How does Leveling work now?

[scaevola]

You're quite mistake. MMOs/Muds of the 80s-90s and 2002 weren't single player console games, MMOs of now are single player MMOs which is what the new generation of 'casual' gamers want. So yeah it actually is the point now, end-game is for 'hardcore' people and 'people who have no responsibilities."

Yes I've seen this said on many MMO sites lately, including SWTOR/Rift/TERA/GW2 forums.

There was a really great quote in some review of SWTOR or another that said the main reason the game worked was that it is essentially a bunch of different single-player sequels of KotOR that you and your buddy play through independently of each other, except rather than just talking about what an awesome time you're having playing KoTOR you actually get to drop in on each other's playthrough and say hi.

The reason it works so well is that this ability to drop in on your buddy's personal RPG and hang out is the only thing MMORPGs have ever had to distinguish themselves from single-player RPGs; it's not actually going to be the content or structure of the cooperative game, because the combat experience itself would not greatly suffer by all your teammates being controlled by programmable AIs like in FFXII or Dragon Age.

I think MMORPGs have always worked best with this model of every player concurrently going through this process of personal progression, occasionally joining forces to accomplish something that aids that personal progression (this is ultimately what's going on in all of FFXI's endgame zones gated behind storylines, Dynamis, Abyssea, definitely Voidwatch, etc.), but it took World of Warcraft to make the scales fall from our eyes and see what was really going on.

EDIT: HEY SHADOWSONG FFXI was SW: Old Republic ten years before SW: Old Republic came out