World of Warcraft: The War Within has, against all reasonable scepticism, shaken out to be pretty decent so far—a story that’s really trying very hard to regain its composure, the new Warbands system and, as part and parcel of that, very nippy levelling and alt-friendly gameplay. You can get characters to max level in a jiffy, with a stacking XP buff making it faster the more 80s you have in the bank.
A veteran designer from both World of Warcraft (and the League of Legends MMO, which is still in purgatory), Greg ‘Ghostcrawler’ Street, however, seems to think this direction for MMO design is a step too far, as he explains in a recent set of tweets (thanks, GamesRadar).
“Someone asked me if it’s a mistake to streamline the levelling experience and let players get to the endgame asap because that’s what they love. My answer is yes,” Street writes. “I think it’s the levelling experience that we all fell in love with and invested in MMOs. I think getting to level cap should be an accomplishment, not a blip.”
This is all in the context of talking about Ghost, the designer’s new MMO project, which is being made by Netease’s Fantastic Pixel Castle. While he maintains that nailing a good endgame cadence is vital, “I also think the levelling should be challenging and a bit of effort and not something you cruise through so you can start raiding. Even when I was on WoW I held this opinion.”
Now, while I can feel my inner nostalgia goblin rising in my chest to cheer, the larger part of me just isn’t sure we can go back to those halcyon days Street is invoking, here. The scope of MMOs has changed tremendously—even World of Warcraft: Classic, which was meant to relive the good old days, saw players mug Ragnaros and nick his stuff in less than a week. A feat that, back in 2005, took months.
That’s not to say some MMOs aren’t about the journey. Final Fantasy 14 is a good example, actually—but it makes that journey a single-player narrative RPG with an MMO strapped to the underbelly, and even then, the process of levelling isn’t so much the focus as getting to the next narrative beat is. Also, more to the point, a single character can swap between jobs (which they still have to level separately) outside of combat whenever they want.
When asked if players will have to replay the entire campaign of Ghost again just to try out its promised oodles of player options and classes, though, Street replied with a simple: “No.” So at the very least, it’s a consideration his team’s taking in mind.
As far as WoW and other MMOs of its ilk go, though, I think brisk levelling has its strengths—variety and flavour being one of them. There’s something satisfying about assembling a clan of alts to hop between. Besides, thanks to the whole Warbands thing, I was able to romp through the main campaign on my rogue while stopping to smell the side-quest flowers on my mage—and now that journey’s done, I don’t think there’s much to be gained from repeating it.
