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.

[Zenaku]

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..

The 'rush to cap/endgame' thing is one of the most poisonous things you can encourage in developing an MMO. Sure there should be stuff to do at the end.. but no more than there should be along the way. 'Hope that's kept in mind.

I agree it about the journey when i got done with cop i was very happy 5month of work finding people waiting for people and doing them over and over to get it done was pain in the A** but it was a good feeling of reward at the end. Yoshi-p seem to be making this casual even tho he a hardcore game player i understand that the market right now is casual but toss as a bone for the love of god don't make this 100% solo

[Dreamer]

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 in 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.

This, a thousand times over. I absolutely abhor this "end-game" mindset that Everquest and WoW have created. Unfortunately, as Yoshi has hinted that he was very much an EQ fan, it's probably something that we're going to see in spades.

[Chezen]

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.

Quoted for agreement.