Levels

A long time ago, Dundee said he didn't think you needed levels in a game.

'Cause levels are kinda stupid.

And I argued with him, a little, even though I don't really care either way, and I can totally see why he would say that, after hearing a bunch of other shit that game dev guys say.

Well, like the reasoning behind not having an Afterlife in a UO emulator.

'Cause if yer gonna make an Afterlife, and a Regular Life, they say yer making two separate games.

Which is a stupid thing to say, that's the same thing as saying that you should only have one map in a game or something, but whatever.

The thing is, "levels" aren't just a number that says how powerful yer character is and all that stupid virtual cult ego stroking shit.

Quake has levels.

Everything has levels, even UO had levels, if you count each of the 100 levels to Grandmaster of Anything, or if you count the Titles like Journeyman of This And That, and Master, and Grandmaster, y'know, 'cause those Ranks are levels, too, ya smug Kosterian Bastard.

A new level is just a place where the gameplay changes a little.

In Quake, its a new map.

In UO, yer a little better with a Halberd (although mebbe you don't really reach the New Level with Halberds until yer a One-Hitter like Grampa ahaha) .

In EQ (and D&D type games), ya get new spells that change the gameplay, like the Power of Invisibility, ya get s'more hitpints, and you can now go to a new map or something, 'cause yer finally the right size for it.

And in MMOs, levels can sorta artificially set the power vacuum stage for Oldbies being able to help Newbs and shit, even in a simple, non-buggy game where just having the Arcane Knowledge of the Game that an Oldbie has doesn't really have any benefits that he can pass on to anybody else.

So it really isn't just a bunch of treadmill cognitive dissonance crap, like folks always seem to wanna pretend it is.

But that said, when I play Mount and Blade, I use the character editor and cheat my ass off, I give my character 5o in every stat, and 10 (the max) in every skill, and 300 in every weapon skill.

'Cause I don't enjoy all that control-smothering junk games do that make my character artificially crappy by making him run slow and shit heh.

I still hate the way DAoC made my dude half as fast backwards, because of the goddam roleplayers, I'm a mother fucking rocket jumping whacky wall walkin' ice-skater from Quake, baby.

Shit man, those Battlefield 90210 games piss me off just 'cause I gotta hold the fucking shift key to run, wtf is that all about ahaha.

So I cheat on the level thing big time in Mount and Blade, 'cause I don't see a good reason to start out all weak and shit, and it lets me play the game without needing the assistance of Doctor NPCs and shit (I'm not into that Virtual Buddy Gather All The NPC Heroes and Dress Them Up stuff, there's only room for one Super Hero on my team heh).

And I still get the points in the archery as I go along shooting stuff, and junk like that, so there's still a little of that feeling like I'm getting better at shit or whatever, although it means about as much to me as my score in a pinball game.

And my troops level up, so I still got that levelling up fun stuff, through them.

But I ain't playing D&D in some Complex Universe of Ranks where Each Level was its own interesting little mini-games with its own sort of gameplay, where being a Squire for a Knight and hanging out with the other squires might be its own fun little set of games, until you finally became a Knight and started playing Knight Games, just like being a Farmer's Son Villager, and trying to get the attention of a Knight in order to become a Squire might be its own little set of fun stuff to do (if I was gonna make a MMO like that, it'd have to have multiple characters, so I could keep at least one in each interesting State and switch between 'em whenever I got bored of the Knight game or whatever).

And I ain't a DM or a game company so I don't need to make anybody jones to play the game 'cause they're getting close to level 9 and a new spell or something either heh.

Well, whatever man, I ain't getting paid for this so I don't have to do it really good, I just gotta make sure I give you shmucks at least a few of the clues you need to solve the goddam mystery ahaha.