Famitsu interview with Yoshida after NA's FanFest

[Krokov]

How is it not fair? In other words you have the same chance and opportunity to level jump just as they did so there is no unfairness in that sense. It would only be unfair if you or others did not have the same opportunities as they did their to be able to level jump if you chose to do so.

I guess the question is what's wrong with new players skipping content that x amount of years old? Happens in World of Warcraft and no one complains. If they want to do that content they still have the opportunity, and doing this with players gets them into the endgame faster if you will, but each person has their own preference and play style.

[Stanelis]

Happens in World of Warcraft and no one complains.

You couldn't be more wrong.

If you actually take the effort to look around, you may find these people. I'm not going to go look for a random few posts I see that pop up every now and then about someone complaining that the MSQ is too much for them, because all they want to do is do the high level stuff, blah blah blah.

On your second point, if they already have a system in place, that they can easily augment to fit for the NA/EU/JP client, they will most likely do that. And finally, on your third point, if they want to be level 60, they already have it set in their mind they don't really care about the story, the intention of purchasing a potion is to bypass the MSQ as well as the leveling sequence. If a person wishes to go through the MSQ, they don't need to spend that cash on a potion

You're mixing two uncorrelated problems here. There is no denying that the MSQ requirement for new players is an issue and will remain so. But the jumping potion isn't the answer to that problem.

Do you really think new players who don t want to go through all those quests to reach the current content will pay an extra to skip it ? No, they ll just leave the game or won't start it in the first place.

Furthermore, it would be really easy to switch the quest requirements of the expansions MSQ.

The issue with these potions bosst isn't that players will be able to get boosted. The issue is if these potions are to be implemented they ll never look back at the former expansion content (because then Se will try to make things so people feel compelled to buy the boosts, as in a lot of F2P mmo, which are glorified cash grabs of low gameplay value).

[Krokov]

Allow me to rephrase, I have not seen as much complaint or discussion about it when I got on to the forms in recent times.

[Stanelis]

Allow me to rephrase, I have not seen as much complaint or discussion about it when I got on to the forms in recent times.

That's because a massive amount of players left during WoD, not to look back (during the WoD debacle). Also, current wow players grew to have very low expectations for the game. Usually, when you leave a video game, you don't keep posting on the game's forum.

[Khalithar]

Snip

I'm going to answer this question from a different perspective. When a game has more than one expansion, it can be a real slog getting through all of that content to try and get to the latest stuff so you can play with your friends. "Oh hey, my MMO has a new expansion coming out, you should come try it. Oh but before you can play with me you need to do all of the 1-60 content which could take a large amount of time for someone with work and school." That can be very discouraging. By giving them the option to pay money and start directly at 60 able to go in to the new expansion, it allows them to immediately join their friends and play with them.

[Krokov]

I'm going to answer this question from a different perspective. When a game has more than one expansion, it can be a real slog getting through all of that content to try and get to the latest stuff so you can play with your friends. "Oh hey, my MMO has a new expansion coming out, you should come try it. Oh but before you can play with me you need to do all of the 1-60 content which could take a large amount of time for someone with work and school." That can be very discouraging. By giving them the option to pay money and start directly at 60 able to go in to the new expansion, it allows them to immediately join their friends and play with them.

Exactly, it's why Blizzard did it with WoW.

[Leigaon]

Realistically, the leveling potions wont do much other than let people bypass over 80 hours worth of content so they can play with friends if they are freshly starting....

People who say they wont know how to play the jobs are correct, but then, neither are people who fate grind, or use PotD to level, or most people in general. That's not going to go away, because some people just dont care to learn.

I have been neglecting that % of people who do play with friends, and that helps bypass a lot of reasons why I'm not a giant fan. Though much like you, it will not be as big of an impact as it is made out to be. You are correct, there's little difference in the ones who would do this to start at 60 vs someone who did nothing but fate grind their way to 60 or leveling in PoTD. This hasn't stopped people from reaching 60 and performing in ways you wouldn't expect. I was healing in a 50 dungeon and the summon would start to spam heal themselves every time they got hit with an AoE or if they went in to do Misma II and got hit with a cleave. Small things like that, will stay in my mind. But you, along with others, providing that scenario needs to be taken into consideration and I accept that it's a scenario that isn't so bad.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

You re the only one talking about culling the MSQ.

Also, even if a solution to skip parts of the MSQ were to be added, there are no rules stating that it should come as an extra (cash) cost for the players.

You mentioned progression time. I assumed that meant the MSQ's slew of fetch quests as those tend to be the primary complaint. Fair enough.

And the cost is to offset people who have actually done all the story. Basically, you're paying to skip stuff everyone else had to do. I think that's a fair trade off.

[Theodric]

Exactly, it's why Blizzard did it with WoW.

No, it's not. They did it for profit and people allowed themselves to believe otherwise. They completely revamped the leveling experience for many of the original zones to 'streamline' it...only to make that completely irrelevant by adding a paid level boost not long afterwards. So they killed the original content for those who still enjoyed it/hadn't seen it yet and then encouraged players to just skip everything to focus on the 'end game' which is a pretty damaging attitude in MMO's.

[Krokov]

Ok, 1 of the reasons. I wouldn't say kill the original content the player attitude it's just everyone wants to get to the end they don't want to go through point A to point B to point C etcetera. And so this perk if you will was added so that they can get straight to the end game and then if they so choose go back and do the other stuff. That doesn't mean that people still don't do it how to play this will still go back and do Lich King Burning Crusade etcetera now that it's whatever the player chooses to do at the time. They even offer incentives to go back into Old raids and dungeons. Is it profitable for them course you get a player that wants to get into the game his friends are already at the in part this gets them straight to the airport or at least close to it it doesn't however put them at full max level just within 10 levels so I can at least complete stuff and then they will be at the end game or at least be ready for it.

In my opinion the attitude of endgame being damaging is both developers and players both Developers because they put so much emphasis on the greatness that being at the end game and then the players in game if you're not in game we don't want you so in a sense they go hand in hand with the damaging attitudes as you put it, as both parties focus on just that endgame. That's My take, probabaly wrong.