels that happen in Borderlands (and, I'm assuming, WoW). It seemed to me that the differences between new and old characters will be more in acquired gear and maybe skills/special abilities. My hope is that this type of system will be more forgiving of differences and actually let new and old characters feasibly play together. If I'm correct, there'd be less incentive for players to WANT to pay to not play in the first place, and as a result less incentive for Bungie/Activision to cave to that demand. Not that they would anyway (I hope). But like you said, it's hard to know these things until the beta is in hand. Granted, things can still change after a beta, but surely these things will be much more clear at beta stage than they are now.

Edit: I forgot to add that while charging to level to 90 can be seen as a money grab, and probably is, at least partially, it also serves to keep everyone from just starting at 90 without considering whether they really need to.

If I'm correct, there'd be less incentive for players to WANT to pay to not play in the first place, and as a result less incentive for Bungie/Activision to cave to that demand.

Don't get me wrong. I see no way Bungie will actually implement pay to not play. They aren't stupid. That's not what I was implying. I was implying that I was worried that the destiny 'end game' would be where the fun is, and the 'early game' being boring.

I often launch Oni at Counter Attack (TCTF HQ) or A Friend In Need (Air Processing Plant) because I like having access to the Devil Spin Kick and neck wrenching running attack. Does that mean I think all the previous levels and story points are useless? Of course not! I just like skipping to a point where I have the moves I want.

Ahh, but would you PAY for that privilege? Seems Oni lets you do it the right way, for free :-)

No. Mainly because I think loading a save is not something that should ever be a micro transaction or any other type of payment. Perhaps Oni was not the best example vs subscription or free to play games...

Bringing it a bit closer to the leveling up structure of WoW, I would also not pay to increase my level in Skyrim, but I have paid (extra) to level up faster in EVE Online. The difference for me there is that Skyrim is offline and I never have to worry about keeping up with friends while EVE Online is... well... online and being far behind the people you are playing with sucks.

I think a good choice would be to allow the starting level of a character you create to be equal to or lower than the highest level character on your account.

I think this suggestion is decent, in some circumstances, but is terrible in others. For instance, EVE Online has a huge, dynamic, working economy. That economy is a major selling point of the game. Allowing players to equip themselves with any level of ship would break a hugely satisfying part of the game. A part that many people enjoy. Of course, other games focus far less on their ongoing universe and economy. Mass Effect 3, for instance, has a multiplayer mode that anyone skilled in the game can be a help (and not a hurt) to any team at any difficulty level even with a base level character and weapons.

Is one of these games right and the other wrong? I certainly don't think so. I think they both have strong core gameplay they just target different audiences. I play (or played... EVE raised its minimum system requirements above my laptop...) both and got a lot of enjoyment out of both.

If I'm correct, there'd be less incentive for players to WANT to pay to not play in the first place, and as a result less incentive for Bungie/Activision to cave to that demand.

Don't get me wrong. I see no way Bungie will actually implement pay to not play. They aren't stupid. That's not what I was implying. I was implying that I was worried that the destiny 'end game' would be where the fun is, and the 'early game' being boring.

So you're just bringing this up to gripe about what another group in the current ActiVision stable is choosing to do...

On a game that's what, ten years old?

One that's more or less a lifestyle, for some. Pasttime for others. There are at least a few reasons why this makes good sense for them, given where WoW is in...wait...WoW being the model that all other MMO's (for the most part) aspire to, why doesn't this occur to you as a natural place to arrive at? For folks just dipping their feet in on the F2P tip, it makes sense (as Stabbim said) to allow players the option to level up at will to keep pace with groups they might want to party up with. It would also make sense for a long-time player that wants to try a different race/class/faction without having to grind all the way up.

I'm sure there are other cases in which this would be an attractive option. Blizz stands to squeeze a bit more out of the player base this way, without implementing any sweeping changes. Pretty sound, if you ask me. I just wonder if it doesn't indicate that maybe we're nearing the end of WoW's lifecycle.

I just don't get why you think it's worthwhile to cultivate and cast ire just because it's an offering that doesn't interest you. There are other modes of existence that are just as valid as your own.

~m

I just don't get why you think it's worthwhile to cultivate and cast ire just because it's an offering that doesn't interest you.

Because it's bad for game design.

same thing…but they do…you know, 'them'

same thing…but they do…you know, 'them'

Because they suck at the game and want to have the rank to act like they're good. But they're not. Being a high level in an MMO actually benefits you and does things for you. Being a 50 at Halo only gets you matched with harder opponents (usually). Totally not the same comparison.

~m

good point….
…but still 'unearned'

I'm not sure if this was brought up in some of the big old walls of text that people posted, but one of the main reasons that they're offering the pay for your 90 feature is for people who have already played through the game multiple times. I quit WoW ages ago, but even back then it was common for people to have multiple max level alts. I would imagine if what you're trying to do is level a particular class to end game to raid with your guild, you're probably not interested in playing through the same content for the 13th time.

I'd also add that my recollection of WoW's pre-end game content is that it was fairly well designed and enjoyable, and I actually liked it better than the end game stuff.

The 60 dollar price tag though, is just... amusingly high. From what I've read though 3rd party services would charge 200-300 dollars to level your guy to 90, so I guess the Blizzard version of that is a bargain, a really conveniently profitable bargain.

I'm not sure if this was brought up in some of the big old walls of text that people posted, but one of the main reasons that they're offering the pay for your 90 feature is for people who have already played through the game multiple times. I quit WoW ages ago, but even back then it was common for people to have multiple max level alts. I would imagine if what you're trying to do is level a particular class to end game to raid with your guild, you're probably not interested in playing through the same content for the 13th time.

