The Level Game

Why the ``level game'' ? If your ``high level'' content is the same as your ``low level'' content, except it has more hit points, then game play at level 6 is just as engaging as level 96. Why do we have 90 intervening levels? A lot of people complain about ``the grind'' sometime in their 50's, but I'm pretty sick of it around level 5.

The very first Mud, MUD, invented by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw way back 1978, had only 10 levels. Do you even know why they had levels? It wasn't because D&D had levels, although that is the most common guess, but because they were making commentary on the British class system. People like Richard and Roy weren't ``supposed'' to be in University. Richard was born in North Yorkshire and sounded like a farmer. Roy was born in Wolverhampton, a factory city, so he sounded like a damned tinker. These are just not the sort of people who are ``supposed'' to attend university. Including levels in MUD was not to provide a sense of reward, another common guess, but a commentary on the British social classes.

MUD only needed 10 levels, so MUD only had 10 levels. Now Muds have 100 levels as the norm. Why? Unless the game-play is fundamentally different between, say, level 90 and level 100, then what is the purpose? Why have any levels between 90 and 100? Why not stop at 90?

We don't need a level game. We need new and interesting challenges of varying degrees of power and and even offer different modes of difficulty. No one should be powerful enough to take on a Krayt Dragon alone; some things should be so difficult as to require an ``adventuring party''. Even the meekest of newbies ought to be able to solve the murder mystery alone. There should not be any distinction between ``newbie'' content and ``high level'' content. Developers should be designing for solo, party, faction/guild play, not for level 3, 30, 300.

How much more powerful should the uber-elder be over the bare-newbie? In my ideal, that difference would be measured as ``not by much''. Double or triple sounds about right. The high level characters will have better gear and greater character skills (not to mention player skills), and that will be more than decisive. I wouldn't have power-ups and boosts of 500% either.

We don't need 100's of levels. We need content for all types of play. Yes, Virginia, some people actually do look forward to unwinding at the end of long day by ``grinding'', so sure let there be some of that. But there should be solo content for all types, including the sort who would rather be clever than ``fighty'', and there should be small group content, such as raiding a goblin village or raiding foreign lands for gold and slaves, or even large faction-oriented play such as besieging cities or questing for artifacts.

There is much fertile ground here, but I suspect so long as people are obsessed with inflating levels beyond all sense, we will never see one lick of it.