New Letter from the Producer, XII

[Fensfield]

[Naoki Yoshida's post]

That's all nice and all, but stuff endgame content.. I'd prefer to enjoy the journey getting there.

Places to explore, being encouraged to range far and wide in my character progression, to group with people and enjoy just playing together rather than obsessing over how fast we gain experience, finding/working to acquire special items or solving puzzles..

The 'rush to cap/endgame' thing is one of the most poisonous things you can encourage when developing an MMO, in my opinion. Sure there should be stuff to do at the end, and people should be allowed to rush if they want.. but there should be no more to do at the end than there is along the way, and the wide-ranging impression should be that the people who rushed chose to miss out on something, not that they got the boring bit out of the way quickly. 'Hope that's kept in mind and all.