A Path (to 70) Paved With Good Intentions

While BlizzCon approaches to “reveal” and hype the news that I anticipated a week ago, for me it’s time to do what I actually find more interesting: commenting the new features and expressing my opinion about where the game is heading.

What I’d say is that I both expected and dreaded this rise of the level cap. If there’s something that shouldn’t happen to the game is to chase once again EverQuest’s tail and all its mistakes. The rise of the level cap included. At the same time, if I was leading the design of the game and if I was completely accountable about its progress, I think I’d put in the expansion this fancy feature: the level cap rised to 70.

The point is that the whole argument is way, way more complex and deep than how it appears. From a strictly functional and material (commercial) point of view the first merit of WoW is its accessibility that gave it the possibility to become a “mass market” product. It’s not a novelty if I say that WoW is great about everything but the endgame (this simple reference summarizes a fundamental point). If the players leave or don’t find the game anymore (or not enough) satisfying it’s because at some point you reach the level cap and have to deal with the horrible design that plagued the game from that point onward. Even if it’s true that they tried to cater and cover all kinds of players. Blizzard did a wonderful work to streamline and adjust the design of this genre to valorize the good parts and remove the bad habits, but they weren’t able to see past the curtain and even understand and address the real radical points that represent the mixed blessing of this genre (superficially: the “satisfying repetable content”, whether it is PvE or PvP).

The rise of the level cap is a quick “fix”, both in the sense of game-drug and as a functional and effective way to give back to the players that experience that they loved along the way and that faded when they hit the top, when they had to adapt their habits to the bigger raids and guilds. It works basically like the nostalgia. It’s like if you are warped back ten levels without even remembering to have gone through them and have to repeat the experience like if it was the first time. In this genre the possibility to refresh the sense of awe and achievement is definitely something precious and satisfying for the players. So: why not?

That’s the reason why if I was responsible about the game I would choose to go that way. Despite it conflicts with every other principle I have.

This premise is just to make clear that I criticize this half broken solution, but at the same time I expected it to happen and I also tend to justify it. What would actually matter now is about how it is implemented in order to minimize the problems. Because I believe that if you are aware of the risks, you can also decide to rise the level cap without breaking the game too much and actually offer something new and refreshing. How you use these tools is more important than the type of the tools you use. In this case I won’t go again in an endless dissertation about my design ideas about how this transition could be driven at best. Mostly because noone at Blizzard would read this and so it would be again just a wasted effort on my side and I prefer to dedicate myself to something else I find less frustrating.

Instead I think it’s interesting to point out the possible problems. Those “risks” I hinted. Between the various comments I read, I’d link Tobold’s comments, mostly because he writes clearly and always focusing on one-two arguments that can be then followed linearly instead of mixing and abstacting everything as I always do. His most interesting point beside the design difficulties to adapt the current content (talents, tradeskills, monster levels, PvP rewards etc..) is about the suggestion to stop to play right now and come back when the expansion is out. Which sounds crazy but is also true. While we can argue whether the current content will go or not right in the toilet, what is sure is that the current *progress* will.

We could assume that the players will retain their current gear for most of the hike to 70 but if this is true Blizzard would lose one of the strongest “fun” points: the sense of achievement. In the current game levelling is fun because you acquire new skills, spend talent points, get access to the mount and acquire progessively and constantly new gear. If the next 10 levels become just a grind with each level just giving out higher stats and nothing else, the “magic” would vanish easily and the expansion would finally feel rather dull. A game where you retain the same sword for 10 levels is a game that isn’t fun. So what could happen? Where is the line that will part the brand new level 60 character ready to move to 70 and those other players that have been at 60 for more than one year and collected all sort of powerful items? From my point of view the expansion will HAVE TO replace the gear for *all* the players. So, in a way or another, even the current purple gear will have to be mudflated and easily replaced. Not only through the new endless grinds awaiting us at 70. But also along the way, as accessible content even for the casual players. This is why Tobold is correct. Your current progress in the game is nihil if seen in perspective and prefectly fitting this following, explicatory, image (click on it to read a rather pertinent discussion):

When I say that this idea about raising the level cap is against all my principles it’s because it’s an argument that I discussed to exhaustion back then. It’s about the infamous mudflation. Quoting from three different articles:

“The mudflation is a way to continuously create, burn and replace.”