Which would be completely solved by my proposed solution: Have any new character you create begin at (or lower than if you choose) the highest level character on your account. That way you only have to do it once.

Dunno how it works on WoW, but on EvE, multiboxing (the act of running multiple clients of the game on the same machine) is perfectly accepted, but can only be done by separate accounts.

Hell, some people multibox 8 heavy-hitter ships at once to be able to do 15+ missions per hour.

- No text -

You design the player system so that a single "account" can contain more than one player entity, and you permit these entities to be online simultaneously.

- No text -

According to Engadget at least.

Granted, this is more for mobile gaming but I think the same applies to console gaming as well.

For me, I'd say I fit into their finding.

The only game I ever really spent money on micro transactions was Ace Combat 6, and it was really early into the life of the game.

They were selling special planes to use in Multi Player that had different abilities, art work and colored missiles, and I really wanted the A-10 that was tweaked to not be affected by gravity.

It was a Gatling gun death spewing Christmas themed murder machine and I was gonna own it.

So I hesitantly plunked down my 2.50 in MS points and didn't regret it after I had it.

Then they released a tweaked version of my favorite plane, the F-18 and I had to have it because reasons. There went another 2.50.

And then that was it.

I never bought another plane in that game again. Not because they didn't have anything else I wanted, but because I was simply content with what I had.

The ones I did get kinda helped me rank up faster, but only on certain maps where the things I bought had a slight advantage. They didn't come up every time and didn't fit every situation. And even when they did, it if everyone on the other team saw the plane I was using in the lobby they could change their plane to counter mine (and they often did, the Christmas hating dicks) and then my advantage was for nought. The OPTION to use it was really cool. It was very much like a secret weapon. Fun!

Long story short: The world of gaming as you know it is not ending. Yes, there will be dumb asses who pay tons of money for the game and dlc, and then spend more for in game crap that doesn't really make a difference but if they want to spend their money to "play" the game in that way, that is their prerogative.

The point is, I don't think there are as many people taking advantage of the whole pay to win\rank up\not play as you think there are. They exist, of course, but as the old saying goes a Fool and his money are soon parted.

The only game I ever really spent money on micro transactions was Ace Combat 6, and it was really early into the life of the game.

They were selling special planes to use in Multi Player that had different abilities, art work and colored missiles, and I really wanted the A-10 that was tweaked to not be affected by gravity.

Oh, so you were one of the few who kept on buying Idolmaster birds. :P

I think most companies would find it wouldn't hurt their subscription numbers much and would even be balanced out by getting additional subscriptions from people that could afford (or are willing to pay for) splitting an account rather than a whole account. I could of course be completely wrong, but that's my hypothesis.

I dunno, there's an awful lot of EVE players paying for multiple accounts. If CCP suddenly had all those players go down to just 1 account... I find it hard to believe that it wouldn't affect their income drastically. The guy who got me into it used to run 7 separate PCs, with separate monitors, each running a different account. And while not every EVE player is that extreme, it's far from unheard of in that particular community. I'd almost say it's common. My roommate runs... 3 or 4 accounts, I think?

Also, PLEX doesn't really factor in. It may have not cost real-life money to the person redeeming it, but they bought it in-game from someone else down the line who DID buy it. So somewhere along the way, CCP got paid for that game time.

Of course, I don't think that sort of activity is probably as common in most games as it is in EVE. So the multiple accounts issue might not be as critical for other developers.

And no, I don't play anymore. I found that I just wasn't playing it right (I was a total carebear, and never did anything with anyone), and it didn't make sense for me to keep paying for an MMO that I was essentially treating as a large single player game.

I dunno, there's an awful lot of EVE players paying for multiple accounts. If CCP suddenly had all those players go down to just 1 account... I find it hard to believe that it wouldn't affect their income drastically. The guy who got me into it used to run 7 separate PCs, with separate monitors, each running a different account. And while not every EVE player is that extreme, it's far from unheard of in that particular community. I'd almost say it's common. My roommate runs... 3 or 4 accounts, I think?

Also, PLEX doesn't really factor in. It may have not cost real-life money to the person redeeming it, but they bought it in-game from someone else down the line who DID buy it. So somewhere along the way, CCP got paid for that game time.

Of course, I don't think that sort of activity is probably as common in most games as it is in EVE. So the multiple accounts issue might not be as critical for other developers.

And no, I don't play anymore. I found that I just wasn't playing it right (I was a total carebear, and never did anything with anyone), and it didn't make sense for me to keep paying for an MMO that I was essentially treating as a large single player game.

Yeah you touched on, and so did Cody, but yeah EVE is very different case :)

Only a few!

I swear!

I miss that game :(

They were selling special planes to use in Multi Player that had different abilities, art work and colored missiles, and I really wanted the A-10 that was tweaked to not be affected by gravity.

It was a Gatling gun death spewing Christmas themed murder machine and I was gonna own it.

"The A10 Thunderbolt is a gun with a plane wrapped around it."

I don't those are the kind of buyable stuff Cody is talking about.
I mean, was it possible to get those planes simply through playing?

Only a few!

I swear!

I miss that game :(

AC 6 game night? Those co-op missions were the bees knees.

Not what he's talking about, no. They were special versions of the planes you could get in the game.

I never found the couple I got to be anything game altering, just more for preference/lolz. Like I really enjoy the feel of the Ragriz F-22 when compared to the vanilla Garuda 1 F-22 (the extra armor helps too, me being a Brit as far as piloting goes).

Variations on a theme, really.