Game Design 101?

[Arcalyn]

Anyone else sick and tired of starting over at level 1?

Almost every game you buy its build a peon character and build him into something useful to play the game with......BLAH
I'm tired of building characters(thats why I love the emulator).
I remember Pool of Radience, then Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, and Pools of Darkness
(ye ol world - Commodore 64/Amiga) hehehe
You could import your characters and jump right into the action.
They really need to do that for MMORPGs....concentrate on content, rather than repetition, so your char gets to a point where he can eventually finally enjoy the content.

Just ranting......

I just need a good 3D single player game, which doesn't exist.
Might&Magic 9 coulda been really nice BUT again you gotta start out at level one and re-attain all the skills you had back in MM8
BLAH

will write more later simply to vent - hehe
anyone else wanna vent or flame - lol - go ahead

[Baron Sprite]

I have 2 views on leveling.
In a game I was recently a creative consultant on they had 3 different actual play modes. 1 - Normal leveling, you fought to get experience to level, but you got more experience if you did new stuff in a different order during the fight (different combat attack styles). You had access to special loot and every item in the game, as well as "epic" quests and "advanced" quests.
2 - Fast leveling, maximum experience and faster fights, you could get the max level in maybe a week of casual playing. You had access to every item and "epic" quests.
3 - Build your own, you set your level, and picked out your gear, stat points, ect, but you only had access to some of the items in the game, and no "epic" quest rewards.

I loved that system, but I am also a fan of having the character already powerful, but you can get better based on things you do in the game, like if you are a smith you can get stronger the more you smith, if you sew you can get high dexterity and stuff like that. Basically you were already the best, but you could get better doing advanced things.