“The more the system is able to forget, the more the system is able to grow.”

“At the end the moral is that this cannot be an optimal process. There must be something better. The games modeled on a stain give only the illusion of content because the truth is that they are kept alive thanks to the mudflation. The truth is that the erosion, so the loss of content, is the reason why they still survive. This rings a bell? How it is possible that an old game can only survive through a loss of content when that content is supposed to be its main strength? How it’s possible that this loss underlines a quality (and probably the only one it has)?”

This last comment is particularly relevant because it brings the discussion on its real origin. We are back at considering the “satisfying repetable content”, or the lack thereof. If at the endgame we need to repeat an instance 50 times to get a drop it is not because the developers are sadistic. But because it’s the only way to keep up the pace and save time. I think everyone can agree without the need to follow a billion of explanatory links that the very first problem of WoW at the endgame has been about the “lack of content”. This has been the main topic since launch and it’s a general problem that is shared between ALL mmorpgs. Every developer working in this genre knows that the first issue is to find a viable solution to produce acceptable content at a decent pace. The debate between handcrafted and randomly generated content is still alive and well (think to the brand new discussion about Will Wright’s “Spore” and the use of algorithmic models, textures, worlds), exactly to try to deal with this need to optimize and maximize the production of content.

In this genre this is one of the main issues and probably the only one to which both the players and developers agree. Now, if this is something so absolutely fundamental, why the hell we design games that mudflate, hence erase progressively the content? Isn’t this totally absurd, inacceptable and counterproductive when the very first problem is to produce that content that now is meant to be replaced? How can this be logical and acceptable?

This brings the discussion back to the idea of mmorpgs like “disposable goods”, something that I strongly criticize and feel like the antithesis of the nature and strength of this genre. Not only this type of design is nowhere efficient and optimal commercially (since it demands a pace of content production that isn’t realistically possible and surely not convenient), but it also breaks what this genre has to offer. And instead of actually dealing with this problem, the decision to rise the level cap is mostly a way to “buy time” and postpone.

Blizzard has spent almost a year (and by the time the expansion is out, a year and half) trying to cope with the request for more endgame content. And with just one nimble gesture they are going to dismiss all that work to warp back in time (this is the true nature of the mudflation) and restart from zero to add to the game brand new content aimed to the new level cap and the following super-slow grind to progress on the gear acquisition. This is a silly excuse to waste development time, not a proper answer to the problem and a way to let the game develop in a positive way in the long term. As I wrote in my comments on the mudflation, this type of development will just deteriorate the game over time and its negative effects will be evident only later, when it’s not anymore possible to plan everything in another way.

Adding the comment I wrote on Corpnews for a more concrete and direct summary:


A whole lot of content will go right in the toilet.

The point is that a more or less trivial quest at 70 could hand out a “blue” that would just be more or less the same, if not better, than the “purple” at level 60.

Why the hell would you want to organize raids and farm 100 times those fucking old instances when you can get better rewards from the new content?

You are forgetting that it isn’t enough to go there and finish the instance to get your loot. You need to go there 50-100 times to get your stuff.

And why the hell a player would want to endure that fucking boring grind when there will be brand new shiny content at *all levels of difficulty*?

You assume that level 70 instances will be super hard (btw, “hard” was doing Blackfathom and Gnomeragon at the proper levels, not that dull raid content dissimulated by lag and choreography). But if Blizzard repeats their design and principles at 70 you’d have instances that need super catass equimpent as well as the brand new 5-man we had at 60s made now 70.

Without even considering that the whole lore goes to hell when you kill daily Ragnaros and all the rest. The feeling of a cohesive, immersive and consistent world just goes to hell. It’s violated.

This type of design has its head stuck in its ass. We complain about the lack of ideas, but the problem is that it’s all dark in there.


To conclude, a “dialogue” taken right from the official forums:

Foozle #1:
If the level cap is to be raised, what happens to the people who choose not to buy the expansion? Will everyone be able to level up to the new cap or only the people who buy the expansion?

Foozle #2:
you will have to get the expansion, unless you wanna sit in the world by yourself…

Foozle #3:
stfu and buy it you cheap ninja

(continued)

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